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EDIBLE NOTABLES Relearning how to live in harmony with nature; Carmel Valley couple hunts, gathers and farms to create a self-sufficient life; Birdsong Orchards keeps rare fruits and flowers alive
Photo by Rob Cuthrell
EDIBLE NOTABLES NATIVE TRADITIONS
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Relearning how to live in harmony with nature
BY LAURA NESS PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA
To succeed at his job as curator of the California Native Plant Garden at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden, where he has worked for over 20 years, horticulturist Rick Flores has always relied on his green thumbs and his deep love of nature. But his roles as steward of the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program and associate of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust require two good ears, too. Active listening is critical as he partners with members of the Amah Mutsun tribe to rediscover their historical foodways and ecological balance.
Clockwise from top left: bay nuts roasting in a basket (photo courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History); Rick Flores, steward of the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program, is not a Native American himself, but of Filipino and Irish ancestry; a controlled burn at Pinnacles National Park and (below) manzanita berries being made into cider (photo courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History).
Forcibly removed by Spanish missionaries from the coastal grasslands that once covered much of Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, the Amah Mutsun were enslaved to help build the Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista missions. Denied land ownership after the Spanish conquest, the Amah Mutsun have no tribal land to call their own. Flores says many relocated to the Central Valley to find work. Lacking federal status, they don’t have a magic casino to shower them with cash.
Instead, they are seeking to reconnect with their past, and to the land that once nourished their ancestors. Working with tribal leader Valentin Lopez along with numerous Western history academics, Flores helps curate and cultivate a native plant garden at the arboretum that the Amah Mutsun may access for food and textile resources.
Some of the food-producing plants in the 40-acre plot include plentiful huckleberries, gooseberries, currants, tanoaks, manzanitas and hazelnuts. “Some tribal members recently picked manzanita berries, which are used for cider and for tea, sweetened with yerba buena,” Flores says.
What’s harder to find are the once plentiful native grasses. “Archaeological evidence shows two-thirds of the diet of the coastal tribes was plant based prior to contact. Seeds were a big part of that. It’s rare to find plants with a big enough population to harvest,” says Flores. He points to invasive species as one reason for grassland decline. The indigenous peoples, though, knew how to combat this.
“Land use skills were needed to increase available food sources,” he says. “Coastal prairies were burned every three to five years to propagate desired species. Woodlands were historically burned every seven to 10 years.” Without the help of fire, coastal grasslands are turning into woodlands filled with non-native species and wildflowers are disappearing. Devastating wildfires throughout our region in August, produced renewed calls for a return to the use of fire to better manage our ecosystem and prevent catastrophic events.
In the garden, which university staff carefully watered throughout the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, Flores plans to add Indian potatoes and wild onions, along with wildflowers, such as red maids, chias and tarweeds.
He hopes the interest of the general public through donations and “work and learn” program participation at the arboretum (temporarily halted due to COVID-19), will help the tribe relearn and renew their native traditions, and teach us all something in the process.
Relative newcomer to UCSC, assistant professor Yve Chavez is a native of the Tongva tribe of Southern California. Having grown up on ancestral land associated with Mission San Gabriel, she’s intimately familiar with native culture. As part of the History of Art and Visual Culture Department (HAVC), Chavez teaches undergraduate and upper division courses in California Indian art, and the missions of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida.
In the wake of the death of George Floyd, the social justice movement has highlighted abuses of the California mission system. Chavez has made it her life’s work to shed light on the contributions of Native tribes to building these missions, and to dispel myths about Spanish influence.
Says Chavez, “California’s first peoples were a vital component of the missions’ labor force. They constructed the churches and other buildings at each of the 21 missions using locally available and imported materials.
The initial structures at the missions typically consisted of materials that native peoples used in their own structures such as tule and willow, which are plants that still grow in California today. Despite their associations with Spanish colonization and imported architectural styles, the mission churches and structures are unique to California and reflect the knowledge and labor of California Indian peoples.”
