Fisher, M F K. Deux Cuisines en Provence/Two Kitchens in Provence. [Limited #154/225] The Yolla Bolly Press: Covelo, 1999. Folio (//) blind-stamped gold cloth bds, in slipcase. (afterword by Alice Waters) [SIGNED by Alice Waters & Ward Schumaker] Fine
FISHER, M F K. [Mary Frances Kennedy (1908 - 1992)]
Deux Cuisines en Provence/Two Kitchens in Provence.
Covelo, California : The Yolla Bolly Press, Winter 1999. First Edition thus. Limited edition #154/225. Drawings by Ward Schumaker. Afterword by Alice Waters.
Folio (325x225mm) blind-stamped gold cloth boards, french patterned paper endpapers and slipcase, [64p]pp. The striking three colour illustrations were printed from photopolymer plates of the originals. The text was composed in Garamond, and printed letterpress on mouldmade Somerset paper produced at the St Cutherberts Mill, UK.. Signed in pencil by Alice Waters & Ward Schumaker to the colophon.
¶ The text was first published as a chapter bearing the same name in Fisher's 1982 As They Were. It also bears a passing affinity with Fisher's memoirs of her time in Provence A Considerable Town (1978) and Map of Another Town (1964). The text first appeared in print as an article in The New Yorker in 1966. In Deux Cuisines en Provence Fisher evocatively recounts her kitchen adventures, gastronomic memories and forays into the food markets of Aix-en-Provence (where she lived for some time).
Alice Waters's afterword is a warm and personal tribute to Fisher acknowledging her significant influence on Water's eponymous restaurant Chez Panisse. Recounting a number of her meetings with Fisher, including the several dinners held at Chez Panisse in Fisher's honour, Waters pays tribute to Fisher's contributions to gastonomical literature.
Ward Schumaker (1943 - ) is a San Francisco based illustrator and artist. The Yolla Bolly Press was established in 1974 by book artists Carol and James Robertson. Based in Covelo, a small town in Northern California, the Press, now closed, produced a small number of highly regarded, fine press, limited editions of works touching often on nature, literature and California using traditional letterpress techniques. Deux en Cuisines was the 25th book published by the Press.
Scarce. A truly fine copy of an evocative and redolent work.
§ Although institutionally well held in the USA, OCLC records only one other holding worldwide, Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand.
§ Zealand and Tarpey-Schwed. M F K Fisher: an annotated bibliography. (4th ed) 2013, p.51.
