Out to Pasture: Slow Food Nation 2008

Wow!
Slow Food Nation was lovely - and we only experienced parts of it. Tomorrow I'll upload the photos and start the posts on individual topics; but tonight there's just a lot to digest. From the Civic Center Plaza, some of the highlights for me were:

• Being car-free in the City all day
• The whole Victory Garden
• The use of straw for walls and benches in public space
• Best use of a portable storage unit (as the information booth)
• Tasty bites for sale and as free samples in the Market
• Window-shopping all the Slow-Food related books I must someday soon read, and perhaps even own
• The Gravensteins just picked, and the farmers who sold them
• The nearby farmers' market, overall
• A divine bite of Harley Farm goat ricotta
• My first taste of raw milk
• The valet bike parking corral
• The compost display
• Great use of the 3-bin system (landfill, compostable, recycling) for a waste-free event; and the scant litter from a huge public event
• Being in the midst of so many diverse folk celebrating Slow Food

Post-note: where was the music? [The spendy concerts were at Fort Mason, yes; but I'm used to a small bit of live music at farmers' markets. Perhaps the organizers wanted to minimize conflict with the Soap Box speakers, a nice eclectic mix of short presenters in the Garden.]