Recipes from Heart of the Artichoke

Heart of the Artichoke

Nobody better embodies the present-day mantra “Eat real food in season” than David Tanis, one of the most original voices in American cooking. For more than a quarter-century, Tanis has been the chef at the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, where the menu consists solely of a single perfect meal that changes each evening. Tanis’s recipes are down-to-earth yet sophisticated, simple to prepare but impressive on the plate.

Tanis opens this soulful, fun-to-read cookbook with his own private food rituals, those treats―jalapeño pancakes, beans on toast, pasta for one―for when you are on your own in the kitchen with no one else to satisfy. Then he follows with twenty incomparable menus (five per season) that serve four to six. Each transports the reader to places far and wide. And for grand occasions, a time for the whole tribe to gather around the table, Tanis delivers festive menus for holiday feasts. So in one book, three kinds of cooking: small, medium, and large.

A cast-iron skillet filled with chilaquiles on a wooden cutting board with a block of queso fresco and half a jalapeno beside it.

Chilaquiles

Essentially eggs scrambled with chips (or day-old tortillas) and salsa, chilaquiles is equally enticing in the a.m. as the p.m., with a cup of hot joe or a bottle of cold cerveza.

A rimmed baking sheet filled with peppery chicken wings

Peppery Chicken Wings

The intensity of the classic buffalo wing is tempered here, usurped by a deliciously, defiantly untraditional blend of beguiling spices.

A pot of fork-mashed potatoes with a fork resting inside.

Fork-Mashed Potatoes

These fork-mashed spuds are indulgence defined with their easy execution, deceptively rich taste, and lack of bowls and beaters to clean.

An oval platter with roasted and braised turkey, a dish of stuffing, a bowl of cranberry sauce, a bowl of chestnuts, two glasses of wine, and a small pot of gravy on a wooden table.

Roasted and Braised Turkey

Tender braised dark meat, moist roasted white meat, and skin so crisp you could weep. The best of all parts of the bird…minus the traditional hand-wringing.