Holiday Recommendations, page 2

Truth in advertising: I grew up in Berkeley and, from Chez Panisse’s beginnings in 1971, my parents were great fans—and great friends—of Alice Waters and her restaurant. My mother, a food writer and critic in the Bay Area, spent every Bastille Day in the Chez Panisse kitchen peeling garlic for the restaurant’s annual July 14th celebration. When my mother died in 2006, Alice touchingly invited my dad to dine at the restaurant any time, even without his wife (he had celebrated many birthdays at Chez P, and on each occasion the menu mysteriously included his two favorite items: duck for the main course, and a lemon tart for dessert). Over the years, Alice has used her Chez Panisse Foundation to champion the Edible Schoolyard and other efforts to bring healthy, sustainable food to communities across the country. Indeed, the restaurant’s 40th anniversary celebrations last August raised funds for these projects. This beautiful book, 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering (Clarkson Potter, $55) by Alice Waters and Friends, which includes a foreword by Calvin Trillin and an afterword by Michael Pollan, tells the story of Chez Panisse through photos, recollections, and the iconic posters that artist David Lance Goines made for the restaurant over many years. More than a collector’s item, this is a lively celebration of Chez Panisse and its revolutionary role in making local, seasonal, and sustainable food a building block of community—and gathering—across our country. Lissa Muscatine

You have asked, so we are letting you know. . . Essential Pepin, A History of the World in 100 Objects, and Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy are all in stock. Call us at 202-364-1919 or click the links to order online. We can handle giftwrapping and shipping, and help make your holidays happen.

A work of both art and scholarship, Stephen Mitchell’s translation of The Iliad (Free Press, $35) updates Homer’s epic for the 21st century, even as it takes the work back to its roots. Written down many centuries after it was composed, the original oral version has been added to over the generations, but Mitchell has based this latest rendition on a text stripped of known later accretions. To tell this “dramatically sharper and leaner” story, Mitchell, a prolific translator of works as varied in style, language, and purpose as Gilgamesh, the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, and Rilke’s poetry, studied the flow of the Greek meter and worked to match its rhythms in English. The result is an energetic and graceful account of the long Trojan War and the passions of the warriors that drove it, with every word carefully chosen for sound as well as sense. Mitchell’s informative commentary and unobtrusive notes are invaluable to appreciating the richness of this elegant volume, the first new rendering of The Iliad in some fifteen years. Laurie Greer

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