During the mid 80’s blossomed a time when almost every serious chef in the land about whispered the genius of the man who wrote the book titled above. While I can’t claim to being a science nut one did not have to be in falling in love with this book by this quiet, erudite man Harold McGee. I would venture to wage big bucks that if you could have seen a photo of the most commonly depicted book on American chefs and beyond in the scruffy offices most of us had this book would be on it. It was first published in 1984.
In 2006 it was my good fortune to meet Harold McGee when we both attended the Madrid Fusión Awards. I received mine with him as well as Paul Prudhomme, Alice Waters and Mark Miller. Other luminaries like Judith Jones the astonishing editor of so many vaunted authors, the journalist, “Food Arts” magazine founders, husband and wife team Michael and Ariane Batterberry, Charlie Trotter, Ferran and Alberto Adrià, Juan Arzak and more.
It was January and Madrid was dark and cold. Harold walked out of the auditorium with us by chance. As I remember we were headed to a celebration featuring a lot of Jamón Iberico and Cava. I was moving along at a clip. Then Harold said, “Would you mind terribly if we stopped somewhere so I could purchase a topcoat?”. Janet and I were wrapped from head to toe and had we not we’d be shivering too. We popped into a haberdashery in the city founded around 900 AD and Harold began to try some on. I shall never forget the tall, slender, bespeckled gentleman slowly doing a 360 in a shop mirror and asking Janet if she liked it. She gave him her brilliant smile and thumbs up.
A few months later back at work a FedEx package arrived at my office. It was from Palo Alto. It was heavy! I opened it up and Harold’s book was in there. This time autographed and with a beautiful letter.
My website www.normanvanaken.com
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