Edible Monterey Bay: Winter 2011 | No. 2

GRIST FOR THE MILL

As we prepared to go to press with this issue, I was struck by how grateful I am for the people whom I’ve met thanks to this magazine.

My life has never felt very far removed from food— I grew up in a farming area and I’ve always been a passionate gardener, cook and restaurant maven, and I almost became a chef instead of a journalist.

But until launching this magazine just a few months ago, I’d never been quite so fully surrounded by so many people who share such a glorious obsession with food—whether growing it, foraging for it, cooking it, helping others get access to it or just reveling in it.

I think I’ve enjoyed meeting these people so much because, on the whole, they tend to be positive, engaged and fulfilled. And to me, it’s no wonder, because there is something deeply hopeful and life-affirming about the act of growing food, especially when it’s done in a manner that helps protect the planet for the future. It’s an act of faith to choose to create something beautiful, delicious and nourishing—and it makes the world a better place.

In this issue—our second—we’ll introduce you to many of these amazing food people: mushroom foragers from Davenport to Big Sur, a spot-prawn trapper from Monterey, and Ted and Cindy Walter of Pacific Grove’s Passionfish.

Lisa Knutson of Hollister’s Pasture Chick Ranch shares her philosophy on raising animals humanely and shows you how it’s done; from Watsonville to Washington, a number of farmers and their advocates opine on how the upcoming Farm Bill could help our region.

You’ll meet artisans from Santa Cruz to Greenfield who transform local meat into prosciutto, sausage and other charcuterie, and we’ll introduce you to some of the breweries behind the Central Coast’s thriving craft beer movement, including Capitola’s brand-new Sante Adairius Rustic Ales.

We hope you thoroughly enjoy all of this, but please don’t forget to also turn to our website—www.ediblemontereybay.com. Online, you’ll find directories to restaurants, CSAs, gift ideas, farmers’ markets and other services. Meanwhile, our electronic calendar, blog and Facebook page will provide you with a steady stream of local food news. (Just for starters, the 2012 EcoFarm Conference will be held in Pacific Grove Feb. 1-4, and Edible Communities will host our own local food conference in Santa Barbara March 10-11.)

If winter brings you enough time to dig into a great new book, I highly recommend Cultivating a Movement: An Oral History of Organic Farming and Sustainable Agriculture on the Central Coast. This fascinating and inspiring book, edited by Irene Reti and Sarah Rabkin of the UCSC Regional History Project, documents the personal accounts of dozens of the people who’ve made the Central Coast one of the country’s most important hotbeds of organic farming.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who helped with this issue in any way. I especially want to thank our advertisers for their critical support, and encourage you, our readers, to thank them with a visit!

Have a wonderful holiday, a restorative winter—and don’t forget to gather with friends to make some of that three-fruit marmalade on p. 56!

Sincerely,

edible monterey bay

PUBLISHER AND EDITOR

Sarah Wood Sarah@ediblemonter ybay.com 831.238.1217

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rob Fisher

COPY EDITORS

Doug Adrianson • Doresa Banning

DESIGNER Melissa Petersen

WEB DESIGNER Mary Ogle

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS, EDITORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Renee Brincks • Jordan Champagne

Jamie Collins • John Cox • Susan Ditz

Bradley Dunbaugh • Kalia FeldmanKlein • Ted Holladay • Geneva Liimatta

Deborah Luhrman • Terry Manier

Richard Pitnick • Pete Rerig

Patrick Tregenza • Amber Turpin Patrice Ward • Lisa Crawford Watson

ADVERTISING Shelby Lambert Shelby@ediblemontereybay.com 831.238.7101

INTERNS

Will Adams • Kalia Feldman-Klein

SUBSCRIPTIONS www.ediblemontereybay.com

CONTACT US: Edible Monterey Bay 24C Virginia Way, Carmel Valley, CA 93924 www.ediblemontereybay.com 831.238.1217 info@ediblemontereybay.com

Edible Monterey Bay is published quarterly. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission of the publisher. Subscriptions are $28 per year at www.ediblemontereybay.com. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our apologies and notify us. Thank you.

Richard Pitnick

EDIBLE NOTABLES

Live Earth Goes to School

By Kalia Feldman-Klein

It’s a typically foggy coastal morning, but this does nothing to dampen the spirits of the 30 tots who are poised to embark on a sensory treasure hunt at Watsonville’s Live Earth Farm.

“Okay, when I say go, I want you to find one thing to taste, one thing to touch, and one thing to smell between here and the top of the hill,” invites Jessica Ridgeway, the director of Live Earth’s Discovery Program.

And with that the preschoolers burst off, beginning their hunt by ducking underneath some leafy grape vines to search for the season’s last deep blue clusters. Navigating a farm-within-a-farm replica of Live Earth set up just for them, the children eventually milk goats and visit chicken coops, alternately squealing with delight and glancing back at mom and dad for reassurance. Over time, these children and parents from El Jardin, a local cooperative preschool, and dozens of families from other local schools, will learn what goes on at a sustainable organic farm each season, and why it matters.

Live Earth’s founders, Tom and Constance Broz, have led adventures like this since they started the farm in 1985 with the hope of helping to better connect their community to the environment through organic agriculture. In 2007, Live Earth formalized the educational tours into a nonprofit organization that uses the farm as a classroom to teach local school groups about organic and sustainable food systems. Constantly evolving, the reach of both the farm and its nonprofit have grown remarkably; the farm’s CSA now serves 700 area families, and the Discovery Program educates more than 1,000 local kids each year.

New this winter, Live Earth will take its programs off the farm to visit local children right in their classrooms. Ridgeway and the Brozes would prefer that the students experience the farm and its lessons firsthand. But transportation budget cuts made four years ago at the Pajaro Valley Schools have meant that area public school children are often unable to go on otherwise free educational field trips unless there are enough parent drivers to ferry an entire class. In a community of mostly working parents like Watsonville, this is a big obstacle. Live Earth raises funds to help subsidize transportation to

the farm, but the new school visits will enable the farm to reach even the kids whose schools just can’t manage the trip.

Whether at the farm or at schools, Ridgeway tailors her curriculum to the age and ability of each group she works with. But with all of the children, the Discovery Program operates on the selfsustaining theory of a triple bottom line, which strives towards a food system that is financially, socially and environmentally just. To teach these concepts, she combines hands-on farm work and lessons that follow our food from seed to table. She also encourages the kids, their teachers and their parents to taste for themselves how delicious food that is healthy for both the planet and their bodies can be.

“Our goal is to train consumers, farmers and everyone in between about sustainable food systems,” Ridgeway says.

For the youngest kids, the simple experience of being on the farm itself introduces these ideas. Older students learn more in-depth lessons about our food system. One lesson traces a dollar spent at the grocery store to illustrate all the people and processes involved in our food system, and how a dollar spent locally stays local.

Luckily for its young participants, the Discovery Program won’t end with the school year. This summer, Live Earth will host weekly summer camp sessions for six to 12 year olds, and offer leader-intraining positions for older teens called “Art on the Farm.” Campers will divide their time between nature-based art, farming and learning how to create nutritional snacks from their freshly harvested produce. The sessions will culminate with a campout in the fields.

If you’d like to make a donation to Live Earth’s Discovery Program, it’s best to use the organization’s donate button on its website, at www.liveearthfarm.net/learn.aspx. Donations of up to $5,000 made before the end of 2011 will be matched by a fund created by Live Earth’s supporters.

Kalia Feldman-Klein

EDIBLE NOTABLES

KEG PARTY

By Amber Turpin

When you hear the word “keg,” you most likely picture red plastic cups, beer bellies, rowdiness or memories of high school parties of yore.

But in the last few years, the term has started to find a home with a quite different audience. Wine on tap is becoming more and more commonplace at cafes, wine bars and upscale restaurants throughout the country.

The idea is nothing new—wine served and sold in bulk actually has a longer history than today’s commonplace 750-milliliter bottle. A wide variety of containers from barrels to wineskins have been utilized to hold the prized juice since its creation.

But now, advancements in technology and storage stability, and an increased environmental vigilance on the part of consumers and producers alike, have opened the door to a whole new lineup of alternative wine service formats. And lucky for us, it’s catching on here in the Monterey Bay region.

Santa Cruz County wine tasting typically means back roads, hairpin turns and mountain vistas, but the Surf City Vintners collective came along and introduced everyone to a more urban experience. Located at the Swift Street Courtyard on the Westside of Santa Cruz, the dozen wineries that make up Surf City offer a wide range of tasting profiles. Two in particular also provide a new way to serve them.

Jeff Emery of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard is one of the first winemakers in the county to offer wine on tap. The method is advantageous to restaurants serving by-the-glass wines because of the extended shelf-life capacity, and there is a tremendous reduction in packaging and waste due to no bottle, no cork and no labeling. Right

Sones Cellars, next-door neighbor to Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, has begun to offer wine in a similar way, but by spigot instead of tap. Its Hedgehog Red blend, primarily composed of Zinfandel grapes, fills a large barrel in the winery’s tasting room. Buy an empty, specially labeled Hedgehog stopper bottle and then fill ’er up. Return when it’s all gone and get a refill at a discounted bulk price. This has become a popular table wine for a lot of folks, and like many of the other alternative formats, produces less waste and should leave a smaller carbon footprint than the production and shipping of traditional wine bottles.

But the local trend is not limited to Santa Cruz alone: Monterey and San Benito County fruit is ending up in a variety of vessels near and far.

Calera Wine Company in Hollister, for example, is offering its Central Coast Pinot by the keg.

Meanwhile, FLASQ Wines, a company based in St. Helena, Calif., offers from its website 12-packs of aluminum bottles containing Monterey Chardonnay. The bottles hold just two glasses’ worth of wine, but they’re reusable and American made. And Black Box Wines, a company aiming to create an upscale packaged wine market, sells a Monterey County Chardonnay in a 3-liter—you guessed it—black box.

If all of this is making you curious, you can be sure that a multitude of alternative format wines are out there just waiting to be poured—from everything but that 750-milliliter bottle.

now, you can find Emery’s Bobcat Red blend at Main Street Garden Café in Soquel, and hopefully more venues as word spreads.

At Sones Cellars in Santa Cruz, Rachel Morphy refills her bottle with the winery’s popular Hedgehog Red blend.

Deborah Luhrman

EDIBLE NOTABLES

Fill ’er up

By Kalia Feldman-Klein

Did you hear about that new bakery-café, Filling Station? What was that? The Bakery Station? The Truck Stop? Are they the same place? The answer is, no: They’re three totally different yet equally vibrant ventures.

But you’d be forgiven if you got them mixed up: All three are located at repurposed, early 20th century gas stations, and all three are run by ace cooks and community-minded visionaries. They also each offer up food that you don’t normally associate with gas stations: fresh, seasonally driven fare cooked with local, organic ingredients.

At Santa Cruz’s Filling Station, owners Amber Turpin and David Stimpson grow the ingredients for many of the treats they serve, like homemade mint, grapefruit and apple sodas and warmfrom-the-oven fruit and vegetable hand pies.

Outside, Turpin and Stimpson’s friend and business partner Fran Grayson offers a Latin American menu with an Asian flair from her food truck, The Truck Stop. Favorites are breakfast tacos and arepas—fried cornmeal cakes filled with meat and vegetables.

In Salinas, The Bakery Station, run by Ana Melissa Garcia and Erika Olivarez, delivers an array of artisan breads and pastries as well as spectacular sandwiches, like the Road Hog—a pulled pork number with a tangy whiskey sauce on a house-baked brioche roll.

The Bakery Station: 202 Monterey St., Salinas, www.bakerystation.com • Filling Station: 1500 Mission St., Santa Cruz, www.fillingstation1500.com • The Truck Stop: in front of Filling Station, www.thetruckstopsc.com.

Amber Turpin and David Stimpson in front of Filling Station.

Fran Grayson getting ready for the rush at Truck Stop.

Life-long friends Ana Melissa Garcia and Erika Olivarez.

The Bakery Station

Bottom Photos: Terry Manier; Middle Photo: Ted Holladay; Top Photo: Kalia Feldman-Klein

Edible Notables Barking up a new tree

By Deborah Luhrman

You might call it food from the future. A Salinas man is embracing the ecologist’s mantra “reuse, repurpose, recycle” and inventing new foods made from the byproducts of local artisan beer and wine making.

Hidden away in a corner of an old airplane hangar at the Marina airfield, former sculptor Jeff Dubin has built a top-secret test kitchen where his studio used to be. He turned his kiln into an oven and started mixing batches of flatbreads, teas and vinegars.

“At this time in my life I just wanted to do something that is fun, useful and creative,” he says. So he founded Dubiansky’s EcoDeli and is working to market his first product—a flatbread called Beer Bark.

Beer Bark is a deliciously crunchy cracker—but surprise! It’s made with malted barley and brewer’s yeast left over from the alemaking process at Carmel Valley Brewing. Usually these byproducts would be composted, but Dubin is trying to give them a new life as what he calls “sustainable haute cuisine.”

“Our local brewers and winemakers use only the best ingredients, so there’s an enormous amount of high-quality flavor and nutrition left in these byproducts,” says Dubin, who studied biochemistry in college and currently bakes at Claudio’s Specialty Breads in Castroville.

Beer Bark is a high-fiber, high-protein flatbread, with the slightly sweet flavors of malt and yeast. Encrusted with roasted sesame and sunflower seeds, it has wowed the tastebuds of people who have sampled it at Montrio Bistro in Monterey and at its debut at the Monterey Beer Festival in October.

Eco-Deli joins a small but dedicated group of businesses in the Monterey Bay area that are committed to making the most out of bountiful local harvests. Carolyn Swanson’s Pacific Grove company, Gnarly Nature Organic Produce, for example, supplies local restaurants with fruits and vegetables that are just too ugly to sell to consumers, but work fine in soups or sauces. Others rescue fruit from neglected orchards, like Colleen Logan’s Carmel-based Savor, for which she cooks up low-sugar, fruit-forward jams, and the Santa Cruz Fruit Tree Project, started by Steve Schnaar, which produces cider, chutney and other canned treats.

Dubin, who grew up in New York City, had been thinking about all the wasted produce left behind as the fields around Salinas are picked. At the same time he was reading a book called Save the Deli by David Sax about the demise of the family-owned Jewish deli in America.

“I come from an Eastern European Jewish heritage, where my grandma and great aunts used to cook up a storm. They had that European ethos that comes from poverty and used every tidbit of food to make something,” he says.

From top, Eco-Deli’s Beer Bark flatbread, Jeff Dubin and his merlot tea.

The concept for the Eco-Deli line of products all came together for him during a tour of Carmel Valley Brewing, led by Monterey Peninsula College culinary teacher Paul Lee. There he saw used vats of valuable malted barley, which had been heated up and macerated in water for only an hour at the start of the 13th century-style alemaking process used by the brewery. It was a light bulb moment.

In addition to Beer Bark, Dubin has developed a Chardonnay reduction molasses and a tea made from the roasted grape skins and seeds left over from the winemaking process.

The merlot tea, for example, is a pretty rosé color and has a pleasant fruity taste.

He’s also experimenting with making vinegar from wine pomace, and baking up a bialy—a bagel-like staple of New York delis— using more malted barley from the brewery and perhaps the addition of mashed olives left over after the oil is extracted.

With a test kitchen full of unusual gleaned ingredients and a head full of ideas, the Eco-Deli is set to take off…just like the small planes that share that old airplane hangar.

To shop at the Eco-Deli, go to www.eco-deli.com or email Dubin at jeff@eco-deli.com.

Deborah Luhrman

EDIBLE NOTABLES VINTAGE REPORT

By Pete Rerig

It’s early November in the Santa Lucia Highlands, and there’s a flurry of activity on the 49 acres of the Double L Vineyard, home of Morgan Winery. Pickers move down row after row of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah and Reisling grapes, plucking fat bunches from the vines. Trucks ride along the dirt roads, loading up hundreds of containers ready for transport to the winery’s facility in Salinas, where they’ll be pressed and most will be placed into French oak barrels where they will be transformed into award-winning wines.

