Palisa Anderson inherited more than a restaurant, she inherited a legacy. Following in the footsteps of her mother, Amy, who founded Chat Thai in 1989 as a young newcomer to Sydney, Australia, Palisa grew up immersed in hospitality. Her childhood was spent between kitchens and dining rooms, where she developed an instinctive understanding of food and a deep respect for ingredients.

After graduating from the university, she spent a decade abroad, working in Hong Kong, London, New York, and Tokyo. But when she returned home, it wasn’t just to rejoin the family business, it was to transform it.

Rather than relying on imported ingredients, Palisa sought to reconnect their restaurants to the land. She founded Boon Luck Farm, where she grows Thai herbs, rare Asian vegetables, and over 30 varieties of citrus. Her guiding belief is simple yet profound: human health begins with soil health.

Through regenerative farming and reforestation, the farm restores depleted land, captures carbon, and rebuilds biodiversity, proving that agriculture can be both ethical and economically viable. Today, Boon Luck Farm supplies 50–80% of the produce served across 15 restaurants, including Chat Thai’s five locations.

Palisa’s story stands as a powerful testament to what is possible when tradition, migration, and ecological responsibility come together, led by women determined to nourish both people and the planet.

Care and Feeding is about relationships, and we were fortunate to speak with bestselling author Laurie Woolever about her memoir. Beyond being a writer, she is also an editor, public speaker, and former cook. For nearly a decade, Laurie served as the right hand to the late author, TV host, and producer Anthony Bourdain.

Over the years, she has worn many hats, private cook, nanny, caterer, busgirl, recipe tester, farmhand, video store clerk, and food editor. From 1999 to 2002, she was Mario Batali’s assistant, contributing to Holiday Food (2000) and The Babbo Cookbook (2002). She later edited and recipe-tested Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook (2004) before working as an editor at Art Culinaire and Wine Spectator.

Her memoir is raw and unflinching, shedding light on the realities of being “the woman behind the man” while carving her own powerful voice in food writing.

We were fortunate to sit down with Chef Alice Waters, often called “the mother of American cooking.” Widely credited with launching the farm-to-table movement and shaping what we now know as California cuisine, she has spent more than five decades transforming the way we think about food.

In 1971, Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, a restaurant so iconic that chefs from around the world have made pilgrimages to experience it. There, alongside a community of remarkable talent, she championed a philosophy of local, seasonal, and organic cooking that remains as influential today as it was revolutionary then.

Waters has authored six books, including her memoir Coming to My Senses, and founded both the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Edible Schoolyard Project, initiatives that have inspired everything from school lunch programs to Michelle Obama’s White House vegetable garden.

Over the years, she has been named “Best Chef in America,” received the James Beard Humanitarian and Lifetime Achievement Awards, and was honored with the National Humanities Medal.

It was a true delight to speak with this culinary icon and learn what continues to inspire her extraordinary journey.