Silverton uses her hands to build plates of food that are as
notable for their visual beauty as they are for their deceptive
simplicity.
On one white plate, for example, she sets down three perfectly
thin slices of Meyer lemon. When I say “perfectly thin” I mean
these are technical wonders, Platonic circles that would stun the
likes of Leonardo da Vinci. On top, she piles a salad of sliced
celery (“I slice it on the extreme bias”), scallions, tarragon, chervil,
“pale green” celery leaves, chives, and tiny basil leaves dressed in a
lemon vinaigrette.
To that she adds three chunks of fresh mozzarella, and on top
of each chunk, she lays a single anchovy. “Alici di menaica,” she
says. “You can get them from Buon Italia in New York. They’re
much fresher than normal anchovies, and they’re the only
sustainably caught ones you can buy” (see Resources).
Silverton, who clearly surrounds herself with the best
ingredients, wasn’t always so particular about her food. “As a
little girl,” she says, “I had three favorite meals: frozen Salisbury
steaks with butter, Swanson TV dinners, and creamed tuna on
toast.”
Everything changed when she got to college. “It was a fluke
how I got into food,” she recalls. “I went to Sonoma State and
when I moved into the dorms, I noticed a handsome guy in the
kitchen. So I told him that I loved to cook [a lie] and he hired me.”
It may have been a fluke at the time, but Silverton’s career—a
storied one that is still growing—proves that her mother was right: