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Let's eat, and drink, after the wait.
There is great food (cheese, bread, Indian food, cured meats, fish, pizza, honey, ice cream, wild rice cake, bison chili, chocolate, cupcakes) and adult beverages (absinthe, beer, wine, Fog Cutters!) to enjoy at the Slow Food Nation Taste Pavilions and Green Kitchen at Fort Mason this weekend. The visually appealing displays of bread, jars, honey, fish, cacao, and other plants and foods are for the most part inspiring.
Drinkers may especially like the cheery vibe happening at the cocktail lounge, with umbrellas, Trader Vic's menus & other old timey historical gear and books. Meat eaters should swoon over the charcuterie slicer watched over by the (ever handsome) Paul Bertolli. It's obvious that heaps of planning and of course dinero went into putting on this huge event. Organizers want us to all "come to the table." However, the up to forty five minute waits were sometimes too sloooooooow and long to bear. We counted six people taking tickets for thousands of folks at the opening of the event, which set an unfortunate precedent. Get more ticket takers or volunteers, people! At $65 a pop, this event should have a better flow.
The lines for ice cream, cheese, coffee, and tea went on, and on, and on, ever so slooooowly. On the other hand, standing for over thirty minutes in the pizza line gives one the chance to sip a drink (send a friend to the bar while you wait in line) watch the artisans throw dough, sauce pizzas, and put finishing touches on sausage rapini pie. But still, some napkins, any napkins, would've been grand. A garbage can at each tasting station would also help guests who don't like carrying sticky and dirty cups and plates around.
Bold faced names spotted "at the table" today included: Daniel Handler, Lisa Brown, Allison Evanow, Flo Braker, Stacy Finz, Mary Risley, Steve DeVries, Greg Lindgren, Martin Cate, Jeff Hollinger, Dominic Venegas, Jennifer Colliau, Mike Kalanty, Jennifer Jeffries (with a camera), Heidi Swanson (ditto), Joanne Weir, David Chang, and Charlie Trotter. Rick Bayless and Darina Allen were scheduled to give demos in the Green Kitchen, also. We would've killed to buy some pepper jam, infused honey, and pickled items. Alas, they were "just to look at," not to buy.
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Rememdial Food Nation is more like it.
Alice Waters shows up at Ferry Building farmer's market yesterday morning demanding "boxes of perfect produce", because her Taste Pavilion at Fort Mason's produce has scratches and dents and imperfections in it. And we all know that Slow Food is perfect.
More like a show than a movement, has slow food gone the way of burning man?
Volunteers at SFN were given an apron as acknowledgment/thank you. But were also told that said apron was not by any means a way to gain access to Taste Events going on at Fort Mason, no no no...
Have we all seen the 7X7 magazine illustation of the doyens lf SFN?
shoulda called it rich food nation! i walked out to the festival yesterday and realized that tenderloin trash like me had no place there :-p
@RicardoSF, I've been reading a long piece about how badly volunteers were treated there. Sounds pretty bad.