Edible Santa Barbara Fall 2009

edible

SANTA BARBARA

Celebrating the Food Culture of Santa Barbara County

Local Honeybees

Bootcamp Edible Landscape

Santa Barbara Channel Seafood

For almost 30 years, we’ve sought out the best selection of local products from the communities where we do business. We work closely with local farmers and producers because buying locally helps to preserve our connection to food, reduces fossil fuel consumption, and supports the local economy. We’re thrilled to continue supporting local farmers and producers we’re happy to be coming to the neighborhood! october 2009

edible SANTA BARBARA

FOOD FOR THOUGHT D

You’d think that as the editor of a magazine devoted to local food, I’d have done an Eat Local Challenge. I shop at the farmers market, I’m a member of a CSA and I’m always seeking out new sources for local food. But I’ve never tried a real eat local challenge—where you pledge to eat exclusively local foods for a whole year or even a month.

A couple years ago I read Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which introduced me to the concept. The book tells the story of how her family spent an entire year procuring almost all of their food from their own backyard and neighboring farms. Last year, I heard about the group in Ojai that decided to do their own Eat Local One Year challenge throughout 2009 (eatlocaloneyear.com). And then recently I heard that the Isla Vista Food Co-op was sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge in October.

So this fall I invite you to join me as I attempt to eat strictly local food for 31 days in October. October also happens to be the month-long food festival epicure.sb, so in conjunction with this full calendar of food related events, the Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market and Edible Santa Barbara are co-sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge. Read Janice Cook Knight’s article about the Eat Local Challenge in this issue for a description of why you might want to participate and how to go about it.

In fact, I hope that every article in this issue will encourage you to try our Eat Local Challenge or simply to seek out more of the many options for local food that Santa Barbara offers. We have such a rich diversity of local foods being grown, harvested or produced within Santa Barbara County, I think it will be an eye-opening experience to find out just how natural it is.

From the San Marcos honey on our cover to articles about local seafood, beer, wines under $20 and the many restaurants who are sourcing local ingredients, please feel free to use this issue’s articles and ads as a road map to find out about local food options. And please visit our new website (ediblesantabarbara.com) where you can find even more resources. I look forward to reporting back to you on the results of our challenge in our next issue.

Krista Harris, Editor

Santa Bar Bara

Support and celebrate our local food community. Subscribe to Edible Santa Barbara or give a gift subscription to a friend. You can subscribe online at ediblesantabarbara.com

Stay Connected

Subscribe to our free email newsletter at ediblesantabarbara.com and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/EdibleSB

PUBLISHERS

Steven Brown & Krista Harris

EDITOR

Krista Harris

RECIPE EDITOR

Nancy Oster

COPY EDITOR

Doug Adrianson

DESIGNER

Steven Brown

WEB DESIGN

Mary Ogle

Contributors

Pascale Beale-Groom

Joan S. Bolton

Eric Cárdenas

Fran Collin

Carrie Culver

Maria Diaz

Isaac Hernández

Janice Cook Knight

Laura Lindsey

Diane Murphy

Nancy Oster

Zachary Rosen

Kim Selkoe

Anna Thomas

Cover Photograph

Fran Collin

Honey and Bees by San Marcos Farms

Advertising Inquiries

ads@ediblesantabarbara.com

Contact Us

info@ediblesantabarbara.com

Edible Santa Barbara is published quarterly and distributed throughout Santa Barbara County. Subscription rate is $28 annually. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

© 2009 edible Santa Barbara

Working Side by Side for 34 Vintages, Thekla and Richard Sanford Have Produced Celebrated Wines From the Santa Rita Hills.

Their Newest Venture, Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards, Constitutes the Culmination of a Lifetime’s Experience Crafting Food Friendly Wines.

Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards is Committed to Organic Farming, Sustainable Agricultural Methods, And Environmentally Friendly Commerce.

Event

Elegance

edible Notables M ERRYL B ROWN E

New Foxen Tasting Room

But the Old One Is Not Going Away

Just up the road from Foxen Winery’s famous and beloved tasting shack, Foxen Winery has opened up a brand new tasting room where you can taste their Chardonnays, Pinot Noirs and Rhone-style wines. The old spot will now be known as Foxen 7200 and will feature their Bordeauxstyle and Cal-Ital wines. Co-owners Bill Wathen and Dick Doré have been making wine together since 1985 when they founded Foxen Winery at the historic Rancho Tinaquaic. They are known for their smallproduction, vineyard-designated wines using a minimalist approach to winemaking. The tasting rooms are open daily 11am–4 pm.

Foxen Winery is located at 7600 Foxen Canyon Rd., the old tasting room is located at 7200 Foxen Canyon Rd., Santa Maria; 805 937-4251; foxenvineyard.com

VENTS

Planning Goes Green

Merryl Brown Events

with Intelligence

Isn’t it time for a more environmentally responsible approach to corporate and fundraising events? Merryl Brown seems to think so. She has just launched Merryl Brown Events, a company dedicated to providing comprehensive green planning services in Santa Barbara County. She works according to the guidelines of the Green Meeting Industry Council, which dictate that a sustainable event must incorporate environmental consideration through every stage of the event—venue selection, invitations, catering, floral design, party favors and waste collection. In terms of waste, on the day of the event a trained staff member is on-site to make sure that waste is properly sorted for recycling, composting and trash collection. Following the event, Brown offers a waste auditing or environmental impact analysis. Elegance with Intelligence™ is her motto!

For more information about Merryl Brown Events call 805 455-3112 or visit merrylbrownevents.com

Make Your Own Local Sparkling Water

The Penguin by SodaStream

You can conserve energy and resources as well as eliminate the need for plastic bottles with this eco-friendly soda charger. The Penguin is the only soda maker that uses a glass carafe, and the design is attractive enough to keep out on your counter. Here’s how it works: Fill the reusable glass carafe with water, insert it into the Penguin and press the carbonating “beak” a few times. Once it makes a squeaking noise it’s carbonated, and you can press it another couple times if you want more fizz. The carafes hold 21 ounces. Though the Penguin comes with two carafes, you might want to order a couple extra if you use it for dinner parties. It also comes with two refillable CO2 cartridges (each carbonates up to 60 carafes). Depleted cylinders can be returned and refilled.

The Penguin Starter Kit is $199 and is available at Williams-Sonoma and at sodastreamusa.com

The Burger Bus

A Locavore Burger on Wheels

“Eat Here” says the license plate of this retrofitted school bus that dishes out amazing burgers at different locations throughout the week. The burgers (and their fantastic vegetarian falafel sandwich) are a locavore’s dream. Proprietors Michael and Cheryl Gardner use 100 percent grass-fed beef from Shalhoob Meat Company, cheeses from Spring Hill Cheese, jelly from Mama’s Preserves, freshly baked ciabatta rolls from Our Daily Bread and other local produce and ingredients from the farmers market and Tri-County Produce. They even use local Telegraph beer in the batter for their scrumptious onion rings. They also offer deep fried pickled chips and yam fries. But perhaps their biggest innovation is their Burger Bus CB&J TM— a cheese burger and jelly made up of 1/3-pound patty covered in melted cheese, sweet grilled onions and seasonal Mama’s Preserves jelly, all piled high on a toasted ciabatta roll. The cheese and jelly choices change with the seasons and your preference, but the spicy jalapeño jelly is a particularly winning addition.

The Gardners are committed not only to dishing up the best burgers, but they are also committed to doing everything in an environmentally conscious way. Recycling a retired school bus was the start. They use recyclable paper products as well as the occasional plastic cup, and their food scraps are composted. Cheryl is a former elementary school teacher and Michael brings his years of flipping burgers at some of the Bay Area’s beer gardens and pubs to benefit us here in Santa Barbara.

As a mobile restaurant, they are in different locations each day of the week and their schedule is subject to change. For right now they are at 424 State St. (formerly Pep Boys) on Monday; Citrix (near Los Carneros and Hollister) on Tuesday; Reds Wine Bar (211 Helena Ave.) on Wednesday; Mentor (5425 Hollister Ave.) on Thursday; Wheelhouse (corner of Cota and Anacapa) on Friday. They also cater parties and events. Check their website or follow them on Twitter for the latest updates: theburgerbus.com and twitter.com/TheBurgerBus

vertical TASTING

After writing the article “Learning To Appreciate Our Local Honeybees,” Nancy Oster was inspired to do a honey tasting. Using honey from San Marcos Farms, she sampled these delicious varietal honeys. Each has a surprisingly different flavor.

Ojai Orange Flower Honey

First you notice the lovely fragrance. The flavor is light and tangy. This is delicious in tea or on toast and in any recipe where you want a light flavor

Wildflower Honey

This will obviously vary from batch to batch. The honey we tasted had a warm mellow flavor, very complex, with a berry finish. Try this over your breakfast of yogurt, granola or oatmeal.

Sage Honey

This is a backcountry Santa Barbara flavor. Sage grows well and wild here, and it seems to often be a beekeeper’s favorite flavor. A bit more woodsy in flavor, we noticed the taste start at the back of the tongue and spread down the sides.

Avocado Honey

This is a much darker honey with a distinct molassestype flavor. It has a strong character and needs to be savored for its individuality. This is excellent paired with a hard, salty cheese.

San Marcos Farm honey can be found at the Saturday, Tuesday and Sunday Farmers Markets and at a number of retail stores throughout Santa Barbara County. HONEY JAR PHOTOS BY FRAN COLLIN

Season in

Almonds (harvested Aug/Sept)

Apples (harvested July–Oct)

Artichokes

Arugula

Asparagus

Avocados

Basil

Bay leaf

Beans

Beets

Blackberries

Blueberries

Bok choy

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Cabbage

Cantaloupe

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celery

Chard

Cherimoya

Chiles (various)

Chives

Cilantro

Collards

Corn

Cucumber

Dandelion

Dates (harvested Sept/Oct)

Dill

Eggplant

Fennel

Figs

Garlic (harvested May/June)

Grapefruit

Grapes

Honey

Kale

Kiwi

Lavender

Leeks

Lemons

Lettuce

Limes

Melons

Mint

Mustard greens

Nectarines

Onions, green bunching

Onions, bulb (harvested May/June)

Oranges, Valencia

Oregano

Parsley

Peaches

Peppers

Plums

Pistachios (harvested Sept/Oct)

Potatoes (harvested May/June)

Radishes

Raisins (harvested Sept/Oct)

Raspberries

Rosemary

Sage

Spinach

Sprouts and legumes

Also available year-round

Fresh Flowers

Potted Plants/Herbs

Local Cheese

(full selection of certified organic goatand cow-milk cheeses, butters, curds, yogurts and spreads)

Local Meat

(antibiotic-free chicken, duck, Cornish game hens, grass-fed/hormone-free beef and pork)

Local Seafood

(Santa Barbara seasonal catch includes shrimp, lobster, crab, mussels, oysters, seabass, halibut, sole, etc.)

Locally Produced Breads, Pies and Preserves

(bread produced from wheat grown in Santa Ynez; pies and preserves)

Squash, winter (hard) (harvested July/Oct)

Squash, summer (soft)

Strawberries

Sweet potatoes (harvested Aug/Sept)

Tangerines/Mandarins

Thyme

Tomatillos

Tomatoes

Turnips

Walnuts (harvested Sept/Oct)

Watermelon

Yams (harvested Aug/Sept)

Recipes seasonal

Avocados

Avocado Tomato Salad

Makes 4 servings

This year the California Avocado Festival in Carpinteria will be held Oct. 2–4. You can get your fill of all things avocado at the festival, including the world’s largest vat of guacamole. While you can make all kinds of things with avocados including ice cream, avocados are a real natural for salads. Here’s a simple salad similar to an Italian Caprese salad that uses avocados instead of cheese.

2 avocados, cut in half, pitted and peeled

2 large tomatoes

A couple sprigs of cilantro or basil, torn in small pieces

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Kosher or coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Slice the avocado and the tomato into ¼-inch-thick slices. Arrange on a platter alternating the avocado and the tomato in a concentric circle or in rows. Sprinkle the herbs and drizzle a small amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar evenly across the salad. Add a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Winter Squash

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Makes 6–8 servings

When the butternut squash are in season and plentiful, it also happens to be soup time. Roasting butternut squash in the skin brings out its flavor and makes it easy to scoop out the flesh. This soup can easily adapt to vegetarian or vegan diets by replacing the butter with olive oil, leaving out the pancetta and skipping the crème fraiche garnish.

2 butternut squash, about 2 pounds each

Butter or olive oil

2 tablespoons diced pancetta (optional)

1 onion, diced

5–6 cups of chicken or vegetable broth

1⁄ 2 teaspoon ground ginger or fresh minced ginger

Dash of freshly ground nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Optional garnish: a little crème fraiche or plain yogurt

Preheat oven to 350°. Cut off the stem of the squash and then cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. In a roasting pan, place the squash cut side up with a little pat of butter or a drizzle of olive oil over each piece. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 1½ to 2 hours or until completely cooked through.

In a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven, sauté the pancetta and onion (or just the onion in some olive oil) until lightly browned. Scoop the flesh from the roasted squash and add it to the pot. Add 5 cups of the broth and the ginger, nutmeg, salt and pepper and bring to a boil.

