@AliceWaters splashed onto the food media scene last Friday, and today at 5pm, Alice Waters herself — along with a cohort of Chez Panisse and Open Restaurant staffers — descended upon Twitter HQ for a big press conference to launch the Eating for Education campaign.
For the record, she assured everyone that she is indeed Tweeting herself. She has an iPhone, and loves it, especially the camera. The 25 year-olds at Chez Panisse convinced her, she says.
Here are the live highlights of the press conference. (Note: she did acknowledge the trouble in the Middle East)
Updated constantly throughout the hour.
5:00: There are glasses of rose, platters of oranges, Medjool dates and so on. Some Twitter staffers say they skipped Lady Gaga last week, but made sure to make this one.
5:13: Alice Waters says she wanted to bring live chickens, but thought better of it. Then she heard Lady Gaga was here last week, and thought maybe since Gaga travels around in an egg, the chickens weren’t that radical.
5:17: Edible Schoolyard talk. She’s recapping the Edible Schoolyard program — now 15 years old! — and saying that’s the big impetus for the Twitter incorporation. The Edible Schoolyard teacher is here, too, and will be putting on a cooking demo, treating the audience like she would her classes, in order to show us all what the Edible Schoolyard is all about.
5:19: Slides of the olden days at Chez Panisse! There are some euphemisms for “tasting everything” in the kitchen back then, she jokes.
5:20: On the 70s and all the Berkeley protests: “I wish we had been Twittering — I mean Tweeting! — back then. We were trying to spread the word.”
5:24: Here’s one of the slides.
5:25: Time for the Edible Schoolyard demo by Esther Cook, the longtime Edible Schoolyard teacher. We’re making kale crostini, with three kinds of kale!
5:35: Quick cooking time out for a coughing fit break. Alice Waters saves the day, and takes the mic to show more slides of the Edible Schoolyard. She reiterates that her ideal is to have free school lunches across America and that she wants to create “an environment where kids are so comfortable they can have a cup of juice or tea and have a conversation.”
5:38: Esther won’t be returning, apparently. Waters will continue to “preach the gospel” in her stead.
5:40: Jerome, Stacy and Sam from Open Restaurant take the stage. Jerome explains that they are “an outgrowth of Chez Panisse” — a collective of people who look at the world through the prism of a restaurant. Tonight, they’re making pasta.
[Forgot the coolest part about the pasta: it had the Preamble to the Constitution embossed on it:]
5:42: “We are what we eat, and we eat what we cook, so we are what we cook.” –Jerome
5:43: Jerome says we should know what we’re eating — so we can all Tweet about it.
5:45: Waters back on stage, showing photos from her next book, The Power of Gathering (co-written with Michael Pollan), including one guy “with a big ol’ cardoon in his hand.”
5:47: They’re recapping the various Open Restaurant events, or rather, extravaganzas. If you haven’t gone, you should. (Read more about it here.)
5:49: Waters shares some details on Chez Panisse’s 40th birthday. Instead of that Greek Theater bash, there will be myriad dinners from all the Chez Panisse alumni, on or around the birthday (more on that later). Open Restaurant will do a big event too.
5:49: Time for questions!
5:51: Waters’ favorite restaurants? Her favorites are those that have chefs that she sees at the farmers’ markets. She likes to see her friends, she says.
5:52: Great quote: “I think something remarkable is happening in the Bay Area. It’s multiplying … I can’t even keep up [with all the new restaurants] … People are opening restaurants now not to make money, but to have a wonderful way of living their lives. That wasn’t always the case. It’s so healthy that it’s not corporations opening satellites.”
5:55: And that’s it, folks. Basically, the biggest rationale for the Twitter account is to raise money for Edible Schoolyard, in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Chez Panisse. It’s a big, nationwide push to unite Edible Schoolyards program and Chez Panisse alumni (i.e., the aforementioned dinners), and raise nationwide awareness — to a new audience. And to further the Edible Schoolyard agenda: getting lunches to all schools across America.
6:01: Now, there’s pasta-making with cute kids, and farmers’ market produce up for grabs. This Twitter HQ is quite the place. Not a bad place to kick off the new #EatingforEducation campaign.
I love the timeline Paolo Lucchesi created at this event. I am going to do this sometime. Its practically as if I were at the press conference.
Rieva Lesonsky is President and Founder of 
