Who is the influential American chef credited with single-handedly creating a culinary revolution in the United States by founding the original California cuisine restaurant Chez Panisse?
She was born on April 28, 1944 in Chatham, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of California in Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in French cultural studies.
After training at the Montessori School in London, she spent a seminal year traveling in France. It was during her visit to France that her interest in the possibilities of fresh local produce was aroused. She especially remembers a particular meal she had in Brittany.
“I’ve remembered this dinner a thousand times,” she says. “The chef, a woman, announced the menu: cured ham and melon, trout with almonds, and raspberry tart. The trout had just come from the stream and the raspberries from the garden.”
It was, as they say, an aha! moment, and she opened Chez Panisse in 1971, serving a single fixed-price menu that changed daily. The menu format remains at the heart of her philosophy of serving only the highest-quality produce and only when they are in season. This laid the foundation of what has become known as California cuisine.
Over the course of three decades, Chez Panisse has developed a network of mostly local farmers and ranchers whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures Chez Panisse a steady supply of pure and fresh ingredients.
The upstairs cafe of Chez Panisse opened in 1980 with an open kitchen, a wood-burning pizza oven and an a la carte menu. Café Fanny, a stand-up cafe that serves breakfast and lunch, was opened a few miles away in 1984.
She is a strong advocate for farmers’ markets and for sound and sustainable agriculture, and has promoted organic and small farm products heavily in her books and restaurants.
In 1996, in celebration of the restaurant’s 25th anniversary, she created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programs such as the Edible Schoolyard program in the King Middle School. The latter demonstrates the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food, and her ideas for edible education have been introduced into the entire Berkeley school system, and with the current crisis of childhood obesity, have attracted the attention of national media.
She is author and co-author of eight books, including Chez Panisse Vegetables, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook, Fanny at Chez Panisse, a storybook and cookbook for children, and most recently the encyclopedic Chez Panisse Fruit.
She has received numerous awards, including Bon Appetit magazine’s lifetime achievement award in 2000 and the James Beard Humanitarian Award in 1997. She was named Best Chef in America by the James Beard Foundation in 1992, and the Cuisine et Vins de France listed her as one of the 10 best chefs in the world in 1986.
In May 2008, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that she would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame located at the California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.
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Last week’s question: Who is the renowned American architect, author, designer, futurist, inventor and visionary best known for his geodesic domes, which can be seen as part of military radar stations, civic buildings, and exhibition attractions like Spaceship Earth at Disney World’s Epcot Center in Florida?
Answer: Buckminster Fuller
Winner: Roselyn Y. Daria of Marikina City
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