Alice Waters and Chez Panisse

by Thomas McNamee

This title has been removed from sale by Penguin Group, USA.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Biography, Cooking, Cookbooks, Food Writing, Memoir

400 pages, ebook

First published March 22, 2007

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you don't want to read the book (which is enjoyable), here is a timeline that hits the high points: http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/...

[Schmacko · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a moment late in the book Alice Waters and Chez Panisse where author Thomas McNamee describes a dining experience with such detailed romance, it ends up being a little hard to believe. Still, I wanted so desperately to believe it: the purple poetry, the food and the place McNamee paints for us. I wanted to be there, eating and enjoying in that restaurant that was born of hippie haphazard in the early 1970 – the place that now is one of the most famous restaurants in the world:

As the food and the wine and the flowers and the staff did their work, there was more laughter, more talk. Strangers began chatting with one another. Old friends were changing seats. The newcomers, encouraged by the old-timers they had seen doing it, went in for a look at the kitchen and were welcomed.

As the meal wound down, so did the cooks and the waiters. Everybody was loosing up. The barriers of custom that separated stranger from stranger, server from served, frequently soften at this point in the evening at Chez Panisse, and sometimes they even seem to disappear.

Given the ambling, accidental history of Chez Panisse, it seems a miracle that it’s still around today. Alice Waters was not a professional chef; she was a Francophile American who dreamt up the whole scheme. She picked a house in Berkley, California, and she and her bohemian friends at first tried their hand at turning out French Provençal cuisine. At different times in this biography, Waters seems shy and thoughtful, sly and manipulative, perspicacious and exacting. And yet Chez Panisse was not profitable at all for its first decade, sex and drugs were quietly accepted as part of the scene, and staff would genially pilfer food and wine without a second thought or, many times, even a reprimand.

Yet, Alice Waters and her restaurant were at the forefront of thoughts that today seem pervasive. Seemingly by accident, Waters and the several chefs she had working with her actually invented California Cuisine – light, healthy and simple foods that are marked by their seasonality and freshness (in mass-market terms, Seasons 52 adopts this same thought. Also an excellent Orlando version – and my favorite local restaurant - is the California atop Disney’s Contemporary hotel.) In California style, elaborate French preparation takes a backseat to keeping the food as simple and flavorful as possible. No longer are plates the product of days of overwrought preparation; they are the culmination of study, application and experimentation in minimal but artful arrangement of flavor and skill.

There were other seminal ideas. Waters and her collaborators also adopted the idea of fostering local growers and suppliers instead of the ecologically damaging and flavor-robbing process of shipping food by truck across the nation. Also, the Slow Foods movement found one of its greatest allies in Waters. Finally, in the last decade, Waters helped start food programs at public schools and colleges across the nation and into Europe.

That’s not to say McNamee’s book answers all the questions. Why and how Waters became so obsessed with food still seems a mystery at the end of the book – it’s a question that’s better to ponder, so McNamee smartly doesn’t provide an answer. Also, there are many stories in the book of human romances – most of them fiery and short-lived next to the legacy of Chez Panisse – and maybe that’s the way it should be for a place that has been so influential in changing the American culinary landscape.

Finally, Waters seems to get a lot of credit next to the people who immeasurably helped her – people who Fate seemed to always provide to Waters at the exact time. Sometimes, it’s perfectly fine that Waters gets every bit of the credit – like when it comes to the pompous and fussy Jeremiah Towers who loves to proclaim himself the God of All Food, we root for Waters. However, the restaurant also had many amazing people involved, like the brilliant artist and writer Patricia Curtan. And the restaurant was also fostered by..oh maybe you’ve heard of them if you’re fixated on these things like I am…Jean-Pierre Moullé (who is still head chef today) and Paul Bertolli (now of frozen pasta fame).

I admit I love books like this. I am a bit of an amateur foodie, true. But I also love books about how genius is developed or accidentally stumbled upon, especially when it’s this messy and wondrous. I alos love the simple black-and-white photos throughout the book. I love the Chez Panisse menus provided for special days – like anniversaries and their annual garlic festival. I love the conversational little recipes Alice Waters narrates; they’re peppered here and there – recipes that define the California style and give a warm, personal voice to Waters.

Mostly, I love the idea of this place, an idea that McNamee sears into my imagination. Someday I hope to sit there, eat and enjoy this foodie utopia that McNamee describes.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a big biography reader. Not yet, anyway. But every once in awhile, I come across a biography that examines its subject with such intelligence and style that I emerge from that book profoundly satisfied. Add this bio to that list. I started it not even a week ago and looked forward to every return. I'm done now, and I'm bummed. Appropriately, it was delicious -- at times critical, at times glowing, and always well written -- an account of the life and times of a woman and her restaurant.

