Slow Food, the international movement founded in Italy to combat fast food and preserve traditional food, is about to get its big U.S. moment: The four-day Slow Food Nation '08 extravaganza launches tomorrow in San Francisco. To kick off what's been billed as the "largest celebration of American food in history," investigative food journalist Michael Pollan will moderate a panel on the world food crisis featuring Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and authors Corby Kummer, Vandana Shiva and Raj Patel. I recently spoke with Patel, who wrote the brilliant book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, to get a preview of the festival and the panel:

The schedule for the weekend is so impressive. What are some events to definitely check out?
"I’m very much looking forward to the Taste Pavilions. It’ll be like Christmas—the joy of it will be in discovering new foods [artisan producers will include Utah's Amano Artisan Chocolate and California's Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream]. One of the panels that I’m excited about is "Fostering Diversity in Food System Leadership"; Brahm Ahmadi from People's Grocery will be the moderator. It’s not a big secret that Slow Food is pretty white. California is so diverse, filled with immigrant history and food, yet people of color are very underrepresented in Slow Food so their voices are very important. I’m also really excited about the rock concerts. Gnarls Barkley, the New Pornographers, and a bunch of other artists will be playing Saturday and Sunday."

Can you give a brief overview of what you'll be talking about at the opening "World Food Crisis" session?
"One billion people are going hungry by the end of the year. The reasons are straightforward: The price of food is doubling and tripling but wages aren’t. I’ll be talking about how we ended up in this mess—why it is that farmers in developing countries are growing food for export instead of the nutritious food they need to survive, and why traditional foods are being uprooted by fast foods."

What are some solutions you'll be talking about?
"Good clean food is part of the solution in a very deep way. By clean food, I mean food grown in a way that’s sustainable, not merely organic. Organic monoculture, for example, is still ecologically harmful. Clean means agroecological. Farms can intercrop in very sophisticated ways. Agroecology has a bunch of examples. The beauty of it is you don’t need a big area. You can farm intensively in a small plot of land barely the size of your kitchen and feed your whole family."

What are some other things the average person can do to help?
"Eating locally and seasonally is definitely the way to go. Other advantages besides reducing your carbon footprint is that it encourages you to be creative with your cooking. Eating together is also important. The pleasure of food is amplified when you share food."

Obiká, the much-hyped Italian mozzarella bar that created a frenzy when it opened four years ago in Rome, is finally coming to New York. In May, the New York Sun reported that the company had been eyeing Manhattan real estate and I’ve walked past the mysterious space in the atrium of the IMB Building on Madison Avenue daily, wondering if it would ever open.

Today, I finally got the scoop that Obiká NYC will have its soft opening September 20. Obiká is obsessed with the freshest, most delicious Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, which can be ordered in various styles ranging from paestum (delicate in taste) to smoked or stracciatella di burrata (sweat and creamy). Unlike its other locations in London, Rome, Milan and Turin, Obiká NYC was designed by Studio Labs Rome as the first "fast-casual" prototype for the brand and will look more like an airport kiosk than a restaurant. Other distinctions:

*It will open at 7 a.m. to serve breakfast.

*Giving a nod to the American obsession with all things local, it will also serve buffalo mozzarella from Vermont alongside mozzarellas flown in twice-weekly from certified DOP farms in the Campana region.

*Wines will come from Antinori and Feudi di San Gregorio.

*Stuzzichini (Italian appetizers) will be served from 5-7 p.m. during an Italian-style happy hour Obiká calls “apertivo.”

I'm curious to see if it can compete with the much-loved Batali-Silverton Osteria Mozza in L.A. Or perhaps the more serious test will be if it can sway devotees to Queens' famed mozzarella sisters.

