Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Alice Waters

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

As we ease into Thanksgiving week, we’re bringing back Julia’s beautiful conversation with Alice Waters from last year, a chance to revisit her ideas about food, care and community.    On today’s episode of Wiser Than Me, Julia welcomes 81-year-old legendary chef, author, and farm-to-table pioneer Alice Waters. They discuss Alice’s incredible career at her groundbreaking restaurant Chez Panisse and together, they explore the philosophy of age, food, and beauty. Julia also asks Alice about the meaning she finds in moments of pause, and later talks with her 91-year-old mom, Judith, about the victory garden she grew up with during World War II.   Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast.   Keep up with Alice Waters @alicelouisewaters on Instagram.    Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms.   Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today by hitting 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or lemonadapremium.com for any other app.    For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.     For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a favorite poem of mine. It's called Flash Frozen. Here it is. My mother grew up in a homemade world. Her mother stitched sunbonnets one stitch at a time for five little girls. Carried pears, beans, tomato, squash in her apron from the garden to the kitchen, where steaming mason jars with wide-open mouths stood at the ready to receive. Jars lined the cool basement shelves like picture books, wild with color, waiting for another season.

A huge gray pot, quiet on the stove, made soup for the week. In winter, root vegetables bounced, softened in water fragrant with the earth. Clarence Birdseye, born in Brooklyn, practiced taxidermy before joining the Department of Agriculture as a naturalist posted in the Arctic. There he learned a thing or two, watching the Inuit make holes in the ice, drop lines, and bring up a fish, frozen straight through in the blink of an eye. Clarence brought that thought home in a system that packed food into waxed cardboard cartons, flash frozen, nearly fresh. My mother's freezer was as big as a car. Thursdays were poker night. She could whip up a meal in 20 minutes once she unwrapped the box. How about that? So that was actually written by my mom, Judy Bowles. And good God Almighty, I do love that poem. The grandmother, who stitched

the sun bonnets and carried pears and beans and tomato and squash from her garden to her kitchen was my mom's grandma Bessie, my great-grandmother. She was the original farm-to-table chef. Well, I mean, I guess everybody who didn't have a staff and a cook, which is most people, was a farm-to-table chef not so long ago. My mom and my sisters and I all hold great Grandma Bessie in a kind of magical, sainted place. We all really, want to be a little bit more like Grandma Bessie, especially in the kitchen. I'm very lucky because my little sister, Lauren, lives in Los Angeles, and whenever we get together, which is very often, making food, delicious food, is at the center of what is always a joyful time. She is a baker.

I mean, a crazy great baker of amazing breads and muffins and bagels. And we are both obsessed with baking desserts, and I make things out of the food that I grow in my garden, like tomato sauce and pickles and jams and marmalades, and it's all pretty goddamn good, if I do say so myself. The thing that my mom catches really so beautifully in that poem is the physical, tactile contact with the ingredients that make meals so delicious. And the melancholy in it is the loss of that contact. Of course, the poem is about a lot more, too. Family, caring, nourishment, and other kinds of loss. You know, I've been thinking a lot about how, as we speed forward and technology dominates more and more of our day-to-day lives, we touch the things that matter less and less.

I mean, think about it. We don't hold the newspaper. We look at it on a screen. We don't put pen to paper. very often. We don't rest the stereo needle carefully in the groove of a of a cherished record album. We're a step back, it seems, from touching things that matter. I mean, life is easier. Yeah, sure. But even when we go to a beautiful place now, we immediately stick a phone between us and the sunset. God. You know, I mean, there's a loss there too. So maybe that's why cooking beautiful, healthy, yummy meals with my sister and her family made with vegetables and hand-picked fruit right out of the garden or stuff that's carefully chosen at a farmer's market and spending hours together, you know, working out the menu and working with our hands and our hearts

means so, so much to me. Food. Yeah. I mean, it's the basic. It's the most basic thing of all. And so, how lucky then, that today we get to talk to Alice Waters. I'm Julia Louis Dreyfuss, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. I remember what American cooking was like before Alice Waters. We ate stuff like frozen fish sticks and banquet-fried chicken TV dinners, and those were treats. I mean, that's what we look forward to when our parents went out to a party. It was a dark time for taste buds everywhere. But our guests today knew there was something better.

