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Speaker 1: When Rose and I opened The River Cafe in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, we were credited for bringing open kitchens, farm
Speaker 1: sourced ingredients and women chefs to restaurants. As happy as
Speaker 1: we were to receive this credit, we would always say
Speaker 1: Alice Waters did it first. Not only has she created
Speaker 1: Chapennese taught us how to cook through her six cookbooks,
Speaker 1: Alice has showed us all how food can bring communities together.
Speaker 1: As a food activist, her foundation, the Edible school Yard,
Speaker 1: has taught children how vegetables grow and the joy of
Speaker 1: creating a garden, whether in a disadvantaged urban area or
Speaker 1: on the lawn behind the White House. Even though we're
Speaker 1: probably what seven thousand miles apart, I feel deeply connected
Speaker 1: and close to you. Alice, oh so touched when Rose
Speaker 1: and I opened. I have the menu from the very
Speaker 1: first day we opened the River Cafe, and on the
Speaker 1: dessert menu was Alice Walters lemon tart and it's been
Speaker 1: on the menu every day since then. And I was
Speaker 1: wondering whether you would like to talk about lemons and
Speaker 1: your lemon tart.
Speaker 2: I would love to talk about lemons. I just picked
Speaker 2: from my backyard this morning. Oh they smell so good.
Speaker 2: And it reminded me that the first really successful dessert
Speaker 2: at Chipennes was a Meyer lemon ice cream and sherbert
Speaker 2: that we put inside a lemon cup, and people were
Speaker 2: so surprised by the taste.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Meyer lemons.
Speaker 2: There are fradle that it's sweet and I can't describe flavor.
Speaker 2: It's sort of ethereal to me, but it's not sharp.
Speaker 2: It's very floral. Lindsay Shearer's family lived up north on
Speaker 2: a farm, and she had meyer lemons there as well,
Speaker 2: and that sort of was the beginning of our connection
Speaker 2: directly with the farmers.
Speaker 1: She was her pastry chef. She was the dessert chef
Speaker 1: for Shapanese.
Speaker 3: She was, but she was also a partner in the
Speaker 3: owner and still is.
Speaker 2: I planted a myra lemon tree in my backyard and
Speaker 2: I was holding up those lemons and remembering the lemon
Speaker 2: tart we made, and I have to say that it
Speaker 2: is one of my favorite desserts. Lemon merang pie as
Speaker 2: a child was always one of my favorite desserts.
Speaker 1: Did your mother make it for you?
Speaker 2: She actually did for my birthday. That was one of
Speaker 2: the only things she knew how to.
Speaker 1: Make, to make a lemon meraing pie every year for
Speaker 1: your birthday. Yes.
Speaker 3: I grew up in the late forties in.
Speaker 2: New Jersey, where it was very cold, very hot in summer,
Speaker 2: but I certainly fell in love the vegetables and fruits
Speaker 2: of my parents' victory garden. My parents kept it their
Speaker 2: whole life. They planted during the war, both as a
Speaker 2: way to help to send food to the soldiers in Europe,
Speaker 2: and the Roosevelt had asked everybody to do that, but
Speaker 2: they did it for financial reasons because we were a
Speaker 2: family of six, and so my parents planted tomatoes and
Speaker 2: canned the tomatoes for the winter, and always had squashes
Speaker 2: that were in the basement. And that seasonality of food
Speaker 2: I think was deep inside me. I loved corn and
Speaker 2: tomatoes in the summer more than anything.
Speaker 1: When is the season for lemons in San Francisco? When
Speaker 1: do you have them?
Speaker 2: Well, right now, they're just beginning to ripen, and I
Speaker 2: was just going to cut these open that I picked.
Speaker 3: In my backyard.
Speaker 2: But it's a longer season of course in California, and
Speaker 2: different ferraldos have a longer life. But we're lucky that way.
Speaker 1: Alice, I'd love to hear your story of starting Chapanese,
Speaker 1: and I know that it was a most part of
Speaker 1: your activism as a president in the early sixties when
Speaker 1: the United States was in the tumult of the free
Speaker 1: speech movement of the Vietnam War and you were at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: Tell me what really inspired you to start a restaurant.
