Alice Waters is an American pioneer of a culinary philosophy that maintains that cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally. Over the course of nearly forty years, Waters has helped create a community of scores of local farmers and ranchers whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures a steady supply of fresh and pure ingredients to her restaurants, inspiring others in the food industry (and in kitchens in homes around the world) along the way.

Waters’s commitment to education led to the creation of The Edible Schoolyard, a one-acre garden and kitchen classroom at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School. The Edible Schoolyard, started in 1996, is a model public education program that gives students the knowledge and values they need to build a humane and sustainable future by actively involving them in all aspects of the food cycle: planting, harvesting, and cooking. The success of The Edible Schoolyard has led to the School Lunch Initiative, which has as its national agenda the integration of a nutritious daily lunch and gardening experience into the academic curriculum of all the public schools in the United States.

Waters is Vice President of Slow Food International, a nonprofit organization that promotes and celebrates local artisanal food traditions and has more than 100,000 members in over 130 countries. She is the author of eight books, including The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution and most recently, In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart.