Edible Notables

Edible Notables Fish-friendly Sushi

By Pete Rerig

As sun streams in the huge arched windows of Geisha Sushi, Chef David Graham beams.

“Just look at how beautiful this Arctic char is,” says Graham, showing off the plump, silky, 14-inch cuts.

“It’s sustainably farm raised in ideal conditions—no pollutants—and every bit as delicious as its cousin, the salmon.”

Moving down the row of fresh-as-can-be seafood, he holds up a slab of Tombo Ahi, a species of Pacific Albacore that isn’t suffering the same fate as its overly fished and endangered relative, the bluefin tuna. “It has a buttery taste, very mild and tender,” Graham says.

As delighted as Graham is to display the daily offerings at his Capitola restaurant, he’s even more proud of its mission: to serve only healthy, sustainable, eco-conscious fish.

Gone are the farm-raised freshwater eels for unagi. Instead, he serves up o-nagi, which is catfish prepared in the same sweet, marinated barbecue style. Also absent is all manner of farmed salmon, imported shrimp, octopus and sea urchin.

Opened last summer, Geisha Sushi is one of only a half-dozen or so sushi bars in the country that eschews any seafood not earthfriendly, and it is the first in the area.

“At first, we were nervous about bucking the status quo,” says Graham, who opened Geisha with owners Annop Hongwathanachai and Anchalee Thanachai. “It was a scary proposition.”

But as cutting-edge as Geisha’s operating premise is, it’s been met not with wariness but with overwhelming success.

“Given a choice, people more often than not do the right thing,” says the philosophical Graham. “Our customers have shown their willingness to experiment, to step out of their comfort zone and try new things, and that’s been a key to building our reputation.”

While a very small number of people have walked out of the restaurant upon discovering that their favorites aren’t on the menu, the vast majority, Graham says, have embraced the restaurant’s approach and allowed him to guide them to new and interesting choices.

Graham takes his cues from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, the ultimate resource for enjoying the gifts of the sea responsibly. “There are so many factors to consider when choosing seafood, and the Aquarium’s Seafood Watch boils it down so nicely.”

Among the questions the Aquarium asks before giving its seal of sustainability are: Is the bycatch reeled in during fishing hurting the ecosystem? Are farmed fish being raised in terrible conditions, in overcrowded pens with a diet of high-protein food? Is the water on these farms being pumped full of antibiotics? Are pollutants being allowed to enter open waters? The list goes on and on.

But Graham isn’t catering to the fish alone.

“When you buy and prepare sustainable seafood, you’re not only helping struggling fish populations and the ocean, you’re also getting a superior product—fresher, healthier and just plain better.”

And when a certain roll or recipe calls for produce, customers can also be assured of first-rate quality: organic fruits and veggies culled from local markets and farms. Geisha’s menu in fact has an extensive list of vegetarian entries, and most of those dishes are vegan.

Should you make a foray to Geisha, be sure and try the lean walu (also known as butterfish, an apt moniker for its utterly delicious taste); the suzuki, a nice, mild species of Japanese sea bass; and the Thailander roll, a delectable combination of o-nagi, prawn tempura, peanut butter and a hint of spice. Then finish off your feast with a bowl of coconut ice cream crafted with a recipe that’s been passed down through three generations of one of the owners’ families.

If you love what you order, you’ll make Graham a contented man.

“There’s a whole universe of choices in sushi using sustainable, ecologically sound seafood,” says Graham. “And when a customer at the restaurant exclaims ‘that’s sushi and it’s sustainable?’ we smile because we made someone happy and did a little more to help the environment. And that’s pretty exciting and very gratifying.”

Geisha Sushi • 200 Monterey Ave., Capitola • 831.464.3328 Seafood Watch: www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

Rare fish: Chef David Graham is one of just a half dozen or so sustainable sushi chefs in the nation.

Photo by Ted Holladay

Edible Notables A General Store for Everyone

By Amber Turpin

“We really just want to be a homesteader’s convenience store,” says Mountain Feed and Farm Supply owner Jorah Roussopoulos. But instead of a six-pack of Budweiser and some Lay’s potato chips, this colorful “convenience store” offers books and kits on how to brew your own beer and seed potatoes for growing your own crop.

In fact, if a do-it-yourselfer’s convenience store sounds a bit like an oxymoron, the truth is that Mountain Feed is so much more than that: a veritable sustainable-living country store, ready to outfit anyone from any walk of life who wants to live a little more in harmony with the planet—and find stellar customer service while they’re at it.