It’s a scene going on throughout Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties, and yet it’s unusual. Why? Because it’s happening so late. We’ve had odd weather this year, but local winemakers are cautiously optimistic about what the season’s unusual climatic curveballs will yield when the wines emerge from their barrels anywhere from nine months to two years from now.

“The picking is usually wrapped up by now,” says Kristina Banks, marketing coordinator for Morgan Winery. “But we’ve had a longer growing season and more rain than we’re accustomed to from a typical year.” So far, Banks notes, all seems fine at the Double L Vineyard, which was the first in the Santa Lucia Highlands American Viticultural Area to garner both “Certified Organic” and “Certified Sustainable” recognition.

“The cool spring and summer slowed ripening but we were not worried,” says proprietor and winegrower Dan Morgan Lee. “With a smaller crop, healthy, organic vines and the warm weather we experienced in October, the ripening process had the opportunity to advance nicely.”

At Bernardus Winery in Carmel Valley, the harvest and its potential impact on this year’s vintage was a hot topic at the winery’s

annual wine dinner on Oct. 21. (See related story on the EMB blog at www.ediblemontereybay.com.)

Bernardus winemaker Dean De Korth sees no problems for this year’s harvest, and is in fact expecting a banner year. “We had a slow start to the season with those late spring rains, but the recent warm and clear weather has been great,” says De Korth. “We’re seeing a slight dip in yield, with smaller grapes and clusters, but the quality of the fruit is phenomenal, and I’m really excited about the vintages that we’ll be seeing.”

Judy Schultze at boutique winery Windy Oaks in the Santa Cruz Mountains echoes De Korth’s sentiments, reporting late harvests of their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes due to the cooler summer, as well as lower yields due to a late fruit set in May of 2010. “We also had some minor mold issues from the summer rain, but dealt with them quickly,” says Schultze, who with her husband Jim is also looking forward to a year of super high-quality vintages.

Mike Waller, winemaker at Calera Winery in Hollister, is also confident about this year’s harvest. “We’re on our second year of plentiful rain, and the weather has been cool but sunny at just the right time,” says Waller. “Fortunately for us we didn’t see any frosts during bud break, and we had great growth in springtime. The only thing we saw was a bit of shatter during bloom and heavy mildew pressure, but we were able to keep it under control, and we’ve had great fall weather to get us to the finish line. I’m finding that our grapes are coming in with higher acid, but they’ve reached that magical ripening point.”

Morgan Winery’s Double L Vineyard

“We’re seeing a slight dip in yield, with smaller grapes and clusters, but the quality of the fruit is phenomenal, and I’m really excited about the vintages that we’ll be seeing.”

Dean De Korth, winemaker at Bernardus

Edible Notables Salvage Beauty

By Deborah Luhrman

A newcomer to the Pacific Grove restaurant scene, il vecchio restaurant has made sustainability something of an art form. The alreadypopular trattoria, just opened in August, is decorated almost entirely with reclaimed and salvaged materials collected and artistically assembled by the owner’s daughter.

The first thing you notice on entering is the warmth that comes from old barn wood-clad walls, a gleaming oak bar, an enormous Carmel stone fireplace and glowing chandeliers made from rusted industrial mixers.

“We wanted to give the restaurant a patina, and the fact that everything already comes with a history adds so much,” says 24-yearold artist Ariele Alasko, the daughter of owner Carl Alasko—a local psychotherapist and columnist for the Monterey Herald.

Ariele is a graduate of Monterey High School. She moved to New York to attend Pratt Institute and settled in Brooklyn where she builds furniture from scavenged materials. The bar at il vecchio, for example, is built from old oak kneelers that she rescued from the

basement of a Lutheran church in Brooklyn just before they were sent to the dump.

Last March, Ariele and a friend made a cross-country trip in a 16-foot rental truck loaded with her finds from Brooklyn. They collected more furniture and materials on the way. Then she worked for more than five months—day and night—to create the restaurant’s interior.

The menu was a collaboration with another daughter, Saroja, who lives in Rome, and her friend Luciano Flamini—owner of Rome’s renowned trattoria Maccheroni. It features pastas made inhouse with organic flour and eggs, topped with the highest-quality fresh ingredients. One of the favorites comes from the mountains of Abruzzo east of Rome, Pappardelle con ragù d’agnello, lamb slowcooked in red wine and served with house-made, wide-cut pasta.

“Our recipes are very simple. Nothing is pre-prepared, and nothing is frozen. We start from scratch everyday, so everything is fresh,” says Carl Alasko, whose last restaurant adventure was an Indian place in Rome some 38 years ago.

Il vecchio (the old one in Italian) also serves authentic Italian entrees and desserts, and has an exciting wine list that combines local and Italian labels—all with reasonable prices that reflect the restaurant’s ambition to be a fun, family experience.

il vecchio • 110 Central Avenue • 831.324.4282 www.ilvecchiorestaurant.com

Carl Alasko with his daughter, Ariele Alasko.

Deborah Luhrman

“Our recipes are very simple…We start from scratch everyday, so everything is fresh.”

MONTEREY BAY

WINTER FARMERS’ MARKETS

These markets are open all winter long; come out to meet and support your local farmers!

APTOS

Aptos Farmers’ Market—Cabrillo College

6500 Soquel Dr., Aptos 831.728.5060

Saturdays, 8am–noon Open year round, rain or shine montereybayfarmers.org

MARINA

Marina Certified Farmers’ Market

215 Reservation Rd., Marina 831.384.6961

Sundays, 10am–2pm Open year round everyonesharvest.org

MONTEREY

Monterey Fairgrounds Certified Farmers’ Market

2004 Fairgrounds Rd., Monterey 831.235.1856

Mondays, 10am–dusk Open year round, weather permitting

Monterey Peninsula College

980 Fremont St., Monterey 831.728.5060 Fridays, 10am–2pm Open year round, rain or shine montereybayfarmers.org

Old Monterey Marketplace

321 Alvarado at Pearl St., Monterey 831.655.2607

Tuesdays, 4–7pm (winter) Open year round, rain or shine oldmonterey.org

PACIFIC GROVE

Pacific Grove Farmers’ Market

Central & Grand Aves., Pacific Grove 831.384.6961

Mondays, 4–7pm Open year round everyonesharvest.org

SALINAS

Alvarez High School Farmers’ Market

1900 Independent Ave. at Boronda Rd., Salinas 831.905.1407

Sundays, 8am–2pm Open year round champfarmermarkets@comcast.net

Boronda Square Farmers’ Market

North Sanborn & Boronda Rds., Salinas 831.905.1407

Fridays, 4–8pm Open year round champfarmermarkets@comcast.net

Salinas Old Town Marketplace

100 S. Main St. & Central Ave., Salinas 831.905.1407

Saturdays, 9am–2pm Open year round oldtownsalinas.com/market.asp

SANTA

CRUZ

Downtown Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market

Lincoln and Cedar Sts., Santa Cruz 831.454.0566

Wednesdays, 1:30–5:30pm (winter) Open year round, rain or shine santacruzfarmersmarket.org

Live Oak/Eastside Market

East Cliff Shopping Center 21511 E. Cliff Dr., Santa Cruz 831.454.0566

Sundays, 9am–1pm Open year round, rain or shine santacruzfarmersmarket.org

Westside Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market

2801 Mission St. near Western Dr., Santa Cruz 831.454.0566

Saturdays, 9am–1pm Open year round, rain or shine santacruzfarmersmarket.org

SCOTTS VALLEY

Scotts Valley Farmers’ Market

Scotts Valley Community Center 360 Kings Village Rd., Scotts Valley 831.454.0566 Saturdays, 9am–1pm Open year round, rain or shine santacruzfarmersmarket.org

SEASIDE

Seaside Farmers’ Market

University Plaza

1760 Fremont St. at Echo, Seaside 831.905.1407 Mondays, 4–8pm Open year round champfarmermarkets@comcast.net

WATSONVILLE

Watsonville Certified Farmers’ Market

Peck & Main Sts., Watsonville 831.234.9511 Fridays, 3–7pm Open year round, rain or shine

Watsonville Fairgrounds

Certified Farmers’ Market

2601 E. Lake Ave., Watsonville 831.235.1856 Sundays, 8am–4pm Open year round

WINTER FARMERS’ MARKETS BY DAY

Monday: Monterey, Pacific Grove, Seaside

Tuesday: Monterey

Wednesday: Santa Cruz

Friday: Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz, Watsonville

Saturday: Aptos, Salinas, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley

Sunday: Marina, Salinas, Santa Cruz, Watsonville

David Gomez/Istockphoto

WHAT’S IN SEASON?

CARRIED AWAY’S KABOCHA SQUASH AND SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH GINGER, LEMONGRASS AND COCONUT MILK

By Amber Turpin Photography by Terry Manier

When the winter chill sets in and our days become shorter and shorter here on the Central Coast, some chefs reach for butter and oil to give comfort food its richness. Others are more apt to amp up their dishes with a warming kick from seasonings like chilies, garlic and ginger.

The seasonal recipe offered here by Tom McNary of Carried Away in Aptos for Kabocha Squash and Sweet Potato Soup provides both comfort and a kick—and makes the most of produce that is still available fresh during the Monterey Bay region’s coldest months. And despite its creamy consistency, it is highly nutritious and even dairy free.

“Any winter squash will do, but the kabocha has a nice flavor and nice consistency. You want a squash that breaks down well, so we use kabocha or buttercup from Mariquita Farm for this soup,” says McNary, who worked for Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse early in his career and shares Waters’ commitment to seasonal cooking and supporting local farms.

“It is also important to use good sweet potatoes, without any bruising or softness. This is a vegan soup, made with coconut milk, so it’s very warming for the winter season but also light and healthy.”

The soup isn’t difficult to make, but when you don’t have time to cook, you can pick it up for carry out or enjoy it in Carried Away’s green-certified café.

Carried Away • 7564 Soquel Drive 831.685.3926 www.carriedawayfoods.com

MORE RECIPES: For two more seasonal recipes from McNary, Wild Mushroom and Leek Quiche with Thyme and Gruyère Cheese, and Creole Dungeness Crab Quiche with Parsley and Parmesan, visit www.ediblemonterybay.com.

Kabocha Squash & Sweet Potato Soup with ginger, lemongrass and coconut milk

Courtesy of Chef Tom McNary of Carried Away

Serves 8-10

1 large yellow onion, sliced 3 cloves garlic, sliced 3 tablespoons peeled sliced ginger 6 stalks lemongrass, bottom parts peeled and roughly chopped 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 4 cups peeled and cubed kabocha squash 4 cups peeled and cubed sweet potatoes 6-8 cups vegetable stock or water 3 cups coconut milk 4-5 teaspoons kosher salt 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

In a large soup pot, heat oil over lowmedium heat. Add onion, garlic, ginger and lemongrass and cook until very soft, covering pot and stirring occasionally to prevent browning. Add squash, sweet potatoes and enough stock or water to just cover vegetables. Stir to combine. Add coconut milk, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer, uncovered for about 20-30 minutes or until squash and potatoes are completely softened. Carefully purée mixture in blender or food processor until smooth. Strain through sieve for a velvety consistency and adjust for seasoning. Optional: Garnish with a mixture of finely chopped scallions, pickled ginger and wakame (edible seaweed).

URBAN FOOD SHED Food and Art Grow together in Sand City

Story and Photography by Deborah Luhrman

Of all the quirky places around the Monterey Bay, one of the quirkiest must be Sand City. Just 334 inhabitants live in the tiny “city” wedged between the tallest sand dunes on the Monterey Bay, Highway 1 and two mammoth, big-box complexes, home to ubiquitous stores like Costco and Target.

But turn the corner, and things start to get much more interesting.

Long a warehouse and industrial district, Sand City, like similarly edgy, blank urban canvasses in metropolitan areas all over the country, has attracted a sizeable number of local artists and galleries looking for large, cheap spaces. And as in other places, these artists have helped revitalize the city and attract attention to it. Now, there’s an effort underway to enlist some sizzle from the culinary arts.

“Creative energy needs to be fed,” says Patrick Orosco, a principle in the Orosco Group, a local boutique real estate development company, and a former president of the Seaside-Sand City Chamber of Commerce.

Orosco, along with his father Don and brother Chris, recently purchased Sand City’s bankrupt Design Center and have rechristened it The Independent.

“The name reflects Sand City’s identity as a little, maverick, doit-yourself town, with a healthy tax base and its own desal water source,” he says. Orosco—who has a degree in urban design from Stanford—plans to turn The Independent, already a mixed-use complex of apartments, artists’ studios and forward-thinking businesses, into the social and cultural hub of Sand City by bringing in restaurants and cafés and sponsoring food-oriented special events.

Patrick Orosco in front of The Independent.

Sand City—named for the sand mines that operated here until the 1960s—already has an artsy, urban vibe, but many visitors from around the region only experience it during the West End Celebration that takes place each August.

Drawing on the street fair atmosphere of the West End Celebration and a growing sense of community in the area, The Independent’s new owners want to help nurture Sand City’s reputation as a year-round draw for people interested in great art and food.

The Orosco Group has already brought in a friendly craft beer pub called Post No Bills, which offers hard-to-find bottles from all over the world and 13 beers on draught. (See “Brewing Community,” p. 30.)

Now, they’re looking to add a cult coffee-roasting café—like Verve in Santa Cruz or Blue Bottle in Oakland—and want to open a wine bar, as well as a casual “foodie” restaurant.

By spring 2012, they plan to start a monthly gourmet farmers’ market featuring specialty produce, a CSA pickup point, cooking demonstrations, music and a corral for food trucks like Sand City’s famed Babaloo Cuban cuisine. If all goes well, the market will become weekly by next summer.

The Independent will also occasionally host the FÜD pop-up restaurant created by Sand City resident Victoria Lara. And it will continue to host a series of art shows that started last August with a hugely popular exhibit by graffiti artist Shepard Fairey. From mid-January to mid-February the exhibition space hosts the show Transcendent Visions, a Japanese-inspired collection of contemporary sculpture, painting and photography.

And nearby, Sweet Elena’s Bakery—a long-time food lover’s attraction in Sand City—will host one of Gabriela Guede’s underground supper club dinners in early January and its own 20th anniversary open house in March.The open house will benefit Hamilton House, an emergency shelter for displaced and battered women.

If you’ve thought about living or setting up shop in Sand City, you might be interested in knowing that the Oroscos are adding 30 additional lofts and artist studios to the existing 30 apartments on the upper floors of The Independent. And if it becomes as popular as they hope, they could add 60 more units.

Meanwhile, Sand City’s community spirit is thriving: Earlier this year, a group of local residents pitched in together to create a lovely community garden, with planting beds, a worm farm, log benches and a barbeque pit.

“It’s just incredible how the garden project has brought together the whole town; everybody’s contributed a little something,” says painter Suzka Collins, who initiated the garden.

The Independent and Post No Bills are located at 600 Ortiz Ave., Sand City, www.600ortiz.com

• Babaloo Cuban Cuisine: www.babalootruck.com

• Sweet Elena’s Bakery: 465D Olympia Ave., Suite D, www.sweetelenas.net • Dates for FÜD pop-up dinners: www.facebook.com/a.popup.restaurant.

A mural in Sand City.

ON THE FARM Humane Harvest

Lisa Knutson’s Pasture Chick Ranch is all about compassion

By Lisa Crawford Watson Photography by Rob Fisher

The fog is lifting from the depths of the Gabilans, revealing the beauty of the burnished landscape beneath the dark and brooding mountains, but not yet lighting the sky. Within the hour, the sun will burn hot and bright, relentless across the open fields.

A two-lane highway bisects the endless rows of promise or regret, depending on the pasture. Vans line up along dirt roads within verdant fields, waiting like tethered horses for workers to straighten their bowed backs after another day of harvesting someone else’s yield. Earth, unplanted, extends across acres, glistening like ground coffee in the sun.

