19 minute read
EDIBLE NOTABLES
EDIBLE NOTABLES COOL CUBES
Meet the folks who are obsessed with making the best ice for your cocktails
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STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF BAREILLES
Down a dead-end road in Soquel, inside a remote warehouse, there’s a harvest every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But it’s not what you think. No illegal substance is cultivated here. Only crystal clear, diamond-like cubes. Ice cubes, that is, are farmed and harvested to exact specifications for the Monterey Bay area’s most discriminating mixologists, chefs and bartenders. Welcome to the ice farm at Revolution Craft Ice.
Ice farming isn’t new. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, ice was harvested from the frozen surface of lakes, ponds and streams; stored in ice houses; shipped in ice cars and delivered in ice wagons by ice men to be placed in ice boxes. HarvestRevolution Craft Ice CEO Tim Gallagher cuts ing ice and cold crystalline blocks into shipping revolucubes with a repurposed tionized the fruit, meat saw and supplies vegetable, meat high-end watering holes around the Monterey Bay. and fishing industries and was the catalyst for developing our current food and beverage industries.
Today ice farming usually refers to one of three (or more. . .think Breaking Bad) activities. Pumping water through a complex system of pipes and showerheads over a frozen gorge, creating icy walls for ice climbing. Second, playing the bestselling game Minecraft where the silk touch enchantment tool comes in handy to harvest virtual “ice blocks” used to fuel jump drives and build starbases. And third, the peculiar labor of making clear-as-glass ice cubes to be added to cocktails and spirits.
Soquel-based RCI specializes in clear ice for craft cocktails.
RCI’s founder and cocktail aficionado Ethan Nagel explains how it all started. “A few years back, I ordered a cocktail in one of San Francisco’s hipster bars, and it arrived with a perfectly clear ice cube suspended in it. It was beautiful, intriguing and piqued my curiosity. I needed to know exactly how to make and bring them to Santa Cruz!”
Nagel, a software engineer who’s run the gauntlet of Silicon Valley startups, returned to his home in downtown Santa Cruz and started experimenting with DIY methods for making clear ice. His research led him to a system that involved boiling filtered tap water, then pouring it into a small cooler, putting the entire cooler in the freezer, waiting a couple of days for the water to solidify and then cutting the transparent parts of the block into cubes. But, after multiple attempts, he found that his Playmate Cooler wasn’t turning out the enchanted ice that made him swoon.
Nagel had hit a wall, but it didn’t stop him. Instead, his drive to unlock the secret of making crystal clear ice became an obsession.
“I bought a Clinebell Block Ice Maker specifically designed to make large ice blocks for carving ice sculptures,” he explains.
The ice maker produces two 300-pound blocks of crystal clear ice every three to four days through a slow-freezing cycle. A pump mounted inside the machine’s cabinet circulates the water, preventing impurities from freezing into the block or forming oxygen bubbles and striations, which make carving difficult.
“I also purchased a car engine hoist to lift the ice blocks out of
the ice maker, a chain saw to break the ice down into manageable blocks, a Hobart meat band saw to cut the blocks into cubes and a large chest freezer to store the ice,” Nagel says.
If you haven’t come across these cubes, they’re nothing like the dull gray crescentshaped chunks your refrigerator freezer plunks out or the sweaty ice made from tap water that commercial machines dump into bins. Instead, these perfectly shaped cubes shimmer, sparkle, shine, refract light like a prism and melt three times slower than regular ice.
Beyond their bling, cocktail culture’s devotion to these cubes is due to their purity, density and slow melting rate. And like a flame tamed to combine ingredients in cooking, ice is the spark that unifies the components in a cocktail.
Back in Nagel’s garage, he got the ice right, but things were getting crowded, and around this time, friend and fellow cocktail lover Tim Gallagher stopped by for a drink.
Gallagher, a psychologist, was astonished, he says. ”Ethan made me a negroni with one of his clear cubes. I’d never seen anything like it. Then he took me into his garage to show me all the equipment he had bought.”
Gallagher continues, “It was amazing, and I immediately offered to help him with production.”
At the start, RCI was a solo act with Nagel loading up an insulated backpack and getting on his bike to hand out samples to neighborhood bars and restaurants.