Remove from heat and, using a hand immersion blender, purée the soup until it is smooth and creamy. If it is too thick, add up to a cup more of the broth. Taste and add more seasoning, if necessary. Return to low heat and simmer for a couple minutes until heated through.

Serve garnished with the crème fraiche or yogurt and an extra dash of freshly ground pepper.

©WILLIAM BERRY | Dreamstime.com

EDIBLE NATION HOMEMADE

by Anna Thomas

These are hard times. Right? Most of us are making do with less, sometimes much less. And yet… I feel that somewhere in all this less, there is a secret more.

No, poverty can’t buy happiness. But hard times might lead to good times in unexpected ways. Does eating feel expensive? The hidden gift of these tough times might be a return to home cooking. That comforting ritual, the simple act of preparing food for ourselves, has been slipping out of our lives, washed away in a tide of busyness.

I didn’t learn to cook until I left home and went away to college. But in the immigrant culture where I grew up, my mother, my Polish relatives, my Italian aunt—they all cooked; the air around me was full of warmth and sharing and good smells.

I ate: buttery Polish dumplings, hearty borscht, spicy Italian tortellini and sometimes the glamour of something modern and American, like tuna noodle casserole. Even while I resisted learning to cook (tedious rebellion) I absorbed the idea that cooking happened. Fresh ingredients were brought into a kitchen and someone’s work—simple or complicated—turned them into delicious food that was eaten at home with the family. Home cooking. It was part of the natural rhythm of life.

When I went off to UCLA I began cooking for myself. I was penniless, scraping by on student loans and parttime jobs, and eating out was not an option. So I cooked. I learned by trial and error and I went ahead and ate the errors. And I discovered that as I cooked, life got better—my health, for starters, and also my social life. I liked cooking! I wrote a book about it, for Pete’s sake. And long after I could afford any restaurant, I still loved cooking. It was a gift.

Now I see young people who don’t seem to know it is part of the natural rhythm of life, who think cooking happens in restaurants and on TV. And the restaurants are suddenly too expensive.

Young people, I have a message for you: Visit the land of your ancestors—the kitchen!

You, out there, you who’ve never cooked—you can do what I did. OK, skip the book part, and just go into the kitchen. Wondering where to start? Soup. Soup is the portal, the way in. Anyone can make a pot of soup!

Go ahead, no one is looking. Open a bag of split peas and put them in a pot with water. Boil them a while as you cut up a carrot, an onion, a stalk of celery. Chop a little parsley. Add all that to the pot and leave it to simmer while you read a book or answer your e-mail. This is what my friend Lisa calls “meanwhile cooking.” You’re doing whatever you need to do, and meanwhile you’re cooking. After half an hour or so, season that soup with some salt and pepper—and eat it. You’ve made old-fashioned split pea soup. You’re cooking.

Even luxury soups are pretty simple. This is autumn, and it is absurdly easy to find a gorgeous butternut squash or a ghostly blue Hubbard. Put that squash in the oven to roast. As long as the oven is on, why not roast a few root vegetables as well? Now chop a couple of onions and cook them slowly in some olive oil, stirring while you slice a pear.

By now the house smells like heaven, and anybody who walks in the door will be your willing slave. When the squash is soft, scoop it out and put it in a pot with the other vegetables and some broth, simmer a while, then blast it all with an immersion blender. Season with salt, pepper, a little lemon juice… and you’re done. (If you want to be fancy, stir in some mascarpone.) You’ve made a silky, golden purée, more delicious than anything you’ll get in a restaurant—for pennies a bowl.

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had some of the great times of my life in restaurants. My husband and I lived in Provence for a while when there were still francs, and there were 10 of them to the dollar! For a few enchanted months we made a tour of the great country inns and restaurants of our region. I still have the Michelin guide rouge

from 1984 marked with our notes, a treasured souvenir. But in between those excursions we went to the Saturday market in Apt for vegetables and cheeses, we bought white peaches at the roadside, walked to the Lumiere bakery for baguettes, drove to the local cooperative for wine… and made wonderful, simple meals at home that we ate at the stone table under the tree in the backyard.

I made such simple food. Steamed new potatoes tossed with parsley and oil and crushed sea salt. Tomatoes simmered with garlic and tarragon, and spooned into an omelet. Grilled cheese sandwiches with the most amazing goat cheese, so perfect with a few black olives and a glass of cold rosé on a hot summer evening. We had a new baby, and we couldn’t take him out to those restaurants every night.

There is a deeper question at the bottom of all this: Are we prepared to give away our whole relationship with food to professionals, to commercial interests, good or bad? Will corporations always be between us and what we eat? Or do we want to know what we’re putting on the plate, and where it came from?

Do we want to know that we can take care of ourselves? That we can pick up an onion, a potato, a bunch of chard, and make a simple dish—a friendly bowl of pasta, a stir-fry, that pot of soup?

I know I’m fortunate. I live in the Ojai Valley, near farms and orchards where dedicated farmers grow beautiful produce. My kitchen may not look like the kitchen of my ancestors, but in some ways it is the same. I get much of my food nearby, often directly from the folks who are growing it. My friends laugh at me because when someone asks “what’s in this?” I start reciting: “Oh, green garlic from Peter, and BD’s fennel and mint, and that great chard from Steve…” I’m just being fair. I know I get a lot of credit for what farmers do. What I do is try to make sure the path between field or farm and my kitchen is as short and uncomplicated as possible.

I do want to know what I’m eating, what I’m feeding my family. And I find pleasure in having my hands on my food. On my big soapstone counter you will frequently see baskets of fava beans, bowls of walnuts, trays of fruit from the garden. Watching the storm outside the window for a while and cracking the walnuts is a pleasant meditation. Sitting with a friend on a summer evening, sharing a glass of wine and shelling favas, is a convivial pleasure. Dropping vegetables into a pot of water or a sizzling wok is an act full of hope. Stirring that pot of soup is like stirring my history. And eating with my friends, all of us in the kitchen together, crowded around the table, tasting, talking, laughing well into the night—that is a joy that is homemade.

Anna Thomas wrote The Vegetarian Epicure in 1973 while she was a graduate student in film production at UCLA. It became a phenomenal success, is widely acknowledged as the book that brought pleasure to vegetarian cuisine and, together with The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two (1978) and The New Vegetarian Epicure (1996), has created a devoted following. Her latest book is Love Soup: 160 All-New Vegetarian Recipes (W. W. Norton & Company). Anna Thomas is also well known as a screenwriter and film producer. She writes, cooks and hikes in the Ojai Valley.

Green Lentil Soup with Cumin and Lemon

Serves 6–8

1 cup (8 ounces) French green lentils

11⁄ 2 teaspoon sea salt, more to taste

11⁄ 2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green only

1 large onion, chopped

1 medium sweet potato (8 ounces), diced

1 large carrot, finely diced

1 large stalk celery, finely diced

1 bay leaf

1 bunch green chard (8 ounces)

2 tablespoons cumin seed

1 cup chopped cilantro

1⁄ 4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Pinch of cayenne

2–3 cups light vegetable broth

1–2 tablespoons lemon juice, more to taste

Garnish: fruity green olive oil

Rinse the lentils and combine them in a large pot with 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer the lentils for 25 minutes, or until tender-firm. Stir in a teaspoon of sea salt, remove the lentils from the heat and skim off any foam that may have formed on top.

Meanwhile, heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan, add the chopped onion and a pinch of sea salt and cook slowly until the onion is soft, about 8–10 minutes. Add the chopped leeks and continue cooking for another 20 minutes, stirring often, until the leeks and onions are turning golden.

Add the onions and leeks to the lentils, along with the diced sweet potato, carrots, celery, another 3 cups water, half a teaspoon of sea salt and a bay leaf. Simmer the soup gently, covered, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, wash the chard, slice away the stems, and coarsely chop the leaves. Add the chard and simmer the soup another 10 minutes.

Lightly toast the cumin seeds in a dry skillet, then grind them in a mortar and stir them into the soup. Add the cilantro, parsley, pinch of cayenne and the vegetable broth. Heat everything together for a few minutes, then add lemon juice to taste.

Drizzle some fruity green olive oil over each steaming bowl of soup as you serve.

©MICK20 Dreamstime.com

EDIBLE GARDEN FALL COMPOSTING

by Joan S. Bolton

Now that your summer vegetable garden has fed you, it’s time to return the favor.

Feed your soil with rich homemade compost, and you’ll replenish the nutrients that your rapidly growing crops gobbled up. Many vegetables, including corn, broccoli and asparagus, are heavy feeders, extracting copious amounts of nutrients in short order. That’s why old-time gardeners rotate crops and let fields lie fallow.

But by returning decomposed organic matter to your plot, you’ll bring the soil back to balance. You’ll also attract beneficial microorganisms and improve fertility, texture and drainage.

The Basics

All living matter decomposes eventually—whether it’s withered remains of vegetable plants, miscellaneous trimmings from the garden or scraps from your table. The resulting light, crumbly material teems with beneficial microbes that are just waiting to go to work in your soil.

You can kick-start the process by setting up a compost system. It’s simple—especially if you focus on two key ingredients: carbon and nitrogen.

One of the handiest sources of carbon is wafting to the ground right now, as our deciduous trees are conveniently shedding their autumn leaves. Those desiccated bits are, at least figuratively speaking, autumn gold for a compost pile.

Additional sources of carbon include such brown or dried material as twigs, straw and sawdust. Or, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can “grow” carbon by sowing corn, wheat, millet, amaranth or oats. Harvest the plants, then shred the leaves and stalks for compost.

The other key component, nitrogen, comes from green material. That includes lawn clippings and fresh yard trimmings. Vegetable scraps are green, too, while stale bread and leftover pasta are brown.

Setting Up Your Bin

A compost pile should measure at least 3 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep. Rather than piling materials on open ground, corral them in a store-bought bin or build your own, with four 4- by 4-inch redwood posts; slats or chicken wire; and a tarp. By reining in the contents, you’ll hasten decomposition, keep out rodents and prevent pets from nosing around.

For quickest results, chip, chop, hack or cut the materials into pieces about an inch in size. The more surface area you expose, the more rapidly the pieces will decompose. Then fill the entire bin at once. A good starter mix is three parts carbon to two parts nitrogen. Layer the carbon and nitrogen as you go, moistening each layer until it’s the consistency of a wrung-out sponge.

The pile should begin to heat up within a few days, which indicates that those beneficial microbes have sprung into action. If your pile does not heat up, add green material, seaweed or blood meal. If your pile appears slimy and reeks of ammonia, blend in more carbon.

Once you feel the heat, keep those microbes churning by turning the pile every few days and watering it once a week. As the components break down, they will turn brown. Sniff a handful. When the mix smells fresh and earthy and crumbles through your fingers, it’s done. Sift out any lumps and use them to start your next batch.

A Few Tips

Here’s a trick for thick autumn leaves: We have a mature sycamore tree that blankets the yard with fuzzy leaves. We rake a layer onto the lawn, then mow. The mower chips the leaves while it cuts the grass, creating a perfect mix of carbon and nitrogen. If our bins are full, we spread the mix, a couple of inches thick, in any raised vegetable beds slated to rest until spring. We water the beds occasionally, and rough them up with a steel rake if the leaves mat or get slick.

You can also run leaves through a chipper or dry them in shallow temporary piles. When the leaves become brittle, bag them up and stomp on them. Then pour the bits into your pile.

The shriveled remains of summer vegetable plants are a good source of carbon as well. Chop dried corn stalks, zucchini vines and the like. But don’t compost tainted tomato leaves or anything else that might transmit disease. Also avoid meat, bones, dairy products and animal or human waste. Home compost piles rarely achieve high enough temperatures to kill pathogens.

As for green material: If you don’t have a lawn or fresh trimmings, look to your neighbors. But make sure their clippings are fresh and have not been sprayed with herbicide. Avoid Bermuda grass, which can contaminate your compost—and yard—with pernicious seeds.

For that matter, don’t throw any weeds bearing seed heads in your compost. Again, your pile is unlikely to attain high enough temperatures to sterilize the seeds. And after all, your goal is return good things to the earth.

Note: Santa Barbara County offers discounted compost bins and has published a booklet, The Answer Is Backyard Composting and Waste Reduction Information about both can be found online at lessismore.org.

Joan S. Bolton is a freelance writer, garden coach and garden designer who confesses to a lifelong love affair with plants. She and her husband, Tom, have filled their four-acre property in western Goleta with natives and other colorful, water-conserving plants. They also maintain avocado, citrus and fruit trees and grow vegetables and herbs year-round. www.SantaBarbaraGardens.com.

eat local challenge HOW TO EAT CLOSE TO HOME

by Janice Cook Knight

Edible Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Farmers Market are sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge for the month of October. Do you want to take the challenge?

With food readily available from all over the world, why would you want to eat only foods grown close to home? There are more than a few good reasons: fuel, freshness, flavor; protection of the environment; support of our local farmers and our local economy.

Food travels an average distance of 1,500 miles in our country, and it takes a lot of fuel to move those fruits, veggies, meats and cheeses around. Produce is often picked unripe so it can be shipped to far-away places, significantly reducing its flavor. Weeks often go by between harvesting and consumption, which results in a lack of freshness to us, the consumers.

Why target food, when we ship so many other consumer goods? Because we eat so very much of it. Food is not something we can go without, like a new TV or a couch. Food is traveling to market, then being consumed, every minute of every day. Much of that food is being hauled by truck or by jet over long distances.

