The Garden is a documentary film about the life and death of a community garden in Los Angeles. After the 1992 Rodney King riots which fractured the South Central Los Angeles community, the City of Los Angeles allotted a 14-acre piece of property to the community, allowing them to create farm plots for 347 families on the corner of 41st and Alameda (two miles from the location of my grandfather's restaurant). The creation of this garden made it the largest community garden in the United States.

In 2003, after the garden had been in existence for eleven years, the City sold the property to Ralph Horowitz in a secret deal, and the new owner attempted to evict the farmers. The battle went back and forth for several years before the farm was bulldozed in a dramatic action in 2006. I am simplifying this story greatly -- it involves backroom deals, corruption, the promise of a soccer field, infighting among the farmers, inexplicable court decisions, celebrities helping to save the farm and a furious rant by the landowner who ultimately refused to sell the property to the farmers at any price.

And interspersed between all of the drama to protect this property, we see a beautiful, peaceful garden where the families grow bananas, papayas, guavas, nopales, cilantro, and many other crops for their families. It's calm among the chaos that creates a perfect foil for this story.

I can't remember the last time I was so affected by a scene in a movie as I was watching the scene where the garden was destroyed after the final eviction notice was served. In front of the eyes of the farmers who had worked the land for 14 years, after innumerable fights, the garden was destroyed. Ralph Horowitz has not developed the land, and as of the time of movie publication it was still a vacant lot.

The community that developed around the garden is still going strong -- they are looking for land in the area, and have started an 80-acre farm in Bakersfield that sells to Southern California farmers markets, and provides a CSA for local customers.

I highly recommend seeing this film while it's in theaters, and I hope that it gets a wider release. The Garden is now playing at the Landmark Lumiere in San Francisco and the Elmwood Theatre in Berkeley.

Other resources:
The Garden on Facebook
Huffington Post interview with the Director
Chicago Tribune profile

When my friend Natalie asked me if I had any plans for Easter weekend, I was mildly embarrassed to admit that I hadn't. I just hadn't given it much thought this year.

"Well, you do now," she said. "Want to help plant a farm?"

Plant a farm. I couldn't think of a good reason not to. I welcomed the excuse to get outside and do something interesting, something for free. Something more than a little dirty.

It had been a while since I've weeded, hoed, or lugged 4 cubic yards of soil, but I was game for it. I just wasn't sure what I was going to wear. I haven't owned a pair of overalls since the 1980's.

It seems Natalie has gotten herself involved with an organization called MyFarm-- a business that specializes in decentralized urban farming. It's a Community Supported Agriculture organization with heavy emphasis on community. In fact, every herb and vegetable grown comes directly from community members' backyards. Want to know where your mustard greens are really coming from? Well then, go ask your neighbor. With 71 MyFarms planted at the time of this posting, you are likely to know someone who's got one.

When we arrived at the site, we were introduced around to the various MyFarm staff members and volunteers, one of whom came all the way from Santa Cruz to help.

Fortunately, there were a good many people volunteering for the day's planting. With lots of farmhands, well, on hand, the work was swift and enjoyable. I was especially grateful for our numbers when it came time to move the small mountain of soil from a gigantic pile dumped in the driveway to the garden awaiting it in the back-- through the garage, one bucket at a time. At times I pretended I as though I were an ant-- a cog in a great earth-moving machine, but without the ability to lift 25 times my own body weight or smell things through antennae. Of course, in the unseasonable warm April weather, it sometimes felt as though a large bully were holding a magnifying glass over me, trying to set me on fire.

The next time you see me, please feel free to compliment me on my newly-found shoulder muscles and red, red neck.

I was rather stunned by how smoothly everything went. From start to finish, the garden was weeded, top-soiled, dug, irrigated, and planted in less than five hours.

We were a well organized, well-oiled, and well-hydrated team-- the couple hosting the garden kept a blender of filtered water filled for us at all times. I was certain the water was placed in a blender because it was made of non-breakable materials, but I couldn't look at it without thinking that whenever I took a sip, I was drinking a water smoothie.

It was a great day spent outside. I highly recommend it to anyone with a strong back and a good attitude.

