Made Local Magazine - November/December 2014

EAT LOCAL:

Vol. 2

Nº. 1

Porcine Pleasures (Snout to Tale)

DRINK LOCAL:

Sudsy Celebrations

GROW LOCAL:

Fooducation 101

L O C AV O R T E X

D AY ’ S E N D D A W D L E

MEET JUAN

GOLDEN GLOBES

THEY PICK / U-CUT

GIMME MY DOG

SONOMA COUNTY NOV | DEC 2014

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W

hen I stay alone in hotels, I like to watch morning TV. It’s a childish habit, seeking comfort from voices, even those coming from the screen. And so, on a recent autumn morning, alone in a New York hotel room, I had the early morning news on while I busied myself preparing for the day.

What brought me from the bathroom, toothbrush still in my mouth, was a “story” that the New York City NBC affiliate aired exposing the horror of a local school’s lunch program.

It seems that a student had discovered a worm in his salad.

Of course, the student had filmed the poor little thing as it blindly made its way across an indifferent bed of iceberg lettuce.

A reporter apeared in front of the school to get this story live, just after it happened.

The school superintendent was brought on camera to apologize. Harrumphs and exclamations were trumpeted; the word “gross” was used.

(No mention was made of the fate of the worm, but one can only imagine its voyage from field to packing to kitchen to plate. Death could only be a relief.)

A worm in a salad—that’s news. And sure, given the state of our national food supply, the fact that a worm could even be produced in an industrial farm’s field is news.

In this issue, our news is about the school garden movement, where students don’t get grossed out by worms, but rather, understand their place in the production of our soil, and therefore, our food. We meet heritage pig producers who are bucking the monopolization of pork, one wooly animal at a time. And of course, we dwell on beer, because: beer.

Upon returning to Sonoma County, I went to the farmers’ market, where the vendor jauntily inquired if I’d like him to “de-worm” the corn I was buying. Yes, please. He took out a big knife, swacked off the top of the ears, and handed them over. Man, was I glad to get home.

Gretchen Giles EDI T OR Gretchen@madelocal.coop

PUBLISHER TERRY GARRETT JANEEN MURRAY info@madelocal.coop EDITOR GRETCHEN GILES gretchen@madelocal.coop DESIGN RANCH7 CREATIVE ranch7.com PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL B. WOOLSEY michaelbwoolsey.com

8

10

12 22

LOCAVORTEX

CONTRIBUTORS SARA BIR LEILANI CLARK GABE MELINE EVAN WIIG

FOLKS YOU SHOULD KNOW

ON THE COVER: MANGALITSA, MANGALITSA MEN HAVE NAMED YOU . . .

Stemming the waste of the abbatoir floor.

Meet Juan Hernandez of Sonoma’s La Luz Center.

EAT

Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! Heritage breeds from Hungary and Italy challenge our perception of pork Chilly Scenes of Winter.

(Why you should shop farm markets in the rain.)

24 DRINK

Beer Cheer: Super suds to wash over your holiday tables.

31

34 40 41

Aperitifs greet the day’s end and welcome the evening’s festivities.

GROW

Readin’, Writin’, Rutabagas: The school garden movement takes root.

Needles ‘n’ Limbs: U-cut trees.

Persimmons, the (other) food of the Gods.

END BIT

46

In search of the local, sustainable hot dog.

Made Local Magazine is a free product of Sustaining Technologies, LLC, publisher for Sonoma County GO LOCAL Cooperative. 12,000 copies produced bimonthly. Limit one free copy per person.

Copyright 2014, Sustaining Technologies, LLC. Reproduction of the content in whole or part of this magazine requires written permission by the publisher.

Sonoma County GO LOCAL Cooperative 1300 Valley House Drive, Nº. 100-40 Rohnert Park, CA 94928 707.888.6105 info@madelocal.coop madelocal.coop

‘Innovation in the meat industry is now about going back to basics and moving away from industrial meat production.’

ANNARAE GRABSTEIN

Two hundred years ago, when vast ranchos spread north of the San Francisco Bay, vaqueros would drive cattle by the thousands to the Mission San Rafael. There they’d slaughter the cattle, discard the meat, load the precious tallow and hide onto ships, and send them 14,000 miles away to Eastern markets. Sure, a steak or two from each animal went to feed the ranchero’s men, but without refrigeration and with San Francisco’s population then a paltry 800 souls, waste was routine.

Our age of consumer convenience, conformity, and squeamishness comes at the cost of squandered resources and disempowered farmers. From “imperfectly” spotted apples to unsold products expiring on the shelf, one third of food goes to waste during its journey from field to plate.

When I was working at a livestock ranch in Valley Ford, our business depended on selling whole animals. Chefs love putting local fare from family ranches on their menus, but they were raised by super markets, not farmers.

“Can you get me 60 pounds of pork spareribs and 50 pounds of hanger steak by Sunday?” they’d ask. Had we been able to simply slice those off our animals piecemeal, we’d have been stuck with eight pigs and 25 steers’ worth of what remained: about 13 tons of meat. I spent many a farmers’ market singing the praises of pork spleen, rump roast, lard, and enough liver for an iron overdose. And remember that precious tallow shipped halfway around the world 200 years ago? Our one attempt at tallow candles didn’t do that well at market.

Seems no one today wants to burn beef fat for romantic lighting.

But eliminating waste is an important credo, even in the abbatoir. Today, when a local rancher arrives at the re-opened slaughterhouse in Petaluma with a half-ton steer, he’ll return home with 400 pounds of beef. Marin Sun Farms—which earlier this year bought the processing facility, restoring our region’s

only USDA slaughterhouse—vows to go even further, using as much of that extra 600 pounds of “waste” as possible.

In the average consumer’s mind, a cow entails T-bone steaks and hamburger patties on four hooves; a pig is nothing more than bacon with a curly tail. To sustain small-scale, local meat production, using the whole animal is essential. But as it turns out, this goes beyond just eating more unusual cuts.

“We’re able to harvest rumen juice,” says AnnaRae Grabstein, manager of custom sales at Marin Sun Farms, of the bacterialrich liquid found in a cow’s rumen stomach. “The San Francisco Zoo uses it to feed sick animals. It’s alive with beneficial microbial flora and can be collected by a vet to help other ruminant animals digest nutrients when their own digestion is failing.”

And that’s just the start. Manure gathered from the slaughterhouse is spread on fields for fertilization and paunch manure (partially digested feed) can be used as an input for bagged soil or compost.

“Zero waste” is unlikely, given the USDA’s condemnation of certain parts of the animal. But Grabstein says they’re harkening back to more traditional values of resourcefulness.

“Our philosophy is first to process our excess in a way to keep it viable and second to find ways to utilize internally or identify outside companies to use it,” she says. “Innovation in the meat industry is now more about going back to basics and moving away from industrial meat production. This means old-school wholecarcass butchering and animals slaughtered one at a time.”

It also means building relationships with those who can find outlets for unique items. Marin Sun supplies cow eyeballs and pig hearts—undesirable to the American palate—to the Exploratorium for their educational dissection program.

Meanwhile, a rendering company now uses their tallow for such products as soap and perfume. Yes, perfume.

vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | 9

Nose to tail, stomach to stomach, perfume to steak: In praise of whole-animal production

BY EVAN WIIG

But if tallow perfume helps the margins of Marin Sun Farms, so be it. The economic viability of local slaughterhouses is vital to the health of our food web. When they fail, family ranchers feel the hit—a not uncommon occurrence. (Today, just four corporations slaughter 80 percent of U.S. cattle.)

Earlier this year, when a government recall temporarily shut down the slaughterhouse in Petaluma, ranchers like Adam Gaska of Mendocino Organics was forced to drive a livestock trailer all the way to Eureka, an eight-hour endeavor. “If cutting waste keeps their prices affordable and prevents them from going out of business,” says Gaska, whose pasture-raised pork can be found locally at Thistle Meats and Sonoma Meat Co., “I’m all for it.”

