The Cook and the Gardener

A 25th anniversary edition of seasonal recipes from a traditional French garden.

“When I wrote [The Cook and the Gardener], I was a green 22-year-old who lived at the Château du Feÿ in France and cooked for its owner, the cookbook writer and École de Cuisine La Varenne founder Anne Willan. I had written a few newspaper and magazine articles, but this book was my first work of any length. It allowed me to call myself a writer. . . .

My life now is the converse of the way I lived in France—from soil to concrete, birdsong to sirens, a two-acre walled garden to herb planters on an apartment terrace. Yet the lesson I learned from Monsieur Milbert, the château’s 79-year-old gardener, and from cooking from the garden he tended, endures: I will shop locally and cook seasonally for the rest of my life. . . .

The Cook and the Gardener benefitted from, even as it was part of, a movement that has shifted the way Americans think about the food they eat. . . . The other reason this book has lasted, I believe, is that its recipes weren’t trendy: not a blackened tuna or avocado toast in the bunch. The Herb Salad—a fragrant tumble of soft and peppery lettuces with tarragon, mint, and parsley—is a recipe you might find on the menu of a popular New York restaurant now. Horseradish Mashed Potatoes isn’t going anywhere, nor is the Double-Crusted Peach Pie. I’d happily make any of the book’s recipes for dinner this week.”

—from Amanda Hesser’s new preface to The Cook and the Gardener

The ancient link between the gardener and the cook is at the heart of this remarkably evocative cookbook, in which Amanda Hesser tells the story of a year she spent as a cook in a seventeenth-century château in Burgundy. The property’s old gardener was wary of her at first, but over time they became friends, and he showed her a way of life that was quickly disappearing from France. With more than 240 recipes, organized by season, Hesser’s book puts the garden’s harvest at the center of cooking. In spring and summer, it’s carrots with tarragon and braised lamb with peas. Summer chapters feature zucchini-lemon soup and raspberries eau-de-vie, as well as extensive advice on canning fresh summer produce so it can be enjoyed during the colder months. Fall and winter inspire cozier dishes, including a warm escarole salad and Brussels sprouts with brown butter. Hesser’s innovative and delicious farm-to-table approach transforms everyday ingredients into extraordinary meals. These recipes are simple yet sublime, with accessible ingredients and vivid, helpful instructions. By bringing the kitchen closer to the garden, The Cook and the Gardener gives home cooks a new understanding of how to make meals from seasonal produce, whether it comes from the supermarket, the farmers market, or their own gardens.