Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

At Chez Panisse, Alice Waters is one of the most gracious hosts imaginable. When she is in the restaurant, she consistently stops by and has shown genuine interest in our opinions of that evening's meal. Her Edible Schoolyard ideas are enough for any single legacy. Hands on learning that's fun and beneficial? Enough said! Yes she's impossibly Utopian and an endless dreamer. So what? There is plenty of room for both "dreamers" and "practical" chefs.

Hate to be a fly in the ointment but I love her. She's made a living sharing great food with anyone who will sit still long enough to either listen or eat. She wants a better world for our kids and I don't see that as a bad thing. I agree that school food MUST improve or kids are never going to get healthier. I love her edible schoolyard idea and wish it would spread all over the country.

I think she's an incredible representative of those who want better food everywhere - not just expensive restaurants.

The price of real food would come down if more people bought it. Also, if you spent more on on higher quality foods, you would spend less on medical bills because you would be healthier. This isn't just some theory, it is borne out out by statistical analysis of money spent per household on food vs. healthcare. Over the last 60 - 70 years, as the the annual food expenses have dropped thanks to industrial food production, the amounts spent on healthcare has increased proportionally. I would much rather spend more on better tasting cleaner more responsibly produced food in exchange for not having having cancer, heart disease and/or diabetes, wouldn't you?

Amen to that, simon.

Sure, she's idealist, and sure, she comes across as elitist at times. But you know what? She's championing the change she wants to see in the world, and to that I say good for her. Change often starts with the affluent, and eventually becomes accessible to the masses and becomes the norm. It might not be feasible for a low-income single mother to feed her family organic, locally grown food now -- but in 10 or 20 years, it very well might be thanks to Alice.

And @simon: hear hear! I couldn't have said it better myself. Americans feel entitled to cheap food, and as a nutritionist that really pisses me off.

I completely agree with KBestOliver.

Simon, I have mitochondrial myopathy which is a degenerative, progressive form of muscular dystrophy that comes with many other syndromes, along with another form of muscular dystrophy, and Marfan's syndrome on top of that. I didn't get these diseases because of the food my parents fed me, or I ate. I was born with these issues.

While I certainly agree that people overall need to make better food choices, I can say that sometimes with chronic low blood pressure, and on a high protein diet--a Big Mac has served my body better in the short run than a salad would. And I'll still have degenarative disease no matter what I eat.

I realize I'm not "normal" but please recognize that my medical bills will be enormous regardless of my food choices. And please don't tell me I'm an individual case--there are millions of people with chronic illness in this world who don't have enough money, support, or education, to make better choices.

I CHOOSE to spend the very minimal amount of money I receive on high quality foods, but I'm also fortunate to have a mom who's a great gardener, and a family who can also support me, not all sick, or poor people, are that lucky.

And if I were to take food stamps I would be eligible for $10 per month, TEN DOLLARS, how many organic meals can you make in a month on $10?

While I love Alice Waters, I do believe there are many people who just can't comprehend what others must do to get by in this world. And if it's a matter of paying your mortgage and shopping at Walmart vs. Whole Foods, then why can't people help get more organic and wholesome foods to WalMart?

A local church will be starting a community garden this year, and like Alice's school programs, I wish many more communities would implement this to help those in the need, as it not only provides good food, but education on the benefits of eating well.

I think that Alice Waters is fantastic. Her cookbooks are well used in our home, and while we have not eaten at Chez Panisse, we have been to several of the restaurants opened by chefs who worked for her.

That being said, we are very fortunate to be able to buy foods that satisfy both our conscience and our appetites. But, it has increased our food costs greatly to do so. If I were in a single-income family, or had kids, it would be much more difficult to do this.

If Alice Waters would speak to her audience with a bit more sensitivity to the fact that many people are living pay check to pay check, and highlight the small things you can do to live a more healthy and environmentally friendly lifestyle, people would be less apt to bristle at her comments. It's all in the delivery!!

Al Gore could have said "Now we all MUST buy hybrid cars", but he told us to change a light bulb instead.