While we have a long growing season in Santa Barbara County, we still eat many foods out of season, even though there is plenty to eat that is grown here and elsewhere in California. We import foods grown on the other side of the equator just so we can have all foods, all the time: apples from Chile, for example. What’s the fun in that? It’s more interesting, and more delicious, to eat foods as they come into season locally—strawberries at the height of summer; crisp, sweet apples in October; flavorful apricots in June; artichokes in April, when they are young and tender.

Anyone who frequents our farmers markets and local produce stands is already eating locally and seasonally. For the month of October, how would it be to take it up a notch? What about local meat, fish, dairy products?

We can buy a much greater variety of products at our farmers markets than we used to. Did you know we now have butter, cheese, goat

cheese, eggs, chicken, duck, game hens, pork, lamb, beef, olive oil, wine, bread (grown from Santa Ynez wheat), fish and shellfish, several kinds of nuts, a large variety of dried fruits, herbs and honey? The Saturday and Tuesday markets, especially, have become veritable supermarkets!

What constitutes “local” food? Many proponents recommend eating foods grown within 100 miles of home. For fruits and veggies, in Santa Barbara that is a piece of cake. Our local produce is fabulous and abundant. For other food items, you may need to go farther afield for variety. Some of the farmers at our markets drive 200 miles or more to sell to us: Dates are grown in the Coachella Valley, about 200 miles to the east; sweet, tasty almonds come from Hanford, 200 miles to the north; the dairy products at our markets are coming from Petaluma, about 400 miles away.

For October, see how many local foods you can find. Even at our local grocery stores, some of the eggs and fresh dairy products come from sources within about a 100-mile range. The Alta-Dena Dairy products are available at most stores in Santa Barbara County, and the company is based in Southern California, its milk still being produced on family farms. Lundberg Family Farms rice and rice products, available at our natural food stores, are grown in Northern California. For more information about sources of local seafood read “The Santa Barbara Channel: A Seafood Mecca” in this issue. Practice asking your butcher, your fishmonger, your produce person, “Where did this come from?” Some stores have started identifying local products with a sticker.

I’ll report back to you in the next issue the results of my local October eating experiment. What would it be like to have most of our meals come from foods grown close to home?

Meanwhile, for more information about the Eat Local Challenge, visit ediblesantabarbara.com.

Janice Cook Knight is the author of Follow Your Heart’s Vegetarian Soup Cookbook and The Follow Your Heart Cookbook: Recipes from the Vegetarian Restaurant. She has taught cooking for over twenty-five years and currently teaches a cookbook writing workshop. She lives in Santa Barbara with her family.

Farmers Market

8 Markets, 6 Days a Week

Sundays

Camino Real Marketplace In Goleta at Storke & Hollister 10:00am – 2:00pm

Tuesdays

Old Town Santa Barbara

500 & 600 Blocks of State Street

4:00pm – 7:30pm 3:00pm – 6:30pm (beginning Nov 1)

Wednesdays

Solvang Village

Copenhagen Drive & 1st Street

2:30pm – 6:30pm 2:30pm – 6:00pm (beginning Nov 1)

Harding Elementary School 1625 Robbins Street 3:00pm – 6:30pm

Thursdays

Goleta

Calle Real Center – 5700 Calle Real

3:00pm – 6:00pm

Carpinteria

800 Block of Linden Avenue 3:00pm – 6:00pm

Fridays

Montecito

1100 & 1200 Block of Coast Village Road 8:00am – 11:15am

Saturdays

Downtown Santa Barbara Corner of Santa Barbara & Cota Streets 8:30am – 12:30pm

THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL: A SEAFOOD MECCA

by Carrie Culver and Kim Selkoe

Maine lobster. Maryland blue crab. Florida stone crab. Alaska salmon. Washington oysters. Santa Barbara...? What local seafood do you think of? If you are like most, little comes to mind.

Although Santa Barbara is full of seafood lovers, local seafood rarely seems to make it onto the table here. How can this be, when the waters offshore produce a variety and abundance of seafood? Our four local ports—Santa Barbara, Ventura, Channel Islands and Port Hueneme—together make our region a top producer of California seafood, but few locals seem to know.

We believe a major reason for this disconnect is that most (more than 85 percent) of what is caught here leaves town on trucks headed for Los Angeles or San Francisco and beyond, where it is much appreciated and sought after. For instance, almost all of the locally caught spiny lobster goes to live fish markets in far away places like Taiwan, where it fetches a high price. Lobster flown in from Maine is what ends up on our plates instead.

Our uni (sea urchin) is world-famous for its quality and taste. But locally famous? Only in a few esoteric circles. Our locally harvested peel-and-eat ridgeback prawn (i.e., Santa Barbara Sweet Shrimp) is renowned as the sweetest shrimp in the world—pretty amazing when you figure there are over 100 types of shrimp eaten worldwide. While it’s great that our seafood is loved and demanded around the world, its affinity for travel leaves us locals high and dry, unaware of how great our local seafood is or even what it is—a kind of local-seafood identity crisis.

This identity crisis is also fueled by the fact that we don’t have one clear-cut seafood mascot—like Maine lobster—for everyone to rally around. Here in Santa Barbara there are many local seafood stars worthy of adoration. The waters in our backyard are a smorgasbord mix of both warm-water southern species and cold-water northern species. And, to complicate things further, what’s abundant one year may not be around at all the next. The waters of the Santa Barbara Channel region are incredibly dynamic—temperature, currents, nutrient levels are always changing, so seafood availability fluctuates over the years. For example, when the ocean becomes unusually warm during an El Niño event, squid virtually disappear from local fishing grounds, and the quality of sea urchins declines as their food source (cold-loving kelp) dies back. On the positive side, lobster often boom following El Niño years. Local catches of ridgeback shrimp, yellowfin tuna and swordfish also rise at these times.

Our top fisheries are squid and urchin, two items that are greatly underappreciated locally. We should all take a cue from the French and Italian Rivieras and discover a passion for fresh oursin (urchin) and calamari (squid). Need more gustatory trips to the Mediterranean? Try local sardines grilled fresh or local anchovies atop a thin-crust pizza. Santa Barbara has its own specialties worth exploring, like white seabass and spider crab. We also have some literally homegrown items from our mariculture farms that provide us fresh and sustainably grown abalone, oysters and mussels.

If you follow the sustainable seafood movement, you have learned to think positively of terms like “diver-caught” and “trap-caught” and negatively of terms like “bottom trawling” and “longlining.” The first two are highly selective while the latter two tend to damage habitat

Seafood Savvy Establishments

Aldo’s* 1031 State Street (805) 963-6687

Arts and Letters Café*

7 E. Anapamu Street (805) 730-1463

Bay Café †

131 Anacapa Street (805) 963-2215

Blue Agave*

20 E. Cota Street (805) 899-6686

Bouchon*

9 W. Victoria Street (805) 730-1160

Brophy Brothers † * 119 Harbor Way (805) 966-4418

Cadena’s Fresh Fish (805) 698-8554

Coast † *

31 W. Carrillo Street (805) 884-0300

Downey’s † *

1305 State Street (805) 966-5006

Elements Restaurant & Bar *

129 E. Anapamu Street (805) 884-9218

Fresco Café *

3987 State Street (805) 967-6037

Hungry Cat † 1134 Chapala Street (805) 884-4701

Julienne † *

138 E. Canon Perdido Street (805) 845-6488

Kanaloa Seafoods* 618 E. Guitierrez Street 1-888-KANALOA

Santa Barbara Fish Market † *

117 Harbor Way (805) 965-9564

Seagrass Restaurant † *

30 E. Ortega Street (805) 963-1012

Shellfish Company

30 Stearns Wharf # A

State & A, Bar and Grill * 1201 State Street (805) 966-1010

* Members of the Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program dedicated to carrying sustainable seafood. Visit sbseafood.org and look for this emblem around town.

† Reliable sources of local seafood.

Crabby Steve’s Crab Cakes

(Steve Escobar, local commercial trapper)

Makes 8 crab cakes

1 pound local rock crab meat

1⁄ 2 cup dry breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1⁄ 4 cup green onion, finely chopped

2 eggs, beaten

1⁄ 2 cup Panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)

2 cups oil for frying

Dipping Sauce

1⁄ 4 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons mustard

1 tablespoon soy sauce

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the 1 beaten egg, mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, lemon zest, Old Bay seasoning and green onions. Mix well, then add crab meat and breadcrumbs—be careful not to overwork the crab meat. Form into 8 flat crab cakes and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Place 2 beaten eggs in one bowl, and the Panko in a second bowl. Dip the crab cakes in the egg and then the Panko. Place the coated cakes in hot oil (approximately 350°) until golden brown on all sides. Mix together the ingredients for the dipping sauce. Serve hot with the dipping sauce drizzled over the top.

and have high “bycatch” (the unwanted sea life accidentally caught and usually just thrown away). Well, Santa Barbarians can be proud that most of our seafood is diver-caught (urchin, sea cucumber) and trap-caught (lobster, spot prawn, crab, sheephead, rockfish), and doubly proud that some of our local fishermen participate in trawling and longlining techniques that qualify as environmentally friendly. Our local shrimp trawlers used “light loop chains” that hang from the lower edge of the trawl net, herding the bottomdwelling shrimp into the net instead of having to scrape up the sea floor to catch them. It is worth learning more about these issues, but the bottom line is that our waters offshore are productive and our farmed and wild caught seafood is fresh and highly regulated for sustainability. This combination pretty much guarantees a more satisfying and healthy seafood experience than the average supermarket fillet or bag of frozen shrimp that may have traveled halfway around the world (think food miles and carbon footprint!).

Getting Local Fish on Your Dish

So, now that you are geared up to sample all the tasty and fresh seafood from our waters, where and when can you find it? It can take some searching, but we hope that as appreciation for our local seafood grows, buying local seafood will get easier. To get moving along this path, we included a short list of local restaurants and markets that we know reliably serve up local seafood. One of the most enjoyable ways to get our local seafood is to go down to the Santa Barbara Harbor or one of the other Channel ports and see what the catch of the day is.

• Crab and rockfish (and lobster when in season) are reliably available at the Saturday morning Fisherman’s Market in the harbor.

• A few fishermen also have e-mail lists that are used to contact consumers directly when they have product available—just ask around at the harbor.

• Shrimp, oysters and mussels are available at the farmers market.

• Want the convenience of getting local seafood in the supermarket? Try asking the grocer to carry it. Often only a few inquiries will change their buying habits.

• Why don’t more restaurants serve local seafood? Because the catch is so dynamic and restaurants want more predictability. Let your favorite restaurants know that you are up for passing on farmed salmon and imported frozen shrimp for a more serious commitment to the local catch of the day.

Kim Selkoe is a marine scientist affiliated with UCSB and the University of Hawaii, and co-director of the Ty Warner Sea Center’s Sustainable Seafood Program, an outreach effort to assist chefs, markets and citizens in supporting local and sustainable seafood.

Carolynn (Carrie) S. Culver, Ph.D. is a Sea Grant Marine Advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. She conducts ocean research and education programs, specializing in marine fisheries, aquatic invasive species and mariculture.

Handcrafted and sustainably grown wines full of character and integrity, since 1973.

Santa Ynez Valle Y F www.zacame S a.com

S’COOL FOOD’S

CULINARY BOOT CAMP

Across the country and around the world, a new food movement is gaining strength with increasing clarity and conviction. The White House has planted an organic garden, the number of farmers markets is increasing dramatically nationwide and California has launched the California Ag Vision process, an ambitious plan to address the many issues facing agriculture. While we confront many difficult issues locally and beyond, food’s future seems bright.

Ironically, at the same time that food has found its all-star status, a growing number of Americans are becoming “food insecure,” meaning that their access to healthy food is limited. Ordinary citizens can watch America’s next Top Chef battle for a chance to work for a night at the likes of Le Bernadin, but fewer and fewer people can afford even the most fundamental components of a healthy diet.

Facing this increase in food insecurity and rising food prices, the type and quality of food available to a growing number of Americans is that much more important. This is especially true in our schools, where a school breakfast or lunch may well be the only food a child eats that day.

It is ironic that as we face increasing hunger nationwide, Americans are getting wider and wider around the waist. A recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health (F Is for Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America) found that two-thirds of Americans are now obese or overweight and that the number of obese and overweight children has climbed to 30 percent in 30 states.

Little by little, we are feeding ourselves, and our kids, to death.

s’Cool Food

Flash back to elementary school for a moment. The lunch lady plops down a spoonful of mac ’n’ cheese, hands out a cup of syrupy fruit, a cookie and chocolate milk on a tray in the school cafeteria. Add greasy Tater Tots, chili cheese fries, chicken nuggets or nachos to the mix on any given day and you have quite a concoction of semi-foods.

But those chili cheese fries have taken their toll, if not on our health, on the collective mindset of the nation. The stuff was cheap, convenient and quick to prepare. School cafeteria workers previously accustomed to preparing meals from scratch have since traded in their sets of knives for box cutters while stovetops have been replaced with microwaves. In no time, a frozen commodity can be freed from its cardboard confines, nuked for 45 seconds and, voila, lunch is served.