Of course, I should come clean and say that I was already primed for the pump. I find Alice Waters to be a really compelling person -- and Chez Panisse to be a lovely, lovely place to eat (if costly). I applaud her love of French culture, good food, and fine living. And I admire and support her ability to frame eating within a political context. Long may she continue to write books, influence our elected leaders, spark the planting of organic gardens in our schools, promote the Slow Food movement and all it represents, and oversee each glorious, careful plate of food at her little restaurant on Shattuck Avenue.

[Meg Vierboom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully inspiring book. I found it hard to keep on top of the many figures and portraits of those entering and exiting the world of Chez Panisse, so the gravity of their contributions didn’t always clock, but the message of community, sustainability, the joy of sharing and caring about food, certainly did! I woke up one morning mid-read and was compelled to make crepes. On another I found myself thinking about Lindsey’s pastries and ways to cultivate my own love for baking.
If you’re penchant for culinary literature needs indulging, or even if it doesn’t, this will bring both intrigue and delight. Highly recommend!

[Jeremy Liang · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of inspirational biography book

[Natasha Van Scoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written interviews and anecdotes! I love restaurants:)

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was fine. Heavens knows I love cooking, restaurants, and food, but I felt like nobody in the book was very inspiring. Alice was a visionary but so much of the way she lived her life left me feeling like "why am I wasting my time reading 300 pages about her"? Also, the material and treatment of it just felt a little bit snobby. One of those books that you wish had been a five page article that you read in a magazine or something.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I learned:

1. Baby pigeon is a squab.
2. Truffles on anything makes it better.
3. Slow food will prevent disease and obesity. Fast food be gone!
4. Butter is alright to use. use it. Forget the "i can't believe its not butter" mentality.
5. Life is not about the destination of the day, week, or year. The journey is what makes life liveable.
6. Things will work themselves out whether you have a meltdown or not. So don't have one.
7. It's better for you if it goes directly from the earth to the stove to the table to your mouth.
8. don't oversalt.
9. eat the dessert and enjoy it, as long as its made fresh. You only live once.
10. Its ok to spend money on spectacular meals in restaurants--as long as its not a chain that uses frozen, tasteless things that used to be food.

As you can see, I learned a lot.

[Mark Poons · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a major let down. A book about the "most important restaurant in America" should have been much better. The material was clearly available; the author just did a terrible job with it. He explains very little about the business side of chez Panisse, it is always loosing money but the author never explains how it stays afloat financially. Alice is always on the brink of a breakdown at the end of several chapters. Then turn the page and she is motivated again? What changed? The author doesn’t tell us. I think a big part of the problem is Alice Waters is still alive and people did not want to say bad things about her. Plus the author is just bad!

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very lighthearted yet extensive look into Alice Waters, Chez Panisse and the birth of "California cuisine." It's remarkable how much of what started there now informs so much of American dining. However, the book relies slightly too much to the "Alice did everything first, no one had ever thought of stuff like this before" trope. Not to take any credit from her, but it seems unlikely that NO ONE NO WHERE EVER thought of using lots of local products and fresh produce and seasonal ingredients. Anyway, good read, and Orinda gets a shout-out!

[Naida · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book about one of the most influential women and restaurants in American cooking.
Alice Waters and the rest of the employees, chefs and the farmers that supply Chez Panisse were part of a revolutionary movement in American food. Local, organic and simple these were their beliefs and this is how they cook.

This book does a great job of outlining Alice's life and the development of Chez Panisse. If you're looking for recipes, this is not the book for you, but if you want to know more about how the restaurant developed and Alice' passions. Than I can think of no finer book.

[Felicia Holtz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an authorized biography but it is just as catty and chatty as an unauthorized version would have been. I am fascinated at the long, strange trip Alice Waters has been on. I am somewhat cynical that she singlehandedly brought about organic farming and local cuisine, but nonetheless, I am grateful for the battles she continues to fight on behalf of our nations food. This is a fun read that will also make you crave really good food.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what I was expecting from this book but it was an ok, kind of gossipy book. Not trashy enough for a 'beach read' but not that interesting otherwise. Maybe Alice Waters really is a flake who almost always falls upwards.

[Carla Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

It only took 100 pages to convince me that I have GOT to make a pilgrimage to Chez Panisse. Plans are already in the works...

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you like food,France, dream of opening a restaurant, and support organic farmers -- you'll love it. but beware, it makes you hungry!

[Emily D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ms. Waters is a bit of an egocentric, to say the least. The book itself was too chatty.

[Julieann Wielga · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Little Free Libraries. Fate takes a hand in the books one encounters and therefore reads.

