Between the 40th anniversary event crunch and August's media blitz, it looks like the PR department at Chezland has been in hyperdrive mode. Goat-herding, Smithsonian inductee, Alice Waters, is seemingly everywhere from ladymag Glamour to recently redesigned Bon Appetit.
1) On the back page of BA, readers learn that her first dinner, a 4-course meal on August 28, 1971, went for $3.95. Pictured is a Chez P. bar napkin, compostable, natch, handwritten with her ultimate menu. Among her favorites, fried little fishes, candied rose petals, and celebrity "ambassador for the Edible Schoolyard Program," Jake Gyllenhaal, who is expected to attend her benefit dinners.
2) Over at Food & Wine, inspired by Alice's belief in peach power, Grace Parisi enlightens with a peach primer and recipes "for the most delicious food"—including a Vietnamese relish.
3) Last in our roundup, we found "the godmother of the organic food movement" on page 177, sandwiched between Glamour's compilation of real-life awkward sex situations and a list of 10 self-affirming ways you're sexy this summer. Alice shills out advice on entertaining, tying in her new book, Forty Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering, and spins yarns like the one time an earthquake ruined her dinner party with guest of honor Diana Kennedy. She also offers plenty of recipes and advice for hostesses-in-training, including a wine-soaked peach, because "it couldn't be simpler."
40th-anniversary dinner on a Chez Panisse bar napkin in Alice's penmanship [Photo: Bon Appetit]