JEREMIAH TOWER COOKS

I don't collect cookbooks, but I do have an overstuffed bookshelf full of them. Like most people, I rarely use more than one or two recipes from any one cookbook, but I love revisiting them for ideas and inspiration. I'll start with one especially close to my heart: Jeremiah Tower Cooks.

Widely recognized as the godfather of modern American cooking, creator of Californian cuisine, and a mentor to such rising celebrity chefs as Mario Batali, Jeremiah is one of the most influential cooks of the last thirty years. Former chef and partner at Chez Panisse and the genius behind Stars in San Francisco, JT is a dear friend, and working with him on the promotion of this cookbook in 2002 was certainly a highlight in my publishing life. We hit it off from the start, and had some memorable times (and cocktails) together. Now living in Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula, Jeremiah spends his time scuba diving, designing houses, and living the good life. As he should.

Jeremiah Tower Cooks is full of great stories, history, recipes, and opinions on our culinary world. It is beautifully written, illustrated with paintings by Donald Sultan, and full of JT's inimitable wit, style, and intelligence. I particularly love his remembrances of the really great drinks he's had: his first gin and tonic, at the Dorcester in London, ice cold and served in Waterford crystal; six fresh margaritas on a sunny afternoon in Mexico and then lying in hammock; forgoing an after-dinner brandy in favor of a freezing cold scotch and soda; and his Sunday ritual of endless champagne after working in his garden.

I'll always remember Jeremiah drinking three huge Manhattans in the bar of the Palm restaurant in Philadelphia (I matched him with Martinis); the many bottles of Chateau La Nerthe bordeaux we drank together; the marathon lunches; the noisy argument he had with a bartender at Bar Americain about gimlets, and those complimentary tumblers of Midleton Irish whiskey we drank at the The Modern in New York (the Irish barmaid said it was "her honor" to serve us!). What golden times we had.