Evelyn Griesse reveals why she believes in fate. Then Max talks with Alice Waters about what she has learned from running Chez Panisse, her legendary restaurant, for 50 years and why she’s not afraid to pass it on to the next generation of chefs.
Learn more about Evelyn Griesse’s work with The South Dakota Access for Every Woman Fund
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transcription
[PRE-ROLL]
[OPENING MONTAGE]
Madeleine Albright: I know this program is 70 Over 70, but I really wish I were younger. I wish I was 70…but, I am ready!
[THEME MUSIC STARTS]
William: I’m 72 years old.
Paula: I’m 75, miraculously enough.
Sandy: I am 83 years old.
Betty: I am 88 years old.
James: You know, I’m here at 92.
Lucia: I’ll be 94 in May.
Donalda: I’m 101 years old.
Evelyn Griesse: My name's Evelyn Griesse, I'm 78 years old and I live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
Evelyn: I've never had a grand plan for my life at all…. but I think I do believe in fate.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Evelyn: When I was 28 years old, I went to the doctor he said, ‘well, you're pregnant.’ And my very first question was, ‘can you give me information on how I can get an abortion?’ And he in turn said, ‘no, I can’t even give you information.’ I was living in South Dakota, where it was obviously illegal to have an abortion. The only place that it was legal was in California and New York. Nothing in between.
[MUSIC PAUSES THEN CONTINUES]
Evelyn: So I’d remembered that where women's magazines, when I would go to the library, and in the back of the magazines were maybe several pages of small ads. And one of them was ‘if you're pregnant and have questions, call this number’. I'm not sure why I remembered that. It just stuck. So, I went to the library, found the number, and called. And when the person picked up, they let me know that it was Planned Parenthood.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Evelyn: So on Friday I finished work, had my airline ticket in my hand, hadn't been on an airplane before --certainly had been to New York City. Got there late Friday evening, had the procedure done, stayed overnight, left the next morning. Monday I, uh, went back to work. And essentially I just went on with my life. It was...it was easy for me until I began to think about it and then realized that it was very important...went way beyond just this event.
[MUSIC PAUSES THEN CONTINUES]
Evelyn: It was a process of realizing, for me, that I owed a debt to the women and the people who were helping women all along the way--sometimes with great sacrifice to themselves. And in South Dakota right now, for the last 30 years, there's only been one abortion provider in the state. So I founded the South Dakota Access for Every Woman Fund. We accept money from anyone who contributes and that money is designated to women who call us looking for assistance for an abortion procedure. And I do this because it needs to be done and because someone helped me.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Evelyn: Fate has led me down many paths without me knowing that it was doing that. But I don’t consciously think of a legacy or what I’m leaving behind. It’s through those people that we’ve helped, they’re the ones that kind of build our legacy. And my tombstone would probably-- would be fine for me to just see that it says she lived, she died.
[THEME MUSIC FADES IN]
Evelyn: Maybe in between, she had a pretty good time [laughs], but she didn't have a plan. No, she didn't have a plan.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Max Linsky: That was Evelyn Griesse, and from Pineapple Street Studios, this is 70 Over 70, a show about making the most of the time we have left. I’m Max Linsky.
My guest this week is Alice Waters, a chef whose name has become synonymous with an entire philosophy of how to eat, and how to live.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: Waters is the owner of Chez Panisse, the legendary restaurant in Berkeley, California that helped create the slow food movement. If you've heard the phrase ‘farm to table’, that has something to do with Alice and her restaurant.
She opened the place 50 years ago this August, and Chez Panisse feels like another kid to her, one she watched grow up and that’s now reached middle age. And along the way, Alice has gotten a level of recognition that’s rare in American life. She's won multiple James Beard awards. Barack Obama gave her the national humanities medal. She got a lifetime achievement award 20 years ago.
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Max: And I wanted to know how all that feels to her now. Whether becoming shorthand for an entire movement changes how you understand yourself day to day. And how the woman who opened Chez Panisse half a century ago makes sense of everything that’s happened since.
Alice Waters is 77 years old.
INTERVIEW
Max: Alice, welcome to the, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.
Alice Waters: Well, thank you for having me.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: I have so many questions for you, but I was wondering if we could start with you telling me a story. And there's a story you've told many, many times about being in Paris and falling in love with food. But there's another story that, uh, a friend of yours told me about, about you in Turkey...at a gas station.
Alice: Oh. [laughs]
Max: I was wondering if we could start there and if you could tell me that story.