Roussopoulos and his wife, Andi Rubalcaba, first opened the store at the “bend in Ben Lomond” in September 2004 as a destination for mountain folk to get chicken feed and fuel from a solarpowered biodiesel filling station. But the ambition of the former high school sweethearts, who worked nights to gradually build up their inventory—he as a bartender and she as a beautician—has always been palpable when you walk in the door.

Today, Mountain Feed employs more than a dozen full-time staffers and each of several departments offers a specialist who is truly expert at helping customers find what they’re looking for and can offer tips and advice on any given project.

The business has also fanned out into five different buildings and about an acre across the street that houses “homesteading infrastructure,” also known as “the big stuff”—soil, compost, water tanks and the like.

In the main buildings, merchandise is arranged progressively, from the basics to the obscure.

“Planting seeds to canning jams, our goal is to be able to take people full cycle from production to preservation,” Roussopoulos says.

That means you can walk in and easily find the standards that most feed stores provide: pet products, livestock feed, seed propagation supplies, soil amendments and anything for the home garden.

But wandering in deeper, you’ll discover what makes Mountain Feed so unique.

The Homesteading Housewares department, for example, is packed full to the gills with everything “dedicated to the gardener’s kitchen,” Roussopoulos says. The space is organized by theme, from soda making to bread baking to fermenting to pickling to canning to dehydrating to curing. All of the bakeware is American made, and even professional chefs and commercial food producers shop there due to the hard-to-find selection in stock.

Local food artisans are also well represented. “If it’s edible in here, it’s local,” Roussopoulos says.

Next door, in the space housing most of the seed and garden products, you can find an array of beekeeping supplies, chicken care items and wild bird feeding supplies. And around back in the “Edible Nursery,” there is always a wide array of seasonally appropriate items, currently consisting of bare fruit trees, spring veggie starts and even hops, horseradish, currant and gooseberry trees, not to mention the vibrant collection of ceramic glazed pots and locally made, artistic repurposed tables, sink stations and cooler cubbies for sale.

Sadly, Mountain Feed’s source for local recycled biodiesel dried up, so the filling station is gone.

But all in all, the store has been a beloved boon to its immediate community and a draw for new customers from far corners of the foodshed who are anything but a convenient distance away.

So what’s ahead?

Mountain Feed is “stocked by popular demand,” says Roussopoulos. “People tell us what they want, and we listen.”

Homesteading: Jorah Roussopoulos and Andi Rubalcaba with their children, Ember and Reese.

Edible Notables Squid Season

By Mike Hale

Once Monterey stopped canning sardines in the 1960s, it quickly earned another moniker: “Calamari Capital of the World.” Yet, today, as part of a fast-food nation that prefers fish sticks to squid tubes, we seem to have lost our connection with the 10-armed cephalopod the rest of the world craves.

Bright lights will again illuminate our bay at night when the season opens in April, bringing local boats out in force to lure market squid from the depths, much as they did when the fishery began in the 1860s. Squid is still the second largest (counted in tons) fishery in California, but the majority of the commercial catch is exported, primarily to Asia.

Even some of those boxes of squid stamped “Monterey Bay Calamari” contain a dirty little secret: The squid was caught here, of course, but shipped to China for cleaning, processing and freezing, before being loaded on a container ship for the long trip back home.

Despite that large carbon footprint—along with a few concerns about bycatch and habitat damage—market squid is considered a “Good Alternative” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which rates the sustainability of fish by where and how it is caught.

Buying directly from a local source is the most sustainable purchasing decision, and leads to a fresher, better-tasting squid.

Over-processing is the worst thing one can do to fresh squid, according to Kevin Phillips, managing partner at Abalonetti Bar & Grill on Fisherman’s Wharf, known for 60 years as the place for calamari.

Phillips buys only fresh local squid and hires a full-time employee to clean 1,000 pounds of it a week in a room behind the restaurant.

“It’s the freshest squid available anywhere, and the flavor [of squid shipped to China and back] doesn’t compare,” says Phillips, who adds imported squid is rinsed too thoroughly and is often bleached, so the delicate seafood loses its natural brininess. “It’s sad to see much of our local squid shipped away.”

Only four Monterey Bay processing plants remain as part of the region’s 150-year-old market squid fishery—first run, ironically, by Chinese fishermen.

Sal Tringali, a third-generation squid processor at Salinas-based Monterey Fish Co., finds it distressing to see most locals shun the inexpensive and healthful seafood. “People today don’t know what they’re missing,” says Tringali, wistful for the days when the town celebrated squid, particularly at the now-defunct Monterey Squid Festival. From its commercial store on Municipal Wharf No. 2, Monterey Fish Co. sells whole market squid for about $1 a pound, the same price seen in the 1970s, Tringali says.

