Civil Eats

Kitchen Table Talks announces its next installment of its conversation series about the American food system. The focus will be on San Francisco’s New Sustainable Food Mandate, and will be held on Tuesday, September 29 from 6:30 – 8 pm at the architecture offices of Sagan-Piechota in San Francisco.

In July, Major Gavin Newsom issued a new Executive Directive for Healthy and Sustainable Food for the City, articulating a vision of a food system with nutritious food for all San Franciscans, shorter distances between consumers and producers, protections for worker health and welfare, reduced environmental impacts, and strengthened connections between urban and rural communities.

One of the most ambitious food policies in the country, the Directive sets far-reaching mandates for allocating City funds to ensure that hunger is eliminated; planning neighborhoods to ensure healthy food options; spending municipal food dollars on regionally produced and sustainable food; encouraging food production on City owned land; promoting local food businesses; supporting policies to conserve peri-urban prime farmland; helping to market regionally grown food in San Francisco; recycling all organic residuals and eliminating chemical use in municipal agriculture and landscaping; and educating residents about healthy food and sustainable food systems.

Leading us in conversation will be Paula Jones, Director of Food Systems, S.F. Department of Public Health, and Jason Mark, co-manager of Alemany Farm, a 4.5 acre urban farm, recently featured in the S.F. Chronicle, and on the forefront of the urban food movement in the City. Everyone involved and interested in Citywide sustainable food and urban farming policy is encouraged to join the discussion.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of Civil Eats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit which promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and people who feed us. It is hosted by Sagan-Piechota which created Linden Tree in the same space.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to ktt@civileats.com or leave a message at 925.785.0713. $10 suggested donation at the door; no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market.

Naomi Starkman is a food policy media consultant to Consumers Union and others. She served as the Director of Communications & Policy at Slow Food Nation ’08 and has been a media consultant to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and WIRED magazines. She was previously a senior publicist at Newsweek magazine and was the Director of Communications for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). From 1997 to 2000, she served as Deputy Executive Director of the S.F. Ethics Commission. She is the co-founder of Civil Eats and Kitchen Table Talks, a local food forum in San Francisco, and a board member of 18 Reasons, a nonprofit connecting community through food. Naomi works with various clients on food policy and advocacy and is an aspiring organic grower, having worked on several farms.