In the early 1980s, a few years after opening her now famous restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters was flying back from the Chino Ranch with a flat of deliciously fragrant strawberries, which were intended for dessert at her restaurant that night. But Ruth Reichl, now editor of Gourmet Magazine recalls, As the smell of those berries started drifting through the plane. One by one, people on the airplane started begging for a strawberry. As Alice watched that night’s dessert disappear, Reichl remembers Alice saying, “You know we are really onto something here. We need to bring this flavor back to America. And in many ways that is what her restaurant, Chez Panisse, did.” Not only has Alice Waters been recognized as one of the most important chefs in the world, but she has also inspired a change in the way Americans eat.