Recipes from a very small kitchen by a man with a very large talent. Nobody better embodies the present-day mantra "Eat real food in season" than David Tanis, one of the most original voices in American cooking. For more than a quarter-century, Tanis has been the chef at the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, where the menu consists solely of a single perfect meal that changes each evening. Tanis's recipes are down-to-earth yet sophisticated, simple to prepare but impressive on the plate. Tanis opens this soulful, fun-to-read cookbook with his own private food rituals, those treats-jalapeño pancakes, beans on toast, pasta for one-for when you are on your own in the kitchen with no one else to satisfy. Then he follows with twenty incomparable menus (five per season) that serve four to six. Each transports the reader to places far and wide. And for grand occasions, a time for the whole tribe to gather around the table, Tanis delivers festive menus for holiday feasts. So in one book, three kinds of cooking: small, medium, and large. David Tanis has worked as a professional chef for over three decades, and is the author of several acclaimed cookbooks, including A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, which was chosen as one of the 50 best cookbooks ever by the Guardian/Observer (U.K.) and Heart of the Artichoke, which was nominated for a James Beard Award. He spent many years as chef with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California; he ran the kitchen of the highly praised Café Escalera in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and he operated a successful private supper club in his 17th-century walk-up in Paris. He has written for a number of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian/Observer (U.K.), Cooking Light, Bon Appétit, Fine Cooking, and Saveur. Tanis lives in Manhattan and has been writing the weekly City Kitchen column for the Food section of the New York Times for nearly six years.