Your first choice is Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Shere.

I worked at this restaurant for 13 years as a baker. I made all of the recipes in the book all the time. That book is a part of my life, and I was heavily influenced by the simplicity of them. They use a lot of fresh fruits and don’t rely on fancy techniques – just good, honest cookery like the books of Jane Grigson. All in all, a very simple approach to honest cooking.

For those who don’t know Chez Panisse, what is it like?

It was one of the first restaurants to lead the movement in America to cook in season, using things that are local and supporting local farms and farmers. When I started there, no one knew what radicchio, blood oranges, goat cheese and baby lettuce were. Our guests were amazed, and now you can find those things in most supermarkets in the States. Chez Panisse was a leader in that movement and is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

Lindsey Shere was the co-owner and executive pastry chef. What was she like to work with?

She was self-taught and great. I learnt so much working with her. She grew up on a farm so she knew a lot about fruit and vegetables, and she loved the ingredients.

I know it must be hard, but do you have a favourite dessert from there?

The lemon tart was very good!

Next up is John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg’s The Essence of Chocolate.

I was good friends with both of the authors when they started their now famous chocolate company. I tasted the first chocolate they made, and I remember thinking that it was a bad idea. Then it went on to be very successful, and everyone in America was eating their chocolate.

Why did you think it was a bad idea?

Because no one had done it before, so I said, “Well who is going to buy this chocolate?” But in retrospect I am glad to be proven wrong, because they taught a lot of people in America what chocolate actually is and how it is made.

They were making special cooking chocolate.

It was initially supposed to be for pastry chefs. But they actually found out that their audience was home cooks, because it is very hard to get pastry chefs to change their chocolate.

What kind of chocolate do you like using?

Right now I use various kinds of chocolate. I might use Cacoa Barry or Valrhona in France, and in America I will use Guittard or one of the bean-to-bar artisan chocolates from various makers. It sort of depends.

The authors of this book played around with chocolate. They used it to make things like tortilla soup and chile-marinated flank steak.

Yes, but the book isn’t just a cook book. It is also about how they built the company, and what goes into starting this bean-to-bar company. In America there were only nine companies that make chocolate – like Hershey’s and Nestlé, which are big business. Then these guys came along and said, “We are going to buy beans and make and blend chocolate like people make wine.” John had started a successful sparkling wine company and Robert was a doctor. Together they had this idea, and their chocolate became very popular in America. The book is great because it has recipes, but it also talks about what chocolate is and how various cultures use it. People think about chocolate in terms of a bar of chocolate when actually it is this very complex thing. The book makes it all very easy to understand and is completely approachable, which is why I like it so much.