The Chez Panisse Cookbooks

This is definitely flat-out heresy but the CC has never actually liked any of them. He still owns most of them, and plans to hold onto them but they are NOT recommended for the average person.

What would be the problem?

For starters, many are just badly edited. You read a recipe, and you end up screaming "No Way!" while everyone looks at if you were a madman. The proportions are clearly wrong. You can't just scale down stuff from a restaurant as explained here.

Then, there's the obvious problem that nobody but nobody can achieve that in an average kitchen. Either it's a question of BTU's, baby, or the cost of ingredients since we're trying to run a tight ship over here. We don't like to eat the same crap the next day either so least counts matter.

Then, there's the Francophilic-lovefest which is soooooooo passé. We don't eat that way any more. Nor do the French, incidentally.

In a world awash in excellent Thai food and and Senegalese food and Sichuan food, the Francophilia sticks out like a cram in your craw.

So suck it, bitch, this ain't no one-dimensional world no more. Even over in Paris, they went ga-ga over Vietnamese four decades ago. Long before the CC was born!

Overall, the CC would just say "Skip it! There be better books out there. Their time and cultural importance has passed."