Speaker 2: Well, it began really in that free speech movement with
Speaker 2: the leadership of Mario Savia and he said said to
Speaker 2: all of us, you need to visit other cultures, understand
Speaker 2: the way people think around the world. And he said,
Speaker 2: if you can, you should take off your junior year
Speaker 2: and go to some other country.
Speaker 3: So I did.
Speaker 2: I went to France in nineteen sixty five, and it
Speaker 2: really did change my life, not just because of the
Speaker 2: food that was so extraordinary, but because of the beauty
Speaker 2: of the culture of France. I fell in love with
Speaker 2: Notre Dame, sitting by the sind drinking a glass of wine.
Speaker 2: I walked everywhere. I loved the farmer's markets, and I
Speaker 2: came back home and I just said, I want to
Speaker 2: live like the French. And I had friends who felt
Speaker 2: the same way. In our night even day, we thought, well,
Speaker 2: maybe if we open a little French restaurant, the food
Speaker 2: will come.
Speaker 1: And it did. I sure did. Did you have chefs
Speaker 1: who knew how to do a meal for people who
Speaker 1: came in at seven, some people came in at nine,
Speaker 1: Some people wanted fish, some people wanted how did you
Speaker 1: did you know how to.
Speaker 3: Welc had one meant. I wanted it to be like
Speaker 3: the little restaurants.
Speaker 2: In Paris, where you ate things that you may not
Speaker 2: have ever had before that we could curate according to
Speaker 2: the season and what we loved to cook well, strangely
Speaker 2: and over time, and because it was very affordable, people
Speaker 2: liked it a lot, and they came because it was
Speaker 2: in an old house, and they came and they felt
Speaker 2: like they were eating at home. And that is a
Speaker 2: really part of I think my monatssory training, which.
Speaker 3: Said that you need to appeal.
Speaker 2: To all of your senses because they are our pathways
Speaker 2: into our minds. And so I wanted the restaurant to
Speaker 2: smell good. I used to burn rosemary out in front
Speaker 2: of the restaurant so it smelled like the south of France.
Speaker 2: And I knew that a fireplace in the kitchen would
Speaker 2: given aroma. I knew that candles on the table would
Speaker 2: be beautiful. But it was taste I was looking for
Speaker 2: when I got back from France. I wanted to eat
Speaker 2: and live like the French, and I didn't find taste
Speaker 2: until I found the farmers.
Speaker 1: Say you wanted to eat like the French age and
Speaker 1: shopped like the French shop. Can you tell me about
Speaker 1: what that meant?
Speaker 2: Well, it meant that you only ate food and season
Speaker 2: and only local food. You know. I fell in love
Speaker 2: with those wild strawberries and the hall, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden they were gone, and they said, oh, you
Speaker 2: have to go up in the woods and pick them.
Speaker 2: And I just didn't believe that people spent their time
Speaker 2: doing that and bringing them down from the woods and
Speaker 2: selling them to the restaurant tours.
Speaker 3: And of course in the end that's what we did.
Speaker 3: We really bought the food directly.
Speaker 2: And when we started doing that at Chippene's, everybody in
Speaker 2: the state wanted to sell to us because we left
Speaker 2: out the middleman. And that's what's so critical, because the
Speaker 2: farmers need real costs, and our farmer would want all
Speaker 2: of our composts to food and take it back to
Speaker 2: the farm and wet up the vegetables.
Speaker 1: And how was the kind of rigor of a restaurant.
Speaker 1: How was the finances and the ordering and the margins
Speaker 1: and everything? Did that matter or did it not matter?
Speaker 3: Well? I was never out.
Speaker 2: None of us was out to make money. I mean,
Speaker 2: my parents mortgaged their house so that I could buy
Speaker 2: the building that we were in. And it was back
Speaker 2: in those days it coused practically nothing that subsidized the
Speaker 2: beginning of restaurant, No question about that, but it really
Speaker 2: began us with a group of us and some of
Speaker 2: us knew how to do pastries and some of us
Speaker 2: knew how to make soup, and it was very collaborative
Speaker 2: in that way. And then we got some more experienced
Speaker 2: people in the kitchen and things changed. But it's always
Speaker 2: been kind of an extended family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've had such great chefs that have worked
Speaker 1: for you and then have gone on to do like
Speaker 1: the River Cafe. You know, one of the great the
Speaker 1: expressions that I often use is if you love them,
Speaker 1: let them go. And you certainly loved them, and you
Speaker 1: have have let them go. And I think also what
Speaker 1: you've done is you've created not only a place where
Speaker 1: the values were on the food, but it was also
Speaker 1: quite revolutionary in the way that you created a place
Speaker 1: where people could work and also have a life. Whereas
Speaker 1: it used to be that to work in a restaurant
Speaker 1: you have to suffer early hours, you had to suffer
Speaker 1: late nights, you had to suffer bullying in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: you had to suffer no days off. You must take
Speaker 1: the credit for having changed the culture of restaurants.