Dust billows from a backhoe as it grooms the fallow land behind miles of wire fencing anchored to weatherworn posts. An orchard of leafy trees marches up a hillside punctuated by cattle in silhouette. Now and then a palm tree stands naked and alone, providing the shelter of shade to a farmhouse.

Ground Squirrels scurry across the pavement on a dare and disappear into the straw at the side of the road. Turkey vultures inspect an animal beyond caring. A horse, nibbling at a carpet of hay, looks up. San Benito County is coming to life.

Lisa Knutson bursts out of her Hollister farmhouse with arms lifted, inviting a hug. At her hip is Cooper, a white dog with kind eyes and a strong head, one of 10 guardians that keep her farm alive. In the bed of her white Ford pickup, three border collies stand like sentinels, awaiting command. And bouncing among them is Temperance, a three-year-old mini poodle who is not much bigger than an adolescent hen but thinks she’s one of the collies.

“I’d offer some Camembert cheese from the French Alpines I milked this morning,” says Knutson, gesturing to an assembly of goats gathered at the fence, “but it’s not ready. It needs to age for six or seven weeks. It’s just something I make for family and friends.”

Although she has run her ranch for just three years, Knutson, born in San Juan Bautista and raised in Hollister, has been preparing for this opportunity all her life. Pasture Chick Ranch, a nod to herself and the chickens she raises out on pasture, is the realization of a dream that didn’t actually become clear until she was out in the fields, feeding her chickens, tending her goats and helping her collies herd sheep.

“My life as a child was this,” she says. “My dad was a farmer at heart, and highway patrolmen didn’t make much money, so he raised cows, butchered turkeys and cultivated a huge garden. Before this I owned a day spa in Hollister, but I got really sick, doing something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do. I did a good job—the spa was voted best in the community, and it made a lot of money—but it was like putting on a costume and being convincing on stage. I, too, am a farmer at heart.”

So Knutson leased nearly 300 acres of rich, untended land across the street from her home and looked into buying chickens. Neighbors Vince and Amy Zuniga suggested she start with heritage birds— those that have been with us forever, she says, where chickens began. But she found these heirlooms didn’t yield enough meat or eggs to be economical. So she focused her funds and expectations on freedom rangers: slow-growing birds bred to benefit from life on the open fields, with fresh air, clear light and room to wander.

“I grow my chickens on pasture,” says Knutson, “and they’re organic. This means their feed is from a certified organic mill. They’re on the ground, which has not encountered pesticides in at least three years. They have to have a minimum of space to move; mine are like kids with a whole playground. And they are sheltered by a little house we move as the grass shifts. The lowlands are green all year long, perfect for my chickens.”

Knutson scratches her poodle behind the ears, promises she’ll be back and sets her on the front seat of her Ford before lifting a bucket of chicken feed from the back. She speaks to her collies in short bursts of command, mostly monosyllabic, warmed by tone. She disengages the electric fence, clears it with a single step and greets the chickens collecting at her feet as she pours feed into a 1930s metal chicken feeder she found at Fat Willy’s Antiques in San Juan Bautista.

She speaks to the chickens like she might a class of kindergarteners: warm, kind and direct but with an undertone that says she knows they’re not hers. There is a difference between pets and product, but only Knutson is aware of it on the pasture.

Come the weekend, she will harvest 100 chickens for sale. Her husband of 25 years, engineer Courtney Knutson, will help her, but the killing is something she does herself.

“I start it and I end it,” she says. “These are happy chickens; they have no clue. There is nothing humane in my mind about animals dying, but I make it as easy as it gets for a chicken.” She picks up a hen and croons; it settles in her arms.

“I do it myself because I don’t want them to be more frightened or scared than they have to be. I put them on my lap and distract them, kind of like when getting a shot from the doctor. I tell them it’s not going to get any worse than this, then I open up an artery. They get tired, and it’s over.

“I love these birds; they are sweet and kind. But they are our food. Their body content is wonderful. They are perfect for their lot in life; they take it in stride.”

Knutson also has a couple hundred Americanas, Cuckoo Marans, Delawares, Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, which yield a kaleidoscope of colored eggs she gathers in a wide wire basket.

“When you have to pay $7 for organic eggs,” she asks, “don’t you think when you open the box you should say, ‘Ah, the Easter Bunny was here? ’”

This pasture chick also brought in 100 Cashmere goats and just as many Merino lambs for fiber or mild meats. She picks up a kid just to feel the softness. She studies a pair of adult sheep in the distance, whose wool, she says, looks like a 1930s camel’s hair coat.

Knutson climbs back into her truck, moves Temperance to the console and begins to amble down the rutty path. “You know,” she says, “if you hurry an animal, you’ll cause chaos. The slower you go, the faster you’ll get there.” She admires a pair of mallards gliding across a pond and the empty bench she sometimes fills, if only for a moment. “You just don’t know how tired you are until you stop. But it’s a rich life I have, which is important to remember, so I don’t lose sight of it when I’m tired.”

Knutson returns to the 1916 farmhouse she has shared with her husband for the last 15 years and looks forward to sharing with many others. “This house,” she said, “has 14-foot ceilings and a 20-foot porch that wraps all the way around it. Or, at least it does in my mind. I used to think it needed all that before I could invite people in to experience all this.

“People need to know that not all commercial farming is ugly; my community is a wonderful bunch of people committed to producing local, sustainable and organic food and products. Others need to know they can come out here and get a glimpse of it, taste it, touch it, understand what sustainable organic farming is all about. Porch or no porch, I’m just going to call people up and start cooking.”

Pasture Chick Ranch sells directly to the consumer through Phil and Katherine Foster’s Pinnacle Organics, San Juan Bautista; Live Earth Farm CSA, Watsonville; and Greenhearts Family Farm CSA, San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. Meats may be ordered at Jesse Cool’s Flea St. Café, Menlo Park, and prepared by Chef Carlos Canaba.

RECIPE: Please go to www.ediblemonterybay.com for Pasture Chick’s French Chicken in a Pot.

Lisa Knutson on her Pasture Chick Ranch; on p. 20, her heritage turkeys.

“When you have to pay $7 for organic eggs, don’t you think when you open the box you should say, ‘Ah, the Easter Bunny was here? ’”

WINTER FORAGING

The Cult of the Wild Mushroom

Chanterelles, Morels, and the hunters and cooks who covet them

By Deborah Luhrman Photography by Bradley Dunbaugh, Terry Manier and Patrice Ward

If people were divided according to their preference for summer or winter, I would definitely be a summer. Loads of outdoor activities fill my long, sunny summer days and make me happy, while our gray, wet winters here on the Central Coast tend to keep me inside by the fireplace, longing for summer. But this winter is going to be different. I’m joining the cult of the wild mushroom.

The oak-studded fields and damp forests of the Monterey Bay region are among the best places in the country to forage for wild mushrooms, and there are hundreds of wild mushroom hunters here. Some are scientists, some are foodies, some are nature lovers and others are just plain eccentric. But all the foragers I’ve met say the same thing: Foraging fills up the winter months, and it’s addictive.

“It’s like gold fever,” says bartender Mark Marron, who has been hunting mushrooms on the rugged Big Sur coast for 30 years. “There’s a certain scent and then you zero in on one and then another and another.”

Marron says he looks forward to the rainy season and enjoys being outdoors when it is fresh and you can see raindrops glistening from the spider webs.

Fan-shaped chanterelles are one of the most delicious and popular mushrooms to hunt in Big Sur. They are also among the easiest to identify and they grow big there, sometimes topping one pound per mushroom. Chanterelles tend to grow around oak trees and start appearing in December throughout our area. The best time to find them is two or three weeks after a deep, soaking rain.

Marron sells chanterelles to local restaurants, like Mundaka in Carmel, and he uses them behind the bar of Big Sur’s Fernwood resort, where he keeps a shaker of chanterelle salt on hand for dusting the rim of glasses on his Bloody Marys. Occasionally he will mix a batch of chanterelle vodka, which he describes as “golden colored, silky textured and mushroom flavored.”

Beyond chanterelles

Up on the north coast of Santa Cruz County, 39-year-old surfer Jeff McCracken of Bonny Doon hunts mushrooms all winter to help support his family.

“I always go out in full camouflage looking like a ninja warrior,” he says. “It’s a real thrill to be living off the land.”

His most lucrative day came the spring after the Bonny Doon fire, when he and a friend headed into the burned out forest and collected five laundry baskets of morel mushrooms, which he sold to restaurants in the San Francisco area for $1,200. On an average day, he says he can make up to $800 for a few hours of foraging.

Morels flourish in burned out areas and places the soil has been disturbed, like plowed orchards or creek beds. They look somewhat like a sponge on a stalk and are also among the easiest to identify. But McCracken also forages for a dozen other varieties of wild mushrooms to sell to local restaurants, like Ristorante Avanti in Santa Cruz. He learned mushroom identification while growing up in Bolinas, from a well-known forager there who goes by the name “Eat Dog.”

People who forage for profit are indeed a rare breed. One of the most successful wild mushroom foragers in Santa Cruz declined to be interviewed for this article, saying he prefers to remain under the radar. And of course no professional forager will ever divulge his secret hunting spots. Mushroom gathering is banned in California State Parks, so the best places to go are on private property or in the Los Padres National Forest. For those interested in foraging as a hobby, there are plenty of great resources in our area.

Mycophobia

Software engineer Mikey Cohen has been foraging wild mushrooms for fun since his college days at UCSC and teaches others how to identify edible fungi.

“It’s like Easter egg hunting for grown-ups,” he says of his class offered through Free Skool Santa Cruz.

“People have mycophobia or fear of wild mushrooms, but it’s not that complicated,” he claims. Of course, no one should eat a mushroom picked in the wild unless they are 100% sure it is not poisonous. And every mushroom hunter should learn to identify the toxic death cap mushrooms or amanita phalloides, which grow throughout our area. But with proper instruction and precautions, wild mushroom foraging is a great way to commune with nature.

“It helps you connect with your local natural environment, with the weather and with the health of the forests and gives you a sense of place,” he says, adding that picking a mushroom is like picking a fruit and doesn’t harm the fungus living underground.

Cohen likes to forage for flavorful boletes, a category that includes the highly prized porcini or boletus edulis mushrooms. In our area they grow near pine forests, especially the stands of Monterey pines in Carmel Valley, and start appearing around Thanksgiving. Sometimes it takes a little poking around in the lumpy piles of dead leaves called “shrumps,” and that’s what makes finding one such a treat.

Foragers often have a kind of mystical reverence for their mushroom quarry and some only go out on the days around the full moon, when fungi seem to pop out of their hiding places. Just looking at the odd shapes and colors of some mushrooms conjures up

Bradley Dunbaugh

Fungus Federation members Nancy Chin, Pat Lovejoy and Bradley Dunbaugh display the spoils of a day spent chanterelle hunting.

thoughts of forest gnomes and fairies. More vivid hallucinations are associated with eating certain types of mushrooms—a fact that has added to their magical allure.

Cohen suspects that wild mushrooms may also have aphrodisiac properties. He once took a woman mushroom foraging and then back to his place, where he expertly prepared a pot of creamy wild mushroom soup. That woman is now his wife.

Fungus amongus

“The idea of going out and gathering something in the wild is still in our bones from hundreds of thousands of years ago,” says Phil Carpenter, who heads the Santa Cruz-based Fungus Federation.

The federation is a fun-loving, active group of more than 400 members, described as “people with above average intelligence and lots of eccentricities, who like eating, drinking and hiking.” Their motto: “When it rains, it spores.”

“We live in a perfect zone for mushrooms, not too hot, not too cold and with plenty of moisture,” says Carpenter.

Perhaps that’s why renowned naturalist and mushroom writer David Arora settled in Santa Cruz in the 1970s. He authored the encyclopedic book Mushrooms Demystified that identifies 2,000 species of mushrooms and is described by federation member Debra Johnson as “the alpha reference book for anybody on the West Coast.” He also wrote a pocket guide called All That the Rain Promises and More, and was one of the founders of the popular Santa Cruz Fungus Fair back in 1974—with the stated goal of putting the fun in fungus.

A silly sense of humor is part of the fair and permeates the federation, which was originally formed to organize the Fungus Fair. Now in its 38th year, the Fungus Fair will take over the Louden Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz from January 13-15th, 2012 and it’s a must for wild mushroom lovers. (See “Explore” box on p. 29 for more information.) The fair includes an ambitious display room where hundreds of varieties of local mushrooms are identified and arrayed in their re-created woodland habitats. There are cooking demonstrations, tastings and lectures—including a session with

David Arora, who now lives in Mendocino. There’s also a kids’ room, as well as mushroom arts and crafts.

The other great local mushroom event is the Big Sur Chanterelle Festival and Cook-Off, which takes place in February at the Big Sur Lodge in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. It is the only event in the country dedicated to the beloved chanterelle and it brings together local foragers and chefs for a weekend of food, wine and friendly competition. Last year’s winners were Chefs Cal Stamenov and Ben Spungin of Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley. (See sidebar on p. 28.)

Get involved

Carpenter recommends that beginning foragers start off slowly and concentrate on getting to know one or two species the first winter, for example, chanterelles and boletes. Novice foragers are encouraged to pair up with a knowledgeable partner or join a group, and identify all wild mushrooms before eating them.

Members of the Santa Cruz Fungus Federation get together throughout the winter for group forays that invariably end with lots of cooking and eating. In fact, this is quite a foodie group. At a recent monthly meeting, the potluck snack table was crowded with gourmet delicacies, such as a paté of porcini mushrooms, hazelnuts and caramelized onions; parsley and mushroom pesto; and homecured smoked salmon carted back from a fishing trip in Alaska.

Carpenter also offers one-day Mushroom Mania classes for beginning foragers at Garland Ranch in Carmel Valley in association with the Monterey Peninsula Regional Parks District. This winter, classes will be held on December 17th, January 21st and February 18th.

Among the more unusual local fungi these groups sometimes find are: aromatic matsutake mushrooms, which tend to pop up around tanoak and madrone trees; the bleeding milkcap, which seeps red liquid when cut; and the maple-scented candy cap, which is often used in desserts.

This is a hobby that doesn’t require much special gear. About all that’s needed is a pair of waterproof boots, a warm jacket, a wicker basket, a field guide, and for the beginner, a companion who is experienced at mushroom identification. Once the mushrooms are collected and identified as edible, another skill set comes in handy.

Different wild mushrooms lend themselves to different preparations. For example delicate chanterelles make a delicious cream of mushroom soup, while hearty boletes add depth to stock, stews and sauces.

As a general rule, slicing mushrooms thin helps the water cook out quickly and sautéing them with butter, cream or oil is best because fats intensify the mushroom flavor. Simple preparations of sautéed wild mushrooms on toast or mixed into scrambled eggs are a good way to start.

But veterans of the cult of the wild mushroom dehydrate much of their haul and cook with mushrooms throughout the year.

Just like I enjoy opening a jar of homegrown tomatoes on a chilly January night, I hope that by next summer I’ll have a big bag of dried, foraged mushrooms to cook with and fill my senses with happy winter memories.

RECIPES: See recipes from Bernardus and India Joze and other resources on p. 28 and 29.

Bonny Doon resident Jeff McCracken forages mushrooms to help support his family.

Terry Manier

Mushroom Recipes from Bernardus

Chef Cal Stamenov of Marinus at the acclaimed Bernadus Lodge in Carmel Valley says he was aiming to show off the bounty of our area when he invented the prize-winning recipe in last year’s Big Sur Chanterelle Cook-Off. The dish paired house-cured steelhead salmon roe from the Carmel River with golden chanterelles from Big Sur and curly spinach from the Salinas Valley. The result was Golden Chanterelles with Bloomsdale Spinach, Garlic Cream, Cured Steelhead Salmon Roe and Butter Croutons. Pastry chef Ben Spungin shared top honors with his Chanterelle and White Chocolate Mousse. “We’re a mushroom restaurant,” says Chef Cal. “We use every variety of wild mushroom that we can get, including truffles.”