She is the founder of the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California-based restaurant where she delved deep into the connections between environment, culture, food, and politics by paying close attention to ingredients, not just in how they're prepared, but in how they're produced. She is a pioneer of the farm-to-table movement, maybe the pioneer, and most importantly, she championed the concept that food, with care and treated with respect in the kitchen could be transformative and, of course, delicious. Our guest has served up everything from delicious hairy coat verre and sunripened peaches to, believe it or not, a brazed pair of Werner Herzog's boots in a pot of redder duck fat. We can talk about that later. It blows my mind how many renowned chefs trained with her, basically everybody. The truth is her impact on American cooking is immeasurable. and it doesn't stop in the kitchen.

She's a tireless advocate for sustainable agriculture, food justice, and education reform. Through initiatives like the Edible School Yard Project, she has provided hands-on experiences that connect students to food, nature, and each other while addressing the crises of climate change, public health, and social inequality. At its heart is a dynamic and joyful learning experience for every child, and you can actually download the lesson plans. Alice is the recipient of some of the highest honors in both food and life, including seven James Beard Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the French Legion of Honor. Please join me in welcoming an author, Cook, activist, mother, and woman who is, oh, so much wiser than me, Alice Waters.

Welcome, Alice Waters. What a treat to have you with us. Thank you so much. Wonderful to talk with you. I'm happy you're here. I'm a little tearful about that introduction. Oh, no, no. Well, it's such a celebration, and you have so much to celebrate about yourself. And I personally am honored to talk with you today because I'm a ginormous fan of yours. Are you comfortable if I ask your real age?

I just turned 80. Nice. And how old do you feel? You know, I've never thought about age as being. You know, something I was looking forward to or something I look back on. It's strange that when this happened this year, I mean, everybody else was concerned about me. They were? Well, worried that I was getting old.

And I really feel like age is about how you feel about yourself. And I had a great aunt who lived to 102. Nice. And she was a wonderful inspiration to me, her whole life. And I watched how she lived. So when you say you watched how she aged your aunt, what are you witnessing? What are you inspired by? I guess I'm inspired by their joie de vivre.

Yeah. They're wanting to be present. They're wanting to communicate what they know with everybody else and are so generous with that. Yeah, that's so wonderful. Alice, I have to tell you how our lives connected. So I'm very close with my sister-in-law, who's a kind of. conservationist and environmentalist in Northern California. And she did an auction for the Trails Forever dinner that was thrown by the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy. And one of the prizes being auctioned was you and I, because it was a hike. Yeah, it was a hike with me and a picnic by you. Honestly, I'm going to tell you right now, I don't remember anything about the hike. And I love it.

love to hike, okay? I'm a big hiker. I don't remember a thing. But I remember that goddamn sandwich was so good, Alice. And it was asparagus and prosciutto. It was on a baguette. There may have been butter. There may have been arugula. This I can't recall. But all we did was talk about this sandwich. I'm not kidding. I don't remember a thing about the hike. And it was a big hike. So then I went home and I tried to recreate it. And it was completely crap what I made. It was terrible. Well, that's because... Tell me.

I think it had Ioli on it, garlic. Garlic mayonnaise. And we make that with wonderful olive oil and a real sweet garlic. And garlic is a main ingredient, not only for a taste, but for health. Have you seen the film, Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers? No, but I'm going to watch it tonight. Okay. Les Plank made a film called Garlic as As Good As 10 Mothers.

That's a great title. So you made a garlic aoli. I'm going to now try this again because everything was off. The prosciutto was off. The asparagus was too stringy, you know, whatever. But I did try anyway. This is how much I loved it. I have so much work to do today because I'm,

I'm going to do this garlic mayonnaise. You know, you are known, of course, for making the everyday experience elevated. So I wanted to dig into your daily routine. For example, what do you have for breakfast? Well, I always have my puer tea because I had high cholesterol. And I asked all my friends what I should do. And I had many of them tell me. drink the fermented puer tea, a Chinese tea, a dark tea, and eat whole grains.

And I absolutely was rigidly adherent to that prescription, and my cholesterol went down 100 points. Get the hell out of here. No, really? It really did. Wait a minute. Did you take medication, too? No, I didn't want to take medication.

Fucking God, I can't believe what I'm hearing. It's true. And now I've become kind of a puerty salesperson. How do you spell puerty because I'm getting it from my husband? P-U-E-R-H, H, Puerre tea. Is it tasty? I think it is. I make it very dark.

