Our Convivial Table dinners introduce and celebrate San Francisco restaurants that live and propagate our values of good, clean and fair food, often using local organic ingredients, preparing all their dishes from scratch, delighting and educating their guests about the merits of a carefully considered meal. The next Convivial Table will be a potluck dinner in a private San Francisco home! Pencil in April 25th and look out for details to come in the next weeks.

Our next Convivial Table will be a potluck dinner in a private San Francisco home! Pencil in April 25th and look out for details to come in the next weeks.

On the edge of San Francisco’s Mission District is Sanchez College Preparatory School, an elementary school that is working to address issues of hunger, poor nutrition, and deteriorating health within one of the city’s most affected populations. The school has a child development center that has established a unique community-based program to improve nutrition and health habits for its 300 students and their families.

Sanchez School reflects the make-up of its neighborhood with a diverse population of students: 80 percent are Latino, with the remaining 20 percent of Filipino, other Asian, African-American, and European decent. Of the 82 percent of the students who qualify for the school lunch program, many of their families are considered low-income. What we are learning is that better diets equate to improved health, which can be correlated to more regular school attendance and increased learning. A study in 2010 entitled Hunger In America found that “children from food insecure households are likely to be behind in their academic development compared to children from food secure families.” Given these findings and a deep understanding of the student population at Sanchez School, leaders of the school community sought to create a community education center to offer a proactive strategy for improving student and family nutritional knowledge and habits, while also improving student academic performance.

This vision deepened during a visit to Sanchez School by Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food International. Mr. Petrini and Dr. Isola, the former principal of Sanchez College Preparatory School, developed a School Community Development tool that incorporated three main goals:

1. Create a more natural environment so that students can play, exercise, and learn. This space would include an edible instructional garden where students learn to grow and prepare their own food.

2. Provide increased family and student access to seasonal, healthy food on a daily basis.

3. Engage key community members (chefs, local farmers, school staff, artists, parents, businesses, neighborhood associations, and non-profit or community-based organizations) in the development and execution of this project.

One of the first actions taken was to develop a Green Schoolyard Master Plan as part of a voter-approved, bond-funded project where parents, students, staff, and the community at large would help to design a hands-on learning model. This model would offer more open space and an outdoor learning environment for all children at school. With the help of organizations like Slow Food San Francisco, INKA Biospheric Systems, Bi-Rite Market, Education Outside and others, the once underutilized areas on campus became active areas with a school garden and greenhouse. The landscape included multiple beds of greens, herbs, flowers, and vegetables; a compost bin; an earth bed to play in and explore for insects and worms; and a state of the artvertical garden. Based on the school master plan, a large section of asphalt was taken out and two obsolete portable classrooms were removed to make room for a teaching garden and natural outdoor play environment.

A full-time green schoolyard specialist was hired through a grant. This specialist co-taught with the science teacher to incorporate the students’ garden learning into the science curriculum being taught by classroom teachers. The students also learned about recycling and composting. These combined learning experiences helped students develop environmentally responsible stewardship behaviors that are connected to ecological values within the context of the school’s daily operation. As students worked on building beds, they were visited by Apolinar Yerena, a local strawberry farmer and Mexican immigrant who shared his knowledge of strawberries as he planted them with students. Eventually these strawberries became a popular fruit for the students to eat and make sorbet with.

Soon the larger school community started to take interest in the greening project. Mothers who grew up in the Mexican and El Salvadoran countryside commented that their children, who live in the city, had the opportunity to experience what they had lived growing up in their far away countries. In the spirit of continuing to build community, Sanchez School constructed an outdoor meeting space and peace garden right in the middle of the playground that included native plants, a cobb bench, tiled murals, and large rocks where the students could play and relax. This collaboration was an effort between the school staff, the Sanchez Neighborhood Association, and the student council. There is also a sculpture garden on the west side of the school building that community members can see on a walk through the neighborhood.

To complete the garden project, Sanchez School formed a partnership with the San Francisco Food Bank in 2008. By then, Sanchez School had built a learning space and enacted a curriculum, but still desired more structured participation from parents and the community as a whole. This partnership with the food bank would allow students and families to have greater access to healthy food directly at the school. A weekly food pantry of seasonal food would be provided for 80 families along with nutritional snacks for the students during the school day. Parents would be responsible for organizing an equitable distribution system at the pantry — a responsibility they continue to oversee to this day. The staff from the San Francisco Food Bank also continues to be active partners by providing parents weekly cooking classes and bilingual recipes.These classes and recipes help parents become familiar with foods they are sometimes unaccustomed to preparing. They also have the opportunity to learn how to cook these foods at home — knowledge that increases their cooking confidence and provides their families with a balanced and nutritious diet every day.

Has this community development tool been successful? Only time will tell as it continues to evolve, but we are clearly seeing stronger school community relationships amongst people living and working in the neighborhood, an increased awareness about the school garden project, and improvements made to eating habits and student performance.