Cooking squid requires proper timing. Phillips adheres to the adage of cooking it very quickly (no more than 2 minutes) at high heat or else for an hour or more in a slow braise. “Anything in between, and it’s tough,” he says.

At the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, Gourmet Alley pyro-chefs cook squid Sicilian style, with flames leaping from giant pans.

Event organizers have released a less-incendiary recipe that calls for 3 pounds of squid, cleaned and cut into rings (tentacles reserved).

In a large skillet, heat 1/3 cup of olive oil at high heat. Add calamari and 1 tablespoon crushed garlic and sauté for 2 minutes. Lower heat, add 1/4 cup white sherry and squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the pan, dropping in the rind. Sprinkle some basil, oregano and red pepper flakes into the pan, and stir in your favorite marinara. Bring up to desired temperature and serve.

“The Italian community eats squid all the time,” says Tringali. “We call it poor man’s abalone. It’s very important to us, and we all grew up eating it. It’s comfort food.”

Moonlighting: Squid are caught at night; the fishing boats in photo above were at work off of the Pacific Grove shoreline. Drawing of market squid by Bambi Edlund.

Photo by Darrell Robinson

Edible Notables You Can Try This at Home

By Lisa Crawford Watson

Patricia Poritzky is sitting by the curb in her hybrid, planning tonight’s menu and waiting to pick up the kids in her carpool, one of the many ways she shares and conserves resources throughout her day. Another is the 2,000-square-foot professional kitchen she timeshares. By day, another business cooks there; at night, Poritzky transforms it into a cooking school.

“Let’s Cook Santa Cruz,” which opened with sold-out classes in January, is where she and guest chefs teach the community how to cook SOLE food—sustainable, organic, local and ethical grub.

“SOLE food is part of a movement to help change the way people eat and access their food,” Poritzsky says, adding that if her students “learn one thing about being more environmentally friendly and buy one thing that wasn’t trucked across the States, I’m grateful.”

Poritzky is just one of a number of area cooks and chefs who have begun to offer their expertise to local residents who are increasingly eager to hone their chops for cooking our region’s fresh, healthy local food—be it from their delivery of fresh fish from Local Catch Monterey Bay, their CSA box or finds from their neighborhood market.

Some of the very newest of these classes will come from Dory Ford’s Point Pinos Grill in Pacific Grove, which will soon offer cooking classes for kids; Santa Cruz’s Front Street Kitchen, a community commercial kitchen that will run a variety of culinary classes; and Hollister’s Pasture Chick Ranch, which will teach cheesemaking.

At the Hyatt Carmel Highlands’ Pacific’s Edge restaurant, Executive Chef Matt Bolton is launching in March a “Meet the Farmer” lunch series to offer expertise in sourcing local ingredients and preparing them at home.

“More and more,” says Bolton, “people want to know where their food is coming from, whether it’s organic, heirloom or foraged; how green it is; and what kind of footprint they’re leaving on the earth. I find this a really good way to bring people closer to local food sources, the same fresh products I use in our restaurant.”

Highly trained chefs at other hotel restaurants are also sharing their secrets: at Aubergine in Carmel, Chef de Cuisine Justin Cogley and Executive Pastry Chef Ron Mendoza offer a “Sweet and Savory” series in their renowned kitchen, and Carmel Valley Ranch has set up a special “Adventure Kitchen” for courses with Executive Chef Tim Wood.

The Ranch offers two types of classes: a three-level series for students who want to refine their basic techniques with a pro, and activity-related classes that, for example, allow students to tour the Ranch’s organic garden and then learn how to cook its progeny.

Some local offerings have themes, such as Rio Grill’s “Flavor Education Series,” Cantinetta Luca’s “Secrets of Pizza and Pasta” and Montrio Bistro’s “Artisan Series,” which features local food artisans.

“My flavor series,” says Rio’s chef, Cy Yontz, “expresses what Rio Grill is and how I cook, with bold, earthy flavors. It also is a way to get the community together, to meet friends and have a great time at Rio Grill.”

Monterey’s Stone Creek Kitchen, opened last year, makes things especially easy by offering an on-site classroom kitchen and selling cooking equipment and pantry items that can be used to make their recipes.

“Our goal, when you come to our kitchen, is to inspire you to try new things and to have more fun in your kitchen,” says Co-proprietor Linda Hanger.

