Saturday, November 24, 2007

Seen at the Market: Alice Waters

I was at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market this morning in San Francisco and there was a long line outside The Gardener store. I thought they were giving away free samples of something, but when I checked out the front of the line, I saw the queen of sustainable food herself, Alice Waters. This Berkeley legend, traveling around the country peddling her latest book, The Art of Simple Food, is finally making the rounds closer to home.

Her latest book focuses on simple standards that'll bring fresh, organic, seasonal dishes to your home. It's gotten mixed reviews for its approach (read the LA Times' review by Russ Parsons). Despite what people expected from the book, Waters is still the face of seasonal cooking. Alice, glad you're home where you belong.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ben, I thought I saw u. You didn't stay for the cooking demo & just walked away or I would have liked to talk to you. Oh well.

Single Guy Ben said...

What? She was doing a cooking demo? I don't remember seeing that on the schedule? I just saw her and I snapped some pictures and thought, sigh, I'm not going to stand in line. Hmmm, are you pulling my leg? ;-)

Anonymous said...

noooo..i saw u outside when Amanda was doing the cooking demo on mushrooms. u walked by but didn't stop.

Single Guy Ben said...

Ah, yes, the regular 11 a.m. cooking demo at the Ferry Building. I got there a bit late and wanted to see if that week's chef was doing something interesting. But not to sound like some chef snob, but I thought the recipe she was demonstrating was a bit basic so that's why I didn't stick around. I was hoping she would do something different because I love mushrooms.

Next time you have to stop me and say Hi! :) In the meantime, I need to shop for a disguise. Just kidding! ;-)