Food like conversations, can either bring us together or pull us apart. Our San Francisco Tours are all about how we cross bridges and bring people together. Many people might assume that means we all agree on everything. I would suggest that what is missing is an agreement on how we disagree. For the majority of us, we think that the way to disagree is to respect one with a different opinion, respect their opinion, and discuss our disagreement in respectful manner.
With the rise of the Internet and the media, we have unfortunately seen an elevation of the individuals who, for whatever reason, think that being disrespectful, nasty, and at times downright mean is okay. The rest of us have accepted it. So when someone at a local, state, or national level exhibits behavior that is disrespectful, nasty, and at times downright mean, we act like it is okay. It is hurts someone else, many of us go, that’s okay, it’s not me.
The result is that we end with a polarized government, where comprise is a dirty word. But we also see in other ways. When is last time, you saw someone abuse a waitress, a clerk. When is last time you saw someone go into a restaurant, be the loudest, most demanding person, abuse the staff, and then either go to or threaten to go to a review site and trash the restaurant. How can we be surprised when we see that behavoir replicated in levels of our society.
One of the things that we have enjoyed in San Francisco, is the belief that when we disagree, we can still be friends. For the most part, that is still true. Unfortunately, we are not immune for those who use the Internet to abuse others.
Many would suggest that abuse on the Internet does not affect our society. I would suggest that it does. We end up accepting the types of exchanges with a level of vitriol that most of us find repugnant. We ask how can someone be bullied through an online site. It happens because we have all allowed it.
On our tour, we see how a neighborhood can bring a community together. We see how food can bring people together. The solutions to what faces us at all levels will come when we decide that how we communicate is important. For most of us, that means communicating in a respectful and uplifting manner. Every time we read about divisive communication, consider that it is continuing because the rest of us say nothing.
by sffoodie at September 6, 2011
Can Our Relationship With Food be a force for change
When I started our San Francisco, my goal was to find a way to turn people on to the idea of buying locally and seasonally and how to support their local communities. Our goal is reinforce the idea for people who were already doing this and reaching out to people who were not. I’m one of those people who gets turned on by idea of leaving the world better than I found it. I also think that individuals are incredibly powerful.
In San Francisco, we look at food in the context of entire environment. For example, is it sustainable, is it locally produced, and is it locally sold. For many people, we probably seem like an incredibly naive group of people. Outside of San Francisco, many probably look at us as cheap entertainment.
I’d like to suggest that we are anything but naive. For years, San Francisco was also called “The City That Knows How”. I’ve started to realize that we think that any problem can be solved and it usually get solved when we work together and try to ensure that everyone gets lifted up.
Our food scene reflects that. If the food we eat is sustainable, we’ll have for generations to come. If it is locally made and sold, the resources, from financial to agricultural to local business, create a circle where everyone in the chain benefits.
We expect our leaders in San Francisco to solve problem, and they usually do. When we look at the National level, we see a lack of accountability, the lack of desire to get anything done. The question is why.
One theory is there seems to be the perception at the National level, that no matter what happens, people will forget what is happening by the time of the next election. I’d suggest that it is different. It reminds of a huckster on the street, running a shell game. If we are focused on an area that really doesn’t matter, we won’t pay attention to the areas that matter. We won’t pay attention when jobs are shipped overseas and companies get tax breaks for that. We won’t pay attention people losing their homes. We won’t pay attention to people who freeze to death in the winter because they can not pay for heat or die in heat waves, because they don’t have a fan or access to air conditioning.
This only works if we lose focus on what really matters, by getting so caught in the short term that we lose sight of the big picture. The same way that when we buy food and don’t care where it’s made. Maybe the food costs a little less, but the real cost is the local farmer who can longer survive. That only works if we buy the food. If we demand local foods, stores will forced to carry them.
The question is how do we mobilize people to demand elected officials to stop ignoring what really matters. It is sort of like what is going on over the debt limit. The dirty little secret is the amount of the deficit is almost the amount of the Bush tax cuts, even though almost every study shows that they do not create any jobs, it only give huge tax breaks to the very wealthy who don’t need it. It’s interesting that no one is talking about that.
I’m not sure of how we get people mobilized. It may be each one of us talking our friends and neighbors and getting them to understand what is happening. We need to aware that e-mails are nice, but there is a little thing called a delete key. No one has ever been voted out of office or into office by an e-mail, a tweet, or a Facebook page. They get voted in or out of office by people getting and voting, by demanding that our leaders represent what really matters. If we don’t get out, mobilize, and vote, we will continue to have people at a National level who are more concerned that multi-billionaires get huge tax breaks than the average person has enough to eat and a place to live. Again, it only works if we do nothing or look at the short term.
