Here are some highlights from our chat with Alice Waters. Thanks to all of you who joined in --

P.Mirandola:
hello -- anyone here for the Alice Waters chat?

Pinky11:
Hi there! We're here for the chat!

il_moro:
hi, pinky. how many people are "you"?

emma wood:
For people who don't know, can you give us a short synopsis of what the Edible Schoolyard you are involved with is all about?

Alice Waters:
Hi. The Edible Schoolyard is the name of a project we started here in Berkeley at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. The idea is to teach children how to take care of the land, feed themselves, and learn how to relate the community around them. It's a school lunch program, actually. We imagined a school lunch program where the kids would grow the food, and be involved in the harvest, where they'd learn how to prepare it and serve it to their schoolmates.

emma wood:
You often say that gardening and working the land helps people become more responsible members of society. What advice do you have for people who do not have programs like the Edible Schoolyard -- who might not even have a patch of weedy earth to plant -- to educate their children in this philosophy?

Alice Waters:
I think there's always some way to connect with the land. Maybe there's not a place at the school -- but there are always vacant lots, there are always community gardens, and farms outside of the city. The children at King are connected to one of the farms outside of Berkeley. They have a share program with the farm and every week they buy produce. This brings the kids together with a whole community of farmers growing food for their nourishment. And, I know there are programs like this, c.s.a's (community supported agriculture projects) all over.

We asked Alice about government funding of these school programs.

Alice Waters:
I'm hoping to get government funding. I think it should be a core curriculum for the whole public school system. It's a kind of fundamental education that's not being taught in the schools. But, I think the only way it'll be truly successful is if it becomes a community project, with implementation in an individual way at various schools, with people in the community actively participating. The schools will have to find a network of farms and ranches that they can support?..this can be a very transformative curriculum, that teaches children values that they'll have for their whole lives. It's a sensual curriculum about smells and tastes and touching?.it's a curriculum that enlivens the pathways to your mind -- it should bring meaning back into the word education -- at every stage of life.

il_moro:
I read an interview in Mother Jones recently that quoted you as saying the fare at Chez Panisse is "too expensive for some". The truth is that it's too expensive for most of us. How is poor America able to partake in any of the benefits of your philosophy considering that organic food costs about 50% more than other food?

Alice Waters:
I think that growing your own food is the least expensive way to eat. And food grown in a garden gives you the best tasting and the least expensive vegetables and that opportunity should be available to everyone. Personally, I'm interested in buying food at its real cost, because I know that food that's not organic is subsidized and grown in ways that are destroying our natural resources around the world. And, I know that sooner or later I'm going to have to pay those costs covered over by the subsidies....whether in my poor health, or in the destruction of the land. So, I'm willing to pay for somebody else to take care of the land for me.

il_moro:
an addendum: growing one's own food isn't always an option...

Alice Waters:
Well, I think we haven't explored the real possibilities of that, of growing your own food -- I think the community gardens that I've seen from coast to coast indicate that even in cold climates, there's potential for growth. I know that it takes only a 10 by 10 plot to grow all the food for 1 person for the year (John Jevens says that).