Chez Panisse Jonathan Waters, the sommellier at Chez Panisse, invited me to dine there on Wednesday. Every so often, I hear someone talk about how disappointing Chez Panisse is and how they found the experience boring and without excitement. I had a wonderful meal. Alice Waters pioneered the notion of working with local, natural producers and putting their work on the restaurant table. This notion of fine dining, which ought to be the rudimentary spirit of every great restaurant, seemed almost revolutionary in America. I lived in Berkeley briefly in early 1970. I was thrown off the campus by undercover police for not having a valid student identification card. At the time, I was appearing in guerilla theater projects against the war in Vietnam. I am a large fellow and was always cast in the role of the American Imperialist.. One of my friends, who started out small and skinny, had a crystal methadone problem and was cast in the role of the Vietnamese revolutionary peasantry. At the end of the skit, the Vietnamese peasant would convincingly defeat me, bludgeoning me senseless with an empty box or Rice Krispies. One morning I walked on to the UC Berkeley campus to perform, and four stiffs in sunglasses and polyester suits followed me onto the campus. They looked like extras out of the old Mod Squard television series. They turned out to be undercover police and quickly asked for my student id card. I didn't have one. California, under Governor Ronald Reagan, had passed a law after the Free Speech Movement demonstrations banning outside agitators from entering the University of California campuses. Since I was an outside agitator, I was informed to leave the campus or I would immediately be arrested. I was also informed that I would be arrested if I ever set foot on the campus again. I have not been back, although I am skeptical that I would be arrested in my current role as wine importer. I was renting a room somewhere not far from Chez Panisse with a group of hippies who had made a killing producing an unauthorized Bob Dylan album of primitive recordings taped at Dylan concerts. As a joke, they inserted on the album an old Muddy Waters blues song that they played themselves, although they credited Dylan. If memory serves me right, it was the Hootchie Cootchie Man, although I could be wrong about that. Anyhow, Rolling Stone Magazine actually gave the bootleg album a rave review, declaring that my roomates' blues effort was the highlight of the album and Dylan's greatest blues rendition. During my Berkeley stay, I was caught shoplifting at the Coop Supermarket. I was low on money and those were the days where every kid thought that petty crime was in the spirit of Che Guevarra and liberating chopped meat at the supermarket was striking another blow against the Imperialist Beast. I was taken into a private office, where a manager of the Coop explained to me that stealing from the Coop was like stealing from the people, since the people themselves were the owners of the Coop. I immediately told him that I had thought the Coop was like the A&P and the Safeway and I had no idea that I had been stealing from the people rather than from the Imperialist Beast. The manager understood my confusion over this issue, asked me to promise to never shoplift again from the Coop and let me go. On my way out, the manager told me: "Many of our shoplifters have become our best customers." So, I always enjoy going back to the Bay Area and dining at Chez Panisse was a great pleasure. Why people find it disappointing is a mystery to me. I suppose, it is the same kind of sickness that makes people like Cult Cabernets and avoid Pineau d'Aunis. I had a salad with the best radishes I have ever tasted in America, mixed in a delicious olive oil, and with slices of beef brisket from an organic producer in Sonoma. The main course was a sumptuous Couscous with summer seasonal vegetables that were incredibly savory and flavorful. All my thanks to Jonathan Waters for the invite and for the reminder of how good American cuisine can be when someone taks the time and energy to bring lively and delicious products of the earth to our table. I had a great time in the Bay Area and will hopefully write more about my trip. My special thanks to Rick Franco for his restaurant and hotel tips.
sir, although the statute of limitations appears to have expired on these peccadilloes i am disheatened to hear of your lawbreaking proclivities. but i do have to ask, did the radish salad contained any peccadilloes?
No, there were no peccadilloes.
has anyone heard of a drink called a grasshopper?
Hey, were you performing with the East Bay Sharks?!!
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