now the philosophy behind her berkeley, california, restaurant chez panisse is to american cooking. she has written eight cookbooks paul bertolli and claire petak and others. now at age 71, alice waters is still fighting to change our on perception about food. >> cheap food is, i think, the most difficult issue we have to face, can never be cheap. can be affordable but never cheap. >> reporter: few people in the world are as passionate for a little while organic ingredients than alice waters. sitting with her in her restaurant ace dining room it's eater. do you remember when you first started to fall in love with food? >> i fell in love with food when i went to france. they were so particular about what restaurant you went to and how to eat and what cheese to choose. and i just came back home and wanted to live like the french. you in france? >> i was just there that one year. >> reporter: oh, wow! >> but it did, and i never have forgotten the taste and that is came home. where is that taste? and then we found it at the farmers. >> reporter: when waters opened chez panisse in 1971 t

i really did. >> reporter: while the menu has changed every night for more than 40 years at chez panisse, the core principles remain the same. locally sourced meat and produce picked at the peak of season. every dish like this chicken weighted by hot brick with butter nut squash and gratin has to pass a chef's tasting. >> be careful about the salt. >> reporter: natural flavors are not highlighted properly, the dish won't be served. as the farm to table movement spread across the nation, waters gained national attention. culinary inovagsnovations, she was sharply criticized. i'm sure you heard people say she is an absolutist. >> i don't think of my stuff as an absolutist. i think of myself as an idealist and i i think of myself as always trying to do it better than we did it before. i am uncompromising about certain things, about feeding children real food. this is all kale here. behind it are apples and pears. >> reporter: her drive to change how kids eat led to the edible school project and it allows public school students to grow and harvest vegetables. this is one of 5,000 working gar