Catherine Brandel, 56, Muse And Chef of California Cuisine Catherine Brandel, one of the quiet forces behind the culinary tide called California cuisine, died on Tuesday night at her home in Berkeley, Calif. She was 56. She had waged a long battle with a rare muscle cancer, said her brother, Michael Terry of Richland, Wash., who is her only survivor. She was an illustrator, chef, forager and mentor to other chefs as well as a prize-winning hula dancer and exuberant acolyte of Hawaiian culture. She was a leading expert in wild edible plants and an indefatigable supporter of small family farms. She opened and championed farmers’ markets throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, lobbied on behalf of organic growers and helped create a conduit running from several thousand small-scale farmers to top restaurants nationwide. One of two children of a Navy officer, Ms. Brandel was born in Philadelphia and grew up ‘’all over the place,’’ her brother said, ‘’but the place that really got under her skin was Hawaii.’’ She grew up artistic and after a brief marriage studied art and anthropology at Barnard College and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. Although she earned a teaching degree, she worked as a scientific illustrator before making a life in food in Berkeley. Neither her brother nor her longtime friend Nilofer King knew how Ms. Brandel became obsessed with cooking. ‘’I think she just loved to eat and to cook,’’ Ms. King said. ‘’And back in the late 1960’s, all that joy and celebration was just in the air.‘’ Unlike the flamboyant star chefs, Ms. Brandel staked out a quiet role for herself. Initially, she gathered wild fruits, nuts and greens for Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s now-famous restaurant in Berkeley, and with Julia Child she organized the Great Chefs of France cooking program at the Robert Mondavi Vineyards. She had ‘’this rare attitude toward food, serious and happy at the same time,’’ Mrs. Child said yesterday. On a segment of ‘’20/20,’’ Ms. Brandel, a mischievous but soft-spoken storyteller, regaled the audience with tales of her curious shopping adventures to supply the Great Chefs of France. Her expert foraging in the Berkeley and Napa Valley hills seemed tame compared with her quest for the rooster testicles required for one of Pierre Troisgros’s dishes. ‘’Catherine was an original,’’ Ms. Waters said. ‘’She could find anything, cook anything, teach anything, and I’m not sure the restaurant could ever have happened without her.‘’ In 1988, Ms. Brandel was named co-chef of Chez Panisse and used her position to create some of the dishes it has become famous for, like tangles of wild greens served on brick-oven-fired olive oil focaccia or local cheeses turned into ravioli with wild onions, beets and hazelnuts. She also increased public awareness of the plight of American farmers. Above all, Ms. Brandel was a teacher. Throughout her career, she was a mentor to young chefs. In 1994, she left Chez Panisse to help create the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, Calif., the California outpost of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Her course, ’’Ingredients, Flavor Dynamics and Techniques of Evaluation,‘’ was one of the most popular courses, said Gregory Drescher, Greystone’s director. ‘’Rather than simply teaching cooking techniques,’’ he said, ‘’Ms. Brandel taught taste.’’