For cool nights this winter, the chefs propose the following dishes:

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Courtesy Cal Stamenov, Chef and Culinary Director, Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley Serves 4

olive oil

2 cups mixed wild mushrooms such as chanterelle, black trumpet and morel, quartered to similar size pieces

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 3 sprigs thyme

1/2 medium onion, finely diced 1 cup carnaroli rice

4 cups hot chicken or vegetable stock

1/4 pound butter, unsalted 1/4 cup parmesan cheese white wine

1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 1 white truffle, golf ball size (optional)

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a thick-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, thyme and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté over medium heat until mushrooms have softened and garlic is fragrant. Set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in another thick-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add rice and stir slowly. Increase the heat and add a splash of white wine. Stir over rapid simmer for 2 minutes. Keep stirring to maintain even cooking of rice. Add stock 1/4 cup at a time. Keeping a soupy consistency, the whole process should take about 15-18 minutes for carnaroli rice (3-5 minutes less for arborio). Cook until “al dente.” Remove from heat. Add butter and cheese, stir in briskly to emulsify. Adjust seasoning. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve in a warm bowl with sautéed wild mushrooms and garlic. Using a truffle shaver or mandolin, shave white truffle over risotto.

Chanterelle Pot De Crème

Courtesy Ben Spungin, Pastry Chef, Bernardus Lodge Serves

8

4 cups chanterelle ice cream base (see recipe below) 3 sheets gelatin 1 cup whipped cream pinch of salt

Lightly whip the cream into soft peaks and set aside in large bowl. Bloom gelatin (sprinkle it with cold water and let it sit for 3–5 minutes). In a small pot, simmer 3 tablespoons water and dissolve gelatin. Add ice cream base and whisk on the stove for 10 seconds. Remove from heat and whisk into the whipped cream. Pour into individual cups and let set in refrigerator overnight.

Chanterelle Ice Cream Base

2 cups milk 2 cups cream 4 ounces chanterelle powder (see recipe below) 1/2 cup sugar 12 egg yolks

Combine milk, cream, chanterelle powder and sugar in a pot. Bring to a simmer for 4 minutes to infuse flavor. Place the egg yolks in separate bowl. Add a small amount of base and temper into egg yolks. Add yolk mixture to pot and stir for 5 seconds. Remove from heat and chill in an ice bath.

Chanterelle Powder

4 ounces chanterelles, cleaned

Slice chanterelles paper-thin and place in a food dehydrator for 1 1/2 days or until crisp. Place in a spice grinder and pulse into a powder.

Bernardus Lodge • 415 W. Carmel Valley Road, Carmel Valley • 831.658.3400 • www.bernardus.com

Miracle or Mushroom?

Jozseph Schultz and his Wild Mushroom Chowder

Chef Jozseph Schultz of the legendary India Joze restaurant in Santa Cruz has been involved with the Fungus Fair since its beginnings back in the 1970s. His wild mushroom soups and chowders always sell out.

Joe was a classmate of David Arora, author of Mushrooms Demystified, at UCSC and says that mushroom foraging in the Santa Cruz Mountains fills him with awe. “It’s a view of the miraculous,” he says. “The mushrooms always seem like they come from a different world.”

Mushroom fritters and chanterelle bacon—made by cooking slices of chanterelles in lots of oil over high heat until they become crunchy—are part of his Fungus Fair repertoire, but there’s no telling what he has up his sleeve this time.

EXPLORE: Mushroom classes, events and groups.

Mushroom Mania class for beginning foragers Garland Ranch, Carmel Valley Dec. 17, 2011, Jan. 21, 2012 and Feb. 18, 2012 www.mprpd.org

38th Annual Fungus Fair Santa Cruz, Jan. 13–15, 2012 www.fungusfed.org

Big Sur Chanterelle Festival and Cook-Off Big Sur, February 2011 www.bigsurchanterelle.org

Wild Mushroom Chowder

3 medium potatoes, thinly sliced 4 cups water

1/4 pound dried porcini mushrooms 1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon salt 1/4 pound bacon* 1 pound chanterelle or cremini mushrooms 3 tablespoons butter 1 red onion, diced 1 red bell pepper, chopped 1 green bell pepper, chopped 1 bunch scallions

1/2 small bunch celery 4 tablespoons flour 2 cups milk or half and half 1/2 bunch flatleaf parsley, minced 1 sprig fresh rosemary 1 sprig fresh thyme or dried 1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Boil potatoes in water with salt, bay leaf and porcinis until almost tender (about 10 minutes), reserve.

In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, fry bacon until almost crisp, remove. Add chanterelle mushrooms (or other mushrooms like oyster, cremini and morels) and fry until lightly browned. Add and melt butter; add red onion and cook, stirring, until soft but not browned. Add bell peppers, scallions, celery and flour. Stir-fry briefly, careful not to burn flour.

Add potatoes and water. Add milk. Stir over heat until lightly thickened. Stir in parsley, rosemary and thyme. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve chowder hot, spooning several pieces of bacon on top of each bowl.

*If bacon is omitted, sauté mushrooms in 2 tablespoons oil.

India Joze • 418 Front St., Santa Cruz • 831.325.3633 • www.indiajoze.com

Courtesy of Jozseph Schultz of India Joze restaurant in Santa Cruz Serves 8

Local king bolete and morel mushrooms.

Left: Patrice Ward Right: Bradley Dunbaugh

Sante Adairius: 103 Kennedy Drive, Capitola, www.santeadairius.com (Shown this page.)

Post No Bills: 600 Ortiz Ave., Sand City, www.postnobills.net

Peter B’s Brewpub: Two Portola Plaza, Monterey, www.portolahotel.com/dining/peterb.php

Corralitos Brewing Company: 2536 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville, www.corralitosbrewingco.com

Lokal: 13750 Center Street, Carmel Valley, 831.659.5886

Liquid Assets Brewing Community

Central Coast Beer Comes Into Its Own

By Renee Brincks Photography by Ted Holladay

John Benedetti started homebrewing years before he launched Sante Arcangeli Family Wines, but he believes that understanding wine made his beer better.

“You start to notice nuances,” he says. “It makes you more perceptive to aromas, perceptive to layering on the palate. It’s fun.”

Benedetti began blending his two talents by aging India pale ales (IPAs) in old wine barrels and sharing his beers while processing harvested grapes. In 2010, when he met Tim Clifford of the Santa Cruz homebrew supply store Seven Bridges Cooperative, the two developed a friendship over discussions of Belgian beers and barrelaging techniques. A year later, they decided to start their own brewery.

The 2,000-square-foot Sante Adairius Rustic Ales brewery taproom will open early next year on Kennedy Drive in Capitola. Initially, Clifford and Benedetti will pour from six taps while also serving Sante Arcangeli chardonnay and pinot noir; in the future, they’ll bottle select beer styles as well.

Benedetti says the brewery takes a classic old-school-meetsnew-school approach to its lineup, which includes sours, saisons and IPAs.

“With our IPAs, for example, we tend to build pretty lean, hoppy IPAs that focus more on aroma than absolute bitterness,” he explains.

“I’m a big fan of [the yeast strain] Brettanomyces,” adds Clifford, who is particularly proud of the pair’s Belgian-style releases. “It lends all kinds of wonderful aromas and odd flavors to beer, and brings out a lot of unique nuances.”

The fact that the Sante Adairius owners prefer to call themselves “fermentation facilitators” rather than brewers speaks to their brewing philosophy.

“My approach to making beer is to stay relaxed and let the beer evolve as it wants to,” Clifford says. “I think beers are alive. Much like people, they all have different personalities and it’s very difficult to make something that’s alive conform to your wishes...I give the beer a chance to kind of come out on its own, which in some respects is very wine like.”

As craft beer continues to expand, California breweries are cropping up in many of the same communities where wineries have already established themselves.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more local, smaller producers who are able to tap into their local markets. It’s kind of a throwback to the way it used to be, when every city had several little breweries,” says Clifford.

He and Benedetti are part of a larger movement that’s been brewing in recent years. Just as consumers are increasingly hungry for locally grown foods, so have they been thirsting for local, independent breweries that offer more variety and character than big brands. Nationwide, craft beer sales jumped 15 percent in the first half of 2011 alone, and the U.S. now boasts 1,790 breweries. That’s the highest number since 1900, according to the Colorado-based Brewers Association, and up from fewer than 100 breweries just 30 years ago. Another 725 are in the planning stages, which is nearly double the number planned last year at this time.

“Twenty years ago, people wondered how long this craft beer/microbrewery thing could keep going. And it just keeps growing,” says Paul Tye, general manager of Post No Bills in Sand City. The hybrid bottle shop/beer bar opened in June, offering 13 rotating taps and 180 types of bottled and canned beer, plus boutique wines, craft sodas and hard ciders.

While other area outlets feature extensive menus—Monterey’s Cannery Row Brewing Company pours from 73 taps, for example,

Homebrew Havens

The following Central Coast businesses are solely devoted to providing supplies and support to budding brewers. And don’t forget more diversified stores that cater to the DIY set, like Ben Lomond’s Mountain Feed and Farm Supply, which is building up its own homebrew expertise and inventory.

Seven Bridges Cooperative 325A River Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 800-768-4409 • www.breworganic.com

Bottoms Up Homebrew Supply 1143 Echo Ave., Suite C-2, Seaside, CA 93906 831-899-BREW (2739) • www.bottomsuphomebrew.com

and 99 Bottles in Santa Cruz carries an impressive draft and bottle selection—Post No Bills is unique in that customers can sample beers and then purchase their favorites to take home. With the shop’s emphasis on new releases and hard-to-find beers, guests frequently discover new styles.

“The fun thing is, I don’t have a menu. I don’t have to keep a certain type of beer stocked,” Tye says. “I can keep my case fresh and exciting, changing with the seasons and with different new brews available in the area.”

For years, only a few Central Coast standouts provided options for local beer connoisseurs. In Marina, English Ales has long turned out its pale ale, IPA, ambers and others, while Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery and Boulder Creek Brewing Company filled taps up north.

Canham-Nelson also credits places such as Trailside Café in Monterey and Carmel Valley’s Toast for the recent boost in craft beer visibility, as well as a “current wave of new breweries in Santa Cruz that are doing a phenomenal job.” Several are part of a fledgling brewer’s guild comprised of professionals from the Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Jose areas.

“We have a wonderful community of brewers here,” says Kevin Clark, head brewer at Peter B’s Brewpub in Monterey. “We meet once a month and we all bring beers, usually seasonals or something we’re proud of, and we talk about what’s coming up next...We’re really starting to come together.”

Jeff Moses, Monterey Beer Festival chief and distributor for the Hermitage and Irondale labels, believes the area’s new beer bars and breweries will attract new audiences.

“We’d like Monterey to be a beer destination,” he says. “We know the area has good wine—it’s had great wine for a long time— and we’d like to include beer lovers in the people who come to visit.”

People are starting to recognize that the greater Monterey Bay area offers more than wine and golf, agrees Merideth Canham-Nelson, who writes about beer travel with her husband, Chris, at TheBeerGeek.com. She first saw the region’s brewing community come together during the inaugural San Francisco Beer Week in 2009, when events extended south to Santa Cruz.

“In the broader beer community, we’ve been seen as a non-entity. It kind of skipped from the Bay Area down to San Luis Obispo,” she says. “More recently, with things like Post No Bills opening and Peter B’s getting a new brewer, I think we’re starting to be up-andcoming.”

The Sante Adairius’ business partners view brewers at Seabright Brewery, Uncommon Brewers and other local operations as both mentors and friends. As the region develops its own craft beer personality, Benedetti thinks that the sense of community and cooperation will distinguish it from hop-loving neighbors to the south and more established northern breweries.

“I see the Central Coast, geographically and philosophically, as the meeting point between two styles. We can bring tradition from the Pacific Northwest and that San Diego style—and some East Coast kinds of things—as influences for our beers,” he says. “Santa Cruz is known for being a free-spirited sort of place where a lot of ideas come together and diversity exists...I see the beer world here being similar to that.”

Now, new selections by Sante Adairius and others are reigniting enthusiasm.

From left: Paul Tye behind the taps at his Post No Bills and the owners of Sante Adairius in their new taproom: Melanie and John Benedetti, Adair Paterno and Tim Clifford.

New Brew: Three to Watch

Peter B’s Kevin Clark worked with wine at Pacific Grove’s Passionfish before gravitating to beer, and eventually traded his five-gallon homebrewing kit for a full-time position at Peter B’s Brewpub in the Portola Hotel & Spa. After his promotion to head brewer this summer, Clark shook up the Monterey establishment by changing yeast strains, revamping recipes and releasing a new tap menu that features fresh seasonals and English-style ales on cask. He’s also implemented a monthly beer dinner series that pairs pints with dishes by hotel chef Jason Giles, and in October he invited regional brewers to pour at the first-ever Monterey Beer Garden event.

Clark’s enthusiasm for the craft shines as he discusses flavor profiles, aromas and stylistic details.

“If you’re going to be a brewer, you definitely have to have a passion for it,” he says. “I’m just having a lot of fun.”

Next spring, Clark will launch a new hops program in partnership with Rancho Cielo, a Salinas educational facility for at-risk youth. Students will plant and care for cascade rhizomes, and after harvest, Clark will incorporate the fresh, local hops into his ales.

Corralitos Brewing Company After Luke Taylor’s initial permit application for a southern Santa Cruz County brewery was denied, he learned zoning rules would allow a winery to open in the same space. So, he went back to officials with a full set of reports and plans and made his argument again. Corralitos Brewing Company received approval this fall.

Taylor and business partner Mike Smith are aiming to open their brewery and tasting room off Freedom Boulevard in early 2012. The label will launch an American IPA, an American-style pale ale, an oatmeal stout and a hop-forward red ale. Guests will be able to sample beers and purchase growlers on site, and several Santa Cruz County restaurants will serve selections as well.

Taylor and Smith grow about a dozen hop varieties near the brewery building and in the area, and they’ll use those in harvest beers due to be released as they open their facility.

Lokal The numerous wine tasting rooms located in Carmel Valley are sure to find themselves in stiff competition for customers on sunny afternoons after an open air beer garden featuring local craft beers opens there in 2012.

The beer garden, to be located behind a beautiful flowering vine-covered wrought iron gate in the heart of Carmel Valley Village, will be an offshoot of Lokal, a new high-concept—yet laid back and well-priced—restaurant that as of press time was set to open down the block in December. Customers of the Cachagua General Store will recognize the talented hand of chef Brendan Jones, son of CGS chef Michael Jones. The name, Czech slang for local, is a reference to both Prague, where Brendan Jones and business partner Matthew Zolan owned their first bar together, and to their commitment to sourcing what they serve locally.

Lokal is not setting out to become a craft brewer itself, but it plans to commission Carmel Valley Brewing to produce a private-label, Czech-style pilsner to serve on tap in both the restaurant and beer garden. Additionally, it will pour two of Carmel Valley Brewing’s own labels, and two from Monterey Coast Brewing Company of Salinas. The one import they’ll serve is, fittingly, the Czech Pilsner Urquell.

Food Politics

The 2012 Farm Bill

Help could be on its way for Monterey Bay growers

BY DEBORAH LUHRMAN PHOTOGRAPH BY ROB FISHER

The 2012 Farm Bill—the massive piece of Congressional legislation that sets government agricultural policy for the upcoming five years— could have a big impact on the Monterey Bay region. Farmers, legislators and others in our area who’ve been following it are hopeful that it will deliver more assistance to the fruit and vegetable growers concentrated here, especially those who use organic methods.

