Alice Waters Interview: Culinary Empowerment

Alice Waters recalls growing up in New Jersey with fond memories of her parents' victory garden, discovering her love of food education during her time in Berkeley and Paris as a college student, and how she felt empowered by the Women’s Movement to open her own restaurant. Waters discusses how she built her network of food suppliers, the importance of having a connection with nature inside the kitchen, and the idea of Edible Schoolyards.
Alice Waters was born on April 28, 1944, in Chatham, New Jersey. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in French cultural studies before training at the International Montessori School in London. Chez Panisse Restaurant opened in 1971, serving a single fixed-price menu that changed daily. The set menu format remains at the heart of Alice’s philosophy of serving the most delicious organic products only when they are in season. Over the course of three decades, Chez Panisse has developed a network of local farmers and ranchers whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures Chez Panisse a steady supply of pure and fresh ingredients. Her daughter, Fanny, was born in 1983. Waters was the first woman named “Best Chef in America” in 1992 by the James Beard Foundation. Later she received their Humanitarian Award and in 2009 she was named to the French Legion of Honor. In 1996, in celebration of the restaurant’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Alice created the Chez Panisse Foundation. The Edible Schoolyard at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr Middle School is the foundation’s primary beneficiary. Her memoir, Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook, was published in 2017.
From the 2013 PBS Documentary “Makers: Women Who Make America”, examines how women have helped shape America over the past 150 years, striving for a full and fair share of political power and economic opportunity.
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Alice Waters, Chef and Restaurateur
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