Customer Reviews

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution

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I've just finished this book and I have to say that it had more in it than I had bargained for when I first picked it up. I knew I wanted to read the story about America's most famous, most influential, and arguably most "important" restaurant, but I was delightfully surprised by two other things about it. First thing, I've never read a story laid out quite like this - the narrative voices (it's kind of an oral history of Chez Panisse but that doesn't really do this book justice) overlap, blend, and harmonize with each other, and that of the writer Thomas McNamee, in a seamless fashion which sweeps the reader along in a way I've never before experienced. Second, I had no real understanding of the value and values of the work of Alice Waters & crew, and how important they are in 21st century America. To take this restaurant from its beginnings as a kind of Mickey-and-Judy "Let's put on a Restaurant" venture all the way through the culinary flowering of our nation in the 80's, 90's and 00's, and to be a leader of the pack the entire time, is quite a feat for Alice. And to end up with her labors on behalf of Slow Food, environmental education, and responsible sustainability... well it's a path I wish more people would travel. Bravo and toques off to Alice Waters, all the staff who have worked at Chez Panisse over the years, and mostly to Thomas McNamee and his publisher who bring us this story which is at once a delight to read and a good message for us to hear.

McNamee's book is an excellent read, no doubt. The story flows, the characters build, the plot thickens. I've been fortunate enough to often eat at Chez Panisse, particularly in its first 5 years, and had seen more than a few of the scenes the author, or one of his correspondents, describes. Alice's determination and pursuit of the best possible ingredient have always been remarkable. She's a Taurus, isn't she!

My only quibble is the rather overly respectful view McNamee takes of her. She's more a flesh and blood person than a saint, and the author might take that into account if he continues to plumb this vein of research.

All in all a fairly well researched and well written tome. Perhaps not as evocative as the chapter on Chez Panisse in David Kamp's, United States of Arugula, but a good book to open to any page & foster a laugh, a sigh or an hurrah!

As interesting as this book is about the founding and growth of Chez Panisse and about Alice Water's fascinating life, it's also about the creation and growth of California cuisine and the importance of the local farmer and sustainable ingredients. It's the antidote to Fast food Nation and provides some hope for healthier eating and the value of the small farmer. A terrific read that's wonderfully written.

Any foodie worth her sun-dried sea salt knows the name Alice Waters. Waters was the person who spearheaded the move to fresh, local produce that's grown sustainability and locally, and Chez Panisse is probably the most famous restaurant that most of us have never visited.

So I was particularly interested in Waters' story. I'm glad I read it, as I feel like I now know things that I ought to know... but I can't say that this is a Wow book. If you have the opportunity to read the book, do; but I don't think you have to drop everything to put it on the top of your Must Read pile.

Yes, Alice Waters created a revolution in the way that Americans, or at least food-conscious Americans, think about food. But she didn't set out to do so as though she was on a lifelong mission... she just wanted to open the sort of one-star Michelin restaurant that she had encountered across France. Through a set of remarkable happenstance (which makes me think simultaneously -- if oddly -- of both Forrest Gump and Connie Willis' Bellwether), Waters was always in the right place at the right time. The right person always showed up in her life, at the time needed. And -- here's a lesson far beyond foodiehood -- she repeatedly took disaster and turned it into opportunity.

For example, after she brought Italian wood fired pizza to the States (oh geez, she started *that* trend, too?), an oven started a huge fire. The restaurant had to be renovated in a hurry, so instead of recreating the small door between kitchen and dining room, she made a big open area... and began a trend towards the "open kitchen." Waters was just solving a problem, but her innovation started a trend.

This is all interesting stuff, and it's interwoven with the events of Waters' own life (such as a procession of lovers, her marriage, motherhood), as well as the strong personalities who have been associated with the restaurant (many of whom have become celebrity chefs or written cookbooks, too). Much of this is from quoted interviews. It's interesting, and the author does a good job (though not dispassionately, as it's clear that the author *likes* Waters). The result, though, is that I felt informed and educated, rather than blown away or inspired or fascinated. That is: I liked this book. I didn't adore it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. I enjoyed the way it was written, and especially the little tidbits of cooking info of some classic Chez Panisse recipes. It was well-researched and well-written and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Two-thirds into the paperback edition of his biography of Alice Waters, Thomas McNamee tells us "If you're a writer, you'll find it very hard to sell an article about an idea unless that idea is embodied in a hero...."

