Photo: Abhijit Tembhekar; Flickr

As I watched my son run like the wind and race against himself, up and down a lit alley way, at the Museum of Science yesterday, I reflected on the wide range of activities the Museum offers and the fact that I’d be back this weekend for the launch of an ambitious new initiative called “Let’s Talk About Food.” LATF is a two-year series of seasonal events and public conversations designed to explore our global and local food systems. The MOS is assuming the role of “Big Tent” with this series–in other words, marshaling its resources and reputation to gather the public together with some of the talented, dedicated professionals in the Boston area (also beyond) who think, write, speak about, grow, prepare and serve food for a living, or as their passion. The idea is to foment discussion on how what we eat affects how we and our world thrive and survive.

Friday morning, October 8th, is the kick-off. “What’s For Lunch” will involve 300 high school students in hands-on activities aimed at teaching them skills for making better choices about food. Mayor Menino will greet the students; Craigie on Main’s Tony Maws will work with the kids to make and deconstruct a simple, delicious and affordable meal (I want in!). On Friday evening Radio Boston’s Adam Ragusea will moderate a panel discussion on issues related to our food system (health and nutrition, food security, food access, fisheries, land use?) with speakers Lilian Cheung of Harvard and Karen Spiller of the Boston Public Health Commission.

On Saturday morning “citizen chefs” (this means regular folk) will cook side-by-side with “Boston’s Best” (this means high-profile chefs, among others) to make healthy, easy-to-prepare-at-home meals. A screening of the documentary Fresh will follow. Mark Bittman visits in November.

For those of you who have not yet cemented your plans for Columbus Day weekend, the Museum of Science beckons, and will continue to in 2011. There they’ll be talking about food.

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PS: Wulf’s Fish Market was written up in today’s Food section of the Globe. Kudos to Susanna Bolle, who recently produced a fab slideshow and interview with Wulf’s owners (old and new) for PRK.