Clearly, this approach has caused more harm than good, as diet-related diseases, particularly among youth, have increased in astounding numbers. In Santa Barbara County, 28 percent of fifth, sixth and seventh graders and 36 percent of adolescents are either obese or overweight and therefore at major risk of diabetes (Santa Barbara Independent, “Does Community Design Affect Health?” January 2008).

The s’Cool Food Initiative is designed to counter these alarming trends by working at various levels within Santa Barbara County schools. Educational programs, school gardens, targeted funding and staff trainings are among the methods used to create a community of healthy children who will make educated food choices throughout their lives.

The s’Cool Food Initiative’s Culinary Boot Camp is one such program that seeks to take us back to the era of real food. Working directly with school food services workers from throughout the county, Boot Camp provides hands-on learning opportunities for kitchen staff as they sharpen their skills preparing fresh-cooked meals to benefit their school’s lunch program.

The Boot Camp Regimen

Culinary Boot Camp is an intense, one-week training program in which participants attend classes covering a variety of topics. Some of these include:

Culinary Math

Participants calculate weights, measurements and cost of food, down to the amount per serving. This is critical for cash-strapped schools.

Flavor Profiles

How do Kosher, iodized and sea salt compare? How about canned versus fresh tomatoes or pure maple syrup versus your leading brand?

Menu Planning

Though this sounds simple, cooking fresh food means working as a team to plan your menu and prepare foods in the most efficient manner.

Knife Skills

For some, this class is old news. But for others, learning how to properly handle knives greatly increases safety and efficiency.

Cooling and Heating

To ensure food’s safety, local, state and federal regulations require strict adherence to how food is cooled, transported, heated and re-heated. This is true for pastas, meats, soups and everything in between.

Visiting a Local Farm

Working with food on a daily basis, it is important that cooks know where and how food is grown. In Santa Barbara County, this is as easily done as said.

Despite a great curriculum and good intentions, some food service professionals express hesitation in taking such a course. This is only natural. After all, some of them have been preparing school lunches since long before anyone felt the urge to “train” them at what they already know how to do.

“I’ve been cooking from scratch for years and wasn’t sure I would benefit from this training,” said Ramona Lepps, a food service employee from Goleta Union School District and Boot Camp participant. “After the class, I realized how much I had to learn. I would recommend it for any district interested in making a change for the health of their kids.”

It is often said that teacher and farmer are among the least compensated and most overlooked occupations in society. There are others, to be sure. But it would not be inaccurate to place school food services workers in this same category. As the ones responsible for feeding our children on a daily basis, food service workers in local schools play a critical role in school food reform and healthy eating. Not only should they be given the tools to provide healthy meals, they should be heralded as heroes for doing so.

It is our hope that after graduating from a full week of cooking, classes and establishing strong working relationships with their peers, participants emerge knowledgeable and confident in their own cooking abilities and perhaps even proud.

As Boot Camp graduates return to their school cafeterias, it is up to parents, school administrators, local foodies and the community as a whole to support them in making the transition to real food. The passion is there, the will is there, and there has never been a better time than now.

Eric Cárdenas is the director of the s’Cool Food Initiative, which you can find out more about by visiting scoolfood.org.

Locavore Events

THROUGHOUT OCTOBER

Isla Vista Food Co-op National Co-op Month

The Co-op will also be sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge; islavistafoodcoop.blogspot.com

Local Farmers Market Dinner at Coast Restaurant Tuesdays, 5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara

On Tuesday nights they offer a prix fixe Farmers Market dinner special for $28 per person featuring items from the Tuesday Farmer’s Market. 805 884-0300; canarysantabarbara.com

Off the Hook Menu at Coast Restaurant Fridays, 5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara

On Friday nights they offer an Off the Hook menu for $28 per person for three courses using ingredients from local fish merchants. 805 884-0300; canarysantabarbara.com

Downey’s: A Chef’s Taste of Santa Barbara Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sun nights in October; 5:30pm-close; 1305 State Street, Santa Barbara Chef John Downey will create a four-course tasting menu to showcase the very finest produce from Santa Barbara’s renowned Farmers Market paired with regional meats and seafood. $50 per person; Call for reservations. 805 966-5006; downeyssb.com

SATURDAYS OCTOBER OCT 10, 17, 31

Market Foray Culinary Adventures & Cooking Classes

8:00am–3:30pm; 814 San Roque Road, Santa Barbara

Explore Santa Barbara’s Fishermen’s Market and Farmers Market, meet the best local growers and food artisans, then learn how to cook a gourmet meal using all local seasonal ingredients. Fresh seafood right off the boat, fragrant strawberries and hand-selected vegetables from neighboring farms, local ranch meats, artisan cheese, paired with premium local wines. Laurence Hauben is a passionate French cook, writer, former Executive Director of the Farmers Market Association and leader of Slow Food Santa Barbara. $135. Tuesday afternoon and private classes available by request. Call 805 259-7229; marketforays.com

SATURDAYS OCT 10, 24

Eat Your Yard Aurora Farms Workshops

8:30am–7:30pm; address with confirmation Walk Aurora Farms with Lori Ann. Learn about sustainable sacred spaces that combine tranquility, beauty, food and make a meal from the land with style. Workshop topics include raising chickens, growing plants for health and beauty and how to “eat your yard” everyday. $35 per individual workshop, $95 for all 3. Call 805 569-5009; lorianndavid.com

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18

Sustainable Food & Wine Tour

2–8pm; pick up from Santa Barbara Visit Santa Barbara County’s premier farmland and vineyards. Sit back and relax as we travel to farms and wineries while nutritionist Gerri French RD discusses the benefits of choosing sustainable food and wine for our environment and our health. Share a locally-sourced meal with Clark Staub, owner of Full of Life Flatbread. $150. 805 698-3911; sustainablevine.com

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24

IV Food Co-op Country Fair

11am–4pm; 6575 Seville Rd., Isla Vista Free family friendly foodie event. 805 968-1401; for more info visit islavistafoodcoop.blogspot.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29

Downey’s Santa Barbara Autumn Lobster Dinner

5:30pm–close; 1305 State Street, Santa Barbara Chef John Downey will bring in fresh lobsters direct from local fishing boats and prepare a four-course dinner using these shellfish first in an appetizer and then in his famous ‘Lobster Ragout’. $75 per person; Call 805 966-5006; downeyssb.com

eat local challenge

DRINK GROW LEARN CELEBRATE

OCTOBER IS Eat Local Month

As part of epicure.sb, the Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market and Edible Santa Barbara magazine are co-sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge for Santa Barbara during the month of October.

Take a Pledge to Eat Only Local Food for 31 Days!

Whether you choose to eat only foods produced within a 100 or 150 mile radius, or Santa Barbara County or the tri-county region or even the state of California; and whether you choose to have exceptions that you will not be eating locally (i.e. coffee, tea or spices), you benefit from the experience of joining with your community to eat locally produced food

How Can I Find Local Food? How Do I Get Started?

You can find lots of resources right here in the pages of this magazine. In addition, information will be provided at the Farmers Markets and on ediblesantabarbara.com. To share information go to our Google Group: groups.google.com/group/sb-eat-local-challenge Check out the various events that will be taking place during the month of October that highlight local foods. And on October 1st start eating local!

LEARNING TO APPRECIATE OUR LOCAL HONEYBEES

by Nancy Oster

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRAN COLLIN

Don Cole of San Marcos Farms attends to a hive that is pollinating agapanthus for a seed company.

My first contact with a swarm of bees came about 30 years ago. Returning from a shopping trip with my kids, I pulled into my driveway—right into a swirling mass of bees. Swarm catcher Charlie Vines tells me that a swarm of bees, thousands of them, landing on the walls, fences, buzzing around you frenetically, are usually not aggressive. They are in transit to a new home, not protecting one.

I wish I’d known that at the time, trapped in my car with a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old and lots of groceries. Charlie assures me that within 15 minutes a swarm either moves on or reaches its destination and settles down. To be honest I don’t remember how we escaped from the car, but none of us got stung and within a short time the bees formed a football-shaped cluster hanging from a branch of the tree near our living room window. Apparently that was their destination. We called someone listed in the phone book, who came that night with smoke and a box to remove the football cluster.

I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. However, we later moved to a new home in what beekeeper Don Cole of San Marcos Farms refers to as a “bee corridor.”

Swarm Catching

Our neighborhood area was once an orchard. Apparently we still have wild beehives nearby that swarm frequently, the most memorable time being into the water meter box located just beneath our mailbox. That was when we first met Charlie Vines.

Most people hear of Vines by word of mouth. I like to think of him as our local bee whisperer. Vines arrives confident and reassuring as he explains what is happening. In this case, we have scout bees going into our water meter box. Vines says they’re measuring the space for their future hive, including the size of the entrance. Worker bees can get through holes smaller than the queen, but they allow for that in their measurements. He explains that the scouts will return to the hive to bring the newly hatched queen and the portion of drones and worker bees leaving the overcrowded hive. They use odor trails and a bit of dance language to guide the bees to their new location.

This is far more awesome than it sounds. The full swarm arrives en masse while Vines is standing there. The sky turns dark with bees; the buzz of approaching bees is loud and ominous. They funnel toward the water meter opening. Fascinating!

In the center, a queen bee being attended by house bees.

Vines has many years experience coaxing bees out of water meters, house walls, attics and fences. He is 77 and has been observing bee behavior since he was 10 years old on his family farm in eastern Texas. At 10, he’d sit near a large tree that had a hanging beehive, much larger than the ones he finds today. Stings on his lip or ears didn’t stop him from going back to watch the bees.

Vines says the trick to relocating bees is to move the queen to a bee box and wait for the other bees to follow her into the box. Each hive has its own scent, so even forager bees out collecting nectar will find their way back to their queen if the collection box is left close to the original spot. He usually leaves the box and comes back in the evening when the workers have returned for the night.

Hanging hives and newly clustered swarms are the easiest to relocate. Colonies established in house or garden walls and fence cavities are more difficult, requiring a new queen to attract the worker bees to a more desirable location. It may take a month to draw all of the bees into the new box, but patience is rewarded by removal, not destruction of a valuable ecological resource. According to Vines, most bees in Santa Barbara are docile, good pollinators and make delicious honey.

Tuning into the Community of Bees

Another swarm catcher, Elisa Robles (a.k.a. The Worm Girl) has been catching swarms in Santa Barbara for about three years. She had her first Zen-like bee experience working on a farm in New Zealand. Robles describes listening to the hum of the bees and watching them work in unison.

Worker bees are all female. Male drones help keep the hive warm and mate with the virgin queen during her brief aerial mating period. Worker bees live about one month during the peak foraging season (spring and summer) and are continually being replenished by the egg-laying queen. Drones usually live longer than the workers, but will die off when food becomes scarce. Queens can live up to eight years, but are strongest in the first three years. A queen lays up to 2,000 eggs a day, fertilizing only the female worker eggs from the lifetime supply of sperm she has stored in her body. Larger cup cells are built for laying new queens in anticipation of upcoming swarms. A queen bee is fed only royal jelly, secreted by the worker bees. The jelly transforms a worker larva into a queen.

Young worker bees nurse the baby bees as they emerge from their birth cells, builder bees construct new cells, housekeeper bees keep the hive clean, guard bees protect the entrance to the hive and forager bees go into the field to bring back pollen and nectar for food and storage. Worker bees move through all these phases during their short lives, knowing instinctively how and when to perform each task.

Charlie Vines in the San Roque foothills, with a newly captured swarm getting a home. It is now his second hive. He lost 49 of the 50 hives he had prior to the Jesusita fire, where his location was near ground zero.

Elisa takes some time out to appreciate and connect with the bees.

Elisa Robles listens to the boxes in the evening to see if the workers have come home and to check their activity level and mood, before removing the swarm.

Robles says, “I love going back to pick up the swarm at night. Before I lift the lid to see that they are tucked in for the move, I put my ear against it to hear their peaceful humming. I peek through the doorway to see them huddled together in this gentle fluttering cluster.” The bees use the fluttering of their wings to circulate air through the hive, which controls the temperature and helps to evaporate excess water from the newly stored nectar. They eventually cap these nectar cells with the same wax secretion they use to build the honeycomb cells.

Robles says, “I feel like there’s some sort of communication between us. Watching them drink the sweat off my body, the salt. Letting them chill out to let their wings dry if they’ve gotten honey on them. Everything else is tuned out. It’s just me and these little critters. I guess that’s what keeps me coming back.”

Protecting Local Bees

Don Cole says, “Santa Barbara is a wonderful area for bees. There are so many different trees and plants. The blooms are offset, so there are blooms from the winter until the end of summer.” While we don’t have extreme cold weather like the East Coast, our bees struggle with lack of water and fewer nectar-filled blossoms during our dry period from August until about November.

Cole has been tending bees since the late 1960s, when his father first became interested in beekeeping. Cole maintains about 500 hives in Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, Carpinteria and Ojai. Beekeepers face new challenges with mite infestations, viral and bacterial diseases and concern over newer systemic pesticides, all of which may be contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Cole points out that there have been cyclic episodes of dwindling disease in the past, but there is not enough historical data to know if CCD is part of a natural cycle or man-made.