The last Farm Bill carried a $60 billion annual price tag, with two-thirds of the money dedicated to nutrition programs like food stamps (now called SNAP) and school lunches. The remainder has gone to farmer assistance programs, including more than $8 billion a year in controversial direct payments or subsidies to those who grow certain crops—mainly wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton and corn. Corn subsidies are especially contentious as prices hit record highs this year and most of the crop is used for cattle feed, ethanol or, even worse, high-fructose corn syrup.

Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr (D-Carmel), the ranking Democrat on the powerful Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, explains that commodity subsidies were enacted during the Great Depression as a way of protecting Midwestern farmers from nefarious silo operators who would stockpile grain and try to control the

market. It was also intended to ensure that farmers continued to grow food as a national security measure to avert food shortages.

Fast forward 80 years and the subsidies seem out of sync with current priorities.

“Although our agriculture policy is still dominated by commodity subsidies, our nutrition policy is trying to get people to eat healthy foods and get a decent amount of exercise,” says Farr.

Here in California, subsidies go to growers of cotton ($198 million in 2009) and rice ($73 million in 2009), while growers of healthy fruits and vegetables get nothing.

“In the last Farm Bill we were able to put more money into organic and specialty crops,” says Farr. “They don’t want to be subsidized. They wanted to have more money for basic research and more money for market promotion, which the traditional crops all get. They just wanted to be on a par with traditional agriculture.”

Many Central Coast farmers benefit from an array of small USDA programs including Conservation grants, Beginning Farmers and Ranchers assistance and National Organic Certification CostSharing, which pays up to 75% of the cost of the certification process.

For example, Freewheelin’ Farm of Santa Cruz received $10,000 in matching USDA funds as an “Individual Development” grant. The money allowed it to buy a tractor and expand production from one-half acre to seven acres, employing three full-time and two parttime workers.

“Dollar for dollar, in terms of job creation and support for small farms, you can’t get much better than that,” says Owner Amy Courtney.

At Serendipity Farms in Carmel Valley, owner Jamie Collins was one of 15 volunteers who went to Washington, D.C. this year to help the USDA review applications for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher program.

“When I started farming in 2001, I didn’t feel there was much help or technical support. I saw so many producers go out of business because it is very difficult to get into good markets and get loans,” she says. “All the government programs are set up for big producers, and they don’t know how to deal with small farms.”

Phil and Katherine Foster and their company, Pinnacle Organically Grown Produce, use organic methods to farm 250 acres in San Benito County. The ranch below is in Hollister.

THE BATTLE AHEAD

With Washington obsessed over deficit spending and budget cuts, some people see the Farm Bill 2012 as a chance to break with tradition and put U.S. agricultural policy on a more sustainable path.

“Traditional agriculture consumes a lot of natural resources and can have a negative effect on the environment by polluting the water and soil and the air, all of which cost money to clean up,” says Susan Prolman, executive director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC).

“If government has a limited amount of money, wouldn’t it make more sense to provide incentives for good behavior and reward those who are doing a good job by not polluting?” she asks.

That may be true, but the House of Representatives recently slashed more than $1 billion from annual conservation spending, some of it mandated in the last Farm Bill.

“They already massacred our budget, and there’s a real threat of more cuts when the new Farm Bill 2012 is drafted,” says Prolman. “Cuts should be done in a thoughtful manner, so you don’t eliminate the most helpful programs first and the most destructive last.”

So rather than moving forward, efforts are underway to protect gains that were made in the last Farm Bill.

“Everything is on the chopping block, everybody’s facing budget cuts. We just want those cuts to be fair,” agrees Maureen Wilmot, who heads the Organic Farming Research Foundation, which has its national headquarters in Santa Cruz.

Wilmot says organic agriculture—with $29 billion in annual revenues—represents only 4% of the total food economy and is a small piece of the pie. But she points out that organic is a rapidly expanding sector—it grew 8% in 2010, in the middle of a big recession.

Supporters of sustainable agriculture and organic farming are up against one of the most entrenched, powerful lobbies in the nation. But it looks like the urgency to cut spending may finally lead to the elimination of the controversial direct payments to commodity farmers. Even President Obama has come out in favor of ending these subsidies.

Exactly which programs will be cut and which ones will continue to receive funding will be decided in connection with cuts

Monterey Bay Marketplace

being worked on by the Congressional Super Committee on national debt reduction. Hearings have already been held on Capitol Hill and around the country, including one in Fresno.

“Essentially the whole nutritional movement, including Edible Monterey Bay and all the Edibles, is new to government and we’re up against one of the oldest programs the government has—supporting traditional agriculture—so it is very difficult to shift money,” says Congressman Farr.

Voting on the new Farm Bill should take place sometime next year, although Washington insiders say it may be delayed until after the November 2012 elections so legislators don’t have to take positions on politically sensitive issues.

Farr’s advice is to get involved. Sign up for action alerts on the NSAC website (www.sustainableagriculture.net). And get people in your social networks involved too, especially friends and family who live in the Midwest.

Like the old adage, Farr says: “There’s no free lunch—every penny has to be worked for in the political process.”

“Essentially the whole nutritional movement, including Edible Monterey Bay and all the Edibles, is new to government and we’re up against one of the oldest programs the government has— supporting traditional agriculture—so it is very difficult to shift money,” says Congressman Farr.

OUT TO SEA

MONTEREY Bay SPOT PRAWNS

In pursuit of the prized “sweet shrimp”

Story and Photography by John Cox

The scene is an unlikely last stop for one of Monterey’s most soughtafter ingredients: a nondescript, unassuming storefront tucked discreetly in the corner of a strip mall off Route 101 in San Jose.

But inside, gleaming, blood-red loins of tuna, armored bullets of sturgeon and dozens more enigmatic species are arrayed across displays of crushed ice. Below a counter, bubbling, aerated troughs are filled with geoducks, sea snails, scallops and clams of every shape and size. The walls of the shop are also lined with tanks containing live sea creatures. A tangle of yellow eel, what appear to be grouper with Betty Boop-like eyelashes, red rock cod and Maine lobster all swim languidly against an artificial current.

To someone who loves seafood, it’s a veritable treasure trove, but none is quite as alluring as the pink, sweet-fleshed Monterey Bay spot prawns displayed prominently in a huge tank next to the door.

For almost 10 years, six days a week, a cargo truck festooned with colorful graffiti and the words “Asian Seafood” spelled out in small block letters on the side drives from this store in San Jose to the commercial wharf in Monterey.

And like clockwork, the Defense, a local prawning boat, and the truck converge beside Loulou’s restaurant.

The night’s catch, which has already been weighed on the boat and held live in a large blue tote filled with seawater, is lifted from the deck by crane and swung into the waiting cargo bay.

The driver takes the entire catch and pays on the spot.

Sometimes other empty tanks are filled with ocean water so that more fish can be picked up at Moss Landing on the return trip.

It’s a friendly transaction devoid of any haggling or negotiations; the driver often brings a bag of Bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches) and the fishermen will have a cup of fresh coffee waiting for him if they arrive at the dock first.

Above: John Aliotti and his buyer.

Opposite: fresh-caught Monterey Bay spot prawns.

Overleaf, clockwise from lower left: Tempura of Spot Prawns and Pumpkin; Camarones Mojo de Ajo; Bill Rose, John Aliotti and their buyer; the Defense; a prawn trap.

Once the prawns arrive in San Jose and are sold, most of them will be tossed in cornstarch and quickly fried, then enjoyed in their entirety—head, tail, shell and all.

Back on the wharf in Monterey, John Aliotti, captain of the Defense, exudes a level of energy and enthusiasm not expected from someone who’d gone to bed at 10 p.m. and then set off fishing at 2 a.m.—and repeats the schedule six days a week.

But Aliotti is passionate about his occupation. For him, fishing is more than a job; it’s a legacy that has been passed down through generations of his family, going back to when they first arrived from Sicily.

“You are allowed to fish with 300 pots within three miles of shore or 500 pots outside of three miles. We fish with about 120,” Aliotti says. “We are here to preserve the fishery, catch a little, pay the bills and make sure we protect it for the future.”

Aliotti and fishing partner Bill Rose set their pots 600 to 1,200 feet beneath the ocean’s surface in Carmel Canyon, just off of Point Lobos and the Highlands.

Trapping spot prawns is considered a sustainable, low environmental impact fishing method, and the pots themselves help protect the fishery. Each is assembled by hand with careful construction that enables prawns smaller than one inch to escape and reach maturity.

A few years ago, Aliotti used to sell the majority of his catch to local restaurants.

But driving around the peninsula, selling prawns a few pounds at a time from a tank in the back of a pickup became an arduous task. Chefs would demand that all of the prawns be the same size or ask for just the prawns with roe sacks.

While a wholesale buyer like Asian Fish might pay slightly less, finding someone who could take his entire catch directly from the boat saves Aliotti countless hours of time and frustration.

Little substantial research has been done on the Pacific spot prawn population, but many Japanese chefs consider California spot prawns to be the best in the world. In Japan, they are called amaebi, which translates to “sweet shrimp,” and in fact, biologically speaking, spot prawns are not prawns at all, but shrimp.

Not surprisingly, the renowned reputation and limited availability of California spot prawns mean that they sell at premium

prices. At Monterey Fish Co. on Wharf Two in Monterey, for example, just-caught prawns cost $18 per pound; after a day, the price drops to $15.

The local spot prawn fishery originated in the 1930s when prawns were inadvertently caught in octopus traps set in Monterey Bay. Since then, the fishery has expanded up and down the coast, with the majority of spot prawns now caught in Southern California.

In 2003, the California Fish and Game Commission banned the practice of trawling for prawns, citing concerns about damage to the sea floor and high bycatch, which refers to the unintended destruction of other sea creatures caught in the nets.

Currently there are 22 active prawn-trapping permits in California, most of which are located in the southern part of the state. Like real estate, these permits are often passed down from generation to generation and are extremely difficult to obtain. In Monterey, the Aliotti family has been prawning for generations. On the rare occasion that a permit becomes available, it can be costly. One was recently on the market in Southern California for well over a quarter million dollars.

Because the number of commercial licenses is limited and often they are affiliated, fishermen can help keep prices strong by limiting their overall catch, and that ultimately helps the prawn population and the sustainability of the fishery.

But even with a permit that has been passed down for generations and the price stability the permit system provides, fishing for prawns is expensive.

For starters, each prawn pot costs $60, a week’s supply of fuel can easily exceed $2,000 and insurance is about $1,000 a month. As most captains know, BOAT might as well stand for Break Out Another Thousand.

As a result, Aliotti says, trapping spot prawns will never make you rich, but it provides him with a living doing something that he enjoys. And in the summer, when the local spot prawn season is closed, Aliotti supplements that living by heading to Alaska to fish for King Salmon.

If you want to try local spot prawns, one of your best bets is at Monterey Fish as the store receives small shipments of live prawns on most mornings. Timing is critical because it’s not uncommon for the prawns to sell out within minutes of being put on display. When you do find spot prawns, you want to pick out ones that are still kicking and iridescent.

As soon as the prawn dies, enzymes from the head are released, turning the prawn a dull gray or black and spoiling the meat. When alive, the prawn meat is firm and sweet. But within a few hours of dying the meat becomes mushy and slightly bitter.

Fresh spot prawns require little in the way of preparation, so don’t be intimidated to pick up a pound and quickly sauté them with butter and garlic—or for the true prawn aficionado, simply peel and eat them raw!

RECIPES:Please turn page for prawn cleaning instructions and recipes for Camarones Mojo de Ajo and Tempura of Spot Prawns, Pumpkin and Young Pumpkin Leaves.

Local Spot Prawn Recipes

Courtesy of John Cox, chef at La Bicyclette and Casanova in Carmel

Camarones Mojo de Ajo

This interpretation of a classic Mexican shrimp recipe utilizes two of my favorite Central Coast ingredients: spot prawns and garlic. Leaving the shell on the prawns intensifies their flavor and keeps the meat moist.

2 pounds live spot prawns,* cleaned and cut in half

2 ounces unsalted butter

4 tablespoons fresh chopped garlic

3 tablespoons freshly toasted and ground guajillo chiles

1 orange (zest plus reserve juice and zest)

1 teaspoon green coriander seed, ground

2 limes cut into wedges

1 bunch cilantro

Kosher salt to taste

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan. Once the butter is frothy, add the chopped garlic. When garlic becomes aromatic, add the halved prawns and sauté until prawns are well covered with garlic and melted butter. Add the guajillo chile powder, orange zest, coriander seed and salt. Continue sautéing prawns for another 30 seconds then add the fresh orange juice. At this point the prawns should be slightly curled and firm to the touch. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Serve with lime wedges and cilantro leaves.

Cleaning:

The most important part of working with local prawns is keeping them alive. I have found the best method is to lay them in a shallow pan layered with damp towels or fresh kelp. (If you buy them at Monterey Fish on the commercial wharf in Monterey, you can pick up some kelp from the Abalone Farm next door.) It is best to clean the prawns immediately before you cook them to optimize the flavor and texture.

1. Insert a paring knife between the tail and head to sever the spinal cord and kill the prawn. You can make the prawns go dormant by putting them in the freezer for half an hour.

2. Remove the long horn or spike from the prawn either by breaking or with a serrated knife.

3. Remove the eyeballs from the prawn.

4. Cut a slit in the soft part of the shell along the bottom of the tail and try to separate the meat from the shell slightly. Doing this will enable the seasonings you use to penetrate the meat.

5. If you are unable to use the prawns right away, you can wrap them tightly and store them in the freezer, but this isn’t ideal.

Tempura of Spot Prawns, Pumpkin and Young Pumpkin Leaves

This preparation enables you to eat the entire prawns from head to tail. During the winter months I love the combination of prawns and pumpkin. The creaminess of the pumpkin is a nice contrast to the crisp prawn shells, and both have a subtle sweetness that is offset by the tender young pumpkin leaves.

2 pounds live spot prawns,* cleaned and cut in half 1 small pumpkin cut into 3-by-1/4-inch lengths

1 medium sweet yellow onion cut into wide strips

8 ounces young pumpkin leaves fine sea salt

10 cups canola oil

Tempura Batter Pumpkin Seed Aioli

Tempura Batter: Just prior to using, mix 1 cup of cornstarch with 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Add two eggs and 3 cups of soda water. Whisk gently until almost incorporated, then add 1 cup of ice.

Pumpkin Seed Aioli: Separate 3 egg yolks into a mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of finely chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon of water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Slowly whisk in 1 cup of pumpkin seed oil and 1 cup of olive oil (or stop adding oil once the aioli is the desired thickness). Season with salt and pepper.

Putting the dish together: Put the prawns, pumpkin, onion and pumpkin leaves in a mixing bowl. Spoon the tempura on top of the ingredients and then turn to cover all of the items evenly. Bring the oil to 400 degrees F in a large pot (the oil should only fill pot halfway. If you don’t have a thermometer, simply test a bit of the batter to see if it bubbles violently when added to oil). Add the items a few at a time to the hot oil. Remove when lightly browned and season with the sea salt. Repeat until all items are fried. Serve with the Pumpkin Seed Aioli.

*Shrimp may be substituted for prawns in either recipe. But if you’re considering buying imported shrimp, first read up on widely reported concerns about inspections of imported shrimp. Local is always best.

EDIBLE ARTISANS CHARCUTERIE

New masters revive an age-old craft

By Pete Rerig Photography by Ted Holladay

With the deftness of a surgeon, James Anderson, sous-chef for the Carmel restaurants Casanova and La Bicyclette, works the wheel of an enormous, cherry-red Emiliomiti reproduction of a 1930s charcuterie slicer, delicately shaving off nearly translucent pieces of goose prosciutto as Executive Chef John Cox looks on.

“Because this slicer runs at lower RPMs, it doesn’t generate the heat that electric slicers do—heat which can actually melt the fat,” says Cox. “And the fat is where the best flavors lie.”

Anderson and Cox, along with a host of local chefs and butchers from Santa Cruz to Greenfield, are practicing the ancient art of artisan charcuterie, or the preparing, curing, smoking and aging of meat—everything from prosciutto to pancetta, sausage to bacon, and dozens of more exotic cuts such as lardo, lomo and mocetta.