I used to be a kind of francophile in my breakfast. I drank a cafe hollet. I had a piece of toast. with some jam, that kind of early morning. And now, when I'm drinking that tea, I want something savory. So I had this morning, I had a little bit of salad, but I scrambled an egg. Do you still cook each day? Do you plan your meals?

Well, I always want to have the ingredients at my house. So I can cook something if I need to. or want to. So I always have salad. I always have great farm eggs. And a lot of this I just get from Chebanese because I want everything from my organic regenerated farmers. Yes. The things that I have to have at home are salad and fruit. And I want my lemon. and I have a tree out back. I have herbs all in my backyard. So I can always get rosemary and sage and fry them.

I can always make something tasty at the last minute. I have a mire lemon tree too, and it is such an unusual taste. And I always have lemon water in the morning. And if my mire lemons are ripe, I have my mire lemon water, which is an elevated lemon water experience. There's just no way around it. And I just recently, by the way, going off topic a little bit, I just started to make ice cream, and I made lemon ice cream,

and now I'm thinking, ooh, I'm excited to try to make Meyer lemon ice cream because I think that'll be yummy, right? Guess what? 53 years ago. No, 52, not in the first year of Cheapenise. Lindsay, who was the pastry chef at Chezabonis, started making Meyer Lemon ice cream and Meyer Lemon Sherbert. And I have to say that that was a wake-up, not only for us in the kitchen,

but for everybody who came to Shepanese. It was the dessert that they wanted again. And it was a long season. And we got them from people who brought them, or exchange them, changed them for a lunch at the restaurant. They would bring them from their backyard tree. I loved it. God, I wish I lived near you. I would bring you Meyer lemons just so that I could eat that right now. You describe beauty as an essential life force. By the way, I put my dahlias here today for you. I saw those first off. Good. I'm so happy you notice them.

First thing, I thought, oh, how beautiful. Thank you. Oh, that makes me happy. mission accomplished because those are from my garden and I just wait every year for those things to pop up and they're going crazy right now and I'm going to post a picture of this on our social so people can see but you describe beauty as an essential life force how do you bring beauty into your life every day what is there a practice that you have I think you're very like me you're very into flowers but talk to me about that? Well, I always want flowers in my house. Me too. Of the moment in time, I don't want

tulips in the middle of the winter. Yeah. And the lilacs, I want them just in the spring when they're happening. And it keeps me connected exactly the way food does with where I am and time and place. It's all of those subtleties that I'm so connected to. Have you always been like that? Well, when I was little, my great aunt and my mother used to go out, always in the spring and in the fall to look at the trees. And we would drive on roads all in North New Jersey and see these glorious

explosions of flowering trees and bushes. We had a hedge of lilacs that I always wanted to go by. But that's kind of, I think, been in my life since I was very little, and of course everybody had Victory Gardens during the war. And I'm sure that that really gave me a taste for strawberries and corn and tomatoes that I'll never, ever forget. Those are really hot weather vegetables and fruits. And no matter how delicious ours are here, not quite as good as New Jersey. And isn't it interesting, too, how smells can be so, as you're talking about, like, the lilacs and the tomatoes, and I'm growing tomatoes right now, and the smell of a tomato plant is very specific.

You know, when I'm nipping the leaves that I don't want there, my hands get that, my hands get that smell, and I love that smell. I think, I think you know I'm a Montessori teacher. Yes. And I was trained in London in 1968. And she, of course, believed way back in the 1880s that our senses are the pathways into our mind. And I think, of course, in this tech world that we live in, that we're all censorily deprived because we are. because we aren't touching and smelling and tasting and listening to things that are beautiful and looking at the world, the nature around us.

Yes, totally, totally. There's even more wisdom from Alice Waters coming up after this break. Hey, Prime members, did you know you can listen to Wiser than me ad-free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today to start listening, ad-free. Black Friday at Macy's is officially on. It's the best time to get ahead on your holiday shopping so you can eliminate any possibility of last-minute scrambling. Macy's has cashmere sweaters starting at 4999 for the someone in your life. who loves wrapping themselves in softness, sipping tea, and leaning into the finer comforts of life.