For anyone who’s looking for a place to celebrate their first back-in-New-York-City-post-Labor-Day dinner, here’s something to consider: Ryan Skeen has just signed on to be the chef at Irving Mill, in the Union Square Park ‘hood, and his first day is Tuesday, September 2. Skeen got famous cooking at New York’s best Belgian restaurant, Resto, serving a burger that New York magazine voted the city’s best of the year in 2007, plus steamed mussels with addictive dipping sauces like lime pickle. He also, very briefly it seems, consulted on the menu at Brooklyn’s General Greene (almost everyone trying to repeat the noteworthy meal that my heroes, New York mag’s Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld, had at GG—presumably while Skeen was there—have been disappointed). Skeen will debut his own menu for the pretty, airy dining room at Irving Mill in mid-October—we’re all hoping he’ll include some version of his delectable crispy pig ear salad. Meanwhile, back at Resto, the food is still terrific (and I’m not just saying that because I’m friends with owner Christian Pappanicholas), and the crispy pig ear salad is as good as ever.

I just spent a few days at home in Minnesota, where I was surprised to find the excellent Grateful Palate Airwines 2005 Boarding Pass Shiraz on the list at Beaujo's Wine Bar & Bistro in sleepy Edina, a suburb of the Twin Cities. The bottle's ingenious label, brainchild of wine importer and F&W contributing editor Dan Philips and designer Chuck House, mimics an airline boarding pass. Fittingly, while on my flight back to New York, I read an article in The Economist on the Midwestern winery boom, another indication of how wine-savvy the region has become. A few astounding facts:

- The University of Minnesota is developing grape breeds that can survive at -36 degrees Fahrenheit.
- The first annual Chicago & Midwest Wine Show will be held in September (officially Illinois Wine Month).
- The Midwest’s biggest producer is Michigan, with 112 wineries in 2007, up from 28 in 1995.
- Most intriguing name for a Midwestern wine: Michigan's Stone Temple Pinot (oddly enough, the band Stone Temple Pilots got its start in California).

The U.S. Tennis Open started today. A mixed blessing, like new pencils or new jeans—it's a treat but an indisputable reminder that summer's almost over. To take the edge off of the longer nights and chillier air, Tony Mantuano of Spiaggia and his wine-expert wife, Cathy, have provided F&W with a few lighthearted tennis wine-pairing tips. Rosés to match your tennis skirt, anyone? Check it out here. For the New Yorkers among us, the Mantuanos will be serving wine-bar snacks at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center today through September 7.

It's true, curly parsley has an unfortunate stereotype of the retro garnish on restaurant plates. But that's no reason to dismiss it as I have all these years. Its curliness is unique and I'm enjoying using it again. The fine, pinnate leaves of curly parsley have a texture, that in my mind adds a unique quality to recipes. Most importantly, parsley of any variety is a valuable and nutritious plant.
 
I really don't find any difference in the taste of curly to flat – leaf parsley and I see no reason not to cook with it. I've been to many garden plant sales this season and often the flat leaf parsley shelf would be wiped out. Next to that would be a full shelf of curly parsley, untouched. This saddened me. It is a pert, pretty plant in its own right and it should hold a proud place in the garden.

I prefer curly to flat leaf in tabbouleh. It really adds a presence to the chewy cracked wheat and crisp cukes. My favorite use is for fried parsley. There is nothing quite like it.

The leaves turn deep, rich green and stay crispy for hours. I use a small amount of oil, maybe 1/2 inch in a small saucepan. Light dusted with flour, batches of curly parsley fry up in seconds. Talk about an impressive garnish, use it to adorn rice, pasta, steamed or pan fried fish, grilled eggplant and peppers or crostinis and bruscettas. Grow it in your garden next year or plant it in a large pot and start using it again.

