Alice Waters

Alice Louise Waters (born 28 April 1944 in Chatham, New Jersey) is a well-known American chef. She is the founder and co-owner of Chez Panisse, the original California cuisine restaurant in Berkeley, California, as well as the informal Cafe Fanny in West Berkeley. She has been credited with developing California cuisine and has written or co-written several books on the subject, including the influential Chez Panisse Cooking (written with then-chef Paul Bertolli). She has also promoted organic and small farm products heavily in her restaurants, her books and in her Edible Schoolyard program in the public schools. Her ideas for "edible education" have been introduced into the entire Berkeley school system, and with the current crisis in childhood obesity, have attracted the attention of the national media.

Waters advocates for eating foods in season and which are produced locally, because she believes that the international shipment of mass-produced food is both harmful to the environment and produces an inferior product for the consumer.

Her interest in the possiblities of fresh local ingredients, inspired by her 1964 visit to France, and, especially, a particular meal she had in Brittany:

I’ve remembered this dinner a thousand times,” she says. “The chef, a woman, announced the menu: cured ham and melon, trout with almonds, and raspberry tart. The trout had just come from the stream and the raspberries from the garden. It was this immediacy that made those dishes so special. (From The Green Gourmets)

Waters serves on the steering committee of the Yale Sustainable Food Project, which brings locally grown, seasonal and organic food to the students of Berkeley College (Yale).

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