Alice Waters quotes:

It's hard to come into a new relationship with food unless you're engaged in an interactive way at an early age; it's hard to change your values.

If I've gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then I'm really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. It's effortless.

I really am at a place where I think we need to feed every child at school for free and feed them a real school lunch that's sustainable and nutritious and delicious. It needs to be part of the curriculum of the school in the same way that physical education was part of the curriculum, and all children participated.

I can remember the three restaurant experiences of my childhood. All I wanted to do on my birthday was to go to the Automat in New York... but I don't know if you consider that a real restaurant.

I have a love affair with tomatoes and corn. I remember them from my childhood. I only had them in the summer. They were extraordinary.

The problem with living in a fast-food nation is that we expect food to be cheap.

English food writer Elizabeth David, cook and author Richard Olney and the owner of Domaine Tempier Lulu Peyraud have all really inspired the way I think about food.

I believe there should be breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, all for free and for every child that goes to school. And all food that is good, clean and fair.

I don't want food that comes from animals that are caged up and fed antibiotics. I am really suspicious of that kind of production of meat and poultry.

In Berkeley, we built the garden and a kitchen classroom. We've been working on it for 12 years. We've learned a lot from it. If kids grow it and cook it, they eat it.

When I first went to Paris in 1965, I fell in love with the small, family-owned restaurants that existed everywhere then, as well as the markets and the French obsession with buying fresh food, often twice a day.

Food culture is like listening to the Beatles - it's international, it's very positive, it's inventive and creative.

We make decisions every day about what we're going to eat. And some people want to buy Nike shoes - two pairs, and other people want to eat Bronx grapes and nourish themselves. I pay a little extra, but this is what I want to do.

I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. That was it. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman.

We eat every day, and if we do it in a way that doesn't recognize value, it's contributing to the destruction of our culture and of agriculture. But if it's done with a focus and care, it can be a wonderful thing. It changes the quality of your life.

You do need some dispensation for local farmers, because the fast food industry will promote the unsanitary conditions of farming. With vegetables, you have to be careful where they come from; you have to know the farmers and trust them. If you buy from the farmers' market, it's already been investigated.

The act of eating is very political. You buy from the right people, you support the right network of farmers and suppliers who care about the land and what they put in the food.

Create a garden; bring children to farms for field trips. I think it's important that parents and teachers get together to do one or two things they can accomplish well - a teaching garden, connecting with farms nearby, weave food into the curriculum.

I just hope Americans come to understand that food isn't something to be manipulated by our teeth and shoved down our gullet, that it's our spiritual and physical nourishment and important to our well-being as a nation.

My mother made a lot of things because she thought they'd be healthy for us. There were some very unfortunate experiences with whole wheat bread and bananas. I always tried to get rid of that sandwich and eat one of my friends' lunches.

The fact that most kids aren't eating at home with their families any more really means they are eating elsewhere. They are eating out there in fast food nation.

I think if you buy from people who are taking care of the land, you're supporting the future of this country.

I once had an Early Girl tomato at my friend Jay's house, and I thought that was the best thing I'd ever had. But then I visited friends in Senegal, and I ate sea urchin pulled fresh out of the sea. It tasted like the ocean.

I am disappointed because nobody is talking about food and agriculture. They're talking about the diets of children, but they're talking about Band-Aids. We're not seeing a vision.

We all need to know how to cook. I can buy a chicken and have many meals come from it. Is it affordable? Yes. Cheap? No. I want to pay the farmers the right price for food. They deserve it. They are the most important people in the country besides our teachers.

Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.

I think health is the outcome of finding a balance and some satisfaction at the table.

It's around the table and in the preparation of food that we learn about ourselves and about the world.

You have to take it upon yourself and preserve and can foods that you'll want for the winter.

My kitchen has a wood-burning oven, a large worktable, and windows all around, including one above the sink. I think whoever is washing the dishes needs to have a lot of beauty around.

I'm focused on the next generation, because I think it's very hard to break the habit of adults who've got salt and sugar addictions and just ways of being in this world. It's very hard even for the most enlightened people at famous universities that are very wealthy to spend the money that it takes to feed the students something delicious.

We've been so disconnected agriculturally and culturally from food. We spend more time on dieting than on cooking.

I think America's food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, it's very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.

I feel it is an obligation to help people understand the relation of food to agriculture and the relationship of food to culture.

We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.

Food can be very transformational, and it can be more than just about a dish. That's what happened to me when I first went to France. I fell in love. And if you fall in love, well, then everything is easy.

I think health is the outcome of eating well.

A whole set of values comes with fast food: Everything should be fast, cheap and easy; there's always more where that came from; there are no seasons; you shouldn't be paid very much for preparing food. It's uniformity and a lack of connection.

Organize yourself so you aren't struggling to shop at the last minute. When you have real food, it's very easy to cook.

The decisions you make are a choice of values that reflect your life in every way.

I eat meat, but no meat that isn't pastured is acceptable, and we probably need to eat a whole lot less.