And I don't care that someone can't spell Kohlrabi, I'm just glad someone is actually planting it. In an effort to add my own special skills to the endeavor, my pleas for matching font styles on the planting tags went unheeded.

Until the next time, that is.

How MyFarm Works:

MyFarm's Vision (from the website):

At MyFarm it is our mission to make growing food and growing community one in the same. We believe in the power of the individual. But we believe true power comes from working together towards a better future for all.

We want to offer everyone in our community a chance to participate in achieving greater personal sustainability by installing local organic gardens, selling organic vegetables to neighbors and continually seeking ways for others to lend their ideas, their time and their hands to our growing organization.

Interested in hosting a farm?

Their complete list of services include:

* Initial garden set up and weekly follow up to keep your space growing.
* Organic techniques to grow nutrient rich vegetables.
* CSA style pickup a weekly box of very local edibles from a nearby neighbor.
* Permaculture techniques implemented to beautify in a sustainable way.
* Garden design consultations and networking with high quality suppliers.
* Local food feasts with chefs featuring foods from your backyard

Sign up today to host your own garden or volunteer your time-- the kohlrabi and your neighbors will thank you.

I am sure I am not alone in examining all parts of my budget during this time of economic strife. (In fact, this post was late because I am in the midst of epic research on how to cut down my phone bill.)

Since I believe so strongly in buying good, sustainably raised food from local purveyors, it can sometimes be a challenge to reign in spending. On the Eat Local Challenge website, we have talked a lot about eating within a budget and have proven that it's possible -- it just takes a little more planning than average, a little more cooking than average, and a little more preserving of food than average.

So how does one go about eating sustainably on a budget? I have a few ideas, but would love to hear what tricks you are employing to keep your family's budget down.

Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season.

When fruits and vegetables are in abundance in the farmers market, the prices go down. There may be sales, and you are getting the vegetables at their peak of flavor. When you just have to have a bunch of asparagus out of season in August, you're going to be paying top dollar for it. Right now, in the middle of asparagus season, you may find a deal.

Put foods up when you find a bargain.

Start working on canning, drying, preserving, and freezing your food as you find it on sale. There is nothing that's better for the budget and the tastebuds than pulling a bag of peas that were frozen in their peak out of your own freezer, or using your own jarred tomatoes that were purchased in September and canned. Learning to can is a bit of a process, but the resurgence in interest means that there are a lot of resources available. Start with the Ball website for step-by-step instructions.

Menu plan.

You may remember that in January I mentioned that I would be menu planning in order to cut down on food waste as part of my 2009 resolutions. It's been going quite well, and has in fact given way to a new project with a friend where we menu plan for the week and cook together. You can read the first part of the series on Serious Eats. I know that this is the key to keeping my budget in check, but I have to admit that it's been quite a switch for me to menu plan and to eat at home as much as I have been.

Look for unpopular cuts of meat.

Meat definitely takes up a large percentage of my budget. I've taken to combing through a meat vendor's selection for cuts that are less expensive -- oxtails, tougher cuts of meat that need to be slow cooked, or different meats like goat -- in order to find a bargain. It seems to be working out somewhat, and I am also cutting down on my meat consumption.

I'd like to ask you, readers: What have you been doing to cut down on food costs?

Though I'm making great strides in this arena, I feel like there are other things I can be doing to cut down on costs.

Related posts:
Inexpensive Family Meals

Today, I will be ushering in the inauguration at the Civic Center with throngs of San Franciscans who want to watch history together, in a collective group.

The sustainable food community has high hopes for an Obama administration. Food security, organic farming, dialing back of subsidies, and support of small farmers are all on the collective wish list for discussion. In October, Michael Pollan wrote an 8000-word letter to the incoming President-Elect outlining the policies that he hoped the new President would take into consideration.

One of the ideas put forward in this article, and bandied about by others in the food community, is to dedicate part of the White House lawn for a victory garden. As you probably know, during World War II, victory gardens were grown all over the country. Twenty million families grew edible gardens and provided 40% of the domestic food supply. At the time, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a garden at the White House. It not only provided food for the White House, but symbolically supported the idea that food is a critical part of this nation's agenda.

