This is why we all love bourdain.

Well done Bourdin! I try and use organics when ever financially possible but the attitude of "I know what's best for you"
is too much. What the food police do not allow, is that part of being so PC is allow people the right to choose and make their OWN decisions.

I must agree, its very expensive to buy organic produce - at the moment I have only enough to cover the bare essentials!

Anthony, you are too full of yourself for words. The debt that modern American diners owe to Alice is beyond measure. Your comments may be ignorant but you are not worthy of sharing the same air as Alice. Go eat another lizard and get a life.

The debt anyone would have to pay to Alice Waters is indeed substantial...if they eat at her restaurant. Nothing quite like riding this whole locally-sourced greenie fad to the bank, eh Alice?

Tony Bourdain hits it out of the park again. Enough of these snivelling self-satisfied myopic snobs. Local produce is a great resource and organic foods do have a deeper depth of flavor. But this doesn't mean that The State has the right to shove their dietary beliefs down anyone's gullet. Alice and her dictatorial ilk should keep their tastes out of other people's business.

HUZZAH! Love Bourdain.

Anthony. Get real. Yes, you're great eye candy but a mediocre chef at best. If not for Alice Waters, who created a true revolution in this country regarding how people think about food, you wouldn't even have a job no less a TV show. Have some respect for those who actually worked for the acclaim and respect they have garnered. To paraphrase Dylan Thomas your career has forked no lightening. Alice's has.

Right on!

Anthony is astute and pragmatic. I agree with the premise
he is supporting. i take nothing away from Alice and her
contributions to American cooking and her innovations and support for organic and local food supplies. Sometimes
the ideal is not possible.

i too buy organic and local whenever i can. alice waters was not the first person to elevate americans appreciation of good food. i believe that honor belongs to julia child. i agree with tony... alice waters annoys the shit out of me too. besides being a "low talker", she possesses a holier-than-thou california affectation, and she's just so full of herself. she likes to present herself as some humble person, but i find her pretentious and find her food overbearingly precious. she should get over herself and remember who she was. as for tony, he doesn't pretend to be anyone but who he is.

Everyone acts like Waters invented the concept of organic food. She could just as likely be accused of cashing in on the trend. I, like other posters, buy organic and local when possible. These products are rarely available in my neck of the woods. Like so many during these times, so I have to do the best I can with what I have to work with.

I am offended by anybody who suggests that the government should be involved in how I cook or what I eat. Tony, thanks for saying what needed to be said, and for standing up for freedom and personal autonomy. Who knew you were a freedom fighter? Valeu!

1. I love many things about Alice Waters 2.She did not invent organic or local eating...the credit goes to many many people 3. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep the government out of my kitchen. Remember, we all snickered when Chicago legislated the foie gras ban!

Way to go, Vic! It needed to be said- no apologies required. We're lucky to have someone paying attention- just like the perfect Rachel Ray "Dunkin- gig" observations in '07. Thanks- and keep up the good work!

Don't hate on Anthony Bourdain people! He is one of the great Chef's! I don't see any of you making a living enjoying the world and eating great food!
We love you Oklahoma A.B. Keep speaking the TRUTH!!!

Please the man has no respect for women in the kitchen. Any chef who would rather hire his dishwasher to cook than hire a woman gets NO respect from me. As far as I am concerned his opinion of Alice Waters is skewed.

I think Bourdain's comment needs closer scrutiny. It is easy to ridicule someone like Alice Waters who, perhaps superficially, represents some kind of nouveau riche in this country. On a deeper level, she deserves tremendous credit for the last 25-30 years on raising awareness about local farmers and eating local produce. She has never even used the word organic in her books, so do your research. That was a word co-opted by the CCOF.

Let's not forget to mention what she has done, in the face of appalling bureucracy, for school lunch programs and what she accomplished single-handedly at Martin Luther King Jr. elementary school, a public, multi-socioeconomic K-7 school in Berkeley.

Anthony Bourdain is a treasure as a personality and should be respected for his desire to humble himself next to the culinary artisans of third world countries who receive no accolades or recognition; however, he will only deserve the right to be more critical of Alice Waters when he has actually done something significant in country as a food activist. I have been working-class for years but I always buy local, "organic" or pesticide-free food because I am a chef myself. I don't don't waste my money on other things. Buying local produce will hardly break the bank. And growing your own food barely costs you a dime. I'm tired of hearing about people whining about expensive produce. That is NOT what is breaking people financially. Try looking more critically at our government before you criticize someone like Alice Waters.