Just like our relationship with food, if we are focused on the short term and not care where our food is from, we lose our farmers. And, it only works if we buy the food.
by sffoodie at August 4, 2011
Food Scene in San Francisco
If you’ve taken our San Francisco, you’re probably aware of our recommendation of organizations like Slow Food. I really believe that eating locally and seasonally is the best way to not only stay healthy, but also support your neighbors.
When we go into a local food artisan, it’s not just some form of entertainment, it’s being welcomed by into their shop, being brought into the back and seeing how they make the food. What comes out is a sense of pride, a sense that the loaf of bread or cappuccino is really important to themselves and everyone around them.
One of the reasons that we’re such huge supporters of neighborhoods, is that I think a real neighborhood enhances everyone, gives everyone there the feeling that someone actually cares about them, that they matter. When I see that in someone, it makes me feel like I’ve done something that matters.
The food scene in San Francisco is reflecting that, we see in the smile of people who just got a sense of warmth from a slice of fresh baked bread. We see in people making it point to buy local food in their neighborhoods.
We’ve tried to figure out how expand the concept of neighborhood, of community. The idea is that when we help or enhance or help someone else, we get enhanced and it gives it a sense of well-meaning. I really believe that when can people in touch with their real selves, they start to care about out other.
Perhaps if we can look at how expand that definition of neighborhood, the food scene here can be copied across other communities. Eating locally and seasonally is something we really relish here in San Francisco. Eating in your own neighborhood is what gives you a sense of value. There’s something amazing that happens when you see someone who just made the food you’re eating and they’re smiling because you’re enjoying it.
by sffoodie at July 23, 2011
Creating a New Coversation for the Future
For most of us, conversations are a type of entertainment, something to keep us busy or when we’re busy with something else, something to ignore. Unfortunately, when we ignore conversations, they tend to go in a different direction than we might like. On our San Francisco Food Tours, our conversation is about eating locally and eating seasonally. It’s also about how to support local artisans. When we go into the back of local food artisans, we hope people will get turned on by them and seek them out back home. Our idea is that you talk about something enough, it will be the baseline to judge everything. For example, if the baseline is how we support communities and local artisans, then anything that is not along that vein seems odd and out of touch.
We’re starting to see how in local communities all across the world, people in those communities are taking control and looking how to support their communities and their neighborhoods. They’re doing it by thinking about where they shop and what they buy. And in each community, it came about because people in those communities started a conversation in their communities that it was the right thing to do. And when some outside force told them to not care about their neighbors or to tried to pit one group against another, they rejected that conversation. And in those communities, lifting up everyone became the norm.
That is a good example about what a positive conversation can do. On a National level, we’re seeing the exact opposite. Instead of a conversation about we come together and help each other being the norm, the norm is becoming about people who just want basic health care, enough food so the don’t starve, heat in the winter, or just a fan when it’s broiling hot are greedy. So we hear about how much support we’ll cut from them. We don’t hear about how the wealthy can pay even a dime more. The fact they’re paying less than at anytime in modern history doesn’t matter. We not even talking about taking away the tax breaks that corporations get when they ship jobs overseas. Those people aren’t greedy. It’s the family who are about to become homeless who are greedy, at least according to many in Washington and Wall Street.
The obvious question is how did this happen. It happens because when the lies were said, they weren’t rejected. In other words, when the idea of cutting food assistance came up, people on the other side did not stand up and say the obvious, that they were not going to tell people who barely had enough to eat or were losing their homes, that having people starve or lose their home is immortal. Instead, they came back with, we’ll only cut part of the budget to help families survive.
The result was that the lies became legitimized. And the lies got repeated enough that the lies became the norm.
The question is what do we do now. I think we have to start a new conversation. We need to talk how caring about people is moral. That all of us have a responsibility to each other. And how we all in this together. If we look at our challenges as about how we invest in our country, we’ll all do better. If we talk about how spending money on schools rather than giving tax breaks who are shipping jobs overseas is not only moral, it’s basic common sense, that’s when the conversation will change.
If we allow the conversation about how it’s okay if only a few people do well, we will eventually fall in a deep hole and we will decline as a country. And we will have to repeat this conversation over and over and over again. And we need to not legitimize lies. In other words, cutting home heating assistance or food assistance is immortal, period.