The trend, part of a national movement that has been blossoming for quite some time, fulfills a longing among consumers for all things handmade, local and delicious, as well as a growing need to know where their food—and particularly their meat—comes from. Meanwhile, local purveyors are reveling in their customers’ newfound appreciation of their house-prepared meats—and the customers’ willingness to pay a little more for the higher quality and better taste of something made from scratch.

“When we can control every aspect of the preparation and curing process, we know exactly what the result will be each time, and that’s not something that can be guaranteed with the mass-produced stuff,” says Cox, explaining why the restaurant makes its own. “Meat that doesn’t have the right amount of fat, is cured too long or not long enough can really be just tasteless.

“Making our own charcuterie also allows us to experiment with different flavors and aging durations—always staying within FDA and USDA standards of course—giving us the opportunity to offer fun and surprising choices to our customers,” Cox added, referring to the restaurant’s goose prosciutto, wild boar salami, and antelope mocetta.

And as Anderson notes, the local benefits go far beyond a restaurant’s customers when the chefs make an effort to procure their meats, herbs and spices locally, as he and Cox and most of the other producers interviewed for this article do.

“We buy our pigs from right down the road in Carmel Valley, from a woman who raises three different varieties fed on a diet of wild acorns,” Anderson says. “We’re supporting her; she’s supporting us; and we know exactly what we’re getting when we do wholehog processing. It’s just another link in the growing trend of eating local and sustainable foods.”

And if you have any doubt that the creation and sales of locally made charcuterie are both on the rise in this region, just walk down the street from La Bicyclette and step into Salumeria Luca.

Opened by the adjacent restaurant Cantinetta Luca in August, Salumeria Luca may be the first contemporary artisan Salumeria, or, loosely, charcuterie store, to set up in the region.

“With the rising interest in charcuterie, our goal—and our passion—is to educate local consumers,” says manager Grant Dobbie, who notes that they’ll begin curing meats in-house pending federal certification.

Currently, Salumeria Luca offers a host of different prosciutto— some imported and some domestic—along with salamis from Berkeley and San Francisco and wonderful homemade cacciatorini—also known as hunter sausage.

“We love to talk to our patrons and discover their specific tastes,” notes Dobbie. “Then, we can guide them towards products we know they’ll love. For us, it’s all about expanding people’s knowledge of what’s out there.”

THE ROVING RENEGADE

Another influential player in the local charcuterie market is John Roberts, affectionately known as the “PigWizard.”

Roberts, who works out of rented kitchen spaces throughout Monterey County, began studying butchery 13 years ago, making sausage and doing whole-animal processing at Monte Vista Market.

“I basically just started reading everything I could find on the subjects of curing and aging, and quickly discovered I had a real passion for charcuterie,” he says.

“It’s a meticulous process that takes a lot of work—discovering the proper cure durations, what herbs and spices work best, and so on. At the beginning it was a lot of trial and error—you can’t cure meat around any other produce or it will absorb unwanted flavors, for instance—but I really believe the quality we’re able to achieve in-

Opposite page, clockwise from left: Ren Hogue at el Salchichero: John Cox, La Bicyclette; Howard Walker, Freedom Meat Lockers; Chris LaVeque, el Salchichero.

dicates what a bad job the huge meat-processing plants in this country are doing.”

On a rainy day in Sand City, Roberts works a slicer, shaving his custom-recipe Italian-style salami—a favorite of his customer base— and coppa cured with coriander, mustard seed and anise. “Growing up, my mother always had hundreds of jars of canned vegetables on hand, all of it bought locally and preserved in her kitchen. I miss that, and it’s one of the main reasons I got into charcuterie.

“There’s such a huge awareness now of the importance of buying fruit and veggies from local, sustainable sources. That same awareness has not fully translated to meat yet, but I see it happening—people want to know where their food is coming from, and that’s a huge step in the right direction.”

Bringing Back the Old-Time Butcher

So where did people purchase handmade salami and sausages before industrial food operations moved in or fancy salumerias had set up shop? The local butcher, of course.

“The classic, corner butcher shop has slowly disappeared,” says Chris LaVeque, owner of the two-year-old, full-service, custom butchery el Salchichero (Spanish for sausage maker) in Santa Cruz.

“I want to bring that tradition back—the tradition of having a relationship with your butcher, of knowing where your meat is coming from.” And with the rising tide of the locavore movement, he’s poised to do just that.

Dealing with the Rules and Regs

State inspection. County inspection. Federal inspection. Mountains of paperwork. Hurdle after hurdle to jump through. Recipe, ingredient and labeling requirements. It’s little wonder trying to make a living in charcuterie is a complicated endeavor.

Of course, all of this is intended to help ensure food is safe, but the roadblocks push many entrepreneurs into an underground existence.

“It’s nearly impossible to navigate the process,” says PigWizard owner John Roberts, who as a result has opted to keep his operation on the down low, as do some area restaurants that serve their own house-made charcuterie. “Fortunately, I worked for a time at a facility that was under USDA inspection, and I know the right and wrong ways to do things.

“There’s no layer of inspection for the smaller companies, and too often county health agencies don’t understand the rules themselves. In the end, most restaurants and butchers who have the ability to do great in-house charcuterie just don’t bother.”

But with more than 13 years of experience in butchery and charcuterie, Roberts feels well qualified to make meat products that are as safe as or safer than those churned out by giant meat processing plants.

“I keep mountains of notes detailing every part of the process, from the acquisition of meat to seasonings used in curing to aging times to my final packaging,” he adds. “I did two years of pure research before I even made my first salami.”

To complete his education, Roberts plans to make an indefinite trip to Italy and Spain next year.

“I want to teach and learn, and just be where the craft of curing meat began so long ago.”

To order PigWizard products, visit www.pigwizard.com, email pigwizard@pigwizard.com, or call 831.236.1844

“Your food is only as good as your pantry, and our pantry is great,” he says, pulling out trays of wild fennel pollen gathered from fields just outside town, jars of organic honey from Soquel and container after container of exotic peppers such as espelette (a French variety grown locally), chilies and more. “It’s all about using the absolute best products and knowing where every last ingredient comes from. Our beef, for instance, comes from one mile away. I know the breeders personally, and I know they care about their stock.”

LaVeque’s dedication to quality is nowhere more evident than in his curing room, where every imaginable variety of trussed meat hangs below an old-growth redwood ceiling—plump Spanish-style chorizo, well-marbled pancetta and prosciutto, as well as bresaola, saucisson and pepperoni, some aged for only 30 days, others for a staggering two years.

“Sourcing products is difficult,” he says, “and it costs the customer more. But I’m finding that people are willing to pay a higher premium for the peace of mind that comes with eating sustainable food and supporting their local economy. I only hope the trend continues.”

See also “Bakers Bacon,” p. 47, and “The Old School Sausage Kings,” p. 48.

Casanova

Fifth Ave. and Mission St., Carmel 831.625.0501 • www.casanovarestaurant.com

La Bicyclette

Dolores St. at Seventh Ave., Carmel 831.622.9899 • www.labicycletterestaurant.com

Salumeria Luca

Dolores St. between Ocean and Seventh, Carmel 831.625.0264 • www.salumerialuca.com

PigWizard

pigwizard@pigwizard.com 831.236.1844 • www.pigwizard.com

el Salchichero 402 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz 831.423.6328 • www.elsalchichero.com

Baker’s Bacon

“I love bacon,” says British ex-pat and Montrio Bistro Executive Chef Tony Baker with a beaming smile. “But all the mass-produced bacon I found here was watery and tasteless. The bacon I grew up with was amazing, and I decided if I was going to ever offer it on my menu, I’d just have to make my own.”

So after months of testing with a veteran smoke master, Baker’s Bacon debuted on the menu at the downtown Monterey eatery a few years ago, and starting in 2011, became available to wholesalers around the country and to retail customers through Baker’s website.

“It’s definitely done in the British style—hand rubbed and smoked very slowly over applewood in a 60-year-old smokehouse.” Baker crafts three styles in all, each of them dry cured: Applewood Smoked Bacon; Natural Back Bacon, an English-style, thick sliced loin bacon; and Double Applewood Smoked Bacon, smoked for an additional six hours.

“The best bacon should be good and meaty, with just the right amount of fat,” adds Baker. “And of course, bacon is only as good as the animal it comes from, so we source the very best, wholly sustainable, naturally raised hogs.

“This is the real deal,” Baker says with no small dose of pride. “It’s the kind of bacon I grew up with, and every time I eat some, it takes me back to my roots.”

To order Chef Tony’s bacon, visit www.bakersbacon.com

The Old-School Sausage Kings

While new players are helping breathe new life into the local artisan meat world, our region also hosts a number of long-time purveyors that never gave up their trade.

Tucked into an unassuming building in the quaint downtown of Corralitos is the Corralitos Market and Sausage Company, which has been dedicated to the in-house smoking of meats and creation of hand-crafted sausages since its founding in 1956.

“At any one time, we have between 25 and 30 different kinds of sausages available,” says Dave Peterson, the current owner. “We’re off the beaten path to be sure, but our customer base is strong because people know we have a consistently good product, free of any fillers, binders and preservatives.”

Peterson and his crew can often be found at the Monterey Peninsula College farmers market on Fridays, talking up their wholly natural smoking and curing processes.

“All the herbs and spices that go into our sausages are procured locally,” says Peterson, who also notes that he buys his beef and pork from Central California farms.

So what’s the constant bestseller among his vast selection? “The Cheesy Bavarian by far, a mild beef and pork sausage with sharp cheddar cheese. It keeps our doors open and the lights on,” he says, laughing.

Just four miles south of Corralitos is another wildly popular spot for lovers of all things cured, stuffed and smoked—the Freedom Meat Lockers and Sausage Company, where for more than 40 years Howard and Debbie Walker have operated one of the most extensive smoking, curing and full-service butchery operations in the region.

And of course, like Corralitos, Freedom’s sausage offerings are vast and somewhat exotic—Portuguese Linguisa, Croatian Kobasica, Hawaiian, Swedish Potato and a host of others made from chicken. A smoked Italian mozzarella sausage has even won awards at state competitions.

In the south county agricultural town of Greenfield, Roy Richina has operated the 1,000-square-foot Roy’s Swiss Sausage Factory for more than 20 years. (The “Swiss” is a nod to his immigrant father, who taught him the art of custom sausage making when he was a boy.)

Richina produces more than 100 pounds of sausage at a time, blending pork and sirloin with a dozen secret spices, red wine and sugar. There was a time when he and his father did this manually, but using a mechanized stuffer now allows Roy’s to sell a stunning 1,500 links of several different varieties each week.

edible monterey bayWinter 2011

Cindy’s bees. Opposite: the Walters at Passionfish.

EDIBLE COMMUNITY

TED AND CINDY WALTER AND THEIR PASSIONFISH

Life-affirming, resource-sustaining, fund-raising food

By Lisa Crawford Watson Photography by Geneva Liimatta

Growing up in Carmel Valley, sheltered by oaks, pines and the simplicity of rural life, Cindy Walter nurtured a reciprocal relationship with nature. Her father showed her how to fish from a pole without disturbing anything else in the sea. Her grandmother taught her the Native American approach of accepting nothing without gratitude, of taking only what the environment could bear to lose, and of giving back to ensure yet another harvest. She also taught Cindy how to make a really fine pie.

Raised in Salinas, a valley so fertile that farmers there cultivated the “salad bowl of the world,” Chef Ted Walter understood early that the only way to live off the land was to sustain it.

“Simplicity” was in the running for the name of the new restaurant the couple decided to open just blocks from the beach in Pacific Grove. It expressed their aim to create food that is pure and simple and really, really good. But they also knew the name should reflect a menu that would focus on fish and their goal to “serve up good food and great fun.”

Some 15 years later, the name Passionfish seems more inspired than ever: The food is in fact more stunning than simple, and even on a Monday night, the restaurant buzzes with an excitement driven by the Walters’ enthusiasm for hosting a terrific experience. And gracefully, in a way that comes second nature to them, they deliver it all with a remarkable devotion to the environment, and, particularly, the world’s sea life.

“Everything we do is about sustainability,” says Cindy. “From pole-caught, wild fish to beef raised on small ranches, from zerowaste wineries to fresh, organic produce, from house-made cleansers to the natural brown paper replacing bleached white table covers, our mission is to provide something valuable and good that serves people without hurting anyone or anything else.”

Not surprisingly, the Walters’ restaurant was the first to be certified by the Monterey County Green Business Program, and its approach has not been lost on guests.

“Passionfish is one of my favorite places to eat,” says Fast Food Nation author and local resident Eric Schlosser. “Ted and Cindy Walter have a strong commitment to sustainability, the environment, local farmers, organic agriculture—and they serve great food.”

When farm-raised salmon was introduced in 1997, the Walters decided to form a personal opinion and give it a try. Once they sliced into the salmon, it stained the cutting board red.

“Down the road,” says Ted, “we started learning about the environmental impact of farming fish. We learned some farmed fish eat four to five times what fish eat in the wild. They live in pens, under which is a dead zone in the sea where sewage collects, water is stagnant and everything dies. The fish are fed chicken and live in their own waste. They are dyed an inviting red for market.”

In the restaurant’s early days, the Walters would head daily to Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf and load up the car with fresh-caught fish. At that time, fish entrees were less expensive than meat—crab was around $11 a pound, as compared to $21-$23 a pound today. Halibut, they say, has doubled in price, and salmon has tripled. Some local fisheries have closed down, and it is becoming increasingly difficult, they say, to buy fresh, local fish.

All along, the Walters worked to purchase fish responsibly, and the advent of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program in 1999 was a huge boon to their efforts.

“Once the Aquarium established Seafood Watch,” says Cindy, “we got really excited. This program helps us find sustainable seafood, something we were always trying to do on our own. Then along came this program, whose philosophy and criteria they are pushing to instill in restaurants.”

Based on the knowledge that almost 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are fished to capacity, if not beyond, Seafood Watch makes fish-buying recommendations aimed at protecting and promoting the wellbeing of world fish stocks, their habitats and other sea creatures.

“It all started with swordfish, which was going to go completely extinct within 10 years unless we stopped fishing it,” Ted says. “But there was too much money in it. So some eight or nine chefs in New York started boycotting it, creating a movement that went across the country. Once the fishermen had no market for swordfish, they stopped fishing it. The species recovered in less than five years. If this makes chefs the gatekeepers, makes them responsible for sustaining fish, so be it.”

The Walters have always set their own standards, however, and Passionfish now employs even tougher seafood selection criteria than those recommended by Seafood Watch.

“The way we run our restaurant is the way we live our lives,” says Cindy. “It nurtures us, it sustains us, and we hope it does the same for our guests. We don’t talk sustainability because it is in fashion—that would suggest it is a trend, and we see it as a lifestyle. We do it because we believe in it. Mostly, we want our guests and our family to eat well, live well and have a good time. Besides, we don’t want this to end.”

Within the rustic beauty of Carmel Valley, the Walters make their lives in a 1,400-square-foot house on a quarter acre, amid 15 fruit trees, with six chickens, two beehives and a couple of dogs.

In the time it takes to go to the grocery store, Cindy harvests honey, melts wax, makes facial cleansers and cream and concocts laundry detergent, cleaning products and toothpaste. Next she might pick fruit, gather lavender, snip rosemary and make a mulberry pie.

Cindy also spends considerable time and effort promoting legal and policy protections for the things she believes in.

She spearheaded passage of a sustainable seafood ordinance in Pacific Grove, and for the last six years, has been active on the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, representing first the At Large Community and now the Business Seat.