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Just use code wiser for 10% off your first order sitewide at Oseaamalibu.com. That's 10% off your first order with code wiser at OSEA Malibu.com. I was watching you talking with Julia Child, and you made the mushroom and fennel and Parmesan salad with olive oil and lemon. And I thought, and I was at the market yesterday and I thought, oh God, I'm going to try that. That looks so divine. And so I bought the fennel and the mushrooms and I took it home. And I started to slide.

I don't have a mandolin, so I started to slice as thin as I could, and then I had a bite of fennel, and I thought, oh, shit, I hate fennel. I'd forgotten that I hate fennel. I don't like the taste of licorice. I know I could get you to love fennel, but you need to get a little Japanese mandolin, because that is an essential little equipment that I have from my kitchen. I've mortar and a pestle, and I have a mandolin. in. They're very inexpensive. You have to be careful that you do it slowly. But it's not like the big French one that's hard to use and you really could hurt yourself. But when you eat a big chunk of fennel, I wouldn't want that. But if it shave thinly and mixed with greens and a great vinaigret on it with garlic, it's delicious like that. Because it's a little tone of an I think what's becoming quite clear to me is that is there any house in your neighborhood for sale because I have to move next to you. You have to be my neighbor. I'll find you a house.

I need a house, Alice. I need a house next to you. Did you get to know Julia Child? You know, I did. I knew her from year two, maybe near one of the restaurant. And she came, and she had the fixed-priced dinner because that's all we had at again. Yes. $3.95 for four courses, and you had to eat.

$3.95, to be clear. Yes. And when I come over to the table, she said to me, this is not a restaurant. This is like eating in somebody's home. And I think she meant it a little bit as an example. insult. No. But I'm a little bit of,

what are you doing? And I thought it was the greatest compliment, the greatest compliment. And then we became good friends after that. And she always acted as sort of a big sister to me in that respect. Oh. The one show that we did together, I was just so embarrassed that I was doing so.

something so foolishly simple, but she was so generous about it. Oh, so fascinating. How do you crack an olive open when she knew perfectly well how to do that? I didn't. And I'm acting like that is something special. I'm communicating to people. And it was so tender the way that she took care of me. I have a Julia Child confession story because I live in Santa Barbara where, of course, she lived at the end of her life. Yes. And she was very close friends with our neighbor at the time, Dalai, and she would often, of course, as I'm sure it happens with you as well, people would send her food. People would send her meat.

And Dal, our neighbor, was a wonderful barbecuer. And so she would bring meat to him And then he would barbecue to et cetera And so one day our neighbors said Oh Julie is coming over tonight For a cocktail Come over for a cocktail And I said oh okay

This is by the way This is quite a long time ago And our kids were really young You know this by the way does not reflect well on me So it just heads up about that And so then it came You know it was around that time And I was like oh my God

I can't go to somebody's house We've got too much to do and the kids and blah, la, la, la. And we didn't go. We didn't go. And I'm going to tell you that if somebody said to me, do you have any regrets in your life, that would top the list. Because we didn't go. And we missed a chance to meet that icon and good human being.

So, anyway, I'm confessing to you, my priest, Alice Waters, and I hope that you're going to tell me that you forgive my sin. I do forgive your sin because I understand completely about taking care of a child and a family at home around dinner time. And my new grandchild is absolutely adorable, but she takes full-time attention. And I want to be there for her. especially around dinner, and I understand the issues for parents to leave at that time. And I think one of the great things that's going on right now

are that men are connected with children and are cooking for the family. And I just love it. It's about sharing the work. Right, sharing the work. It's not just women's work in the house. It is not. It is absolutely not. That's the beautiful thing that's going on in this next generation.

And we're finding out about the passions of each other. And the gardening is the same way. Why aren't we all planting victory gardens? Why aren't we planting wherever we can and growing food? By the way, my mother's 90, and she had her own very own victory garden as a little girl. And the word victory garden is so beautiful. I think I have to make a sign and put that on my garden that says victory garden. I did that during the pandemic.

And neighbors came over and said, how do you keep the deer away from your vegetables? And I never had talked to my neighbors before. All of a sudden, how do you keep the deer away? And by the way, how do you keep the bunnies away? The bunnies, these fucking bunnies in my, they're making me crazy, Alice. Well, I figured out how. How? You plant something for them to eat that they like.

And that's over there. And so the things that you want are over here. And what do they like? What do bunnies like? Probably carrots, I presume. I've never had the problem with bunnies. I've just had the problem with deer. Well, I guess I'm going to have to plant carrots all over my house because I've actually turned into Farmer McGregor.