I hate to say it (because I like Bourdain's first book) but you are the stupidest food fuck I have ever seen if you think that you have a choice about what food to eat--or that the average American shouldn't "have their food choices legislated." Their food choice are already legislated--by the Farm Bill, which subsidizes cheap corn and soy and helps make junk food calories way more affordable. Alice Waters is asking to level the playing field, and your "faux" everyman pose is as unintelligent and uninformed as the Rush Limbaugh diatribe it resembles.

Here's a clip from a May 14th Forum with Anthony Bourdain and Alice Waters going at it about the organic food movement.

Read this blog to see how annoying other people find Alice Waters. Bourdain isn't alone. She is an obnoxious elitist.

http://theday.com/re.aspx?re=b814aec3-90c1-41c9-b211-34506eafede1

Usually I am offended and defensive from the start after reading a statement like this. The thing is, this country was born too late. Sure we had our run of farming, but sought ways to make money and other ways to make food so we could concentrate on money. The government stopped paying attention to ways to aid our farmers and build a country that could support itself.

I live in Seattle. I shop at a Co-Op and pay less there for organic food then I would buy non-organic at a regular grocery store. Yet I support people who have a passion for producing food that is not only good for me, but good tasting. They support me and I support them. Americans sometimes have a hard time grasping that concept. Whole Foods, which is over priced, is only 4 blocks from my house. I try my best not to shop there because of the prices.

I moved here from Florida. In the city I am from, and in many industrial, fast-paced or even, just simply, east coast cities, there is no such luxury. The west coast people have a hard time grasping that concept. People fail to understand that what is easy for some people, may be very difficult for others. The greenies in this city point the finger at people who do not participate in organics, or farmers markets, or Co-Ops. You cant do that and expect to be successful. You are pointing at people who have not seen what you have seen. Sometimes Alice does that. Sometimes people forget to put everything into perspective.

Alice Waters learned to love fresh, quality food from spending time in a culture and community, i.e. Europe, that appreciates and understand the value of simple things. This country was not built on the same principals. We are not better or worse people now for the way we have grown up; those decisions were not ours. The thing is, its time to understand that as a country, we need to offer support to those, within our own borders, who could one day repay us, repay our children, in health. Health is the only thing that separates the living from the dead.

Spreading knowledge and using your passion to inspire others to appreciate something is not a crime, and not something to be ridiculed for. When Alice does a show or speaks at an event or starts a foundation it is clearly to open peoples eyes. Some do not care, some are so prideful they are offended that she would dare tell them how to eat, what to eat, where to spend their money. Yet, how often to these same people get angry over a McDonald's commercial which does the exact same thing? Not only to feed us with disgusting ingredients but they do it for capitalistic gain! Where is Alice Water's revenue gain? She has maintained the same business for the past 30 years without even over saturating her own community. All she is doing is trying to educate.

If your parents had taken interest in Alice Waters, or the injustice done to American farmers, or what the government thought fit for you to eat when you were a child, the recession would not have hit as hard. You would have just picked the tomato, or lettuce, or squash, or bean , or whatever it is your desire to eat.....from your own backyard. For God's sake, one of the key issues here is the gigantic and EXPENSIVE hoops this government makes organic farmers go through just to get that label. I am all for regulations but it is very clear that they are not there to ensure us Americans are not being cheated out of real organic food. They are there to make it difficult. They are there to keep independent farmers at their damn knees. The same farmers who laugh at the money this country pays our actual agriculturalists not to grow, and supports the genetic modification of seeds that are owned by corporations where money is invested.

Seeds for the most part are not expensive. We could each save so much money if we had the desire and dedication to provide for ourselves. It is our lack of interest in simplicity and failure to appreciate and recognize the possibility each of us has to become our own means.

Alice Waters wants people to realize what they are eating and what they could be eating. Is she a crazy, lefty, activist trying to spread her poison on America? Not quite. Wake up folks, you have issues when you throw the stones at one the few people who informs, instead of the many people that spend their time trying to cover up.

If any of you think that the government is not already deciding what goes on your plate, you have a serious denial issue. Or you only care when there is a comment section.

Bourdain.......EYE-CANDY? Yeah, for the blind!!

Yeah, chain smoking alcoholic druggie bag of bones with a beer gut is REALLY LIP SMAKING!!

Good post, but have you thought about Anthony Bourdain on Alice Waters before?

Wow, I never knew that Anthony Bourdain on Alice Waters. That's pretty interesting...

There's a reason non-organic food costs less. The government subsidizes it. They dictate what is affordable based on what they deem is good for the economy, not for individuals. So you could listen to Alice tell you what's good for you and maybe legislate that, or you can let the government keep legislating the food you eat based on what's good for other people's pocket books.