You don't need to have eaten at Chez Panisse to be shaped by the restaurant which celebrates its 40th anniversary this week. You don't even have to like Alice Waters, the woman who started it -- snarkmeister Anthony Bourdain doesn't.
Doesn't matter. All today's precepts of a sustainable food system, the things we take for granted that can sound like so much yadayada -- eating organically, supporting small, local farms, advocating for healthier school lunches, connecting with our food beyond the plate -- began with Waters and with Chez Panisse.
As the new book 40 Years of Chez Panisse shows, it hasn't all been roses and frisee. Waters and company began with a dream, not a business model. But what Waters lost in restaurant revenue, she's made up for in vision. And impact. In her own breathy-voiced, dreamy-mannered way, she's as much a revolutionary as any other '60s activist. She didn't try to end the war, she was after changing the way we eat. Not by enacting food policy, not by blogging about it -- or by snarking about it -- but by example, plate by plate. And book by book -- eight of them, including The Art of Simple Food and Chez Panisse Vegetables.
Waters isn't a vegetarian -- and just as well -- Bourdain doesn't think much of us, either -- yet she devoted an entire book to vegetables out of love for them. Chez Panisse Vegetables encourages others to love -- and prepare -- them, too. Her program The Edible Schoolyard encourages kids to love them, too, with a hands-on in the dirt and in the kitchen lesson that what we eat depends on our commitment to doing right by the environment. "Farm to table is her gift to mainstream America," says Beard award-winning chef Michael Schwartz of Michael's Genuine.
Bourdain's beef with Waters comes down to his belief we should be able to eat crap if we want to, and the organic produce Waters champions isn't, for many people, feasible or affordable. Waters never claimed our investment in dinner has to be financial. Look at the Edible Schoolyard kids, look at the White House vegetable garden (Waters' idea, by the way) -- sweat equity does the job very nicely. So does getting to know our local farmers and getting to know our own kitchens. Having a personal stake in growing and preparing food makes us understand and prize it, not take it for granted. That ain't yadayada.
Neither is staying in business for four decades -- which in restaurant time, you have to figure in dog years. Waters' formula? "Flavor, not philosophy," as she writes in The Art of Simple Food. Her commitment to serving fresh, seasonal local food keeps bringing people to Chez Panisse and keeps bringing people together. There's a reason 40 Years of Chez Panisse is subtitled The Power of Gathering.
Michael Schwartz puts it this way -- "Because of the work she does in and out of her restaurant, there is hope for our food culture."
Hope. And great eats, too. Happy 40th anniversary, Chez Panisse. You never looked lovelier.
Swiss Chard Gratin
Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food
In The Art of Simple Food, Waters writes, "Let things taste of what they are."
Chard at its sweet, seasonal peak totally shines in this dish, which tastes richer than its simple ingredients indicate.1-1/2 bunches chard, washed and stemmed, saving half of the stems

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

Butter

1 onion, diced

Salt

2 teaspoons flour

1/2 cup milk (a splash more if needed for thinning gratin)

Freshly grated nutmegPreheat oven to 350.
After washing and stemming the chard, save half the chard stems and slice them thinly. Cook the stems for about 2 minutes in 2 quarts boiling salted water. Add the chard leaves and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and cool. Gently squeeze out the excess liquid from the stems and leaves and coarsely chop them.
Toss the breadcrumbs with 2 teaspoons melted butter. Toast them on a baking sheet in a 350 degrees oven, stirring now and then, until lightly brown, about 10 minutes.
Melt 1- 1/2 tablespoons butter over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the diced onion and cook over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chard and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook for 3 minutes.
Sprinkle 2 teaspoons flour over the onion-chard mix. Stir well and add 1/2 cup milk and a little freshly grated nutmeg. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more milk if the mixture gets too thick. The chard should be moist but not floating in liquid. Taste and add salt if needed.
Butter a small baking dish. Spread the chard mixture evenly in the dish and dot with 2 teaspoons butter. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the top.
Bake in a 350 degrees oven until the gratin is golden and bubbling, 20 to 30 minutes.
Serves 4.
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At a time when we have endured so many loopy food fads (remember oat bran? vertical food?) Alice has been an oasis of common sense and great eating.