Odessa Piper, a 'Recovering Chef' Who's Working the Markets

A famous chef with no cookbook, no celebrity vehicle? "I'm working on the cookbook," she says.

Piper revels in being able to shop and cook in relative anonymity around Washington. Demands for her time are carefully considered. Most recently, she and New York chef Dan Barber co-chaired the food events for last month's James Beard Foundation awards in Manhattan, where her husband, Terry Theise, picked up the honor as outstanding wine professional of the year. (Piper won for best chef of the Midwest in 2001.)

At the Saturday market, she chats casually with organic grower Jonathan Partin of Welsh Gardens in Warrenton about applications for different lavenders and how his seasonal plantings are progressing. But as her focus intensifies on choosing stems of calendula and bachelor buttons, he acknowledges in a whisper, "She's kind of a culinary genius, isn't she?"

Her thoughtful give-and-take sessions morph naturally from vendor to vendor. With Charlie Koiner, a Silver Spring farmer, she talks up the possibilities of letting a row of his fennel go to flower. Chefs love fennel pollen, she says; once they find out you've got it, they'll find you. You'll earn more than by just selling the bulbs.

"I'm trying so hard to love lovage," she says to another grower who has some of the celery-flavored plants on display. The farmer tells her its stems are hollow and suggests using them as straws for bloody marys.

"I always learn something new," she says. At each stop, she dispenses praise and appreciation.

It's quickly evident that this is classic Odessa: under the radar. "Yes, I like it that way," Piper says. "It's been nice to stay put and get the patterns and rhythms of daily life back. I glory in being able to cook at home, to take some of the things I learned as a chef and apply them."

Piper always has some R&D underway, learning to grow herbs and edible flowers within the confines of her small 18th-floor balcony and then determining how to use them. Back at the apartment after an excursion to the Takoma market on Sunday, she frets over the porch's hot southern exposure.

There are a few yellowed leaves; otherwise, her beloved anise hyssop and the basils, marigolds, geraniums, oregano, thyme, mint, chives and flowering fennel look happy. A few plants are headed for "the nice lady at the end of the market row," to help spread the gospel.

Piper unpacks what she has bought: prized black currants, fresh chevre, arugula and sorrel that will stand in for the butterhead lettuce she had hoped to find, and some of the herbs she already has on hand. "I love herb cookery so much. I just have to buy a lot to encourage what the farmers do and to supplement my little dysfunctional gallery," she says.

As Theise reads the Sunday papers, Piper dons an apron and her signature scarf-tied-as-headband to prep for the recipes she is sharing. It may be ironic that her husband prefers to eat only one meal a day. She's not much of a midday eater but starts her mornings with plain yogurt, fruit and granola.

"She's a much better cook than any man deserves, and we eat like people who ought to get a lot more exercise than I personally do," Theise says.