But given an industry infamous for sneaking pink slime onto school menus, marketing pig rectums as calamari, and—in the case of our own local slaughterhouse under previous ownership— slipping sickly dairy cows past safety inspectors for Hot Pockets filling sold 3,000 miles away, we must also be careful that such efficiency contributes to more than just the bottom line.

By uniting consumer education, producer transparency, and regulations that favor small-scale local food systems, it’s possible to rise above the old tallow and hide trade of the rancheros and finally return to honoring the lives, communities, and precious resources on which we depend.

Evan Wiig is the director of the Farmers Guild, a nonprofit network of farmers and local food advocates working to empower the next generation of agriculture. farmersguild.org Article resources: marinsunfarms.com/pages/petaluma

Open 7 Days a Week

M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | vol. 2. issue 1

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Nº.3

Nº.3

JUAN HERNANDEZ Executive Director, La Luz Center

La Luz Center executive director Juan Hernandez was raised in the barrio of East Los Angeles. He earned a B.A. from UC Riverside, a fellowship in management leadership from New York, and an M.A. in psychology and organization development from Sonoma State University. Juan served as director of educational programs at the Calistoga Family Center, and, while in Calistoga, was elected to the board of the Napa Community Foundation and the Napa Valley Hispanic Network. Juan has been appointed a Sonoma County First 5 Commissioner, and he serves on the Sonoma Sheriff’s Advisory Group, the Sonoma Valley Health Roundtable, Portrait of Sonoma County Leadership Team, and the Latino Leaders of Sonoma County. He took over as executive director of La Luz Center in 2012. Juan and his wife Veronica recently welcomed the arrival of their first child, Emanelli. We asked him to give us some insight into La Luz’s important work.

La Luz was founded in 1985 to provide support to a large migrant Latino community in the Sonoma Valley. How has your client base changed over the years?

Our client base has changed in relation to the economic situation of the community and immigration rhetoric in the political realm. Just after La Luz Center started, the 1987 immigration reform offered an opportunity for legalization and we focused on getting our Latino community ready for that process. Meanwhile, we were encountering more and more needs but also more opportunities and possibilities. This combination allowed La Luz Center to finally be the identity of the invisible Latino Community.

Nowadays, the economy is getting better but the immigration policy has gotten more strict. We now have a less transient, migrant Latino community and a more settled Latino community in the Valley. The Latino population has put down roots and its needs have grown more complex. The shift has been from offering emergency services to educating the community on how to integrate by learning how to navigate the American system of support. This has affected the work La Luz Center does by shifting our focus to more systemschange work and influencing services providers and policy in health, education, and financial security for Latino families in the valley.

What, in your estimation is La Luz’s greatest success to date?

La Luz Center is the realization of a dream of many bilingual volunteers who worked diligently and successfully to serve the needs of the Latino community by offering a friendly, helpful place. Clients not only receive help but also respect and hope. Our greatest success is not losing this focus over our 29 years of existence.

You had your druthers, La Luz Center would be . . . . . . a backbone organization in Sonoma Valley. Seeking to expand our impact and build a stronger community presence, we would increase focus on other key external activities such as building public will, advancing policy, and mobilizing funding with a focus on the Latino community.

We would be able to solve problems in the with the Latino community versus filling a need.

Article resources: laluzcenter.org

550 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol • 823-4916 1465 Town & Country Drive, Santa Rosa • 546-FOOD

AVAILABLE ALMOST EVERYWHERE!

Hungary Snout: Mangalitsa pigs in Forestville.

vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

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EAT LOCAL

European heritage pigs flourish in Sonoma County, but can we afford the luxury of real meat?

By Gabe Meline

I

In raising Mangalitsas here in Sonoma County, the same way they were raised for centuries in Europe, Winkler—along with a few other rare-breed pig farmers—keeps a sustainable, simple tradition alive.

“It’s like walking through Vietnam, isn’t it?” he chuckles.

Winkler isn’t kidding about the pigs’ friendly disposition. In 19th century Hungary, Mangalitsas would behave almost like the family dog, often following the farm children to school. Theirs was a meat prized for its fatty taste and useful lard, exported to countries around Europe as any other breed.

t’s a drizzly September morning, and I’m slogging through the lush junglelands of outer Forestville. Navigating riparian thicket, leafy overgrowth, and the periodic lowhanging tree branch, I also occasionally notice electric wire threaded near my ersatz hiking path. Just as I’m wondering to myself what parallel universe I’ve entered, Tim Winkler, my guide for the day, answers the question.

We are here to find pigs. In particular, Mangalitsa pigs—a wooly variety first brought from Hungary to the United States in 2007 and raised in Sonoma County, by Winkler alone, since 2009. Five minutes into our trek, the Mangalitsas are not at their feeder. Eight minutes in, they are not in a clearing.

But after 10 minutes, I notice the faint glistening from a swampy bog of water through the bramble.

There are muttered snout-noises—not oinks or squeals but something much lower—and then the stomping sounds of 18 hogs coming our way.

I crouch down as one would to a cat, and a particularly robust, sheeplike sow with a coat of wool waddles right up—smelling my hands, rooting its nose upon my clothes. “She’s real sweet, like a little Brillo pad,” Winkler says.

“They’re very docile. They’re super pet-like.”

BULLY WOOLY They’re also an old-world holdover, one that becomes more precious considering the furious pace of consolidation in the pork industry. As of 2008, just four companies—Smithfield, Tyson, Swift & Co., and Cargill—produced over 70 percent of the pork in the United States, along with all the environmental pollution, labor issues, inhumane housing, and questionable political influence that such consolidation brings.

But after the early 20th century, when a push was made for leaner pork grown quickly, and when lard began to fall out of fashion in favor of Crisco and other vegetable oils, the Mangalitsa population steadily dwindled. After the collapse of communism, a Hungarian animal geneticist named Peter Toth decided to roam the country in 1991 to save what remained of the breed. He found 198 animals.

In the U.S. that year, “Pork: The Other White Meat” was still the official slogan of the National Pork Board. There was virtually no market for fatty, meaty pig. Yet, enough people remembered the marbled, buttery-fat taste of real pork. Toth regenerated the breed, his business grew, and eventually Mangalitsas made their way to the U.S. courtesy of Heath Putnam, a Washington farmer who brought 25 of them stateside. Putnam sold his operation to Mosefund, a New Jersey farm, in 2012, but not before shipping a handful to Sonoma County.

Winkler, born and raised in Santa Rosa, wasn’t initially interested in the pigs’ meat. The truck he drives today still bears the company name Winkler Aquascapes; for decades, Winkler installed aquariums and backyard koi ponds before eventually moving up to service large-scale estate ponds.

Some of his customers were having problems with invasive weeds, and “if you’re not using chemicals,” Winkler says of weed eradication, “you have to CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

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15 |

EAT LOCAL

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

use either manpower or equipment, and both of those, especially equipment, can leave a large carbon footprint.”

Wanting to avoid wasteful environmental impact, Winkler looked for some other way to rid the ponds of weeds, discovering that Mangalitsas love gobbling such predatory vegetation. He also found that they’d just been made available in the U.S. and that a buzz had started about the quality of their meat: flavorful and beef-like, sought after by foodies.

As he researched further, he learned about things like protein profiles and realized that feeding his pigs throwaway complex carbohydrates like the tortillas, donuts, or sour milk fed by more conventional farmers led to poor results. Last year, Winkler came full circle when he traveled to Michigan to meet with Peter Toth, the geneticist who originally helped save the breed in Hungary. “We’re now the second largest herd in the United States, next to Mosefund [in New Jersey],” Winkler says. “We have over 400 Mangalitsas, and we’re using 20 breeder boars from all five of the select different lines.”

Nothing but the best, naturally.

Word soon got out that Winkler, 52, had the breed in Sonoma County, and now, he sells the meat all over the Bay Area

‘This is actually what it costs to produce it in a healthy way.’

JOHNNY WILSON

and beyond. Restaurants like the French Laundry and Meadowood are regular customers, as are numerous eateries in San Francisco. Knowing chefs’ insistence on proper pH profiles, Winkler is more focused than ever on nutrition for top quality. “If the charcuterist does his part, and the farmer does his part, when that product comes back, it’s second-tonone,” he says proudly. “It’s very special. And that’s what the Spaniards and the Italians have done for centuries.”