In the spring of 2012, the California Department of Education’s learning goal was a five-point academic performance index growth on the California Standards Test. Sanchez students exceeded this goal with 68 points academic progress, more than 13 times the expectation. In science, taking the most recent three-year average, fifth graders at Sanchez performed at the 59 percent proficiency level, just below the average for their peers in SF Unified School District, demonstrating a 62 percent proficiency, just above the state average of 58 percent. Comparing Sanchez School to several elementary schools with similar student populations, the average science proficiency levels at these schools hovered around 25 percent. Sanchez School’s level of science proficiency is impressive given that it is a high-poverty school with a dramatic over representation of students learning English as second language with identified learning disabilities. Sanchez School parents are very supportive of the hands-on approach to learning in an outdoor classroom and view this education as a way for their children to develop science knowledge and healthy eating habits. Our hope is that other school communities adopt a similar tool to raise awareness about the important place that outside education has in the learning process and students’ ability to thrive, because a nutritious and healthy lifestyle is certainly connected to academic learning within green, vibrant spaces.

Dr. Raymond R. Isola is the former principal at Sanchez School Elementary for thirteen years. Currently Dr. Isola is writing a book with Jim Cummins who is professor and lead researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in Canada. John and Lolita Casazza are current San Francisco Slow Food Board members.

Every third Saturday of the month Recology offers the community a tour of its facilities in the south of San Francisco and a view of its Artist in Residence Program.  So Slow Food San Francisco, with an interest in food, ecology, and culture, reserved a space for its members at the latest tour to learn more about San Francisco’s premier waste collection and recycling service.

Recology is a one hundred percent employee owned company based in San Francisco. Through its subsidiary companies, Recology Sunset Scavenger, Recology Golden Gate, and Recology San Francisco, the company provides collection, recycling, compost and disposal services.  One of the most successful companies of its kind in the United States, Recology has helped the City of San Francisco reach its current diversion rate of eighty percent.

Recology’s mantra is Waste Zero, and the company’s CEO Michael J. Sangiacomo explains on the company’s website that, “it means using resources wisely, generating waste only as necessary, and finding ways to use those waste products in ways that benefit the environment.  It means landfilling only those materials we haven’t yet figured out a use for.  We are passionate and committed to reducing waste and recycling everything we can.”

We were met by Recology’s Artist in Residence Program Coordinator, Sharon Spain, who welcomed us and started the presentation by describing Recology’s many programs.  Having pioneered the three bin system, Recology continues to educate the public about what can be recycled and composted in the city. She explained that recyclable materials such as aluminum and tin cans, hard plastics, glass bottles, and dry paper can be put in the blue bin.  Organic waste like kitchen scraps, yard cuttings, and wet or food soiled paper are put in the green bin.  Materials that can not be recycled or composted, such as soft plastics, Styrofoam, and broken dishes and glassware, are put in the black bin.

Sharon went on to explain that the Recology Artist in Residence Program was founded in 1990 at the same time that curb-side recycling was being established in the city and county of San Francisco and that education was an integral part of getting people to recycle.  Conceived by Jo Hanson, the Artist in Residence Program was the most innovative element of the education plan and the first program of its kind in the United States. Jo was a guiding force for the program and served as a member of the program’s board from 1990 until she passed away in March, 2007.

Besides the group from Slow Food there were approximately 20-25 others on the tour including a group from the California Academy of Sciences, local artists, and people from around the Bay Area and the young and old.  The presentation was in the Recology complex at 401 Tunnel Avenue.  The main auditorium’s walls are lined with samples of the different recycling materials, the explanation of the segregation of the trash, various brochures and lists, and a projector and screen.

After the sit down session, Micah Gibson took over for the tour of the Artist in Residence Studio and the Recology compound.  Artists Julia Goodman and Jeff Hantman were in that day.  Julia talked to us about her interest in the history and fabrication of “rag paper.”  Scavengers in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries collected pieces of cloth or rags to use to make a high quality and durable paper material.  Julia uses supplies she gets from the refuse to make her own pulp, and presses it into her carved molds to create sculptural relief works. Jeff uses the many samples of wood he gets from the trash to make three-dimensional forms that become the basis for his paintings.  Both Julia and Jeff scavenge in the facility’s Public Disposal and Recycling Area and say there is a wealth of materials to work with to make their art.  Jeff even said that the amount of material that caught his creative attention could even become a distraction from his focus on the project at hand.  Their residency ends in late January with a show of their work on the 25^th and 26^th of the month. More information about their exhibition can be found at: www.recologysf.com/air

We left the studio and next stopped at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility where businesses and the general public can drop off batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, paint, pesticides, used cooking oil, cleaning solutions and other hazardous waste.  This is a great service as Recology works to take these toxic materials out of the waste stream and landfill. They also have a pick-up program for people who are unable to bring these materials into the facility themselves.

As we were walking towards the sculpture garden we came across Gigi from Fiji.  Living in San Francisco, we know that seagulls, besides being natural scavengers, are a nuisance.  The sheer number of birds becomes a problem at Recology’s transfer station, so their ecologically sensitive solution is to use birds of prey to scare and chase the pests from the site. Gigi is a peregrine falcon imported from Fiji and she, along with a California sourced peregrine falcon and two Harris Hawks, are brought to the facility each day by a professional handler who works with the birds. The falcons and hawks fly around the facility and use their natural reputations as predators to scare the seagulls.