The other side will continue to throw out lies. If we don’t speak up and reject those lies, those lies will become the norm. Communities and people have an incredible amount of power when they speak. If we are speaking from our hearts and doing what we know is right, we become unstoppable.
by sffoodie at July 20, 2011
Can Social Responsibilty Be Networked
I was introducing our San Francisco Tours to a group of writers and I was trying to describe what makes us different. Granted, we go in the back of food artisans and see how the food is made. Granted, we are part of the neighborhood and our tour guests get to meet the people who make us the food. I then realized what makes us different. Unlike many other tour companies, we not doing this a way to make money, we’re doing because we want to expose people in the hope that will seek out local artisans back home.
We’re now in the age of social networking. From blogs like this, to Facebook to twitter, we’re in the social networking age. The question is that why, when we are in the age of social networking, we look at the national government and it seems like their number one concern is their own preservation of their power and jobs and protecting Wall Street and their ilk from any regulation. If that isn’t enough, we give them subsidizes, as well. It is as if we have the vacuum called Washington and Wall Street protected in their own world.
I then saw a piece on one of the national broadcast news and they interviewed people from the district from the Republican Minority leader who talked about how wanted Washington to cut spending. The district was right outside Richmond, Virginia. They left out the part how the major industry in Virginia is the Federal Government. There are so many military contractors in Virginia that is hard to go anyone in the state without finding people working for the Federal Government or a Federal Government Contractor. It seems to me that we could do a lot of good by cutting unnecessary spending to military contractors. If we suggested that, I think the people in that district would be signing a different tune. I guess they don’t want to bring up the fact that we spend more money on the military than the rest of world combined. I guess as their subsidy comes from a military contractor that doesn’t count.
The question is that with these facts, with today’s social networking, how is it that the person who is demonized are people who might need medical care, heating oil , or enough money to simply eat. How is it that in many other countries the people who are demonized are the people want to take food and heat from people.
I think the problem is that forget that while e-mail is great, there’s a little thing called a delete key. Facebook and twitter are great, but tweets do not vote people out of office. What works is to translate social networking into social action. The other side says we can’t touch military spending, no matter how much military contractors gouge us. Right now, the federal government gives tax breaks to companies that ship job overseas. The other side does things that will result in people staving, freezing to death, or losing their homes. They figure that the worst that will happen is we will send them a e-mail, send a tweet, or put something on a Facebook page.
We need to start a new discussion. E-mail, Tweets, and Facebook page posts will not put people in office who will actually care about the people in this country, not the robber barons on Wall Street. We need to use social networking as a way to communicate what is really happening and then translate that into voting and organizing in real change. There is probably not one way to do that; there are multiple ways. The goal of social networking needs to become to create networks of people committed to social responsibility. When those networks result in politicians realizing that they will not remain in office if they represent the haters, the robber barons, or people who only care about themselves, then and only them will we be able to use social networks to become something really powerful. That is, put people who care about others and want to leave this world better than they found it. The majority of people out there want to improve the world and help others and it’s about time that majority opened our mouths.
by sffoodie at July 17, 2011
What does social responsibilty feel like?
One incredible benefit that we get on our San Francisco Food Tour is that we get to connect with other people who working to be socially responsible, whether by volunteering in their communities, building a business to fill a need in their neighborhood, or trying to elect people with a conscience.
I was speaking to someone yesterday whose father had built a BBQ business in a different city. He went from a job he hated to running a business that he felt really helped his community. He went from hating his job to loving his life. He may not have as much money as people on Wall Street, but he is probably one of the richest people around. The joy of helping his community and feeling good about what he does just feels good.
When we look at what is happening on Wall Street and in Washington, we can see the opposite, people so removed from others that they fight to make sure someone won’t have assistance to buy food or heat their homes. And the incredible part is that many of these people are from areas that get incredibly cold. One would think that someone who does something that will result in someone freezing to death would be unthinkable. And what is more incredible, is that they are voted in by the very people who will starve or freeze to death as a result of what these people do.
I’ve often asked myself if we can learn anything from this. I think we can. The people who are doing things to help their communities love the feeling of seeing others happy as a result of what they do. The other, such as a ones in Washington and Wall Street, seem to have divorced themselves from their feelings.
I think the solution is to realize that we are all in together. We need to come together and build networks of people and businesses committed to improving out communities. For example, MoveYourMoney.info is a great website to take your money out away from Wall Street and put it in community banks and credit unions, where it can help the local community. SlowFood.com is a great way to eat locally and seasonally.