One Las Vegas client buys only the lard. “The Mangalitsa breed actually was the number one commodity on the Viennese stock exchange during WWII, during the lard era, before refrigeration,” Winkler says. “They rubbed lard on their hands, put it on their door hinges, on their wagon wheels, they used it for everything.”

But with few of us now greasing our hinges with lard, it’s not easy to raise the pigs at a profit. Commercial pigs are bred for about five months to a weight of 250 pounds, while Mangalitsas need 12 to 18 months to reach full 350-pound maturity. Moreover, the meat needs to sell for twice as much, if not more, than factory-farmed pork.

But in addition to the flavorful taste and rich texture, Winkler’s operation offers something the mindful meateating consumer wants—an animal raised in a natural, CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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EAT LOCAL

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M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | vol. 2. issue 1

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

humane environment. At Winkler’s 16-acre patch in Forestville, the pigs roam freely, rooting in the ground for acorns, tubers, willow bark, equisetum, monkey flower, insects, worms, roots, and duckweed. They drink from a natural bog of groundwater.

This natural forest diet helps their meat, Winkler says. Though he supplements with a clean wheat mill run (no corn, soy, or alfalfa) to the tune of $2,200 a week, allowing the pigs to forage the land wherever their snouts may take them is the best course for quality. Getting that quality to pay off remains the trick.

ITALIAN FOREST STOCK Winkler isn’t the only Sonoma County pig producer raising rare European heritage breeds. Just outside of Cloverdale lies Acorn Ranch. Here, the pigs are a 700-year-old Cinta Senese breed, an animal from Italy’s Tuscany region that’s been around since the Middle Ages and is renowned for the quality of its muscle mass. An initiative of Front Porch Farms in Healdsburg, which also grows local grains, heritage vegetables, olive trees, and grapes, Acorn Ranch is home to the only purebred Cinta Senese pigs in the entire U.S. Getting them here from Italy in 2012 wasn’t easy. Europeans fiercely protect their own foodstuffs. “It’s a regionally-protected product,” says Johnny Wilson, Front Porch’s farm manager. “They’re known for making some of the best prosciutto in the world. That’s really what the breed is optimized for. In getting the pig out to California, I’m sure they were a little bit worried about brand dilution.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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EAT LOCAL | 18

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Locally owned and operated since 1987

In addition to convincing Italian farmers to let go of just under 30 pigs, Front Porch faced issues with importation, quarantine, the USDA, and other obstacles. The result? Avid desire. Just as with the Mangalitsas, chefs started calling when word got out that Cintas were being raised locally.

Front Porch faces many of the same obstacles that Winkler must surmount in order to make the pigs profitable: longer maturation, higher costs, and public perception. “With the consolidation of the pork industry,” Wilson says, “people get used to paying a certain price for a certain product in the marketplace, whether it’s Safeway, Whole Foods, or the farmers’ market. And if you try to produce something in a sustainable way that’s ecologically responsible and takes care of the land, and you try to limit all of the detrimental effects and also pay people livable wages—all that stuff has a cost that goes into producing what we’re trying to do.”

Wilson continues. “The way the commercial hog industry operates, it sets the price bar really low, and the general consumer gets accustomed to paying for something that’s really cheap. And so when we absorb all the externalities that the commercial hog industry has other people pay CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

210 Western Ave. Petaluma, CA 94952 (707) 762-5464 Tim Winkler and his Mangalitsas

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‘If we get enough people underneath this, we’ll be farming for a purpose.’

TIM WINKLER

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vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

for—whether it be through government subsidies, or whether it be in environmental costs they’re not accounting for—then it’s a challenge for us to educate consumers and differentiate our product, and say, ‘This is what you should be paying for this pork because this is actually what it costs to produce it in a healthy way.’”

Because Cintas take roughly two years to fully mature, the meat from Front Porch’s Cintas just recently hit the market. But it’s already been shipped to big prosciutto companies like La Quercia in Iowa and Olli Salumeria in Virginia as well as such restaurants as Spoonbar and Mateo’s Cucina Latina in Healdsburg; Diavola in Geyserville; Press in St. Helena; Zazu in Sebastopol; the French Laundry in Yountville; Oliveto in Oakland; and Cotogna and Quince in San Francisco.

As for financial viability, Wilson will only cautiously say, “We’re getting there.”

It’s a quest echoed by Winkler, who is glad to break the economics down. “It’s not cheap,” Winkler says.

“It costs us about 50 cents a pound to have a pig slaughtered, and then another dollar, thereabouts, to have a pig cut into pieces. So let’s say your animal is a 280-pound yield. Just off the bat, just

EAT LOCAL

slaughter and cutting into pieces, that gets up there, per animal. So when you hear about ‘normal’ pork, like Smithfield pork, selling for $1.91 a pound, and you’re into the damn thing for $1.40—and that’s not counting feed, time, gas, transport, anything—how, mathematically, does that work?”

The solution lies in educating the public and exposing the shortcuts and subsidies of Big Ag, Winkler insists. “We need people to know really what happens in the pork world,” he says, “and we need supporters of specialty pork. We have to have people believe in what we’re doing. Or else we’re gonna be spending more money than what it’s worth.”

Winkler looks out over the misty forest, to the pig herd that have since taken up giddy residence in a muddy bog of water.

“Right now we’re farming on a mission,” he says.

“If we get enough people underneath this, we’ll be farming for a purpose.”

Article resources: mangalitsawoolypigs.com fpfarm.com

You say tomato...

...I say, pronounce it however you want, but get enough for my caprese.

Santa Rosa has FIVE farmers markets with fresh local produce and more! @SRBiz

Are you going to challenge yourself to continue to eat seasonally and locally from your neighborhood farmers this winter? It remains surprisingly easy (particularly if you dig squash). Even as autumn turns and the seasonal markets fall away, there are enough stalwart year-rounders that five of each seven days offers at least one market somewhere in the county. We’re going to try the challenge, and we don’t particularly dig squash— but do like how shopping and eating this way ties us more closely to the earth and helps us realize the crazy disconnect of consuming fresh tomatoes in January or melons in December. It feels good to just take what our area provides and make do with it. And, we hear tell that a touch of butter and brown sugar improves your average squash immensely. See you there!

— GRETCHEN GILES

No Markets Monday and Thursday Healdsburg Healdsburg Farmers’ Market healdsburgfarmersmarket.org North and Vine streets in the parking lot.

Saturday: Through Nov. 29, 9am to noon.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

Petaluma Petaluma East Side Farmers’ Market communityfarmersmarkets.com At the Community Center at Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Ave., Petaluma.

Tuesday: Year-round, 10am to 1:30pm.

Accepts EBT. Petaluma Farmers’ Market petalumafarmersmarket.org Walnut Park, Corner of D Street and Petaluma Boulevard South, Petaluma.

Saturday: Through Nov. 22, 2pm to 5:30pm.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

Santa Rosa

Sebastopol

Oakmont Farmers’ Market In the Wells Fargo bank parking lot at Oakmont and White Oak drives.

Saturday: Year-round, 9am to noon.

Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Community Market communityfarmersmarkets.com In the Veterans Building parking lot, 1351 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa.

Wednesday and Saturday: Year-round, 9am to 1pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Original Certified Market thesantarosafarmersmarket.com 50 Mark West Springs Road, on the northeast side of the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa.

Wednesday and Saturday: Year-round, 8:30am to noon. Accepts WIC and EBT. West End Farmers’ Market wefm.co 817 Donahue St., Santa Rosa.

Sunday: Through Dec. 14, 10am to 2pm.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

Sebastopol Farmers’ Market sebastopolfarmmarket.org In the Sebastopol Plaza, Weeks Way and Petaluma Street, Sebastopol.

Sunday: Year-round, 10am to 1:30pm.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

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Sonoma Sonoma Valley Certified Farmers’ Market svcfm.org In Arnold Field, First Street West, Sonoma.

Friday: Year-round, 9am to 12:30pm.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

Windsor Windsor Farmers’ Market windsorfarmersmarket.com 701 McClelland Drive, Old Downtown Windsor.