I have come to believe that Alice Waters is a genius. Here is a sentence from her cookbook written in 1984."If you plant a garden, it can change your whole style of cooking. Even a tiny plot with just a few herbs, some salad greens, garlic, leeks and beans can have a dramatic effect....a small-scale garden can open a new world of grateful subservience to the seasons. Gardening can become your primary source of culinary inspiration: to be able to go to your back yard, pick something and make a wonderful, simple, impromptu dish of pasta with it is immensely gratifying." I love that phrase "grateful subservience to the seasons".

In reading the story of Alice and Chez Panisse, so many things surprised me.
No one who was at Chez Panisse on opening night had ever worked in a restaurant, including Alice. That night was pretty much a disaster.

A student at Berkely, a trip to France was Alice's inspiration. But the French approach to food fell on very fertile ground. At the end of the book, one of the author's strongest remarks was that no one every questioned Alice's palette. She was has an incredible sensory intelligence. Not only in taste, but also in feel and beauty. This is perhaps a kind of brilliance that we are willing to pay for in buying luxuries but hardly every recognize when tabulating talent.

Restaurant life was incredibly demanding- and even more so the Chez Panisse way. Only one choice is offered every night, and that meal is made from the local pickings in Berkeley that day. The restaurant was open 7 days a week. and after everyone had left for the evening and the kitchen had been cleaned, the staff danced and partied together, fueled on a mixtures of cocaine, love affairs, wine and marijauna.

At first the restaurant was very French, recipes were built on butter, wine, rich sauces, exotic sea food, but gradually exposures to Italian influences simplified the menu. Alice came to be influenced by Italian home cooks, who find just a few perfect ingredients in their gardens and from that build a dish which highlights an exquisite piece of fruit, or a perfect fresh fish, or perfect vegetable. Alice is said to be behind, despite Julia Child's skepticism, the California Cuisine and the slow food movement.

Alice made Chez Panisse a family. So many brilliant people believed in it. Her standards were always only for perfection, and her vision is what everyone bought into. Her zest was contagious.
It is very hard to have an institution, especially a restaurant, maintain a vision from 1971 to 2017, and live beyond the founder. Yet Alice has done it. She birthed a restaurant that changed the way that Americans ate and lived. The restaurant demanded the whole lives of its crew, but it also gave back in all ways that a family can. Alice could do this because the table and good food and good talk is so central to well lived lives.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many others, this book has literally been on my shelf for a couple of years. I first heard of Alice Waters when I participated in a local CSA and became more interested in fresh, local, organic food. I picked up this book somewhere along the way. This well-researched and well-written biography documents the growth of an individual and a movement. Alice appears to be fun and quirky, but also a perfectionist devoted to her ideas, and ultimately changing the way Americans eat. I doubt that I will ever get to eat at the restaurant, but I admire Alice, and how she is trying to lead us to good, healthy food. I plan to look for her cookbooks (though I think the recipes will be beyond my culinary abilities) at the library.

"It is important to encourage all the other values beyond nourishment and sustainability and the basic things. Beauty. When you set a table, you know, take time to do that - teaching the pleasure of work- that's probably one of the most important lessons. It's also about diversity. It's about replenishing. It's about concentration. It's about sensuality. It's about purity. It's about love. It's about compassion. It's about sharing. How many things? All those, just in the appearance of eating. If you decide you're going to eat in a very specific way. It changes your life, and it changes the world around you." (260)

"[Slow food] is traditional food. It is also local - and local cuisine is one of the most important ways we identify with the place and the region where we live. It is the same with the buildings in our towns, cities, and villages. Well-designed places and buildings that relate to the locality and landscape and that put people before cars enhance a sense of community and rootedness. All these things are connected. We no more want to live in anonymous concrete blocks that are just like anywhere else in the world than we want to eat anonymous junk food which can be bought anywhere." (347)

[Ron Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is a fundamental fact that no cook, however creative and capable, can produce a dish of a quality any higher than that of the raw ingredients…” (p. 176)

There aren’t many things I love more than good food and wine, plus good company to share them with. No matter where Tena and I travel, we come home talking about what we had for dinner. I also love to read, so reading about great food and wine is somewhere among my Top Ten things to do.

Alice Waters and her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse (https://www.chezpanisse.com) created what we now take for granted as contemporary North American food, though, at the time, it was known as Californian cuisine, then New American Cuisine. She was also involved at its inception in the development of the Slow Food movement.

This was the late 1960s and early 1970s when no one had heard of chevre or arugula. The mantra at Chez Panisse, which everyone chants nowadays but no one thought of back then, was “insistence on the freshest ingredients, used only at the peak of their season, nearly always grown locally and organically.”

Alice Waters, now aged 78, has her share of personality quirks. It is astounding when you read the history of this business that it ever survived its first year, never mind that it thrived and developed a global reputation. Still, the description of that world and those times is fascinating. I also ran across the names of two cookbooks I’ve ordered: Elizabeth David’s (1960) French Provincial Cooking and Roy Andries de Groot’s (1973) The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth.

