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Alice Waters, born 1944
Chef, author, local food pioneer, and sustainable agriculture advocate Alice Waters has long championed a culinary philosophy centered on the importance of preparing and serving only the freshest, in-season, organic products. Since its founding in 1971, here award-winning Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California, has been at the forefront of a "delicious revolution" dedicated to challenging and changing the way that people think about food. The success of Waters's farm-to-table campaign can be measured in part by the exponential increase in the number of restaurants, farmers' markers, and mainstream grocery stores that now feature locally grown produce.
As the winner of the National Portrait Gallery's 2009 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, photographer Dave Woody was commissioned to create this portrait. It pictures Waters beneath a mulberry tree in the Edible Schoolyard, the one-acre garden she established in 1998 at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley to give students the opportunity to take an active part in all aspects of the food cycle. The mulberry tree underscores Waters's commitment to local food, for its fruit is too delicate to be shipped to distant markets and thus can only be enjoyed locally.
Dave Woody, 2010 |