We continued to the sculpture garden, a landscaped hillside isolated from the nearby freeway and from the trucks and visible waste collection facilities.  Small, medium, and large sculptural works, created from the waste piles, adorn the hillside and are spaced along the graveled paths giving the feeling of walking in an outdoor art gallery.

On the way back to the compound we walked through the “pit” where all black bin waste is dumped before being transferred into long haul trucks that take it to the landfill.  The tour concluded with a walk past the public disposal and recycling area where individuals or small businesses dump materials that will be sorted and isolated for recycling, composting, or landfill.  Things like wood and other construction and demolition materials; furniture, refrigerators and other appliances and household items; and cement blocks, rock and other landscape materials; are brought in trucks and vans to be dumped at a per pound cost to the individual.

All in all the Slow Food San Francisco group was pleased with the tour, came away with new knowledge and understanding of waste collection, recycling and dumping, and with a greater appreciation of Recology’s work to make WASTE ZERO a reality.

Guests loved this more personal format, the sharing of home-cooked food and the experience of a dinner party meeting new and interesting people. With a small donation and the contribution of a dish, it’s also a much more affordable dinner format. Which makes us want to repeat this kind of event again soon – and we need hosts! You don’t have to be able to seat 25 people, and certainly not all at one table. Minimum number of guests should be 6 (plus 2 hosts), and a working kitchen where guests can prep their dishes if needed. We help with all coordination, menu planning, selling of (donation-only) tickets and handling of questions from hosts and guests. If you would like to host a Slow Food Dinner in the future, please contact Rena B Meyer at mail@rena-b.com (415.970.1004) with your preferred month, number of guests you can accommodate and any ideas or questions.

Convivial Table dinners have traditionally been set in a restaurant that adheres to our principles of “good, clean and fair” food, and has supported Slow Food in the past. We continue to host restaurant-based dinners, with the next one coming up January 21st at Salumeria! Details will be posted soon.

Shakirah at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy

In our last blog post we told you a bit about Terra Madre and Rosie Branson Gill who will be traveling to this global food event. When Rosie mentioned to us that she’ll be accompanied by fellow Slow Food San Francisco member Shakirah Simley, we thought we’d tell you her story as well.

As she explains in her charming blog post on the Bi-Rite Market site, Shakirah is quite the foodie with a passion for all things jam and a more recently acquired love of Italy. Which is quite appropriate as she’ll be returning to this marvelous country for Terra Madre.

Shakirah is the 2010-2011 Fulbright and Casten Family Foundation Scholar to Italy and a recent graduate of the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) with a Masters in Food Culture and Communications. She spent last year traveling around Italy, “learning about traditional cheese-making in a hut atop the Dolomite mountains …getting schooled by nonnas in the art of making tortelli pasta…and having thoughtful conversations about food sustainability with professors from around the world.”

When asked why she is going to Terra Madre, Shakirah shared:

“Given my background in advocacy and policy, and organizing experience in low-income and communities of color, I’m really concerned with the ‘fair’ part of the Slow Food San Francisco mantra ‘good, clean and fair.’ Given the economy, world food prices, and growing awareness around a sustainable food system, Terra Madre presents a great opportunity for delegates to connect on creating a more equitable food system for all. I’m excited to spur and be a part of those conversations.”

She is looking forward to meeting other like-minded people, hoping that Terra Madra will be an opportunity to connect with other delegates to further the discussion of food justice issues. She is also excited to be returning to Torino, visiting UNISG and catching up with friends and professors. And while she’s at it, she’ll likely take in some of her beloved Italian culinary specialties, including the “consumption of ungodly amounts of cured pork products!”

Terra Madre is just a little over a month away! This year, organizers are expecting over 1,000 exhibitors from 100 countries to converge in Turin, Italy for this biennial event focused on sustainability and biodiversity. For those unable to attend, an engaging video teaser has been created that explains Slow Food’s involvement and highlights diverse food and artisans from around the world.

Local Slow Food San Francisco member Rosie Branson Gill will be fortunate to experience this amazing conference first hand. She is the program director at 18 Reasons, an innovative community center focused on providing thought provoking programming and fostering collaboration toward creating a just and sustainable food system. Rosie is especially interested in training citizen cooks and gardeners – especially youth in the community. She shared with us her belief that “the choices we make are important; where and how we spend our money not only affect the taste of dishes we cook and the vitality of plants we grow but also serve as votes in support of one food system or another.” Her mission is to encourage people to “cook, grow, eat, and shop with eyes wide open.” Rosie’s focus on education will certainly be enhanced by her time at Terra Madre.

We asked Rosie about her reasons for wanting to travel to Turin. In her words: “One of the best ways to invigorate my work is to learn about other projects and to build community. I will be able to do both at Terra Madre. I expect to be inspired and to feel a part of a larger movement, both things that will fuel my fire at 18 Reasons when I get back to San Francisco.” We’re looking forward to hearing all about it!