This mysteriously sudden bee disappearance is a concern for agriculture as well as home farmers who largely depend on European honeybees to pollinate their fruits and vegetables. An apple tree without bees to pollinate the blooms will produce about 25 apples, while the same size tree with honeybees will produce about 1,200 apples.

Cole keeps a close eye on the health of his bees. He breeds additional queens from the most robust hives, hoping to keep the stock of bees best suited to Santa Barbara strong and hardy.

Producing Local Honey

While commercial honey is a commodity sold in 650-pound barrels to large industrial honey packers, Cole has kept his honey business small and artisanal. His bees keep all the honey and pollen they need to keep their hives vibrant. Only the boxes of stored excess honey are removed for extraction.

Cole works to keep his honey tasting as close to fresh from the hive as possible. His San Marcos Farms local honey, bee pollen, and candles are sold at our farmers markets and many local grocery stores. The product moves quickly from hive to shelf and doesn’t travel long distances to your plate.

Supporting Local Bees and Beekeepers

I have to admit I have a whole new respect for bees since meeting Charlie Vines, Elisa Robles and Don Cole. I now listen for the hum of the bees in my garden, and I plan to plant more flowers that bloom during the drier months of the year. When my friends discover bees in their attic or a swarm in the yard, I’ll urge them to call a beekeeper to collect the bees, rather than call an exterminator.

Charlie Vines is holding a piece of honey comb, from a captured swarm. Right, bees at the honey trough eating their precious honey, a valuable food source.

Will I try beekeeping myself? Hmm, that’s a thought. Cole just might offer a beekeeping class in the spring. Check the Edible Santa Barbara Event Calendar (ediblesantabarbara.com) for updates. In the meantime, I’m going downstairs to make a cup of tea with honey.

To Bee Continued…

Nancy Oster lives in a Santa Barbara bee corridor and loves to eat honey. She now has a cautious new appreciation for the bees in her yard and supports the beekeepers who tend and protect those bees.

Fran Collin will have an exhibit of his photography at The Book Den October 1–31, 2009. The opening reception will be Thursday, October 1, 5:00–8:00pm. The Book Den is located at 15 E. Anapamu St, Santa Barbara. 805.962.3321

Santa Barbara Bee Keepers

Don Cole, San Marcos Farms: 681-0312

Paul Cronshaw: 453-7863 (Montecito to San Marcos area)

Debbie Daily: 245-0568 (North County)

Jim Dale: 679-3274

Tony Diloreto: 896-4804 (Montecito to Hope Ranch)

J.P. Bee Rescue: 708-2995

Brenton Kelly: 722-2523 (Goleta)

Elisa Robles, The Worm Girl: 815-7233

Jacob Rodrique: 570-4749

Charlie Vines: 967-6442

Luring More Bees Into Your Garden

• Avoid the use of pesticides, especially systemic pesticides that are absorbed into the plant.

• Choose plants that bloom in colors bees like such as blue, purple, white and yellow. Bees don’t see red, it looks black to them.

• Plant a grouping of the same flower in one space. Bees tend to select one type of flower per trip from the hive, so a grouping makes their feeding more efficient.

• Plant in sunny spaces. Bees follow the sun.

• Include plants that flower in all seasons. Blooms from August to November are especially important.

• Plant groundcovers with lots of small flowers in places you won’t be walking barefooted.

• Provide water with a platform. Bees need water, but they don’t swim, so put water near a place they can land on safely while they drink. A lily pad in a pond or a bowl of wet sand will help them immensely during the dry days of summer.

Some plants to consider are: African Basil, Borage, Buckwheat, Clarkia, Gaillardia, Lavender, Poppy, Rosemary, Scented Geraniums, Sunflowers.

Why Does It Matter?

Berries, apples, cucumbers and many other fruits and vegetables require pollination to develop fully. If you are pulling withered squash or melons off your plants, you need more bees. An apple has five to six seed pockets, each containing two seeds. Each seed is pollinated individually, often requiring multiple bee visits to the bloom. The number of seeds pollinated affects both the size and sweetness of the ripened apple. We need to keep our local honeybees strong so they can survive another few thousand years.

Don Cole with some of his hives in the Goleta foothills.

LIQUID ASSETS IN PURSUIT OF BEER

by Zachary Rosen

Icame to Santa Barbara to go to UCSB after nearly choosing UC Davis because of my desire to pursue a degree in fermentation science, my interest being in the brewing industry. Instead I studied chemical engineering, but my spare time was spent researching brewing texts and beer books. I became a student member of the beer science communities and began to interpret the scientific journals they publish. While brewmaster seemed like the obvious choice of future occupation, the brewing industry contains more than just brewers, so I wanted to see what was out there. Soon one profession rose to my attention.

In the wine world, “certified sommelier” designates someone with a proven expertise in the selection, procurement and serving of fine wine. The rise of craft beer and gastropubs naturally brought about a similar credentialing system, the Cicerone Certification Program.

This recognizes three levels: Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone and Master Cicerone. The Cicerone title is used to identify someone who gains the knowledge and tasting skills to pair beers with foods and inform the selection and appreciation of beers.

Wine has long been accepted as an elegant accompaniment to food. But beer goes with a lot more than just pizza, and when it comes down to it, beer has just as much potential. The bubbles in beer give it a scrubbing effect on the palate. There are over 100 styles of beer and many that are in their own class. Don’t like the bitterness of hops? Scotch ales traditionally have just enough hops to lightly counterbalance the richness of the malt. Want the acidity of a wine in a beer? A true lambic should not be perversely sweet (even though that style is unfortunately common) but should rather have a sharpness that ranges from a soft tart snap to a vinegary bite. There is an expansive and dynamic list of flavors that can arise from beer.

I decided to attempt the Certified Cicerone test soon after my 21st birthday. I missed the 80 percent passing grade by 2.9 percent; close, but words and pictures are simply limited in describing the true sensation and understanding that comes from undergoing the brewing process in person. It soon became apparent that my home brewing and book knowledge was not fulfilling the required experience in brewing for a Cicerone, and a real-world grasp of the subject was necessary. A volunteering opportunity soon presented itself, and I began to help brew at The Brewhouse. But because this was a brewpub (meaning they only produce beer for their own restaurant), I also looked for a brewery to teach me the additional tasks required to move beer off the property. I landed an additional volunteering job at Telegraph Brewing Company, and I continued to help at both places learning the processes firsthand.

A Brewpub

The Brewhouse, located on Montecito Street near the Amtrak station, features two main dining rooms that each has its own bar area, and the adjoining brewery can be seen through a window. The restaurant is open from breakfast to dinner and offers an expansive menu of well-prepared food that attracts many diners and blends well with the beer.

The brewmaster, Pete Johnson, says, “My beers aren’t consistent but I try to make them consistently good.” Pete knows a good beer from a bad one. He has judged beer contests on both the professional and home brewing levels, which have given him insight on proper brewing techniques and producing balanced recipes. Pete drifts in and out of the restaurant to socialize with regulars while keeping an eye on the brew with help from his assistant brewer Paul Nichols.

Brew day starts in the morning and sets the room alive with a series of smells and sounds as the dim buzz from the adjoined restaurant hums underneath. While employees shift table settings, water warms in the brewery. A window separates it from the restaurant and patrons can watch the brewers as they tend to the beers. Some people might be surprised at what they glimpse going on in the brewery. One day I entered to find the brewers in kilts. “Nothing like brewing in a kilt,” they joke while performing some leg stretches. As soon as they were limber, it was time to begin brewing.

The first step is called mashing and results in a sugary liquid (wort). Hot water, called liquor in brewers’ parlance, and crushed barley malt go into a large tank, called a mash tun. The barley type and quantity used will determine the alcohol content and add sweetness and color to the finished product. The wafts of sweet malt during the mash send a candy-like smell throughout the air and the satisfying malt aroma fills the room. As the boil begins, hops are thrown in; each addition sends out a cloud of this perennial vine’s herbal perfume. The scent signals the aroma particles evaporating out of the boiling kettle while the hot wort extracts the flavor and bittering compounds. Hops also act as a preservative and have been shown to help stimulate the appetite, aid in digestion and act as a relaxant. The hour-long boil gives enough time to make sure that all the other hoses and equipment are cleaned and sanitized by the time they are needed.

When the brew day is done the soft babble of fermenting wort imparts a calm over the room, and the delicate bubbling is as soothing as waves crashing on the beach. In about two weeks the beer will have fermented and the yeast settled to the bottom of the fermenter, leaving the beer ready for kegging. Some beers are filtered, which removes yeast still in suspension and gives a nice clarity. And of course hard work should always be rewarded. A glass of Baseball Saison refreshes and douses the palate with flavors of honeyed malts and orange water. An herbal spiciness is followed by a quick alcohol bite, which rounds into a balanced bitterness. Truly this is the right end to a good day.

A Brewery

Close by in a Salsipuedes street warehouse, similar motions are being performed as three people toil away to keep the beer flowing at Telegraph Brewing Company. This brewery is located next to Carr Winery and shows that more than wine can be made in a warehouse. Their tasting hours offer a busy social scene of locals and the traveling beer tasters. The place has a homey atmosphere with the small bar area looking like the tiny kitchen of a modern apartment. A bowl of pretzels on the counter gets refilled by Will Durgin and Scott Baer, the brewers, who socialize and lead newcomers through tastings all while manning the taps.

owned and operated since 2003

825 Santa Barbara St. 965-0318 • www.cestcheese.com

Will Durgin, brewer at Telegraph Brewing Company.

Scott Baer, brewer at Telegraph Brewing Company.

Owner and brewmaster, Brian Thompson of Telegraph Brewing Company.

During the day the small brewery takes on a different pace and a busy calm fills the warehouse. Brian Thompson, owner and brewmaster, overlooks the brewers from his second story office. They work intently while talk radio fills the void with opinions and jokes as Will and Scott interject their own. From half-gallon “growler” jugs for the UCSB astrophysics barbecues to a groom grabbing kegs for his wedding, customers drift in throughout the day.

The brewery uses only one strain of yeast, which laces a “Belgian” quality throughout their brews. The delicate but distinguishing flavors of apple pulp and strawberries with hints of cloves compose the “house character” of their yeast strain. The light-flavored Golden Wheat Ale provides a refreshing and clean-tasting canvas for the yeast traits to come out. Their White Ale features traditional coriander and orange peel but with the added twist of locally grown chamomile flowers. It offers a palate of cloves and dried flowers mixing with orange blossom honey and smooth creamy malts. Telegraph Rhinoceros is one of the most drinkable barley wines I’ve tried. The liberal use of rye malts dry out the beer and give a characteristic bready spiciness. Telegraph is also known for their seasonal specialties. Their dark and rich Oatmeal Stout is only available in the fall, and their spicy and complex Winter Ale is only available in the winter. Going to the tasting hours is the best way to try Telegraph’s beers, but their website contains a list of their distributors that allows you to find Telegraph beer locally or as you travel through California.

A trip this summer to the National Homebrewing Conference in Oakland gave me the opportunity to retry the Cicerone exam. The extra work paid off, and I passed it on the day of my 22nd birthday. As I took the exam, a few times I found myself trying to remember which lever Pete had pulled or recall how Scott sealed a growler. The extra push I needed to pass was provided by those who helped me along the way, for which I’m grateful.

From the palest yellow to the deepest black and even the worrisome green that fills our glass on certain holidays, beer colors our daily life with an effervescent sparkle. Beer is not an investment; it does not contain the wealth that wine does. But wealth is subjective, and beer holds value in both its adaptability and naturally the people with whom you drink it. And fortunately the beer industry is full of people that, quite simply, you just want to have a beer with.

Zachary Rosen is a chemical engineering student at UCSB, but his heart lies with the world of beer and drinks, which he continually studies. Zach is a Certified Cicerone, proud to be practicing his craft at the restaurant Dutch Gardens, and he can be seen gracing the streets of Isla Vista and establishments of Santa Barbara

Visit us at our tasting room outside of Solvang or at the Farmer’s Market at Santa Barbara and Cota on Saturdays from 8:30am to 12:30pm

SO YOU WANT TO PLANT AN EDIBLE GARDEN…

by Janice Cook Knight

PHOTOGRAPHY

BY ISAAC HERNÁNDEZ

Linda Buzzell and Larry Saltzman in their edible garden.

Really fresh food is on everyone’s minds. It seems that everyone is planting a garden. Many are trading their lawns or parts of their lawns for something to eat instead.

The emphasis on local produce and the widespread and delicious growth of farmers markets, as well as the scary stories about contaminated processed foods, have got us thinking about the most local food of all—the kind you step into your backyard to harvest.

If you’re new to gardening, there’s a lot to learn. Even experienced gardeners are always on the lookout for new ideas: how to grow artichokes if you’ve never grown them before; better ways to compost; techniques for saving water; the secret to growing a really sweet tomato. Let’s take a look at a couple of local gardens that will inspire both the novice and the seasoned gardener.

A New Garden

I first met Pat Brodie, landscape designer, over five years ago when she helped my family design the landscape of our new home. Pat designs garden environments that are enjoyable spaces to be in and based on her clients’ needs. For edible gardens, she doesn’t just plant rows of vegetables, but creates spaces that suggest food and abundance, that stimulate the desire to relax and enjoy the garden’s beauty as well as do the garden work: places to harvest, cook and eat; places to sit and enjoy meals.