Many don't know that the White House already has a rooftop garden. According to Walter Schieb, executive chef under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, there is a small vegetable garden which is used for White House cooking. That's a great start, but food activists are hoping for a symbolic, and larger garden which would be visible by the millions of visitors to the White House.

There are large, over-arching issues in today's food system. And asking the Obamas to consider a 5-acre organic fruit and vegetable garden seems almost petty in comparison to hunger, obesity, and poor diets. But the message that planting a garden would send is important, and should be considered.

Will today's inauguration speech have a sentence added in for this promise? I can only hope.

For more information about the push for a White House garden, check out the following resources:

Farmer in Chief, Michael Pollan, New York Times
Eat the View
Veggie Gardens and Other Ideas for the Obamas, Anne Marie Chaker, Wall Street Journal

In addition to some personal New Year's resolutions, I have a couple that have to do with lowering my impact on the earth and shrinking my carbon "foodprint."

I am pretty proud of my low-impact ways: I eat locally, I car share, I recycle, and I buy bulk from the co-op. In short, I live a lot of my life taking the environment and my impact on the environment into consideration.

But I've known for a while that I could do more, and have tailored a couple of resolutions to that end.

Resolution #1: Cut my food waste.

We've all heard the statistics: one-third to one-half of all food in the United States goes to waste. Now, there's a lot of that waste that happens way before the food gets to me: it spoiled at the farm or factory, or was thrown away during processing, or was otherwise wasted before it ever reaches the consumer. But what I do have control over is what happens to the food once it gets to me. As a single person who loves to cook and shop, I tend to over cook. I would be quite mortified if any of you saw what I throw away some weeks. I know I'm not alone, but it's still quite shameful. Even if I can compost it, I need to get into the habit of not buying this food, or using it all up when it's purchased.

This Sustainablog article has great pointers for other ways to cut down on food waste, and I'll be using their pointers as I go through the year.

Resolution #2: Meatless Mondays

Nearly all studies show that a meatless diet is better for the environment than an omnivore diet due to the amount of energy it takes to raise our cows and pigs and chickens. A 2007 article from Grist suggests that "If every American had one meat-free day per week, it would reduce emissions as much as taking 8 million cars off the roads." I don't eat meat at every meal, but it is novel for me to intentionally go completely meatless one day a week. I'm going to try to keep it up through 2008.

These resolutions mean that I am going to have to more planning of my meals. I don't think I will ever be someone who plans my meals for the week like I am planning an international trip. If I can even plan on a notecard like you see above and stick to the plan, I will have succeeded in working toward my resolution goals, I believe. I'd love to hear any menu planning tips that have worked for you.

Thanksgiving is a huge business in this country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 45 million turkeys are purchased for Thanksgiving alone. Most of those turkeys are raised in confinement, on large factory farms, and are types which are raised for their large, white breasts. In the Bay Area, we have access to many types of sustainably-grown, free-range, and heritage variety turkeys that you may be interested in considering for your dinner table.

A heritage turkey is an old variety of turkey that is not the typical broadbreasted white variety. Organizations and individuals are working to bring these turkeys back into the mainstream -- their flavor is usually more complex and interesting than typical turkeys. To read an excellent summary of sustainable turkey types, check out the Sustainable Table turkey guide.

Below, you will find a list of some Bay Area stores that will be selling sustainably-grown turkeys. Because of the demand of sustainable and small-production turkeys, all turkeys listed below should be pre-ordered from the store. Call the stores directly, and soon, to discuss an order.

GUIDE TO ATTRIBUTES:
L = Local (generally 150 miles from the Bay Area)
H = Heritage
FR = Free Range
O = Certified organic

PRATHER RANCH MEAT
(H, FR) Good Shepherd Ranch Heritage Turkeys. Good Shepherd turkeys come from Lindsborg, Kansas from a co-op of growers who all raise less than 1500 birds. The Good Shepherd Ranch has worked with Heritage Foods USA to provide heritage breeds of turkeys, and the ranch's turkeys are certified under the Animal Welfare Approved label. $6.99/lb.