Speaker 2: Well, I did something very important. As I look back
Speaker 2: over the fifty three years. Probably the most important decision
Speaker 2: I made was when I had a child and I
Speaker 2: realized that I could not cook six days a week,
Speaker 2: and I decided that we would divide the job in
Speaker 2: two and there I would work three days, but I
Speaker 2: would be paid for six. Someone else would do likewise,
Speaker 2: And it works so beautifully that I did it for
Speaker 2: the cafe upstairs, and I did it for the pastry.
Speaker 2: So instead of having one chef in each department, you
Speaker 2: had two. And it meant that there were many points
Speaker 2: of view, and so young people who came to learn
Speaker 2: in the kitchen would experience that sort of collaborative thinking
Speaker 2: and made life for the people who were leading the
Speaker 2: kitchen civilized, and they could be with their families, they
Speaker 2: could go out to other restaurants, and it really did
Speaker 2: change ship Ane.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out everyone listening this to
Speaker 1: this thought, what a really radical and almost revolutionary way
Speaker 1: that Alice transformed the culture of restaurants. There's still a
Speaker 1: long way to go, and there still is a matcho.
Speaker 1: I just had a chef who came and did a
Speaker 1: month with you in Berkeley as Japanese, and she came
Speaker 1: back so excited and so impressed by the culture of
Speaker 1: your restaurant. The River Cafe Cafe are all day space
Speaker 1: and just steps away from the restaurant. Is now open
Speaker 1: in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and
Speaker 1: crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed
Speaker 1: coops and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, Misti, mozzarella, briusquetta,
Speaker 1: red and yellow peppers, Vitello tonado and more. Come in
Speaker 1: the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar.
Speaker 1: No need to book. See you here. Tell me about
Speaker 1: what it was like raising a child as both a
Speaker 1: chef and an entrepreneur and someone who wrote coop with
Speaker 1: how did you?
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 2: Always wanted her to taste the ingredients, and I had
Speaker 2: a garden out back of my house and I planted
Speaker 2: things that were very aromatic and little wild strawberries and
Speaker 2: things she could pick. But I was very intent on
Speaker 2: making her school lunches something that she loved, and it
Speaker 2: turned out that shared them with her friends. They all
Speaker 2: loved the lunch that she took. But she really became
Speaker 2: a connoisseur. She loved to eat and then she became
Speaker 2: really engaged in food as part of her her work
Speaker 2: as an artist, and it's doing a website now for
Speaker 2: new mothers to learn how to cook for their kids.
Speaker 1: I think we're both concerned with, certainly with children and
Speaker 1: their nutrition and the way you know, what schools, How
Speaker 1: schools can just give children who may not be even
Speaker 1: able to have dinner that going to school might give
Speaker 1: them their one meal a day, and how we can
Speaker 1: provide what is in San Francisco, do children get free meals?
Speaker 1: What do you have to do to qualify for it?
Speaker 2: I mean theoretically yes, but in fact the meals in
Speaker 2: every school in the country is really the reimbursement comes
Speaker 2: to the schools federally, and they could be serving them
Speaker 2: packaged fast food. And it takes a really determined school
Speaker 2: district to make change. And that's why we need to
Speaker 2: do this in an international way where we can understand
Speaker 2: that we can buy foods that are affordable, that are
Speaker 2: delicious and nutritious. That's one of my new cookbooks about
Speaker 2: the school lunch revolution.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the new cookbook I'd like to know
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's about school lunches.
Speaker 2: It's food that kids like I mean things like hummus
Speaker 2: and peter bread, and who knew that they went like
Speaker 2: wilted greens and all kinds of fruits and vegetables, but
Speaker 2: they just haven't been exposed to them. But the Edical
Speaker 2: school Yard project was a model that shared human values.
