Slow San Francisco

I'm sure all you foodies have heard that Slow Food Nation is coming to San Francisco this Labor Day weekend and that the mayor of our fine city has ordered the planting of a slow food garden in front of City Hall, the first since the Victory gardens of WWII.

I went out to see the garden last week and was amazed by the transformation of the area from a somewhat boring park with a spectacular backdrop to a sort of sun-drenched, out-sized labyrinth with tourists and locals wandering the paths like contemplative clergy.

As a newbie to home gardening, I have to admit that I was somewhat discouraged by the beautiful plantings spread out in front of our splendid City Hall. My own plants have been in my little patch of ground for far longer than these and yet they are paltry by comparison with the vigorous, almost muscular, plants in the Slow Food garden. Laid out in circular raised beds edged with straw-filled burlap, these plants are simply beautiful, as formal and organized as an Italian garden and as healthy as the children playing loudly in the nearby playground.

I hope this garden will inspire some folks to take to heart the Slow Food message of eating fresh, locally grown food, cooking it with care and serving it to people you care about, then eating it in a leisurely, appreciative manner. The Slow On The Go part of the festival seems somewhat counterproductive but I guess you can't expect Americans to slow down all at once.

The festival seems like a fitting way to spread the message and to say thank you to Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, among others, and most of all, to Carlo Petrini whose reaction to the opening of a McDonald's in his native Italy was to encourage the opposite of fast food.