Patricia Wells

In a post today, David Lebowitz has a link to Patricia Wells' website (she revised it, and started a blog in March 2010), and also a short interview with her. Let me count the ways that I love her. The bistro book she wrote got alot of use when we lived in Monterey. My dad made Basque chicken all the time. Her trattoria book is good. At Home in Provence is a modern classic. She's a good writer.

This nugget is from the interview: I wake up each morning and can't wait to get to the kitchen and create. I get most excited when everything from a meal can come from my garden! Can you see why I love her?

There are quite a few nuggets from the blog. Apparently Julia Child, when she left France, gave her stove to Patricia O,I,II,III. How cool is that? The most recent post is about apricot preserves, clearly a woman after my own heart... Alas, her blog isn't indexed worth a damn, c'est la vie.

Socca - chickpea flour crepes. Avo sorbet. On Keeping the Feast. Capers. Yum #1. Yum #2. Sawtooth coriander. Grilled lemongrass prawns. On juicing limes. Cute #1. Yum #3. Yum #4 pizza. Her first blog post. Ok, all caught up. I subscribed to her blog, so will highlight future interesting posts.

She also has all of her old food columns from the International Herald Tribune up on her site. Interesting.

From the 'reviews' section:
Q - You once said, "Americans eat every meal as if it is their last."
A - "And the French know that there will be more tomorrow." We [Americans] are still not a food culture. We don't have the respect for food. We still have a fear of food. When we sit down to eat, we have too many negatives: no fat, can't have carbohydrates. It's just no, can't, no, can't. We forget what pleasure food can give us. It doesn't have to cost much and doesn't have to be complicated. Just going to the market and buying an apple can be a wonderful experience.
Nice.