Alice Waters的理念,从本地供应,sustainable farming 到slow food nation, 她一直走在前面, 现在成了主流.一直欣赏她,几十年来不懈,身体力行,走自己的路.新一代的厨师里跟随她理念实践的更多, 包括下面文里的 Sam Kass.
---
From NY Times: Newest White House Chef Knows the Obamas’ Tastes
By MARIAN BURROS
WASHINGTON — Sam Kass, a private chef who cooked for the Obamas while they were living in Chicago, is now cooking for them in the White House.
A spokeswoman for Michelle Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said Mr. Kass would not be the only cook preparing the family’s meals, but “he knows what they like, and he happens to have a particular interest in healthy food and local food.”
Mr. Kass will work alongside the White House executive chef, Cristeta Comerford, who was promoted to that job by the Bushes in 2005 and is being kept on by the Obamas. Mr. Kass is filling a vacancy and will be a White House employee, paid by the government, not the Obamas.
Mr. Kass’s appointment should please chefs like Alice Waters, who have lobbied the Obamas to set an example for the rest of the country by emphasizing food that is healthy, local and sustainable. It further suggests that a vegetable garden on the White House grounds, another of Ms. Waters’s dreams, could be on the horizon.
Mr. Kass, one of the new breed of chefs who are concerned about the environment and about poor eating habits in this country, has been quoted as saying people in his profession should take the lead in tackling public health issues.
“Not only is there an unconscionable amount of people who remain hungry,” he told In These Times magazine last year, “there’s even a larger population, mostly poor, who are faced with obesity, diabetes and various other problems from overabundance.”
A Chicago native, Mr. Kass graduated from the University of Chicago and received his formal training at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Europe. He then went to work at Avec, a Chicago wine bar serving Mediterranean food.
After he left the restaurant, Mr. Kass, 28, founded Inevitable Table, a private chef service in Chicago that, according to its Web site, is the client’s “link to clean, healthy food.” In addition to cooking and shopping “mainly from local farms” and buying wines from “small sustainable wineries,” the Web site says, the service offers meals for children and for private parties. Walter Scheib, the White House chef for the Clintons and Bushes, said the decision to bring Mr. Kass to the White House was “a master stroke.” Mr. Scheib said Mr. Kass would be a tremendous resource for Ms. Comerford, the first woman to hold the post of executive chef.
“This will make her job much easier because she will understand better and faster what they like,” he said. “She doesn’t have to spend months reading the tea leaves.”
