Bright, clean, and hip recipes to enchant vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike, from plant-based haven Café Gratitude. Before it was a fixture on the L.A. dining scene and a magnet for celebrity diners, Café Gratitude was founded in the Bay Area with the simple ethos that joy derives from loving and being grateful for food, health, and good company. The dishes are named to double as affirmations of self. "I Am Fearless," "I Am Humble," and "I Am Open-Hearted" nod to the restaurant's core belief that food is just as much about spirit as it is about appetite. Since then, the café has evolved quite a bit. It's changed locations, expanded, and been the backdrop for more paparazzi shots than one can count. But the founding principles have remained the same, and the food continues to celebrate the flavors of plants with organic, from-scratch, and healthful ingredients free of animal products, processed soy, and, in almost all cases, refined sweeteners. Now, with Love is Served, Seizan Dreux Ellis, executive chef at Café Gratitude, brings Gratitude-quality meals to your table and the soul and mission of the restaurant to your home. Indulge in café favorites "I Am Awakening" (Raw Key Lime Pie) and "I Am Passionate" (Black Lava Cake) while cooking up hearty, nourishing dishes like Grilled Polenta with Mushroom Ragout ("I Am Warm-Hearted") and Radicchio, Roasted Butternut Squash, and Sundried Tomato Pesto Grain Salad ("I Am Gracious"). With unfussy methods and easy-to-access ingredients, this cookbook makes the wholesome satisfaction of the restaurant as accessible as ever for the home cook as it charms and inspires readers to change the way they look at food.

With locations in San Francisco, Berkeley, Marin, and Los Angeles, Café Gratitude has become well known for its inspiring environment and distinctive, flavorful organic foods. In I Am Grateful, cofounder Terces Engelhart presents her and her husband Matthew’s view of life and business philosophy. She also presents her story of personal healing, sharing highlights of her recovery from food addiction while explaining the benefits of a raw lifestyle. The book’s gorgeous, full-color photographs accompany easy-to-follow recipes for the café’s most popular items, making it easy for readers to prepare live foods at home. Recipes include café favorites such as the “I Am Luscious” raw chocolate smoothie, “I Am Bountiful” bruschetta, “I Am Elated” spicy rolled enchiladas, and “I Am Amazing” lemon meringue pie with macadamia nut crust.

Bright, clean, and hip recipes to enchant vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike, from plant-based haven Café Gratitude. Before it was a fixture on the L.A. dining scene and a magnet for celebrity diners, Café Gratitude was founded in the Bay Area with the simple ethos that joy derives from loving and being grateful for food, health, and good company. The dishes are named to double as affirmations of self. "I Am Fearless," "I Am Humble," and "I Am Open-Hearted" nod to the restaurant's core belief that food is just as much about spirit as it is about appetite. Since then, the café has evolved quite a bit. It's changed locations, expanded, and been the backdrop for more paparazzi shots than one can count. But the founding principles have remained the same, and the food continues to celebrate the flavors of plants with organic, from-scratch, and healthful ingredients free of animal products, processed soy, and, in almost all cases, refined sweeteners. Now, with Love is Served, Seizan Dreux Ellis, executive chef at Café Gratitude, brings Gratitude-quality meals to your table and the soul and mission of the restaurant to your home. Indulge in café favorites "I Am Awakening" (Raw Key Lime Pie) and "I Am Passionate" (Black Lava Cake) while cooking up hearty, nourishing dishes like Grilled Polenta with Mushroom Ragout ("I Am Warm-Hearted") and Radicchio, Roasted Butternut Squash, and Sundried Tomato Pesto Grain Salad ("I Am Gracious"). With unfussy methods and easy-to-access ingredients, this cookbook makes the wholesome satisfaction of the restaurant as accessible as ever for the home cook as it charms and inspires readers to change the way they look at food.