Everyone can participate in Alice's Utopian dream, but she has to make people see how they fit in.

People with a very narrow focus tend to not understand that everyone around them doesn't see the world in that same way. They're amazed that someone could possibly not know or not care about things. But there are plenty of people without the information, the education, the money, the time or the interest to invest in the best foods possible.

And let's face it, what's good for you is a moving target. Yesterday, fish was good for you. Then it had mercury in it or was overfished or protected. Now you need a database to know which fish are good to eat.

She is amazing... I've eaten many times at Chez Panisse and it never fails to disappoint. Her impact on the dining habits of our entire country is evident to even the most grumpy naysayer. She is simply following some excellent advice, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
~Henry David Thoreau

I'd never heard of Alice Waters until I saw her on a cooking show where she was rude to the host, a snob about cooking techniques and insisting on special devices when common kitchen tools would do. As someone who grew up on a farm with fresh but not necessarily organic produce straight from the garden as well as grass-fed beef and chicken (and their tasty eggs), I can't say that she's had any influence on the way I eat. From my point of view, when people say they influenced their eating habits, they are really saying more about where they started out than about what she has accomplished.

On one hand I'm sympathetic to the argument that spending the money to eat organic and fresh foods pays off in the long run with better health, but on the other I know that I can afford both while there are many that can afford neither. For them it's not a choice between paying for health care or for healthy food, it's a choice between eating enough calories to go to work and medical conditions go untreated. And forget about them going out to buy a mortar and pestle to make a garlic paste for an Alice Waters recipe since according to her any other way to make garlic paste will not do!

Oh the irony of someone championing organic fresh food but looking down on the people (or should I call them peasants?) that ate that way out of necessity. As far as I'm concerned she's irrelevant to what I decide to eat and an unpleasant person. I would have skipped this article her like I do every other one except the title caught my eye. :D

She seems deaf to the critics. That's the problem with visionaries and people who are solution oriented like our president. Visionaries believe if they pound hard enough and long enough, the rest of us will listen. To some degree, that is true. No one argues about what Waters has done for food consumption.

I feel like the "why all the hate?" question is exactly the type of mentality that gets Waters so much hate. Do you guys at SE seriously not have any clue why the hate? I think it's pretty clear that people who hate do it on the pragmatism of her ideas. How can Waters not understand that?

i lived in berkeley and ate many times at the cafe at chez panisse. it was always a lovely experience.

i have nothing but gratitude and admiration for alice waters. alice came back from europe wanting to eat as well here as she did there, and she made it happen. i'm grateful for that, because we all benefitted as a result.

I find Ms. Waters frustrating. For many years she has been involved in/funding initiatives for healthier school food. I heartily support such endeavors, since I teach in a food desert and find it hypocritical at best to encourage healthy eating when we serve kids gray string beans and mealy apples.

On the other hand, her foundation is no longer offering financial support to the Berkeley schools, so their program may not continue. The amount of money districts receive for the federal lunch program will not cover much more than we're serving now. If school districts supplement the federal money, they'll have to cut elsewhere. California is already laying off something like 20,000 teachers this year. I don't think the lunch program is at the top of anyone's list given the paucity of school funding. So I appreciate her interest in this area, but wish she'd dedicate more time to practical solutions.

Also, the comment about sneakers vs. organics? Personally I found that a questionable remark - classist at least and probably worse.

Until the uncalled for business about the new White House chef, and her expectations that the President might put her agenda above his, I had no problem, just reservations. But now? Does the name Phyllis Schlafly mean anything to you? A little self-righteous, perhaps?

I've eaten at Chez Panisse and thought it was lovely. I will repeat that experience as often as time and my wallet will allow. So, not often. That is in essence the same approach quite a few others who have posted comments seem to take when making decisions about what to eat. We try to make good choices. We splurge when we can. My opinion: being angry that someone else doesn't "get it" is a waste of energy.

However, my attention was turned to whether Waters is "arrogant, self-righteous, and out of touch" with the publishing of her open letter to the White House about their choice of chef. She seemed to be peering through a keyhole into the kitchen, dismayed that she hadn't been invited in, and reacting only to the partial information she'd gathered. I thought that the letter was a display of poor taste, unfitting especially to such an excellent gourmand.