Alice: Well, I love that story. I was traveling from London with a friend of mine and we decided we'd just take off and and drive to Turkey. And we decided to camp on the way.
Max: How old are you at the time?
Alice: Oh, we were 24.
Max: Mm hmm.
Alice: And we camped in all different places, sometimes campgrounds, sometimes just in the field. But we were in Turkey and pitched our tent in the night just pulled into a...a lot. And in the morning we woke up and we found a bowl of warm goat's milk put under the flap of the tent. And we were so touched by that and we wanted to know where it came from and we went to this little nearby gas station and it turned out that this young kid, uh, was saying that he was his field and that he had put the milk under our flap of the tent. And 11 year old he was. 11 years old. And I've never forgotten how capable he was and how sensitive and how giving. And it really instilled that trust in people that you don't know, and I think about that all the time, that we're afraid to accept things from people. To be connected in a personal way, that we always think they want something from us. And he didn't want anything, anything from me. There was no expectation that I was obliged because of their hospitality. It really woke me up in a way that I have never forgotten ever.
Max: Are you able to connect the dots and, like, give words to how that moment changed your life?
Alice: It's difficult to say how it changed my life, except for the fact that I have always been seeking out and responding to people who have that about them.
Max: Mm hmm.
Alice: I know that is an aspiration of mine.
Max: How do you think you're doing with that aspiration?
Alice: [laughs] Well, I love it when I'm at the restaurant and I have that opportunity to just send something over to somebody and not even tell them where it's from [laughs] surprise them and I, of course, can't do that now and it's even hard for me to do it in any social distanced away outside at home. And so I'm-I'm very, you know, lonely and in that-that place. That I can't feed people ideas. I have to just talk to them, but I really want to engage them.
Max: Well, I'm-I'm really hoping that the ability to feed ideas through talking to people is at least, um, possible, ‘cause that's like the whole premise of this thing that I'm doing so I hope it works a little bit. [Alice laughs] Just to go back to that moment in Turkey for a second, when I--when I heard that story, it brought me back to being 24 myself and how open I was at that time to an experience like that being so eye opening and so moving. And I'm not sure, like I'm as open to that now as I was then. There's like a, I don't know, like a hardening or like some sort of cynicism. And part of the reason I want to talk to you is that when I look at your life, my sense is that you have stayed relentlessly open in the way that you were in that moment. And I wonder if that feels true to you.
Alice: It does seem really true to me. I learned to trust probably in the time of the free speech movement in the 60s where we really wanted to help each other. And I would ride my bike down to the freeway and I'd hitchhike into the city. And I never locked up my bike. And when I got back there it was. It made me feel so just connected to the community and to Berkeley. So I've always wanted to live here. Um, but I think we have been taught to be fearful and to hold on what is-- to what is ours. Don't let anybody have that, you know? Who knows what they put in that sandwich if it's not wrapped all up, you never know. It's really something that we need to learn when we're young, when we're children.
Max: Right.
Alice: I'm hoping that we can begin to learn that and find a way to...[laughs] I was going to say to love each other, but it sounded so, so sort of pollyannaish. Is that how you say that? [laughs]
Max: Well, I'm asking you some pollyanic questions, so I think that counts. [Alice laughs] But one thing--one thing I wonder is like, have you had moments over the years in which remaining open yourself--remaining connected to people, loving others--where that was hard?
Alice: Well, somebody broke into my house once in the middle of the night and I was terrified and I thought that he was probably going to kill me. And I thought I was afraid of dying. And I realized that I wasn't. I just broke through a window and jumped out. And I didn't know that about myself. And in a way, I was scared about being in a house alone and I did lock the doors for a while, but being engaged all the time is helping me to live at this moment in time by myself.
Max: It sounds to me like part of what you're saying is about being present.
Alice: I am saying that and our senses are pathways into our minds. That touching and tasting and smelling and listening and really seeing are so vital to what you're thinking. And I'm really saying it about cooking, because this is the moment that we can learn about what is really affordable, what is really nutritious, how to cook simply, how to engage our children with the whole cooking process. And I feel like we are sensorially deprived as a country and really as a world, many because of hunger and poverty, but all of us by an indoctrination from a fast food culture. And so I am drinking my tea from my bowl and I look at the different bowls that I'm drinking out of and they remind me of my friends. And when I'm cooking, I'm going into my cookbooks that have beautiful pictures of food. And I'm thinking about who wrote that book and what time and what could I cook right now and it brings back the aromas. I'm always bringing flowers into the house. I'm looking out right now at my redwood tree...
Max: Mm hmm.
