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From the Editor

Let Us Entertain You

    Welcome to our dining and entertainment issue in which Oakland Magazine is prepared to give you a mouthful about the Slow-Food movement and an earful about the local music scene.
   
    The Slow-Food movement has been around since 1989, created by Carlo Petrini to stave off fast-food sensibilities embodied by a McDonald’s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. It began as a movement to convince people to slow down and enjoy the pleasures of food and has morphed into a lifestyle, philosophy and political movement that melds eating whole foods and seasonal, local ingredients with diehard sustainability and an anti-globalization mentality. But simply put, the Slow-Food movement seeks to build an interconnected food community in which one knows where his food comes from and how his choices about that food affect his environment.
  
    In “Slow Pleasures,” frequent contributing writer Wanda Hennig explains the origins of the movement, traces its impact on how we eat today and offers advice on how one can embrace the movement. Follow her to Oliveto Café and Restaurant, where chef Paul Canales dishes on the locals he taps for supplies. What he turns out of his kitchen will convince any skeptic of the value of seasonal, local ingredients in fine food. His kitchen creations are sure to inspire one to join the Slow-Food contingent, and enlistees can learn from Hennig—herself an advocate of Slow pleasures—about an ultimate Slow foodie who has adopted the movement and now tends a garden as well as keeps chickens and goats in the Oakland Hills.
   
    On the entertainment side, Kimberly Chun reports on the East Bay’s hottest bands in “Where It’s At,” singling out seven groups in different genres for praise. A first-time contributor to Oakland Magazine, Chun is the music editor and the senior arts and entertainment editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian who spends a lot of time in the East Bay. And she says Oakland is the place to be for great music.
   
    So which bands wind up on her must-hear list? Here’s her take of bands, also identified by niche: Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days (Country), Honeycut (Blue-Eyed R&B), The Lovemakers (Indie Dance Pop), Maldroid (Pop-Rock), Mistah F.A.B. (Hip-Hop), Saviours (Hard Rock) and Subtle (Indie Hip-Hop/Electronic). Find these artists from 21 Grand and @17th to the Stork Club and Eli’s Mile High Club. To find out why and what makes these performers tick, turn to page 48.
  
    Sure, Oaktown has a long history of soul, blues and hip-hop, but the music coming out of The Town today cuts across all genres, so as soon as you finish reading about today’s name makers, check them out for a listen at www.oaklandmagazine.com—you’ll be amazed at Oakland’s level of musical entertainment.