Bon Appétit !

[Bill Keefe · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's taken me a few years to wade through this book. I think it's because, as informative as the book is, it's somewhat weighed down by the detail. There's something...well, boring about wading through the detail of so many examples of taste, of passion, of table setting, of affairs, of drama. Well, there's simply something weighty in general about knowing too much.

That's not to say I didn't get something out of the book. Alice Waters appears to be one of a kind; a maestra, in the sense of a master artist but also a master orchestrator, and Mr. McNamee does a wonderful job showing this artist in all her fullness. But just as clear as her palette, so muddied is her person, and thus the book. Genius in full bloom, passion at it's most intense and most intrusive and complex human being creating storms while she navigates the craft. Chez Panisse, it seems, is a perfect reflection of its founder. And Mr. McNamee does this well, as well.

And I - and I believe any reader even modestly interested in Alice Waters and the revolution in eating and cooking that she helped usher in - learned an awful lot. Underlines and margin notes abound in my copy. Go here, try this, how is that done? I could set out a year's worth of activities and follow-on learning from the things I picked up in this book.

But in the end, the end came slowly...over years...and I believe it's as a result not of the tale but of the telling.

[Ja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know much about Alice Waters going into this, but have heard a bit about Chez Panisse, the no-nonsense California cuisine restaurant located in Berkeley, California. So when I found this book at a random Little Free Library, it was the perfect opportunity to learn a little bit more about this world.

Waters is an enigmatic figure, seeking the highest standards not only for the people she works with, but for herself as well. She poured her heart and soul in building the business that is currently Chez Panisse with nothing more than a memorable trip to France and sheer willpower to make something happen. Her tenacity is admirable, but her aptitude can also be see as a glass cannon. It's through the support of her friends and family that she seems to have been able to stay afloat not just in her business, but in her personal life as well.

McNamee's writing is easy to get into and her provides an all around encapsulation of what makes Waters tick. I enjoyed reading the book and think this will make a good reading for anyone interested in the subject material.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Waters is a badass. I love reading books about flawed characters (aren't we all?) who continue to defy the norms and boundaries of what is and is not or what should and should not be. Growing up on a farm and having grandparents who were farmers, I didn't know that food-to-table or slow food was a thing that not everyone had. We loved the idea of store bought cakes and Mac n cheese because as we grew up, that's how our friends ate. As I have grown up and has my own child, we have reverted back to the home-cooking that my grandmothers passed on - homemade bread, preserving food, etc. It does sound more romantic through the writing of this author than in the vernacular of rural America where I grew up. But I love her fight to make school food better.

[Devin Bostick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable rise of foodies in America and the local movement that helped it grow. Sure I’ll give it 5/5 because I love the story, the main points are there, and I love food. Did it pull in historical context, yes. Was it trying to focus on Alice and Chez Panisse, yes. Could it have focus on more history in a Robert Caro style way, 100%! Pull in Mark Kurlansky while you’re at it Thomas! The book overall did work and was quite enjoyable.

[MinJi Yoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love first half especially, when Alice is learning about food and following what passions fall in her lap. I found the second half pretty dull. Her ideological crusade for slow food and sustainability seems great but its executed through courting the rich and famous. Overall the book and writing is a beautiful experience but often props Waters up as someone whose flaws and selfishness can be overlooked because of her charm, success, and dedication.

[Michael Heneghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A snapshot of the life of Alice Waters, as seen from the birth, growth, and eventual maturity of her famed restaurant, Chez Panisse. The story is mainly told through extensive interviews with Alice and her numerous friends. I loved the book. Definitely want to eat there and inspires my cooking to again refocus on local, high quality ingredients that are seasonal.

[Jessica Morse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did a nice job of showing Alice Water’s busy and chaotic life path. I enjoyed many parts of it, but the many people who were in and out of her life and the restaurant became tedious. Probably not the fault of the author who was simply sharing what actually occurred, but it became repetitive and caused me to lose interest in place.

[Mikedariano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good not great. Will be interesting for people who have been to Chez Panisse, want an insight to Berkley culture, or how to start a business. Waters's recent biography, 2016 or 2017 provides more Alice, less auxiliary characters but I'm glad this book had them.

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is probably a bit unfair. The book was beautifully written. I just wasn't as taken with Alice as I expected to be (granted my knowledge of her is from recipe descriptions in The Art of Simple Food). So, 4-5 stars for the writing, 3 stars for the subject.

[Jennifer Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening. I am ashamed to admit that I was not impressed after my one visit to Chez Panisse, but now, having a better understanding of what she and the restaurant are truly about I want to revisit it.

[In · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know that delicious farm to table quirky meal you ate in a renovated barn last month? You can thank Alice for much of that experience. This book will remind you that one person with an imagination and never say die effort can change a corner of society.