strawberries in paris

Charm City Cookbooking January 2009: A Platter of Figs

Alayne hosted this month and what a good choice she made! David Tanis has some real good simple recipes in this cookbook and its very nice how he arranges them into menus. He picked up that habit working at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and it was great to see how he uses simple local ingredients to make amazing food. I read a biography of Chez Panisse two summers ago and I just loved that book. Alice Waters is a genius and we all have her to thank for starting the eat local and organic movement!

Here is a shot of one of the mocktails that we made for our evening. Since I am trying to lose weight and two other ladies can’t drink for health reasons- going alcohol free was a welcome change to our cookbook club evening. Alayne’s creative drink used these dried hibiscus flowers! They were so creepy/awesome looking! Now go over to the Cookbook club blog and check out some pictures and a recipe!