Cookbook: Six California Kitchens

Winner of a 2023 IACP Cookbook Award and the Golden Poppy Book Award in the Glenn Goldman Cooking category

Six California Kitchens is the quintessential California cookbook, with farm-to-table recipes and stories from Sally Schmitt, the pioneering female chef and original founder of the French Laundry.

“Schmitt, the founder of California’s famed French Laundry restaurant, reflects on the food that defined her life, in this sumptuous collection of recipes and tales from the kitchens that inspired them. […] Fans of Alice Waters won’t want to miss this delectable page-turner.”—Publishers Weekly

Sally Schmitt opened The French Laundry in Yountville in 1978 and designed her menus around local, seasonal ingredients—a novel concept at the time.

Sally Schmitt is the original founder of the French Laundry and one of California’s most influential food pioneers. She was born and raised in Northern California and started cooking professionally in 1967. After 11 years spent in Yountville running a café and a restaurant, she opened the French Laundry with her husband, Don. She designed her menus around local, seasonal ingredients—a novel concept at the time. This style of “locavore” cooking caught the attention of critics and inspired other local chefs, helping propagate the farm-to-table movement. After selling the restaurant in 1994, Sally taught cooking classes in a renovated farmhouse on an apple farm in Mendocino. Nowadays, she lives on the Mendocino coast.