Sunday: Through Dec. 14, 10am to 1pm.

Accepts WIC and EBT.

By Sara Bir

Magic Bus: North Bay Brewery Tours’ James Holt, Ron Holt, and Rob Watkins.

vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

’Tis the season

for the cavalcade of Gerwurtz/Reisling/Cab

recommendations to begin their flurry as we collectively wonder what lovely adult beverage will go best with the turkey, ham, and prime rib that mark the groaning boards of the holiday season.

But what about beer?

Exactly. Things have never been beerier here and the beer, never better. That’s why we asked the founders of North Bay Brewery Tours to guide us on a virtual journey from coast to valley to plate in search of the best beer pairings for the holiday slate ahead. (Sorry, your family is your own problem.)

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Pumpkin Patch Traffic Jam from Petaluma Hills Brewing Company PAIRED WITH | ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS Notes: This beer is named for an interesting (or incredibly frustrating, depending on your perspective) phenomenon: the Highway 101 traffic jam that arises from people slowing their cars to look at the pumpkin patch and corn maze set alongside the freeway in northern Petaluma.

The Pumpkin Patch Traffic Jam smells like pumpkin pie and has some nice spicy notes. Unlike many pumpkin beers, it’s not overly sweet, has a lighter mouth feel, and is very drinkable. This beer would go great with such roasted vegetables as Brussels sprouts. The little bit of bitter spice notes from the beer cuts through the palate, making it a perfect refresher.

Easiest Prep in the World: Cut Brussels sprouts in half, toss them with plenty of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake on a cookie sheet at 400 F for 30-45 minutes, until the outside leaves are crispy and brown.

Hyperion Red Ale from Fogbelt Brewing Company PAIRED WITH | MASHED POTATOES WITH SMOKED GOUDA AND BACON Notes: This is a well-balanced, malty red beer with noticeable pine and citrus flavors from the hops. We paired it with mashed potatoes with smoked Gouda cheese and bacon bits. This dish has a creamy texture with smoky and savory notes, and we chose the Hyperion Red Ale because the slight bitterness mixed with the pine and citrus flavors provides some refreshing contrast to the heaviness of the mashed potatoes.

Avid home brewers, co-owners Robert Watkins and brothers Ronald and James Holt noticed more and more beer aficionados making pilgrimages to the North Bay. To encourage this wave of sudsy tourism, they launched their business in 2010 to ferry visitors to our established and emerging breweries on comfy buses customized with kegerators. Keeping it fun, informative, and easy, they share behindthe-scenes stories, describe the beer-making process, and offer tasting and pairing tips.

Censored Rich Copper Ale from Lagunitas Brewing Company

We invited Rob, Ron, and James to share holiday-friendly beer pairings with a dish-bydish approach. Pairings help us slow the pace of the feasting. Sip a little of this, taste a little of that, and see how the flavors work together.

Of course, you can enjoy any of the beers below at any point of the big meal. Grab your growlers and get set for a holiday meal to remember.

In a tasting flight, you want to taste beers in order of robustness because as you step up in flavor intensity, it’s harder for your palate to distinguish subtler flavors. (A general rule of thumb is to go by IBU or International Bittering Units. The higher the IBU, the more bitter the beer.) We’d place the Censored Rich Copper Ale somewhere in the middle of most flights, as it’s sweeter and has more body than a light lager or a pale ale, but it’s not as bitter as an IPA or as malty as a stout. However, it is well balanced, refreshing, a great palate cleanser, and easy to drink.

PAIRED WITH | GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE WITH FRIED ONIONS AND CHOPPED WALNUTS Notes: Lagunitas’ Censored Rich Copper Ale (or the beer formerly known as the Kronik) often gets overlooked in favor of its more hoppy West Coast-style pale ales but remains one of our favorite local amber ales. We paired it with a classic holiday dish, the green bean casserole, because while both the beer and the dish don’t have the most intense flavor profiles, they both have a well-deserved place on the menu.

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Ninja Date Night from Warped Brewing Company PAIRED WITH | CRANBERRY SAUCE Notes: This Imperial Brown Ale is brewed with both coffee and California dates. Rich and sweet with some coffee notes, we thought this would pair well with the distinctively tart flavors in cranberry sauce. Since cranberries have such a strong flavor, you need a beer with some malt backbone to stand up to this dish.

With beer and food pairings you do not always have to try to match flavors, but sometimes you want to complement or contrast. While normally we might save the sweeter beers for dessert, in this case the sweetness of Ninja Date Night works really well to bring your palate back to neutral after a bite of cranberry sauce.

El Osos from Bear Republic Brewing Company PAIRED WITH | STUFFING Notes: Stuffing is almost as important as turkey. Everyone seems to like theirs prepared a little differently, baked into the bird or outside, enlivened with oysters or made from cornbread. The one thing (almost) all stuffings seem to have in common is bread. Enter the El Oso Mexican Lager. It’s a nice golden-colored lager, crisp, slightly sweet, a little hoppy, with flavor notes of light toast, bread, or biscuit. There are other good reasons to go with El Oso. Stuffing can be dry or covered in a salty gravy, and, in either case, that makes you thirsty for something light that will slake that thirst.

Additionally, you may have guests who are used to drinking adjunct lagers from large, foreign-owned, “domestic” beer companies. This is the kind of beer that you see clever ads for during football games. For these guests, El Oso will likely be an excellent introduction into the more flavorful world of craft beers. It’s a refreshing and easy-todrink lager but made locally with traditional ingredients and processes, and that makes all the difference.

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“And you’re full of ragwater bitters and blue ruin and you’re spilling out over the edge to anyone who’ll listen.” These are the words of our favorite Sonoma songsmith. They describe a cocktail of romantic despair wrapped in red flock wall paper and marinated in a soulful yearning. On the rocks. With a twist.

We’ve all been there. The beer in this bottle, however, is none of that. So maybe Ragwater is a crappy name for the beer but we liked it, and so whatever. It’s always better to be happy than right. Mostly, anyways. Whatever. Forget it. Never mind...

Anyway, we were going out to, uh, the, uh, you know, thing, and all, and when we got there, well, uh, the dude was like-“whoa man! I mean, and we were all, uh, you know- whoa! And stuff, and when I said to him, like you know, hey man and all, they, I mean he, was all “what?” and stuff- and I just told him what you said and all, and they were all man- “not cool dude”, but whatever- so uh, we split and went back to my lair and just hung out and whatever, but the whole thing was, like, just Such a bummer and all but you know, it was cool and stuff, but you just gotta, you know, about the dude and all, like, it’s cool and you know, but what’s up with the “blah blah blah”? Whatzit got to do with beer and all? I mean, really, dude, whatever… There I was, sweaty and strung out, holed up for the third day in a cheap hotel with a genuine Juanita on my lap. On the lamb was more than a way of life. It had a smell, and it stunk like hops. Juanita shrieked something about an “Escoba grande con queso en mota para la pelicula…”, but I wasn’t listening. For now I was focused on the Undercover Ale clenched between Juanita’s knees and also how good it would taste later while she cooled out in the soon to be locked shed out back of Palmdale where the turkey farmers still run. Ale is thicker than even blood. I already knew this and I also knew that the dicks were not far behind and that ever at their distance they could smell everything and would never let up on me. Flip the dicks. Here come the bastards… Here they come…It has been broughten to our attrition that they're have been numberous spelling errors on hour various lables. From the cureous (as in 'steet') too the sublime (as in 'redempetion'). As a soulution to this problem we have retrained an imminent linguist from Stanford and have invested in a spel checker computter utilitiy. For now however, the thing I want to know is: Who are these werd police?

Anyway? Who is the boss, ewe or the words? Huh? And besides, what dew words, let alone speling, have to do with beer anyway.

I mean, who ever herd of some namby pamby pale lexiphile curling up buy a warm fire with a good book and a cold beer. This hole bussiness has gone plenty far enouph, don't you think?...