Alice: And that gives me such comfort.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Alice: So I'm trying my hardest to use all my senses.
Max: Yeah. Is it working?
Alice: You know, in a way it is, but I have to be very deliberate.
[MUSIC CONTINUES THEN FADES OUT]
[BREAK/MIDROLL]
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Max: I wonder if you can think back to the 24 year old in Turkey [Alice laughs] and what she would think about capital A capital W Alice Waters.
Alice: [laughs] I think she would think-- no she would have never imagined-- she would never imagined my life, except in the way that I wanted to please myself. I never, ever was looking for a job [both laugh]. I never imagined a career. I never wanted to make money, except that I knew that I had to make some money. But it was never a goal of mine. I never thought about what I was going to do. I just sort of followed my intuition in a way.
Max: Was it always that way or was there a point--you know, after James Beard says you've got one of the four best restaurants in America--is there a moment where you say, like, ‘OK, the-the ground has shifted under me, I have more opportunities now. I need to have a plan’? Were you thinking that way [Alice laughs] or was it always like, ‘I'm just going to do the next thing that-that feels right’?
Alice: It never occurred to me to do anything that didn't feel right for either fame or fortune. I-I guess I, of course, was affected by the fame of being invited someplace or got some award for the restaurant. Without any question, I mean, it pleased me. And I thought the restaurant was unique in some way, but I thought if-if I didn't like doing it anymore, that we would close it. [laughs]
Max: Right.
Alice: And every single year we have asked ourselves that question at the board of directors. Do we want to do it for another year or not?
Max: Have you ever had doubts?
Alice: We had a big question probably at 20 years, but I've always thought of the restaurant a little bit like a child growing up. That it's all very new and exciting from [both laugh] 0 to 5. And then there's a stable period, you know, it's sort of a 7 to 10 or 12 or 13. And then it's very tumultuous. Then you're 20 and go off to college.
Max: Is it having any midlife crisis hitting 50?
Alice: [laughs] A little midlife crisis at 40. But this is a time that you have a family, an extended family. You've had the children, and you're really thinking, what is the big picture that we can communicate? And I've probably been working on that big picture for 25 years with the Edible Schoolyard Project.
Max: Yeah.
Alice: And the more that I've been involved with the slow food movement internationally, I'm pretty clear about what needs to be done right now.
Max: I'm glad you brought up the Edible Schoolyard, ‘cause I-I do want to talk to you about the impact that you have had on food and restaurants, and I wonder if you could elaborate on that for me for a second, ‘cause I want to know what it has meant to receive the kind of validation that you have gotten over your life.
Alice: When I received the award from Barack Obama, I think that was the most meaningful award I received because it meant that I had been teaching the values that he admired and that my crazy ideas of writing to presidents to [laughs] to make gardens on the White House lawn was not all in vain.
Max: Yeah.
Alice: That I wasn't just sort of talking out there in the world [Max laughs] and nobody was listening, but...it just makes me cry [laughs]. I...what I'm talking about always are kind of these universal values.
Max: Yes.
Alice: I didn't dream them up. I went to France. [Right] I learned them. I learned them in a culture, uh, that was a slow food culture.
Max: Right.
Alice: I learned how to buy food that was in season. I learned how to eat food that was just picked and what it meant to taste and how to sit at the table and how it enriched my life. I learned that from the French and I wanted to live like that. I wanted a full cultural experience. And then I realized that I couldn't count on someone giving me that. I had to make it myself. I had to have a restaurant where I could have that food. [laughs]
Max: Yeah.
Alice: It was just like that so to see other people creating their own restaurant. [Yeah.] And it's totally different than Chez Panisse, but it's based on the same values. It's just a thrill for me. It's like for my child to do something that is giving her life meaning and that's where the joy is. And it's endless joy when you have that big extended family to realize that your life's work is...is really worthwhile.
Max: First of all that’s just a beautiful answer. But there is something in what you were saying that I want to ask you about, which is….you know, you feel as though you were taking these ideas and these values from France and trying to apply them in your own life. But here, like I've known who you are for 25 years, you know. You, capital, A capital W Alice Waters [Alice laughs], have come to mean so much in terms of farm to table and how we think about food. You're both, like, synonymous with and a stand in for this movement that I could throw a rock for my house and hit 10 restaurants that use that language. And, for you, what's the gap between that person, like that person I've known for 25 years and who you are when you're walking around your garden and noticing things blossoming and paying attention to the bowl you're drinking your tea out of?
