The gossip in gastronomic circles last week centered on a half-baked hatchet job on Alice Waters that ran in the New York Times Style magazine recently.

The premise of San Francisco chef Dan Patterson’s piece – that Water’s influence has created some kind of Tyranny of the Simple and Seasonal that’s stifling culinary creativity among Bay Area chefs – generated plenty of buzz along with a rebuttal or two, of sorts, from the blogosphere.