"I like a well-tailored plate of food, and I want things to look and taste like what they are. I detest cooking that masks one flavor with another, and I dislike fussy presentations that don't respect the identity of the ingredients. A tomato is a tomato not a rose. Noodles are noodles, not birds' nests or baskets."
Yup. The correct answer was b. James Beard.
I only have one of his cookbooks, The New James Beard but I turn to it often. Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet includes two articles about James Beard, one about his early years and the other about his later years. Both are worth reading, filled with colorful quotes that give you a wonderful sense of what Beard was like as a person, as a teacher and as a chef.
Congratulations to contest winners Marcy, Rob and Craig!