I mean, I'm thinking like, I got to trap these things and eat them or something. I want to switch gears to ask you a question about motherhood, actually, specifically, because I was really interested in your memoir. You talked about your mother's postpartum when nobody would discuss postpartum. and her help, receiving help, was considered a taboo and the arrival of your first period, which you felt you couldn't mention, even with your pregnancy, it struck me how little women were supposed to know or were allowed to know about their bodies when you were growing up. And I'm wondering, how did that sort of culture affect or influence the way you raised your daughter? Were there things that you found you had shame about that you had to find a way to get over? I'm curious about that because I think, frankly, my mother had the same experience about that challenge. Well, I did. I was in Berkeley in the 60s.

Yes, right. There's a that. That opened up my mind in so many ways. Yes. But I still had those taboos in me. And I think that, you know, in some ways, Fannie's father did not have those in his life or didn't feel that way about nakedness or just the, just the, the parts of, you know, your body that are just not to be talked about. And Fannie opened up my mind in a way.

Interesting. She did. She helped me to really accept myself in that way. She wasn't afraid of those words. I still can't say them. It's strange. No, I can't. I can't say them quite. I can think them, but I can't say them. Interesting. And I believe in it. I believe in having skeletons that we learned from in our science class in fourth grade.

We had that. We don't know anything about anatomy anymore. Where is our gallbladder? I had to ask when I went to the doctor. Where is that? I mean, why don't we know? And what is it doing, by the way? What is he? Yes, and what is it doing? I mean, people get rid of their gallbladder, don't they?

I know. We don't know anything. Anything about the functioning of our bodies. Yes. And, I mean, it was only Kennedy that helped us learn about exercise and what our muscles did. and who, and he encouraged us all to exercise. And that was the beginning of my really sort of passion about it. But, you know, we didn't, we thought, and we still do things of exercise as hard.

Yeah, as opposed to just. A pleasure. Yes. I mean, it's like walking out at night and seeing the stars, watching the sunset. Even if you're in a city, it's like you get to move and breathe in a kind of air that's different. And I just think that we have such a wrong understanding. Well, it goes with the food, too. It's completely misunderstood what is good for us and what is not.

Yeah, indeed, it really is. I would love to shift here and talk about your life as a mother. You had your daughter at age 40, which is just phenomenal. By the way, I love the name Fannie. Can you talk about that transition because, of course, you had been running Chez Panisse at that time, and then talk about what you did once Fannie was born and how you managed that, I'm going to say, transition. Fannie was a child of the restaurant. I did bring her there very early on. Yes. And the waiters, she would call around in the dining room.

and I wrote a book about her when she was 10 years old and making her pizza upstairs in the restaurant with McKellie and all of those experiences she had at a very early age. But I wanted her to understand that food was right of the moment and needed to be eaten, you know, from the garden to the table. That experience. So we had a garden out and back of the house. But another great story, which I might have told one time,

was she and her friend wanted to have blueberry pancakes. And I said, this isn't the time. It's winter time. There's no blueberries. She said, I'm going to go to the story 18. I said, organic blue berries. Remember that. So she comes back with a little organic label on the blueberry.

I said, where did she get that? And in the end, she had to admit that she stole the organic label from another package, and that put them all with blueberries. Did she confess in the moment or later? No, just a few moments later, about 10 minutes later. Oh, bless her heart. This is a child rebelling against Alice Waters. Alice, but explain how, I mean, as you acknowledged, you know, being at home at dinner time, putting a child to bed, that doesn't, shall we say, jive very well with,

running a restaurant. So can you talk about that balance, how you managed it? Did you step back a little bit? Did you? Well, I did. I knew we were open for six days, and I knew that I couldn't work six days, but maybe I could work three days and have another chef work three days. And they would get paid for full time, but they would only work three days. And it worked so well because they were inspired. They brought another viewpoint to the restaurant that I decided to do that for the cafe chefs and for the pastry chefs. And we've done this since I had my daughter, you know, 40 years ago. And it changed the

life of the restaurant because the people who were working on the menus could go out and eat, could take care of their families, could go on vacation, the other chef would cover for them. Right. And everybody who worked at the restaurant

would have several opinions. You know, they would learn how to make that salad that way and this way with different chefs. And so I am convinced that spending that money in that way is what has kept the restaurant alive for these 53 years. Well, I think it's interesting because it kind of, it really does overlap with what you were saying earlier, and that is the connection. to the people with whom you're working,

the almost ensemble work that you're doing as a restaurant. And that is, of course, there is so much respect built into that way of working, that it is so ingrained. There is nothing but respect there. And people respond to that. It brings out the best in someone. And that's a great life lesson. It can be applied to so many things.