Introduces 200 recipes based on the Asian philosophy of food and the balance of yin and yang, including specialty recipes to soothe a variety of illnesses and ailments

We hung the walls with old French movie posters advertising the films of Marcel Pagnol, films that had already provided us with both a name and an ideal: to create a community of friends, lovers, and relatives that span generations and is in tune with the seasons, the land, and human appetites. So writes Alice Waters of the opening of Berkeley's Chez Panisse Café on April Fool's Day, 1980. Located above the more formal Chez Panisse Restaurant, the Café is a bustling neighborhood bistro where guests needn't reserve far in advance and can choose from the ever-changing à la carte menu. It's the place where Alice Waters's inventive chefs cook in a more impromptu and earthy vein, drawing on the healthful, low-tech traditions of the cuisines of such Mediterranean regions as Catalonia, Campania, and Provence, while improvising and experimenting with the best products of Chez Panisse's own regional network of small farms and producers. In the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, the follow-up to the award-winning Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters and her team of talented cooks offer more than 140 of the café's best-recipes--some that have been on the menu since the day café opened and others freshly reinvented with the honesty and ingenuity that have made Chez Panisse so famous. In addition to irresistible recipes, the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is filled with chapter-opening essays on the relationships Alice has cultivated with the farmers, foragers and purveyors--most of them within an hour's drive of Berkeley--who make it possible for Chez Panisse to boast that nearly all food is locally grown, certifiably organic, and sustainably grown and harvested. Alice encourages her chefs and cookbook readers alike to decide what to cook only after visiting the farmer's market or produce stand. Then we can all fully appreciate the advantages of eating according to season--fresh spring lamb in late March, ripe tomato salads in late summer, Comice pear crisps in autumn. This book begins with a chapter of inspired vegetable recipes, from a vivid salad of avocados and beets to elegant Morel Mushroom Toasts to straightforward side dishes of Spicy Broccoli Raab and Garlicky Kale. The Chapter on eggs and cheese includes two of the café's most famous dishes, a garden lettuce salad with baked goat cheese and the Crostata di Perrella, the café's version of a calzone. Later chapters focus on fish and shellfish, beef, pork, lamb, and poultry, each offering its share of delightful dishes. You'll find recipes for curing your own pancetta, for simple grills and succulent braises, and for the definitive simple roast chicken--as well as sumptuous truffed chicken breasts. Finally the pastry cooks of Chez Panisse serve forth a chapter of uncomplicated sweets, including Apricot Bread Pudding, Chocolate Almond Cookies, and Wood Oven-baked Figs with Raspberries. Gorgeously designed and illustrated throughout with colored block prints by David Lance Goines, who has eaten at the café since the day it opened, Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is destined to become an indispensable classic. Fans of Alice Waters's restaurant and café will be thrilled to discover the recipes that keep them coming back for more. Loyal readers of her earlier cookbooks will delight in this latest collection of time-tested, deceptively simple recipes. And anyone who loves pure, vibrant, delicious fare made from the finest ingredients will be honored to add these new recipes to his or her repertoire.

For more than fifty years, Jacques Pépin has chronicled his menus for parties for friends, birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays in handsome hand-illustrated books. On one side, inside a painted border featuring produce, flowers, or birds, he lists the dishes he served. On the opposite side, his guests sign their names and memorialize the occasion. ForMenus, Jacques selected his favorite illustrations of the last half-century, where hosts can document their own celebratory meals and the wines that accompany them. With an introduction by Pépin, this dinner diary is both a practical register of what dishes were served to which guests and an invaluable archive of memories.

Sweet Gratitude is a cookbook with a message: raw desserts aren’t only healthier for both people and the planet, they can also be every bit as tasty–indeed, sinfully so–as their mainstream counterparts. Tiziana Tamborra and Matthew Rogers, both master dessert chefs at the pioneering San Francisco-based Café Gratitude, present a tantalizing table of after-dinner or any-occasion delights. Illustrated with gorgeous color photographs, the recipes range from simple and quick to advanced and detailed, showing how versatile commonly used fruits and nuts are for whipping up innovative and beautiful desserts. Providing authoritative information on techniques and specialty ingredients, and emphasizing the seasonal and the regional, Sweet Gratitude contains fresh takes on old favorites like pumpkin pie and tiramisu, as well as ingenious new creations like Pomegranate Fig Tart, Brazil Nut Chocolate Ganache, and Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies with Goji Berry Jam. Ideal for anyone looking for healthier dessert choices as well as a valuable resource for people with special dietary needs including those who cannot consume dairy, gluten, or refined sugar, Sweet Gratitude shows readers how to craft what may be the most elusive item in the culinary canon: the guilt-free dessert!