The night ended with a song. And how fitting that it was not a farewell song but a welcome. Poet Ramona “Mona” Webb sang a bittersweet tribute to New Orleans. “Welcome to the Big Easy, baby.” She was closing out a night of spoken word put on by sfnoir as part of their ninth annual Black History Month Celebration. This year’s celebrations center on the contributions of African Americans to the culinary arts. But sfnoir executive director Herve Ernest was sure to point out that the exploration of the production of Black culture does not just involve Black participants. Jewish poet Josh Healey prefaced his set with a humorous reminder of the complicated ways culture and identity evolve through exchange saying that, though he happily accepted the invitation to be there last night, he first had to check that it was indeed an event put on by sfnoir for Black History Month. It was a light joke about a seriously interesting process.

I wish I could let the poets speak for themselves here, but it would be impossible to recreate the impact of last night. The poets each spoke about food in incredibly different ways, reminding us of what food can-and can’t-do. The poets included host Poetri, Lynne Alicia Elman, Joshua Merchant, and Kirya Traber as well as Josh Healey and Ramona “Mona” Webb. They might have mentioned foods we thought we were familiar with, eggplant or a lamb chop, but each artist presented the experience anew and used the medium of spoken word to do that in different ways. And so the second floor of the  Museum of the African Diaspora became the site of that complicated process of cultural production, consumption, appropriation, modification, narration, and exchange. It happened between each poet, between each member of the audience. It sounds too simplistic right? That we could come to a nuanced appreciation of ourselves and others across cultural and personal lines over the course of a single night? But I have this suspicion that this is how it happens, measured in one night increments, in stanzas and lines. It happens when we listen to each other.

And this listening happens in a variety of ways. Josh Healey read a poem about seven years of vegetarianism and a single lamb chop at a friend’s barbecue. He built up the defense, the explanation of vegetariansim and then he slowly let it fall apart. Holes in the fortress came in the form of a stubborn bowl of grandma’s matzo ball soup. She insisted on using chicken broth because that was how she had always done it. And suddenly the bowl was transformed. She was not offering chicken broth with matzo balls and perhaps a few carrots, she was offering herself, her past, her present, and asking that her future be honored. So to say food is complicated is as useful as saying culture is complicated, but there is no other way to spin it. It’s up to us to work through these things, to articulate and narrate our own identities and to listen to and honor the narratives of others.

I’m not an aspiring spoken word artist but I am going to try to start recording my food memories, save them in a cookbook, and hand them down to my children with the family recipes. I encourage all of you to do the same. And if you need inspiration, be sure to check out the rest of sfnoir’s events including a Meet and Greet with vegan soul food chef Bryant Terry tonight 6pm-8pm at Marcus Books in the Fillmore and a Wine and Food Gala Saturday night 7pm-11pm at 101 Second St. to sample Caribbean, Soul, Cajun, Vegan, Southern, Creole, and African food.

If this past week’s rain has left you dreaming of wild mushrooms in the parks and hills of the Bay Area, then do as several Slow Food San Francisco members have done and check out forageSF. Brought to our attention both at the Volunteer Happy Hour and through emails from fellow blogger Laure Latham, forageSF will help you challenge your assumptions about city living. Known for their Underground Farmer’s Market, the organization helps San Francisco locals connect to each other and to the wild bounty of the city. Laure Latham took advantage of one of their guided forage tours with great results documented on her blog here: http://www.frogmom.com/2010/01/wild-greens-walk-with-forage-sf-at.html. Besides being led by a botanical expert, the tour also brought together an impressive list of Bay Area gourmands, including a cook from Chez Panisse. Fred Bové led the group through Golden Gate Park tasting spicy, lemony, nutty, fresh, sweet, and surprising “weeds”.  Laure Latham adds, “Fred’s walks are not just botanical excursions. He’ll tell you cultural anecdotes on plant uses through the ages, he’ll describe how California Ohlones used plants as medicines, he’ll share his philosophical thoughts and culinary tips with a zest of humor.”

So when you’re considering your spring garden, perhaps you should check in with Fred Bové first to get a better understanding of how you can work with the local environment. But Bové’s tour seems to be about more than just improving a personal understanding of the life growing all around you it is also about understanding how you, as a responsible forager and consumer, fit into that life and how to cultivate a similar bond of thoughtful exchange within your own community. To that extent, forageSF hosts community dinners, walks, and an underground farmer’s market all in support of their larger CSF program, which brings wild, local foods to its members. Created by Iso Rabins in 2008, forageSF and its CSF seeks to provide a link between forager and consumer, providing opportunities for full-time foraging. If you’re interested in learning more, check out: www.foragesf.com or head to the Underground Farmer’s Market. The Market features the wares of backyard gardens and home kitchens. The next one is set for January 28th from 5pm-11pm at 199 Capp St. The event typically features music and even demonstrations.

The evening promises to be a little more informal than the conventional farmer’s market, which requires purchasable goods to be produced in a regulated kitchen space. Serving as a stage for the experienced home cook, such a social happening recalls community events as varied as the county pie contest or bread day at the local bakery when families would come and wait their turn to use the baker’s oven. Though community dinners are part of the forageSF mission, forageSF rightfully seeks to make every step of the meal, from the foraging/planting to the finding/sharing to the eating/experiencing, a shared process of community between each other and the earth. It reminds us that these spaces do exist, that the city does offer us nourishment and companionship so long as we offer it respect and patience.

And so here on the Slow Food San Francisco blog I will seek only to echo and affirm the mission of forageSF as a mission that challenges us to slow down and examine the place we call home and the people who make it home.

Last night’s Volunteer Happy Hour was a huge success. Project One was a gracious host and everyone came despite the gloomy weather. This morning, Naomi is heading to three San Francisco schools to drop of funds for school gardens and many people expressed interest in volunteering to help support those school’s long-term Edible Schoolyard goals. I was once again reminded of the incredible community that is San Francisco. I met Gary and Peggy Diedrichs who publish their own Green Traveler Guides for both SF and the world. Look for some of their reviews of truly green local restaurants. I also met a fellow food blogger who works primarily with food safety and sustainability and is excited to help bring his policy knowledge to Slow Food. But the most pressing tip came from an SF native looking for more effective ways to coordinate her interests and volunteering efforts.

If you came to the meeting last night with germinating ideas on how to revolutionize our food system and if you began to see them grow through conversations last night, then please check out Digging Deeper SF. San Francisco design professionals worked in collaboration with the Mayor’s office to develop a challenge to all citizens to present their ideas on how to make our city more sustainable. The entries have been broken down into two categories, the first of which will be dominated by professional designer types comfortable with creating architectural diagrams but the second is an incredibly flexible category open to ideas about education, outreach, product design, incentives to buy local produce or even grow your own food, coordinated community garden efforts, irrigation systems, methods to track the provenance of the food we consume, etc etc.

Entries are due January 31 by midnight and if you feel you can only go so far with an idea, you can contact the designers sponsoring the effort and they will help you streamline your idea.

Check out both http://diggingdeepersf.ning.com/ for general guidelines and submission information as well as http://diggingdeepersf.ning.com/forum/topics/brain-storming-potential to get started thinking through the diversity of issues that surround our food system.