Foodie Pseudery (13)

Kim Severson has Alice Waters over for lunch, and discusses Waters’s latest recipe book:

The book is deceptively simple. As she writes, ‘Good cooking is no mystery.’ Most recipes seem to be built on salt, black pepper, olive oil, fresh herbs and garlic. But they have to be specific kinds, like chunky gray sea salt for boiling water. ‘If you are not buying the right ingredients, this is going to taste like any other food,’ she said.

The attention to detail is maddening and enlightening. She offers lovely notes on cooking eggs, and her passage on serving fruit for dessert is so thoughtful and useful it reads like gospel. She devotes a page and a half to making bread crumbs properly.