AVEDANO'S
(L, FR) Branigan's Turkey from Woodland, California. These turkeys are raised longer than standard in order to develop flavor.
(FR, H) Mary's Heritage Turkeys from the Fresno area. This is a turkey project which is a joint effort of Slow Food and small farmers.
(L, O, FR) Willie Bird Turkeys. Willie Bird is from Sonoma County, and has been providing turkeys since 1948. While not all Willie Birds are organic, Avedano's will be providing organic turkeys.

BI-RITE
(H, FR) Good Shepherd Ranch Heritage Turkeys. Size will be 8-24 pounds. Price is $6.99/lb.
(L, FR, H) Bill Niman Heritage Turkeys. Mr. Niman is the founder of Niman Ranch, but stepped away from that nationwide operation last year. He's back to ranching on a small scale on his ranch in Bolinas, and this year's turkeys are his first flock. Edible San Francisco has a great article about his turkeys. If I were cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year, this would be my first choice of bird.

FATTED CALF
(L, H, FR) Hudson Ranch Heritage Turkeys. Turkeys raised in Napa's Carneros Region. Size will be 22-30 pounds. Price is $7.75/lb.
(H, FR) Good Shepherd Ranch Heritage Turkeys. Size will be 8-24 pounds. Price is $6.50/lb.
To order from Fatted Calf, call (707) 256-3684 before November 2. Pick-up from the Napa store Thanksgiving week or from the Berkeley Farmers Market on Tuesday, November 25.

DIRECT PURCHASE FROM LOCAL SOURCES
(L, H, FR) Wind Dancer Ranch. [SOLD OUT 10/29/08]
(L, O, FR) Willie Bird Turkeys.
(L, H, FR) Slow Food Russian River (PDF) runs a program with local 4H and FFA clubs. You can order turkeys direct from them. While not certified organic, the turkeys are being fed an organic diet and are available for pick-up in Petaluma.

As I've mentioned here, October is Eat Local Month around the nation. While I tend to concentrate on local eating throughout the year, October is a fun time to renew my efforts and find new local products.

Toward that end, I shopped at the Sunday San Rafael Farmers Market this weekend. Sporting my new Praise the Lard t-shirt, I hopped in a Zipcar and drove the twenty minutes to the Marin Civic Center.

I really love the San Rafael Markets -- they are held at the Civic Center (a Frank Lloyd Wright creation) on Thursday mornings and Sundays. While the Thursday market is mellow, quiet, and impressive in its produce offerings, the Sunday market is jam-packed, loud, and quite large.

It had been several months since I'd been to this market, and some new vendors were in attendance. The market seems to be really pushing for more local products, and the farms seem to be much more locally-based than ever before.

Devil's Gulch Ranch is in Nicasio and was offering milk-fed pork and rabbit. They are hosting a farm tour and dinner on November 8 which would be a great way to see the farm in person.

My absolute favorite find of the trip was the new organic dim sum booth that is located in the back of the market. The company is called Tru Gourmet and, for the time being, is only available at the Marin Farmers Market. I bought four pieces for $5 from their extensive list of offerings, and was impressed with the bright flavors and excellent taste. You can read more about Tru Gourmet in this article from the Marin Independent Journal.

It's a fun time of year to go to a market. Our California weather means that tomatoes are still available (the tomatoes pictured above being from Costal Fog Organic Farm in Petaluma) along with other typically summer produce alongside with winter squash and winter greens. Marin Roots Farm had absolutely gorgeous red carrots. When cut open, the insides are bright orange and the flavor is sweet. In addition to the carrots, I bought a kabocha squash from Paradise Valley Farm, beautiful braising greens from County Line Farm, and oxtails from Marin Sun Farms. Andante Dairy is attending this market and I picked up some Etude cheese, which I've already completely consumed.

In the coming weeks, I am looking forward to seeing more pomegranates, brussels sprouts, and pumpkin varieties. I hope to see you at a market!

Some explanation here: Starting at age 11, my father worked on a muck farm in western Michigan. Over the course of two, hot, Midwestern summers, he planted, weeded, cultivated, and harvested produce. While Hudsonville, MI is known as the celery capital of the world because of the ideal growing conditions it provides in its dark and loamy rich soil, Dad mainly dealt with lettuces, radishes, and green onions on his muck farm.