Certainly, I do apply that to the work that I do when I'm working in an ensemble, which is my favorite thing in the world to do. And that kind of give and take and the ability to listen and the ability to share in a moment, it's a great life lesson. It's time to take another break. We'll be right back with Alice Waters in just a moment. and you got caught. But that's the thing about Christmas.

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Yes, well, you must. And I want you, one thing I'd love for you to tell is the, the Werner Herzog story with the boot. Would you mind explaining the genesis of that? It's such a good story. Well, it's a story about two filmmakers, Werner Herzog and Errol Morris. They were both people I knew because of my dearest friend, Tom Lundy.

Yes. And he came. He used Chez Panis as his dining room. So I met, you know, George Lucas and Coppola and Kurosawa, and everybody came to Shea because of Tom. And Tom encouraged a film to be made about Werner Herzog making a bet with Errol Morris, referring to a film that was going to make, Werner said, if you do make this film,

Aero Maras, I will eat my shoe. Then Tom Lutty said, oh, well, Alice will cook the ship. Alice will cook the shoe. And Werner brings by a walking boot

that he had a big old, tough boot. And I said, Ferner, I'm not sure I can cook that. He said, cook it. And I stuffed it with garlic and I tied it all up and I figured it was a little bit like cooking a duck coffee. Cook it in the fat. Cook it in duck fat. I'm assuming it was leather. It was leather. Oh, God. Yes. You're not cooking some sort of Gortex situation. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, I started to cooking it and cooking it and cooking it and cooking it and funny. Tom came by to get the shoe to take over to the auditorium where Ferner was going to eat the shoe because Errol

made the film and I could not really make it up but Ferner and his enthusiasm and started to eat the shoe. I watched him eat about. He had a very sharp scissors that he cut it with, and he did chew it up. He didn't eat the whole thing, but he did a good job. And did he go straight to the emergency room after that? No, but I just...

I think that is so remarkable. It's a testimonial. to really believing in what you're doing. Yes. And believing in film to that degree, to understanding the value of a certain filmmaker, knowing as important the films he's making. And that is, I guess, the way I would feel, too.

I'm not sure I would eat his shoe. But I might have to do something that I didn't like because I wanted to show people that it was that important to me. Yeah, I get it. I have to say that was an extraordinary story. And speaking of Tom Lutty, I know that he passed away last year, very sadly. For our listeners, Tom Lutty was a film producer who co-fellied. founded the Telleride Film Festival. And I wanted to ask, Alice, actually, if you don't mind,

about the things that change as we age. And I'd like to talk about how you deal with grief and loss because you're so community-oriented in the most healthy and magical way, really. How do you rebuild the community as you move through grief, as you have lost? people. I mean, this is a part of life. How do you do it? Well, I wouldn't have believed that I could do it. Really. I was afraid of death. And I had my four dear friends die within six months. Four Alice? Four. All four. Tom Lutty, who who was my friend of 50 years, 55 years. I had Fritz Strife, who wrote every book with me,

wrote every letter to a president for me. He walked with me every morning, and I haven't been able to imagine my life without him. And then Steve Crumley, who was the first waiter at Chey Pinesse, he was the head of the cafe at the top of the stairs. For everyone, he was Chez Panisse. And the fourth one was, of course, David Goins. And David had a stroke, and he was paralyzed.

And David is somebody who always did things the way he. He wanted coffee with cognac, you know, that kind of person always knew what he wanted. And there he was in the hospital paralyzed. And I knew he wouldn't be there long. And even though his sister's daughter wanted him to stay alive and go through rehab, he said, I want to go home. He said to his best friend, Richard, from the printing press days. I want a blueberry muffin and a rye whiskey. He ate the blueberry muffin, drank the rye whiskey, and died.

