Jesse Cool is what some people might call incongruous.

Though Cool is the owner and founder of CoolEatz, an organic catering business with three umbrella restaurants including the Cool Cafe at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford, she also admits to having recently stopped in at In-N-Out for french fries and a Coke.

Cool chocks up this indulgence to her 85-15 rule: Eighty-five percent of the time you're always conscious of the food you eat and its impact on you and the planet." This leaves 15 percent of the time for In-N-Out treats and the like.

Cool allows this philosophy of leaving room for mistakes to transcend into the way she runs her business. Dedicated to organics and sustainability, Cool says she starts each week with goals to improve her restaurant's commitment to the environment and the community.

"On a daily basis, all of us [on the staff] examine what it means to have a responsibility to, and a consciousness of, food, both locally and globally," she said. "And we always forgive ourselves for what we haven't done as well as we could, but every day we wake up and know that tomorrow's a brand new day."

Though a religion major in college, Cool eventually made the transition back to the food industry, which had always been an integral part of her life.

"My mother taught me to nurture, my father taught me the connection to food," Cool explained.

Cool's father's grocery store in what she describes as a small, poor town in Pennsylvania "fed the community in many ways," through selling organic vegetables and giving back to the community.

There, Cool learned how to "run a food organization with integrity" and maintain a strong "connection to organic [through] being aware of every aspect of what food is about."

Cool headed to the South Bay in California where she started working as a waitress at Good Earth in Palo Alto, a natural foods store, and soon after founded one of the first organic restaurants with her former husband Bob Cool and friend Steve Silva.

"I started in the restaurant business having no idea what I was doing except that I loved to cook," Cool said. "I knew nothing about business<\p>--<\p>I'm just learning now after 30 years. The other part, the community and the organic, that was easy."

Her business and subsequent restaurants are based on "caring and sustainability." This includes "caring on all levels" and "taking care of where the food comes from" through paying attention to environmental and social concerns.

"My dad knew where the meat was slaughtered and where the food was grown," Cool said. "Where the food comes from paramounts in how it tastes. That naturally happens when the ingredient is wonderful."

Sometimes the ingredients that produce the best taste are not the imported ones, or the most expensive, but others found closer to home, Cool said.

"I realized very quickly that gourmet did not mean bottled jars brought from Europe but what was grown in my community," she said.

Cool and her management staff buy their foods from door-to-door vendors, cooperatives, farmers' markets and Webb Ranch, one of the last existing working farms in the area.

"Farmers are my heroes," Cool said. "They are my teachers and my mentors because they are the ones who really teach us what to do with the food."

A commitment to the local markets sometimes causes Cool to choose non-organic food from a local seller over organic food from a non-local producer.

"[Our food] may not be 100 percent organic because sometimes the better choice of the product is not necessarily the organic one," she said. "Organic is a huge part of what I do, but it's not all of it. When you're growing organic you're taking care of the land, and not putting anything onto the food that's harmful. For 20 years it was just about organic. Then about 10 years ago when the industry grew<\p--\p>which is a good thing<\p--\p>it became more of an issue of sustainability."

Simultaneously while working with the local community, Cool stays connected to the national and international communities.

"I stand up for my local farmers, but I am also working with some big companies like General Mills and Coca Cola that are really looking at their role in the big world with sustainability," she said. "These are not bad people<\p--\p>these are good people, really asking questions about sustainability."

For her fresh fish supply, Cool said she is currently partnering up with a chef from Iceland, which she considers to be one of the most sustainable countries in the world. Other projects that Cool is working on include "looking at energy sources to see how not to drain our energy" and improving her restaurants' waste management.

Although Cool is strongly committed to her goals, she said she recognizes that sometimes compromises have to be made, such as her previous commitment solely to the organic products.

"I'm very opinionated, but I'm also a cross-over person<\p--\p>I'm open to listening to all sides," she said. "Liberals can be just as fascist as fascists. We all have to listen to each other, and take care of the planet and the people living on it."