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Patricia Wells is, in many respects, the natural heir apparent to Julia Child.

Although less well known than her late friend and mentor, Ms. Wells is also an American in France, where she has made a life and a living introducing English-speakers to the art and technique of French cuisine for more than 25 years.

The 60-year-old expatriate, originally from Milwaukee, is a master chef whose legendary cooking seminars in Paris and Provence routinely sell out years in advance.

As the current food critic for the International Herald Tribune and former food editor and writer at The New York Times, she is a celebrated journalist. And her bestselling books - Simply French, The Paris Cookbook and Food Lover's Guide to Paris among them - are considered essential to any serious collection on either side of the Atlantic.

So why, pray tell, is this renowned interpreter of lusty French classics now singing the praises of simple vegetables?

"Oh, isn't it delicious," she sighs, after biting into the creamy heart of a fresh baby artichoke that holds centre court on a plate of warm goat cheese cannelloni.

The recipe, adapted from a dish Ms. Wells first sampled at the Hotel Lancaster in Paris, is drawn from her 10th book, Vegetable Harvest. At a luncheon in Vancouver last month, it was lovingly recreated by David Hawksworth, executive chef of West restaurant.

The dish contains no meat, butter or heavy lashings of cream. The fresh goat-cheese filling, locally sourced from David Wood's Salt Spring Island Cheese Company, is invigorated with the grated zest of two organic lemons. The crowning artichoke slices, lightly tossed in lemon juice and coarse sea salt, are garnished with a generous sprinkling of minced parsley, dill and chive.

Like Ms. Childs before her, Ms. Wells wants to change forever the way we think about food and cooking. The bright flavours on this plate are a perfect illustration of the main message in her new book: Rather than creating a meal around fish, poultry or meat, think vegetables first.

Even more significantly, they represent a seismic shift in the French culinary mindset. In Paris, the land that fads forgot, the best chefs are now treating vegetables with the same respect once reserved for foie gras.

"I call it the vegetable redemption," Ms. Wells explains. The green revolution - one Ms. Wells considers nearly as grand as the arrival of nouvelle cuisine in the Sixties and Seventies - was first tilled by Chef Alain Passard when, in December, 2001, he boldly announced that he was going to stop serving red meat in his Michelin three-star restaurant, L'Arpège, in order to devote the major portion of his menu to vegetables.

Although his decision coincided with the rise of mad cow disease and mounting fears in Europe about the safety of meat supplies, she says, its roots reach back much further.

"For 30 years I had this friend standing next to me in the kitchen and I never said 'Hello,' " Chef Passard once told her of the asparagus, spinach, carrots and beets and medley of other organic vegetables, grown in his kitchen garden outside Paris, that now play a starring role on his menu.

This trend, alas, has been slow to trickle down to North America, where vegetables are still considered afterthoughts and vegetarian menus, even in fine restaurants, are poorly executed. Charlie Trotter, for example, is one of the only North American chefs famous for doing a compelling vegetarian tasting menu.

"It will change," Ms. Wells confidently predicts. She points to such talented French chefs as Pierre Gagnaire, Guy Martin and Guy Savoy, who have been championing vegetables for years.

"Once these chefs were considered iconoclasts, but now their ideas are being embraced by the mainstream."

Many of the recipes in Vegetable Harvest were inspired by these forward-thinking chefs. The tomato coulis with asparagus and mint, for instance, a gorgeous pairing of bright red and green, is the creation of Chef Savoy. A winter soup of Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut oil comes courtesy of Chef Gagnaire, who introduced Ms. Wells to the method of gently cooking them in milk to create a pristine white puree.

For the most part, however, she was inspired by the abundance of produce at the markets in Provence.

"When I was growing up, dinner was usually meat and potatoes, with maybe one vegetable," she says. "But when I was working on my last book [The Provence Cookbook], I saw how many great vegetables there are now available and thought, 'Why not three vegetables, or even more, with every meal?"

