Slow Going

When Slow Food Nation convenes in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend, the conference dedicated to countering “fast-food” values will bring together some of the biggest names in the food world, from restaurateur Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame to author Michael Pollan, best known for the book “Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

But there are hundreds of lesser-known acolytes toiling behind the scenes — in local fields and orchards, chicken houses and goat pens — who also support the goals of Slow Food USA as part of the international Slow Food movement.

Founded in 1989 by Carlo Petrini in Italy, that movement has spread to 131 countries and now boasts about 83,000 members around the globe.

Slow Food has been criticized as being too elitist and intellectual, perhaps because of its penchant for Latin terms such as presidia, or its name, which suggests to some that they must take all the time in the world to think about and study food. Other critics view it as just another co-opted arm of a powerful food marketing machine.

But a larger question lingers for most of mainstream America: What exactly is Slow Food?

In a nutshell, Slow Food hopes to create a world in which all people can eat delicious food that is good for them, good for the people who grow it and good for the planet.

To help show how this plays out in real life, we spoke with four Slow Food members from Sonoma County to find out why they got involved, and how this organization helps them promote food that is “good, clean and fair.”

While their stories are radically different, their paths back to the table are very similar. These folk share a common respect for food as a means of human connection. And they believe that precious connection, like a fresh peach at the peak of ripeness, is worth preserving.

Family: Partner, Marcel Destandau

Location: Healdsburg

Occupation: Goat dairyman, Pugs Leap cheese

Background: Smith grew up in Healdsburg with two parents who were teachers. They were passionate about food and grew a big garden in the summer.

Though he trained as an architect, Smith quit his job in San Francisco in 2002 and moved with Destandau to his grandparents’ small farm in the inner Dry Creek Valley. After buying a few goats from a 4-H project to keep the pasture from getting overgrown, Smith fell in love with the goats and looked for a way to keep them around. Goat cheese was the answer, and Pugs Leap cheese was born.

As the operation’s dairyman, Smith takes care of a herd of 34 White Saanen and Toggenburg goats, rounding them up for daily milkings at 5 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. He hand-carries the milk to the cheese room.

That’s where Destandau works his magic with rennet and salt. Born in Bordeaux, the Frenchman brings his background in chemistry and product development to bear on his role as cheesemaker.

Destandau pours the same milk into four different molds, creating the grainy Petit Marcel round, the velvety Pave pyramid, the larger Macas round and the Bouche log.

The artisanal Pugs Leap cheese can be found on the menus of Cyrus in Healdsburg and the French Laundry in Yountville, among other high-end restaurants. Pugs Leap cheese is also available at the Healdsburg Farmers Market, The Cheese Shop in Healdsburg and Raymond & Co. in Glen Ellen.

Slow Food connection: Smith joined Slow Food in 2004, after being invited to a heritage goose dinner. He immediately felt at home in a movement that not only celebrates local food, but do-it-yourself food.

“You have so much more respect for the product when you make it yourself,” he said. “It’s about slowing down and enjoying your life.”

Smith gives cheese workshops, edits the Slow Food Sonoma County newsletter and heads up the school garden program at Healdsburg’s Fitch Mountain Elementary.

Destandau resigned from Slow Food a few months ago in protest of some of the large-scale dairies that are participating in Slow Food Nation. “Everybody is afraid to say it, but for dairy, they’ve sold out,” he said.

Location: Forestville

Family: Husband, Michael, and daughter, Ariel, 23.

Occupation: Founder of Artisan Preserves of Forestville, creating small-batch preserves from rare, heirloom fruit.

Background: Rubin-Mahon grew up in a food-centric family in Los Angeles County and learned to cook, can and preserve from her mother.

During the ’50s and ’60s, the family bought fresh corn and strawberries from local farms and picked fruit off their own orange trees. “We took it for granted until it all moved away,” she said.

She started making jam in Southern California, then graduated to pressure canning after moving to Sonoma County and planting a big garden. While raising her daughter, Rubin-Mahon continued to pursue her passion as a home artisanal canner with the support of family and friends.

In 2004, the Forestville resident launched her own business, Artisan Preserves, using simple Kerr jars and ripe figs, quince, strawberries, blackberries, peaches and apricots gleaned from local farms and open spaces. The word spread, and last year, her business really took off.

