An Onion in My Pocket

March 9, 2020
From the austere training ground of a Buddhist kitchen to her legacy as founding chef of San Francisco’s renowned Greens Restaurant, Madison (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) relates how she became a doyenne of vegetarian cooking. Her mother, who “cooked and ate from a sense of scarcity,” made her anxious about food, and, at 16, an extended stay with family friends introduced Madison to “cheese souffles, chicken poached in wine... all so delicious... all new to me.” Captivated by Japanese culture, she later joined the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), where meditation and simple meals taught her how the goodness of plain food “resided in my mouth and my attention.” At the center, she developed a “tenderness for both food and people,” eventually becoming the head cook; in 1977 she was invited to work at iconic Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse. Two years later, Madison left to open the SFZC-owned Greens Restaurant “next to the marina... in view of the Golden Gate Bridge.” An omnivore, she “didn’t like the vegetarian label,” believing that naming “the way I eat... can become divisive.” Chapters covering the “twenty missing years”—after she left the SFZC, Greens, and her monastic Buddhist life—build on the tension between abstinence and abundance, hunger and satiation, and anticipation and enjoyment of food and life. Madison’s richly told story will resonate with foodies of all stripes.

March 15, 2020
A renowned vegetarian chef and cookbook author returns with a menu of memories about her life, profession, and passions. In her youth, Madison, a member of the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame, became deeply involved in the Zen movement in the Bay Area, a 20-year association that involved not just meditation, but cooking and running a restaurant. She tells us about her parents' lives, her childhood fondness for Twinkies, her growing passion for fresh vegetables and fruit, and her decisions to devote herself to cooking, restaurant managing, and, eventually, writing cookbooks. We also learn about her two marriages and her move to the Southwest (first Flagstaff, then Santa Fe). The author does not observe a rigid organization. As if her writing were a meal, she moves from topic to topic like a diner enjoying her segue from course to course. Readers will enjoy her amiability and learn much from her ruminations, including the advice to "break your plans in the face of something wonderful and unexpected, like [discovering] morels. Let this food rule take over and push you here and there as it will." Madison offers detailed accounts of her Zen life, her decision to focus on vegetarian food (though she confesses that she occasionally eats--and likes--meat), her involvement in the founding of Greens Restaurant (which, 40 years later, still stands with its dazzling view of the Golden Gate Bridge), and her trips abroad. Madison also shares some lessons she's learned about cooking and restaurant work--e.g., "Be Forever Gracious," "Eat Like a Guest," "Treat Everyone the Same," "Salt As You Go." She ends with details about her writing, book tours (including some of her gaffes), memorable meals (including "that first meal at Chez Panisse"), and affecting thoughts about "nourishment and sustenance." A savory journey through kitchens, ingredients, meals, cookbooks, family, and colleagues--all composing the author's heart.

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April 15, 2020
Restaurateur Madison became a star of the California foodie culture last century with her lauded San Francisco temple of vegetarianism, Greens. She made vegetarianism hip with her The Greens Cookbook (1987) and more recently Vegetable Literacy (2013). Born into a large family that lived all over the U.S. until her botanist father completed his doctorate, Madison mostly grew up in Davis, California, with a mother who wasn't a good cook but loved to explore world cuisines. Madison herself became a devotee of Buddhism, living for a while in a Zen monastery. Returning to California, she realized the breadth of the agricultural riches of the Central Valley and fell into Alice Waters' creative circle before plowing her own furrow with her much-decorated restaurant. Now living near Santa Fe, she continues farming and exploring the world of locally sourced foods. A wonderful sense of humor pervades her memoir, extending even to the cover illustration, a clever vegetable version of Cellini's bronze sculpture "Perseus with the Head of Medusa."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2020

Madison (The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone), who opened one of the first vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco in the late 1970s, here focuses on her time practicing Buddhism as well as her growing interest in cooking and working in restaurants. She describes taking advantage of every opportunity to learn about cooking, working for several months at Chez Panisse, and traveling to Europe and taking a culinary tour through France. She writes about her father, a professor, who had a keen interest in farming, which led to her interest in local produce, and how her mother, who grew up during the Great Depression, inspired her interest in creating simple but delicious food. VERDICT Madison is a prolific cookbook author, and this latest offering presents an intriguing and insightful look into how her upbringing influenced both her professional and private life.--Danielle Williams, Univ. of Evansville

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