Having said all that, I was tickled that she disagreed with Rachael Ray (or if she disagrees with any other Food-face on TV). The more the debate, the healthier and more interesting our national dialogue can be. That's a lot more instructive and provocative than any of the silly Reality chef shows they keep rehashing every season.

Just compare Alice Waters to Jamie Oliver. Jamie has similar ideals but he is very practical in making them happen. He's campaigning for healthier food for kids in schools; he runs a restaurant where underprivileged kids learn to cook; and his latest TV show is about picking things in the backyard garden and showing viewers how to cook them. Compared to him, Alice Waters seems to me like an old hippie with her head in the clouds.

Oh, don't kid yourself. Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters are cut from the same cloth. He's just as much a hippy as Alice is. He's just a couple decades younger. "Just toss the organic tomatoes your gardener grew in your estate garden into your wood-fired backyard oven."

Yeah, just try telling that to the urban poor in Glasgow.

Picasso , Frank Loyd Wright , Truman Capote , Rush Limbaugh , Barney Franck , Pope Pius Xll are or have been pains in the collective ass to some or all of us at one time or another . Put Ms. Waters on that list . jfitz

She's had her 15 minutes already... let's move on...

Passionate people will always inspire, admiration as well as criticism. This is human nature. I think most passionate people understand this and stick to thier guns. I am sure Alice Waters is not crying in her micro greens.

this entire debate is only happening in the "foodie" world. outside of that no one knows who she is or cares about her views..

@ Feefiefoefum, thanks for pointing out out how silly some of the comments are on here. Seems like simple Simon might never have learned the difference between correlation and causation. And people cheer him on? At least we can say with some certainty there's no correlation between organic food and logical ability.

As for Waters, I don't think she's evil, and actually find her likeable enough. Wouldn't almost everone here agree with her ultimate points on food matters? I think it's her methods that are counter-productive, and turn off the very people she's trying to reach. From comments here it seems she's been very succesful in converting the choir, but what does that acheive? Would even her biggest fan, who adores her as a "dreamer", not find her a little self-righteous and off-putting to your average person in the drive through? I guess not if you're self-righteous yourself.

I thought that the pullquotes Shapiro had at the front of her piece were revealing - they're from a bunch of young (ish) fellas and the NY Post (and only one a chef, albeit an ex-chef) hating on a woman because she's elitist. I note that no one is going after any other elite male chef who champions sustainable agricuture - Dan Barber springs to mind. Surely he is an elitist, if Waters is? The gentlemen (and the Post) are entitled to their opinions even if they are dull and unenlightening; but the boys should be more thorough. They should tar the whole organic movement, while they're at it - throw Michael Pollan in, and anyone else who likes their tomatoes red and in August. Let them eat chicken fingers.

simon, you're wrong...most federal ag subsidies are paid so that "farmers" will leave fields idle, raising the price of food. It's about 20 years old but the chapter on ag policy in P.J. O'Rourke's "Parliment of Whores" is still the best expose of fed ag policy I've read. I put "farmer" in quotes because most money is paid to large agribusiness. I'm not saying current farm policy is right, to the contrary it's egregious corporate welfare, but the effect on food prices is not what you claim.

emilyobooth, Waters founded Chez Panisse 15 years before Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement. He's as much of a nitwit as she is (see Gina Mallet's take at http://bit.ly/v9bXQ) but Waters was at it long before Petrini.

mslaas, I'll gladly throw Pollan in with the bunch. His work is shoddy. See http://bit.ly/fO63i for my demolition of a piece he wrote for NYT Magazine. I too like my tomatoes red but I also happen to like them in the 11 months of the year that aren't named August.