After spending the morning crawling along the growing rows to weed around the vegetables, Dad says in the afternoons, he got the "posh job." He got to escape the beating sun and work inside, washing and packing the produce for market. A percentage of this Michigan produce was loaded onto trains and sped off to stock Chicago markets. In a weird twist of fate, my Dad got his job at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. because of the muck farm.

The guy who interviewed him was the son of a Chicago market owner who bought from the Dutch farmers in Michigan. Growing up, this SEC guy learned from his dad that not only did the Dutch deliver excellent produce, but they were fair, honest, and hard workers. You could always trust the Dutch to do good business. The fact that my dad was both Dutch and a muck farm worker sealed his position as an SEC staff attorney. Dad calls that "an instance of favorable stereotyping."

At sixty-eight, my Dad has professed himself confused as to why I want to work on a farm, since it was a job he did out of necessity and not pleasure. However, he listened patiently when I went on at great length about locavores, the connection between farm and table, and Jen Maiser, and a year later, he sent me the following childhood recollection. Given how natural it was for my grandparents to source, buy, and eat locally, I'm not surprised Dad has been somewhat unimpressed by all the chatter surrounding the newest eat local resurgence. What I want him to know is, in many ways, the current eat local movement honors our parents and grandparents who got it right the first time around.

In recognition of Eat Local Month, I am sharing his potato memory here.

The Great Potato Hunt

By Vern Vander Weide

It was that time of year again, the time when the first hint of fall could be felt in the western Michigan air. The seasonal ritual began with my father diligently perusing the classified ads in the Grand Rapids Press. I knew that meant we (my father, mother and I) would soon be spending evenings and weekends traveling throughout western Kent and Newaygo and Ottawa counties, visiting the numerous farms Dad had marked in the classifieds. Thus would begin the Great Potato Hunt, the annual quest for the Perfect Potato.

Of course, I did not think of this in those grandiose terms back then. I was a mere child. Searching far and wide for the best strawberries, the most luscious blueberries, fresh eggs from a cousin's farm, the ripest cherries, the plumpest peaches and, yes, the super potato was just part of our very ordinary lives. After all, didn’t everybody do that? It was such a common-seeming experience that I never bothered to ask my friends whether they were expecting to spend countless hours in the back seat of their parents’ car while they searched for the Perfect Produce.

Today, this would be, I guess, "locavores." But that word was in no one's vocabulary in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Everyone practiced "locavore." The produce we bought in our grocery stores in the summer had been in the ground just 24 hours earlier and less than 20 miles away. The grocers purchased their produce every morning at the wholesale farmers' market. Every week, my parents visited one of two (sometimes both) retail farmers’ markets throughout the summer and early fall. There one would find everything, depending on where we were in the growing season, from live chickens (no, not for pets) to freshly picked corn. Beyond that, my parents’ "'voring" was as "local" as it could get. Except for a brief hiatus in the early 1950s, my father continued our World War II Victory Garden, so that bib lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, green onions and other delectables were just steps outside our back door.

But back to the search for the Perfect Potato. From the back seat I heard my parents talking about "russets," "Idahoes," "red russets" (or "red" something or other), or other brands of potato, all of which was completely meaningless to me. After extended discussions between my father and farmer after farmer, the Great Decision would be made: we would make the annual purchase (sometimes more than one purchase from different farms) of our winter’s supply of potatoes. The precious find would be brought home and carefully stored in our fruit cellar (along with all the jars containing the canned fruits and vegetables my mother had already prepared).

As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. But I also vaguely remember conversations at dinner, or maybe just before dinner, that seemed to be a continuation of the Great Potato Hunt. But first some important background. We usually ate potatoes that had been peeled, boiled and then served in a form in which the potatoes had been broken up. On Sundays (usually only on Sundays), they would be mashed, as part of our roast chicken or roast beef dinner. The key test of the Perfect Potato came every night in the unmashed form. I don’t remember very much of this conversation; after all, I really did not like potatoes until I got much older, so this conversation about the Perfect Potato was really of no interest to me.

