Cooking in Marfa: Welcome, We've Been Expecting You

Marfa is a small town in the high desert of southwest Texas. It started to gain fame as an arts destination after sculptor Donald Judd moved there in the early 1970s and began creating and sometimes installing his large scale works in and around the town. Other artists and galleries have since moved to Marfa as well.

Like Marfa's art scene, The Capri restaurant is an unexpected surprise in a town of fewer than 2,000 people. It is an ambitious restaurant that explores local foods with a fresh perspective. Away from the high desert, the Capri's food might seem bizarre, but in Marfa it makes sense.

Rabbit liver mousse with mesquite toast; yucca blossom tempura; watermelon gazpacho with tequila, sal de gusano, and aged balsamic; tostadas  al carbon with razor clams and chorizo; smoky pineapple sorbet.

Cooking in Marfa is an unusually articulate restaurant cookbook. It offers more in the way of thoughtfulness and inspiration than sheer number of recipes that can be added to another restaurant's repertoire or whipped up for a dinner party. Authors Lebermann and Barnette have obviously developed a clear philosophy of dining that they are putting into practice.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.