Anthony Bourdain never actually mentioned Alice Waters by name in last night’s San Francisco episode of No Reservations (recapped on Grub Street SF), but she definitely permeated the show, starting with his first snide comment about locavorism accompanied by a zoom-in on the Chez Panisse sign. On his blog, however, he’s a little more explicit. After admitting that he thought San Fran was “the epicenter of so many of my most cherished aversions: political correctness, veganism, rich hippies, sanctimoniousness about food, food fetishism, animal-rights terrorists, gastro-dogma, and loud locavores who actually get their produce flown in from Chino Farms in San Diego,” he gets to naming names.
Okay … it does still drive me berserko watching a blissed-out St. Alice, burning up a few cords of firewood (in Berkeley no less!) to cook two eggs for an unusually credulous Lesley Stahl.
Guess that tête-à-tête didn’t help. His conclusion: San Francisco “may be the town of Alice Waters, but it’s also home to Dirty Harry.” Well, yes, there’s that.
Of course, commenters are divided between “Being a locavore is a luxury for those who live in Alice Waters’s world. Good for them,” and “To a certain extent, those proclaiming their hatred for Berkeley and Alice Waters pretentiousness have almost become a worse cliché than the people they claim to be so dissimilar from.”
