by Alice Waters
First published 2017
Alice Waters tells the story of how she created Chez Panisse, the Berkeley restaurant that changed American cooking. Waters describes her journey from a conventional suburban childhood to Berkeley in 1964, where she encountered the Free Speech Movement and campus protests. She found herself among bohemian artists and thinkers whose ideas about design, politics, and food shaped her vision. At 27, Waters opened her small French restaurant on Shattuck Avenue in 1971, driven by her pursuit of beautiful, pure flavors rather than any grand plan. She traces how naiveté and passion guided her transformation of a personal project into an institution that influenced generations of chefs. Waters shows how she evolved from an impressionable follower into an activist who uses food to create social and political change worldwide. The memoir includes her recipes, photographs, and personal letters from those formative years.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, american, autobiography, cooking, 21st-century, food, activism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, personal-journey
Setting: Berkeley, Chez Panisse, Shattuck Avenue
Period: 1964, 1971
304 pages · Hardcover · Clarkson Potter