(*NEW ARRIVAL*) Alice Waters. Chez Panisse Vegetables. *Signed*

Jacket. First Edition. NY: Harper Collins, [1996].

Warmly inscribed & signed by Waters on the half-title: "For Melissa, Alice Waters at the Presidential Dinner 7.23.96". A manuscript postcard from Esprit is also laid-in, thanking Melissa for help with Susie Tompkins' fundraising dinner for Bill Clinton that Waters references in her inscription ("The Women of the DNC were and are a pleasure to work with...").  On July 23, 1996, Presiden Bill Clinton attended a fundraising dinner at the home of Esprit owner Susie Tompkins in San Francisco, where he made a speech to help fundraise for his second term.

Included in his remarks (all of which can be read here), he said, " When I became President, I had a simple vision. I wanted to serve for 8 years so that when I left and the country went on into a new century, the American dream would be alive for every single man and woman, boy and girl in this country without regard to their station in life; this country would still be the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity and security; and we would be coming together in our community, celebrating our diversity instead of being divided and weakened and torn apart by it as are so many around the world today. Those are the three things I wanted. And those are the three things that I want tonight." Sigh. Alice Waters was also in attendance, and her just-published vegetables book was included as a gift to donors.

Fine.

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