My father would ask my mother how the potatoes "did up" or how they "cooked up." She would say something like "too mealy" or "too wet" and sometimes -- nirvana! -- "very good." Again, this meant nothing to me, but many times since then I have wondered just what the whole potato thing was all about. I’ve asked several persons, including my culinary expert food-writing daughter, what the BIG DEAL is about the potato, but to no avail. (SO not true! Dad never asked me this question! Artistic license, indeed! -- Stephanie) Nobody had been able to explain to me what so preoccupied my Dad.

Last week I visited my 92-year old aunt, my father’s last surviving sibling. I related a much shorter version of the above, and she, of course, nodded knowingly. I asked, "Aunt Win, why did Dad spend all this time looking for potatoes, what’s the difference?" She explained that it depends upon whether the potatoes cooked up "dry" or "wet." "Dry or wet?" I asked. After all, they’ve just come out of a pan of boiling water. How can they be anything other than wet? She said that after the potatoes have been properly boiled and the water decanted (my word, not hers), the cook shakes the pan so as to cause the potatoes to break apart. If the resulting pieces are "wet," that is not good; if the potato easily breaks apart and the resulting pieces are "dry," that is the Perfect Potato.

So, now I know why we spent all that time long ago on the Great Potato Hunt.

October is Eat Local Challenge month around the nation. Over at the Eat Local Challenge blog, we are excited to have over two hundred people who have committed to eating locally in their area for the entire month. We choose to eat locally because it supports the local economy, because it supports local farms and farmers, because it's lighter on the earth, and because it supports responsible development.

Since its meager beginnings in 2005, the Eat Local Challenge has grown to a movement that is beyond any of our dreams. This is evidenced by the cooperation of many organizations in San Francisco that are bringing you a myriad of eat local events throughout the month of October.

Even if you don't commit to eating locally for the entire month (though we'd love if you sign up and participate!), there are lots of ways that you can support eating locally in October in the Bay Area. Here are just a few ideas:

1. Support restaurants in the Bay Area that make a habit of buying from local farms. Just a few ideas include Delfina, A16, SPQR, Flea Street Cafe, Coi, Piccino, Pizzetta 211, Serpentine, Hog Island Oyster Company, Pauline's Pizza, NOPA, and so many others.

2. Support restaurants in San Francisco that are committing to buying locally in October. Eat Local SF is a local organization that has worked with restaurants to provide special Eat Local menus during October. Those restaurants can be found via Open Table.

3. Learn more about eating locally by attending a lecture. The Commonwealth Club is hosting a four week series about eating locally. I will be attending several of the events. I sat in on some of the planning sessions for these events, and am excited about the panelists at each. Events include:
October 1. Local Food, Local Pride: Policies for Sustainable Economies
October 8. The Water Connection: State Policies and the Impact on Local Food Systems
October 15. From Farm to Feast: How chefs, farmers and artisans strenghten our community
October 22. Food as Medicine: Health and Food Safety

4. Attend tastings of local wines and food at 18 Reasons each Thursday night in October. 18 Reasons is a great art + food gallery in the Mission, and I am excited to check out these celebrations of local wine.

5. Use the Buy Fresh Buy Local database to find local food in your area, and support those purveyors in October.

6. Attend a farmers market each week in October. Use the Chronicle website to find your local market.

7. Ask your supermarket manager where your meat, produce and dairy is coming from. Remember that market managers are trained to realize that for each person actually asking the question, at least 7 people want to know the same answer. Make a difference!

However you decide to support local eating in October, be sure to let us know what you're doing and how it goes.

Warning: This is not a piece extolling the virtues of Slow Food Nation '08, so if there are delicate sensibilities out there who can't bear the suggestion that Slow Food Nation is anything other than shiny, happy people eating food, you should probably stop reading right now.

It would be one thing if this rant was all about how I volunteered at Slow Food Nation and all I got was this lousy apron.

That's not even the half of it. In fact, it's just emblematic of the entire SFN volunteering experience as I lived it. It's emblematic of the rudeness, the exclusion, the contradictions between what SFN advertised and what was actual, and the overall disgust I came away with after volunteering. The blog posts about what SFN did right are already thick on the ground, and the praise is prodigious; this is not going to be one of those pieces.

