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EDIBLENOTABLES
EDIBLE NOTABLES CAT & CLOUD
Verve alums brew new coffee community
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BY AMBER TURPIN
Photos lower left and upper right by Jenn Chen, others courtesy of Cat & Cloud Meticulously sourced, roasted, brewed and presented coffee is paramount for Cat & Cloud, a new micro-roastery and coffee shop in the Pleasure Point area of Santa Cruz. But when you talk with the three owners—Chris Baca, Jared Truby and Charles Jack—it becomes clear that people are almost as important as the coffee. is is demonstrated by the eclectic and diverse crew working at Cat & Cloud, chosen from a pool of 70 applicants in, what Baca describes as, “a values-based and behavioral-based interviewing method.” e strategy found “diamonds in the rough,” not necessarily the typical coffeehouse staff one might expect. “We look for people who align with our values,” he explains, meaning not just someone who can foam milk. ose values are connection, community, education, integrity, kindness and, of course, respect for the almighty coffee bean. All of that goes in both directions, and the company gives back to its employees in very unusual ways. “We really believe that they are the only way we can be successful. If we don’t take care of our employees and support them, then we can’t make it,” says Jack.
Proof is in the company’s generous benefits program, which includes four weeks’ paid time off for all full-time staff members. “Being able to have those reset moments is super rare in the service industry,” says Baca. ere is also monthly profit sharing and everyone on staff gets to throw their name into a hat for the chance to tag along on trade shows, competitions and even global coffee-buying trips, creating a deeper level of education and life investment. To top it off, all employees get a health care allowance each month. “We don’t hear about many people doing that, and I think we need to raise the bar,” says Jack.
New brewers on the block: Clockwise from upper left, owners Chris Baca and Jared Truby with their roaster; Truby with, from left, Dan Garsha and Jason Ferrall; and Ferrall making espresso.
e three friends have set a pretty high bar themselves within the specialty coffee community. All of them have deep history working at Santa Cruz-based Verve Coffee. Truby and Baca implemented new systems within the company and were barista champions, appearing on the cover of Barista Magazine, while Jack was doing work in Ethiopia and South Sudan with TechnoServe, a project that strives to improve production and opportunities for small-scale coffee farmers.
Ultimately, the time came to take a next step. “You have all these creative ideas, but until you own your own business, you are not allowed to really be you,” says Truby. eir first step was roasting, which they started in July 2015, launching an online subscription service while they refined their roasting style. At the time, Truby was still working at e French Press and Castle Coffee Roasters in Santa Barbara, owned by friends Todd Stewart and Julia Mayer. ey generously let Truby and Baca use their facility to roast, pack and ship out the first batches of Cat & Cloud beans.
One of the results of those early roasting days is now their signature blend called “e Answer.” Used for both espresso drinks and brewed coffee, it is a blend of beans from Colombia, Brazil and Ethiopia. “Our coffee is the approachable third wave coffee,” says Truby. “e idea is that we roast in such a way that we can keep all the complexities that people like in specialty coffee, but without the parts that people don’t tend to like.” eir creative ideas are also expressed at the shop, where the trio outsourced many of the design elements to California artists they admire, another nod to the people-centric theme behind Cat & Cloud. ey showcase vibrant paintings by local artist Nick Vargas, who emblazoned the Cat & Cloud logo in a colorful wall mural. e logo originated as a whimsical sketch by coffee pal Julia Mayer. She drew the Cat (Baca) and Cloud (Truby) for them to use for their podcast, originally called Trubaca—a combination of their names. ere is intricate woodwork by Janine Stone and astounding tiles by Mikey Gaumann, a highly creative couple based in San Luis Obispo. Cups and plates were made by potter Sean White of Flat White Ceramics in Petaluma, who also happens to be a fellow coffee roaster. e roaster itself was custom made in the signature Cat & Cloud turquoise and is brightly displayed for all to see within a glass-walled section of the shop.
Truby and Baca’s weekly podcast, on all things coffee, draws fans and friends from around the world, while Monday morning pop-ups at Companion Bakeshop have built up their following closer to home. Companion switched from using San Francisco-based Four Barrel Coffee to Cat & Cloud in August, marking its first wholesale account, and the bakeshop provides all the food for the café as well in an exclusive partnership.
Companion owner Erin Lampel says, “Cat & Cloud is all about quality coffee from sourcing, roasting and serving. It became clear to me that these guys are doing something they are passionate about and sharing it with their community here in Santa Cruz. ey care about giving people a GREAT experience. It’s not pretentious in any way, which is refreshing and welcoming.”
You can’t help but notice that Cat & Cloud is just a few blocks away from the original Verve location on 41st Avenue and almost directly across the street from the flagship Coffeetopia. But no one is complaining—in fact, much like the collegial brewers behind Santa Cruz’s thriving craft beer scene, the city’s roasters have a more-the-merrier attitude towards one another. “A rising tide floats all boats,” says Baca.
