Turns out that iconic chef Alice Waters is just like the rest of us: She too has cupboards and pantries that sometimes need a serious purging.
Better yet, the rest of us can pick up some of those odds and ends. According to the Instagram accounts of the Chez Panisse founder and her daughter Fanny Singer, Waters is hosting a yard sale of sorts this Sunday, March 31, outside the famed restaurant location in Berkeley. Billed as a “Mother-Daughter Flea Market” the post promises “treasures, bargains and Alice’s Hats!”
“[We are] spring cleaning and selling or giving away everything we do absolutely not want and need,” Waters writes in a comment. “It is amazing how much I have accumulated over the years.”
A writer at SFist had fun speculating what kind of overflow might be waiting in the parking lot of the place that launched the farm-to-table dining movement. “Vintage peasant blouses… and copper egg spoons?” writes Jay Barmann. “Worn red-and-white checkered tablecloths?”
The chef and cookbook author will also be present at the sale, running from 10 a.m.–3 p.m., to autograph cookbooks or flea-market finds. No matter what, the sale is both a one-of-kind opportunity and yet another example of why people love the world-class college town of Berkeley.
Learning about yard sales is not the only benefit of following Waters on Instagram. The chef often posts about the Edible Schoolyard Project, a program she launched to encourage healthy, garden-to-table eating in American schools. See what else Waters had to say about the program—and her favorite things to do in the Berkeley area—in the California Questionnaire she completed for Visit California.