Luminaries of Food Toast Chez Panisse

On Sunday, Alice Waters and friends threw a 30th birthday party for Chez Panisse outdoors on the esplanade beneath the campanile on the UC Berkeley campus. Some 600 guests arrived for aperitifs at 1 o’clock, to toast and celebrate the muse of California cuisine with glasses of sparkling prosecco. The hors d’oeuvres were straight from the farm: figs, olives, almonds, tiny tomatoes on the stem. Waiters passed baskets of panisse --golden squares of the famous chickpea flatbread of Nice.

The Bancroft Library across the way hosted a show of memorabilia, including David Lance Goines’ posters and a slew of lovely letterpress menus for dinners honoring food writers M.F.K. Fisher, Richard Olney, and Elizabeth Davis.I heard the original pastry chef, Lindsey Shere try to remember whether the first prix fixe menus were $3.95 or $4.95.

Dario Cecchini, the handsome butcher from Panzano in Chianti, held forth on passion and Italian food and offered tastings of his soppressata , while a bevy of chefs tended lambs roasting on spits over a wood fire. My former neighbor, l’accordeoniste Odile Lavaux and her group played vintage tangos and old French songs from the 1920s and ‘30s.

At 3, we were called to tables set out under the dappled shade of trees. From a fanciful painted stage, theater director Peter Sellars officially introduced the event. San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas composed a song for the occasion--to be accompanied by the clanking of knives and forks. Gourmet editor (and former L.A. Times food editor) Ruth Reichl presented les grandes dames d’honneur --Cecilia Chiang, Julia Child, Marion Cunningham, Edna Lewis and Lulu Peyraud. We feasted on vegetable salads and drank of Lulu Peyraud’s Domaine Tempier rose. Provencal fish soup “cooked in the fireplace” was served from a giant copper cauldron. Platters of that succulent spit-roasted lamb and spirals of spicy lamb and mint sausages were passed family-style with tiny ochre chanterelle mushrooms.

The extraordinary Bordeaux fromager , Jean d’Alos, had sent some cheeses. Campanile’s Nancy Silverton had something to do with the desserts.

The vast outdoor kitchen was organized by longtime Chez Panisse chef Jean-Pierre Moulle with the help of just about everybody who has ever worked at the restaurant through the years which reads as an astonishing roster of food luminaries. Bad boy Jeremiah Tower (Stars) was notably absent.

For most of us, it was like old home week as we rediscovered old friends and flames, and marveled, once again, over what Waters has accomplished with the help of her extended family of friends. Chez Panisse has never been just a restaurant in the traditional sense. It has spurred and inspired small family farms, food artisans, the organic movement, chefs and cooks and gardeners, as well as the many programs, such as the Edible Schoolyard, funded by the Chez Panisse Foundation.

At dusk, the stage became a movie theater as we watched clips from Marcel Pagnol’s 1930s films about Provence and the beloved faces Fanny and Marius and especially Panisse, the character who gave Chez Panisse its name.

Finally, reluctantly, we left the best party ever, following a trail of luminarias to the edge of the campus, off into the night, and home.