Coming To My Senses: The makings of a counterculture cook

Description

The long-awaited memoir from cultural icon and culinary standard bearer Alice Waters recalls the circuitous road and tumultuous times leading to the opening of what is arguably America's most influential restaurant. In Coming to My Senses Alice retraces the events that led her to 1517 Shattuck Avenue and the tumultuous times that emboldened her to find her own voice as a cook when the prevailing food culture was embracing convenience and uniformity. Moving from a repressive suburban upbringing to Berkeley in 1964 at the height of the Free Speech Movement and campus unrest, Alice was drawn into a bohemian circle of charismatic figures whose views on design, politics, film, and food would ultimately inform the unique culture on which Chez Panisse was founded. Dotted with stories, recipes, photographs, and letters, Coming to My Senses is at once deeply personal and modestly understated, a quietly revealing look at one woman's evolution from a rebellious yet impressionable follower to a respected activist who effects social and political change on a global level through the common bond of food.

Alice Waters is the executive chef, founder, and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe in Berkely, California. In 1995 Alice founded the Edible Schoolyard Project, which advocates for a free school lunch for all children and a sustainable food curriculum in every public school. She has received the French Legion of Honour, WSJ Magazine Humanitarian Innovator Award, and three James Beard Awards. Alice is Vice President of Slow Food International and the author of 13 books. Her most recent books are My Pantry, The Art of Simple Food, 40 Years of Chez Panisse, and In the Green Kitchen. She lives in Berkeley, California.

"Readers will be charmed by Waters's adoration of exquisitely prepared food. Her anecdotes and her descriptions of friends and customers (many of whom were filmmakers, artists, and prominent thinkers of the time) bring the era and the restaurant to the mind's eye in vibrant detail." - Publishers Weekly