(article, Kim Carlson)
We who love good food are used to hearing Alice Waters' name, but with the publicity machine in motion for her new book, The Art of Simple Food, she seems to be everywhere. Last weekend in the New York Times, San Francisco writer Patricia Leigh Brown invited Alice into her kitchen for a makeover. Waters obliged. Ultimately, Brown and her family wanted to redo their menus and their eating habits. The results of the Waters kitchen visit? Hilarity — "Of the Great Pizza Fiasco, the less said the better" — but also better eating. "Subtle shifts afoot," Brown reports. She says she's even making her own vinaigrette in a mortar and pestle and feeding her teenage boys pluots. Over on The Ethicurean, Montana resident Charlotte Freeman asked a more serious question of Waters, who is involved in the development of Ameya Preserve, a gated community of luxury homes in the state's Paradise Valley. "Why," Freeman asks Waters, "are you involved in a development project that seems to run against the very grain of what you believe in — community, connection, real food, real people?" There's a lively discussion going on in the comments section — but so far, nothing yet from Waters herself. Will she oblige?