Other relatively new classrooms include Santa Cruz’s el Salchichero, offering butchery and charcuterie classes, Happy Girl Kitchen Co.’s Pacific Grove Organic Café, delivering preserving workshops, and Love Apple Farms’ beautiful new indoor and outdoor classrooms, home to a number of classes. (See related story, p. 40.)

If you’re willing to travel, there is also the magical Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (see p. 28) and if you get really serious, more formal training awaits you at schools like Bauman College and Monterey Peninsula College.

For a guide to all of these classes, go to www.ediblemontereybay.com, and find “Culinary Course Catalog” under the “Local Food Guides” tab.

Edible Notables Storrs Winery’s Eco-Eden

By Christina Waters

Co-proprietors and winemakers Pamela Bianchini-Storrs and Steve Storrs.

Walking the winery trails tucked away behind Corralitos, it’s easy to feel that you’ve stumbled upon an environmental demo farm. Hidden Springs Ranch, home to Storrs Winery, sits in a panoramic hollow, generously populated with deer, hawks, owls, bats and beneficial insects. From the start, Pamela Bianchini-Storrs and Steve Storrs wanted to encourage the helpful animals, as well as native plants and pollinators such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Applying principles of sustainable and organic growing to their vineyard practice was a reflection of their winemaking philosophy—to step back and let natural processes do what they do best.

This innovative alliance between agriculture and nature is already an estate vineyard, and by summer’s end, the Storrs, who have long offered a downtown Santa Cruz tasting room, will open their vineyard for the first time for tastings in a newly constructed “zero energy,” solar-powered winery and offer walking tours through the surrounding acres.

The aim is for the new building to produce as much energy as it uses, so insulation is key to the design. For the walls, “straw bales weren’t efficient enough, and so we’re using honeycombed foam, filled with expanding foam made from soybeans,” says Pamela. “The roof will be extraordinary, too, made of highly insulative concrete panels.”

While the “zero energy” status won’t have any particular tax benefits, “it does have a certain amount of marketing value,” Pamela says. It’s also personally satisfying for the couple, whose vineyard and home have been solar-powered from the beginning.

The Storrs’ romance began in winemaking classes at UC Davis, and two decades later, they have raised three children, countless animals, organic gardens and 20 vintages of award-winning handmade wines. Always focused on the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation, they purchased 50 acres in Pleasant Valley 10 years ago, where an heirloom apple orchard awaited restoration and hillsides were prime for grape planting.

On the verge of organic certification, the vineyard boasts 10 acres of pinot noir and chardonnay, growing on land invigorated by stateof-the-art sustainable techniques. These hands-on winemakers have worked tirelessly to plant native wildflowers, create owl nests and raptor perches, and most recently, to introduce a quartet of miniature “baby doll” sheep to graze between the vines.

“They’re a heritage breed,” Pamela explains. “They’re much smaller than the typical breed—the little sheep fit between the rows,” she says, laughing. “Think of them as the organic version of weed control.” She reckons the small breed will work very well in the winter because they won’t compact the moist soil. “In the summer they’ll have to graze elsewhere on the property,” she says, “because they actually will try to eat the tender new grape leaves.”

The vibrant ecology of the vineyard owes a lot to Wild Farm Alliance, which promotes agricultural practices that help restore and protect wild nature, and the integration of farms into their wild settings.

“Thanks to a grant, they’ve provided us with native plants, and local high school students came to help with planting.” The idea behind that was to create cover plantings to enhance the habitat and provide food for wildlife. All of this micro-management of their incredibly diverse and fertile acreage “keeps life interesting,” Pamela admits. “It’s so much more engaging than just doing one thing every day. Besides, the vineyard never waits.”

Racks of solar panels face the sun at the top of one far slope of the vineyards, and native fescues have been planted to retain groundwater and valuable topsoil. “We are determined to keep all of the water on our property.” Pamela chuckles. “Our first wet winter, we watched a lot of the vineyard topsoil float downhill.”

And now that the winery building foundation has been poured and the structure itself will soon be up, the winemakers have plans to send visitors on self-guided walking tours, aided by well-placed informational signs.

The Storrs’ move to lure visitors out to their vineyard runs counter to a recent trend that has been opening legions of in-town tasting rooms from Santa Cruz’s Swift Street Courtyard to Carmel Valley Village.

“A lot of city people just don’t get out into the country very much,” Pamela says. We’re interested in educating people about all of these natural cycles.”

The future of winemaking, she believes, is a fully hands-on, natural and highly sustainable enterprise. “Of course I’m interested in planting some fun new grape varietals, too.”