The ascendance of vegetables can be partly attributed to the spread of spa menus, with healthy vegetables carrying more of the calorie load. For the first time, Ms. Wells, a marathon runner, has listed the calories, fat, protein and carbohydrate counts for each recipe in the book.

Still, she contends that the gradual rise of farmers' markets, our growing awareness of small farms and the availability of fresh vegetables is an even larger contributing factor.

"If they weren't available, we wouldn't be thinking about them," she says.

Back at West restaurant, Ms. Wells happily devours roast leg of lamb with a zesty fresh mint crust and "salad cream" brightened up with spinach.

"This is not a vegetarian cookbook," she clarifies when the tender meat is greeted by raised eyebrows around the table.

"This is a cuisine that uses vegetables liberally and creatively and that puts them on equal footing with meat, poultry, fish and shellfish."

She has expanded the definition of vegetable to include nuts, seeds, herbs and many fruits often considered vegetables, such as rhubarb, tomatoes and avocados.

In the book, classic combinations are altered to give vegetables a bigger role. Braised beef with carrots becomes carrots with beef. Spring lamb couscous is plumped with a stew of zucchini, tomatoes, chick peas, cumin and herbs, plus a side bowl of cilantro pesto.

Ms. Wells has no problems with chefs who "pork" their produce by wrapping their asparagus in prosciutto or cooking their vegetables in duck fat.

Indeed, she gives Brussels sprouts a similar treatment in one recipe that calls for bacon and cream.

But the heavy sauces, she says, are not essential any more, not even in France.

"If you have fresh food, why camouflage it? Some of the most sublime recipes in this book are the simplest ones," she says, pointing to her steamed creamy cabbage, cauliflower puree and heirloom tomato broth with fresh tarragon.

"The greatest character of a vegetable is that it gives so much of itself while asking so little of us who prepare it," she adds.

Unless, of course, you happen to be the cook charged with de-stemming a thorny artichoke.

"Vegetables do demand some work," she concedes.

"There's a lot of chopping and peeling. And there's no cheating. If you get an asparagus stalk that looks like a rubber band, it's not going to taste good no matter what you do to it."

But, oh, the things you can do to a simple mushroom (cooked in parchment) or a crunchy rib of Swiss chard (bubbling with a layer of gratin).

"Get out of your rut,'" Ms. Wells encourages. "There isn't just one way to prepare a particular vegetable. They can be braised, steamed, deep fried, grilled and roasted."

Thankfully, however, the vegetable revolution doesn't require the complete abandonment of all sacred French traditions

"Try combining 10 or 11 different vegetables in one meal, with a little bit of protein on the side. But never," she sagely advises, "forget the red wine."

Guy Savoy's tomato coulis with asparagus & mint

What you need

3 garden-fresh tomatoes, cored, peeled, seeded and chopped (about 12 ounces)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Fine sea salt

16 spears (about 1 pound) fresh green asparagus, tips only

1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, finely minced

What you do

In a food processor or a blender, combine the tomatoes, lemon juice and olive oil, and purée. Taste for seasoning. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate.

Prepare a large bowl of ice water.

In a five-quart pasta pot fitted with a colander, bring three quarts of water to a rolling boil over high heat. Add three tablespoons of salt and the asparagus. Boil, uncovered, until the asparagus tips are crisp-tender, three to four minutes. Immediately drain the asparagus and plunge into the ice water so that the vegetables cool as quickly as possible and retain their crispness and bright green colour. (The vegetable will cool in one to two minutes. After that, it will soften and begin to lose crispness and flavour.) Transfer the asparagus to a colander and drain.

To serve, pour the tomato sauce into chilled soup bowls. Arrange the asparagus tips on top of the coulis. Garnish with mint and serve.

Serves 4.

From Vegetable Harvest, published by William Morrow, an imprint

of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Copyright © 2007 by Patricia Wells.

All rights reserved.