Jane Coxwell - Fresh Happy Tasty: An Adventure in 100 Recipes

When Jane came to Eos as a chef, we all immediately fell in love with her food! It is exactly the kind of food that I love: simple, fresh, and incredibly tasty. Jane is a magician. It is truly magical how she chooses ingredients and brings out their supreme flavor by introducing the right herbs and spices. Her food is healthy, colorful, tasty, and provocative. It is never too heavy, often surprising, and very easy to understand. Like Jane herself, her food is inviting and not intimidating. It is spectacular, special food for every day. It is about embracing the experience of enjoying your taste buds and giving eating simply a whole new meaning. It is about sharing and loving.

I was so inspired by Jane and her unique approach to food that I suggested she write this book. I love the way she improvises, experiments, and surprises the taste buds. I love the way she presents her creations. I love the lack of pretention and the simplicity. I love the generosity of it all!

Jane is the best cook I ever met; and I am glad that you can all invite her into your kitchen, share her secrets, and enjoy!

Love,

Diane von Furstenberg

Growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, I didnt have dreams of becoming a chef. Some chefs have great stories of standing on chairs in the kitchen while they made Bolognese sauce with their Italian grandmothers, but I dont.

While other future chefs were baking their first banana breads, I was skateboarding with my best friend, Luke, while wearing my favorite Bart Simpson T-shirt. Or collecting friends tennis balls from the storm drains under the street we lived on (earning me the name Jane-the-drain with neighbors). Honestly, I found mealtimes to be a bit of a chore, and Id try to hide my unfinished food under my knife and fork before saying the mandatory May I please be excused from the table as I put my crisp, white, unused napkin back into its ring, so that I could be outdoors again, riding my bike.

Looking back, though, I realize that I did grow up around a table. My parents always have been hugely sociable, and still arewe always had people over for dinner. When I was very little, one of my favorite things was to crawl under the dining room table and fall asleep listening to the many people above talking, laughing, and sharing food.

Its still actually one of my favorite things to do, and people who know me really well know that after a meal I might disappear to a couch close by and fall asleep (although I havent admitted up until now that Im actually sleeping) while theyre still sitting around the table, laughing and being merry.

Looking back, these experiences had a major effect on the type of career I fell into and, more important, the type of food I make today. While my love of food itself is very pure, I do feel that somehow I was groomed to see it as a way of connecting. Food is so important in our everyday livesit keeps us together.

The food I like to make facilitates this togetherness. Whether its for a special occasion or day-to-day living, its the string that ties experiences together. We need to eat to survive, of course, but the gift weve been givento make food delicious, fun, nourishing, and celebratoryis amazing. And we should make the most of it!

I moved to London straight after I finished high school, itching to see the world and have new experiences. I lived there for a couple of very happy years, traveling when I could and working very hard at strange jobs (such as selling alarm systems door-to-door through two English winters, meeting some pretty incredibleand incredibly oddpeople in their homes along the way).

I felt as if I needed to choose a career, though, so I moved back to South Africa to ponder my options. A friend was just about to attend culinary school to study under one of South Africas very best chefs, David Higgs, and one night I was hanging out and looking through his files when he told me that one of the other students had just dropped out. A feeling hit meI have to do thiseven though Id never even scrambled an egg. Classes were starting in five days, so I pulled myself together, went to see the chef really early the next morning, and persuaded him to take me. I told him Id work harder than any of the other students to get to the top of the class. I was honestly really lucky to get in.

That feeling was right: From that first day at school, I fell head over heels in love with food and cooking. It was all new to me, and I was fully conscious as I dove into the experience. Every ingredient I was introduced to (which, lets be honest, was everything) was a total marvel. I remember opening my first peapod and being completely in awe of the packaging. Even consciously seasoning a dish for the first time was a total eye-opener in that I suddenly understood what seasoning was and how important it is. It was amazing to learn about the versatility of the simple egg, and the little powers it holds, from lifting an airy cake to purifying a soup.

I decided to pursue a role that would expand my new romance with food. I wanted to do it allgo to food markets, plan the menus, cook the food and plate it, and know my guests and make it personal to them. So thats what I did. A short time after I finished culinary school, I made my way to the South of France. Arriving with 200 euros and a book called How to Work on Yachts and Superyachts, I knew no one but found a hostel to stay in that had fake plastic grass, campers, and lots of young people drinking cheap wine from two-liter bottles.

Fast-forward ten years, and here I am. Ive spent most of that time traveling around the world cooking for people on their private yachts, spending extensive time all over the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Caribbean. I took about two years off from traveling at one point and was offered a job as head chef of a wonderful winery, Hall Wines in St. Helena in the Napa Valley. The Halls allowed me to grow and refine myself as a chef in what is basically chef heaven. I loved my time there, and learned so much from being around some of the worlds best chefs. (Like one of my dear friends, Kelly, who taught me to make the most of the vineyards and took me foraging for miners lettuce, bright yellow mustard flowers, and other little edible flowers and bitter greens. This is the finesse of Napa Valley chefs.)

But I wasnt quite finished with the traveling yet, and I was able to land myself a job on the worlds most beautiful yacht, Eos, working for Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller, an incredible couple with a wonderful sense of adventure. I joined them four years ago, and weve circumnavigated the world. This position has allowed me and my fellow crewmates to discover and experience places wed never have dreamed of otherwise; often they can be reached only by boat. Some of the places are so remote that weve been told by local chiefs that that time would be remembered as the year of