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tv   Talk to Al Jazeera  Al Jazeera  November 25, 2013 1:00am-1:31am EST

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check check welcome to al jazeera america, i'm stephanie sy, here are the top stories we are following this hour. >> mixed reaction around the world to the nuclear deal with iran. [ singing ] >> hundreds of iranians welcome their foreign minister at tehran's airport, calling him the ambassador of peace. israel and u.s. lawmakers say iran cannot be trusted. a security agreement between the u.s. and afghanistan that would keep american troops in the country past 2014 is in doubt. a council of tribal leaders approved but president hamid karzai is refusing to sign it, unless there's a deal setting
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out the role for troops. >> the presidential election in honduras is too close to call. national party candidate juan orlando hernandez and leftist xiomara castro del zelaya. both are claiming victory, official results could take days to confirm. >> the whether is blamed for 13 deaths. four are in oklahoma, where half an inch of snow fell, those are the headlines thanks for watching al jazeera america. oprah winfrey winnepeg
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>> al jazeera's investigative unit has tonight's exclusive report. >> stories that have impact... that make a difference... that open your world... >> this is what we do... >> america tonight weeknights 9et / 6pt only on al jazeera america
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>> we're back with alice waters, a chef and activist. what drew you to food way back when? >> that's a good question. when people ask that, i go way back to the time when i grew up in new jersey in my parents victory garden that they had during the war. i think i must have fallen in love with the straw about herries out in the garden, and that applesauce that they make from the tree. my parents bought the frozen food that was really omni present in the 1950's in the country. >> you never liked it. >> i never did much. i never liked vegetables, except tomatoes in the summer and
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corner, but i went to france when i was 19. it was a revelation for me. it was kind of an awakening, and i tasted things that i never had before. so, that was really where it was. you know, hot baguette in paris in the early 1960's and when i went to the farmers' market with friends, and we bought things and i just fell in love. >> did you ever think your career would take off the way it has? i mean you are one of the most influential chefs that exists out there in the world of organic foods. did you imagine you would be in my place? >> no, i never imagined. i was definitely a part of the counter culture of the 1960's. i was very influenced by the participation in the free speech movement and trying to stop the war in vietnam.
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so it came from that place. i was in the counter culture and i thought well, i can open a restaurant, and my friends will come. i want to live like the french. i want to have a little place. i was very serious from the very first day. i will not compromise. i wanted it to taste like the food in france, so i went looking for it and i couldn't find it. we ended up planting seeds in my back yard garden to have for the restaurant, and with we looked for farmers that had farm stands, and then we experimented with trying to get a piece of land and find a farmer, but that didn't work so well. we didn't know enough about farming to do that, and so we ended up looking for farmers in all the
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little areas around san francisco and berkeley, but really, had a product that was tasty. it turned out that these were the organic growers. so i wasn't really looking for the organic food at the beginning, although i was probably living in berkeley, you had that in you a little bit. >> i want to ask you about your restaurant. a lot of people may know you only through your restaurant, which used to have all the stars from michelin. it lost a star. what do you make of that and what do you make of the whole rating service of restaurants? >> there hasn't been, certainly any designation for restaurants that are using real food, and i think it's
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terribly important. i a long time ago, decided that sort of the proof was in the pudding, around rung the restaurant. if people were coming, and that they loved it, that that was good for me. >> when you travel now and you travel a lot, you must certainly see next to you on an airplane or waiting in an airport, somebody eating a bag of oreo cookies or processed salty snacks, what goes through your mind? >> i take my own food on the plane. i always bring my own food. i've taken to bringing some mint with me, and i ask for hot water and put the mint in the hot water. it sends out a scent into the cabin. people ask me questions about what i'm drinking. i love that.
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i love that idea that i can influence, reach people through an roma. >> that begins the conversation. >> that begins the conversation. i mean, i like to feed people ideas. i also bring it up so i can share it with anybody who's at the seat next to me, but i am, i'm shocked by what people e, what they eat in airports with, how they -- how they how omni present that food is and how accessible, how it's sold to people. i just -- i feel more sorry for the person who's eating it than to really, you know, be angry about it. >> yet the person who's eating
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that oreo or twinkie or gummi bears, they may feel sorry for you that you're not having any or haven't tried. have you ever just tried them to see what it's like? >> i have tried it. i mean, i certainly tried it when i was a teenager. i've eaten at mcdonald's once. >> what was that like? >> i was surprised. it didn't have any taste from my point of view. well, i was in and out in five minutes. >> we're going to talk about the future of the food industry and food consumption with alice waters on the other side of this break. thanks again for watching "talk to aljazeera."
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power of the people until we restore
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>> are you optimistic about the future of organic foot consumption and the direction things were going? >> i am incredibly optimistic, because it's so tasty. you know?
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it's so good, and it also brings you into a connection with other people who care about the future of this country and the world, and they are people that share your values. when you go to the farmers market and you meet the farmer, you have a rapport with that person. then you end up cooking with your friends at home and it's not arduous when you have your pals over for dinner, and you all cook together. i think what's really hard is when someone is asked to do that every day by herself or by himself, but when you gather and you have your children participate in the cooking, that's when they want to eat the food. the one thing that i can say absolutely is when kids are involved in a garden, they grow it themselves, and they cook it,
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they all want to eat it. that it's a beautiful thing. >> what do you see the world being 50 years from now in terms of food consumption when you and i are no longer here. >> in an ideal world, i would see small communities that really are supportedding each other, that where the food is grown nearby, where there's, you know, we're decentralizing. right now, it's shocking that six or seven big corporations sort of own the food system. the small farmers are being supported by the people nearby. this is the way that we have eaten since the beginning of civilization. this is nothing new, that we have been eating in season, buying food locally, enjoying it with
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family and friends. it's cell braying life, and we have really -- we're losing our -- our meaning to life by -- by allowing other people to take over the way that we live every day, and eat and think about the world around us. >> so this is a question that i know a lot of people want to hear from you you. have five minutes to go shopping. you got 10 minutes to prepare your meal, you just don't have time, what do you do? >> i love this question. i really love this question, because i can cook a meal in five minutes if i have shopped properly and that's the truth, so when you have tasty ingredients that
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you bought from the warmers market and you have things in your pantry that are good, then it takes no time to cook them. i have greens from my garden and i have maybe a chicken breast, and i saute that, and make a little vinaigrette for a salad, three minutes for that, i put the greens in the bowl, i'm washing them while i'm cooking the chicken. then maybe i boiled a little potato, maybe have some brown rice. >> this has already taken 25 minutes. you can saute a chicken in less than 10 minutes. you can. i'm not sure i can. >> 10 minutes, if you boned off the breast, you're talking about six minutes. >> what's the one item that everybody should have in their pantry, just on stand by no. >>
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for me, i like olive oil and vinegar there. i need garlic. absolutely garlic. but i know that i can make something tasty if i have all three of those things. i can take some kale, saute i in a minute with a little garlic and olive oil. absolutely. >> alice waters, it's been a pleasure and an honor talking with you. thanks for being on "talk to [[voiceover]] no doubt about it, innovation changes our lives. opening doors ... opening possibilities. taking the impossible from lab ... to life. on techknow, our scientists bring you a sneak-peak of the future, and take you behind the scenes at our evolving world. techknow - ideas, invention, life.
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>> hello and well come. i'm phil tore eses and we are here to talk about technology. let's check out our team of hard-core nerds. maria is a biologist specializing in ecoo ecology and evolution. scientists hunt down a bacterial killer. bionic eye. tonight we visit a young scientist who xreeate cree why d