Last week, New York Magazine ran a piece on the exploding “functional drink” market. Apparently, plain water doesn’t cut it anymore, even if it’s imported from the purest springs or filtered through volcanic rock in Fuji, Japan. The latest craze is brightly colored beverages like SoBe Life Water, Vitaminwater, Function Drinks’ Urban Detox, Snapple’s Antioxidant Water and Propel Fit Water. As a runner and yoga devotee, I’ve always wondered if I should be drinking some magic, post-recovery elixir to rebalance my electrolytes and rehydrate my body. But there’s just something too gimmicky and artificial about these wonder drinks, and after a five-mile run I always find myself reaching for plain H20.

Recently, though, I’ve become addicted to coconut water, the delicious liquid inside of young coconuts. My yoga studio is stocked with a fridge of Tetra Pak sippy boxes of it, and fellow classmates down two or three per class. It’s super-refreshing and revitalizing, all-natural, low in calories and packed with potassium. And unlike coconut milk, it’s fat-free. I’m eagerly awaiting the day when they start handing it out at the water stations of road races instead of Gatorade.

Now O.N.E., a drink company that sells coconut water, has developed two new, super-functional, all-natural drinks—one derived from coffee berry and the other from cashew fruit. Who knew that cashew nuts actually grow from the bottom of the oval-shaped “cashew apple,” which has more than five times the vitamin C of an orange, plus is loaded with B vitamins? I can’t handle the acidity of O.J., so this has become my new morning juice. It’s a lot lighter than regular fruit juice, with a completely unusual citrusy, nutty taste.

© O.N.E.
O.N.E. cashew juice

At a backyard barbecue recently, my friend set up an inflatable wading pool for guests to dip their toes into. She had hadn’t yet figured out what to do about lighting so as the sun set, the yard became spookily dark. Her boyfriend, a lighting designer and all-around handy guy, went to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with white plastic mixing bowls and tealight candles. He placed the candles in the bowls, lit them and carefully set the bowls in the water. For the remainder of the night, the makeshift floating lanterns gave the party a soft, warm glow.

When life gives you lemons, make... limoncello? That's what the bartenders over at Flatbush Farm & Bar(n) in Brooklyn are doing, anyway. When I recently went to celebrate a friend's birthday, the bartender sent her a mystery drink that was all lemony smoothness, mixed with lemon rind-infused vodka, Prosecco and a hint of St-Germain, an elderflower-based liqueur. Here, some more refreshing limoncello cocktails that will help you weather the mid-August swelter:

Citron Shake: A spin on the White Lady cocktail that Harry MacElhone served at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in 1929. Limoncello replaces Cointreau.

Limoncello Collins: The characters in my favorite J.D. Salinger novella, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, cool off with gin-based Tom Collins. Consider this drink a Tom Collins lite, with less gin, more limoncello. 

Smith & Thomas: Bartender Regan Smith and bar manager Curt Thomas of Emeril's Atlanta created this limoncello-and-black-tea cocktail for a party in honor of local celebrity Tom Houck, who was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s driver.

Bitter Queen: From the Martini Bar at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami, this drink, with equal parts Campari and limoncello, rightly lives up to its name.  

Pink Panther: This limoncello-spiked twist on the Sea Breeze, served at Delmar Restaurant & Lounge in St. Louis, gets its pink hue from fresh red grapefruit juice.

A friend of mine, John, suffers from celiac disease, which in short means he can't eat any gluten. Before going out to eat, he calls the restaurant and alerts them, and they usually just make sure he orders safely and leave it at that. Recently, he shared a great story with me. His wife called the restaurant Gilt, here in Manhattan, and told them ahead of time that he'd be coming in and that he has this allergy. Once they were seated at their table, a waiter came over and placed a bread basket on the table. His wife reached for the bread, but the waiter gently pushed her hand away, telling them that the kitchen had prepared a special basket of gluten-free rolls just for John. For someone whose dietary restriction is more typically treated as a nuisance, this was exceptional. And the rolls were good! In fact, John says that he polished off the whole basket (who wouldn't in his situation?) and the waiter brought out more, then let him take some home as well. Has John been back? As many times as he can. Kudos to chef Chris Lee and his staff at Gilt.