The Daily Catch

“A Delicious Way to Address Climate Change”: Groundbreaking Chef Alice Waters Journeys to Rhinebeck to Spur On Edible School Garden



Alice Waters joins Rhinebeck children on the second Walking School Bus sojourn hosted by Climate Smart Rhinebeck (photo by Emily Sachar).

Alice Waters, the petite California chef whose big ideas revolutionized American eating, gathered Rhinebeck’s children around her like a modern Mary Poppins.

“Come closer,” she urged before popping the question. “What do you imagine an edible garden might be?”

A tree you can eat, offered one child. An oversized potato, suggested another.

Waters interrupted. “It’s so important that we all fall in love with nature,” she coaxed, leaning in to the children, all students at Chancellor Livingston Elementary School. “We need to take care of this beautiful place where we live.”

Waters, who turned 79 last month, earlier joined the kids on the second 1.2-mile Walking School Bus sojourn to school, organized by Climate Smart Rhinebeck under the leadership of small business owner Angela Basile. The first Walking Bus event was in April to celebrate Earth Day. Its goal: to help kids reduce their carbon footprint by encouraging them to walk to school rather than taking buses and cars.

Starting at 7:55 a.m. Thursday at Montgomery and Chestnut streets, the children, some flanked by parents, wound their way to school behind the homemade cardboard school bus as part of a full-day project of activities during which Waters helped promote her Edible Schoolyard Project to school administrators and Rhinebeck residents. She was to attend a cocktail hour at The Epicurean Thursday evening. Giant hand-held puppets in the shape of pollinators were also on-hand, supplied by Processional Arts Workshop of Red Hook.

The Edible Garden Project, a program to incorporate organic vegetable gardening with interdisciplinary coursework and cooking, now has 6,200 member schools around the world, Waters said. She, and she hopes Rhinebeck will be the next to sign on. “An edible garden and edible classroom are such delicious ways to address climate change,” said Waters, who founded the farm-to-table restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, Calif. in 1971. More than half a century later, it continues to serve high-end seasonally grown food. She is also the author of more than a dozen best-selling cookbooks and memoirs.

Indy Gild, 11, shows off the Pennsylvania pollinator beetle he carried at Thursday’s event (photo by Emily Sachar).

The Red Hook Central School District already has an ambitious school garden project at Mill Road Elementary School, and next year will add an interdisciplinary high school course that connects cooking to the study of literature and history.

As she walked this morning, Waters quietly laid out her philosophy about the relationship between growing food, eating, climate change, and kids. “Edible garden-kitchen classroom projects support interdisciplinary learning,” she said, “as students learn math, world geography, and literature and food history.”

She tried to excite the children, too. “Maybe you have a kitchen classroom where you get to cook or make a soup or make pita bread and you’re actually in the kitchen but it’s a class,” said Waters excitedly as the students hung on her words.

Parents and kids alike said they concurred. “If more of my patients followed these principles, that would be a good thing,” said Dr. Amy Cocina, a parent and Rhinebeck primary care doctor as she walked down Chestnut Street. “I’m here to support health and community.”

Malcolm Brice, 10, said he has made walking to school a priority since he, his brother and mom moved to Rhinebeck last year. Several months ago, Malcolm also launched his own podcast about the environment. “I really enjoy helping the environment,” he said before reciting details of Waters’ biography, which he said he’d studied to be prepared for today.

Waters was invited to Rhinebeck by long-time friend and Rhinebeck parent Craig St. John and his wife, Betsy Rourke.

The visit was intended to drum up support for a Rhinebeck edible garden. Details on the cost to create one are not yet available.


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At the Lions Club Mini Park, Waters gathered children around her to talk about the joys of edible gardens (photo by Emily Sachar).

 

Malcolm Brice, 10, said he walks to school every day, spurred by the need for his generation to promote answers to climate change (photo by Emily Sachar).

 

Business owner Angela Basile, a member of the Climate Smart Rhinebeck task force, organized Thursday’s Walking School Bus project (photo by Emily Sachar).

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