It wasn’t long before the demand for his clear cubes took off. Not only had Nagel built an ice farm, but he had also cultivated a following. However, it was becoming hard for him to keep up with the rising demand, spend time with family and work as a software engineer. So, he asked Gallagher if he wanted to partner on the fledgling business. Without hesitation, Gallagher agreed, moved the farm to a warehouse, purchased a second Clinebell ice maker and hired a production and delivery assistant.
Today Gallagher, CEO, and Nagel, president, have six employees, three Clinebell ice makers, nine freezers, the original meat saw and two packaging tables. They make six different sized cubes, with the 2-by-2-inch cubes and 1¼-by-5-inch Collins cubes being the most popular. Nagel has designed a proprietary framework that fits into the Clinebell, making the ice easier to handle and cut into cubes. With this addition, what once took over an hour to cut a block into 40 to 60 cubes now takes less than 10 minutes.
Afterall, the word revolution in their company name references using technology to make things better.
RCI’s client list looks like the Who’s Who of restaurants and bars in the Monterey Bay area. Mentone, Alderwood, Venus Spirits, Copal, Bantam, Avanti, Carmel Valley Ranch, Pearl Hour, Barmel, C bar at InterContinental The Clement and Aubergine all serve RCI cubes and RCI also sells them wholesale and retail online.
If you’re curious to try a spirit or cocktail with an RCI cube without going through the fuss of making it yourself, stop by Mission West Bar, a neighborhood hangout on the westside in Santa Cruz where co-owner Max Turigliatto keeps a stash under the bar. “It’s worth having them for their wow factor alone. People pick them up, take pictures and are generally blown away,” he says.
Turigliatto, a mixologist himself, reasons, “If you’re going to make an effort to barrel age cocktails, squeeze fresh juice, make your own bitters and use top shelf spirits, you want to use the best quality ice possible.”
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2827 S. Rodeo Gulch Road, Ste. 11 Soquel revolutioncraftice.com
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EDIBLE NOTABLES SALAMI SEASON
San Juan Bautista couple puts local spin on a California classic
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT ELIASON
Everything about Foustman’s uncured dried salami is distinctive, from the variety of base meats and styles to its retro-hip packaging and marketing strategy. Owners Jessica and Justin Foust have found ways of combining beef, lamb, pork and turkey with garlic, fennel, black pepper, habaneros, red wine and other natural ingredients to redefine the classic San Francisco staple in a way that has brought them an ever-expanding customer base.
Jessica's father, Mark Holsman, owned the Cheese Connection in Soquel. When he retired, they took over the business, and decided to create their own brand and product.
Salami was also a very good fit for Justin. His grandfather, Fred Moro, was a member of the Santa Cruz Marconi Civic Club and as a child Justin accompanied him on weekend trips to San Francisco.
“My grandfather’s side job was to go up to The City and pick up salami, which he would deliver down the coast from San Francisco to Santa Cruz,” he says. “I would go with him and meet all these old Italians, who introduced me to salami and prosciutto. When we were deciding what to make, salami was always at the top of the list, with my childhood memory of salami sandwiches with pepperoncini.”
Two young entrepreneurs reached back to their roots to find a product they wanted to make and sell.
Justin and Jessica Foust started selling their salamis at the farmers’ market five years ago.
Coming up with the name for the product was easy: Foustman’s combines Justin’s last name with the last part of Jessica’s maiden name. The next step was to find manufacturing partners, and the Fousts relied on a family business that had worked with her father at his shop.
Foustman’s launched with six varieties of salami and pepperoni, producing about 300 pieces a month and selling at just one venue. They’ve increased production to about 10,000 salamis a month with flavors that include Pork, Fennel and Pepper, Lamb Rosemary, and Pork and Beef Pepperoni.
Foustman’s growth has been organic, relying on word of mouth and selling mostly in small venues, like fairs and markets, and independent stores like Garlic World in Gilroy, which has been stocking the sausage for a year and a half.
“Foustman’s is really starting to gain ground with our customers,” says Garlic World owner Brian Oteri. “We originally had them in the back of the store but moved them up front and center at the counter. The packaging is top-notch, the flavors are phenomenal and they keep coming up with new ones. It is a great gourmet, independently made sausage.”
