This feature was originally published on February 2, 2012.

A look back at the 2011 GFA gala, with both of your Sprudge editors reporting from inside the posh Ferry Building in San Francisco…

“Coffee! Congratulations! This is really awesome because they say we represent the best of our industries and that’s lucky for us because I think we are the best industry. So, sorry everybody else. [Laughter, Boos, Hisses] There’s one thing you need to know about coffee people and that’s that coffee people really love coffee people.” – Colleen Anunu, Gimme! Coffee

More than 3 years on from Slow Food Nation, an event whose retrospective acclaim and estimation shows no signs of slowing, the San Francisco Organic Dining High-Low Society scene is still a real trip. In the 19th century, you would have needed the bluest of blue blood to be anywhere near an event like this, and it would be thrown not in celebration of tasty things, but rather to honor the holy nuptials of some anemic royalty. In the 20th century perhaps sheer money could buy your way in (or at the very least, a notable art collection). But here in 21st, it is the organic ...