Amber Turpin is a freelance food and travel writer based in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Cat & Cloud
3600 Portola Drive, Santa Cruz • www.catandcloud.com
EDIBLE NOTABLES A CHEF FEEDS THE FIREFIGHTERS
As the Soberanes Fire approached Carmel’s Santa Lucia Preserve, chef Jerry Regester kept the kitchen open
BY PATRICE VECCHIONE PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEN PAYTON
If the Soberanes Fire feels far away and a long time ago, look up at any number of the bare mountainsides where, just months ago, trees grew aplenty, and memories of the long-burning fire will return to you in an instant. It took until mid-October to contain the more than 130,000acre fire that began in late July, and its mark is still striking.
For Jerry Regester, executive chef for the Santa Lucia Preserve, the fire may be a part of his spiritual and culinary present tense for a long time to come. He’s one of those—many of them local chefs—who actually did something of value while I paced the floors, smelled the smoke and listened to the planes, feeling helpless.
South of Carmel, back in the hills, sits Rancho San Carlos, land that for more than 1,500 years was home to the Rumsen tribes and eventually became a private ranch. Known now as the Santa Lucia Preserve, it’s largely protected save for the limited number of exclusive homes that dot its 20,000 acres. e preserve served an important function during the fire. Because it was situated between where the fire started in Garrapata State Park and Carmel Valley, fire crews were able to make defensible space there that helped prevent the fire from moving down into Carmel Valley where, if it had, many people and much property would have been in serious danger.
Not only did Regester, who lives onsite, and others at the preserve smell the smoke, but flames were visible just over the hilltops. e fire was moving rapidly toward them from Garzas Creek. Seeing those flames made everybody nervous. As the fire grew, all but essential staff left the property. Most of the homeowners departed, too.
Remembering the fire: from left, chef Jerry Regester, firefighter Joshua Terry and chief Michael Urquides in Regester’s kitchen garden.
Because the Hacienda, the preserve’s dining room, a gorgeous adobe built in the 1920s, would be closed and he wouldn’t be preparing the typical roughly 80 dinners an evening, let alone cooking for several parties that had to be canceled, Regester took his girlfriend up on her invitation for a round of golf.
But while out on the course, Regester tells me, he was distracted. He kept thinking about his kitchen that was full of food he’d planned to prepare.
“I wasn’t enjoying myself. Having gotten away for a few hours, I realized that what I really wanted to do was something to help those who were helping us, those on the front lines fighting the fire, working in all that heat and smoke, up close to the flames.”
Without finishing his golf game, Regester got back in his truck and returned to the preserve just as the fire was getting worse. e first meal he made for the fire crews and everyone who was working to get an upper hand on the blaze—from sheriffs to the road crew to the bulldozer operators—was a bouillabaisse. “I had all this fish in the refrigerator—clams, mussels, crab.”
Word that dinner was on the way got around quickly. “I put this enormous pot in my truck and drove it up to the break room at the shop.” e firefighters helped carry the assorted pots and pans inside. Suddenly, there was a hungry crowd. By the third day, there was a line of people asking, “What are you making today, chef?”
Each day, he’d open the fridge, look in the cupboards, grab what he was inspired by and begin to cook. Much of the food that’s prepared at the Hacienda comes from its acre-plus kitchen garden where there are the expected vegetables growing including various herbs, tomatoes, kale and lettuce but also the unexpected, such as a 7-foot-tall cardoon!
When head gardener Nicky omas hears why I’m getting a tour of the garden, she says, “You can’t leave a chef standing around doing nothing!” Apparently not.
Regester prepared ribs one day and butter bean with bacon soup another. He made various salads, garlic bread—food to soothe nerves and fill the stomachs of people working extremely hard in a treacherous environment. He tells me he likes to serve what’s fresh, that he shies away from freezing food. “ere was all this ricotta and fresh mozzarella,” he said, “so I made big pans of lasagna.”
Chef Regester wasn’t the only one at the preserve cooking for the workers. Some of the homeowners who’d stayed made batch after batch of cookies. But since he was the only one in the kitchen, not only did Regester, who’s been at the preserve for two and half years, cook but he became chief bottlewasher as well, doing dishes and mopping the floors. Regester says, “All of us at the preserve felt an obligation to do what we could to hold the fire line so it wouldn’t go any farther.”
Monterey County Regional Fire District Chief Michael Urquides tells me that all the workers enjoyed the meals: “A home-cooked meal goes a long way. ere wasn’t a thing that didn’t get eaten. It was all gobbled up.”
Noting the deeper meaning that came come from eating well together, Urquides continues, “From a morale standpoint, it was tremendous. e firefighters, being away from home for so long, get used to eating rather repetitive meals, mostly sandwiches, prepared by vendors.”
Regester’s food wasn’t only delicious; it didn’t just uplift morale and unify the community, concludes Urquides. “It was good for the workers’ health.”
Reflecting back on that time, as we sit on the Hacienda patio on a cool morning, the effects of the fire visible only a short distance away, Regester tells me he felt better being useful. “I’m a chef. That’s my part of the puzzle. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I hadn’t been helping.”
Monterey artist and author Patrice Vecchione’s latest book is Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life. For more, go to www.patricevecchione.com.
RECIPE: See www.ediblemontereybay.com/recipes for the seafood bouillabaisse that Regester made for the firefighters.