Thus the book Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. Another writer might have developed this material without Alice at the center. A wider lens would have captured Chez Panisse against the background of Northern California from the 60s onward. While the chefs of Chez Panisse were shaving truffles in abundance, the people of California were transforming their culture from Pacific Utopian to one which all but abandoned the idea of the public good. The Free Speech movement and the Hippie Culture ushered in an age of drugs, aided by Governor Reagan, who emptied the mental hospitals, putting men and women on the street who, though helpless in most ways, were supposed to be able to remember to take their meds twice a day. Homelessness and panhandling turned streets like Telegraph Avenue into high crime areas. Where men and women had once shopped for business suits and good shoes, people bought pizza on the street and stepped over sleeping bodies.

During these same years, Californians decided to "reform" their tax structure, creating a system where current homeowners' taxes were frozen at 1976 rates, but newcomers would pay 1% of the purchase price in property taxes. The result years later is a budget nightmare for Governor Schwartzenegger--Properties with market values in the hundreds of thousands continue to be taxed as though they are worth $50K or less.

Disposable income was indispensable to the food revolution in Berkeley. As a resident of the Bay Area from 1960 to 2005, I was among those who would like to have eaten at Chez Panisse, but who never felt she could afford it, despite being a working professional all those years. By focusing his text on Alice Waters, McNamee does not have to address the paradox of her creation-- a restaurant based on a philosophy of eating which is supposed to be good for everybody but is, realistically, out of reach for all but a few. (Check today's menu on the web and see for yourself.)

Lest you think my comments spring from some unfulfilled desire to sit at the privileged table, let me add that in 2005 I moved from the West Coast to Connecticut, and learned that I had, all these years, been the beneficiary of Alice Waters' example. Here, Martha Stewart is the Queen of Cuisine, which has been good for sales of china and linens. Supermarkets are enormous, filled with the bounty of the food industry, but what passes for cooking can be as simple as adding water to a packet of some kind and microwaving for 3 minutes. People are intensely aware of the cost of food, and they don't much care where it was grown/packaged/processed. On the other hand, here in Connecticut, the tax system is relatively fair, public parks and schools have been maintained at a high standard, I can go shopping without stepping over abandoned bedrolls and being hit up for spare change.

Reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse raised once again for me the issues of healthy eating and privilege in America. And it reminded me that, while I succeeded in getting to Chez Panisse only once or twice in 40 years, I learned very early to prefer fresh produce, to search out food without preservatives, to braise rather than boil, and to appreciate seasonal fruits and vegetables. My children were raised on lunches of apples, raisins, celery sticks, good bread, and peanut butter made without sweetener. Our traditional holiday salad is an Alice Waters recipe, clipped long ago from a local paper. While McNamee does not critique the economics of good eating directly, he gives us a clear picture of the successful development of the organic food movement that is the legacy of this outspoken woman, now a well-known public figure and, "a hero who was also unmistakably, unheroically human."

This is a fantastic book that is part personal biography, part history of the sixties and part cook book. The story is about an enchanted princess/dreamy visionary/tough CEO who created a global trend in haute cuisine. The writing is excellent and one reads this book like a page turning novel. One who reads this also gets a great appreciation for the way many of us look at food - both from Alice Waters' genius and from Thomas McNamee's own enormous knowledge and wry take on that world.

The book just came in the mail from Powell's, where, if you link via the union at ILWU Local 5, the union gets a percentage. I love it. One thing bothers me a whole lot: the hard copy has a cover that exactly imitates the lettering David Goines has used for many of Chez Pannise's books and all of its posters. But he is not credited anywhere. A designer credit is given, however. So either the designer copied Goines' style, which is unprofessional to the max, or Goines did the lettering and got no credit, which is unprofessional to the max. The publisher owes an apology. Or an explanation.

I just finished the book and although I was engaged in the story the first half of the book, the 2nd half really dragged. Maybe if you have had the great pleasure to dine at Alice's restaurant, perhaps the story would have kept your attention better than mine. It's interesting to learn about the evolution of fine dining in this country and the recent movement for slow food. Alice Waters is a hero for her work way beyond the walls of her restaurant. However, the writing was inconsistent.

This is an inspiring and clear-eyed view of the woman who is indisputably linked to the revolution in American cuisine. Before Alice Waters, thinking about organic food, local food, support for small farms, eating seasonal foods, food as essential to a return to civility, did not pervade the collective consciousness of our society. The book paints her, warts and all, breathtakingly well and Alice gets into your mind leaping off the pages to look over your shoulder as you buy and prepare dinner. Her revolution is not about food. It is about life and how to live it. It's a great read.