I paid a visit to one of Pat’s Santa Barbara gardens, completed just this past March. Already it is so well established that it is hard to believe this is its first season. The garden was planted in an unused part of the yard, set above and in back of the home in a sunny location. An attractive state-of-the-art chicken coop is home to four young hens, which run freely while the owner is working in the garden. Simple dirt paths are strewn with straw. A greens bed is growing just for the chickens to eat. In return, the chickens provide fertilizer to add to the composted garden and kitchen waste. They are still too young to lay eggs, but in a few months they’ll be providing eggs for the family as well.

A metal pergola contains a table and chairs within. Young passion fruit vines twine up the pergola and eventually will provide shade. In another area, closer to the house, a picnic table makes a space for informal meals. Combined, the area becomes an outdoor space that is a natural extension of the larger property yet provides its own privacy.

The edible plantings are lush and vibrant. Automatic water sprayers are installed. All have individual shut-off valves so that each garden bed can have the water turned off if it is left unplanted for a time. The beds were amended with organic compost and fertilizer mixes.

Some beds are raised, others not, giving a varied look to the garden. The raised stone beds are topped with flat pavers, making a handy bench for seating as well; the raised beds are very easy to access, and eliminate the need to stoop. This new garden is already providing or will provide citrus, grapes, kiwi, strawberries, squash, peppers, onions, carrots, greens, watermelon, apples, nasturtiums, passion fruit, beautiful dahlias and other flowers, and more.

For the owner, who is new to gardening, working with an expert gardener has been a great advantage. Since the installation, she has continued to work with Pat a few hours each month, sessions where Pat demonstrates when fruits and veggies should be picked for optimal harvest, when to dead-head some plants, how to save seed, or answers questions about heirloom plant varieties. The owner spends about 1½ hours per day in her garden and loves her time there. “Gardening hits our nurturing core down deep,” she says. “There is just something about providing food. I am surprised at how much I love it. Pat understands the garden on so many levels. She’s taught me that the garden doesn’t have to look perfect all the time—it’s a working garden. Also, you don’t have to know what you’re doing to get started. There is no harm done if you make a mistake—you just start over.” In addition the garden provides great exercise, pitchfork and shovel in hand.

Because Pat Brodie also loves cooking, she is well versed in growing plants for food. She is writing a cookbook for her clients: a seasonal guide to homegrown produce with optimal harvesting times for the Santa Barbara area.

An Established Permaculture Garden

Both Linda Buzzell and Larry Saltzman had always wanted to garden. As a child, Larry remembers being inspired by his grandpa’s garden in Chicago. In 1992 they started to pursue gardening seriously after purchasing their home in the Samarkand neighborhood of Santa Barbara; by 2000, they had started Santa Barbara’s Organic Garden Club. Linda Buzzell is the co-author of Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind (Sierra Club Books, 2009).

Walk their property and you will be delightfully surprised. On 1⁄3 of an acre there are currently 102 fruit trees, which they call their “food forest.” They are planted closer together than is usually recommended, but most of the trees seem to be thriving and providing fruit. An understory of plants provides flowers, vegetables and herbs.

The couple does not have a drip or other watering system. “We have no irrigation because we prefer to plant roses and trees in wells and water by hand. That way not only to do we save water, we really notice what’s happening in the garden, which is both pleasant and allows us to quickly see if any plant needs a little boost before it’s too late,” says Linda.

They used the seminal work Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy as a guide. Then they met Margie Bushman and Wesley Roe, who introduced them to the concept of permaculture.

What is permaculture? Linda and Larry describe it as an ethical system of ecological design that uses bio-mimicry, following nature’s patterns, as a model for the garden. This concept can be applied not only to gardens, but to landscapes and housing communities as well. Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren first coined the word and developed this idea during the 1970s.

Larry and Linda find the garden work extremely relaxing and not that demanding. That’s part of the design: “Permaculture is for lazy people. Nature’s doing a lot of the work,” says Larry. “There’s work up front in designing and planting the garden.” Once established, however, it is rather low maintenance. They like easy plants—all those fruit trees, for example, and plants like scarlet runner beans that reseed themselves every year.

Their goal is not self-sufficiency but is “delicious food with exceptional taste, beauty, ecotherapy, enough surplus to share or exchange with friends and neighbors,” Linda says. They enjoy participating in the San Roque neighborhood garden exchange. They love to take their meals outside, and their garden has many places to sit. Larry says that gardening “satisfies the human ‘hunter/gatherer’ instinct.”

Eight to 10 months of the year there is some fruit to harvest, though sometimes they buy, or possibly trade, for something they don’t have.

In addition to fruits and veggies, Linda loves heritage roses and grows many varieties. She finds that some of them have tasty petals, which she enjoys using in salads. She especially loves the Julia Child Rose, with its buttery yellow petals.

Of course a rose named after Julia Child should be tasty. As to the gardening possibilities in Santa Barbara, where we can grow things year-round, I can only say bon appétit—our climate makes gardening an especially delicious pleasure.

Janice Cook Knight is the author of Follow Your Heart’s Vegetarian Soup Cookbook and The Follow Your Heart Cookbook: Recipes from the Vegetarian Restaurant. She has taught cooking for over twenty-five years, and currently teaches a cookbook writing workshop. She lives in Santa Barbara with her family.

For information on permaculture gardening, see sbpermaculture.org. Pat Brodie can be reached at brodiedesign.com.

LINDA BUZZELL’S

Julia Child Rose Salad

To fully honor Santa Barbara’s late cooking genius Julia Child, you must drink a glass of lovely white wine while preparing and enjoying this salad!

Lettuce or seasonal greens

2 sliced radishes

1 tablespoon currants or raisins

A mix of freshly picked edible flowers: We like blue borage blooms, orange nasturtium flowers (chopped or julienned) and petals from an unsprayed Julia Child (a rich yellow butter color, of course!) or other rose

1 avocado, chopped

1 tomato, chopped (you can omit if you use red rose petals, as the colors clash)

1 finely chopped scallion or a little finely minced onion (can be omitted)

1 tablespoon pistachio or other nuts (toasted pine nuts or walnuts are also nice)

Crushed Herbes de Provence (we have ours in a pepper grinder and just give it a few turns)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Toss all ingredients with a mild or slightly sweet dressing of your choice. Try a dressing with red wine or rose petal vinegar and a light walnut oil.

Sometimes we top the salad with a few shavings of Parmesan or other fine cheese. Other times we add smoked salmon.

Thanksgiving

by Pascale Beale-Groom

Pascale Beale-Groom.

Ilike to think of the food that comes from this season as a reflection of the following simple philosophy: Nature has, in its annual harvest, offered up some of its most delicious elements—a luscious fig, an ornamental pomegranate, a perfectly ripe delicate pear, a rotund pumpkin and an avalanche of exquisite tubers. Rushing their preparation and the subsequent eating of such splendors seems to be contrary to the season itself.

History, it seems, agrees. From the time of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, annual festivals have occurred to celebrate the harvest. For thousands of years the human race has, in all parts of the world, taken the time to give thanks for the abundance that surrounds them.

The Jewish harvest festival, Succoth, is held in either September or October. It stems from the time of their exodus from Egypt, during which Hebrews traveled in the wilderness on route to Canaan. During their pilgrimage, they lived in makeshift shelters called sukkot. They also gathered in sukkot to pray and eat together.

As a result, Succoth is also known as the Feast of Tabernacle. During harvest time, farmers also lived in sukkot in their open fields. During this festival, farmers pray and thank God for the crops. It is a tradition that continues to this day, with festivities taking place outdoors.

Every year on October 4, the ancient Romans celebrated the Cerelia Harvest, an event that honored Ceres, the goddess of grain (the origin of our word cereal ), with festivities that included parades, games, sports and feasts. Modern day Thanksgiving is an extension of just that.

Although it was not until 1863 that President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving an annual celebration, it was in 1621 that Americans

STEVEN BROWN

Pascale’s Thanksgiving Menu

Celeriac Soup with Pancetta and Créme Fraiche

Roasted Cornish Hens with Grand Marnier Stuffing

Carrot Puree

Turnip Puree

Tarte Fine Aux Pommes

first gave thanks in the English tradition of a harvest festival. When Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving, they celebrated with their neighbors, their fellow Pilgrims and with Chief Massasoit and the Wampanoag Tribe. The Native Americans brought many of the dishes served that day. They feasted upon oysters and eel, ate goose, venison and corn bread with leeks and watercress and had berries and plums, washed down with sweet wine—a menu that would be fitting today.

Thanksgiving is a holiday I have entirely embraced since I came to California. It is a holiday when families come together and eat together. There are no other constraints, no pressure for gifts. And it is universally enjoyed by all in America, irrespective of ethnicity or religious practice. What better way to honor a season?

Thanksgiving Day is a perfect metaphor for a delicious autumnal day, just not as elaborate. Growing up in London, our Sundays were often like this. We would take long walks across the heath on blustery days with billowing white clouds scooting low across the London skyline. We would fly kites and run pell-mell down the hills, play hide-andseek and climb trees. Then home to a languorous lunch that often shuffled into dinner. Hearty soups such as the Celeriac Soup played a prominent part in those meals, followed by roast chicken or pork tenderloin with apples and prunes. As more friends dropped by, another plate would be added to the dinner table, and conversations were lively and animated. It is a tradition I enjoy to this day.

Autumnal meals bring warmth and nourishment and ideally create a culinary landscape in which we are all active participants, whether picking fruit from an apple tree, laying the table or chopping vegetables together in the kitchen. Edwin Way Teale, one of America’s great naturalists, once wrote, “For man, autumn is a time of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.” So as nature sheds her splendid crimson coat and edges towards hibernation, I like to imagine all of us pulling up a chair at our dinning tables and sharing a meal, such as this one, with our friends.

Celeriac Soup with Pancetta and Crème Fraiche

I spent my first Thanksgiving in Newport, Rhode Island, in freezing weather. My lovely friend Brooke cooked a feast fit for kings. We began with an aromatic soup, and we ate for hours as the winds howled outside. Over the past two decades I have cooked Thanksgiving each year with great pleasure. We—as all families do, I am sure—now have our own traditions. One of ours is to begin the meal with a soup, but each year it is a new soup, one usually created for that day. This is one of our favorites, and I now make it many times during the autumn and winter months. It is warming and fragrant and perfect when the wind is howling or, in our case, a chilled day by the California Coast.

Makes 12 servings

4 medium-sized celeriac, peeled and coarsely chopped

3 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 large onions, finely chopped

10 cups vegetable stock

4 or sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

2⁄ 3 cup cream

Salt and pepper

4–5 slices pancetta, diced

2⁄ 3 cup crème fraiche, placed in a small bowl

Small bunch chives, finely chopped

Place the celeriac, potatoes, onion, vegetable stock and fresh herbs in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook for 35 minutes.

Whilst the soup is cooking, place the pancetta into a small pan and sauté until crispy. Remove, pat dry and mix the cooked pancetta into the crème fraiche along with the chives.

Purée the soup in small batches in a food processor or a blender, taking care as the soup will be hot, or purée the soup in the saucepan using an immersion blender. Pour the puréed soup through a regular strainer into a clean saucepan. Add the cream to the soup, a little salt and pepper and taste to check the seasonings.

If you want a very smooth soup, pass the soup a second time through a fine-mesh strainer.

Serve the soup in warm soup bowls with a dollop of the crème fraiche, pancetta and chive mixture in the middle. This is good served with hot crusty bread.

Roasted Cornish Hens with Grand Marnier Stuffing

I have, over the years, roasted many stuffed turkeys, as tradition warrants. Recently I have tried some new dishes and found that Cornish hens—stuffed or otherwise—are a great substitute for a huge turkey, particularly if you can find organically raised hens. We are fortunate to have them available from Healthy Family Farms at our local farmers market. They are succulent and moist. Filled with the Grand Marnier stuffing and basted with the juices of luscious oranges, it is a fitting dish for the occasion.

Makes 12 servings

FOR THE STUFFING

3 sausages (choose either spicy Italian, pork, turkey or chicken of your choice) taken out of their casings and cut into small pieces

1⁄ 3 cup olive oil

2⁄ 3 cup Grand Marnier

1 cup orange juice

2 large yellow onions, finely diced

1 pound small Crimini mushrooms, cut into quarters

1 pound assorted dried fruit (apricots, prunes, dates, etc. of your choice), cut into small pieces

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence

Salt and pepper

FOR THE GAME HENS

6 Cornish game hens

2 large oranges, cut in half

Olive oil

6 sprigs fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400°.

In a large frying pan/skillet cook the sausage meat for 5–7 minutes until just cooked and slightly browned. Set aside.

In a large bowl, pour in the olive oil, Grand Marnier and orange juice. Stir together. Add in the chopped onions, the chopped mushrooms, dried fruit, crushed garlic and the cooked sausage meat. Stir to combine the ingredients and coat evenly with the marinade. Add in the Herbes de Provence and some salt and pepper. Stir once more and set aside until ready to stuff the Cornish hens.

Rinse the Cornish hens under hot water and then pat them dry. Place the hens in a large roasting pan and rub the

outside of them with the cut oranges, squeezing out the juice of the orange over the skin. Stuff the cavity of the Cornish hens with the Grand Marnier stuffing. If there is any stuffing left over, spoon it in around the sides of the birds to bake with them in the oven. Drizzle a little olive oil over the Cornish hens and then top with the fresh rosemary.