Alice: [laughs] Well, I hope there's not a big gap, but I'm doing something always that was pleasing myself [laughs]. I'm not doing something that's hard to do and I think that's the most important thing for this world to understand. Putting a seed in a ground, growing something, picking it, eating it, gathering at tables and playing music for each other and celebrating the harvest and all of this has been part of civilization since the beginning of time. And we can discover it. It's why I call it a delicious revolution, because you can find food that's ripe in season and affordable, if you know how to cook. It's a great pleasure. A daily pleasure. And people say they don't have time for it, but we need to make time.
Max: It sounds so, um, it sounds so simple when you say it.
Alice: It is. It is. [laughs]
Max: But I imagine that some people hear what you just said and because of things that feel out of their control, it feels inaccessible.
Alice: I know it's very, very hard right now, there's no question about it, but I know that some of the most successful projects for the homeless have been garden projects. That's what inspired me to start The Edible Schoolyard was a garden project at San Francisco County Jail. [Yeah] And I saw how people were changed in the process of gardening. And we have to value the farmers again. And the teachers as well. Those are two really important people in our world. They feed us. And so I'm hoping that we can have a big event in Sacramento in another year [Max laughs] where we can have a table a mile long and feed the farmers and the teachers.
Max: I really like the image of you at a very long table with a great many people. [Alice laughs] Just to go back to that gap for a second between the person I've known for 25 years and the person I've been talking to for the last hour. Are you saying that you feel like there's not much of one that you've been able to--
Alice: To be myself?
Max: Yeah. To be yourself and be this person getting medals from presidents for changing the world?
Alice: Well, I hope I'm kind of the same person. I hope so that I haven't, you know, used those medals except in a way to achieve the goal of the Edible Schoolyard project to further these big ideas. And sometimes it's very useful in terms of speaking to the powers that be in Italy or in France, particularly for me, even in countries like Japan. I feel like I have access to the people who are making the decisions about education about food. And it's built an incredible camaraderie among restaurateurs internationally. And whether it's somebody like Alex Atala in in Brazil or Massimo Bottura--these people, we have that in common. And when we're thinking about big ideas for change, we consult each other. And it's well-known restaurants in the United States, you know. The big ones in the Bay Area, with like Quince the fancy ones, but it's also the little guys. [Max laughs] And I love that. That, you know, I'm always talking with Gilbert at Zuni and what works for their to-go. How does Sylvan at, you know, his little Japanese restaurant, I mean, you know, it's a lot more about food to-go than I do. But it's that that is way more than the extended family. I mean, it's the real extended family and I wish that, or I hope, that with this administration that we will be able to be a force for change.
Max: Hearing you say that, being able to articulate that so simply and so clearly, it reminds me of something you’ve written about, which is the last thing your mother ever said to you. And what she said was,” I'm so proud of what you've done. All my life you've lived the life I've wanted to live." Do you think that clarity, that simplicity of purpose, do-do you think that’s what she meant?
Alice: I guess I probably do because she was wanting... I don't know to-to have some kind of liberation that she only found when she was much, much older. And when she and my father moved to Berkeley. But I think she would have been a real activist [laughs]. And it made me so happy to know that I was doing that for her. My father tried to find meaningful work always. It was hard for him. He didn't really find it till the end of his life, but that is completely a theme of my life. There's no difference between work and pleasure. Sometimes it's a little hard, but I never separate them. I have the family at Chez Panisse, which is huge and cultivated on purpose. [Mhmm] I always hired friends to work because I didn't just want people that could do the job. I really wanted people that I love to be with and wanted to be with after the work was over.
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Alice: So that is kind of an unusual way of running a business. But I have to say, I've never regretted it. It's rarely failed me.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
CREDITS
Max: 70 Over 70 is a production of Pineapple Street Studios and it’s produced by Jess Hackel.
Our associate producer is Janelle Anderson. Our editors are Maddy Sprung-Keyser and Joel Lovell. Research and additional reporting by Charley Locke.
Our mixers are Elliott Adler and Raj Makhija. And Jenna Weiss-Berman and I are the executive producers.
Our theme song is Like a Dream by Francis and the Lights and the music you’re listening to right now is by Beverly Glenn-Copeland, who’s 77. Original music by Terence Bernardo. Additional music by Noble Kids, and music licensing by Dan Knishkowy.
Our cover art is by Maira Kalman, who’s 72. And our episode art is by Lynn Staley, who’s 73 and also my mom.
Special thanks to Lizzy Denihan, Marci and Bob Hackel and Samin Nosrat,
Thank you, Evelyn Griesse. And thank you, Alice Waters.
I'm Max Linsky. Thanks for listening.
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