Like Adam and Eve, Issac and Ishmael, Mao and Confuscious, Good and Evil, Day and Night, Hittites and Visigoths, John and Lorena, or Groucho and Moe, Ales and Lagers are as different as can be. Still we must love each for who they are, separately but equally, with liberty, and justice for all. Cheers!... Those among you who have visited a brewery already know. Those who have not can not imagine. It is said that it takes a lot of beer to make great wine. What then does it take a lot of to make great beer?

Answer: Human flesh, and lots of it. Not in the beer, of course, but on the blisteringly hot sides of the whirlpool tank, or on the spinning shaft of a pump head. If you should see one of our club footed, three-fingered, cycloptic albino brewers on the street, you might be inclined to give them a quarter. But don't! These individuals are highly paid professionals. Masters of their craft, and committed to their trade with little or no regard for their own personal safety or physical appearance. Beer is a cruel master. Masters are cruel, and beer is no exception. Just don't picture their twisted forms as you enjoy their fine ales... Well, well, well. The head brewer stood opposite the massive brewing vessels that were his to command. His mind raced through the possibilities. What is the temperature of the malt in the grist case overhead? Was the hot liquor tank up to temp? Would the ambient temperature affect the final mash temperature?

Should he compensate for the delta temp by running a little higher mash-in temperature? A single degree in either direction would have a life changing effect on both the brewer and the brewee. The beer could be too sweet if a degree high, or too mild and dry if a niggling degree too low. The character of the future beer that this batch would be hung in the balance. The brewer drew a bead on the temp-probe, the mash tun waited, and the world held its breath...

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pulling the bird Citrus Wheat Ale from Ruth McGowan’s Brewpub PAIRED WITH | SALMON Notes: A fillet of salmon makes a wonderful change for a holiday main dish. Lemon tones are present in the aroma and flavor of the Citrus Wheat Ale, which makes a knockout combo with fresh salmon.

Lighter in body and mouth feel, it still holds its own against a meaty fish. This wheat beer pushes a bit of spice, without overtaking the salmon.

Bombay Rouge India Red Ale from Third Street Aleworks PAIRED WITH | PRIME RIB Notes: Bombay Rouge is a hybrid style between a Red Ale and an India Pale Ale. It is strong and balanced, both hoppy and malty, with a touch more than medium body and mouth feel, making it a perfect beef pairing.

Sweet tones from the malt cut the bitterness and spiciness from the hops and horseradish sauce.

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Picker’s Saison from Old Redwood Brewing Company PAIRED WITH | TURKEY Notes: For this, we chose a beer with some flavor that could stand up to, but not overpower, the star of the meal. A Saison-style beer is perfect, and Old Redwood Brewing Company’s Picker’s Saison is a unique one. Lighter-bodied with a hint of peppery notes, it’s refreshing after the turkey and its spice profile sends you right back to the beer. In addition, there are Chardonnay grapes infused into this beer, giving the fermentation a fruity finish.

White Cat Vanilla Porter from Third Street Aleworks PAIRED WITH | PUMPKIN PIE AND VANILLA ICE CREAM Notes: We immediately thought of the White Cat Vanilla Porter from Third Street Aleworks for this dessert. Their Black Cat Porter is already like a dessert; rich and roasty chocolate notes come from the malt, making it smooth and easy to drink. A few years ago, they began infusing Black Cat Porter with real vanilla beans. The vanilla is present in both the aroma and the flavor of the beer, but it is not overpowering.

Pair it with pumpkin pie and a scoop of good vanilla ice cream. Both the beer and the dessert are rich and creamy. The pumpkin pie brings a nice warm spice to the mix, and the dark roasted malts have notes of coffee or chocolate. It’s a perfect way to end a long holiday dinner.

Article resources: Some of our recommended beers are available only at the brewery. Call first to ensure they’re not sold out. bearrepublic.com fogbeltbrewing.com lagunitas.com facebook.com/Oldredwoodbrewco petalumahills.com ruthmcgowansbrewpub.com thirdstreetaleworks.com facebook.com/WarpedBrewing northbaybrewerytours.com

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Qu’est-ce Que C’est is an aperitif by any other name

By Gretchen Giles

What Is It?

T

hose who wish to discipline the sexual organs should avoid drinking those concoctions which are called ‘aperitifs,’” warned Greek theologian St. Diadochos of Photiki sometime in the 5th century. The saint was naturally concerned that drinking before dinner might lead to debauchery thereafter. Taken from the Latin word for “open,” an aperitif may not be the gateway to undisciplined sexual organs but it assuredly is a lovely way to end one’s day.

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DRINK LOCAL

I

n France, Spain, and Italy, where the tradition of a pre-dinner drink is widely embraced, the aperitif serves to mark an end to daylight concerns and as a welcome to the fascinations of the awaiting evening. Served with simple snacks to whet the appetite, the aperitif invites conversation and camaraderie.

The Europeans like their Lillet, Campari, Dubonnet, and Aperol. But before those commercial concoctions were available, all of them drank a dry fortified wine at day’s end. The original aperitif is a farmhouse blend that features good wine strengthened with a touch of spirits and a nice draught of infused fruit or flowers or nuts, usually those found growing just outside.

That is the kind of aperitif that Laura Hagar makes.

A former journalist for the East Bay Express and the North Bay Business Journal who now works as a web designer, Hagar was visiting a friend at his East Bay home a few years ago when he offered her a taste of the aperitifs he was making at home. Hagar politely sipped several of her friend’s offerings, making pleasant, encouraging sounds. And then he opened a citrus aperitif flavored with Bergamot.

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“It was one of those transcendental wine experiences,” Hagar now says. “I had never tasted anything like it.” Hagar told the friend that he should try to sell his efforts.

He wasn’t interested. “And I thought,” she smiles, “I could totally sell this.”

Armed with Georgeanne Brennan’s 1997 book, Aperitif, and an Internet connection, Hagar set out to learn more.

“This beverage was very popular in 18th and 19th centuries in America,” she explains. “Old cookbooks are full of recipes for it. I started experimenting and I ended up with some that are traditional, like vin de pamplemousse [made with grapefruit]. For others, I just sort of went into my backyard and my friend’s backyards and found fruit that I thought was interesting and put together recipes of my own—like white nectarines and roses. As a cook, my gift is to have a sense of interesting flavor combinations, so it was a natural when I applied it aperitifs.”

Renting the former Eagle Ridge Winery in Penngrove, Hagar decided to take her new enthusiasm and see it all the way through to production. Comically decrying herself as a “lose-focus kind of person,” she decided to trick

herself into following through by purchasing 2,000 antique bottles for bottling. The trick, alas, was on her, as the size she purchased is not legal for her product. And in truth, dealing with the USDA and the various restrictions on her unusual drink has become a lesson she admits she’d rather not have learned.

Because her aperitif is based on wine but fortified with spirits—and most importantly, features the addition of fruit—it falls neither here nor there in the regulatory schema.

“The regulations are so hard to deal with, the complexity is really daunting, and it’s taken a really long time,” says Hagar, who began her road to production in January 2013 and is just now seeing the possibility of it becoming a reality. “Without them in place, I could have started this business with $3,000; with them, it’s going to cost me almost $40,000.

More than 40 percent of my time is dealing with regulations—and I haven’t even broken any! It’s all about making sure that I don’t.

It’s actually been quite mind-blowing.”

All set to call her drink Sonoma Aperitif, Hagar recently had to change tack. She can’t legally call it an aperitif, as the USDA defines that

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drink as solely boasting the addition of herbs and spices, not fruit. She is planning to name her production Qu’est-ce Que C’est?, French for “what is it?,” as a sly joke to the USDA. Hagar sources her infusions from her vast rose garden, her own yard, friend’s trees, and a retired UC Davis citrus “station” whose caretaker is thrilled to have someone to whom he can offload his harvest.

Regulations dictate that she ferment 50 percent of the wine she uses as a base and she has found a winemaker to help her. Stillwater Spirits in Petaluma provides the hard stuff. She purchases the rest of the wines from Bottle Barn, trying to find the best base for her fruit.

