Introduction

“New-Old Food in a New-New Setting” is How a Hero of Mine, Joe Baum, Described the philosophy behind some of his restaurants, such as The Four Seasons, Windows on the World, and the recreated Rainbow Room. I’ve approached my own restaurants and my own cooking the same way. So when James Beard called my San Francisco restaurant Stars “a brilliant blend of old and new that has caught the spirit of the time,” I was delighted.

When I thought about writing a new book on my cooking, I couldn’t help but reflect that the ingredients and cooking techniques we had introduced in the 1970s and 1980s had now become mainstream. With an extraordinary range of fresh and exotic ingredients now available, the developments in American cooking have finally gone beyond restaurant chefs and into the home. The book, I realized, would be new-old material in a new-new setting because the changes we initiated remain fresh, even as they have taken their permanent place in our culinary tradition.