An art historian, she appreciates the murals indigenous peoples painted at the missions, which reflect their experiences.
“The wall paintings inside the church at Mission Santa Barbara have been linked to native painters, likely from the Chumash community,” says Chavez. While many original murals were painted over as time took its toll, wall paintings inside the churches at Mission Santa Barbara and Mission San Juan Capistrano are beautifully restored.
Much of her research has focused on the artistic legacies of two Southern California tribes: “the Chumash and Tongva, who are neighbors, and have similar material and visual culture. For instance, Chumash and Tongva weavers are known for their coiled baskets,” says Chavez. “Leaders and elders within the Tongva and neighboring communities are working towards educating others about native foods such as pine nuts and chia seeds. The Chia Café Collective, for instance, leads related workshops and classes and even published a book of recipes from Southern California.”
When asked what some of the most important lessons we can all learn from indigenous peoples are, Chavez echoes Flores. “California Indian land stewardship practices, such as controlled burns, are valuable for cultivating California’s natural resources and preventing wildfires.” Chavez mentions that native tribes are actively assisting Cal Fire in wildfire prevention in some parts of the state. Perhaps it is truly time to pay their words heed.
In good news for another local tribe, the Esselen people have regained their former territory alongside the Little Sur River, facing the sacred Pico Blanco peak in the Santa Lucia range. Through partnerships with the Western Rivers Conservancy in Portland and the California Natural Resources Agency, the Esselen obtained a grant to purchase the 1,199-acre Adler Ranch. Funds came from Proposition 68, passed in 2018, that set aside $60 million for competitive grants to acquire Native American natural, cultural and historic resources in California.
The Esselen intend to use the land for ceremonies and educational purposes, and will share it with other Central Coast Ohlone tribes, including the Amah Mutsun and the Rumsen, who also suffered cultural persecution and near extinction at the hands of the Spanish. No permanent structures will be built.
Nature humbles us all with her constant power. Yet, with a bit of human tending, she suffices to nurture the souls of us all, indigenous roots, or not.
A relearning session on indigenous botanical knowledge and the use of native plants.
Laura Ness is a longtime wine journalist who contributes regularly to Edible Monterey Bay, Spirited, Los Gatos Magazine and Wine Industry Network, sharing stories of the intriguing characters who inhabit the world of wine and food.
Amah Mutsun Relearning Program arboretum.ucsc.edu/education/relearning-program
Cristin DeVine and Peter Fonken in their Carmel Valley garden.
EDIBLE NOTABLES MODERN DAY FORAGERS
Carmel Valley couple hunts, gathers and farms to create a self-sufficient life
STORY BY KATHRYN MCKENZIE PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID ROYAL
When Cristin DeVine and Peter Fonken look out over the golden hills of Carmel Valley, they see not just the beauty that is there, but also a wealth of edible native plants that sustain them.
Between foraging from the wild and growing their own food at home, they’ve made a sacred commitment to living off the land. It takes some time and energy, but as DeVine puts it, “This is what we do for fun.” That involves evenings cracking acorns by hand, shelling beans and pitting cherries—whatever needs to be done, depending on the season.
It’s a lifestyle that seems straight out of centuries past, although 21st-century conveniences—such as having a freezer—make it easier to preserve what they grow. But many of the techniques they employ are as old as humankind, like hand-grinding corn kernels and fermenting vegetables.
On a recent summer afternoon, they prepared a seasonal lunch feast that mingled the bounty of their homestead with wildcrafted dishes. The married couple spends a lot of time playing with their food, making it look as special as it tastes. “We want to honor our food and make it beautiful,” DeVine says.
A licensed marriage and family therapist, DeVine says she and Fonken, who works for the Bureau of Land Management, both have been interested in wild foods since their youth. DeVine lived in Alaska in her 20s, where she fell in love with an indigenous Alaskan, and from him and his family learned to hunt and prepare game. Fonken learned to hunt as a boy, and has studied the plants and animals around him ever since. “I grew up eating acorns in Michigan—I started a long time ago,” he says.
When they became a couple and moved to Carmel Valley 10 years ago, their mutual interest and appreciation for foraging and growing food shifted into high gear, and they agree that each of them inspires the other to do more and do better.
The pandemic, too, has kicked it up a notch. DeVine is now leading the majority of her counseling sessions remotely, giving her more time at home to be out in their gardens or tending their 15 chickens. Preserving, whether by freezing, canning, drying or fermenting, is a
Home milled acorn flour and full-time obsession. But it’s all necessary to preserve the bounty that a treasured variety of Navajo would otherwise go to waste. corn that Fonken has been Wild foods also need to be processed. DeVine and Fonken gath-re-planting for 25 years. er acorns from valley oaks, and nuts from bay laurel trees. Acorns are soaked in water for a week or two, ground and soaked again, to leach out toxins. Bay laurel nuts are roasted and ground, and can be used for a hot coffee-like beverage or in desserts, where they taste like earthy chocolate. DeVine calls it “California cacao.” At other times of the year, they pick huckleberries and fern fiddleheads, along with wild herbs and greens, like miner’s lettuce. “There’s nothing hard about foraged foods, but there’s also nothing fast about it,” says Fonken. “It takes time and labor.” The two are constantly learning new things about foraging as well as finding inspiration from others, such as their friend Shane Peterson, co-author of The Farmhouse Culture Guide to Fermenting, and from articles in Edible Monterey Bay, where they’ve gleaned tips on preparing acorns. Their hope is to host farm-to-forage pop-up dinners with Peterson someday, to fund projects and training for Native
American communities.
DeVine and Fonken have divided their sloping property into multiple gardens, each with a particular purpose, and fenced it to keep out deer and other critters. There are a berry and olive tree garden, a small dryfarmed fruit orchard, and a larger vegetable and herb garden that Fonken calls “the food jungle.” It offers the unusual (Inca berries and gigante beans, for instance) as well as more standard items.
This garden in particular is unruly, with squash vines curling around the base of cornstalks, dill going to seed and green grapes hanging low around a gabled gate. But for all its wild appearance, it is prolific and full of surprises. Some of it was planted intentionally, and some of it just came up on its own, no doubt from seeds left over from last year.
Letting vegetables live out their natural lives is part of the couple’s philosophy, with the cycle of growth, harvest and reseeding inherent in what they view as a way to live in harmony with the natural world. They also save seeds from year to year, like Fonken’s treasured Navajo corn that he’s been replanting for a quarter century. They compost everything they can and use rainwater stored in two tanks to irrigate via a gravity-fed drip system.
Eggs from the chickens and honey from three beehives help supplement the wealth of fruits and vegetables, a flood of homegrown food that all comes from their one acre. As they serve up a wide assortment of dishes for lunch, which includes a delicious lime-honey-rosemary drink, a fermented “taco bar” vegetable medley, beet-painted deviled eggs on a bed of nasturtium blossoms, refried beans made from heir-
Limeade with honey and rosemary, acorn olive oil cake and sweets made from roasted bay nuts that taste like earthy chocolate.
loom pintos and tortillas made from that Navajo corn, it’s obvious that this food makes them happy.
DeVine notes the health benefits of eating this way, too. Eating nutrient-dense wild foods enhances one’s personal microbiome, as does homegrown organic produce. Add to that the stress-relieving benefits of working in the soil, and it makes for better physical and emotional health, she says: “There’s something about the meditation of being in flow with the planting and tending of the garden. It keeps us in a beautiful rhythm.”
Fonken says that his family had gardens when he was growing up, and there’s something about knowing where his nourishment comes from that lessens his stress level. “When I could grow my own food, I could relax,” he says.
“It’s a whole lifestyle in harmony and balance with the land,” adds DeVine. “We have purpose and a focus. There’s a deeper sense of meaning.”
Kathryn McKenzie, who grew up in Santa Cruz and now lives on a Christmas tree farm in North Monterey County, writes about sustainable living, home design and health for numerous publications and websites.
Acorn Olive Oil Cake With Honey Orange Blossom Syrup
Courtesy Cristin DeVine and Peter Fonken
Fall is prime time for gathering acorns, if you’re so inclined to try your hand at making acorn fl our for use in baked items.
Acorn fl our, a nutrient-rich food source that has been a staple of indigenous peoples of California for millennia, isn’t hard to make, but it does require soaking and processing to leach out tannins that make it bitter and inedible.
You may use acorn fl our as a gluten-free fl our substitute in your favorite recipes, although it may absorb slightly more liquid than other gluten-free fl ours.
For the cake 1¼ cups extra virgin olive oil (preferably locally sourced) ½ cup honey 2 cups acorn fl our (instructions below) 1⁄3 cup almond fl our or meal 2 teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon kosher salt 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or Cointreau liqueur 1 tablespoon orange zest, fi nely grated 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 large eggs
Note: To fully capture the fl avors of the local landscape when cooking with wildcrafted foods like acorn fl our, it is benefi cial to use as many other ingredients as possible that can be locally sourced. Because olive oil and honey both are strongly infl uenced by their environment, using locally produced versions allows you to, in essence, taste your local landscape.
For the topping 1 teaspoon orange zest, fi nely grated 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice 3 tablespoons orange blossom water 1⁄3 cup honey (preferably locally sourced)
Note: Orange blossom water can be found at international food stores that sell Middle Eastern foods or at specialty cooking stores.
For the cake: Preheat oven to 400° F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with a round of parchment paper. Oil sides of pan. Whisk acorn fl our, almond fl our, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl to combine and eliminate any lumps.
Stir together liqueur, orange juice and vanilla in a separate small bowl and set aside.
Using an electric mixer on high speed (whisk attachment if using a stand mixer) beat eggs, orange zest and honey in a large bowl until mixture is very light—about 5 minutes.
With mixer still on high speed, gradually stream in the oil and beat until incorporated and mixture has become thicker. Reduce mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with the liqueur mixture in 2 additions. Fold mixture several times with a large spatula, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Scrape batter into prepared pan.
Place cake in preheated oven and immediately reduce temperature to 350° F. Bake until top is golden brown, center is fi rm to touch and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 40–50 minutes.
For the topping: Make the syrup while the cake is baking. Bring orange zest, orange juice, orange blossom water and honey to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, brush or spoon syrup evenly over the top.
Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool before removing springform ring. Serve warm or at room temperature with coconut whipped cream, if desired.
MAKING ACORN FLOUR
All acorns have edible nuts, but tannin levels in them vary widely. In the Carmel Valley area, valley oaks boast some of the largest nuts but have lower tannin content, making harvesting and processing easier.
Collect mature, brown acorns that have fallen on the ground. Discard any with wormholes. Leave enough acorns to share with the local wildlife.
Using a nutcracker, shell acorns. Place the nutmeats in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.
Soak chopped acorns in a food-grade 5-gallon bucket, and cover completely with water. Drain and change water twice a day for 1–2 weeks. Avoid pouring out any fi ne powder that gathers on top of the coarser nuts as this is a valuable part of the fl our. Taste for bitterness (tannins) after 1 week. Continue soaking and rinsing until the bitterness is gone. This process can be speeded up with more frequent water changes or by rinsing the acorns in steadily running water.
Drain acorns completely once the bitterness is gone, and spread on dehydrator trays or oven rack at 125–130° F.
Dehydrate until completely dry. Place nuts in food processor and grind to fi ne fl our.