WRT Shapiro's Gourmet piece, the American food system, good, bad or ugly, is how most people in this country can afford to put enough food on their tables so they don't go hungry. It is also how we moved from being an agrarian nation to an industrial one. If you have some romanticized notion that we were better off when we were a nation of family farms, go see an actual family farm with your own two eyes. I, for one, am glad I don't have to live or work on one. When a well-off person suggests tearing down a system that has affordably fed our nation for decades in favor of a system that would make food unaffordable for many, if not most, Americans, elitism is a perfect description — especially when there's no way that they or their children would actually have to labor in the fields. For my full critique, see http://bit.ly/ghmb5.

@ grumpyglutton - is that an absolute necessity? Could the govt. stop taking tax dollars, allocating them as ag subsidies and let people vote with their wallets? I hypothesze that prices for organic/local food would even out as more farmers that get paid a living wage get back into farming (quit their day jobs), expand their operations and attract new farmers?

Larger (but not ginormous) scale operations getting paid a sustainable, profitable wage would bring down prices through economies of scale making organics more affordable for everyone, esp. now that people keep more of their tax dollars and allocate them towards food? Or am I thinking utopia here?

I would love to feed my family on all local organically grown products...as Alice Waters advocates but guess what...I have a budget and a teen age son who's favorite phrase is What is there to eat? I consider myself lucky my son is a fruit lover and will always choose fruit over junk food. And while, I love and shop at my local farmer's market as much as I can...sometimes it just gets too pricey...example, last summer I bought 8 beautiful peaches at the farmer's market on Saturday morning for a cost of about $8.00. By Saturday night they were all gone---he ate every single one in a 12 hour period...so I went to the market again on Sunday and bought more....$16.00 for 16 peaches is a lot of money. I do the best I can to feed my family good honest food...I don't buy pre-packaged food, I cook fresh almost every night (yes, after putting in a full day at work) and try to cook with leftovers in mind. For people like me, Costco is a godsend because the produce is good, the meat is good and I can get the most bang for my buck. I know all the arguments against doing just that--carbon footprint, eat local, etc....but we all do the best we can.

I think a more interesting question than "Why all the hate for Alice Waters?" is "Why the need to HATE someone we disagree with?" What happened to agreeing to disagree? If I don't think she's got valid points, I can just ignore her. Of course, I could also prove her wrong, but that takes some thought and some information. No, it's easier to call her names and HATE HER.

Just MHO

Hate? That confused, doddering old hippie isn't worth the effort.

@tatianak Hear! Hear! I'd love it if we could get the gov't got out of the ag subsidy/price support business and allow consumers to vote with their wallets. U.S. farm policy is corporate welfare at its worst! Things might well work out the way you say. Are you being utopian? Only if we can't get politicians to quit sucking at the teet of the agribusiness lobby!

As I'm reading some pretty extreme comments about Alice Waters, highly charged emotions behind those words, I can't help think that she's a great projective test for how people are feeling about themselves around the issues in our lives that she represents and opines about: Food politics.

Having met her and also having eaten her food, I think she is one of the most misunderstood people of our generation. Before I met her, I, too, thought she was distant and haughty, but the truth is that she's very shy and what you're seeing is a shield of sorts.

The food at Chez Panisse is very good, and back when she began, nobody but the French were putting out food that tasted like that. But I don't think that it's spectacular enough or the surroundings comfortable enough to warrant the adulation or prices. I prefer a more relaxed atmosphere and rustic food, and the Cafe upstairs at Chez Panisse and Cafe Fanny (a few blocks south) fit that bill. Both are delicious, unpretentious, affordable, convivial (the Cafe upstairs at Chez Panisse is downright raukus at times) and friendly. Each also are what I think represents the real Alice Waters, the person you don't see on television, but the woman who discovered her passion by feeding her friends and who got into the food business because she loves making great food and feeding people.

As far as an unrealistic philosophy about food, I think hers is the only rational policy left for the survival of humans on the planet. Enough with corporate farms on the other side of the hemisphere, raising pigs in overcrowded and filthy pens which are polluting the groundwater and perhaps breeding virulent diseases. And enough with flying in food out of season, gassed tomatoes so that we can eat them fresh year round. Our lifestyle and overpopulation has led to dangerous conditions that threaten the continuation of human civilization on the planet. We shouldn't have been over-building particle board subdivisions, one indistinguishable from the next, across the lands, trucking and flying in food from other regions of the country and the world to depots for distribution at big box supermarkets -- We should have farms on the outskirts of smaller communities and "victory"-farming on open lots within our cities. The "new world order", globalization that makes .02% filthy rich, but everyone else a wage slave, isn't how we were supposed to live.