Headquartered in San Juan Bautista, Foustman’s makes its salami in a USDA-approved commercial kitchen in Oakland, where there is a temperature-controlled room for fermenting and curing the Californiasourced meat. The entire process takes anywhere from two and a half to three weeks, depending on the moisture content.
The Fousts rotate their flavors and are always thinking about new ways to make their product.
“We are working on lamb with Middle Eastern spices,” Justin says. “But we haven’t gotten the spice level right yet. We are currently playing around with a Bloody Mary salami, with maybe some bacon in it, and one for Thanksgiving, something like a sage-cranberry turkey salami. We had one customer suggest putting orange zest in salami, and we are wondering how we can do it.”
Sometimes, their creativity pushes the envelope a little too far. Justin says they developed one hot salami that was like Ghost Pepper chicken wings. “It made your face feel on fire for about ten minutes after eating it,” he says.
One recent success is a salami made with beer, which has made the Fousts interested in collaborating with local breweries.
As demand continues to grow, the Fousts are regrouping a bit while they consider expanding.
“When we started, we didn’t know what we were doing,” Justin says. “We wanted to keep it small and independent. We have been approached by bigger stores like Safeway, but they would have taken all the salami we have ever made. We would really have to consider the rent on a new facility and the other costs of meeting that kind of demand.”
Having spent the past five years at farmers’ markets growing their customer base, Jessica would like to keep the chain stores out of things for now.
“I would rather work with little grocery stores and wineries,” she says. “I think more and more people want to buy from independent retailers. Vendors are reaching out to us from all over the country, and we may become national just that way. We think our product is a perfect fit for these small, unique places where you can talk face to face with the owners and the customers. It is very satisfying, and making them happy makes us happy.”
Foustman’s Salami
foustmans.com
Robert Eliason lives in San Juan Bautista and has worked as a photojournalist and rare book dealer. Two years ago, he was asked to cover for an absent reporter and since then has written more than 350 freelance articles for publications in three counties. And he still has time to take the occasional photograph or two.
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EDIBLE NOTABLES BLACK FOOD
At the Homeless Garden Project, chef Bryant Terry keeps food central in the struggle for social justice
BY MARK C. ANDERSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK C. ANDERSON AND SHMUEL THALER
Bryant Terry typically takes a few years off between cookbooks.
That makes sense. His books are behemoths. In concert with his cooking, they win James Beard and NAACP Image Awards. They require cooking, re-cooking, writing, re-writing, testing, re-testing, sweating, editing, photographing, touring and not enough sleeping.
Plus he’s got another thing or two going on: He directs a publishing imprint and his own creative studio—the latter with his wife and daughters—and he’s chef-in-residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he designs events around the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art and culture.
But no gap between books this time.
Because…early summer 2020. Terry’s scheduled tour for a previous book was interrupted by COVID. Then he was engulfed by a reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and so many more before it.
Flash ahead two years and Terry is quoting an original poem from that latest book, Black Food: Stories, Art & Recipes From Across the African Diaspora, at the Homeless Garden Project’s farm on the westside of Santa Cruz.
“Rice” is a poem by farmer-activist-anthropologist Dr. Gail Myers that sprawls across millennia, forced migration and staggering loss, but refuses any separation of nourishment from the past.
Bryant Terry speaks at the Homeless Garden Project (Photo by Shmuel Thaler/ Santa Cruz Sentinel)
We are rice people first. We see beauty in the wind, We taste truth in the rain. For this dish we made to remember the six million souls beneath the sea. We are rice…
After five books of his own—including Vegetable Kingdom and Vegan Soul Kitchen—Black Food summons a vast anthology of art, photography, poetry, essays, personal narratives and mouthwatering recipes, all curated and edited by Terry.
So it felt fitting he curated others for the talk at HGP.
By eating mindfully, Terry continued, a simple meal transforms into “a deep experience” and heightens awareness not only of tastes and textures but also the toil, soil, air and heritage that go into it.
