In Conversation with Alice Waters

In Conversation with Alice Waters is presented by The Center for the Arts and Capital Public Radio and moderated by Beth Ruyak.

Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and the founder and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley. She has been a champion of local sustainable agriculture for over four decades. In 1995 she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project, which advocates for a free school lunch for all children and a sustainable food curriculum in every public school. She has been Vice President of Slow Food International since 2002. She conceived and helped create the Yale Sustainable Food Project in 2003, and the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy in Rome in 2007. Her honors include election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007; the Harvard Medical School’s Global Environmental Citizen Award, which she shared with Kofi Annan in 2008; and her induction into the French Legion of Honor in 2010. In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act, and that the table is a powerful means to social justice and positive change. Alice is the author of fifteen books, including New York Times bestsellers The Art of Simple Food I & II, and The Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea.

As host of Capital Public Radio’s Insight, Beth Ruyak delights in the opportunity to communicate and converse in the region she calls home. People ask her about the differences between television and radio broadcasting; she says she tries to fill in the visuals with language, sounds, voice and imagination. To Beth, being part of the Capital Public Radio team is a privilege, an adventure and a great reason to go to work everyday. Of course, so is the dance as she calls it, with the guests and audience on Insight.