We can stop letting politicians without feeling or a conscience fooling us into voting for them. There are clues are in their rhetoric, they demonize another group that think can’t fight back, they try to tell us that if Wall Street just doesn’t have to contribute to the country and can do whatever they want, we will all magically become rich. Recent history has proven that wrong. They try to pit one group against another. They try shell games, for example, it’s not the fact that the very wealthy are paying the smallest amount of taxes ever, it’s the person in winter who wants to be able to just get enough heat so they don’t freeze to death is the reason we have a deficit. The fact that the deficit is almost the amount of the Bush tax cuts is something that we should just ignore.
We need to support businesses, politicians, and other who feel good when someone else is happy, who feel good when their neighbors can stay in their homes. For the others, who have divorced themselves from the feelings and their conscience, if and when they can care about someone other than themselves, great. Until then, we need to create networks of people who have a conscience and that are strong enough that the others can no longer do any damage. The longer we wait to build these networks, the more damage will be done, and the more will freeze to death in the winter, become homeless, and starve.
by sffoodie at July 15, 2011
What can a business do to be socially responsible
The concept of being socially responsible may sound straightforward. For a business standpoint, it’s not always easy to see. When I started our San Francisco Food Tours, I started it from a different point of view. I had seen local artisans going away all across the world. I would return a neighborhood that I thought I knew and all I would see is strip malls or bunch of chains. The area had gone from a great neighborhood to a sterile and generic bunch of concrete.
I decided to do something about that. In my past, I had tried to work to preserve open space. I realized that I could talk about why it was important to preserve open space to some politician forever and get nowhere. The only way I could get someone turned around was to take them to the open space, so they could experience why it was important.
I started our San Francisco Food Tours in the thought that if I could get people into local artisans they would want to preserve them. In other words, after having an amazing coffee drink and seeing how it’s roasted, it’s hard to drink the other stuff. Or after having amazing bread or pizza and meeting the people making them, people would seek out local artisans and want to preserve them.
What I’ve noticed is that when I can turn someone onto great food and local artisans I get a great feeling. The result is that we operate our business with a different purpose than others. Social responsibility seems easy to me, as it just feels good.
Unfortunately, many businesses are started by people who think they have found a way to make money. They think that the more money they make, the better they’ll feel. Unfortunately, when someone is doing that they don’t feel is making their communities better, their only sense of accomplishment is the false sense of making money. It’s the reason that people on Wall Street measure their accomplishment by who has the most money. Unfortunately, the money doesn’t do anything to make them feel better. And they just try to make more money to get the feeling that one will never get by making money.
Social responsibility comes when the business owners, managers, and employees realize that doing things that support their communities gives them a sense of accomplishment and well being that they can never get by “making money”. That usually comes because they started their business as way to improve their communities.
At that point, being socially responsible is something that comes naturally, being it feels right. Taking advantage of their communities just doesn’t feel good.
The question comes as how we get businesses to change their focus from “making money” to wanting to becoming a force for good. The problem is that when a business is so used to just “making money”, they don’t know any other way. They may do something positive when they get PR points, but there is no underlying commitment, because it’s a concept that completely foreign.
For those businesses who are genuinely socially responsible, we can try to reach to other socially responsible businesses and create networks to support each other. For consumers, we can make a commitment to support socially responsible businesses. The result may be that companies for who into “making money”, they may find that it doesn’t work. If clothing is made by child labor or exploited workers, it only works is someone buys their clothes. If the companies who socially responsible in the way they produce their clothes are rewarded by consumers, they will grow and prosper. The others will either have to change and bring in people who are genuinely socially responsible or they will go out of business.
Some may suggest that we can change the executives at companies who are just into making money. I’m not sure if that will work. For me, the very fact that it did not bother them to do things which exploit communities or people would suggest that they lack the inside conscience to guide their actions. Their are dozens of decisions that a business makes on a day by day basis. If exploiting others doesn’t bother the people making them, it may be that the only solution is to replace them with people with a conscience.
by sffoodie at July 14, 2011
Should Businesses Be Socially Repsonsible?
I often get asked whether it matters for businesses to be socially responsible. After all, aren’t businesses supposed to only concerned with making money? I would suggest that being socially responsible helps the businesses. On our San Francisco tours, we try hard to be socially responsible. Beyond the fact that we get to feel good about what we do, we get to know that by only working with local food artisans, we get to feel like we are improving our communities, the fact is that it is smart business sense. When we go into a local food artisans, enjoy their food, and they take into the back so we can see how they make the food, they want us there because we are friends, and we are totally committed to their thriving, as well as the neighborhood.
