WB cited in award-winning Alice Waters profile

Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

There’s a story about agrarian author Wendell Berry that food buffs and literary types like to pass around. According to popular legend, when an out-of-state fan asked Berry to travel and speak at a conference, the writer responded with a 14-line poem. It read in part: “In the labor of the fields longer than a man’s life I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.”

Alice Waters loves Wendell Berry’s work. As an organically-minded restauratrice and a supporter of local produce, she finds that Berry’s message lauding small-scale farming and closeness with the earth strikes a similar chord within her own philosophy. But by all appearances, the strongest connection between the 64-year-old owner of Berkeley eatery Chez Panisse and the author is their shared devotion to that fundamental mandate — “Stay home.” READ MORE ...