The opening of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco in 1979, under the auspices of the San Francisco Zen Center, forever changed the image of vegetarian food in this country. I began cooking from The Greens Cookbook in 1989, during the year I returned home to Santa Cruz as my father was dying from stomach cancer. It opened my mind to a new kind of cooking based upon vegetables, of which there was a constant, seasonal stream from our garden and local farmers markets. I also had a chance to eat at the restaurant, a beautiful spot overlooking the bay where a subtle message of health and harmony was offered in an elegant organic environment. The restaurant has since evolved toward a lighter, leaner cuisine, and I think the latest edition of the cookbook also differs somewhat from the one I have, but the essential philosophy of founders Deborah Madison and Edward Espe Brown remains intact. I have misplaced the book now (hopefully it's in storage somewhere), but I recall many of the dishes: saffron custard with eggplant; butter-fried potatoes with curry; baked polenta with tomato and gorgonzola; and a simple recipe for dried apricots poached with ginger and served cold with a dollop of crème fraîche.
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Speaking of noodles, have you gotten your hands on David Chang's new magazine, published in collaboration with McSweeney's? The first issue is thick and jam-packed with everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about ramen—the dish with which Chang first took the food world by storm—and some other things, like Chang's travels in Japan, how to make his bacon-dashi broth, and a few interesting ways to cook eggs. This quarterly publication is available on newsstands, or you can subscribe here, and a companion app will also be available, although it's still in the works. If you're not already a fan of Chang, this might convert you, or it could send you running screaming in the opposite direction. There's definitely a macho-badass-hipster-cognoscenti vibe you can't escape, but if you can embrace that shit in all its fucking awesomeness (are you feeling it?), there's an assload of fascinating information in Lucky Peach. Which is, incidentally, what Momofuku means in Japanese.
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