Slow Food

I got lucky this weekend.  I got a ticket to the Slow Food Nation Taste Pavilion.  It was an amazing event I'll be thinking about for a long time.  The food and drink was amazing.  I could write all day about (and may over the course of the next few weeks).  But it left me with lots of questions too.  I started RFS with a lot of the values in mind that pervade the slow food movement.  I believe that food is about community, nutrition, pleasure - in the preparation as well as the eating.  As I walked around the event I was struck by the distance I felt from the act of preparing food and sharing it.  I ate beautiful food - pickled cabbage, seafood, salami, bread; tasted and tried coffees, wine, beer and liquor; I got to talk to only a few producers. The process of making the food was mostly invisible.  I didn't expect workshops on cheese making or charcuterie...but I hoped to get to spend a little time - talking to the people who made and loved this beautiful food.  I stood in line to get my tastes (the lines were well organized and rarely too long - the sample sizes were perfect - so you felt like there was plenty to really try but no waste). I wanted to go back after I ate it.  I wanted to say wow! that was perfect...because it inevitably was).  I wanted to enjoy the food with the people who loved it enough to make so perfect.  So much of cooking and eating is about that to me.  Sharing a flavor and an experience whether of a flawless sausage made by a master or a spaghetti dinner in my kitchen builds up bonds between people while building our bodies. I would love to go back to the Slow Food Nation event if it is here again next year.  I will bring a posse to sit and share very bite.  There is so much more to say about the "slow food movement" and this event in particular.  I'll be coming back to it over and over I think.