The Big SHFT: Alice Waters, Food Revolutionary

Today, Alice Waters is the queen bee of sustainable food movement. But it was flavor, not sustainability, that led the owner of Chez Panisse to local, organic food. Since founding the Berkeley eatery 40 years ago, Alice has helped inspire nothing short of a culinary revolution. These days, you won't find her in the restaurant's kitchen because she is too busy heading up the Chez Panisse......read more

From Lunch to Landfill

Do you know where your garbage is from last week? Us neither. "From Lunch to Landfill," a short film brought to us by Mae Ryan of KPSeeSee (the visuals team for SoCal public radio station KPCC), tracks the movement of trash from a restaurant table in Los Angeles to a landfill outside the city. What you'd expect to be a didactic and depressing take on the garbage issue is actually a......read more

Chez Panisse Line by Heath Ceramics

Founded by the mid-century legend Edith Heath, Heath Ceramics has been producing simple, beautiful artisanal pottery at its Sausalito, California plant since 1948. The company was purchased in 2004 by designers Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey, whose collaborative products are helping push the brand into the future -- while remaining true to its heritage.  The Chez Panisse collection, a......read more

The Incredible Shrinking Slaughterhouse

Eating food that was raised locally is all well and good, but if the meat in your organic, grass-fed burger was processed in some massive slaughterhouse across state lines, it kind of defeats the purpose. And in all likelihood, it probably wasn't processed anywhere nearby. That's because the meat industry, like much else in U.S. agriculture, is a highly consolidated beast. According to......read more

Recycled Chopstick Folding Basket

American designer Brian Parks spent several years studying in China, where his eyes were opened to the upcycling potential of discarded single-use chopsticks. This folding basket is one of his coolest chopstick creations. Handcrafted entirely from the durable bamboo eating utensils, the table- or countertop basket is the ideal home for anything from fruit and bread to napkins or mail. And, as......read more

Wild Idea Buffalo Meat

Founded over ten years ago by the husband-and-wife team of Dan and Jill O'Brien, Wild Idea Buffalo Co. raises free-range, grass-fed bison near the South Dakota Badlands. Dan, a wildlife biologist and environmental activist, turned to buffalo ranching as a means for restoring the depleting grasslands he has always called home. Today, with more and more people eating with their health and the......read more

Authors Ignite Debate About Local Food

Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu say they know what’s wrong with the food system: local food purists. In their new book, The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet, the husband-and-wife team (a University of Toronto geography professor and an economist) argue that the excitement over this movement is misguided to the point of having “utterly disastrous”......read more

Ignacio's Mostly Latin Lunch

By now you're no doubt familiar with The Selby, the much-loved site on which Todd Selby documents the interior habitats of people of all stripes. For this new short film, Selby turns his attention to the culinary process. In Ignacio's Mostly Latin Lunch, Chef Ignacio Mattos conjures up a Latin-inspired meal for family and friends, showing off his cooking prowess with delectable dishes that......read more