What Alice Was Asked: A 1996 Chat with Alice Waters

July 20, 2026 | Updated: July 22, 2026

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In 1996, the same year she founded the Chez Panisse Foundation, Alice Waters sat down for a live online chat with CuisineNet readers. Twenty-five years after opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California — and nearly three decades before her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, receipt of the National Humanities Medal, and the 2024 Julia Child Award — Waters spoke with characteristic clarity and conviction about the ideas that would come to define a global movement.

What follows is a transcript of that conversation, preserved from the CuisineNet archives. Her answers — about the Edible Schoolyard, the cost of organic food, and the transformative power of gardening — were prophetic. Today, the Edible Schoolyard Project has grown to over 5,000 schools worldwide, and Waters’ philosophy has influenced everything from Michelle Obama’s White House garden to school lunch reform across the United States.

To learn more about Alice Waters’ life and career, visit her chef biography.

The Chat Transcript

Here are highlights from our 1996 CuisineNet Live chat with Alice Waters.

emma wood: For people who don’t know, can you give us a short synopsis of what the Edible Schoolyard you are involved with is all about?

Alice Waters: The Edible Schoolyard is the name of a project we started here in Berkeley at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. The idea is to teach children how to take care of the land, feed themselves, and learn how to relate to the community around them. It’s a school lunch program, actually. We imagined a school lunch program where the kids would grow the food, and be involved in the harvest, where they’d learn how to prepare it and serve it to their schoolmates.

emma wood: You often say that gardening and working the land helps people become more responsible members of society. What advice do you have for people who do not have programs like the Edible Schoolyard — who might not even have a patch of weedy earth to plant — to educate their children in this philosophy?

Alice Waters: I think there’s always some way to connect with the land. Maybe there’s not a place at the school — but there are always vacant lots, there are always community gardens, and farms outside of the city. The children at King are connected to one of the farms outside of Berkeley. They have a share program with the farm and every week they buy produce. This brings the kids together with a whole community of farmers growing food for their nourishment. And, I know there are programs like this, CSAs (community supported agriculture projects) all over.

On Government Funding

Alice Waters: I’m hoping to get government funding. I think it should be a core curriculum for the whole public school system. It’s a kind of fundamental education that’s not being taught in the schools. But, I think the only way it’ll be truly successful is if it becomes a community project, with implementation in an individual way at various schools, with people in the community actively participating. The schools will have to find a network of farms and ranches that they can support — this can be a very transformative curriculum, that teaches children values that they’ll have for their whole lives. It’s a sensual curriculum about smells and tastes and touching — it’s a curriculum that enlivens the pathways to your mind — it should bring meaning back into the word education — at every stage of life.

On the Cost of Organic Food

il_moro: I read an interview in Mother Jones recently that quoted you as saying the fare at Chez Panisse is “too expensive for some.” The truth is that it’s too expensive for most of us. How is poor America able to partake in any of the benefits of your philosophy considering that organic food costs about 50% more than other food?

Alice Waters: I think that growing your own food is the least expensive way to eat. And food grown in a garden gives you the best tasting and the least expensive vegetables and that opportunity should be available to everyone. Personally, I’m interested in buying food at its real cost, because I know that food that’s not organic is subsidized and grown in ways that are destroying our natural resources around the world. And, I know that sooner or later I’m going to have to pay those costs covered over by the subsidies — whether in my poor health, or in the destruction of the land. So, I’m willing to pay for somebody else to take care of the land for me.

il_moro: An addendum: growing one’s own food isn’t always an option…

Alice Waters: Well, I think we haven’t explored the real possibilities of that, of growing your own food — I think the community gardens that I’ve seen from coast to coast indicate that even in cold climates, there’s potential for growth. I know that it takes only a 10 by 10 plot to grow all the food for one person for the year (John Jevens says that).

Recipe: Red and Golden Beets with Blood Orange, Endive, and Walnuts

From Chez Panisse Vegetables, by Alice Waters (HarperCollins, 1996)

This recipe was shared as part of the 1996 chat. Waters’ cookbook Chez Panisse Vegetables went on to win the James Beard Award in 1997.

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

2 pounds red and golden beets
1/2 cup shelled walnuts
2 blood oranges
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons orange juice
Zest of 1/2 orange, finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
1/4 pound Belgian endive

Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Trim and wash the beets and roast them, tightly covered, with a splash of water. While the oven is on, put the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for about 5 minutes.
With a sharp paring knife, trim off the top and bottom of each orange. Pare off the rest of the peel, making sure to remove all of the pith. Slice the oranges into 1/4-inch rounds.
Make a vinaigrette by mixing together the vinegar, orange juice, and the finely chopped zest, and stirring in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
When the beets are cool enough to handle, peel them and slice into rounds. Toss them gently with the vinaigrette and arrange the beets on a plate with the orange slices and Belgian endive leaves.
Drizzle over any vinaigrette remaining in the bowl, and garnish with the toasted walnuts.

This transcript has been preserved from the CuisineNet archives (1996). Alice Waters continues to lead the farm-to-table movement from her restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Her most recent book, A School Lunch Revolution, was published in 2025.

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