The premise of the article is that Alice Waters, the Queen of Green and the earth mother of the food revolution, is experiencing an unfair backlash. But, says Namkung, she doesn't deserve it, because the good she's done outweighs any sanctimony.

The hard words comes as a result of Waters' recent appearance on 60 Minutes, in which her passion for organics for all brought tears to her eyes. She's been vocal, lately, too, in her support of an organic garden at the White House - calls which have been heeded. In response, apparently Anthony Bourdain said, in an interview with DCist,

Alice Waters annoys the living s%#* out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits.

In response, NPR (et tu, NPR?!) critic Todd Kliman was emboldened to denounce Waters' movement as somewhat intransigent: "Waters, like a lot of radicals, believes the movement will never end. She simply can't see that the revolution she helped lead has calcified into something doctrinaire and even repressive, not liberating and uplifting." The only other critic I could find (by searching "Alic Waters, smug" and "Alice Waters, annoying"), a food blogger, explained his aversion thusly: "I've been unsympathetic to Alice Waters in the past, if only for her California sanctimony, and the effortless, tendentious ease with which she conflates her own fame with the cause of sustainable food."

While this hardly constitutes a full-scale denunciation - Bourdain's in the business of stirring the pot with iconoclastic fervor, after all - it's also true that such criticism would have been unthinkable a few years ago. To criticize Alice Waters, after all, is tantamount to criticizing puppies; what's not to like about organic food, small farms, good nutrition for children? As Victoria Namkun avers, the food revolution would not have happened without Waters. And the increasing availability of affordable organics can be laid directly at her door. The charge brought against her is generally an oblivious elitism that displays a lack of knowledge of the real priorities and opportunities of everyday people. And it's true both that Waters lives in a mecca of the movement she spawned and that her acolytes are not, as a rule, impoverished: to the extent that "good eating" has acquired the taint of moral superiority, the movement is indeed problematic. But can Waters be blamed for this?

In a sense, Waters seems to be falling prey to the pitfalls of any radical who is around long enough. She's damned for a single-minded commitment that now seems simplistic; at the same time she's criticized for an elitist complacency. On the one hand, some of the criticism is surely contrarian, pure and simple: Waters is one of the few sacred cows we have left to us (an organic one, to be sure), and as one with a particularly earnest and rabid fan base, probably an irresistible target for troublemakers. There are those amongst us who can't tolerate the existence of bedroom saints, and maybe they're right. I'd regard Waters' recent challenging not as problematic but as necessary and important; even a sign of her importance. She created a movement, and like a culinary Dorothy Day, she's stayed true to its principles. This is, perhaps, as it should be, and what she should be revered for; it's also what needs to be challenged, discussed, analyzed, evolved, rethought if necessary. What's the point of founding a philosophy if it doesn't spawn new ideas? So where Namkung says "give Waters a break"; I say she can take it.

Let's Give Alice Waters a Break [Huffington Post]
Alice Waters Was a Foodie Hero. Now She's the Food Police. [NPR]
Alice Waters Finds Someone Even More Annoying in Lesley Stahl [The Feedbag]
Chewing the Fat: No Reservations' Anthony Bourdain [DCist]

Here's the whole query:

Dear Amy: My husband and I are very friendly with a couple that we enjoy very much. We vacation with them and spend time with them in social gatherings. We love to entertain and are very good cooks. Whenever my friend and her husband come to our home, they always eat everything, and they usually have second helpings. My friend loves to entertain as well and does it well. You always feel very relaxed at their home. Our problem is that she used to cook wonderful meals, but now everything she cooks is fat-free. Her menu is always tasteless. She cooks it all in the morning and reheats it before serving it. She always makes a comment that she cooked too much because there is so much food left over. I would love to tell her it's because no one wants second helpings. My feeling is that most of her guests feel the same way we do. I don't want to hurt her feelings. Do we suck it up for the evening or say something? My husband said that we should just not accept invitations to her home for dinner and just go for parties, and eat before we get there. We were invited for Thanksgiving dinner, and the dinner was awful. Once again, she was overloaded with leftovers. How would you handle this situation? - Friend in Need

Amy says that, in the name of friendship, "Friend" must indeed make the best of the crap food - because "the most important aspect of being a guest is to allow yourself to have a good time, partaking of the fellowship of your friends, even if you don't particularly enjoy the food." Further, "your friend might have health issues necessitating her switch to low-fat cooking, or her tastes and abilities may have changed during the time you've known her."

In my opinion, there are a few details here that must be considered. 1: "friend in need" is something of a boastful jerk with misplaced, petty priorities - and yet, I trust her implicitly. 2: There is nothing worse than being trapped somewhere with horrible food, especially on Thanksgiving. 3: If the bad cook - who has no excuse since she used to be a good one, and how could her "abilities" have changed? - can't eat normal food, she has no business inviting people over and forcing them to conform to her diet. Harsh? Maybe. But if she's going to pull this kind of crap, then her friend can be equally selfish and turn down her invites (since, apparently, going to a restaurant is not an option and their relationship is completely based on foodieism.)

That said: obviously "Amy" is right and if you're a nice person you don't hold tasteless food against your friend and put the most charitable possible spin on her behavior. If you're not actually that nice but know you need to pretend to be, here is what you should have in your purse: beef, turkey or salmon jerky; dried apricots; almonds; if at all possible a Nature Valley fruit bar. (Some advocate a hard-boiled egg but I have had unhappy experiences with broken shells.) If you aren't on the go for a long time, a BabyBel cheese is a good addition, and the ball of wax is handy to have for molding under the table into miniature Easter Island heads. All of these can be downed during a clandestine trip to the powder room. Also: whenever at a deli, grab some of those little salt and pepper packets so as to easily doctor tasteless food on the sly. I know of what I speak: if, like me, you have certain close relatives who have been known to serve one ancient, unrefrigerated, dessicated carrot sticks, week-old supermarket rotisserie chicken with a soupçon of mold on the drumstick, and undefrosted clam chowder, such measures are a necessity.

Ask Amy: When host's food isn't to guests' taste [The Philadelphia Inquirer]