That was it. I learned so much about dying. Some did it poorly that they couldn't help it. They didn't plan for it. They didn't think it was going to happen. And some had partners who helped them. really be with their friends right to the end who had their favorite musicians

come and play music and fight in shape and ease into their house and then there were people that wanted to do it in private and did it when their partner, you know, left on a trip and they were all so different in the way. And I saw what it was like when you don't have your wishes written down and notarized before you die.

You can't count on friends and family to do that because they may be stricken with grief and they have families that want to do something other, want to have cremations. I've already told Fannie that. that, you know, I've got a backup for you if you don't do what I want. And I want to be buried in the ground because there are now cemeteries where there are trees. Yes, a green burial. No casket. Just I want to be part of regenerative agriculture.

I want to nourish the soil. Don't want a casket, just in there. And I can't probably do it. my backyard so she could have a lettuce garden there. But I really think it's important. Just think of the way that people have been buried since the beginning of time. And I'm sure that that was part of what kept the soil. So rich with all of the nutrients is the burials. It's interesting, isn't it that, you know, we all have in common the fact that we've been born, mystically, magically born in this moment. And we all have in common that we're all going to go. Yes. But isn't it interesting that people really push away that fact? Yes. And to your point about, can we say dying well, that there's a denial in place that is an obstacle to, to dying well, I think.

There is. Huge obstacle. Even the people that are very, very committed about it, somebody's got questions for them that they can't answer. And it goes in different directions. But I saw that I need to prepare myself and not just mentally, but physically. And I just appreciate the cultures that care about this, like the Japanese culture, particularly. I'm so interested in the way they treat children and schools and how they treat older people, and they care for them. I've always wanted to come in right to the end for my friends.

I promised that from the time I was 30. I just thought, what if we all just live together? Yeah. Until we go. And Ruth Ritcher was asking about where that commune was today. Yeah. Oh. And maybe it's Santa Barbara.

Maybe. Can I join it, by the way, if you put it to your hand. Oh, thanks. I'd love to be in it. I'd love to be in it. I want to ask you quick little questions. before we go, is there's something you'd go back and tell yourself when you were 21? Pause.

Oh, really? Don't just tear it through your life so quickly. I mean, I was part, you know, of the free speech movement. You know, the whole drinking and living and the sexual freedom. times, stop the war. I mean, and we were so kind of starved for connection with each other. But it's very difficult to do when we aren't really encouraged and taught in college about what the bigger world is about.

And that was something that Mario Savio taught me at Berkeley during the free speech movement. He said we need to learn from other people who have other ways of living. Pause and pay attention. Pause and pay attention. Now, of course, I'm running like crazy right now, trying to change the world. I know, I know. I'm running too, but it's something I have to tell myself as well. In fact, yesterday I was taking my dog for a walk and walking through the garden, and I was actually admiring some plants that are in bloom.

And then I saw a hummingbird land on a little tiny, tiny branch of this particular plant. And I just stood there watching it, and it was clear that this is a bird who's guarding a nest, cannot see the nest. You know how tiny these things are. And I thought, oh, I have to take the dog to the vet. I've got to meet with this person. But I just stayed there. And I sort of been thinking about that ever since, just sort of watching the hummingbird sit. And so I'm thinking about that advice.

I think we would all benefit to pause and pay attention much more often than we do, particularly in this country. Well, that's exactly. the kind of walk I take every morning. I'm just looking, it's growing, and I'm just fascinated by it. And it's happening everywhere. I mean, you don't have to go to Central Park. No. I mean, the birds are everywhere.

Right. And flowers are everywhere, and they're changing all the time. Yeah, of course. And so you notice things, even in the dandel lines that are in. the little space between the sod fork and the street. Alice, I wanted to show you the picture of the hummingbird that I took yesterday. Can you see that? Oh, I love it.

I've got some pictures just like that for you. Yeah, it's pretty fun to see them just hanging out. Oh, incredible. Isn't that dear? Yes. Yes. Alice Waters, I can't thank you enough for generously giving us so much of your time today. I'm indebted to you.

I hope that someday we get to spend time together. Well, there's always a seat for you. Bless you. Thank you for everything today. Thank you for asking me. Wow. Well, what a beautiful conversation that was with Alice. I just can't wait to talk to my mom about this one.

Let's get her on a Zoom right away. Hi, Mom. Hi, sweet. Mom, okay, I just had the most wonderful conversation with Alice Waters. Oh, what an extraordinary woman she is. What a huge impact that she's had on this world. Yes. We have her to thank for the Farm to Table movement and regenerative farming and sustainability.

