The Exchanges

Q When do you remember thinking, there's something different about Food and the connection to food here that I, I've never experienced before. Was it almost instantly after you arrived?

A It was almost instantly because we stood in line to get a hot baguette. And you waited. And then you got it, and it was warm, and we raced back to our little rooming house, and we had some apricot jam and some butter, and we ate it on the hot bread, and I wanted to eat it every morning like that. I wanted a bowl of café au lait. I wanted to see what was inside of these little restaurants that were all over Paris at that time. They were very small and had pink tablecloths and, and candle lights and, uh, you know, big bowls of food sitting on the tables as you walked in, and it was a feast, and I just really fell for it.

AI assessment note: “It was almost instantly because we stood in line to get a hot baguette.”

Q you didn't, you didn't go into this thinking you wanted to make money. In fact, that was anathema to you in some ways, but you still had to run a business because there were people whose livelihoods were depending on this in part. Is that what was happening? Were you kind of learning as you went along about shares and about a corporation and about how to structure these things?

A I was absolutely learning by doing. Which is a big Montessori idea, that actually doing that work, that you're learning about its value, and what is critical, and what it really means to clean up the restaurant after hours, and what those people needed to be paid, what a dishwasher should be paid. I remember I got a very powerful lesson About garbage from one of, uh, it was a guy who, who brought fish to the restaurant really early on. This guy, political friend of mine from way back, who collected mussels along the coast, and he would bring them into the restaurant. And he said to me one day, I want you to come out and see the dumpster. And I went out, and he pulled it open, and it didn't smell very good, and he said, I want you to get in the dumpster. I want you to know what it feels like to be not careful about the way you put garbage in this container. And it was a big wake-up call for me.

AI assessment note: “I was absolutely learning by doing. Which is a big Montessori idea”

Q When you started to focus on local food, farm to table, which I guess you didn't really call it farm to table, did you think that you were building a movement? Did you think that this was going to become Something really big, or did you just do it because you thought that was the right thing to do?

A Well, at the beginning, I thought it was the right thing to do, but I felt, though, ah, in the late seventies, the early eighties, and especially when the café, ah, became so successful, that we had this audience, and that we need to talk about taking care of the land for the future. And it really became into my consciousness when my daughter was born. And I felt like Chez Panisse could not be an island unto itself, that we were affected by everything that was upstream and around the world. And I became very conscious of that, and it's, I started to actively talk about it in every way I could. Every article that was written about the restaurant from that point on was really Talking about how dependent and how easy it is to have a relationship with the farmer and how really exciting it was to talk to that person on the phone or to see the farm and, and talk about the planting and all of that. The, the grow your own, uh, back to the land movement. It's something that I hope happens again and soon, um, because that is what is going to bring us a rural economy. When we can find a way to bring culture to agriculture, when we can bring security to the farmers who take care of the land, when we can buy directly from them, they will Want to take care of nature, and I know many are doing that, young people around the country, and I'm thrilled by it.

AI assessment note: “Well, at the beginning, I thought it was the right thing to do”

Q As, as the restaurant started to get more attention, especially after James Beard and more media attention, um, you started to become a celebrity. You started to become a famous person, not just in Berkeley, but nationally known. Was that strange for you, or I mean, did you even absorb that and assimilate that idea, or were you just kind of doing your thing?

A I mean, you can't help but be impressed when Newsweek magazine wants to put you on the cover. You know, I, I never expected, um, that kind of attention to what I thought was a pretty simple local Community restaurant in Berkeley, California. I mean, what was clear to me then And is very, very clear to me now, is that we were doing something sort of against the fast food culture of this country. That we were creating a meal that was supporting a slow food movement that was actually Buying its food directly from the people who took care of the land. No middleman. Giving them all the money. And then they brought their values into the restaurant. And that it changed us. And we became really political. We started writing their names on the cafe list. That this came from Bob Kennard's farm. That this came from Dal Porto's ranch. That this was Mas Masamoto's peach. And identifying the people who were growing and raising the food, we became in a way co-producers.

AI assessment note: “I never expected, um, that kind of attention to what I thought was a pretty simple”

Q is that obviously you work with a lot of small farmers all over California, and a lot of these farmers, presumably, I mean, they, they supply restaurants. So, first of all, from your conversations with, with the farmers that you work with who supply your restaurant and other restaurants, I mean, what is their situation like? I mean, how long can they go like this without having restaurants to supply?

A It's very serious what's going on with our whole organic farm community because they really have only the farmers markets to bring food to, and the number of people that are going to farmers markets Is not what it usually is. So we're trying to figure out how to buy that food from the farmers, and we have a project in Stockton, California. The mayor of Stockton is very enthusiastic about getting organic food into the public school system. And so at this moment in time, he asked if we could help buy food from the farmers so that he can give in Stockton. And I thought that that would be a perfect way for us to begin building that network that we're going to need for the public schools. And we're putting little recipes into the boxes so that people Know how to make very simple dishes, and we've given at least 4000 pounds of food away and stocked it.

AI assessment note: “It's very serious what's going on with our whole organic farm community”

Q who criticizes you. And you've received your fair share of it. Some people say that, you know, this is what she's talking about only applies to affluent people, and people who can afford her restaurants, and people who have the money for organic foods. Do you Do you internalize that criticism? Do you think about it? Does it change how you think about what you do? Do you ignore it?

A Well, I don't believe in this. I don't believe in the myths of a fast food culture. Food is precious. Food is precious. It can be affordable. It can be inexpensive if you know how to cook. I mean, I say that I can buy an organic chicken, and I can make at least three meals out of it for a family of four. Jose Andres says he can make six. That's affordable. I know that we can make school lunch that can even fit into the minuscule budget of the USDA reimbursement. If we know how to cook, and we do not buy fast food, if we buy the food from the people who are doing it right, and directly, This idea that I'm talking about is delicious. This is not hard to do. This is about sitting with your friends and family, and eating together, and even cooking together. This is about human values that, that we forgot about. This is addressing the issue of loneliness. This is addressing the issue of meaningless work. We are cooking something that makes other people happy.

AI assessment note: “Well, I don't believe in this. I don't believe in the myths”