Alice Waters - Movement Starter
Alice Waters is the Executive Chef and Owner of the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.
Waters is known as a Food Revolutionary. In creating Chez Panisse in 1971 she emphasized eating what is in season because food at it's freshest peak is tastiest. Before any discussion about "carbon footprint" Alice bought from the local farmers knowing that the tomato picked from the vine yesterday tastes better than the tomato picked a week ago and shipped 200 miles to the supermarket.
Buying local and organic started a revolution. Not only is it good for you, it's also good for the environment! A great combination!
Waters is known as a Food Revolutionary. In creating Chez Panisse in 1971 she emphasized eating what is in season because food at it's freshest peak is tastiest. Before any discussion about "carbon footprint" Alice bought from the local farmers knowing that the tomato picked from the vine yesterday tastes better than the tomato picked a week ago and shipped 200 miles to the supermarket.
Buying local and organic started a revolution. Not only is it good for you, it's also good for the environment! A great combination!
Learn from Alice herself!
More than just cookbooks!
Alice Waters doesn't so much cook as create.
The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution
If you get only one Waters cook book, let it be this one. Part autobiography, part essay, part how-to, lessons on everything from how to stock a kitchen to finding the best olive oil.
Amazon Price: $23.10 (as of 12/10/2009) 
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
Biography on Alice - best part of it is to see how much passion is infused into what she does. She wasn't formally trained as a chef, rather a Montessori teacher, but loved to have her friends over for dinner parties. Her restaurant grew from there!
Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 12/10/2009)
Fanny at Chez Panisse: A Child's Restaurant Adventures with 46 Recipes
As a teacher and mother Alice has a unique way of addressing children. Fun in the kitchen is a great lesson to teach!
Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 12/10/2009)
What does this all mean?
Primary sources!
From Chez Panisse on the west coast to Blue Hill on the East coast, restaurants that use the land around them.
- Chez Panisse
- Menus change every week!
- Blue Hill at Stone Barns
- A restaurant on a farm. Everything they cook comes from their own farm!
I don't want to eat out! I want to cook at home!
But how do I buy local?
We are lucky that farmers markets are becoming more common. The best way to eat fresh and local? Find your local farmers market and buy what's in season!
- Where to find the closest farmers market
- From them:
"The best organic food is what's grown closest to you. Use our website to find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. Want to support this great web site? Shop in our catalog for things you can't find locally!" - Slow Food
- It's local but it's global! Slow Food is an international movement that emphasizes food, whether cooking it or eating it, as an event that should be celebrated. Have fun in the kitchen or around the table instead of just eating in a car!
I bought local!
But what do I do now? I don't recognize this stuff!
Part of the fun of buying local and seasonal, other than helping yourself and the planet, is that you get to try all new stuff. But it can be intimidating! These books are a great reference.
Vegetables Every Day: The Definitive Guide to Buying and Cooking Today's Produce With over 350 Recipes
This is a great book - has two or three recipes on even the most foreign vegetables. And easy to do!
Amazon Price: $21.45 (as of 12/10/2009)
How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food
Mark Bittman follows the KISS method. Have to love him for it!
Amazon Price: $15.72 (as of 12/10/2009)
My Favorite Project
The Edible Schoolyard
Buying local, eating fresh and saving the environment are all great things but THIS is my favorite.
Alice started as a Montessori teacher - a curriculum that uses all elements to teach subjects. In that spirit, the Edible Schoolyard Project started by Alice and the Chez Panisse Foundation is part science classroom, part ecology lesson, part culture study. Students learn how food goes from the earth to the table by doing it themselves - they grow their own school lunches! Pretty amazing idea!
Alice started as a Montessori teacher - a curriculum that uses all elements to teach subjects. In that spirit, the Edible Schoolyard Project started by Alice and the Chez Panisse Foundation is part science classroom, part ecology lesson, part culture study. Students learn how food goes from the earth to the table by doing it themselves - they grow their own school lunches! Pretty amazing idea!
- Edible Schoolyard
- Alice says it best herself:
"The Edible Schoolyard is an idea for a curriculum in the public schools that will bring children-all children-into a new relationship with food. It's an interactive program that ultimately connects with the school lunch so that the children will have an opportunity to see where food comes from. They will be able to work in the garden and in the kitchen, and to serve food to their classmates in the dining room. It teaches children the ecology and the big picture of gastronomy. I think all foods for schools should be locally sourced and that schools should become an engine for sustainability. The architects have to get ready because we're going to need to rebuild the schools in the most beautiful ecological way-because our kids think we don't care about them.
This is terribly, terribly important. It's not just about food. We're indoctrinating a population with values of fast, cheap, easy, and disposable. They're digesting these values, and it's affecting entertainment, architecture, and the whole culture. That's the reason we all have to be interested in what our children are eating."
Michael Pollan, Dan Barber and Joan Gussow
Next generation of revolutionaries
Alice Waters revolution lead the way for Michael Pollan the journalist, Joan Gussow the gardener and Dan Barber the chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. They talk about eating local to not only preserve the environment but for health reasons as well. Save yourself, save the environment. Sounds like a great deal!
Vegetables for everyone!
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- JenOfChicago JenOfChicago Mar 25, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
- Alice is fascinating!
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- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie Sep 9, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
- Interesting spotlight on Alice Waters -- had not been familiar with her and her contributions until reading your lens! Thanks for spotlighting Alice.
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- RinchenChodron RinchenChodron Jul 7, 2008 @ 11:47 am
- I love the edible school yard project as well -
This is a 5 star lens! Please enter this lens in my Activists Sound Off Group
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- ArtByLinda ArtByLinda Jun 18, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
- Interesting hero you have, well done! Linda
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- dtbs dtbs Jun 18, 2008 @ 10:02 am
- what an inspirational lens! thanks for sharing this info! please check mine out at----------------> Kava Kava.
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Tributes to everyday heroes, written by our top Squidoo lensmasters. All for charity. by AnneReidy
I am a life-long New Yorker who has always wondered why NYC is so full of the haves and have nots with so little in between.
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