“I have read advice not to use a good wine for this,” she continues, “and I think what they might have meant is that you don’t want a wine that’s elegant and austere because then it can’t stand up to the revision. I’ve bought some classic white wines and they were overwhelmed by the addition of the fruit and the hard spirits. They became floppy as a result. That’s the thing you would never want; these are supposed to be bright and lively.”

perfume tones makes for a delightful mouth party—and the variations are seemingly endless.

She uses green walnuts, most pear varieties, flowers, berries, stone fruits, the vast array of citrus. What hasn’t worked so far is melon.

“I tried cantaloupe and Crane melon and they tasted so revolting that I thought I had poisoned myself,” Hagar laughs. “I thought, ‘I’m going to die now.’ The thing about melons is that there’s that kind of acrid bite that’s wonderful in the context of the melon, but somehow, when I infused it, the main remaining flavor was that horrible acridness. I know that there are melon aperitifs but, there you go.”

With charming labels based on old botanical drawings, a funky old winery to use as a tasting room, and a good sense of what works and what doesn’t for her product, Hagar can see the proverbial light at the end of this particular tunnel.

When asked what her partner thinks of her efforts, she chuckles. “For most of the time, he thought that this was bound for total disaster. But, he has moved from ‘when this fails’ to ‘this might possibly work out.’”

And indeed, Hagar’s Qu’est-ce Que C’est, with its floral notes, sparkling fresh fruit, and low

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Learning to Eat The school garden movement could end diabetes and does provide Common Core curriculum.

So why is it still viewed as a hippie’s daydream?

By Leilani Clark

Lettuce Eat: Dylan Bennett of Wright Charter plants for winter.

vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

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O

n a sunny Friday morning in the Wright Charter School garden, first graders bustle about between rows of lettuce, dried sunflowers, corn, scarlet runner beans, and cabbage.

The students tease and jostle, watering and tending plants. The scene looks straight from Anne of Green Gables or any one of those other classics about the simple pleasures of rural life. But this isn’t 19th century Nova Scotia and no one, except possibly the scarecrow, wears calico. These kids live in Roseland, a low-income, unincorporated area of Sonoma County, where high-density housing and little access to parks and open space is the norm.

The class settles around a garden box stuffed with tall, green stalks. Garden coordinator Julia Valentine gives a short lesson on harvesting (don’t tug violently to get the carrots out of the soil), and then gives the go. The kids dive in, digging up chunky carrots that are absolutely ready for the dinner table. “Look what I found!” says a dark-haired girl, holding up a set of spindly orange twins. “I see a roly-poly!” exclaims another child. They scoot between box and bucket, until the pile of carrots overflows.

Later, a different class will hold a carrot tasting, or maybe use them in a simple recipe, with Valentine’s guidance. It’s all part of the daily cycle at the Wright Charter School garden, on the outskirts of Roseland in one of the oldest school districts in Sonoma County. A few years back, Wright became a public-charter school with a focus on eco-literacy and environmental education, a philosophy into which growing a school garden fits nicely.

“A lot of these kids don’t get to spend much time outdoors,” Valentine says. “It’s important for all children to have a notion of what the earth holds for them and where their food comes from, but the kids have very few opportunities to interact with their natural environment.

The garden allows them to freely explore and open their five senses to the natural world.”

Liz Macdonald teaches second grade at Wright.

“The kids absolutely love the garden,” she says. “They love getting in there and digging with their hands, and holding a shovel, or exploring for snails and harvesting.”

“They love building practical skills,” Valentine adds.

MacDonald recalls bringing a cucumber back from the garden with her class, which they cut it up and ate immediately. “The fact that we picked something from the garden and brought it straight to the class and directly to their mouths—they just loved it,” she says.

For anyone born after 1960, school gardens probably

seem like a new concept. But they’ve actually been around for generations. Throw a pencil in the Library of Congress and it’ll probably land on a quote from a Victorian-era educator touting the benefits of fresh air, physical exercise, and the characterbuilding and educational aspects of “nature study.”

But school gardens were lost to time after the postwar industrial boom brought processed food into every home along with a host of health maladies.

Since the 1970s, the percentage of overweight and obese children in the United States has tripled.

One in three children born in the year 2000 has the chance of developing Type II diabetes. These numbers are most concentrated in low-income communities. The cause behind these startling statistics is clear. Children eat too many processed, fat-filled foods and too few vegetables and fruits.

Just two percent of children in the U.S. eat an appropriate amount of fruits and vegetables daily, according to the Whole Kids Foundation.

“A lot of these children are so disempowered because of their demographics,” Valentine says. “Giving them this capacity to know where their food comes from, how to propagate it, it’s a tool for their future.”

She adds, “Harnessing their food system is kind of the most radical act that they can engage in.”

Her claim is held up by data. The Whole Kids Foundation says that children who grow their own food are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables and to be more knowledgeable about nutrition.

These habits continue into adulthood. People who garden and grow food as adults almost always have vivid memories of playing and working in gardens as children, according to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Colorado.

The Sonoma County Health Action Plan has set the goal of raising the amount of children eating their appropriate daily allotment of fruits and vegetables to 75 percent. Might a garden in every school be just the ticket to achieve this ambitious number?

Yes, says Laurel Anderson, Schoolyard Habitat coordinator and board member at the School Garden Network (SGN). The organization formed in 2003 as a response to former California State Superintendent Delaine Eastin’s call to put a “garden in every school.” SGN has since developed into the largest school garden grant funding organization in Sonoma County. They’ve awarded over $120,000 in funding to 22 local schools. Along with salad bar and school garden grants, the organization offers mentorship, community connections, workshops, and free plants and seeds to sustainable garden and nutrition-based learning programs to students and educators.

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A desire to connect garden coordinators and facilitate easy resource sharing was another driving force behind SGN’s creation. Garden coordinators—ideally ones who can spend more than just a few hours a week teaching—who fundraise and network with the administration, its teachers, and the students’ parents, are essential to the longterm success of school gardens.

These are also the hardest positions to fund.

“It’s difficult for the schools to come up with that money, and it’s difficult to find grants to fund coordinator positions,” Anderson says. As a result, gardens are sometimes dependent on volunteers or, more challenging— on already overworked teachers.

“The garden needs a staff person to coordinate it,” Anderson says.

For that reason, convincing school and districts to see the importance of school gardens, nutritionally and academically, remains a challenge.

‘Students who grow, harvest, and eat their own produce will eat anything.’

LAUREL ANDERSON

Yet the simplicity of working in and eating from a garden offers students the opportunity to engage in real-world, inquiry-based learning. “You can read about a life cycle in a textbook, but if you go out into the garden and see the ladybug cycles or worms in the compost bin, it becomes an experiential learning situation that creates so much enthusiasm in the students,” Anderson says. “It’s a fabulous springboard for their classroom studies.”

Row upon row of school garden displays at the recent National Heirloom Exposition demonstrated the wealth of ways students learn in plots across Sonoma County. They measure seeds.

They write sentences using the garden as inspiration. They perform complex math equations. Even art classes have gotten in on the action, sending students out to sketch flowers and paint lettuce.

As the founding garden coordinator at Salmon Creek School in Occidental, Anderson saw these benefits firsthand, especially as related to cooking and nutrition. Students learn about CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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the abundance and limitations of their local food shed, she says. They learn why they can’t make fresh salsa in March and how good kale can taste when you grow and pick it yourself.

“Students who grow, harvest, and eat their own produce will eat anything in my experience,” Anderson laughs. “They wolf it down.”

What’s more, Anderson says, “They really learn to value and appreciate seasonal, fresh, and whole foods simply prepared.” Parents get motivated to cook more healthily, too, influenced by kids who want to make the same healthy recipes they learned at school at home.

And students get a chance to learn skills lost to the industrialization and outsourcing of food to large corporations, gaining an empowerment and pride they might not have otherwise.

The Salmon Creek school garden has become a model for other programs. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center brings in trainees from its School

M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | vol. 2. issue 1

Garden Teacher Training and Support Program to see how they make it work.

Nestled on a one-acre plot west of the public-charter school campus and bracketed between redwoodcovered hills and the restored Salmon Creek watershed, the word idyllic doesn’t do the scene justice.

