Book Review: What's Good?

“Organic” can apply to the growing of relationships as well as vegetables. Peter Hoffman lays it out like he’s happy to be prepping dinner with us; the stories are riveting and the meal will be fabulous. We follow his rise from a callow cook who becomes a wise chef, able to sustain a groundbreaking restaurant in NYC for two decades, writing op-eds in the The New York Times along the way. As for the cooking, there’s a lot more than 14 ingredients that shine in Hoffman’s lens. When he explains the full life cycle of a plant, you come to understand how to unleash the trace miracles of taste in your own ingredients.

Hoffman’s deep knowledge of markets and farms applies easily to our own markets in Dane County and the Driftless region. Indeed, his colorful stories of struggle and restaurant dramas will seem eerily familiar to food-besotted Madison.

Peter Hoffman will be giving a free talk, open to the public, at Taliesin in Spring Green on Friday, October 8th, 2021!