Jesse Cool: The Customer Always Comes Last

Real Organic Podcast

#081: Celebrated Bay Area restaurateur and cookbook authorJesse Cool talks about her passion for ingredient-driven dishes and the path to opening some of California's first organic restaurants - Late for the Train and Flea Street. Noting how things have changed in recent years, she also talks about the importance of growing deep respect for the farm-to-table workforce among eaters.
Jesse Ziff Cool has been committed to serving local, fresh, and sustainable food for 46+ years in her Northern California restaurants. She has written seven cookbooks, including the recently re-released Simply Organic. As a dedicated fan of local farmers, ranchers, and fisherman, Jesse has been a longtime attendee of the EcoFarm Conference and has served on their board.
To watch a video version of this podcast with access to the full transcript and links relevant to our conversation, please visit:
https://www.realorganicproject.org/jesse-cool-customer-always-comes-last-episode-eighty-one

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.
The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).
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We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.
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