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Spotlight: Alice Waters, Executive Chef and Owner, Chez Panisse
Alice Waters knows the importance of happiness from food. Enjoying delicious food is the center to her daily life and the reason for her work. She wants people to enjoy food as much as she does, and children to grow up with the appreciation and knowledge of good food that's good for them.
Alice started Chez Panisse in 1971 not as a center for the local foods movement, as it is now, but as a place to enjoy food with her friends and family. She became involved in searching for local foods not primarily because she cared about environment or health, but because she wanted the best quality ingredients to make her meals, and she knew those ingredients would be found in season and close to home.
As Chez Panisse grew in popularity, so did its purchase of local foods: today, Chez Panisse wholely supports two local farms and purchases ingredients from many others. Alice's passionate push for more local foods has created a network of local farms committed to sustainable agriculture. Chez Panisse has been a model to others in the culinary world that a great restaurant is also responsible to its community beyond its kitchen and dining hall.
Alice Waters didn't stop at her restaurant to create dialogue and action around local foods. With her Edible Schoolyard program, she has brought the wonder of eating something grown by one's own hands to kids in public schools. The first school garden was created in 1995, and students and adults work together to plan the one-acre garden, grow the vegetables, and cook them in their school kitchen. For Alice, teaching kids about food is an integral part of creating a legacy for future generations.
To learn more, visit: www.chezpanisse.com/pgalice.html
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: A CASE FOR LOCAL FOOD
Wednesday, September 19th
7:00pm Potluck (bring a dish to share!)
7:30pm discussion First Church in Jamaica Plain, Unitarian Universalist Parish Hall 6 Eliot St (Across from the Monument) Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts 02130
There many be nothing better than picking a ripe tomato out of your garden in late summer, or biting into an apple right off the tree in the fall.
"Local Food" enthusiasts claim that compared to their conventional counterparts, locally grown foods taste better, have higher nutritional content, and may be sprayed with fewer pesticides. Environmentalists argue that eating local foods from small-scale farms can diminish CO2 emissions from long-distance transportation, reduce soil erosion and support the local economy. Critics, however, say that locally produced foods can be prohibitively expensive, and the availability of many foods is only seasonal.
Please join the Jamaica Plain Forum for discussion on the benefits and challenges of eating locally grown and produced foods in the first of an on-going food-related series, "Food For Thought."
Bring a dish to share at 7pm, then listen at 7:30pm to our home-grown experts Mark Smith of Farm Aid and Brookwood Community Farm, Danielle Andrews of The Food Project, and David Warner of City Feed and Supply.
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