Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
By: Sheri Wetherell
Published: March 17, 2008

You know you have a good book in your hand when time simply evaporates - poof! two hours gone just like that. This is what happened when I boarded my flight from San Francisco to Seattle and cracked the spine of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. If you're interested in food, and I'm assuming you are since you're reading a food blog, then this gem will keep you spellbound and salivating in no time flat. It's the perfect balance of cuisine, biography and history.
If you are unfamiliar with Alice Waters and her famous restaurant Chez Panisse please allow me the honor of an introduction. Alice Waters was a young woman with a passion for food, an unwavering vision, determination and virtually no restaurant experience when she opened the doors to her Berkeley, California restaurant in the early 70's. What set her apart from other restaurateurs during that early era was her obsessive devotion to quality local and organic ingredients; something she experienced during her months as a student in France, but relatively unheard of stateside. This revolutionary approach to artisanal cooking resulted in the birth of California Cuisine.
I won't give any more away, you should indulge in it yourself. But I tell you this, if you are a food lover you will gobble this book up.
Enjoy the feast