Not that I do, mind you. I don't own a home or a business. I can't really explain why it is that Houston looks like a city on steroids but with no one on the street, other than it's hot and Texans like things big. But there is something important about seeing the land, and understanding what can and can't be done with it. The rolling scrub desert of southern Idaho isn't good for much but cows and potatoes. Nebraska seems to be made for corn and wheat. The wooded dells and glades, the charming apple orchards and rolling berry fields, the tidy little plots of vegetables that are so very Oregonian simply can't exist everywhere.
This is why it makes so little sense to try to export city planning, and why it often makes no sense to bother with famous restaurant cookbooks from far away cities.
A good example is Craft. Tom Collichio is a justly famous restaurateur, he started with a small New York restaurant, Craft, and in that New York/L.A. way, slowly expanded his empire to the point where it now includes an immense, incredibly expensive Las Vegas steak emporium called, natch, CraftSteak. Other than clearly having opened in that late 90's/early 00's period when mid-century modern and dark woods ruled the earth, CraftSteak is excellent. The very best in delicious, overpriced beef, as well as some very interesting extras. Craftsteak was the first place I had Jerusalem artichokes (wonderful), as well as the first place I had butter-braised lobster (ridiculous).
But Tom Collichio's cookbooks, while inspiring, have never felt like something I could really work with. Mostly this has to do with the fact that he lives in New York and I live on the west coast. Fundamentally, it just isn't the same. For example, ramps. Tom Collichio loves ramps. Ramps are a leek/green onion thing that grows wild along the tributaries to the Hudson river. I've never had a ramp, or even seen one. On the other hand, Meyer lemons grow in every other backyard in Berkeley, where I grew up. I threw them to my dog when I couldn't find a ball for a game of fetch. My mother sends me a box of them every time the tree gets full.
Really aside from a few very basic vegetables and land animals, nothing is the same. Red Snapper does not exist in the pacific - our "snapper" is actually a rockfish. Dungenness crab solely live in the north of Santa Barbara. There is no such thing as a local catfish this far west, nor the aforementioned and much lamented ramps. And a New Yorker is never going to know the pleasure of eating salmon berries fresh from a wild vine one a hike to the Sandy river.
This limits the utility of all cookbooks, even "everything" cookbooks - The Minimalist, I'm looking at you, and your lack of west coast fish substitutions - but is particularly frustrating with glossy, inspiring restaurant cookbooks. Oh, Tom! I want to make red snapper braised with butter and ramps! Look at that beautiful farm-to-table Mexican meal, too bad I can't find Epazote to save my life! Totally in love with Susan Goin, my Vermont friend? Good luck finding those Chilles de Arbol!
There is no real solution to this dilemma, for either the home cook or the cookbook writer. The thing that makes a restaurant great is the chef's ability to make beauty from the rough products of the earth. The ability to look around at the same berries, fruits and vegetables that were at the market last week and come up with something inspiring and new, fragrant and delicious. If every recipe had to be universally applicable, the chef's inspiration and personality would disappear. That, or each cookbook would die under the weight of so many notes on substitution. For the home cook, such substitutions are hardly helpful. There is no substitute for Epazote. Canned Jalapenos are awful, and nothing like fresh. Pacific halibut is not a good substitute for Swordfish, and not even a good substitute for Alaskan. And, no, I'm sure regular leeks don't taste like ramps. Falling in love with a food celebrity, no matter how deserving of fame, is simply frustrating. Their crayon box simply has different colors in it, and there's often no clear way to mimic Dark Sienna when you've only got brown and red.
The only way around these problems? Fall in love with a local chef! Find people who see the same items at the store that you do and turn that into the sublime. I certainly can't afford to go to Le Pigeon or Lucques or Chez Pannise very often, if at all. But I can afford the cookbooks (speaking of which, hey Le Pidg, why no cookbook?). And buying those cookbooks is good for both me, the inspired and happily unfrustrated cook, and for them, as cookbooks are one of the only ways for a talented chef to make money without spending another 12 hours on his/her feet in front of a hot stove. Also, isn't it lovely to contemplate the possibility of going to a restaurant someday that has been so inspiring to you without also having to contemplate airfare, hotel rooms and lost luggage? It is to me.
With that in mind, I find these cookbooks to be indispensable for inspiring the West Coast Cook:
Chez Panisse Vegetables: vegetables can be the least inspiring ingredients, but are actually the backbone of everything we eat and love. Alice Waters gets you thinking creatively about the kitchen workhorse.
Sunday Suppers at Lucques: Slightly complicated but universally delicious dishes that add a little kick to the Cal-Med repertoire.
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A huge gourmet tome, in which you will find something to do with everything you've got, from dried beans to days old bread.
West Coast Seafood: The Complete Cookbook: A wonderful guide to the most local and wild of our foods, the fish. Good to have on hand if you are going to attempt to find a substitute for some fish called for in an east coast cookbook.
The Herbfarm Cookbook: Intimately tied to a garden near Seattle, this book can't help but deal with the limitations of a short, cool summer. It does so with grace and ease.
