Vegetable rainbow
Kelsie Kerr’s tian layers colorful seasonal picks atop a bed of onions
Kelsie Kerr has had a career in vegetables. She’s cooked at some of the Bay Area’s temples to California cuisine, including Chez Panisse, Cafe Rouge and Zuni Cafe, where she first learned to shop at the farmers’ market. But itwas the vocational agriculture high school she attended outside Denver that pointed her to her profession. Every morning, shewould take a bus to visit a farm, more often than not for an eye-opening lesson in animal husbandry, then return to the classroom for academic classes.
“I got interested in food through agriculture,” says Kerr, now chef-owner of Standard Fare, a takeout shop in West Berkeley that sells meals to-go in earthenware dishes that can be reheated at home.
One dish she offers frequently is a tian, the Provencal word for a gratin, both the preparation and the actual vessel. Atian is normally dairy-free, Kerr says, unlike the often creamladen gratin. Shemakes hers with a base of sauteed onions and herbs topped with thinly sliced vegetables propped up in vertical rows. It gets baked until the vegetables are translucent.
This time of year, latesummer heirloom varieties of squash, tomatoes and eggplants in all their range of colors create a gorgeous dish. But the recipe is adaptable— inwinter Kerr makes a tian with Tokyo turnips and seasons the onion base with sage rather than the basil.
“The onion is the juicy base of the tian. It adds a luxuriousness, nomatter what’s on top,” she says.
In the skylight-lit kitchen of her Oakland bungalow, she adds thinly sliced Lipstick peppers, a stubby pimiento with a color that’s true to its name, to the onion base. But the peppers are optional in the onion mixture, as are the other ingredients, as long as you fill up the dish; you canmake your tian with just green and yellow squash, for example.
Atian “is a launchpad,” she says. “If you don’t have any peppers, don’tworry about it.”
Kerr’s approachable style is partly a result of the many cooking classes she’s taught and her role as co-author of Alice Waters’ two-volumecook book, “The Art of Simple Food.” Kerr encourages home cooks to look past common zucchini to find a better-tasting heirloom squash, and taste different types of basil at the market until you find the one you like best.
“Sure it’s just basil, but youcan try them and use the different flavors and have fun with it,” she says. “We’re so lucky here in California that there are so many kinds of vegetables. It’s nice to take advantage.”