A tour with outgoing garden coordinator Erin O’Brien and her incoming replacement Kaelyn Ramsden, who’s been on the job all of a week, offers the opportunity to taste sun-warmed strawberries straight off the plant.

That’s not all. Sweet and juicy Sungolds are heaven on a vine. Even in late summer, the garden produces like mad.

There’s blue corn (grown from seeds gifted from a Zapatista village school), tree collards, lettuce, and heirloom tomatoes. Just that week, Ramsden had harvested cherry tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers, amongst other things, as she prepared for the start of classes. Nearly all of the produce, aside from the yield that goes to 24 bimonthly

it’s fall . . . take some time off

CSA boxes, ends up in the cafeteria, where the school chef creates seasonally influenced lunches. That’s unusual.

Most school gardens just don’t produce enough to feed the entire school. Here, a few hundred students get to eat the food they grow. Plus, cooking classes allow the kids themselves to learn how to make the bounty into something delicious, like the blue-corn pancakes that have become a campus favorite.

This year, the program is focused on deepening the connection between the garden and the cafeteria, says O’Brien, as she leads our small garden tour through raspberry patches, persimmon trees, and a small apple orchard, planted and grafted by the students.

Soon, we arrive at the “fairy garden.”

This is the place where the younger kids frolic among roses, mulberry, and willows. A miniature table and chairs sit beneath an umbrella of willows, the perfect place for a tea party. An oldfashioned water pump looks straight out of Little House on the Prairie.

It ’s that time of year, and it ’s more important than ever to turn of f your irrigation. This winter, prolong our local water supply and save money.

In Santa Rosa, irrigating in the winter months isn’t necessary to maintain a healthy landscape. And irrigation combined with your indoor water usage during the months of November through March can increase your monthly sewer usage charges.

Turn your irrigation system off until April to save!

vol. 2, issue 1 | N O V/ D E C 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

Next to a bubbling brook, kindergartners build huts out of dropped tree branches, says O’Brien. “It gets them away from plastic toys,” she adds.

With the older classes, the coordinators balance workdays— when the kids sift compost, weed, and harvest—with play days. “The play becomes their reward for hard work,” says Ramsden. It’s not just about manual labor—although the exercise does a body good. The students are out here, thinking and studying. They examine the nesting behaviors of bluebirds with a local bird scientist. They learn about life cycles, decomposition, and seed-saving—all of which takes some of the weight of teaching California Common Core standards off the teachers’ shoulders.

“The hands-on activities can lead directly to aha moments,” says O’Brien, recalling a lesson that used pumpkin spikes to teach adaptation.

As the tour winds down, Ramsden, still young herself, looks

39

back to history, recalling how everything old is new again.

“School gardens aren’t these hippydippy, New Age things that have only been around for 20 years,” she says. “They have been around since the 19th century. Back then, it was just considered common sense.”

But, with the growth and support for school gardens in Sonoma County, thanks in part to the School Garden Network, it looks like they’re becoming a common sense addition to school curricula once again.

Article resources: schoolgardens.org

Growing Tendrils: Lorena Roberta Hernandez in the Wright Charter School garden.

It’s a safe bet that every farm listed for U-Cut Christmas trees will be open the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve, but it’s always wise to call ahead and check.

Celesta Farms

U-Cut: Douglas and White firs.

Bonus: Strictly just a tree farm, no rides or gimmicks, but homemade chocolate chip cookies.

3447 Celesta Court, Sebastopol 707.829.9352 celestafarms.com

Frosty Mountain Tree Farm

U-Cut: Douglas Fir, Sequoias, Scotch Pine, Italian Stone Pine, Incense Cedar.

Also, pre-cut Noble Firs from Oregon.

Bonus: Free hayrides, farm animal petting zoo, pony rides, ornaments for sale.

3600 Mariola Road, Sebastopol 707.829.2351 frostymountaintreefarm.com

Garlock Christmas Tree Farm

U-Cut: Douglas Fir, White Fir, Scotch Pine, Italian Stone Pine, Monterey Pine, White Spruce. Also, pre-cut Noble Firs from Oregon.

Bonus: Gift shop and snack bar, horse-drawn carriage rides, pony rides, petting zoo, candy cane bounce house, tractor-drawn hay ride.

2275 Bloomfield Road , Sebastopol 707.823.4307 garlocktreefarm.com

Grandma Buddy’s Christmas Trees U-Cut: Douglas Fir. 8575 Graton Road, Sebastopol 707.823.4547 grandmastrees.com

Larsen’s Christmas Tree Farm

U-Cut: Incense Cedar, Leyland Cypress, Monterey Pine, Scotch Pine, Sierra Redwood.

Bonus: Old-fashioned family Christmas tree farm, now in its 50th year.

391 Marshall Avenue, Petaluma 707.762.6317 petalumachristmas.com

Liberty Christmas Tree Farm

U-Cut: Douglas Fir, Monterey Pine, Sierra Redwood. Also, pre-cut Noble Turkish and Douglas firs.

Bonus: Hot Cider and candy canes.

241 Liberty Road, Petaluma 707.490.6011 libertychristmastreefarm.com

Little Hills Christmas Tree Farm

U-Cut: Monterey Pine, Sierra Redwood, Leyland Cypress.

961 Chapman Lane, Petaluma 707.763.4678 littlehillschristmastree.com

Moon Mtn. Christmas Tree Farm U-Cut: Douglas Fir, White Fir, a few Nobles.

Bonus: Come for the view, as well as cookies, hot apple cider, and coffee. You choose, they cut and carry. Parking limited.

1550 Moon Mt. Drive, Sonoma 707.996.6454 moonmountainchristmastreefarm.com North Eagle Christmas Tree Farm

U-Cut: Deodar Cedar, Douglas Fir, Incense Cedar, Monterey Pine, Scotch Pine, Sequoia Redwood, Sierra Redwood, Coastal Redwood Bonus: Hot cider, candy canes, Tootsie Roll pops, plus a full gift shop stocked with their own pottery.

6191 Sonoma Hwy., Santa Rosa 707.538.2554 valleyofthemoonpottery.com

Reindeer Ridge

U-Cut: Douglas Fir, White Fir, Grand Fir, Sequoia, Monterey Pine, Scotch Pine, Incense Cedar, Leyland Cypress. Also, pre-cut Noble Firs.

Bonus: Children’s zip line and a children’s train, hay rides, weekend barbecue, crafts shop with homemade things, drinks and snacks, picnic area. Get a free bag of apples with every tree purchase.

3500 Mariola Road, Sebastopol 707.829.1569 reindeerridge.com

Santa’s Trees

U-Cut: White Fir, Douglas Fir, Grand Fir Bonus: Offers “a nice fresh tree,” says the owner, a recent widow whose husband passed away in October at the age of 96. “My husband used to smell so good after work!

Good thing we don’t have a dairy.” Also, hot cocoa and treats.

11389 Barnett Valley Road, Sebastopol 707.823.6635

Sunshine Living Christmas Trees

U-Cut: Douglas Fir, Monterey, Scotch and Stone Pine, Sierra Redwood, Leyland and Arizona Cypress.

Bonus: Specializes in Blue Spruce living Christmas trees in containers.

294 Palm Avenue, Penngrove 707.664.9335

Victorian Christmas Tree Ranch U-Cut: Douglas Fir. Bonus: Candy canes, homemade pumpkin-nut bread, and warm spiced apple cider. Santa makes a couple of surprise visits each year.

1220 Gravenstein Hwy. N., Sebastopol 707.332.4605 victrees.com

Wallinfarm

U-Cut: Douglas Fir and Colorado Blue Spruce.

840 Ferguson Road, Sebastopol 707.823.6973

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A

bundant, gorgeous, and just a little perplexing, persimmons are emblematic of a Sonoma County state of mind. No school here claims persimmons as their team mascot, but it would not be a stretch.

Persimmons offer ease of cultivation, culinary possibility, and ornamental beauty. Finding persimmons is easy enough: if not your farmers’ market, look to your neighbor, your cousin, your co-worker, or anyone whose yard boasts a persimmon tree. They’re eager to share; trust me. Even a devout grower of persimmons finds themselves swimming in the glossy-skinned things this time of year.