Acorn fl our can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer until ready for use. Unshelled acorns can also be stored in the freezer for up to a year. —Cristin DeVine
EDIBLE NOTABLES UNCOMMON SENSE
Birdsong Orchards keeps rare fruits and flowers alive
STORY BY JESSICA TUNIS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAIME BODDORFF
Farmer Nadine Schaeffer’s hair is the color of plums and purple sunsets, wild artichokes and lavender roses, as though the vivid colors of the fruits and flowers she tends have somehow stained her wild locks.
Nadine Schaeffer tends her apple orchard in the Pajaro Valley.
But that is nonsense, or poetry, anyway, and it’s likely such a thought might only cross your mind as you savor an incredible late red beauty plum, or a dark rubinette apple. You might be forgiven for lapsing into poetry with such flavors lingering on your palate, and the scent of an ebb tide rose still in your nose.
At Birdsong Orchards, Schaeffer takes pride in growing unusual varieties like these, whose flavors and scents can be both familiar and a revelation. An apple is an apple, and a plum is a plum, after all, but the diverse selection of varieties she cultivates challenges what we think we know of the flavor profiles of these fruits.
The CCOF-certified organic farm climbs a gentle hill on a south-facing slope in the Pajaro Valley. Rows of trees—walnut, pear, fig, cherry, apricot, guava, citrus, persimmon, plum, pluot, peach, nectarine and apple—one type per row, span the width of the 8-acre plot. This time of year, it’s the apples that hold center stage, as the wild abundance of the summer harvest season has finally receded, leaving crates of pears in cold storage and the apple trees still hung with fruit.
We walk along the rows of carefully pruned trees, their leaves rustling quietly, their branches weighted with fruit of every color. The names of each variety are printed on small silver tags that glint in the sun, and their old names make another kind of poem; ashmead’s kernel, orleans reinette, calville blanc. The names tell a story of the generations of orchard-keepers who bred each variety for specific purposes—such as long storage, cider, pies or fresh eating.
Schaeffer leans into a dark-leafed tree and gently lifts an apple to pluck at the peak of ripeness. “This is one of my favorites,” she says, handing me a red cinnamon spice apple. It’s not a pie apple,
Red D’Anjou pears are one of 175 varieties of fruit trees growing at Birdsong Orchards.
despite the name, but the flavor is crisp and rich, and, yes, warmly spicy, like cinnamon. It’s unlike any supermarket fruit.
Most of us know by now how, in the course of industrialization, many heirloom varieties have been lost in favor of easy transport and favorable cosmetic appearance. A red delicious apple is pretty, but bland and ubiquitous. Schaeffer, growing as she is in apple country, has a particular affection for the apple trees that root in her dark clay soil, and she has made a point of growing unusual varieties well suited to our local conditions. She sees her varied planting as a deliberate hedge against monoculture; in a shifting climate, it makes sense to diversify and experiment, pushing the boundaries of what can be grown on the Central Coast.
She grows over 175 varieties of fruit trees, sourcing them as bare root saplings from specialty nurseries, or sometimes from cuttings made by members of the Monterey Bay Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers Association, of which she is the vice president.
The harvest is abundant and though apples keep well in cold storage, Schaeffer will have sold them all by the time January rolls around.
“People are curious about these varieties,” she explains, “but it’s almost impossible to find them in most of the
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country.” Unlike the tender stone fruits, apples ship pretty well, so when a customer orders from her website, Schaeffer packs the apples in sampler boxes and ships them all over the country. Each box contains half a dozen fruits, selected from a rotating cast of rare heirloom varieties.
It’s an unusual business model, a blend of hyper-local and national, but it allows her to charge a premium for the apples she grows with such care. The rest of her fruit is sold on site, from a pop-up farm stand that operates on Fridays. COVID-19 has changed things, of course; customers now pay online, and fruit is set out for them to pick up when they arrive.
