Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine.
Waters has authored the books Chez Panisse Cooking (with Paul Bertolli), The Art of Simple Food I and II, and 40 Years of Chez Panisse. Her memoir, Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook, was published in September 2017 and released in paperback in May 2018.
Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996 and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. She is a national public policy advocate for universal access to healthy, organic foods. Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition inspired Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden program.
Background
Waters was born in Chatham Borough, New Jersey, on April 28, 1944, to Charles Allen Waters, a Rutgers University graduate who was a management consultant, and Margaret Waters, a homemaker. Alice graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a degree in French cultural studies in 1967. While at Berkeley, she studied abroad in France, where she shopped for local produce and prepared fresh, simple foods to enhance the table experience. During her time in France, she says she "lived at the bottom of a market street" and "took everything in by osmosis".
She brought this style of food preparation back to Berkeley, where she popularized the concept of market-fresh cooking, using the local products available in Northern California. She claims that food is a way of life and not just something to eat.
Political involvement
During her time at Berkeley, Waters became active in the Free Speech Movement, which was sweeping across the campus.
Waters worked on the congressional campaign of Robert Scheer, an anti-Vietnam War politician. She often cooked for and entertained her fellow campaigners.
Additional influences
Waters eventually returned to Europe, where she first trained at a Montessori school in London. Principles of the Montessori method, which emphasize practical and hands-on activities for children, are evident in Waters's idea of "edible education" and her Edible Schoolyard, which engages children in the preparation of fruits and vegetables that they tend to with the supervision of their teachers.
After training in London, Waters next traveled to Turkey, which she credits with influencing her approach to hospitality and deepening her respect for local communities. In his book Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, Thomas McNamee recounts Waters's experience in Turkey, where a young Turkish boy shared tea and a small bit of cheese with Waters and her traveling companions, even though he had very little. This small act of kindness had an effect on Waters's approach to hospitality and generosity in her own restaurant.
From Turkey, Waters then returned to France, where she embarked upon a year-long journey. Her travels solidified her love of all things food and French and inspired her to return to California and open Chez Panisse.
Waters counts Elizabeth David, the English cookbook author and writer, as one of her influences. She also credits Richard Olney, an American authority on French food who spent much of his life living in France, with influencing her simple, rustic cuisine.
Olney introduced Waters to Lucien and Lulu Peyraud, owners of the Domaine Tempier vineyard in Provence. Lulu Peyraud's vineyard cooking significantly influenced Waters's cooking and her menus at Chez Panisse. In her foreword to Olney's book, Lulu's Provençal Table, Waters wrote: "Lucien and Lulu's warmhearted enthusiasm for life, their love for the pleasures of the table, their deep connection to the beautiful earth of the South of France – these were things I had seen at the movies. But this was for real. I felt immediately as if I had come home to second family."
In addition, Waters has said that she learned Chinese cooking from Cecilia Chiang, and the two became lifelong friends. Waters has said that what Chiang did to popularize Chinese cuisine in America is what Julia Child did for French cuisine.