Speaker 2: Have a garden and a school and a kitchen to
Speaker 2: teach all the academic subjects in that monassory way, learning
Speaker 2: by doing in a kitchen and garden classroom. It's amazing
Speaker 2: what they learn and how happy they are to be
Speaker 2: in those classrooms.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me and tell everyone who's listening about
Speaker 1: edible Schoolyard.
Speaker 2: Well, thirty years ago the principal of school in Berkeley
Speaker 2: called me up and asked me whether I could help
Speaker 2: him beautify his school. And I went over to the
Speaker 2: school and it was a middle school. It had eight
Speaker 2: hundred students that came from They spoke twenty two different
Speaker 2: languages in their homes, and I was very intimidated when
Speaker 2: I saw this big, huge piece of land, and from
Speaker 2: really the very first planting of that vacant lot, parents
Speaker 2: wanted to help, kids wanted to help.
Speaker 3: After school. It was amazing how.
Speaker 2: Quickly it changed the whole nature of the school. You
Speaker 2: could make a kitchen classroom, and you could make a
Speaker 2: garden classroom, not for teaching cooking or gardening, but for
Speaker 2: teaching the academic subjects. You could teach geography in the
Speaker 2: kitchen classroom. And its success and our teaching every year
Speaker 2: we do a training has created this amazing network which
Speaker 2: I'm going to share it's map because you won't believe.
Speaker 1: Wow, lazy, I'm looking at a map. I just tell us,
Speaker 1: looking at a map, describe what you're showing me.
Speaker 2: A network of edible school of your arts that goes
Speaker 2: to practically every country around the world, over sixty five
Speaker 2: hundred schools in all different climates and cultures. But I
Speaker 2: have to say that it has been the reason that
Speaker 2: I am so sure that schools supported agriculture can change
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: I dare say, can if we get children when they're young,
Speaker 1: if we teach them when they are you want to
Speaker 1: learn and to be exposed. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that you and I probably as parents, have understood
Speaker 1: the difference between well the importance of exposure. When we
Speaker 1: take chefs who've worked for us, we take them to
Speaker 1: Italy every year to see how olive oil is made.
Speaker 1: And you realize you and I have done that with
Speaker 1: our children from an early age. But so many people
Speaker 1: have not understood how vegetables grow, how olive oil is made,
Speaker 1: how cows are milked. It's really understanding what the culture
Speaker 1: is of food. Do you agree?
Speaker 2: I totally agree, But I agree that there's something deep
Speaker 2: inside all of us that of course is connected to
Speaker 2: nature and to food, and that coming back it's almost
Speaker 2: like coming home. It's not something that's difficult for children
Speaker 2: to embrace or even for adults to embrace. When they
Speaker 2: are at a table and food is delicious, it's easy
Speaker 2: for them to want to go back there again and
Speaker 2: for them to want to make change.
Speaker 1: The other very well known garden that you were involved
Speaker 1: with was a garden of the White House when President
Speaker 1: Obama was there and you worked with Michelle. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me about that experience.
Speaker 2: Well, I've talked to her a lot about the Edible
Speaker 2: School Yard project, and she loved the idea, and she
Speaker 2: knew about Roosevelt's interests, his wife's interest in victory gardens
Speaker 2: and buying food. He even had a garden on the
Speaker 2: front lawn of the White House at one time. But
Speaker 2: she found a farmer, Sam cass and I was so
Speaker 2: surprised when she planted the garden behind the White House.
Speaker 2: One of her first things she did. What did she
Speaker 2: grow there?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Everything? And he had to behive. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: Are you optimistic about the future do you think that
Speaker 1: this will go forward people knowing more.
Speaker 2: I really am optimistic about the possibility of changing the
Speaker 2: procurement of public schools around the world. I mean many
Speaker 2: other countries and your country one of the most able
Speaker 2: to do this because if your long history and gardening
Speaker 2: and also belief in education. Unfortunately we don't have that
Speaker 2: in the United States. And even though many many people
Speaker 2: are involved with gardening around the country and selling to schools,
Speaker 2: we need that leadership to show us that this is
Speaker 2: possible and absolutely essential for climate We can't be shipping
Speaker 2: food around the world. It's the idea that comes from
Speaker 2: the fast food and doctrination that we should have whatever
Speaker 2: we want, whenever we want it. And you can't bring
Speaker 2: an unripe avocado from Mexico and hope that it's going
Speaker 2: to ripen by the time you get it to you know,
Speaker 2: Denmark in December.
