"Jeremiah Tower's larger-than-life personal presence belies his poetic talent. In 2001, Wine Spectator, describing Tower's stint as the co-owner and first chef of Berkeley's nascent Chez Panisse, called him "the father of American Cuisine," as he was largely responsible for the restaurant's early rise to fame, for its famous menu nights, and for initiating the now-common practice of replacing fancy culinary and menu nomenclature with plain English. Tower won a James Beard Award for his 1986 cookbook, New American Classics, and then in 1996 was named James Beard Outstanding Chef of the Year. In 2000, he moved to New York City and wrote several books, including California Dish, his page-turner of a memoir, and Jeremiah Tower Cooks. Dish was then excerpted in Vanity Fair with a double-page spread of Jeremiah sitting by his pool in Mexico where he now lives – writing and pursuing his passions for both scuba diving and architecture." Gail Monaghan in her beautiful and superb cookbook, The Entrees, 2010, Rizzoli, New York.

On the back cover of Jeremiah Tower Cooks (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, 2002) James Villas wrote that Tower is "the legitimate

godfather of modern American cookery … one of the most informed and gifted food writers of our times."