Alice Waters opened her landmark Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse in 1971. She is an internationally-known chef, author, and restaurateur whose steadfast vision pioneered a culinary philosophy based on using only the freshest local ingredients, picked in season.

In 1996, Ms. Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to establish a public school curriculum and school lunch program where growing, cooking and sharing food at the table gives students the knowledge and values to build a humane and sustainable future. She helped found the Yale Sustainable Food Project at Yale University and a similar project at the American Academy in Rome, and is the founder of the inaugural Slow Food Nation event in 2008.

In February 2008, Ms. Waters was a co-recipient, with Kofi Annan, of the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment's Global Environmental Citizen Award. Prior to that, she was honored with Audubon's Rachel Carson Award in 2004. Her most recent book is The Art of Simple Food.

For more information:

• Chez Panisse
• Chez Panisse Foundation
• Edible School Yard
• Slow Food Nation
• Sundance Channel's "Iconoclasts"
• Lunch with a Food Revolutionary NYT