Alice Waters' Coleslaw

Who’s the most influential chef in America? Emeril might come to mind, given the number of BAM! slots he holds on the Food Network. Julia Child, perhaps?

It’s Alice Waters, dubbed by some the ‘mother of modern American cooking’. Unlike many of today’s food celebrities, she operates but one restaurant where reservations are notoriously difficult to score. She has published only a handful of cookbooks but there are no TV shows, no product lines.

Alice Waters has changed American cooking by returning the farmer to the culinary food chain. She insists on locally grown, seasonal ingredients and preaches sustainable agriculture. She celebrates the experience of discovering a new tomato, a tiny eggplant, at the farmers market.

Alice Waters is the cook who reminds me to slow down, every once in awhile, to examine and appreciate a dish’s ingredients. You can too, with her simple coleslaw. Does the olive oil taste like fruit? nuts? Open your lungs to the limes’ zest and juice; how are they different? What does salt really taste like? And when your eyes are closed, does sea salt evoke lapping waves like a seashell held to the ear? Examine the tight veins of the cabbage, the perfectly formed seeds of the jalapeño, the coils of the onion. Taste the chopped cilantro, leaves first, then the stems. Mix the salad ingredients with your hands, feeling the coolness between your fingers and up to your wrists. Now consider your hands – how do they feel? look? smell?

Appreciate food for its origins and attributes and suddenly, life will slow, if but for a moment.