Those ideas led his keynote at the Homeless Garden Project’s annual Sustain Supper fundraiser. Before the vegetarian meal, supporters got a tour of HGP’s 3.5 acres in Santa Cruz, where trainees learn farming while supplying the county’s first ever community-supported agriculture subscriptions (and one of its most robust, to this day).
Thanks to the generous HGP merits a pilgrimage to pick up donations of time and produce from the storybook farmstand ingredients by talented local or simply soak up the setting: The chefs, HGP’s Sustain Supper helped finance its training dried-flower barn, which helps furprograms. nish finished products like salves, teas, hand-dipped candles and cookie mixes at its downtown retail spot, is among the must-sees.
“Our model is built around people doing things for themselves, not anything being done for them,” HGP executive director Darrie Ganzhorn says.
Or as Bryant said at Sustain Supper, “What impresses me about the Homeless Garden Project is everything is connected.”
He isn’t exaggerating. HGP connects urban to agricultural, neglect to opportunity, food to belly, on-site training to 14-step job counseling and post-program housing.
Ganzhorn expands on that.
“The farm offers a place of belonging. It offers safety. It offers a lot of tangible feedback: Trainees plant a seed and see it grow, they tend it and see it flourish, they harvest and feed our team—and our community— fresh, healthy, organic produce,” she says. “The farm helps all of us who come there take better care of ourselves and each other.”
Back at the HGP podium, Terry put it poetically: “Sustainability and sustenance must be braided together.”
Across 309 pages and 111 contributors, through various artistic mediums (including a playlist), diverse geographies and far-ranging ingredients, Black Food braids together the African diaspora in countless ways.
The copy Terry signed for me will live at Lifelong Medical Care’s East Oakland Clinic to help patients discover recipes grounded in health and inherited history.
But it won’t be getting there as soon as planned, because I started reading it and can’t put it down.
Not for the recipes, though they look damn good—from coconut cornbread pudding to okra-and-shrimp purloo to Terry’s own Dirty South hot tamales with cilantro sauce.
It’s for the essays like chef Thérèse Nelson’s, which deftly describes, in part, how civil rights victories liberated Blacks from the kitchen just as it was becoming a place of prestige, and how closely tied Black cooking is to the wider planet’s, drawing connections previously hidden behind ignorance.
When Terry signs the inside of Black Food, he writes in Sharpie, “May this book inspire!”
It does that from the start of his intro, with another curated quote, this one from Audre Lorde: “Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.”
That battle, he told Edible later, doesn’t need to happen with marches or community canvassing (though they help mightily).
“Like many people do, I used to default toward what I thought activism is: agitation and base building,” he says. “For me it was important to broaden activism: There are many ways we can imagine and practice it. Being on the streets isn’t going to work with everyone. Base building isn’t going to work for everyone. Like I said at [HGP], you can contribute time and talent and treasure, and by learning, volunteering, reading and writing.”
His work collaborating on MoAD events inspired Black Food, which in turn generated Black Food Summit, coming September 9–10.
Day One happens at MoAD with panels on publishing, storytelling and design, followed by a reception with sips, small bites and records spun by DJ Max Champ. Day Two follows at TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, with a slate of “experiential learning and communal leisure” ranging across hikes, reflective writing, gardening, breathwork and even equine activities, and concluding with a community supper made by standout Black chefs from the Bay Area.
The summit’s operating premise harkens back to Terry’s seminal work launching New York City nonprofit b-healthy (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth), a longitudinal initiative designed to empower youngsters to fight for a more sustainable food system.
“Like we will with [Day Two’s events] we would use cooking to start with the visceral to ignite the cerebral and end with the political,” he says.
So while the message sounds like a hippie mantra—everything is connected—here’s the thing: If audiences receive the truths Bryant Terry teaches, and observe its vibrations at the Homeless Garden Project, what sounds kumbaya is a call to battle.
The battle is not a simple one or an easy one—or one that can be done alone.
It comes in sowing connections like those leaping from the pages of Black Food and the soils of Santa Cruz.
And it’s a worthy battle, accompanied by a lot of incredible food.
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Mark C. Anderson is a roving writer, explorer and photographer based in Monterey County. Follow and/or reach him on Twitter and Instagram @MontereyMCA.
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