ATOLE LATELY 2: Chez Panisse-inspired Braised Chicken legs with Cebollitas de Cambray over creamy polenta, Chilitos cuaresmeños rellenos with yellow tomatillo salsa, and peach cake.
September issue 1
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I have talked before in this newsletter, about how living in the San Francisco Bay Area was essential to my culinary background —it was the early nineties, so everything that had to do with California cuisine was in bloom. I grew up in love with cookbooks and cooking and eating, but it wasn’t until then, that I considered turning those personal pleasures into a way of life. Alice Waters had something to do with that inclination. Her vision as a woman in food had a big influence in pushing me to do what I do today. I thank her for that and wish her a happy 50-year celebration of her iconic Chez Panisse, a restaurant that, in a way or another, has influenced the lives of so many passionate cocineras.
I may not be able to picture it exactly as it was, ingredient by ingredient, but I do have a vivid sensory memory of the combination of textures and flavors in the main dish I had the first time I went to Chez Panisse —around 1993. I remember golden on the outside, fall-from-the-bone braised poultry, soaked in its slightly sweet, almost syrupy juices, accompanied by golden caramelized vegetables, over the creamiest polenta I had ever eaten (I actually was not a polenta fan until then). If I close my eyes, I can still feel in my mouth the unpretentious congruence with which those flavorful layers of contrasting textures, complemented each other.
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