THE MENUS THAT MADE ME

From Chez Panisse, Santa Fe Bar & Grill, Ventana Big Sur, and Stars San Francisco

My first professional cooking job was as the head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.

It happened on a whim when I answered this ad that my friend Michael Palmer and his wife Cathy Simon showed me from the San Francisco Chronicle.

I had already cooked from my heroes Elizabeth David and Fernand Point (owner of the restaurant La Pyramide, famous now not just for its being considered the world’s greatest French restaurant of its time, but for its champagne-guzzling prep cook Paul Bocuse).

When I first started at Panisse, I wrote all the menus, did the shopping, prepped and cooked the lunch by myself, and then dinner with my Beatnik helper, Willy Bishop.