America's policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it.
In 2023, Alice visited Japan to commemorate the first anniversary of her book “We Are What We Eat – A Slow Food Manifesto”, published by Ama no Kaze. The journey took her across various regions of Japan, where she had school lunches and interacted with local producers and chefs dedicated to regenerating the local biodiversity through protecting their land. Through Alice’s passionate words and intent gaze, the audience will witness beautiful Slow Food initiatives in Japan.
Waging Change weaves the stories of individual workers such as Nataki Rhodes of Chicago and Naomi Debebe of Detroit with the efforts of thousands of restaurant workers across the country to demand respect and one fair wage.
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California, restaurant famous for creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine, which she opened in 1971. Waters has authored and co-authored many books, including "Chez Panisse Cooking" (with Paul Bertolli), "Chez Panisse Vegetables", "Chez Panisse Fruit", "The Art of Simple Food I and II", "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart", "40 Years of Chez Panisse", and her memoir, "Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Cook". Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996, and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley; a school garden initiative that today involves over 4,000 schools. She is a national public policy advocate for universal access to healthy, organic foods. Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition inspired Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden program. Since 2002, Waters has served as a vice president of Slow Food International, an organization dedicated to preserving local food traditions, protecting biodiversity, and promoting small-scale quality products around the world.