Les Diners de Gala.

DALI, Salvador.

Item Number: 143318

New York: Felicie, Inc. Publishers, 1973.

First edition of this extravagant, lavishly illustrated cookbook created by Dalí in honor of his wife, Gala. Quarto, original color-printed pictorial cloth, pictorial endpapers, illustrated throughout. Translated by Captain J. Peter Moore. Association copy, inscribed by Salvador Dali with a double-page inscription and drawing on the copyright page and opposite page, “For Jean Vergnes 1976 Le oen de la Cuisine Dali.” Dali has added an original portrait of Vergnes and a dripping spoon. With an additional presentation card inscribed by famed American restaurant critic Gael Greene laid in on Greene’s custom stationary, “To Jean Vergnes with love from his great admirer Gael Greene 1-27-76.” The recipient, Jean Vergnes, was a classically trained and highly acclaimed French chef, best-known as the co-founder of the famed Manhattan eatery Le Cirque, which opened in 1974. Vergnes had a major influence on American restaurant culture for more than four decades. He began his career working as a chef at various top restaurants in Paris during World War II, with a brief stop in Bermuda before moving to the United States in 1950. Classically trained in the French tradition, he was soon working in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria, then as the youngest executive chef of the legendary Colony Restaurant, and finally as co-founder of Le Cirque, one of the most dazzling culinary jewels of New York since its opening in 1974. From 1986 to 1992, Daniel Boulud was executive chef of Le Cirque and in 1995, it was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant. From the library of Jean Vergnes and thence by descent. Near fine in the original decorative stiff paper dust jacket which is in near fine condition.

“When six years old I wanted to be a cook.” At age 68, Dalí fulfilled that ambition in this book. His careful selection of menus and recipes, “with its precepts and its illustrations, is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of Taste. Don’t look for dietetic formulas here. We intend to ignore those charts and tables in which chemistry takes the place of gastronomy. If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive and far too impertinent for you.” With color plates and in-text photographs and illustrations on nearly every one of the 322 pages. The colophon reads, “The divine Salvador Domenech Philippe Hyacinthe Dalí conceived and materialized this work dedicated to Gala. All the recipes in this cook book, never before published, have been elaborated with great precision by a ‘chef’ wishing to remain in the most secret anonymity.” Gala was Dalí’s wife and muse.