North Bay Woman

34 NORTH BAY WOMAN | S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 mom's chocolate chip cookies and was ashamed of them. I would hide them in my little wax paper bag. I would have killed for Chips Ahoy," she laughs. The russet-haired dynamo, who crackles with energy the way that her curly 1930s inspired 'do seems to dance around her head, talked with us for an hour in the sun-flooded spacious home in San Francisco she shares with her lawyer husband Joe. The walls are painted tasty edible colors: custard yellow, sage green, mushroom. Her large yet cozy living/dining/kitchen area is lined with dozens of pieces of Italian Majolica pottery and other international art that Weir collects on her many trips abroad where she goes both to learn and to teach. The kitchen, which also features a waist- height brick fireplace designed to cook in, doubles as her teaching/cooking studio. A resident of California since 1980, Weir started training to be a chef at the Madeleine Kamman School in Annecy, France. After a year there, she returned to California where she worked in the kitchen at Chez Panisse for five years. "It really influenced me. I love the simplicity of food but I also love flavor," Weir says. "That's why I love food from the Mediterranean so much — harissa, olives, tahini, preserved lemons, all the pimenton, the peppers — I love all those flavors that make food so exciting." She brought her passion for Mediterranean cuisine to her first cookbook, "From Tapas to Meze" (Crown), published in 1994. It was nominated for a James Beard Award and was chosen by Julia Child as one of her 12 personal favorites out of 1,000 cookbooks published that year. Numerous books followed, including the James Beard nominated "You Say Tomato" (Broadway Books, 1998). Weir's talents came to the attention of PBS in the 1990s, which offered her a cooking series, "Weir Cooking in the Wine Country," shot on location in Napa Valley. At the time, it was a pioneering show; the Food Network was also in its infancy. The series was a hit. Syndicated nationally, it spawned more cookbooks and firmly fixed Weir in the pantheon of top television chefs. Now going on 17 years as a TV personality, Weir, who is also her own executive producer, feels her shows work essentially, because "I'm a teacher. On camera, I teach people how to cook and there are a lot of people who want to learn how to cook. They like to cook and think I'm approachable. They like the style of food. I get letters from so many Europeans who tell me they love my show, which to me is a real compliment. I find that really interesting." Love of teaching combined with Mediterranean travel led Weir to craft a series of cooking classes, held in various countries around the Mediterranean basin. Offered four times a year, the week-long classes — based in luxurious private villas and which combine local travel, food and wine tasting with hands-on cooking — quickly sell out. Five years ago, shortly after publishing a cookbook about tequila, which had also become a passion of hers, Weir took a new, and at the time, somewhat scary step. She became business partners with Sausalito restaurateur Larry Mindel to open Copita in downtown Sausalito, in the space that was formerly Piccolo Teatro. The upscale Mexican restaurant brought a more sophisticated style of Mexican cuisine to Marin County. It will celebrate five years in business, on Cinco de Mayo. "My idea in opening a restaurant was never to be in my chef's jacket," Weir says. "I thought I was going to walk around in my cute clothes and talk to people. I ended up working in the kitchen a lot to get everything up and running the way we wanted it. Now I'm back in the cute clothes. I go in and I taste, I go to dinner there, I go to all the meetings. I help organize a lot of the special events." It was Weir's love of tequila, her book about it, and wowing him with the way she made a margarita on a sailing trip, that inspired Mindel to invite Weir to partner with him in Copita. "We were friends for three years before we decided to do the restaurant," Mindel says. "I negotiated that space for a year. I wondered what kind of restaurant I could build there that would not be competitive with Poggio, and still enhance the Sausalito dining scene. First thing that came to my mind was Mexican. The second thing was Joanne Weir." Close friends with both Weir and her husband (the couple often join the Mindels on their sailboat for week-long vacations), Mindel says of Weir, "She is refined and thoughtful, and very talented when it comes to food. Behind her attractive shell she's very smart, focused and thoughtful. She has a perfect palate. Above: Cover of book "Kitchen Gypsy: Recipes and Stories from a Lifelong Romance with Food."; Weir and Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and The Edible Schoolyard Project. This photo was taken during the filming of "Joanne Weir Gets Fresh", although Weir worked at Chez Panisse for five years back in her early days. – Photos from the book: "Kitchen Gypsy: Recipes and Stories from a Lifelong Romance with Food" (Oxmoor House/Sunset, 2015), photographer Thomas J. Story

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