Roast in the oven for 60–75 minutes or until they reach 165° with an instant read thermometer. When cooked, remove from the oven and let rest for 5–10 minutes before serving. To serve, cut each Cornish hen in half and spoon stuffing around the meat. Note: The stuffing will create a large amount of sauce in the bottom of the pan.

Carrot Puree

Serves 8–12 as an accompaniment

2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into ¼-inch rounds

2 ounces butter

2 tablespoons chives, finely chopped

2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed from the stems

Salt and pepper

Steam the carrots for 15 minutes, until quite tender.

Purée the carrots in a food processor with the butter, salt and pepper until quite smooth.

Stir in the fresh chives and thyme and keep warm until ready for serving in a bain-marie.

Turnip Puree

Serves 8–12 as an accompaniment

2 pounds turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

1⁄ 2 cup crème fraiche

2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

Salt and pepper

Steam the turnips for 15–20 minutes, until quite tender. Purée the turnips until smooth in a food processor. Add in the crème fraiche, parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm until ready for serving in a bain-marie.

Tarte Fine Aux Pommes

Whereas I make a new soup and have tinkered with the main course for Thanksgiving annually, there is one dish I make without fail. It is at the request of my godson Charlie and his brother William, with whom we have shared this holiday since the year he was born. It is a dessert I learned to make with my mother when I was little, and I have loved it ever since. It is filled to the brim with apples and is, to me, the epitome of an autumnal dessert.

Makes 8 servings

FOR THE PASTRY

5 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted

5 ounces almond meal or almond flour

6 ounces slightly softened butter, cut up into small pieces

1 large egg

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 400°. Butter a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

Place all the ingredients into a food processor and use repeated pulses until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs, then use longer pulses until the dough forms a ball in the bowl of the food processor.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes before rolling out.

Place the unwrapped dough on a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough out to a ¼-inch thickness. Line the tart pan with the dough, trimming any excess from the edges.

Apples are the most widely cultivated fruit in the world. They originated in Asia Minor and grew wild in Europe in prehistoric times. From Greek mythology—Zeus and his bride Hera are said to have received a tree with golden apples on their wedding day—to great classic poets such as Homer, who wrote of apples in The Odyssey in 800 BC, the fruit has been part of the world’s cultural and gastronomical heritage. The Greeks, Romans and ancient Persians all cultivated, grafted and wrote about apples. Shakespeare spoke of them in his plays and Sir Isaac Newton, inspired by

watching falling apples, discovered the laws of gravity. Certain cultivars are closely associated with their countries of origin: Cox’s Orange Pippins and Russets in the United Kingdom, for example, and Golden Delicious in the United States. Granny Smiths originated in Australia, McIntosh in Canada and Reinettes are a French specialty. One of the most scented apples, known as Calville Blanche d’Hivers—a rare variety from Normandy that dates back to the 1500s—is said to be the most delectable of all.

FOR THE APPLES

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons Calvados apple brandy

1⁄ 3 cup apricot jam

8 large apples (Granny Smiths, Golden Delicious, Galas—a mixture is also fine), peeled, quartered and cut into thin, even slices

Place the sugar, Calvados and jam into a small saucepan over low heat. Stir the mixture until all the ingredients have melted together and you have a thick glaze. Set aside.

Arrange the apple slices, standing upright, running perpendicular to the outside edge of the whole tart. Once the first round is complete, create a second round inside the first and so on until the entire dough is covered with the apples. You should have three concentric rounds of apple slices.

Using a pastry brush coat all of the apples with the apricot glaze.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.

WHAT THE KIDS ARE EATING

by Maria Diaz

OHere’s a whole-grain snack cake recipe perfect for a grab ’n’ go breakfast, a tasty treat in a lunch box or as an after-school treat. Shredded carrots or apples may be substituted for the zucchini.

Zucchini Snack Cake

Makes 9 servings

11⁄ 2 cups of all-purpose multigrain baking mix (such as Trader Joe’s)

11⁄ 2 cups instant oats

11⁄ 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1⁄ 3 cup brown sugar

1⁄ 3 cup maple syrup, agave nectar or honey

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup grape seed, olive or walnut oil

2 medium zucchini, shredded

ne day I overheard a parent talking with another. “What do you pack for your son’s lunch?” The other replied, “Whatever I want to eat in the car when I pick him up from school.”

Lunch box leftovers are all too common. Getting kids involved with packing their own lunch reduces waste. Allow them to shop with you, choose items mutually agreed upon and have them prepare their lunch for the next day. For example, you might choose the bread and the brand of peanut butter, but they can pick the flavor of jelly. Give them the option between fresh or dried fruit. Under adult supervision, older kids can cut up fruit and make their own veggie sticks. Have your child design his or her own trail mix from the bulk section. My favorite includes walnuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, dried bananas and cranberries. For an extra treat, sprinkle in some dark chocolate chips.

Purchase items such as applesauce and yogurt in larger containers instead of single-serve packages. Prepackaged lunch items never tell the whole story because the container gets thrown out. Make sure you have a set of reusable containers that your child likes and can open easily. Designate an area of the pantry and/or refrigerator specifically for your child’s lunch box options, preferably at their eye level. Homemade lunches allow you to gauge exactly what was eaten and allow you to talk to your child about the food that comes home.

Preheat oven to 350°. Coat an 8-inch square baking dish with olive oil spray. In a bowl combine multigrain baking mix, instant oats and cinnamon. In a separate bowl mix together brown sugar, maple syrup, eggs, grape seed oil and shredded zucchini. Stir wet ingredients into dry and spread evenly into prepared baking dish. Bake for 20–25 minutes or until center is firm and top is golden brown

Diaz received her culinary

for

Maria

certification from the Natural Gourmet Institute

Health and Culinary Arts in New York City and holds a Nutrition Consultant certification from the Global College of Natural Medicine.

WHAT THE GROWNUPS ARE DRINKING

by Diane Murphy & Laura Lindsey

While Fiesta revelers crowded the plazas and mercados downtown, our core group of wine tasters gathered for a fiesta of our own (not to be confused with the siesta that follows over-imbibing of the grape). On the menu for this party was a daunting task: finding delicious and affordable wines from our local vineyards.

Do these recession-buster wines really exist in pricey Santa Barbara County? We set out to unearth what bottles could be had for $20 or less, and in true recession-buster style we paired the wines with that most humble meal—pizza. Note that the prices listed are the wineries’ suggested retail prices, and you may be able to find them for even less at various locales around town. Join us on our voyage of discovery, and you can enjoy everyday drinking wines at prices that will have you dancing in the streets, certainly in keeping with Old Spanish Days tradition.

2005 Ovene Sauvignon Blanc

Santa Ynez Valley Royal Oak Vineyard ($15)

A light, bright wine with a hint of sweetness countered by a slight tartness. A ripe peach flavor emerged after eating the caramelized onion pizza. Perfect as a refreshing pick-me-up, it also paired well with mild cheeses. Gazing at the puzzle design on the label, we understood Ovene’s motto: “The puzzle is now complete. The only piece missing is you.” Available at Coastal Winery and The Harbor Restaurant.

2008 Alma Rosa Chardonnay

Santa Barbara County ($19)

With flavors of green Granny Smith apples and just a hint of oak, the acidic finish was a welcome treat. The organic grapes impart a clean taste, not at all like a traditional, buttery Chardonnay. The wine totally opened up when paired with a rich, fatty cheese. Available at C’est Cheese, Cantwell’s Market, Lazy Acres and Los Olivos Grocery.

2006 William James Cellars Legacy

Sangiovese/Cabernet Sauvignon Camp 4 Vineyard ($20)

A blend of 70 percent Sangiovese and 30 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine exudes a delicious smoky flavor. A smooth, easy-drinking Italian-style wine, it is like soft velvet in your mouth. This smallproduction winery, named for winemaker Robin Bogue’s father William and son James, delivered one of the great finds of the night. It worked well with the veggie pizza and would be a fantastic steak wine. Available at Wine Country in Los Olivos and Round Up Market in Santa Ynez.

2007 Beckmen Vineyards Cuvee Le

Bec

Santa Ynez Valley ($20)

This wine adds a little something extra to the traditional blend of Grenache (44 percent), Syrah (28 percent) and Mourvedre (20 percent) with 8 percent of the little-known Counoise. Aromas of tobacco, red cherries and leather give way to a back-palate finish that is bold without being overpowering. A multidimensional wine with complex, rounded flavors, this wine was a hit, especially with the meat pizza. Available at Lazy Acres, the Winehound, Los Olivos Grocery and East Beach Wine.

2006 Camino Real Syrah

Los Alamos Vineyard ($12)

The least expensive wine we tried was a “really respectable,” jammy crowd pleaser that tasted like it cost triple the price we paid. It was a mild and smooth Syrah, very approachable and not overpowering. It was lovely with figs and cheese and evoked images of sitting on the patio with a glass of wine and good conversation. Available at Happy Harry’s Produce, Coastal Winery and Red’s Urban Wine Bar and Nielsen’s Market.

One key takeaway from this tasting is that food really works well with less-expensive wines, so there’s no reason not to crack open a bottle of local wine with dinner any night of the week. While we hope the end of the recession is in sight, for now we can take comfort in knowing that we can enjoy great local wines without putting too much strain on the pocketbook. Until next time, cheers!

Diane Murphy and Laura Lindsey are the co-owners of Classic Vines, specializing in distribution and online sales of small-production wines. Visit classicvines.com.

Want to know what’s brewing in Brooklyn, sautéing in San Francisco, appetizing in Austin or hatching in Hawaii? Get the best authentic food stories directly from the fields and kitchens of its edible communities.

Want to know what’s brewing in Brooklyn, sautéing in San Francisco, appetizing in Austin or hatching in Hawaii? Get the best authentic food stories directly from the fields and kitchens of its edible communities.

Subscribe online to any edible magazine by clicking on the “Edible Publications” page at www.ediblecommunities.com and select the magazine of your choice.

Subscribe online to any edible magazine by clicking on the “Edible Publications” page at www.ediblecommunities.com and select the magazine of your choice.

Stay up to the minute on all things edible with Facebook and Twitter, or for delicious seasonal recipes visit our blog at ediblestories.com.

Stay up to the minute on all things edible with Facebook and Twitter, or for delicious seasonal recipes visit our blog at ediblestories.com.

edible Communities

edible Source Guide

BREWERIES

Telegraph Brewing Company

Handcrafting unique American ales that embrace the heritage of California’s early brewing pioneers and use as many locally grown ingredients as possible. Visit the tasting room Thurs–Fri from 4–6pm, Sat from 1–4pm. Telegraph beer is available at many restaurants and grocery stores in Santa Barbara County and throughout California. telegraphbrewing.com

CATERERS AND CHEFS

Fresh Foods

Private chef, cooking classes and catering by Kim Schiffer. 805 455-9713.

New West Catering

Uniting the artistry of fine restaurant dining with the versatility of full-service catering, New West Catering is your unparalleled choice for special events in the Santa Barbara County wine country and beyond. 805 688-0991; newwestcatering.com

FARMERS MARKETS

Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market

Eight markets, six days a week. See schedule on page 15. 805 962-5354; sbfarmersmarket.org

FARMS AND CSA PROGRAMS

Dey Dey’s Best Beef Ever

Local grassfed beef. No hormones, no antibiotics, no grain. 805 570-9000; BestBeefEver.com

SB Veggies/Avalon Farms

Weekly basket of fresh produce (free of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers). Produce baskets are available for pick up at the farm in Santa Barbara: 999 Veronica Springs Rd., Mondays 4–5:30pm. 805 680-1218; sbveggies.com

Shepherd Farms

Organic since 1973, Shepherd Farms brings produce from the farm directly to your plate. Join the CSA program, or visit them at the farmers market or at the farm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday 1–5pm. 6701 Casitas Pass Rd. Carpinteria; shepherdfarmscsa.com

FISH MARKETS

Santa Barbara Fish Market

Focusing on providing the community with the local fishermen’s fresh, daily harvest. Member of the Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program. Located right at the harbor at 117 Harbor Way, Santa Barbara. 805 965-9564; sbfish.com

FOOD PRODUCTS

Full of Life Flatbread All Natural Pizza

Each of their frozen line of artisan flatbread pizzas is handmade by their bakers in small batches. Almost all of their ingredients are sourced local from growers and artisans, which reduces food-miles, helps the environment and ensures high quality. Available at grocery and natural food stores throughout the country. fulloflifefoods.com

GROCERY STORES

Isla Vista Food Co-op

A community-owned food co-op highly regarded for its sustainable business practices and high-quality foods. Highlighting local, organic, fair-trade, shade-grown, farmer-owned, vegan, vegetarian, kosher, raw, gluten-free all-around sustainable ways of being. October is National Co-op Month. Ask about our Eat Local Challenge. Open daily 8am–11pm. 6575 Seville Rd., Isla Vista. 805 968-1401; islavistafoodcoop.blogspot.com

Lazy Acres

Santa Barbara’s best source for wholesome, natural, and organic foods and products with real people dedicated to providing unmatched personal service. Mon–Sat, 7am–11pm, Sun 7am–10pm. 302 Meigs Road, Santa Barbara, (805) 564-4410

Los Olivos Grocery

A small country store that offers the best gourmet and specialty foods as well as the basics of everyday life. Stop in for European style hearth breads, artisan cheeses from around the world, charcuterie, local and rare wines and the freshest locally grown and organic produce. 2621 W Highway 154, Santa Ynez. 805 688-5115; losolivosgrocery.com

Whole Foods

Founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market, a leader in the natural and organic foods industry and America’s first national certified organic grocer, was named “America’s Healthiest Grocery Store” in 2008 by Health magazine. 7am–10pm. 3761 State St., Santa Barbara, 805 837-6959; wholefoodsmarket.com

HOTELS AND SPAS

Ojai Valley Inn & Spa

The orchards, ranches and farms of the Ojai Valley yield the finest seasonal food the earth has to offer. Inspired by this rich, regional harvest, our chefs have mastered locally derived cuisine. 905 Country Club Rd. Ojai. 805 646-1111; ojairesort.com

LANDSCAPING AND GARDEN SERVICES

Worm Girl

Compost worm bin sales, bin set-up/consultation, casting harvest, troubleshooting, educational demonstrations, monthly service. 805 815-7233; wormgirl.org

LOCAL ORGANIC PRODUCE DELIVERY

Plow to Porch Organics, Inc.