What Waters talks about, a slower lifestyle in smaller communities growing what we eat locally, is going to happen, one way or other. The planet will survive what humans are doing to it, but civilization surviving is another story. The oceans are being depleted very quickly, water has become a commodity that we're going to see wars over within our lifetime (in the next 5 years), so there will be a massive die-off of people along with mass migration as extreme climate change drives people from one region to another.

Food production and preparation as Waters has talked about it is the new "smart agriculture".

Alice Waters overlooks the fact that not everyone lives in California with year round access to good local produced food. Most of us don't have that luxury even if you learn to love what is available out of season but farmed within whatever constraints you put on yourself.
Ever cook knows the secret to good meals is good ingredients, and lacking access to them means that it is much harder to produce varied and exciting meals every time.
So yes she is elitist and unrealistic but also a force for the good.

supagold-

”I don't understand any of your arguments. How are we missing the point? We get that she is promoting "healthy, local, organic food accessible to all". The point is that that simply isn't feasible.”

---Yes, yes it is. Glad you ask. How do you think people fed themselves prior to mass, corporate, industrialized farming and ranching?

"And if it were accessible to all, cost would be a lesser factor because more would be available."
Precisely how does this work? By necessity, Organic food is less intensive than normal agriculture, meaning that for each given acre, you get less food. If we're talking local here, then for however you define "local", that means that you are somehow going to try to feed more people from a smaller food supply for less cost. Does this sound feasible?”

---Yes it does sound feasible. Right now federal subsidies pay farmer to leave land idle. Organic farms naturally have more diversity, giving them the ability to sustain themselves and others if weather, a certain crop fails or is blighted or other hardship occurs. CSA’s support not only those who subscribe, but many farms offer “working shares” which enable the farmers to hold down costs and up their production. Join a CSA, shop at your local farmer’s market, seek out ranches/farms and purchase meats/eggs farm-direct, grow a small garden....each of these contributes to healthy, organic, sustainable food supplies.
As more people become aware and participate in conscious food choices, more foods and food suppliers will become available. Call it “market driven” if you wish.

“No one's criticizing her for providing great food, or arguing the fact that high-quality vegetables taste better. However, I believe there is some justification for the idea that she's promoting a false "social awareness", based on her head-in-the-clouds ideas about how the world works. That seems pretty elitist to me...”

---False social awareness? Head-in-the-clouds?
I respectfully disagree. If you are an active participant (which you seem to be) and read food related news, you must be aware of the changes in social food awareness, sustainability, CSA’s, organic markets and slow food movements. As with all change, it takes time. Look back over the last twenty years in food. Progress continues to be made. Organic foods are more accessible than they’ve been. Local foods have become more accessible that they’ve been in the recent past. It’s working, but it needs to continue and spread outward towards those who still have accessibility problems. Meantime, Ms. Waters keeps that social awareness on the radar screen and the momentum moving forward.

I wouldn't her elitist. That's far too exclusionary for what she's trying to accomplish. I'd call her a leader and an inspiration, challenging society to find ways to achieve.

I appreciate your asking and keeping the discussion going.

To hold Waters' views is a bourgeois luxury. Period.

"You can make them at home for pennies on the dollar."

You wouldn't know that, perusing the menu at Chez Panisse. To the extent that she teaches people how to cook for pennies on the dollar, that is empowering people.

But the restaurant itself seems like an insider venue. If you're an insider that's probably great. Most people aren't.

"People are using her restaurant as an argument quite a lot, but I don't think the message behind slow food or any other healthy-eating movement is to serve at home what is cooked in restaurants.
I don't know about anyone else, but I eat much simpler meals at home than I do when I dine out."

Amen. You "get it".

