Alice Waters

Owner of Chez Panisse, "the nation's most widely-acclaimed restaurant," Alice Waters led a culinary revolution that has transformed modern cooking. She first became inspired by great food and the culture surrounding it on a trip to France at age 19. After earning a degree in French Cultural Studies at the University of California, she traveled throughout France, then returned to Berkeley, California. At first, she intended to be a teacher, but she soon found she preferred cooking to teaching, and decided to open a neighborhood bistro like those she had loved in the south of France. It was eight years before Chez Panisse showed a profit, but in time, food lovers sought it out, and restaurant chefs in other cities began to imitate her approach. Her interest in serving the finest produce in season taught her that foods grown organically, in environmentally sound conditions, would produce the best flavors. Today, she encourages American families to eat together and take an interest in what they eat, and in how it is grown and prepared. In her 1998 address to the Academy of Achievement at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, she discusses the values and experiences that have informed her approach to cooking and eating.