“People were begging me to come and get their fruit,” she said. “When it’s that season, I feel like I have to fill up jars.”

Working out of the kitchen at Relish Culinary Center in Healdsburg, Rubin-Mahon makes preserves in small, 7-pound batches. The fruit is hand cut and processed without any added pectin.

“My jam is not overly set up,” she said. “It’s a more balanced and vivid taste.”

Her preserves are available at Hop Kiln Winery on Westside Road in Healdsburg and on her Web site, www.artisanpreserves.com.

Slow Food connection: Rubin-Mahon joined Slow Food Sonoma County and felt right at home, because “it preserved what I already knew.”

She works as a member of the Ark Presidia Committee, which researches and evaluates rare and endangered foodstuffs. Every year, she designs recipes for an Ark dinner, a meal centered around foods that have been identified by Slow Food as rare and endangered.

She is currently researching the Black Republican Cherry, developed by a nurseryman in Portland, Ore.; and the Bodega Red Potato, which renowned Santa Rosa horticulturist Luther Burbank used to develop his Burbank Red Potato.

Family: One daughter, Maya, 10

Location: Sebastopol

Occupation: Farmer, First Light Farm

Background: Boone grew up on a farm in Indiana, where he learned how to “fix things and take care of things and work hard.” Later, he learned about genetic diversity as manager of the Seeds of Change research farm in New Mexico.

In Sonoma County, Boone worked at Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen, then took a job at the Sonoma Land Trust as a land steward for ecological preserves.

Meanwhile, he kept searching for a piece of land where he could pursue his dream of having his own diversified family farm. Last June, his dream took root when he was matched up with a landowner through the California Farm Link program.

Boone currently leases and farms 3 acres and has 40 members in his CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. He sells at farmers markets in Occidental and Healdsburg and grows mostly heirloom crops — “everything except okra” — on a year-round basis.

Slow Food connection: Boone feels passionate about environmental awareness and the human need to return to the land. That’s why he accepted an invitation to be on the local leadership committee for Slow Food Sonoma County two years ago.

“I really wanted to see farm representation and to encourage practical, real things that we need to spread,” he said.

Slow Food’s concept of conviviality appeals to Boone because he thinks Americans have lost touch with themselves and one another.

“It’s having that love and that meaningful connection in life that we all deeply yearn for,” he said.

As part of the leadership committee for Slow Food Sonoma County, Boone gives educational workshops on farming, supports school gardens and helps raise money to send local folk to Terra Madre, a conference held in Italy that brings together farmers and chefs from around the world. He is also helping a group of post-war widows in Guatemala start a chicken egg-laying business to raise money to send their kids to school.

“It opens it beyond good-tasting food,” he said. “It’s about economic and social justice.”

Family: Husband, Bill

Location: Healdsburg

Occupation: Co-founder of Boss Dog Marketing, a marketing and public relations firm that works with wineries and food producers.

Background: Bowman grew up in an Italian neighborhood of San Francisco just west of Twin Peaks, where she learned to appreciate all kinds of fresh produce, meats and fish.

She studied history at UC Berkeley, then did graduate work at Stanford in the social sciences. After graduate school, she moved to Berkeley and took cooking classes.

“I’d sit next to Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower, and Joyce Goldstein would be teaching,” she recalled of the star names in the foodie world.

In 1981, she married her husband, Bill, and they built a passive-solar house tucked into a hillside on West Dry Creek Road.

There, she planted vegetable beds and fruit trees. After working in hospitality at Hop Kiln Winery and Jordan Winery, Bowman started her own marketing business with partner Jan Mettler in 1995.

She currently raises Delaware chickens, a rare breed that Slow Food is trying to bring back.

Slow Food connection: Mettler and Bowman co-founded Slow Food Sonoma County in 1997. Bowman has attended both the International Slow Food Congress and the Terra Madre conference in Italy, and has participated in the Salone del Gusto — an Italian food show sponsored by Slow Food — three times.

She has served on the national and international boards of Slow Food, led Slow Food Sonoma County for 10 years and helped start the Slow Food Russian River and Sonoma Valley chapters.

“I define Slow Food as the opposite of fast food,” she said. “It believes in food that tastes good and is prepared sustainably and clean and fair, meaning the food producers are compensated and respected.”