In early 2010, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Cindy to California’s Ocean Protection Council’s Sustainable Seafood Advisory Panel, and in 2011, Passionfish, with the Ocean Conservancy, filed a counter to a lawsuit challenging the Marine Protected Areas. Passionfish in 2010 also supported one bill intended to establish a comprehensive plan for the management of marine life resources, and another aimed at halting shark finning—

What’s cooking: Passionfish

Lately, Chef Ted Walter has been noticing that the seasons are driving his menu more than ever. Rather than dictating his own fare, he has been working more closely with local farmers, who help him access the fresh, local ingredients that will determine his offerings. This past fall, Ted bought “tons of tomatoes,” and processed and froze them himself, so he can pack the “pizzazz” of the summer fruit into his steamed mussels and lamb tagine right through spring.

“When it comes down to it,” he says, “Mother Nature plans my menu, which invites me to be open to what comes up, and keeps me constantly creative.”

The declining fisheries are a frustration for Ted and affect his menu. Mahi mahi, he says, collapsed this year by nearly 50 percent. “This is scary,” he adds. “They’ve always been like the little rabbits of the sea. Once I heard a scientist say there was too much mahi out there, which kept him up at night because it meant we had removed the predators. Once mahi collapsed, we felt very discouraged. Yet I just learned that mahi will be coming back this fall through a hand-line fishery out of Ecuador. This is a very sustainable practice, but wow, the price.” (Previously, the fish cost $4–$5 per pound; by October, it had risen to $8–$13.)

And in another encouraging development, the Walters are finding an increasing number of sources for fish that is farmed in sustainably operated, closed-container systems. This past fall, there were five such species on Passionfish’s menu: Arctic char, trout, sturgeon, catfish and striped bass.

So what will be on the menu this winter?

Walter, who was classically trained in French cooking but whose style is probably best described as playful, is constantly experimenting with new dishes. As a result, the lineup continually evolves, as does the restaurant’s award-winning wine list, created by sommelier Jannae Lizza and sold at retail.

But many winter dishes were already on the menu in the fall, and with any luck, popular demand will keep them there all winter long.

Delicacies served in October as part of more than one dish included bone marrow, foie gras and short ribs, and they were all represented in a carnivore’s dream: risotto with short ribs, finished with bone marrow instead of butter and served with fried bone marrow and foie gras.

Also on the menu was Arctic char with a fennel relish, buratta with a smoked bacon and artichoke braise and a gnocchi with house-made ricotta and tomato-sage brown butter.

RECIPE: For Walter’s recipe for Halibut with TangerineTamarind Vinaigrette, go to the “recipe” tab on our homepage, www.ediblemontereybay.com.

the cruel practice of capturing sharks, removing their fins and then throwing them back in the ocean to drown. As part of her efforts, Cindy traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with legislators on Capitol Hill.

As this issue of EMB was going to press, the Walters were auctioning off two dozen tickets to “A Dinner for Giants,” an exclusive eight-course wine dinner at Passionfish restaurant, plus a private tour of the Hopkins Marine Station’s Tuna Research and Conservation Facility. The December 3 event was to benefit the Tag-A-Giant Foundation, which is devoted to reversing the decline of Northern bluefin tuna populations.

The dinner was expected to bring in critical support for the tuna—and provide a fabulous evening for their supporters.

Passionfish • 701 Lighthouse Ave., Pacific Grove, CA 93950, 831.655.3311. www.passionfish.net

Cindy Walter’s Natural Cleaner Recipes

The Walters use these nontoxic solutions both at home and at Passionfish, which is certified by the Monterey County Green Business Association. They’re very easy and inexpensive to make!

Furniture Polish

Combine apple cider vinegar and olive oil—one part apple cider vinegar to two parts olive oil.

Counter and Window Cleaners

Scrub with white vinegar 5% straight.

General Scrubbing

Combine baking soda and water.

Laundry Detergent

1/4 cup Dr. Bronner’s 1 cup baking soda 1 cup washing soda 1cup white vinegar 4 cups water

Shake the mixture each time before use. Cindy uses 1/4 cup in her high-efficiency washing machine.

Toothpaste

Combine 1 tablespoon coconut oil 1 tablespoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon hydrogen peroxide 20 drops peppermint or cinnamon essential oil

THE PRESERVATIONIST THREE-FRUIT MARMALADE AND HONEYED ORANGES

Gathering to preserve—and share— winter’s citrus bounty

By Jordan Champagne

The cold rains of winter usher in a natural time to slow down and get together with friends and make preserves. The crisp air makes being inside the kitchen over a boiling pot a great pleasure. The conversation intermingles with the steam and fogs up the windows to make our homes the coziest places to be. We join the local food revolution and reduce our carbon footprint. We nourish our friends and our inner desire to work with our hands and create something beautiful. And along with preserves, we create memories and gifts prepared with love.

The whole experience, from obtaining the fruit to making the preserves, encapsulates all we want out of a winter day—and it can really connect us with other people and our food.

It’s the season of citrus, and it’s growing all around us.

You may have a tree in your backyard or perhaps your neighbor does. We can trade with our neighbors, receiving some of their citrus in return for jars of the preserves we make.

We can invite friends over to make some marmalade together (recommended to distribute the slicing). It’s a real joy to work together in the kitchen and share in the results of our work.

And of course, all of our glistening jars of preserves make wonderful handmade presents.

Bring your farmers some of the preserves you made with their produce. The mellow pace of winter gives you a chance to talk to them at the farmers’ market and show your appreciation. Thank them for driving the produce to market so that you could bike there. Thank them for standing out in the rain by buying 10 pounds of their blood oranges and pink grapefruit.

There are so many ideas for citrus aside from marmalade.

You can make a citrus syrup that can be added to sparkling water or cocktails. You can juice the lemons or limes, freeze the juice and make candied citrus peels. A wonderful treat is citrus preserved in honey or Moroccan preserved lemons that are a sort of pickled citrus that can be made with lemons or limes. And of course there is your classic marmalade!

I am happy to share with you two different recipes for preserving citrus—and because at Happy Girl Kitchen Co. we like to empower you to preserve fruits, they’re as simple as they can be.

We always recommend purchasing organic ingredients, but with citrus it’s especially important because you are including the rind in your preserves.

Happy Girl Kitchen Co. • 173 Central Avenue, Pacific Grove 831.373.4475 • www.happygirlkitchen.com

Rosette Jordaan/istock

THREE-FRUIT MARMALADE

Yields 12 8-ounce jars

Marmalade can be intimidating even to the seasoned jam maker. Many complicated recipes take three days and many more hours. In our workshops we go over more complicated techniques, should you desire to take that route.

In this recipe, I offer you a very simple way to make marmalade that tastes fabulous. I have found that eliminating some of the complicated ways of preparing my citrus in no way compromises the quality of the marmalade—and it makes it more likely that you’ll actually tackle this project.

The different flavors and textures that come together in this preserve are fabulous. The tart punch of the lemon and the sweet undertone of the oranges all hold together with the velvety grapefruit peels.

I usually do not add anything else so that I can really enjoy the dance between these citrus fruits, but you could add some rose geranium or star anise for another dimension.

4 pounds grapefruit (ruby red are my favorite)

4 pounds oranges (any variety works) 3 pounds Meyer lemons water to cover (about 25 cups) 20 cups organic granulated sugar

Day 1

Slice all of the grapefruit lengthwise into wedges (about 6-8 wedges depending on the size of the grapefruit). Remove any seeds and reserve. Next, slice the wedges crosswise making nice triangle shapes. Add to pot. Take half of the oranges and lemons and remove the rind and pith from the outside of the fruit, leaving only the flesh intact. Slice in quarters and remove the seeds as you go along. Slice the quarters into small wedges. (I do this to remove half of the rinds from the oranges and lemons because I find if I add them to the recipe, the final marmalade comes out too “rindy.”) Finally, prepare the remaining lemons and oranges as you did the grapefruit above and add to pot. Take all of the seeds and pips and place in a cloth bag tied very well. Add to the pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and boil rapidly for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and leave pot covered overnight or up to 24 hours in a spot that will not be above 80 degrees F. This helps your peels soften nicely.

Day 2

Put five plates in your freezer that you will use later to test your gel set. Begin to heat up your pot again and remove your muslin bag when it is warm to the touch. Squeeze out every last drop of liquid and add the liquid to the pot. This is your extra pectin that will help your marmalade gel beautifully. Bring contents to a boil and add sugar, slowly stirring in the entire time. Continue to boil until your marmalade comes to the desired consistency. This takes about 45 minutes. Test the gel set by placing a small amount on the plate and returning it to the freezer to cool. You should test often so that you get that perfect set, which has a very narrow window for marmalade. It is very easy to overcook so be cautious. When finished, remove from heat and fill jars and hot water bath can for 10 minutes for 8-ounce jars.

HONEYED ORANGES

Yields 12 8-ounce jars

I love to teach people how to preserve fruits using honey or alternative sweeteners, but you can only do this when you are not trying to get your preserve to gel firmly.

For this recipe you can use any citrus fruit you would like, including lemons and limes. I have chosen to use Cara Cara navel oranges mixed with blood oranges to give the final product a pink hue.

You can also substitute agave for the honey and experiment with the spices to tailor it to your own desires. Vanilla, fennel, ginger or cardamom would be nice flavor variations.

As you can see, this recipe is very flexible and you can double or halve it easily.

How to use these preserves? In the end you will have whole slices of citrus that are softened and very sweet. You can add them to baked goods such as muffins and scones. You can top off your ice cream or pudding with a slice. They are a wonderful addition to a fruit salad and can stand alone on a piece of toast or crumpet. The syrup that is created is absolutely divine and not a drop should be squandered. I love it for flavoring special drinks or baked goods.

9 cinnamon sticks 1 1/2 tablespoons cloves

8 pounds oranges (thinly sliced and seeds discarded)

9 cups honey (local is best—I prefer a sage or wildflower variety)

1 cup lemon juice

1 cup orange juice

In a non-reactive pot, combine the oranges with water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and boil gently until peel is tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Add drained oranges to the honey and lemon juice in a non-reactive pot and add spice. Reduce the heat and boil gently until orange slices are well glazed, about 40 minutes.

Prepare the canner and the lids. Using a slotted spoon, pack hot oranges into hot jars, leaving slightly more than 1/2 inch headspace. Ladle hot syrup into the jar to cover oranges. Wipe rim and put on the lids.

Place the jars in canner and process for 10 minutes.

Dine Local Guide

APTOS

CARMEL

Carried Away

7564 Soquel Drive • 831.685.3926 • www.carriedawayfoods.com

A cozy, green-certified take-out or eat-in café, Carried Away has a menu that changes weekly and features primarily organic, locally sourced ingredients. Owner-chef Tom McNary worked for many years at Chez Panisse and his dishes reflect the seasons. Soups, salads, entrees and desserts are all made fresh daily. Thin-crust pizzas available on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Open M–F 11am–7pm, Sa 11am–5pm, closed Su.

BIG SUR

The Restaurant at Ventana

48123 Highway 1 • 831.667.4242 • www.ventanainn.com

A peaceful fireplace setting and rustic wood interior give way to a legendary terrace with some of the most amazing views Big Sur has to offer. Chef Truman Jones’ cuisine uses fresh, seasonal and sustainable ingredients sourced from local farms and foragers and reflects his memories of growing up on a farm and his experience working in some of the world’s most-acclaimed restaurants. The restaurant’s menu changes frequently and its wine list is award winning. The Ventana Bistro is available for private events. Open daily for lunch 11:30am–4:30pm, dinner 6–9pm.

BOULDER CREEK

New Leaf Community Market

13159 Highway 9 • 831.338.7211 • www.newleaf.com

The perfect place to stop for made-to-order sandwiches, trail mix and picnic supplies for hikers on their way up to Big Basin or Castle Rock State Parks. All ingredients are fresh and natural, meats are hormone free, produce comes from local growers. Open 9am–9pm every day.

CAPITOLA

New Leaf Community Market

1210 41st Avenue • 831.479.7987 • www.newleaf.com

The New Beet Café at the entrance offers great alternatives to fast food, serving economical daily specials, wraps, pizza and homemade soup and smoothies—with free wi-fi in the dining area. Inside, a full deli has made-to-order sandwiches, healthy takeout salads and entrée items. Open 8am–9pm every day.

Whole Foods Market

1710 41st Avenue • 831.464.2900 • www.wholefoodsmarket.com

An inviting hot food bar offers Asian, Middle Eastern, Mexican and vegan dishes, as well as several kinds of soups made fresh daily. Stop in for picnic supplies, takeout or eat your meal at the sidewalk tables surrounding the store. Open 8am–9pm every day.

Carmel Belle

Doud Craft Studios • Corner of Ocean and San Carlos • 831.624.1600 www.carmelbelle.com

Passionate about sourcing the best local ingredients and meticulous about identifying them on the menu, Carmel Belle is a delicious choice for breakfast or lunch. Almost everything is organic, from the coffee to the meats and cheeses. Faves include a warm slow-cooked Berkshire pork sandwich with red onion-currant chutney on ciabatta, and their house-made mozzarella and asparagus panini. Open daily 8am–5pm.

Carmel Valley Ranch 1 Old Ranch Road • 831.625.9500 • www.carmelvalleyranch.com A soaring ceiling and picture windows framing coastal oaks bring the outside in at Carmel Valley Ranch. Chef Tim Wood describes his cuisine as “sophisticated rustic.” He takes freshness to lofty heights, sourcing vegetables from the Ranch’s own organic garden and Swank Farms at the height of ripeness—and often enough that he never has to refrigerate it, thus avoiding the flavor flattening that occurs when the sugar in refrigerated produce turns to starch. The restaurant also features local olive oils and wines and house-made ice cream and honey. Open for breakfast M–F 7–11:30am, lunch M–F 11:30am–5pm, dinner Su–Th 5–10pm and F–Sa 5–10pm, and brunch Sa–Su 11:30am–3pm.

Earthbound Farm’s Farm Stand Organic Kitchen 7250 Carmel Valley Road • 831.625.6219 • www.ebfarm.com/OurFarmStand Organic is essential at Earthbound Farm. In addition to fresh organic produce, prepared foods and gourmet groceries, the farm stand has a colorful salad bar and a certified organic kitchen. Under the direction of Executive Chef Sarah LaCasse, the kitchen turns out homemade soups and bakery goods daily. Take out or eat at outdoor tables set in the garden. The Farm Stand also hosts cooking demonstrations and other classes and activities. Open M–Sa 8am–6:30pm, Su 9am–6pm.

Grasing’s

Corner of Sixth and Mission • 831.624.6562 • www.grasings.com In an ivy-covered Carmel house lit by enormous wrought-iron chandeliers, Chef Kurt Grasing serves ultra-fresh coastal cuisine and upscale bar food for sharing. The dinner menu features chop house favorites, local farm-raised abalone and an eclectic variety of California wines at reasonable prices. Open M–Th for lunch 11am–3pm and dinner 5–9pm, F–Su for brunch 10:30am–3pm and dinner 5–10pm.

Iolis’ Pizzeria 307 Mid-Valley Center • Carmel Valley Road • 831.622.9463 www.iolispizzeria.com Outstanding pizza makes Iolis’ a local’s favorite on the Monterey Peninsula. Owner Janice Robertson offers 18 varieties, including East Coast classics, California veggie toppings and even an original Kung Pao Chicken Pizza. Enjoy a glass of wine at the tiny bar as you wait for a to-go pizza or nab one of the tables set with red and white-checkered cloths. Open M–F 11am–9pm, Sa–Su 3–9pm.

Photo credit Rob Fisher

Mundaka

San Carlos between Ocean and Seventh • 831.624.7400

www.mundakacarmel.com

A convivial Spanish restaurant and tapas bar hidden away at the back of a Carmel courtyard, Mundaka is named for a coastal town in the Basque country and has a loyal following of locals. A surprisingly authentic kitchen led by Chef Brandon Miller produces organic specialties to share like patatas bravas, croquetas, tiny lamb chops and paella. Open for dinner 5:30pm–late every day.

