Entries tagged with 'Alice Waters'
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[Credit: Wikimedia Commons] "Part of my philosophy is to try to give employees a great quality of life. My guiding principle is to put myself in their place and ask what I would find desirable in a job. That's why the waiters' changing room is just as beautiful as the Chez Panisse kitchen and bathrooms. I also feel that it's impossible for a chef to work productively six days a week. Chez Panisse chefs work three and are paid for five. This way they have a day to go to the market and get inspired to cook. It also gives them time to have dinners at home with their families." [CNN/Money]...
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The food world may have no more polarizing figure than Alice Waters. On the one hand, her acclaimed restaurant Chez Panisse hasn’t fallen out of favor for nearly four decades, her Edible Schoolyard has taught decades of schoolchildren the importance of fresh foods, and her work for the Slow Foods Movement has been impassioned and tireless. Yet, as Laura Shapiro points out in this month’s Gourmet, Waters has become a figure of endless censure, attracting criticism like a magnet does iron shavings. And in recent months, these digs have morphed into outright insults. She’s often called arrogant, self-righteous, and out of touch… or, perhaps even more damning, downright irrelevant. Here at Serious Eats, we’ve seen our own share of Alice-bashing....
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I caught some mostly good-natured flak when I fancifully gave President Obama a hard time for not allowing his wife to plant beets in the new White House garden. Now, according to Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times, Alice Waters also wants to introduce our President to the joys and pleasures of fresh beets simply prepared: "I would like to serve him some golden beets sometime that were roasted in the oven, that were not overcooked, that were dressed with a lovely little vinaigrette, maybe even diced in a salad," she says in her seductive way. "Squeeze 'em with a little lime. It's fantastically nutritious." And seriously delicious, I might add. Here's a recipe for the White House...
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California's First Lady Maria Shriver is piggybacking off Michelle Obama's big choice to bring an edible garden to the White House lawn. Earlier this week, Shriver said an 800-square-foot garden will be planted on the east end of the Capitol building in Sacramento, replacing an existing flower bed, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. She's isn't totally new to the urban garden scene. In October of 2006, Shriver launched the state's inaugural California School Garden Week, where schools all over California raised shrub-pulling awareness. No word yet on what crops will be planted but, of course, the public garden dame herself Alice Waters will be helping out. Related News Report: First Organic Vegetable Garden at the White House! [Talk] No Beets...
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Photograph from bookgrl on Flickr In November, locavore food activist Alice Waters wrote an open letter to the Obama family, urging them to chose a progressive White House chef that would prioritize health and environmentalism. She also slipped in a line about her continued dream of a White House veggie garden. Now, in a New York Times op-ed piece, she's asking the current administration to reassess the National School Lunch Program, launched in 1946: We need to scrap the current system and start from scratch. Washington needs to give schools enough money to cook and serve unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.How much would it cost to...
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It's a little late now that President-elect Barack Obama has opted to keep on Cristeta Comerford in the White House chef position, but gourmet.com has published food guru Alice Waters' open letter to the Obamas, "in its full, final form." (NB: If you've ever wanted to forge Waters' signature, here's your chance.)...
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The Ethicurean, a blog devoted to the organic and sustainable eating ethos, is predisposed to love a film like Food Fight (not to be confused with Foodfight!), where the premise rests on the same mantra. But get ready for a plot twist—they didn't love it. Here’s where I bite the nice hands who fed me the DVD review copy. We three found ourselves squirming restlessly in our pews. Too many putative saints were being paraded past us on litters of glistening lettuces, and the familiar hymns sounded off key in their new arrangements. Ethicurean founder Bonnie Powell watched a preview copy (screenings are just in Los Angeles currently) and while she found it beautiful visually, said it could have...
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In advance of her appearance at the New York Wine & Food Festival October 12 (tickets are still available) on a panel called Beyond Chicken Nuggets: How to Raise a Healthy Eater, Alice Waters did a Q&A with the New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope. Waters broke no new ground in the interview, but if you've never heard Alice on the subject, it's worth checking out. She championed her Edible Schoolyard initiative in her beloved Berkeley, California, and stressed the value of families cooking and eating together. Waters and her fellow panelists are going to talk about how parents can improve the quality of food their children eat. Here are Waters' suggestions: "Bring kids into a whole relationship with food that’s...
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The central concept of David Tanis' new cookbook, A Platter of Figs, is best expressed in the vignette on page 42 describing his "parsnip epiphany." This is a book about cooking seasonal foods simply and skillfully. It's about supporting local farmers, preserving the environment, and maintaining a sustainable kitchen. But most importantly, it's about the pure pleasure of eating a perfectly crisp fall radish, or a concord grape bursting with sweet juice. For six months a year, David Tanis acts as the head chef at Chez Panisse. Since the 1980s, he has worked closely with Alice Waters to help craft and shape the restaurant's illustrious style. The other half of the year David can be found in Paris, where...
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Dear Slow Fooders, The Slow Food Nation event is upon us this weekend in San Francisco, and I'm feeling a little forlorn that I'm not out there. The organizers have put together what looks like an impressive set of events, with interesting panels, compelling speakers, and lots of seriously delicious food. Buying local, sustainably raised food is laudable but not enough. Photograph: NatalieMaynor on Flickr We all love the idea of the Slow Food movement and what it stands for, namely supporting sustainable, artisanal food. All serious eaters are down with that notion. But merely believing in Slow Food as a cause is in and of itself not enough. I have always found the Slow Food movement here in the...
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