Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Coming to my Senses: The making of a counterculture cook by Alice Waters

by
January–February 2018, no. 398

Coming to my Senses: The making of a counterculture cook by Alice Waters

Hardie Grant Books, $39.99 hb, 320 pp, 9781743793862

Coming to my Senses: The making of a counterculture cook by Alice Waters

by
January–February 2018, no. 398

It is a colourful and turbulent life Alice Waters leads. Thankfully, it is turbulent in the fruitful sense, a process of regeneration and creation so nimbly edited into her autobiography, Coming to My Senses, that it strikes one as being deserving of its titular gerund. It relays the creation of both her ethos and her restaurant, Chez Panisse. Both are realised with great clarity throughout the book: style and substance ring together in both her writing and her aesthetic. Artfully crafted as this carefully curated view of a life is, it also remains humble and warm and satisfyingly alien to what we might now consider to be ‘food writing’. There is no ego here; Waters places importance on seasonality and intuition, regardless of culinary training or tradition. And all without bombast, as she herself asserts: ‘Taste is an incredibly strong sensation – it’s deeper than language.’

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.