Chez Panisse is a very famous restaurant in my hometown of Berkeley, notable for the fact that it basically started the California cuisine movement: use fresh, local foods to make fusion cuisine - very Californian. I've never been there since a) I can't afford it and b) my mother and the owner got in a fight back in 90's and my mother holds a grudge. Berkeley isn't a cosmopolis - it's really just a small town that happens to have a large university in the middle of it - and the personal interactions are what you'd expect to see in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Imagine a Thornton Wilder play with more grumbling about the lack of state educational funding. (I'm not kidding about this: Thornton Wilder went to Berkeley High.)
In any case, I have that Berkeleyan smug disdain for Chez Panisse that everybody there develops eventually. "Oh, yes, Chez Panisse. Did you know that the original Peet's is just around the corner? And it's so much easier to just grab a slice of pizza at the Cheeseboard. Chez Panisse is just okay now. Oooh, you know what I heard? Now they're using beets in everything. Can you imagine?
Beets! Chez Panisse is so overpriced." We're allowed to complain about it but nobody else is.
The internet does not have the same attitude towards Chez Panisse. For example,
this website is run by a guy who
loves Chez Panisse. In fact, he posted this recipe because of a picture he saw in the flicr photostream for the Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary Party.
Now I completely get what he's talking about, because when I saw one of his photos on his website I decided that I had to try making a plum galette as well.
 |
| His photo. Who wouldn't want to try making that? |
I had to fiddle with his recipe a bit to make it work but it turned out all right in the end. While I can't tell you is if this is the type of thing that they serve at Chez Panisse, I can say that the people at the potluck liked it. I was expecting the crust to be softer but it's actually flaky.