All my life, I've volunteered at various non-profits, churches, and events, and this is the first time I've been made so boiling mad by the attitude and treatment received. Building houses for Habitat for Humanity in the 105° Missouri heat was a more rewarding experience, and we even had one of our newly-paned HFH windows shot out by a friggin' drive-by!

I volunteered at SFN to help a friend and to help a vendor I believe deeply in; my beef is with neither of those parties. They took care of their volunteers the best they could. They celebrated our participation and did what they could to make it a pleasant experience. Not so for the rest of the SFN organization.

Let me get it out there right away that I appreciate the idea of slow food. (Note the lowercase.) It's the execution of this particular event I take exception to. Do I think it's awesome that there were, like, 26 different preserve makers there? Of course. Do I celebrate all 110 olive oils made in the Slow Food way? Well, I didn't get to taste any of them, but who wouldn't celebrate that range of fat? Was I completely disgusted by the way the organization treated the unpaid volunteers? Oh, hell yes!

Slow Food is about counteracting the "disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." Slow Food Nation '08 "was created to organize the first-ever American collaborative gathering to unite the growing sustainable food movement and introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair."

But how about how they treat their workers? Their unpaid workers? People who volunteered their time, energy, and bright smiles to support them in their cause? Shouldn't that be a consideration?

Directly from the SFN website:

Slow Food Nation is a community event and we welcome your participation. We’re seeking volunteers to help in all aspects of planning and on site. Let us know if you'd like to join in this exciting endeavor—we promise plenty of fun and food!

In the cold light of morning, after an exhausted sleep following a long volunteer shift, I just have to laugh at that: "we promise plenty of fun and food!" So, the fun is debatable. You make your own fun; I've always believed that. And we did. At our vendor, we joked with each other, with the "paying guests," and we laughed a lot. One of my "paying guests" friends even told me I looked like the happiest person at the entire event. But the food? Sure, there was "plenty" of food, but none of us volunteers were allowed to eat it.

I direct you to the "food" portion of the multi-page dos, don'ts, and behavior modifications we received in advance as volunteers (bolding mine):

CIVIC CENTER: Although some small snacks may be available to our volunteers, please note that meals are neither provided nor reimbursed. Affordable meals are available each day from 15 unique Slow-On-the-Go vendors in the plaza."

FORT MASON: Volunteers wishing a simple meal may take one as available from our sponsor, Whole Foods. No additional concessions are available for purchase at this location. Volunteers are asked to refrain from eating samples from our taste partners, as these are intended for our paying guests and we will run out.

SFN never pointed out where these "simple meals" were, and I never saw them. If they meant the cheese and bread and juice they had at our check-in location, well, that was a-ways away from where we were working and would take more than a 10-minute break to get there, bolt the food, and get back to our post.

Keep an eye out for all the shouting "NOs" and "NOTs" in the additional portions quoted below from what I'm calling the SFN Dos and Don'ts. They make the overall tone quite objectionable. Get an editor and learn how to convey things in a more palatable manner, especially to people WHO ARE THERE TO HELP YOU.

Getting There: Transportation: Slow Food Nation encourages you to travel in ways that minimize our collective carbon footprint. We will NOT reimburse for parking and there is NO official parking partner affiliated with this event – plus it is a holiday weekend!

Sheesh.

(Also, given that I have a whole separate post coming about the behavior of the Slow Food Nation "paying guests," maybe SFN should have provided Dos and Don'ts for them.)

After checking in as a volunteer, we were directed to wait in our designated food area. Signs above were labeled "olive oil," "wine," "chocolate," etc. We got our one freebie -- the SFN apron -- and stood around a bit. There was milling. I joked (because the firm, bright smile never left my face ALL NIGHT) to a old friend and fellow volunteer that it's like we were the Joad Family. Day laborers from the Dust Bowl era, waiting to see if there's paying work that day.

A SFN organizer briefly welcomed us, thanked us for our time, and then said no less than five times that we were NOT to ask for food in the Taste Pavilion. If we required food during our 4pm-10pm shift, they had food for us there. However, we had to make sure to ask our managers if we could leave our post and really should consider planning our hunger around a lull.

A lull? Sorry, we didn't see a lull at my vendor. None. Not in six hours. My only lull was a 10-minute break that I used to stretch my legs and call home to report a Top Chef Marcel sighting. We never stopped serving people as fast as humanly possible.

