Super Eco

Photo credit: ian ransley, Flickr

When she was twenty, Alice Waters left UC Berkeley to travel and study in France. She fell in love with the food and developed what she calls "my French aesthetics." When she returned to Berkeley for her junior year, she knew that she wanted to recreate some of what she had experienced in Paris and the French countryside. In 1967, when she graduated, she set off for London to enroll for training at the Montessori Centre.

By 1971 she had opened her restaurant, Chez Panisse, an enterprise that was built on the principle of offering high quality, expertly prepared, locally grown food at reasonable prices.

In the 1980s, the Slow Food movement was launched in Europe as a way to challenge and encounter the spread of franchised fast food restaurants. Recently Alice Waters, with assistance from several other high profile foodies, organized the United States chapter of the Slow Food movement. Today there about 86,000 members world-wide, including 16,000 in the US. Last summer Waters organized a gathering in San Francisco, Slow Food Nation. Over 85,000 people gathered to celebrate and promote local agriculture, biodiversity, and careful cooking.

In 1996, in celebration of her restaurant's twenty-fifth anniversary, Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programs. One project that the foundation has underway is a transformation of the school lunch program in the Berkeley Unified School District. The intention is to teach school lunch as a course. Waters envisions Berkeley students from kindergartners through high school seniors taking an active role in their school lunch. Students would plant seeds, raise crops, cook food, learn about sustainable ecosystems, and—as they advance—study nutrition as part of their classroom curriculum.

Notable Eco Activity

Alice Waters earned celebrity status as a gourmet restauranteur and the originator of "California Cuisine" in the 1970s. Today she is more widely known for her advocacy of using locally grown foods, and for her national leadership of the Slow Food movement in the United States.

• Alice Waters Details

  • Birth Date

    April 28, 1944

  • Born In

    United States

  • Home Page

    http://www.chezpanisse.com/

  • Lives In

    United States

  • Organizations

    Unavailable

  • Occupation

    Gourmet restauranteur