On a different part of the farm, a flower field is a rainbow of vibrant shades and scents, abundant with Weeks and David Austin roses. Throughout the week, florists and u-pick customers may stop by the farm by appointment to harvest flowers by the bucket, sourcing for arrangements or special events, or just the joy of being outside in a field of flowers. Schaeffer also delivers to a few florists, harvesting buckets of roses, dahlias, sweet peas, sunflowers, peonies and more, as the season permits. For added scent, she tucks in sprigs of scented geraniums from her bed of more than a dozen pelargonium varieties, including rose geranium, chocolate and nutmeg. Pre-pandemic, she hosted classes at the farm as well, on topics like flower arranging, marijuana cultivation and the ancient art of hoshigaki.
Today, a shaggy assortment of llamas, alpacas, goats, chickens, cats and dogs surveys the visitors as they arrive. The sound of migratory birds is ever present, too; the farm’s name, Birdsong Orchards, is not mere fancy but a tribute to the diversity of winged wildlife that thrives in the area.
In the slanting light of early autumn, surrounded by her orchard and the flower fields glowing below, Schaeffer takes stock of her life. She hasn’t always been a farmer. Though she grew up surrounded by farms, for most of her career she worked in Silicon Valley, in a high-powered, male-dominated field. She was good at what she did, but it was a stressful life, too. This one, offering a taste of seasons on the tongue, scents of flowers in the air and songs of birds on the breeze, suits her better. The steady rhythm of labor is deeply satisfying. The connection to cycles and harvest nourishes her in a way that tech work never did.
Jessica Tunis lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains and spends her time tending gardens, telling stories, and cultivating adventure and good food in wild places.
Birdsong Orchards birdsongorchards.com nadine@birdsongorchards.com
SUSTAINABLE INVESTING
A Way to Align Your Values and Your Investments
For an increasing number of investors, investing is not just about selecting opportunities that do well in their portfolio. It’s about owning investments that also make a positive social impact. Sustainable investing is a growing niche of investment practices designed to help investors achieve both objectives. If you are curious about how to align your values with your portfolio, read on.
Strong upside potential
Compared to traditional investing, sustainable investing takes a different philosophical approach to the marketplace. The concept of sustainability is rooted in the belief that in order to thrive, businesses must make responsible choices regarding the environment, society and their business operations. Similarly, ignoring these areas may eventually have the potential to negatively impact a business’ bottom line. Those who agree with this approach believe that sustainable investing offers reasonable potential for growth and profitability.
To effectively evaluate the choices companies are making, investors focused on sustainability are calling for increased transparency from executives about their priorities and how they conduct business. In response, more companies are creating sustainability initiatives, engaging with the community on societal topics, and promoting their accomplishments to attract investors.
Sustainable investing is personal
Investing with a social conscience can take a variety of approaches, allowing you to determine the ideal strategy for your beliefs and financial situation. Some common strategies include investing in companies that: • Promote causes – firms that prioritize sustainable practices as part of their growth strategy may be attractive to investors. Examples include firms reducing their carbon emissions, partnering with charities or promoting the welfare of children or animals. • Pursue solutions to a long-term societal issue – investors may want to support companies researching or innovating ways to solve problems. Cancer research, driverless cars and educating consumers on a key issue are several examples. • Operate responsibly – companies that demonstrate accountability to high ethical standards may also be of interest to investors. Relevant topics may include fair employment practices for women, valuing diversity and engaging ethically with vendors in a company’s supply chain. • Avoid activities you find detrimental to society – this “negative screening” process may include staying away from firms that don’t share your values or have a harmful impact on society or the environment. Examples may include alcohol, fast food, tobacco and gambling stocks.
As sustainable investing continues to gain traction among firms and investors, watch for more opportunities to customize your investments according to your preferences. If this investing approach interests you, talk to your financial advisor to learn more about how you can align your investments for growth and for good.
Erik Cormier is a Financial Advisor with Cormier Financial Partners, a private wealth advisory practice with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. He specializes in feebased financial planning and asset management strategies and has 13 years of experience in the financial services industry. To contact him, email Erik.Cormier@ampf.com or call 408-472-0757. Registered office address is 522 Ramona St., Palo Alto, CA 94301.
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