Dibs

The authors met while working in the kitchen of a trendy San Francisco restaurant. Now they’ve got two trendy Cal-Mex restaurants of their own in the Bay Area, one of which is in Berkeley and bears the same name as this book, which is a Mexified play on the authors’ names, sort of, and the weirdest thing of all is that Savitsky and Schnetz, who are only platonic friends, are both married to individuals whose surname is Moniz, though these Monizes are unrelated and were strangers to one another before meeting through Savitsky and Schnetz. This bizarre coincidence alone is worth half the price of the book. The authors concede, though not in so many words, that Doña is a feminine honorific and Tomás is Spanish for Thomas, lending the name of both book and restaurant a tranny flair. And Berkeley being Berkeley, the book’s foreword just has to include a gratuitous dig at the fine economic system that, umm, keeps trendy restaurants in business. “Capitalism, for example,” we are told in that finger-wagging Berkeley way, “took the simple, the good carrot, refined and bleached it of taste and nutrition, dyed it orange, boiled it in sucrose, and canned it.” Damn you, disposable income, damn you! Once the book gets down to recipes it will make you drool, from eggy-chippy chilaquiles to a tortilla soup based on a version the authors discovered in a Oaxaca restaurant. To perfect the formula, Schnetz ate three bowls at the Oaxaca place every day for a week. These recipes aren’t easy, so if your idea of Mexican food is a can of refried beans, microwaved tortillas and a mashed avocado — as ours certainly is — then wake up and smell the Kahlúa.

Grade: B