Speaker 1: If you like listening to Ruthie's table for Would you
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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks to you, And really what you've done
Speaker 1: is a much greater understanding of the restrictions and the
Speaker 1: joy we have of different seasons that a vegetable or
Speaker 1: fruit comes and then goes, and then another one comes
Speaker 1: and then it goes. Don't you think you say hello
Speaker 1: and then you say goodbye to a fruit or vegetable.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful thing, actually to think of it that way,
Speaker 2: Hello and goodbye, because you.
Speaker 3: Don't want to be just eating food.
Speaker 2: Isn't at that moment of ripeness when it has such
Speaker 2: a distinct flavor. I mean, right now, we have passion
Speaker 2: fruit all the trees around Berkeley and people are bringing
Speaker 2: them over to shape and ease, and we're buying them
Speaker 2: and we're making a passion fruit syrup. We've never done
Speaker 2: that before.
Speaker 3: And it is delicious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right now we have we don't have passion fruit,
Speaker 1: but we have porcini mushrooms that were gathering, and we
Speaker 1: have white truffles and we have now but the best,
Speaker 1: guess the best thing we have is the olive oil.
Speaker 1: I served some yesterday to some friends. I poured some
Speaker 1: oil out and I said, these olives were on the
Speaker 1: trees three weeks ago.
Speaker 2: Well, we discovered that we can make olive oil that's
Speaker 2: as tasty as all of the olive oils I've always
Speaker 2: loved from Italy. So it's really interesting to know what
Speaker 2: we can grow and to get those seeds. And we're
Speaker 2: going to really need it with climate change. What grow
Speaker 2: when it's very rainy, very hot, And we need to
Speaker 2: really collaborate internationally about that.
Speaker 1: Last year, there was rain in July, then there was
Speaker 1: a hal there was heat, and the olive oil was
Speaker 1: really challenging to find enough oil because you know, we
Speaker 1: use so much in the River Cafe. I think we
Speaker 1: use seven thousand bottles a year, you know, ten bottles
Speaker 1: a day. How have you experienced climate change in San Francisco?
Speaker 1: How has that affected what you're eating and growing?
Speaker 2: It's affected us all of course psychologically. And it's the
Speaker 2: reason that I'm so focused on public education, supporting farmers
Speaker 2: directly like we do paying them the real costs, because
Speaker 2: we need to have a solution or a way to
Speaker 2: directly help the farmers during this time of climate change.
Speaker 2: We need to pull the carbon down and put it in
Speaker 2: the ground where it belongs. We could do that with
Speaker 2: the procurement of food in public schools. You're doing that
Speaker 2: with King Charles's Foundation Farm to School in England. But
Speaker 2: I think that restaurants could really help to lead the
Speaker 2: way to supporting and purchasing all food that it is
Speaker 2: locally grown, organically and reach oatively.
Speaker 1: My last question to you, Alice, is if food is
Speaker 1: what we feed our children, our grandchildren, what we feed
Speaker 1: people who come to our restaurants, it is also comfort.
Speaker 1: Food is a source of comfort, emotional comfort. Is there
Speaker 1: a food that you would particularly associate with comfort?
Speaker 2: Well, for me, the great thing about food is esthetic
Speaker 2: connects you to the beauty of nature. And I go
Speaker 2: outside and just throw myself down on around smellthy herbs,
Speaker 2: and I love rosemary. I love to fry rosemary and sage.
Speaker 2: I love to sprinkle it on just about anything. But
Speaker 2: it is aroma therapy and that is very powerful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Alice. I feel that we are separated by
Speaker 1: oceans and valleys and rivers, plains and cities, but I
Speaker 1: do feel that we are connected through so much our
Speaker 1: love for food. Our love for people, we work with,
Speaker 1: our children, our grandchildren, for nature, for farmers, and most
Speaker 1: of all, I think, certainly on my part, I love
Speaker 1: for each other. Thank you very much, thank you,