"Do NOT ask for ANY food," he repeated. Again. I turned to fellow Joad Family member and shook a finger in her face, "Don't even THINK about food," I ordered her, "You're thinking about it. I can tell. DON'T!" Because you gotta laugh. Or else you'll scream.

Moving on to the "perks" portion of the Dos/Don'ts, we were told:

Each volunteer will be given a Slow Food apron to wear during their work shift, which is then yours to keep. Please note, however, that aprons only are not valid for entrance to ticketed events. Volunteers will be admitted, with their Managers, to work shifts only and do not receive free entrance to any other events.

Let's put my whines about the lack of freebies for the hard-working volunteers aside. Let's instead consider a case where a volunteer actually tried to BUY a Slow Dough coupon so they could participate in the events. They tried and were reportedly told, "You can't, you're a volunteer."

So, let me get this straight: As a volunteer, I work for free. I work for love and laughs, and I don't get any perks aside from an apron that is probably compostable if I add Slow Food-approved olive oil to it. And as a volunteer, I can't even PAY you to let me enjoy the promised "plenty of food and fun"? Unique.

Maybe they weren't allowed to sell to volunteers in case those volunteers shirked their shifts, but shouldn't that be something the volunteer's vendor policed? Maybe the volunteer was going to use the Slow Dough the next day when they weren't working. Is that not allowed?

When we were herded to the Taste Pavilion to start our shifts, a SFN manager came over to get us. "You [food group]?" she asked unsmilingly, "Follow me." "She's very excited about her job," fellow Joad Family member confided in me. We followed her. We got a warm, happy, and grateful welcome from our vendor.

Since we're still and always on food, I'll quote what the Dos/Don'ts said about water:

Water stations will be located in all locations, so please be sure to bring your own water containers to fill. Individual bottles will NOT be available.

SFN never pointed these stations out to us and I never saw them, so I'm thankful for two things: I brought my own container that I'd already filled at home AND our vendor provided us with filled water bottles. Because our vendor? Is awesome beyond the reaches of the SFN org.

Hand-Outs: Please do NOT give food, samples, or leftovers of any kind to any homeless person, at any location, under any circumstances. Word will spread of free food and we will soon have an encampment. Be sure to clean up all waste at days' [sic] end.

Of course, this is just ironic when part of Slow Food's mission is the professed belief "that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure."

On two totally separate occasions, two UNPAID volunteers on their 10-minute breaks were ordered quite rudely by extraneous SFN workers not connected with our specific vendor, "Bus that table!" When both volunteers explained that they were not general staff but were working for [specific vendor] and also on their break, the response was, "Yeah. Bus that table!" No please, no thank you. Just an apron.

Maybe I've got this all wrong. Maybe every person wearing a SFN apron -- official ribbons or no -- was an unpaid volunteer who was also working just out of the pure goodness of their hearts. Because they believe passionately in the cause. If so, shouldn't that have brought us together in a more cohesive state of camaraderie where communications are clear, polite, and respectful?

At the end of the sweaty six-hour shift, a bar designer came over to us during clean-up and shook out dozens of cocktails composed of Gin 209, St. Germaine, mint, cucumber, and agave for us. He announced, "I've worked enough of these things to know you guys got nothing tonight." He gave the cocktail some name like, "Multi Spa," but I prefer to call it, "Faith Reviver." Maybe not faith in being a SFN volunteer again, but faith that there are still kind people out there who know how to treat others with respect, dignity, and gratitude.

My parents -- my dad, especially -- didn't raise me to turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies and contradictions of the world. They raised me to speak up and out if changes are to be made to the accepted status quo and not to sit idly by hoping everything will all work out somehow.

Next time you do an event, Slow Food Nation, take better care of the people who turned out to help spread your message. We may not have been "paying guests" in the monetary sense, but we paid with our time, energy, and goodwill and we deserved to be accorded the same respect as those forking over cold hard cash. This was a high-profile chance to show a whole mess of people that you are better than the average food industry expo, and in some ways you did. In other ways, you really didn't.

Bless you and your gleaming cocktail shaker, Bar Designer.