Nancy Silverton accepted the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in June. (photo by Galdo Photo, James Beard Awards)

Nancy Silverton has spent her career changing the way Americans eat. Long before artisan bakeries became fixtures across the country, before naturally fermented sourdough became commonplace and before Los Angeles was celebrated as one of the world’s premier dining destinations, Silverton was quietly reshaping the city’s culinary landscape one loaf of bread at a time.

While vacationing in Umbria, however, instead of reflecting wistfully on decades of achievements and accolades, Silverton remains focused on the present. Tonight, in fact. Her first order of business – what’s for dinner?

Speaking from her home in central Italy, Silverton has just finished preparing a meal for friends beneath a screened-in pergola. The meal is simple – a deconstructed Niçoise salad of potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, anchovies, capers, eggs and traditional tinned tuna, dressed with olive oil and accompanied by fresh bread that, she noted, required a bit of driving to find.

Even on vacation, Nancy Silverton is still cooking.

“It’s when I come here in the summer in Italy that I get to cook so much, so it’s really a treat for me,” she said. “It’s here that I do have the time, that I’m not rushed, and that the ingredients really are so exciting to me. It’s a part of being able to discover new things that I haven’t seen before.”

A few months ago, the James Beard Foundation honored Silverton with its Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing what it called “a positive and long-lasting impact on the way we eat, cook and/or think about food in America.”

The foundation cited her creation of La Brea Bakery in 1989, crediting the bakery with helping spark the modern artisan bread movement through its emphasis on natural fermentation and European-style bread. It also recognized her restaurants – including Osteria Mozza, Chi Spacca and the recently opened Max and Helen’s – as well as the generations of chefs, bakers and restaurateurs she has mentored along the way.

“It’s sometimes hard to think about the idea that maybe you have changed people’s lives, or that you have been an important part of their life,” Silverton said. “When I hear their stories, I’m always like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty remarkable.’ It’s incredibly flattering.”

Today, naturally fermented bread is commonplace. Neighborhood bakeries proudly advertise long fermentation times and naturally leavened doughs. Restaurants emphasize seasonal ingredients and simple preparations rooted in regional traditions. Many of those ideas have become so familiar that it’s easy to forget how revolutionary they once were. Silverton was among the chefs who helped make them part of everyday American dining.

Just as significant has been her role in shaping Los Angeles’ culinary identity.

For decades, Silverton watched as New York, San Francisco and Chicago dominated conversations about America’s great restaurant cities, while Los Angeles was often dismissed despite its extraordinary diversity of cultures and cuisines. Silverton never believed the city lacked a food identity. Instead, she believes the rest of the country simply took a long time to recognize it.

“Los Angeles has always been a place that had an outstanding and very unique food scene, but it was one that was just not understood for a very long time,” she said. “For many years, people were looking for inspiration in food at a level that would challenge them, rather than looking for the soul of a city. Los Angeles always had that soul, and I think it’s wonderful that it’s being recognized as such a powerful one.”

Silverton’s own philosophy on food has never been particularly complicated – good ingredients, simple cooking, time around the table.

Those ideas took shape during a month she spent in Tuscany in 1986 with her then-husband, chef Mark Peel, and their young children.

“I had never really spent time ever cooking as a family, and eating together, and shopping simply by the side of the road, and making simple meals,” she recalled. “It’s the stories behind the dishes and the soul of the dishes is what really captivated me, but also more so than anything else, observing and trying to implement in my life the amount of quality time spent at the table.”

Four decades later, those afternoons in Tuscany continue to shape the way she cooks.

Every year she returns to Italy, where the day often begins at neighborhood markets in search of ingredients she can’t find at home. She experiments with unfamiliar vegetables, cheeses and preserved foods before bringing new ideas back to Los Angeles.

Not everything, however, meets her famously exacting standards.

“The bread in Umbria and Tuscany is the one food item that I never have understood,” she said, referring to the region’s traditional saltless loaves. “That kind of saltless, flavorless white bread seems to be a beloved product here, but not to an outside taste like me.”

Fortunately, she has discovered a new local baker whose bread is worth the drive. Even in one of the world’s great culinary regions, she is still searching for the perfect loaf.

After more than 40 years in professional kitchens, Michelin stars, James Beard Awards and now the industry’s highest lifetime honor, Silverton still speaks about cooking with the enthusiasm of someone discovering it for the first time. She simply loves to cook.

“What do I do when I vacation?” she said, laughing. “I cook.”