Alice Waters

Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California, restaurant famous for creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine, which she opened in 1971.

Waters has authored and co-authored many books, including "Chez Panisse Cooking" (with Paul Bertolli), "Chez Panisse Vegetables", "Chez Panisse Fruit", "The Art of Simple Food I and II", "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart", "40 Years of Chez Panisse", and her memoir, "Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Cook".

Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996, and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley; a school garden initiative that today involves over 4,000 schools. She is a national public policy advocate for universal access to healthy, organic foods. Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition inspired Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden program.