People have become aware that way that we've been eating is making us sick.

This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.

I know once people get connected to real food, they never change back.

We have to understand that we want to pay the farmers the real price for the food that they produce. It won't ever be cheap to buy real food. But it can be affordable. It's really something that we need to understand. It's the kind of work that it takes to grow food. We don't understand that piece of it.

In countries around the world, people spend more money on food because they know how precious it is.

To have a basic ingredient that can be prepared a million different ways is a beautiful thing.

I wanted people to come to the restaurant and feel at home, so I put it in a house.

My real emphasis is on the farmers who are taking care of the land, the farmers who are really thinking about our nourishment.

I can't imagine leaving the restaurant. It's hard for me to separate my life from my work; I'm really thinking about what we're doing every day.

I want every child in America to eat a nutritious, delicious, sustainably sourced school lunch for free.

Hard-boiled eggs are wonderful when they're really done right. I bring the water to a boil, and then I put in the eggs. And then I boil them for - well, it depends on the size of the egg - maybe eight minutes.

Go to the farmers market and buy food there. You'll get something that's delicious. It's discouraging that this seems like such an elitist thing. It's not. It's just that we have to pay the real cost of food. People have to understand that cheap food has been subsidized. We have to realize that it's important to pay farmers up front, because they are taking care of the land.

People cooked with a certain integrity before fast food, 50 or 60 years ago. When the cheap food arrived, and we didn't have the education and deep cultural roots to hold on, we got swept away by fast, cheap and easy.

Create a garden; bring children to farms for field trips. I think its important that parents and teachers get together to do one or two things they can accomplish well - a teaching garden, connecting with farms nearby, weave food into the curriculum.

Good food is a right, not a privilege. It brings children into a positive relationship with their health, community and environment.

I feel that good food should be a right and not a privilege, and it needs to be without pesticides and herbicides. And everybody deserves this food. And that's not elitist

I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them.

If Ive gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then Im really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. Its effortless.

It's a comfort to always find pasta in the cupboard and garlic and parsley in the garden.

Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality; we can be complete only when we are giving something away; when we sit at the table and pass the peas to the person next to us we see that person in a whole new way.

Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe or wherever they came from. We stirred up that melting pot pretty quickly.

Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.

I am confident that we will see a growing consensus about the most effective way to transform food in America: building a real, sustainable and free school-lunch program.

I think Americas food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, its very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.

Because only slow food can teach us the things that really matter - care, beauty, concentration, discernment, sensuality, all the best that humans are capable of, but only if we take the time to think about what we're eating.

I really appreciate the many neighbourhoods of Berkeley. There is still the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. And it has the University of California, which is the greatest gift, to my mind, to be close to it. It keeps the place alive.

First, kids should be involved in the production of their own food. They have to get their hands in the dirt, they have to grow things. They also have to become sensually stimulated, and the way to begin is with a bakery.

The biggest thing you can do is understand that every time you're going to the grocery store, you're voting with your dollars. Support your farmers' market. Support local food. Really learn to cook.

I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying farmers a living wage. It has to cost more.

Food isn't like anything else. It's something precious. It's not a commodity.

I feel like old age in America is a very sad thing. I have been many different places around the world where getting older is something you look forward to.

I have been talking nonstop about the symbolism of an edible landscape at the White House. I think it says everything about stewardship of the land and about the nourishment of a nation.

I feel that good food should be a right and not a privilege, and it needs to be without pesticides and herbicides. And everybody deserves this food. And that's not elitist.

I have a fireplace in my kitchen that I light every night, no matter what.

The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy.

I guess I don't really believe in retirement. I believe in shorter days and maybe in weekends!

I really like having someone who knows about food and what goes well together make a meal for me.

When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.

How we eat can change the world

I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman.

Always explore your garden and go to the market before you decide what cook.

Eating is an environmental act.

When you're really considering all the qualities of food, purity is right there at the top of the list. I'm unwilling to eat food that has been adulterated.

Cooking and shopping for food brings rhythm and meaning to our lives.

Good food depends almost entirely on good ingredients.

Let things taste of what they are.

Good food should be a right not a privilege

It is a fundamental fact that no cook, however creative and capable, can produce a dish of a quality any higher than that of its raw ingredients.

I love those tiny little onions in the spring that are so small they're almost like a little chive.

I believe there should be breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, all for free and for every child that goes to school. And all food that is good, clean and fair. It's unfair to charge for food in schools, especially to charge for food that is making children sick.

We can't think narrowly. We have to think in the biggest possible way.

Change the food in the schools and we can influence how children think. Change the curriculum and teach them how to garden and how to cook and we can show that growing food and cooking and eating together give lasting richness, meaning, and beauty to our lives.

The things most worth wanting are not available everywhere all the time.

It's about children cooking themselves, growing themselves. When kids grow it and cook it they eat it.

Let things taste the way they are.

I think the biggest impediment to fixing the food system in the United States is that we expect food to be cheap. We want to by other things with our money. We're so disconnected from agriculture - from the culture in agriculture.