Delivering a weekly box of delicious organic produce picked fresh from local farms. Local organic extras include honey, eggs, olive oils, pies and quiches, meals, as well as local sustainable seafood, organic fair trade coffees... and more. Delivered to your doorstep, school, business or designated drop-off spot. Joyfully serving Ventura, Carpinteria, Montecito, Santa Barbara, Goleta, Santa Ynez, Solvang and Buellton. plowtoporch.com

RESTAURANTS

Backyard Bowls

Santa Barbara’s newest breakfast and lunch spot featuring Acai Bowls—bowls of a thick smoothie made from acai, an antioxidant berry, topped with fresh fruit, granola and other toppings. They also offer oatmeal, yogurt, smoothies and more. 331 Motor Way (next to the city lot on State and Gutierrez streets), Mon–Fri 7am–6pm, Sat–Sun 8am–6pm. 805 845-5379; backyardbowls.com

Full of Life Flatbread Restaurant

On weekends the production space becomes a restaurant and a menu is offered based almost entirely on what is grown locally and in season. Open Fri, Sat 5–10pm and Sun 4–8pm. 225 West Bell St., Los Alamos, California. 805 344-4400; fulloflifefoods.com

Sojourner Cafe

Serving unique dishes created with wholesome natural ingredients for over 30 years. They purchase organic produce from local growers and carry local wines and beers. Open 11am–11pm., Sun 11am–10pm. Lunch, dinner, weekend brunch. 134 E. Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara. 805 965-7922; sojournercafe.com

The Hitching Post II

From Santa Maria Style BBQ to contemporary cuisine such as smoked duck breast, ostrich, home-made soups and outstanding pastries and the “best” French Fries in Southern California. They also offer their own world class Hartley Ostini Hitching Post Wines. Open daily except major holidays. Cocktails/wine tasting at 4pm Mon–Fri, 3pm

Sat–Sun, dinners only, from 5-9:30pm Mon–Fri, 4-9:30pm Sat–Sun. 406 E. Highway 246, Buellton. 805 688-0676; hitchingpost2.com

SPECIALTY RETAILERS

C’est Cheese

C’est Cheese is your local source for the finest cheeses and artisanal foods. In addition to cheese, they offer a host of gourmet foods such as salamis, fine cured hams, olive oils and vinegars, wines, handmade chocolates, catering services, gift baskets and picnic coolers. Monday through Friday 10am–6pm. Saturday 8am–6pm. Closed Sundays. 825 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara. 805 965-0318; cestcheese.com

Montecito Country Kitchen

Montecito Country Kitchen is Santa Barbara’s unique Mediterranean-flavored cooking school and online culinary boutique. From delicious classes showcasing the seasonal produce of local farmers markets to an enticing line of cookbooks, herbs, spices, exotic salts, olive oils and more, Montecito Country Kitchen brings you the essence of cooking in California. mckcuisine.com

OstrichLand USA

A unique ostrich and emu gift shop with fresh ostrich and emu eggs and frozen ostrich meat. You can also visit and feed the ostriches and emus. 610 East Highway 246 in Buellton. Daily 10am–5pm. 805 686-9696; ostrichlandusa.com

This Little Piggy Wears Cotton

Piggy is organic! The very best in high-quality merchandise for newborns to age fourteen, including specialty children’s clothing, accessories, toys and books. Located in Santa Barbara at Paseo Nuevo, in Montecito at 1470 East Valley Rd. Also located in Berkeley, Phoenix, Newport Beach and Santa Monica. littlepiggy.com

TOURS AND TRAVEL

GrapeHops

Wine, beer and food adventures in Italy, Spain and beyond. Explore the microbrew scene in Piedmont and Lombardy in Italy; experience the wonderful wine and extraordinary beauty of Galicia in northwest Spain; eat and drink your way through Venice, Italy. Visit grapehops.com or call (866) 335-3397 for tour dates in 2010.

WINERIES AND WINE RETAILERS

Alma Rosa

With certified organic vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills, Alma Rosa focuses on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as well as Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir-Vin Gris. All wines are food friendly with the high acid and extraordinary balance for which Richard Sanford’s wines have been known since 1976. Open 11am–4:30pm daily. 7250 Santa Rosa Rd., Buellton. 805 688-9090; almarosawinery.com

Buttonwood Farm Winery

In 1968 Betty Williams came to Buttonwood, creating a life that found expression through a connection with the land. The 39-acre vineyard, started in 1983, now has 33,000 vines with a mix of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Marsanne, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Syrah. Visit the tasting room at 1500 Alamo Pintado Rd. daily 11am–5pm. 805 688-3032; buttonwoodwinery.com

Roblar Winery & Cooking School

At Roblar, they understand that food and wine are inseparable. Come by their beautiful tasting room for a sampling of current releases, a delicious lunch on the shaded patio or join them for a lavish Sunday brunch, and don’t forget to ask about their calendar of cooking classes. Open for Tasting Sat–Sun 10am–5pm, Mon–Fri 11am–5pm. 3010 Roblar Ave., Santa Ynez. 805 686-2603; roblarwinery.com

Zaca Mesa Winery and Vineyards

Zaca Mesa is a Santa Ynez Valley estate winery dedicated to Rhone varieties. Since 1972, they have hand crafted wines from grapes grown in their vineyards to express their distinct character and genuine quality. Open daily 10am–4pm. 6905 Foxen Canyon Rd., Los Olivos. 805 688-9339 ext. 308; zacamesa.com

edible Events

epicure.sb: A Month to Savor Santa Barbara

OCTOBER 1–31

This October, Santa Barbara will debut a monthlong foodie festival featuring diverse epicurean offerings sure to sate your appetite. This epicurean adventure showcases regional cuisine, libations and culture. Festivals include the Harbor & Seafood Festival, California Lemon Festival, California Avocado Festival and Celebration of Harvest, along with art exhibits, educational seminars, farmers market tours, micro-brew tastings, winemaker dinners and opportunities to sip and savor the uniquely local flavors of Santa Barbara County. For more information and a detailed listing of events go to epicuresb.com

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3

The Book Den’s Santa Barbara Writes About Food Series

2–4pm; 15 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara Krista Harris, editor of Edible Santa Barbara introduces the fall issue. Free. 805 962-3321; bookden.com

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5

Neo Chase Restaurant & Lounge Winemaker Dinner featuring Carr Winery

6:30pm; 1012 State Street, Santa Barbara Multi course winemaker dinner featuring Carr Winery and Chase cuisine. Call for reservations and price. 805 965-4351

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6

Santa Barbara Chefs & Winemakers Dinner Series: bouchon santa barbara

5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara Experience authentic, local food and wine, Santa Barbara style each Tuesday evening in October. Starts with a Chef’s Reception atop the Canary Hotel with hors d’oeuvres and local wines. Then guests stroll to one of four restaurants for a four-course wine dinner. $65 per person; call for reservations 805 730-1160; bouchonsantabarbara.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8

Screening: Food, Inc.

7:30 & 9:30pm; Campbell Hall, UCSB Filmmaker Robert Kenner exposes the highly-mechanized underbelly that is our nation’s food supply. Featuring interviews with experts like Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) along with forward-thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin. (2008, 93 min.) $6 / $5 UCSB students. artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9

Hitching Post Restaurant & Winery Winemaker Dinner at Terravant Wine Company

7pm; 39 Industrial Way, Buellton

Enjoy an exclusive 4-course winemaker dinner featuring signature dishes from the famous Hitching Post Restaurant and Winery, prepared by Chef/Owner Frank Ostini and paired with 8 soulful Hitching Post wines, presented by winemaker Gray Hartley. $75 per person; Call for reservations. 805 688-0676; hitchingpost2.com

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10

Harbor and Seafood Festival

10am–5pm; Santa Barbara Harbor, Santa Barbara

This annual benefit showcases a plethora of delectable regional seafood specialties, in addition to cooking demonstrations interactive maritime education, unique children’s activities, boat rides, live music and much more. Free. 805 897-1962; harborfestival.org

The Book Den’s Santa Barbara Writes About Food Series

2–4pm; 15 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara Michele Carbone, author of Friday Evening: Creating La Dolce Vida, One Bite at a Time, shares recipes and her philosophy on sharing meals. Free. 805 962-3321; bookden.com

Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association 2009 Celebration of Harvest

1–4pm; Rancho Sisquoc Winery: 6600 Foxen Canyon Rd. Celebrate the 2009 Harvest winemakers, local chefs, caterers and specialty food purveyors while listening to the music of House Red and Lady Blue on the beautiful grounds of Rancho Sisquoc Winery. $65 per person; 805 688-0881; sbcountwines.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13

Santa Barbara Chefs & Winemakers Dinner Series: Coast Restaurant

5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara Experience authentic, local food and wine, Santa Barbara style each Tuesday evening in October. See October 6 listing for details. $65 per person; call for reservations 805 884-0300; canarysantabarbara.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15

Screening: Telluride Mountainfilm on Tour 7:30pm; Campbell Hall, UCSB Telluride Mountainfilm is dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter. Film titles include Look to the Ground, History Making Farming, Samsara, Soil in Good Heart, and Home. $10 / $8 UCSB students and youth 18 & under. artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17

2009 Santa Barbara Beer Festival

12–4pm; Elings Park: 1298 Las Positas Road, Santa Barbara A celebration of the best of beer from craft breweries throughout California, with live music, delicious food and all the wonderful beer you can sample. $40 per person; sbbeerfestival.com

The Book Den’s Santa Barbara Writes About Food Series

2–4pm; 15 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara Miriam Kasin Hospodar, author of Heaven’s Banquet: Vegetarian Cooking for Lifelong Health the Ayurveda Way. Free. 805 962-3321; bookden.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20

Santa Barbara Chefs & Winemakers Dinner Series: Seagrass Restaurant 5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara Experience authentic, local food and wine, Santa Barbara style each Tuesday evening in October. See October 6 listing for details. $65 per person; call for reservations 805 963-1012; seagrassrestaurant.com

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24

The Book Den’s Santa Barbara Writes About Food Series

2–4pm; 15 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara

Celebrate the publication of Pascale Beale-Groom’s Autumn: A Menu for All Seasons, the third book in her series A Menu for All Seasons. Free. 805 962-3321; bookden.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27

Santa Barbara Chefs & Winemakers Dinner Series: Julienne

5:30pm; Canary Hotel: 31 West Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara Experience authentic, local food and wine, Santa Barbara style each Tuesday evening in October. See October 6 listing for details. $65 per person; call for reservations 805 845-6488; restaurantjulienne.com

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28

BackPacks for Kids 2009

5–8pm; Inn of the Spanish Garden, 915 Garden Street, Santa Barbara

Savories from bouchon, Seagrass, Pure Joy Catering, Jessica Foster Confections, crushcakes cupcakery & crushcafe and Simply Pies. Wine tasting from Carr, Jaffers, Kalyra, Kunin, Oreana, Santa Barbara, Summerland, Westerly and Whitcraft wineries. Benefit for the Foodbank of Santa Barbara’s ‘BackPacks for Kids’ program. $45; Call for reservations. 805 564-4700; spanishgardeninn.com

He doesn’t describe himself as a farmer, but he has a farm of just under an acre that is devoted to producing food for the high school cafeteria.

Bill Palmisano is the newly appointed Agricultural Fellow to Carpinteria High School, a two-year position funded by the Orfalea Foundations. With a background in landscaping, Bill impressed parents, students and the community as a whole when he took on the garden at the Open Alternative School in 1993. He worked with a chef to grow food for the school lunch program, supplying a significant amount of food to the cafeteria. His commitment to organic gardening, hand tools and composting have already turned the former rubble-andasphalt space into a beautiful and productive garden. He looks forward to working with the students and getting them involved in building worm composting bins, pruning fruit trees and tending to vegetables. He believes that the more life you have in a garden, the more it takes care of itself. And it sounds like this garden will be taking care of an entire school and perhaps serve as a model throughout Santa Barbara County and beyond.

THE LAST BITE

Bill Palmisano of Carpinteria High School