"It has been four and a half decades since Alice Waters opened the doors of Chez Panisse, the 'little French restaurant' in Berkeley, California, that has been at the leading edge of the American culinary revolution ever since. Fueled in equal parts by naïveté and a relentless pursuit of beauty and pure flavor, Alice transformed our relationship with food, fine dining, and what it means to eat well. In [this book], Alice reflects on the desultory road that brought her to 1517 Shattuck Ave., culminating in the opening of that iconic establishment in 1971. Recalling for the first time in her own words the people, places, times, and meals that have touched her life, she paints an indelible portrait of the young woman from suburban New Jersey whose formative sojourn in Europe ultimately led her to the epicenter of Northern California's burgeoning counterculture in the late 1960s. There, drawn into the throes of tumultuous personal and political events, she refined her personal aesthetic, never faltering in her pursuit of the exquisite, the exceptional, the right taste. Interspersed with reflections on the doors that have opened since Chez Panisse changed the trajectory of her life and American food culture, [this book] shows the quiet determination and reckless enthusiasm that inspire Alice's activism, advocacy, and creativity. At once deeply personal and modestly understated, this coming-of-age story offers a never-before-seen look at the makings of a rebel who quietly redefined the way generations of chefs and food lovers think about food, one salad at a time."--Jacket.

When Alice Waters opened the doors of her "little French restaurant" in Berkeley, California in 1971 at the age of 27, no one ever anticipated the indelible mark it would leave on the culinary landscape--Alice least of all. Fueled in equal parts by naivete and a relentless pursuit of beauty and pure flavor, she turned her passion project into an iconic institution that redefined American cuisine for generations of chefs and food lovers. In Coming to My Senses Alice retraces the events that led her to 1517 Shattuck Avenue and the tumultuous times that emboldened her to find her own voice as a cook when the prevailing food culture was embracing convenience and uniformity. Moving from a repressive suburban upbringing to Berkeley in 1964 at the height of the Free Speech Movement and campus unrest, she was drawn into a bohemian circle of charismatic figures whose views on design, politics, film, and food would ultimately inform the unique culture on which Chez Panisse was founded. Dotted with stories, recipes, photographs, and letters, Coming to My Senses is at once deeply personal and modestly understated, a quietly revealing look at one woman's evolution from a rebellious yet impressionable follower to a respected activist who effects social and political change on a global level through the common bond of food. --Amazon.