Slow Food promoters have a lot on their plate

There's a movement afoot in Placer County, and its members aim to change your life. They're betting you could get a lot more fun out eating, that you can be tempted to try new flavors, that if you make the time for slow dining, with lots of laughter and good conversation, you'll wonder why you ever settled for less.
Slow Food Placer County is a new non-profit group, and part of a worldwide organization. Local founders include Joanne Neft, director of Placer County's Agricultural Marketing Program, Pat and Pete Enochs, owners of Latitudes Restaurant in Auburn and Randy Kliewer.
"Each local chapter is called a convivium, and we were delighted to discover how many people share our views," said Christina Abuelo, chapter president. "More than 100 food lovers attended our first event in January, a dinner at Bootlegger's restaurant in Auburn."
According to Nancyjo Riekse, another board member, the organization originated with Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, who threw up his hands in horror at news that McDonald's was coming to Rome's ancient and hallowed Piazza di Spagna. Soon after, he founded the International Slow Food movement, with its manifesto protesting fast food, fast life, non-sustainable farming and the eroding of local economies.
Riekse adds that some of the movement's staunchest supporters are restaurants, and as owner of Auburn Coffee Co. Café, she's a prime example. (She also heads Food to Dine for, a custom dining service.)
"But many of our members are local growers and wine-makers," she says.
In addition to lengthening your mealtime pleasures, Slow Food plans to invite you into local orchards and vineyards, to help you concentrate on the aroma of foods as well as taste. Riekse cites a famous (and pricey) event thrown by the San Francisco convivium - "A Scented dinner" featured ginger salad and rose-steamed whitefish. Each guest received a special perfume.
"But for our next event we're thinking sweet country air and the perfume of plump, juicy strawberries," Riekse said. "For May or June we're inviting families to picnic in a strawberry patch, to pick all they can carry, and enjoy strawberry smoothies, or maybe strawberry lemonade."
The natural allies of the slow food movement are local growers, home-style and upscale restaurants, environmentalists and a segment of the public who've always savored the charms of dining rather than "eating." But what if you're one of those harried cooks coping with crazy family schedules and no time?
What if your kids will only eat pizza? You must be wondering how to sandwich convivial dining between soccer practice and Cub Scout meetings.
Kids really are the key to Slow Food's long-range plans, organizers say.
"The money from our fund-raisers goes right now to finance a vegetable garden kids are growing at Auburn's Rock Creek School," Riekse said. "Eventually we plan to have an educational program in every school."
The dream is that once kids savor the pleasures of sweet, fresh, organically grown veggies, maybe pickles will lose their appeal as an appropriate green side dish.
Among Slow Food's many other goals is the preservation of native American foods and preparation techniques. The organization has created a symbolic "ark," named for the boat Noah built to rescue threatened fauna. Slow Food's ark currently includes four breeds of "heritage turkeys" and an ancient variety of white corn grown by the Iroquois Indians.
Placer County's candidate for the ark is hoshigaki, a food so rarefied that very few locals have ever tasted it. Hoshigaki is a hand-dried persimmon, produced by a handful of local farmers through traditional Japanese methods. And apparently it's readily available here in the county, if you know enough to ask for it.
"Hoshigaki?" says Abuelo with a laugh. "Sure. I'll get you some."
With so many goals, the Slow food promoters have a lot on their plate - but as the name implies, they're in no hurry.