For larger businesses who ship jobs overseas and figure that it cost them less to produce their product, one question, if people don’t have decent wages, who is going to by the product, regardless of the price. For financial institutions, there is only so long that you can take money out the economy, whether national, state, or local before there is no money left. For local businesses, if the local area doesn’t thrive you have no customers.
Everyday we see examples of business in the tourism industry who take the short term view. They go into local establishments and try to avoid paying anything. If you don’t support local establishments, they won’t be there eventually.
From an individual’s perspective, there is a great deal we can do. If a business is not supporting it’s community, take your money somewhere else. If a business doesn’t sell locally made products, take your money somewhere else. If you see a company going into another establishment and not supporting that establishment, take your money somewhere else.
Businesses can only avoid being socially responsible if keep giving them our money. The can produce all of the products overseas they want, rather then employing people here at a decent wage, only if we buy their products. If we decide to only buy products that are sold or produced by companies that take social responsibility seriously, the other companies will have a choice, get serious about being socially responsible or go out of business. Whether it is food, travel, clothing, restaurant, entertainment, financial services, or more the secret is that we have a incredible amount of power. If the result of being discriminatory, taking advantage of communities, using predatory financial procedures, or not being committed to their communities is to go out of business, we might just see a major way businesses operate.
by sffoodie at July 13, 2011
True Financial Reform
On our San Francisco Food Tours, we work hard to keep all of the community resources in the neighborhood. I was reminded of this today as I listened to arguments about the debt ceiling in Washington. While it was interesting from an entertainment viewpoint, what was missing from the coverage was any concern on the effect from both sides about the effect on local communities across the country. What was also missing was how we got here. I use the term we because we couldn’t have got here without the people in this country going along.
The people in Washington can’t do what they are doing without people voting for them. The result is that the very rich have the lowest tax rates ever, and people in Washington are arguing about whether they are paying too much in taxes. And yet, they’re not worried about being voted out of office.
It’s about time certain started they getting worried. If our representatives are not representing us, they need to be worried about voted out of office. Just like the bank should be worried every time they foreclose on someone, every time they ignore their communities, that their account holders will take their money and move it to community banks and credit. When corporations exploit their workers, ship jobs overseas, and pillage their communities, they should be worried that people will shop elsewhere.
The real shame is that these groups are not worried. They have figured out that they pit one group against another, we’ll think raising taxes on anyone, no matter how wealthy they are and how little they pay, even if pay far less than everyone else, it’s a bad thing. We’ll say that even if the bank didn’t need to foreclose, the person losing their home is their fault and it’s not us. We can pay our mortgage, so why should that other person get help, rather then realizing that six months or a year from now that might be us. We’ll say it’s not convenient to drive to local merchant or it might cost a little more to buy a local product, rather than realizing the job we’re saving might be our own.
Until we realize that we’re all in together and helping someone else is helping ourselves, they won’t be worried.
by sffoodie at July 12, 2011
Changing the World One Person at a Time
While we were on our San Francisco Tours today, I was reminded about how important it is it for us to only taste food from San Francisco and from local artisans. On of stops in North Beach, we have fresh bread and biscotti and go in back of bakery with 130 brick ovens and see how they make the bread. We also intentionally lower our cost for families, in the hope that will get exposed to great food and start to appreciate how great fresh food tastes.
One the people on our tour was a teenager who was used to bread from a grocery where they claim to bake the bread. Most of the time they ship frozen dough to the grocery store and put the frozen dough in the oven. It’s the reason that the bread frequently tastes tough or chewy. I’m of the belief that bread should have feeling, so it feeds your soul, as well as your body.
After trying the bread, they told their parents that they didn’t know bread was supposed to taste this good, and how they disappointed that they didn’t have bread as good this back home. They thought that only way they could get bread this good was in San Francisco or bring some of the food from our tour back home.
We give out a resource card to guests on our tour that has links to Slow Food and farmers market in the US and several other countries. We gave the teenage guest a link to Slow Food and they found some local bakeries near them. There were also surprised that there were some local restaurants near them that tried to use local ingredients. They also found some farmers market near them.
I’ll grant anyone that I might be overly optimistic, but I think we may have turned someone on to eating local seasonally and supporting local artisans. The more we do that, the more we change the world, one person at a time.
by sffoodie at July 10, 2011
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