CARMEL VALLEY

Bernardus Lodge

415 W. Carmel Valley Road • 831.658.3400 • www.bernardus.com

Chef Cal Stamenov oversees the kitchen for two restaurants at Bernardus Lodge. Elegant Marinus features starched white linens and gleaming crystal in a Tuscan yellow dining room. The menu changes daily and blends top California ingredients with decadent French preparations. Private parties can book dinner in the awardwinning wine cellar or at the chef’s table in the kitchen—where Julia Child and dozens of celebrities have dined. Next to the croquet lawn, Wickets is a more casual option with simpler preparations of exquisite local ingredients and produce from the lodge’s own organic garden. Sit next to the fountain on the sunny patio and try a brick-oven pizza topped with wild mushrooms or duck confit. Marinus: Open for dinner W–Su 6–10pm; Wickets Bistro: Open for breakfast 7–11am, lunch 11:30am–3pm and dinner 6–10pm, with light all-day menu from 2–6pm.

FELTON

New Leaf Community Market

6240 Highway 9 • 831.335.7322 • www.newleaf.com

New Leaf offers the best fresh food made and grown here on the Central Coast. Made-to-order sandwiches, salads and hot foods are all natural. No nitrates, hormones, antibiotics or artificial ingredients. Open 9am–9pm every day.

Freedom

Freedom Meat Lockers and Sausage Company

160 Hi Grade Lane, Freedom • 831.724.4355 • www.freedommeatlockers.com

Worth searching out for their natural home smoked meats and sausages, this oldfashioned butcher shop also has a take-out deli with hot and cold sandwiches, side salads and homemade apple or berry pies from nearby Gizdich Ranch. Favorites include marinated tri-tip, skirt steak and pulled pork sandwiches. Gift packs and custom smoking of your fish or game is also available. Open Tu-Sa 9am-6pm, deli hours 10am-5pm.

HALF MOON BAY

New Leaf Community Market

150 San Mateo Road • 650.726.3110 • www.newleaf.com

Green plate specials offer healthy natural lunches for $5 daily and full dinners for $9.99. Lunches like Diestel turkey wraps and tri-tip sandwiches change daily. Hot dinner specials include classics like meatloaf with mashed potatoes and Smart chicken parmesan. Open 8am–9pm every day.

MONTEREY

Monterey Bay Aquarium Café and Restaurant

886 Cannery Row • 831.648.4870 • www.montereybayaquarium.org

Sweeping views of the Monterey Bay are the focal point of the upscale restaurant inside the Aquarium. Executive Chef Jeff Rogers prepares sustainable seafood approved under the Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program. Preparations range from New England clam chowder to Thai-style mussels, with child-friendly options as well. Complimentary binoculars offered for viewing sea life in the bay. Open 11am–5pm. A self-service café is open 10am–5pm. Aquarium admission required.

Parker-Lusseau Pastries and Café

731 Munras Ave., Monterey • 831.643.0300

539 Hartnell St., Monterey • 831.641.9188 Ryan Ranch, 40 Ragsdale Dr. Suite 100, Monterey • 831.655.3030 www.parker-lusseaupastries.com

Gorgeous French pastries, cakes and tarts are lovingly hand-crafted by the young couple that owns this gem of a bakery, Ann Parker and Yann Lusseau. If you want something hot from the oven, go to the Munras Avenue location where everything is baked. The Hartnell shop is a rustic café in an historic adobe in Old Monterey. Croissants, quiche, eclairs, cream puffs and chocolates are all on the menu, along with a selection of sandwiches, salads and soup. Also offering custom cakes for weddings and other special occasions. Munras store open W-Sa 7am-4:30pm. Hartnell store open M-F 7am-5:30pm and Sa 7:30am-4pm. Ryan Ranch store open M-F 7:30am-3pm.

Stone Creek Kitchen

465 Canyon del Rey Boulevard • 831.393.1042 • www.stonecreekkitchen.com

A glass-walled kitchen in the middle of a spacious cookware shop turns out imaginative Mediterranean deli treats and sweets to take away or eat under the market umbrellas outside. Petite baguette sandwiches—like grilled chicken, artichoke hearts and Boursin cheese—are little works of art. Don’t miss the pistachio/cherry chocolate bark or the paella Fridays. Open M–F 10am–7pm, Sa 10am–4pm, closed Su except during November and December.

Whole Foods Market 800 Del Monte Center • 831.333.1600 • www.wholefoodsmarket.com This busy market at the Del Monte Center has everything needed for a picnic at the beach. Fresh to-go sandwiches, salads and dinner entrées all made with natural or organic ingredients can be eaten at the café tables outside or taken with you. Open 8am–9pm every day.

The Wild Plum Café, Bistro and Bakery 731 Munras Avenue • 831.646.3109 • www.thewildplumcafe.com

Tucked away in downtown Monterey, the Wild Plum is a local favorite for its fresh breakfast pastries and takeout entrées, like lasagna, sesame chicken and sustainable seafood. Everything is homemade on the premises and owner Pamela Burns haunts three farmers’ markets each week for the most delicious seasonal, local produce. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner Tu–Sa 7:30am–8:30pm, Su–M for breakfast and lunch 7:30am–5:30pm.

PACIFIC GROVE

Grove Market 242 Forest Avenue • 831.375.9581 • www.grovemarketpg.com

Golf lovers should come by just to see the collection of antique clubs and tournament memorabilia that adorn the walls. Food lovers will enjoy the deli counter with sandwiches, breakfast burritos, sliders with caramelized onions, vegetarian lasagna and a different homemade entrée each day. Open M–Sa 8am–7pm, Su 9am–6pm.

Happy Girl Kitchen Co.

173 Central Avenue • 831.373.4475 • www.happygirlkitchen.com

The menu changes daily at Happy Girl’s airy and bright Pacific Grove café, but the food is always delicious, organic and reasonably priced: The sandwich of the day is $5.50 and a bowl of the soup of the day is $4.50. To drink, you’ll find kombucha on tap and Blue Bottle Coffee brewed fresh. Homemade baked goods include a daily scone, cookies and turnovers. When it’s time to go, take home some famed Happy Girl preserves or another local artisan food product from the café’s wide selection. Open daily 8am–3pm.

il vecchio

110 Central Avenue • 831.324.4282 • www.ilvecchiorestaurant.com

Fresh, authentic Italian pastas, entreés and desserts at affordable prices draw crowds nightly and create a festive atmosphere at Pacific Grove’s newest hotspot. The warm, rustic interior was created using reclaimed and salvaged materials by owner Carl Alasko’s daughter Ariele—a Brooklyn-based designer. Many of il vecchio’s recipes originated at Rome’s renowned Maccheroni trattoria. Open Tu–Su 5–9:30pm.

Passionfish

701 Lighthouse Avenue

• 831.655.3311• www.passionfish.net

If you’re looking for a restaurant with playful, spectacular food and a scrupulous commitment to sustainability, Passionfish is hard to rival. The elegant dining room is celebratory yet relaxed, and the award-winning wine list features many sustainable names and is priced at retail. Chef Ted Walter’s menu is ever-changing with the seasons, but always includes organic local produce, inventive slow-cooked meats and an array of sustainable seafood choices. The restaurant was the first to be certified by the Monterey County Green Business Program. Open every day from 5pm.

Point

Pinos Grill

79 Asilomar Boulevard

• 831.648.5774 • www.ptpinosgrill.com

With an unbeatable location on the golf course near Point Pinos Lighthouse, this clubhouse restaurant also has unbeatable food now that Chef Dory Ford and his team from Aqua Terra Culinary have taken over. Breakfast and lunch classics get his sustainable, gourmet spin, like buttermilk blueberry pancakes made from scratch, heirloom tomato tart, or arugula, fig and prosciutto salad. Happy hour prices and appetizer supper specials start at 3pm. Open daily from dawn to dusk.

SALINAS

Growers Pub

227 Monterey Street • 831.754.1488 • www.growerspub.com

Decorated with sepia photos of field hands and packing houses, Growers Pub is really a restaurant where even your great-grandfather might feel right at home. A classic menu, built around its famous prime rib and steaks, also features salmon, pasta and salads made with local greens. Don’t miss the 1940s vintage bar with its once scandalous bare-breasted Indian maiden. Open M–F 11am–9pm, Sa 5–9pm, closed Su.

SANTA CRUZ

Charlie Hong Kong

1141 Soquel Avenue • 831.426.5664 • www.charliehongkong.com

Charlie Hong Kong has been providing the Santa Cruz community with healthy, fresh, high-quality food since 1998. The restaurant’s fusion of Southeast Asian influences and the Central Coast’s local organic produce is what has made it a neighborhood favorite. Its slogan is “love your body, eat organic,” and its cuisine is proof that fast food can be good for you. Open daily from 11am–11pm.

Companion Bakeshop

2341 Mission Street • 831.252.2253 • www.companionbakeshop.com

After five years on the farmers’ market circuit, Companion has opened its own bakery/café. It has a brick oven, where organic sourdough bread is baked throughout the day, and a long communal table for sharing a coffee with your neighbors. Eight kinds of sourdough bread and seasonal pastries are made with local, organic ingredients. Open Tu–F 7am–1pm, Sa–Su 8am–2pm, closed M.

Gabriella Café

910 Cedar Street • 831.457.1677 • www.gabriellacafe.com

One of the city’s most charming dining spots, Gabriella Café serves a California-Italian menu starring organic produce from local growers and the nearby farmers’ market, as well as humanely raised meat and sustainable seafood. There is a candlelit patio and a cozy dining room that showcases the work of local artists. Open for lunch M–F 11:30am–2pm, dinner every day 5:30–9pm, brunch Sa–Su 11:30am–2pm.

New Leaf Community Market

1134 Pacific Avenue • 831.425.1793 • www.newleaf.com

New Leaf’s headquarters in an old bank building on Pacific Avenue is a worthwhile stop for all foodies. Crowded with gourmet natural foods, it also has a deli with sandwiches, salads and hot entrées. A dining area out front is great for people watching and listening to street musicians. Open 9am–9pm every day.

New Leaf Community Market

1101 Fair Avenue • 831.426.1306 • www.newleaf.com

The Westside New Leaf has a large deli counter and coffee bar, with a big selection of sandwiches, salads, bakery items, soups and other hot foods. You can eat at an instore counter or at tables outside. There is a community classroom here for frequent cooking classes. Open 8am–10pm every day.

The Penny Ice Creamery

913 Cedar Street • 831.204.2523 • www.thepennyicecreamery.com Lines out the front door of its converted Spanish bungalow are evidence of Penny’s popularity. All ice cream, including bases, is made from scratch on the premises using local organic ingredients when possible. Flavors change seasonally, but two favorites are bourbon bacon chocolate and strawberry pink peppercorn. Open Su–W noon–9pm, Th–Sa noon–11pm.

The Picnic Basket 125 Beach Street • 831.427.9946 • www.facebook.com/thepicnicbasketsc Across the street from the main beach, owners of the Penny Ice Creamery have opened an alternative to boardwalk fast food. Sandwiches, organic salads, coffee and beer, all from local food artisans, and of course Penny’s popular ice cream are all on offer to eat in or eat outside with your feet in the sand. Open 7am–midnight every day.

Ristorante Avanti 1711 Mission Street • 831.427.0135 • www.ristoranteavanti.com

A popular Mediterranean-style neighborhood bistro with a warm wood-paneled dining room. Food is prepared naturally and simply using local organic produce, wholesome oils and real Italian cheeses and meats. Avanti’s reputation is deeply engrained in the sustainable farming practices of the area. Hidden in a strip mall, this is a real gem. Open for lunch M–F 11:30am–2pm, for dinner Su–Th 5–9pm, F–Sa 5–9:30pm.

River Café

415 River Street, Suite K • 831.420.1280 • www.rivercafesantacruz.com

A popular spot for breakfast and lunch at the Old Sash Mill, the River Café now serves dinner on Thursday and Friday nights. All meals are made with seasonal, local and organic ingredients, prepared with a Mediterranean flair. Homemade granola and quality panini. Dining inside or on their redwood deck. Open M–W 6:30am–6pm, Th–F 6:30am–10pm, Sa 6:30am–6pm, Su brunch 10am–3pm. Come by and visit their new organic produce and flower stall on Tuesdays 11:30am-4pm.

Verve 816 41st Avenue • 831.475.7776 • www.vervecoffeeroasters.com Award-winning baristas and carefully selected coffee beans, hand-roasted on the premises, make Verve a must-stop destination for coffee connoisseurs throughout the Monterey Bay area. A short walk for the surfers at Pleasure Point, the café is bright and modern and always smells great. New locations now open downtown, at 1540 Pacific Ave., and in Seabright, at 104 Bronson St. Free cuppings offered on Fridays. Open M–Th 6am–7:30pm, F–Sa 7am–8:30pm, Su 7am–7:30pm.

Vivas Organic Mexican Restaurant 1201 Soquel Avenue • 831.425.8482 • www.vivasorganic.com A splashing fountain suggests an old Mexican patio but the food is a modern, organic and delicious take on south-of-the-border classics like tacos, tostadas, quesadillas and burritos. All meats and vegetables are organic. Local juices, organic white and brown rice are available, as well as vegan options. Open M–F 10am–10pm, Sa–Su 9am–10pm.

Whole Foods Market

911 Soquel Avenue • 831.426.9901 • www.wholefoodsmarket.com Too busy to cook? Head for the prepared foods section of Whole Foods Market, where everything is natural or organic and as much as possible is locally grown. There are ethnic specialties, salads, soups, fresh pizza and a coffee bar, with tables out in front of the market. Open 8am–9pm every day.

LOCAL LIBATIONS

Mixing it Up at Montrio

Anthony Vitacca puts a modern spin on classic cocktails with locally sourced ingredients

By Pete Rerig PHOTOGRAPH BY TED HOLLADAY

Anthony Vitacca is a kid with a chemistry set. A very, very nice chemistry set, made up of incredibly rare Old World aperitifs and liqueurs, small-batch bourbons and ryes, hand-crafted gins, infused vodkas and so much more. And as the “executive mixologist” at the Monterey restaurant Montrio Bistro, Vitacca gets to play with that chemistry set whenever he wants, cooking up everything from classic drinks to truly inspired cocktails that utilize local ingredients and, at the same time, pay homage to them.

“I was very fortunate because the owners of Montrio allowed me to take control of the bar program and do my own thing,” says Vitacca, who admits he finds his inspiration from the classic pre-Prohibition era cocktails such as the Aviation and the Manhattan. “I love putting a modern spin on something as well known as the Singapore Sling, reworking it in a martini style and using pineapple and grenadine foam.”

Vitacca also gets a good deal of his behind-the-bar ideas from food. “Whenever my wife and I go out to eat I’m always thinking ‘how can I incorporate these flavors into a cocktail?’ That’s why I use everything from saffron to chipotles to cucumber in my drinks, as well as homemade maraschino cherries, which we get from Swank Farms in Hollister and stone ourselves.” In addition, Vitacca makes his own syrups, falernum (a sweet concoction used in tropical drinks and containing flavors of almond, cloves and lime), ginger-peppercorn, and blackberry-plum shrub.

Indeed, a trip to a local farmers’ market can yield a whole new idea for a cocktail, depending on what jumps out at him while perusing fruit, vegetable and herb bins. Consider some of these tempting li-

bations: the Beta Vulgaris, which counts among its ingredients juice made from local beets, the classic Pisco Sour made with local freerange egg whites, martinis that use gin and vodka infused with Salinas Valley artichokes—the list goes on and on. There’s also local citrus for bitters, alongside basil for the Mambo and sage for the Velvet Crush. Aside from the normal drinks menu, Vitacca keeps a secret, more-extensive one behind the bar, a listing he’ll draw from only when he has the time due to the laborious nature of each drink’s preparation. “I want our guests to remember their cocktail with a smile,” he adds. “I pride myself on creating a surprising experience that can only come from deconstructing classic drinks and recreating them with a modern twist. I want people to ask me, ‘How did you get a beet to taste so good in a cocktail?’”