slow food

Sandwiched between the two political conventions, a slice of food politics from San Francisco

Starting Friday, I’ll be reporting from Slow Food Nation, a big, multifaceted food confab in San Francisco. What exactly is it? I’ll let you know when I figure it out. The event features both Slow Food royalty (Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Carlo Petrini) and Slow Food critics (like Brahm Ahmadi of Oakland’s People’s Grocery, who […]

The paper of record identifies — sort of — a new trend

New York Times food reporter Kim Severson has declared a new trend: “lazy locavores,” people who want to “eat close to home” but are too time-strapped (or lazy) to put much effort into it. According to Severson, “a new breed of business owner” has arisen to cater to their whims. She opens her piece with […]

Gathering around a table as environmental advocacy

Gazing over the muddy brown expanse that the abating snows finally revealed in mid-March, it has been hard for me to imagine the lush greenery and flavorful bounty that our gardens will yield in just a few short months. But even by the time you read these words, radishes and spinach will have sprouted again. The curly tendrils of spring's first sweet peas will be stretching, aching for a grip on a trellis and an arc of precious sunlight. The warmth will return, as it always does, and with it, the promise of a table full of delicious food surrounded by the people we love.

It is an old word: convivial. Its Latin roots refer literally to "living together." We are drawn to conviviality by our very human nature, our need for companionship and warmth. Yet in today's fast-paced, technology-driven, I-get-mine-first world, we regularly sacrifice that which made us human in the first place, that which built our society -- our fundamental need for food and the camaraderie that was born of that need.

15 Green Chefs

Savor our list of eco-conscious chefs, then dish on your own favorites in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Photo: David Sifry via Flickr Alice Waters, Chez Panisse, Berkeley, Calif., U.S. Thirty years ago, the words “imported from France” signified the height of status and taste on U.S. restaurant menus. Today, the […]

Ruminations on food, class, and Carlo Petrini

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between,” Oscar Wilde once quipped. Fresh, yes, but is it affordable? Photo: Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Such observations didn’t always endear him to Victorian-era Americans. Wilde’s 1881 lecture tour of the United States, while ultimately viewed as a triumph, occasionally drew […]

Savor your flavors with the slow-food movement

This is the fourth in a series of articles about connecting with people over food. Read others on setting up a dining co-op, celebrating Passover, and hosting an Earth Dinner. When I told a friend that I was writing an article about slow food, she said, “What’s that? The opposite of fast food?” In a […]

Earth Dinners keep cuisine and conversation flowing

This is the third installment in a series about connecting with friends and family over specific meals; the first was an introduction to dining co-ops, the second a celebration of Passover. At a recent dinner party, I pulled out my deck of Earth Dinner cards. The first one asked, “Who in your life really understands […]

Crafting a culture of change

Yale University students, staff, and other community members crowded a university conference room yesterday to watch Erika Lesser, director of Slow Food USA, give a talk on the Slow Food movement in America. Lesser spoke pretty generally about Slow Food USA's goals, philosophy, and achievements. The talk was interesting in itself, but there were two aspects that I found particularly significant:

• Lesser made some very interesting connections between Slow Food and American environmentalism (more on this below).


• It was a horribly cold, rainy, awful day, the talk was located in an incredibly out-of-the-way part of campus, yet nonetheless the room was packed.

How a cookbook renaissance heated up the sustainable-food movement

In the postmodern United States, a cultural critic laments, “The pleasures of the table are rarely appreciated at face value.”      Speak truth to flour. A near-hysterical concern with health has replaced common sense, he continues, leading to all manner of dubious decisions: “Americans blithely drink sodas filled with artificial flavors and sweeteners, yet paste warning […]