lellen, Tue, September 1st, 2009
While Julia Child’s image is gracing the big screen and Rachael Ray is winning Emmys – an American culinary great has slipped away quietly in Manhattan.
Sheila Gail Block Lukins, the co-creator of the Silver Palate, died in her home on Aug. 30 of brain cancer. She was only 66.
Not to take away from Alice Waters, who is credited with starting the quality, eat local American food movement from her Berkeley based Chez Panisse Restaurant in the 1970s, instead, Lukins, certainly could be Water’s East Coast bookend.
In the 1970s Lukins started a catering business from her apartment in the Dakota on Central Park West in Manhattan. From there she hooked up with Julee Rosso, a marketing executive, and together they opened the Silver Palate, a food TakeAway shop and catering kitchen on Columbus Avenue and 73rd Street. They also authored two Silver Palate cookbooks, which Lukins illustrated, and the new food bible New Basics Cookbook. They also created a line of gourmet products that are still manufactured using some of Lukins’ original recipes.
Anyone who used Lukin’s cookbooks can swear by the tried and true recipes – each and every one. These were also packed with great information and tips and were visually quite appealing. The cookbooks were so iconic that often a visit to the shop was a bit of a disappointment, as it was so tiny and a bit under-whelming compared to the vivid taste and structure of the recipes.
While Julia brought us classic French and Waters taught us how to cook from our gardens and to procure fresh ingredients, Lukins taught us that the world was truly our oyster. She took many of the earth’s cuisines and translated these so we could produce a variety of simple and foreign flavors from within our American kitchens.
And, whereas James Beard’s palate was so good he knew how to bring us the best recipes from other people – as in his masterpiece, American Cookery. Lukins truly did have a silver palate, as she was able to produce a recipe for any dish including so many essential American classics such as Oatmeal cookies or a twist on gingerbread with the addition of a simple lemon syrup poured over it while still hot from the over. And then she could also deliver more exotic dishes such as Chicken Marabella (with olives, prunes and capers) and curried butternut squash soup.
“(From) The Silver Palate Cookbook, big, sophisticated flavors were produced from accessible ingredients and modest cooking skills, not from French techniques or canned cream soups,” wrote Julia Moskins in Lukin’s obit in the New York Times.
There’s more to the story. But if you don’t believe me – take the first Silver Palate cookbook out of the library. Try any recipe, and I’m sure you’ll be convinced it is a must have in a well thought out and useful cookbook collection.
Lukin’s bookshelf
* The Silver Palate Cookbook with Julee Rosso
* The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook with Julee Rosso and Sarah Lee Chase
* The New Basics Cookbook
* Ten: All The Foods We Love and ten perfect recipes
* All Around the World Cookbook
* U.S.A. Cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Carolyn Vibbert
Note: There is also a 25th anniversary edition of the original Silver Palate in print today. The publisher added color photos, which do work with the books original black and white illustrations.
