I'll not make a habit out of trumpeting upcoming speaking engagements, much less repeating said trumpeting, but for two good reasons, I'm going to make an exception. First, I'll be speaking this Friday at the new California Academy of Sciences and it is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. Above, a picture of the 2.5 acre living roof that Renzo Piano put on top of the building, and crammed with nearly 2 million native plants. The Academy has just opened its doors, and it is just as thoroughly on the inside as it is out.

But, and this is the second reason I'm being a little more vigorous in self-publicising, the good people at Litquake tell me that because the Academy is so new, their ticketing system is still getting up and running. So, for those of you who are in the Bay Area and keen to see the building, as well as hear a fine conversation geared towards thinking about how architecture and food will intersect in the future, the details on how to get in are below. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 7 comments

Posted on 8 October, 2008 - 17:27

San Francisco's Slow Food Nation is gently being dismantled -- even the Victory Garden will be dug up in November. But there are spaces where the good fight is being fought, and which will endure. Proving that public art has a place in that fight is Mona Caron. She already has a range of murals in and around the city, and her latest is in the Noe Valley neighbourhood, around a farmers market. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 2 comments

Posted on 8 September, 2008 - 16:33

Slow Food Nation will hit San Francisco this weekend. The City's already fluttering with SFN posters, and the Victory Garden, planted on the land outside City Hall, looks very handsome indeed. To prepare for the jamboree, I thought I'd go back to Carlo Petrini's book of the same name, and to Geoff Andrews' new book, The Slow Food Story. Together, these writers offer a corrective to the hoity toity food culture that has become synonymous with the organization. Although it’s often forgotten, Slow Food’s roots are radical. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 5 comments

Posted on 28 August, 2008 - 20:50

A little while ago I hailed a popular victory against a NAFTA-compliance measure that would spray large parts of Northern California with a toxin that hadn't been tested on people before, to eliminate a threat that wasn't a threat at all.

Turns out I was a little premature.

From the Retort mailing list comes this update... ... read more »

Raj's blog | login to post comments

Posted on 18 August, 2008 - 16:27

Pesticides are hazardous to human health and the environment, undermine local and global food security and threaten agricultural biodiversity.

Yet these pervasive chemicals are aggressively promoted by multinational corporations, government agencies, and other players in this more than $35 billion a year industry.

PANNA (Pesticide Action Network North America) works to replace pesticide use with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. As one of five PAN Regional Centers worldwide, we link local and international consumer, labor, health, environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens' action network. This network challenges the global proliferation of pesticides, defends basic rights to health and environmental quality, and works to insure the transition to a just and viable society. ... read more »

1 comment

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:53

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a non-profit public interest and environmental advocacy membership organization established in 1997 by its sister organization, International Center for Technology Assessment, for the purpose of challenging harmful food production technologies and promoting sustainable alternatives. CFS combines multiple tools and strategies in pursuing its goals, including litigation and legal petitions for rulemaking, legal support for various sustainable agriculture and food safety constituencies, as well as public education, grassroots organizing and media outreach.

1 comment

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:41

The Eat Local Challenge is a

group blog written by authors who are interested in the benefits of eating food grown and produced in their local foodshed.

Spanning the United States, the group is committed to challenging themselves to eat mainly local food during a specific period of time during 2006.

The online home for some of the San Francisco Bay Area participants is Locavores.

login to post comments

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:38

Yelp can be a great resource for finding your way around local places to eat and find ingredients. For the Bay Area, try this link.

1 comment

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:34

Marco Flavio Marinucci has started a fantastic local cooking group, Cook Here and Now, which meets every couple of months in the San Francisco Bay Area to eat seasonal (and always delicious) food. More at
http://www.cookhereandnow.com/

2 comments

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:11

CUESA runs the Ferry Building Farmers Market and has details about individual producers, and a handy guide to what's in season in Northern California. Learn more at
http://www.cuesa.org/index.php

4 comments

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:06