Using persimmons is another matter. Happy seasonal sights in Sonoma County, they are still not a default member of our nation’s oranges-apples-bananas fruit lexicon. You have to be intentional with persimmons, you must engage with them. Boasting a harvest period from the end of September to the beginning of December, persimmons can cover all of your fall fruit cravings. Best of all, they find their soul mates with cinnamon, ginger, clove, and other spices evocative of autumn.

Persimmons are native to Asia—unless they’re not. Diospyros virginiana, native American persimmons that can be found growing wild and cultivated, produce fruit that’s the size of bloated acorns. A Midwestern delight, they don’t grow west of Kansas.

Persimmons of Asian descent find their ideal habitat in Northern California. Fuyus and Hachiyas, the two dominant cultivars of Diospyros kaki that thrive in California, are far more accessible and way less seedy then their New World cousins. A little Latin: dios means god; pyros, grain or food. So there’s your food of the gods, possibly growing outside your window right now. “The Fuyu is an acceptable gift to Buddha,” assures the California Fuyu Grower’s Association. Diospyros kaki don’t need winter frost, love hot summers, and bloom later in the season. Perfect for commercial crops! They don’t need a lot of space to grow and don’t require cross-pollination, so a single tree will bear fruit.

Perfect for planting at home! Add to this that persimmons are fairly drought-resistant. You may curse the lack of rainfall, but—for this year, at least—it will still rain persimmons.

In 1870, the USDA imported grafted trees and distributed them to California, among other states. Between California’s persimmon-

GROW LOCAL

friendly climate and its population of Asian immigrants, the fruit took hold.

If you have licked felt lately, you can identify with the chalky-cheek sensation of biting into an unripe persimmon. They’re packed with astringent tannins. Get persimmons while they are still firm and they’ll grace your counters as they do their thing and ripen into non-astringent, honeyed sweetness.

(To speed up ripening, put persimmons in a paper bag with an apple; the ethylene emitted by the apple will soften them up.)

Squat and round Fuyus are more userfriendly in that they are sliceable when ripe.

Technically, you could eat one like an apple, but most folks cut them into chunks. Wrap a slice of Fuyu persimmon with prosciutto for classy pre-holiday meal nibble. Fuyus are the more salad-friendly persimmon, too. Combine them with bitter greens, toasted nuts, and dried fruits or pomegranate seeds in a simple vinaigrette for a harvest-themed salad.

Bigger, tapered Hachiyas are soft when ripe.

Score their skin and inside you’ll find a gelatinous pulp the color of salmon roe. Switch up the spicing a little and you can use Hachiya pulp in any baking recipe as you would mushed-up ripe bananas. The easiest way to preserve Hachiya persimmons is to freeze the pulp in Ziplock bags.

You can even freeze an entire ripe fruit, let it thaw a bit, and enjoy the pulp with a grapefruit spoon as a whole-foods take on sorbet.

But there are other, more romantic ways, to enjoy them. Hoshigaki, Japanese dried Hachiya persimmons, are an increasingly rare delicacy that commands up to $35 per pound. A faint, powdery bloom of naturally occurring fructose coats their exteriors, and they are eaten as-is for a chewy, flavor-packed treat. Unlike most Hachiya preparations, hoshigaki use stillfirm persimmons. As they dry over several weeks, one must massage their flesh every day to break down the cell walls of the fruit.

It’s a labor of love, but if you face a bushel of homegrown Hachiyas that you can’t bear to waste, it’s a lovely end for them to meet.

An alternative: fruit leather. Fire up your dehydrators, kiddos. (Persimmons, by the way, pack up to twice as much fiber as apples, if fiber is your main reason for eating fruit.)

Since the average cookbook isn’t exactly bursting with enticing recipes for this plentiful niche fruit, the food galaxy of the blogosphere is a CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

Tree Jewels Persimmons: The (other) food of the Gods

by Sara Bir

GROW LOCAL | 4 3

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41

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great place to mine ideas to escape from the pudding-muffin-Bundt rut—especially homesteading-minded sites, which gleefully pack persimmon chutneys, butters, and jams into pretty jars. Much more my speed: persimmon salsa made with diced Fuyus and habañeros.

I also love the homey, custardy delight of persimmon pudding, which would hammer pumpkin pie in a fall dessert throw-down any day.

In the thick of these persimmon-glut weeks, it’s easy to forget that, in coast-to-coast terms, persimmons are uncommon and exotic. Rare. And, because of that, desirable. Without even eating a persimmon, our nearness to them makes us part of something distinctive. Persimmons, it can be lovingly argued, are an indelible part of our sense of place.

Article resources: Find local persimmons at farmtrails.org

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IT PAYS TO GO LOCAL Rewards Card has been helping local residents save on everyday food and beverage purchases for a couple of years now, and it’s still a new idea. After all, how many rewards cards allow you to earn and spend at so many different places?

Show your support for local establishments when you dine or grocery shop and save a little every trip. It adds up to a whole lot of savings every year.

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La Vera Pizza • JoJo Sushi • Savory Spice Shop • Community Market • Andy’s Produce Lulu & Hill Espresso Bar • BBQ Smokehouse • Curry House & Grill • Laguna Farm Sonoma Chocolatiers & Infusions Teahouse • Ancient Oak Cellars Guayakí Yerba Maté Café • Sazón Peruvian Cuisine • Frozen Art Gourmet Ice Cream Sub Zero Ice Cream & Yogurt • Lydia’s Express

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WHY CAN’T OUR FESTIVAL FOOD BE GREASY, COMFORTING, LOCAL, AND HEALTHY?

By Terry Garrett and Gretchen Giles

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Sure, yes, OK. We all strive to eat locally, seasonally, and therefore— healthily. But even the best of us have our weaker, baser moments, those times when something sort of gloriously unhealthy, certainly greasy, and emphatically who-cares beckons our minds and stomachs.

In fact, certain events seem honor-bound to encourage poor-choice pigouts. Many of us calendar our stomachs and greed accordingly, knowing that today’s virtue will be rewarded in the future at an outdoor event where deep-fried candy bars are merely the smallest evil available.

With summer behind us, we think back—with just small daub of grease still on our chins—of the annual county fair as a stellar example of crazy-bad food choices.

The deep-fried “lobster” dog comes swiftly to memory. This amalgamation of some kind of possible seafood whisked through a corn-based batter and deeply, seriously, fried was last summer’s go-to Me Bad ticket. Were you unfortunate enough to actually look at the pink bits that composed the lobster dog’s interior, it’s a safe bet you never finished it. We didn’t. One bite, one look, one ugh, and into the bin it went, taking most of a $20 bill and several regrets with it while adding to the weight of food waste we normally strive to stem.

But who says that fried and crunchy comfort foods have to be unhealthy? And who says that they have to be made from non-local ingredients?

Recently, Oren Wool, the executive director of the Annual Sustainable Enterprise Conference, convened a few folks to consider what is wrong with this picture. Why, we asked, do we regularly pay premium prices at outdoor festivals and the fair for below-average food?

We still want fun foods, but we would prefer those that are made with local, organic ingredients. And we want to be able to buy them at the county fair and other festivals in Sonoma County.

Consider the gateway icon of American culinary addiction— the hot dog—and its first cousin, the corn dog.

It’s possible to source the meats and make hot dogs in Sonoma County.

As a matter of fact, some people are already doing this. But, how do we produce them in numbers large enough to satisfy the festival hordes?

That’s the challenge we’ve taken.

In tandem with Oren, we’ve put a call to action to local producers to make this happen by next year and serve it at a public event. GO LOCAL, with some of our key members, is planning to host a mashup event featuring local brewers, farmers, and chefs. The reigning king of the event will be the perfect local hot dog. Rest assured that, consistent with the Sonoma County Food Action Plan and the direction of the Sonoma County Healthy Options program, there will be lots of local, healthy, and delicious foods at this party.

You can pig out and serve the demanding comfort food fool who dwells within without the guilt and the waste.

Sounds like fun to us. Care to join?