You know, she brought that into the fore. Absolutely. And got us away from SpaghettiOs. Yeah, got us away from Spaghettios. That's what you grew up on. Spaghettios and banquet fried chicken dinners. We love that. I happen to mention that in my intro of her.

But don't worry, Mom, it's all good. It's all fine. Yeah, well, you look okay, I hope. So far, so good, yeah. She talked about her parents' Victory Garden. And just to be clear, the Victory Garden idea was brought about by President. President Roosevelt, right, Mom? Right.

During World War II, he encouraged people to plant gardens and call them victory gardens in support of the war effort. Can you talk about your victory garden? What was the idea behind it sort of nationally and then what was your thinking about it when you were a little girl? Oh, I mean, I thought it was gigantic. I mean, that if you planted your vegetables. and you had your family eat them that you would win the war.

It was just as simple as that. And it was just a victory. And every family would never have to go to the store because you had all your own vegetables and made you independent and made us win the war. So I had a fairly small plot that was out the side door. It was a good sunny corner of our house, the backyard. And you were about seven?

Seven or eight, right, exactly. So I got hold of seeds, but I planted them way too close together. I didn't quite understand how much space each one needed. Well, at any rate, not too much happened in that garden except for carrots. And I remember very well one day riding my bike up the side driveway and seeing these little green tops coming. Yeah. And I thought, oh, we're winning the war. This is so great.

It was so excited, and I tried to keep watching, but I got too excited, so I started to pull them out. They were like little hair carrots. So they were like little, I mean, you could barely see them. They were so darned. And so anyway, then I tried to leave some in there, but I just kept getting excited every time I looked at them, did my harvesting way too early. So there were like little tiny, like hairpins coming out, carrot hairpins? I bet they were tasty because they were so baby. Yes, right. Very sweet. But all those things that we did, the scrap metal and the tin cans that you gathered, and then you took them to the scrap metal center, and you bought victory stamps, and all of those small things that we did seemed to me to be crucial. And I really, as I had my red wagon and was gathering up tin cans, I was convinced that that was going to win the war.

Mom, and wasn't there rationing, too? Oh, yeah. There was rationing of sugar and butter. And we didn't get any butter, but we got oleal margarine, which was sort of a white stuff. And then you added yellow dye to it. Oh, dear. Oh, it was just terrible. It was awful. And what was the idea of the Victory Garden? Just, what was the idea politically? Why did he suggest that people plant gardens? I don't know. Somehow, I think probably, I'm imagining that was Eleanor Roosevelt. Yeah. Because he was very influenced by the work in Cornell. And Cornell was the place that had the first, really, home economics that was not just stupid. I mean, it was very scientific. So here's what my exterior brain, my phone is telling me about why Americans were asked to plant victory gardens.

Officials reminded Americans that a well-planned victory garden was not only patriotic, but could provide a family with nutritious and tasty food. America had a reputation as a land of plenty, but World War II challenged the nation's ability to grow and distribute food because obviously the distribution of food is an expensive undertaking. So that's a really fascinating idea. And I know it was such a formative part of your life and it was a formative part of Alice's life as well, which is just so so interesting. Oh, sure. Anyway, I hope that our paths cross again because I really, really like Alice. She's just a lovely person. All right. So you're lovely, too, and now I'm going to say goodbye to you.

Okay. Well, I will say goodbye to you, too. I love you. Thank you for talking to her and talking to me. Okay, love you, Mommy. Have a wonderful day. Okay, thanks. You too.

Bye. Bye. There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium on Apple. You can listen to every episode of Season 3 ad-free. Subscribers also get access to exclusive bonus interview excerpts from each episode. Subscribe now by clicking on the Wiser Than Me podcast logo in the Apple Podcast app and then hitting the subscribe button. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at Wiser Than Me.

We're on Facebook at Wiser Than Me podcast. Wiser Than Me is a production of Lemonada Media, created and hosted by me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. This show is produced by Chrissy Pease, Jamila Zara Williams, Alex McCohen, and Oha Lopez. Brad Hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is VP of new content, and our SVP of weekly content and production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me. The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from James Barber, and our music was written by Henry Hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and, of course, my mother, Judith Bowles.

Follow Wiser than me wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's a wise old lady in your life, listen up. Thank you.