Is this the line for the politics and pickles pavilion?

If you haven't made plans for Labor Day, and you're into pickles, pistachios, polenta and politics, consider a road trip to one gigantic gastronomic party for about 50,000 folks planned for San Francisco. It's being billed as the largest celebration of food in history. They're calling it the Woodstock of food, a "profound event where a broad band of people will see that delicious, sustainably produced food can be a prism for social, ecological and political change."

Wow. Sign me up for the knife and fork revolution. Sitting in the middle of Ground Zero of food production, this party hits us, literally, where we live.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Slow Food Nation, held at both the Civic Center and Fort Mason, will include lectures, workshops, cooking demonstrations, tastings, films, concerts, hikes, a farmers' market and a "Slow on the Go" food court. Some of the programs are free; others require tickets that range in price from $5 to $65 (slowfoodnation.org) to help offset the $2 million cost. The mayor has already let them rip out the grass in front of city hall to plant a garden. Fifteen architects have been signed up to build pavilions around the city.

This is not your ordinary wine and cheese tasting. The opening panel discussion, for example, on the World Food Crisis is already sold out, but here are a couple of other panels listed:

* Building a new food system -- policy and planning: Urban planning, food policy, health and education initiatives - government policy at all levels can contribute to food systems that support the whole community. Learn from leaders in the field as they explore the first steps that governments -- from municipal to state and beyond -- can take to support and build a sustainable food system.

Featuring: AG Kawamura, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture; Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, NYU; and Andrew Kimbrell, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety.

Moderated by Timothy LaSalle, Executive Director of the Rodale Institute.

*EDIBLE EDUCATION: "In a nation where far too many people harm their health and the environment by eating poorly, public school lunch presents an enormous opportunity: right there, in the middle of the every child's school day, driven by his own hunger and his own taste, lies all this time and energy set aside and devoted to food."* This panel will discuss the potential and challenges of creating a national policy around Edible Education - a means of educating all children about stewardship, sustainability and the connections between food, health and the environment.

Presented by Alice Waters, founder of Slow Food Nation, international vice president of Slow Food, owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant and founder and president of the Chez Panisse Foundation and featuring Dr. Tony Recasner head of Green Charter and New Orleans Charter Middle schools; Van Jones, Founder and President of Green For All; Craig McNamara, President and Founder at Center for Land-Based Learning; and Josh Viertel, Director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project.

Moderated by Katrina Heron, writer, editor and a Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation.

*excerpted from Alice Waters forthcoming book, "The Edible Schoolyard," chronicle books, 2009.