Alice Waters’ Grapefruit Avocado Salad

The second in our series of quick and easy recipes from top celebrity chefs, this week renown chef Alice Waters offers a refreshing citrus salad. A long-time activist and humanitarian, Waters is perhaps best known for her sustainable approach to the way we eat. Her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, is famous for pioneering organic, locally- grown ingredients. Waters also serves as a public policy advocate on the national level, her key project being school lunch reform, ensuring that everyone has access to organic, sustainable food.

The ingredients found in her recipe represent that commitment to healthy, seasonal foods.

Alice Waters’ Grapefruit Avocado Salad

I like to serve this refreshing salad in the late winter and early spring, when citrus is at its best and avocados are perfectly ripe. You can serve it as a first course or to revive the palate between the main course and dessert.

Serves 4
2 medium ruby grapefruit
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium Hass avocados, cut in half and pits removed
Fresh chervil

With a sharp knife, peel the grapefruit down to the flesh, removing all the rind and pith. Cut the sections free, slicing carefully along the partitioning membranes, and set them aside. Squeeze the juice from the membranes. Measure 2 tablespoons of the juice into a small bowl.

Stir the vinegar into the juice, and season with salt and pepper. Whisk in the oil. Taste, and adjust the acid and salt.

Peel the avocado halves and cut them into ¼-inch slices. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Arrange the grapefruit sections and avocado slices alternately on a plate, and spoon the vinaigrette over. Garnish with chervil, and serve.

All recipes in TCD’s South Beach Delights series are courtesy of The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook, co-authored by native Milwaukeean Julie Mautner.

About Julie Mautner:

Born and raised in Glendale, a graduate of Nicolet High School and UW-Madison, Julie Mautner is a freelance journalist who splits her time between Milwaukee and Provence, France. She was a founding editor of Food Arts Magazine in New York and was its executive editor for ten years.

Since she resigned in 1998 to freelance, Julie’s articles have appeared in/on NYTimes.com, TheAtlantic.com, Travel & Leisure, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Epicurious.com, Conde Nast Traveller UK, New York, Financial Times and elsewhere. She also publishes the popular blog ProvencePost.com, written for anyone who lives in, travels to or dreams of visiting the South of France. The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook (co-authored with Lee Schrager) was published by Clarkson Potter in November 2010 and is Julie’s first book.

**Photos reprinted from Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook © 2010 by Lee Brian Schrager with Julie Mautner. Photographs copyright © 2010 by Quentin Bacon.