It's not hard and you don't have to "duplicate". It just about good food, fresh food, real food, made accessible. For pete's sake- isn't everyone here a foodie? Like you can't figure it out and make something close? Or delicious in it's own right?

She's published books, menus, created foundations for fresh foods. has simple cafe menus amids the more elegant restauarant menus...come on.... You are foodies aren't you?

The food's not that complicated. That's the point.

If not, go ahead, eat your hostess ding-dongs, little debbies and fast food burgers. Be unhappy, feel better labeling others as elitists, I'll try to understand....

If her restaurant is an expression of her ideals, then those ideals (as expressed through the restaurant) will be seen by few people, for the simple fact that few people can afford to eat there.

To me that seems odd (but maybe that's just me)...

I mean, there are many restaurants that charge more than the majority of people can afford to pay for a meal (even on a special occasion); you might think it would be different for a restaurant espousing her ideals, but clearly it's not.

I don't know if anyone else finds that to be surprising, but I do.

first to say this no one who is irrelevant could cause this much of a stir
i know not much about her but her food is wonderful
she is charged as a radical and a utopian even if true
the world needs conservatives,revolutionaries,radicals and utoponists
even if you/we don't agree because we are one of the above types we feed each others minds (food for thought ) most good things in the world have come from cross actions from the above groups but ALL bad thinks have come from just listen to one group

CJ McD,

Do you realize how many people live in poverty? I'm not talking about the US, that's a very small part of the picture - I'm referring to people who make less than $1.25/day. At least one in six people in the world fit that criteria. Of those people, the overwhelming majority are severely undernourished. Millions of children starve to death every year. Do you seriously believe that they can afford to spend more money on food? What's your solution for parts of the world with large populations and very little arable land? We're all aware that this isn't an all-or-nothing philosophy; growing vegetables at home is a good thing if you can do it, and buying foodstuffs (notably fruits and certain vegetables) from local farms at the peak of freshness is an enjoyable luxury, but the ideas you espouse as "world-saving" can't really be applied to most of the planet we live on.

It's great that she's started a foundation, authored books, etc. Those efforts seem more likely to convey her message than the restaurant, it seems to me.

Her restaurant reminds me of an eco-friendly, green home that sells for $2 million. It's great that the design accomplishes what it does...but how many people can afford to purchase a $2 million home?

Cost is a real issue for most people. It really should be taken seriously. If not, then the effort -- whether in respect to food or homes -- is going to be a boutique industry, irrelevant to most people for the simple reason that they can't afford it.

"Cost is a real issue for most people. It really should be taken seriously. If not, then the effort -- whether in respect to food or homes -- is going to be a boutique industry, irrelevant to most people for the simple reason that they can't afford it."

Yes. Cost is a real issue.

And as with any new process/product/movement, at the "beginning" of it (where we are now even though she's been promoting it for over 25 years and it until recently, has not been embraced and still meets with resistance) there are always and only a select few who can afford it; be it indoor plumbing, televisions or organic, fresh food.

But to label HER elitist because we are at the beginnings of a movement that CURRENTLY everyone cannot afford it sligtly myopic at best.

Well, I do wear glasses, so the myopic remark is pretty on-target.

If you consider her restaurant as a prototype expression of her ideas, then I suppose it's fine.

But, at some point, there has to be movement beyond the prototype stage, into the real world of practical workability. I just wonder whether she's ever tackled the issue of cost with her restaurant. If she's never seriously considered it -- of if it never even occurred to her -- then (gasp!) the elitist word might be appropriate.

"But, at some point, there has to be movement beyond the prototype stage, into the real world of practical workability."

Agreed.
Baby steps, baby. Baby steps.... And they must be making an impact because- heck- we're talking about it, starting to make choices, organics are becomig more available, even in regular grocery stores, not just health food stores.
I'm sure that she tackles the real cost issues in her restaurant every day. Just read recently about a couple of chefs who've followed her lead and taken steps to grow kitchen gardens which provide fresher foods and defray operating costs.

Making it work in the real world takes more than one person.

BTW, I wear glasses too. No, not the rosy kind.... ;o) *L*