EATS

3:15 p.m.:

Inside the War Memorial Veterans Building's Herbst Theater, the Food For Thought seminar "A New, Fair Food System" is underway with Jose Padilla, executive director of California Rural Legal Assistance. (Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation," moderates the panel of seven with a relaxed, unhurried attitude. He apologizes to the audience: "I'm sorry I'm such a terrible moderator -- but I don't want anyone to be moderate." The panelists are, to be sure, anything but.)

Farm work is a hazardous occupation, and one that most of us don't think much about when we're eating our fruits and veggies. Padilla tells us that in the U.S., farm work is second in fatalities only to mining, and second in injuries to the construction trade. In the U.S., only firefighters suffer more cases of heat stroke than farmworkers, Padilla adds.

So far this year, California has seen six fatalities among farmworkers suffering heat stroke while picking crops such as butternut squash and wine or table grapes. On average, he says, agribusinesses pay $9,900 per farmworker fatality. "Where's the outcry?" Padilla asks rhetorically. "Where's the anger?"

Moreover, now that California has passed Wisconsin as the top U.S. dairy producer, farmworkers also are being exploited by the dairy industry, Padilla says, with many sexual assaults perpetrated upon migrant women. In 2006, "Ms." magazine did an expose called "The Green Motel," detailing the scandal, Padilla says.

He shows pictures of migrant families living in blue-tarp tents in North San Diego County, perhaps 100 yards from multi-million-dollar luxury homes. Napa Valley farmworkers sometimes live in parked cars or camp in the fields among the grapevines they harvest.

As bad as that is, things may be worse in Florida, where farmworkers in Immolakee have been held in the equivalent of slavery. Lucas Benitez, who represents the Florida workers, tells us in Spanish through a translator: "As farmworkers, we're not poor -- we're screwed."

But recent negotiations have brought Taco Bell, McDonald's and Burger King to the table, agreeing to pay a penny more per pound for the Florida tomatoes they buy, with the extra money going to the farmworkers at the bottom of the supply chain. Benitez says that within a few days, he hopes they will also have an agreement with Texas-based Whole Foods Market -- a major sponsor of Slow Food Nation.

"'Sustainable' is not just about the rights of animals, small farmers and the environment," Benitez says. "It's about us farmworkers who bend our backs every day."

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6 p.m.:

On Gough Street in the Hayes Valley section of SF, you realize you are really not in Dallas any more when you spot a Mexican restaurant -- and see
that they are selling sauteed tofu tacos.

A couple of blocks away, the 30-year-old Hayes Street Grill hosts a "Slow Dinner" event, but the special guests are not famous chefs or cookbook authors. They're the fishermen whose family-owned boats brought in the evening's dinner supply of albacore, black sea bass and white sea bass. It's kind of cool, we think, to see fishermen being applauded like Hollywood celebrities.

The evening's menu, from chef Rob Zaborny:

Seafood antipasto plates of calamari and roasted tomatoes on toast
points; grilled marinated Monterey Bay sardines; "Venetian-style"
albacore; and arugula and frisee salad.

Cataplana of Captain Josh Churchman's black cod and Hog Island clams
with Willey Farm cranberry beans and chorizo.

A tasting of Bandit and Black Gill rockfish from Fort Bragg fishermen.

Grilled California white sea bass from Captain Mike McCorckle, served
with fresh corn succotash.

Nectarine and Yerena raspberry amaretti crisp with frozen Straus yogurt.

Hayes Street Grill also served three California wines: 2006 Fortitude Semillon, Etude, Napa Valley; 2005 Hafner Chardonnay, Alexander Valley; and 2006 Etude Pinot Noir, Napa Valley.

(Photo by Joyce Saenz Harris: Fresh fish for dinner at Hayes Street Grill)