Note to all uber-progressive Brooklyn breeders and fans of edible education: Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard program will be opening its first outpost in the Gravesend neighborhood next year, so you better sign up today! Supporters will begin tearing down the asphalt parking lot behind P.S. 216 this summer, according to The Observer, in order to erect the first east coast affiliate of the Chez Panisse restaurateurs program, which enables public school children to explore the connection between what they eat and where it comes from through organic gardening and cooking classes.
The Gravesend project will be the most expensive of the six current Edible Schoolyards, and the first one to be open year-round. The original Edible Schoolyard in Berkley, California that opened 15 years ago cost about $75,000. The Times gives a thorough description of the building:
It’s a $1.6-million architect’s dream. A new building, powered by the sun, will hold a kitchen classroom with communal tables where children can share meals they make from food they grow in the garden.
Designers from the Work Architecture Company have incorporated a chicken coop, a composting system, an outdoor pizza oven and a cistern to collect rainwater. A movable greenhouse will be rolled out each fall.
The program, and the philosophies of Alice Waters, has stirred up the requisite controversy. Caitlin Flanagan wrote a damning piece ripping both apart in this month's Atlantic monthly, calling Waters's restaurant a place "where the right-on, 'yes we can,' ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams—wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included." (No bitter sarcasm there.) She was defended just as swiftly by Atlantic's food critic Corby Kummer.
And a year ago, No Reservations-star Anthony Bourdain stirred the pot in an interview with DCist, saying, "there's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic.” He later clarified his statements, calling Waters a "visionary" who "says some stupid shit sometimes."
