Zox Kitchen: January 2, 2014

Vegetable Literacy

And A Recipe Or Two  

Deborah Madison has published another terrific cookbook, Vegetable Literacy. Madison’s background as a chef and celebrated author took root while growing up on a farm in upstate New York, and then in a walnut orchard in Davis, CA. This introduced her to plants and cooking with the additional influence of her father, who was a gardener and botanist.

Her cooking career took flight at the restaurant temple of West Coast cooking, Chez Panisse. Madison was also a student for 18 years at the San Francisco Zen Center, where she became the center’s chef. Subsequently, the seasoned chef was one of the founders of the restaurant Greens at Fort Mason, which is where I first encountered her food and her ardent support of the slow food movement, and the Seed Savers Exchange.