Artisan Food Producers in the Bay Area
I started my first pet project in marketing in the non-profit food world – organizing the Silent Auction for the 5th Annual Golden Glass, the key fund raising event for the San Francisco chapter of Slow Food USA. What a world of difference! Coming from the corporate institution, the non-profit world of a massive event being put together by a group of enthusiastic volunteers is really different and frankly, quite admirable. One of the main highlights for me was when I received a call from Todd Spanier, the #1 fungi fanatic in the Bay Area, owner of King of Mushrooms. He was responding to my email soliciting items for the silent auction and has generously donated a porcini hunting trip to Anderson Valley later in the fall, worth about $1,000. My first real encounter with a food producer in the Bay Area. I can hear his passion through his voice, contrasting that with a rather sleepy me on the other end of the line as he called me at 7:30 that morning. He talked about his experience at Golden Glass last year, about how widely-raved his Porcini raviolis were. A lady visitor who ate at Chez Panisse the night before and had ordered Porcini mushroom raviolis there told Todd that his raviolis at the event were better than Chez Panisse’s. How happy that made him! We all know what a fine restaurant Chez Panisse is, and hence, that has got to be one of the greatest compliment one can receive. The twist here is that he also supplies mushrooms to Chez Panisse! I asked him to publish his recipe for all to enjoy. Food brings so much joy and connect people from diverse backgrounds who share a common love of the palate. I reflected back on my 15 years in the corporate marketing sphere – making presentations, building powerpoint slides, creating excel sheets with pivot tables and embedding them with algorithms and formulas, meetings after meetings and endless conference calls. This is such a refreshing change, it’s somewhat pure and simple and yet satisfying. I’ve never met someone with so much enthusiasm and passion. Researching and reading about Todd later in articles written about him brought a smile to my face. He is destined and deserves to be bestowed the ‘King of Mushrooms’. I give my greatest respect to all the artisanal food producers; to people who believe, who work and live with the earth’s bountiful produce every day and bring to us, the fruits of their labor and grande passione.
If you are interested in reading more about Todd Spanier:
