Celebrating Alice Waters

The Julia Child Award honored my friend for her lifetime of passion

People, today is a short one, but it’s also a super important one. Last week I had the honor of speaking at a gala event celebrating the great Alice Waters, who received the Julia Child Award. It’s an award given by the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, along with the team at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Have you ever visited Julia’s kitchen at the American History museum? It’s an amazing thing, to see and experience. And if you’re interested in learning more about how it all came together, you’re in luck…there’s a new book by my friend Paula Johnson, a curator at the Smithsonian who specializes in the museum’s American food and wine collection, called Julia Child’s Kitchen: The Design, Tools, Stories, and Legacy of an Iconic Space…check it out! And maybe I can ask Paula to come back for a Q&A here in the future…

This year was the 10th year of the award, so all the past winners came back to celebrate together. My old friend Jacques Pépin was there, and and Rick Bayless, Danny Meyer, Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Danielle Nierenberg, Toni Tipton-Martin, Grace Young, and Sean Sherman. Oh and me—I won in 2019!

Winners of the Julia Child Award (Photo by Jaclyn Nash, courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History)

Did you know that Jacques Pépin, on top of being an incredible chef and an amazing human, is also a beautiful artist? He designed the menus for the gala this year.

It was so beautiful to have all of us together to celebrate Alice, a person whose impact has resonated way beyond the four walls of Chez Panisse in Berkeley California.

The great Alice Waters accepting the Julia Child Award

Here are a few lines from the speech I gave to honor Alice…

Alice—you’re very important to me. You are my sister and my muse. I think everyone in this room sees you the same way.

You’re both a friend and a person who changed the way we think about ingredients, about the relationship between cooks and farmers, how we as a society can be thinking about where our food is coming from. 

When you hear Alice speak, you lean in—her voice is soft but profound, and what she’s saying is always interesting, important, understanding the present and seeing the future.

Soft voices are powerful! Because in the case of Alice they are thoughtful voices.
Alice is someone with such a whispering voice and such a powerful message. You are the food whisperer in the minds of all of us.

In a few months, you’ll hear a podcast episode we did together on Longer Tables—I’m excited for you to hear it. I even got to cook with her my mother’s recipe for sopa de ajo, garlic soup.

So friends—if you have any nice memories from Chez Panisse, about Alice or the Edible Schoolyard Project, or about Julia Child, please share. I’m feeling very grateful to have these amazing people and memories in my life, and I would love to hear yours too!