Made Local Magazine - September/October 2014

™

Vol. 1

Nº. 5

EAT LOCAL:

On The Rise DRINK LOCAL:

Live, Nude Wines!

GROW LOCAL:

Fish Stories L O C AV O R T E X M E E T C AT H R Y N CLIP ‘N’ GO MARKETS AGAIN + AGAIN + AGAIN QUINCE CHARMING THE ONE PERCENT

SONOMA COUNTY S E P/ O C T 2 0 1 4

FREE

18 A N N U A L H E I R L O O M TH

TOMATO FESTIVAL a celebration of wine & all things tomato W I N E . FO O D . S E M I N A R S . CHEF CHALLENGE . MUSIC

saturday, september 27, 2014, 11am - 4 pm Kendall-Jackson Wine Estate & Gardens . 5007 Fulton Road, Fulton

Tickets $95 per person Tickets available at kj.com/visit-tomato-festival or call (800) 769-3649

Š2014 Kendall-Jackson Winery, Santa Rosa, CA

Benefitting Ceres Community Project

. ceresproject.org

Interested in entering a tomato in our Growers' Competition?

Visit kj.com/tomato-growers-competition for more information

Our land is nothing if not a story of our times, and times do change. In the 1800s, Sonoma County’s fields were rich with gold—in the form of grain. Sure, today we have grain—at the market. But a few growers and producers are again changing that story. With this issue, we focus on the burgeoning heritage grain movement, which seeks to reintroduce local grains for self-reliance and pleasure. Because, as with so much else made right here, locally grown grains are delicious and fresh, something we haven’t tasted in nearly 200 years.

Wine is also cycling back in time to rediscover good ideas now lost. Meet Ted Lemon, proprietor with his wife Heidi of Littorai Wines, a “taste of place” vintner who does as little to the grapes as possible when transforming from field to flask. A new style of winemaking that actually harkens to the ancients, the Lemons practice a vibrant and welcomed trend of the new-style old-style.

Bill Foss and Kenny Belov are among those entrepreneurs who also want to return to the old times, particularly those days when fish were plentiful and healthy. Alas, that era may be past. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of options left, and theirs are particularly innovative. Land-based aquaculture? You bet.

Speaking of reinvigoration, how about having a writer or two contribute to this magazine? (Sheesh.) We’re proud to have a talented clutch of contributors enlivening this issue. As always, don’t hesitate to drop us a line and let us know what you like, don’t like, or would like to see. That’s gold to us.

Gretchen Giles EDI T OR Gretchen@madelocal.coop

Terry Garrett P UBL ISHER Terry@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 LOCAVORTEX

‘Seeds,’ an excerpt from Douglas Gayeton’s new book, Local.

10 FOLKS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Meet Cathryn Couch of Ceres Project, where karma really cooks.

12 EAT

Grow Your Own: How the heritage grain movement might make us deliciously self-reliant.

23

The farmers’ market calendar you actually need.

26 DRINK

Let It Be: Ted Lemon’s wines give a taste of place.

32

It ain’t cheap, but recycling is central to Revive’s mother plan.

34 GROW

Balancing the Scales: Entrepreneurs seek to close the loop between the sea and the table.

41

Quince isn’t a cash crop. It’s a cult crop.

46 END BIT

Make millions doing (almost) nothing!

CONTRIBUTORS ALASTAIR BLAND SARA BIR LEILANI CLARK DOUGLAS GAYETON MELISSA KAPLAN ON THE COVER: LINDSAY CHALLONER OF PRESTON FARM AND WINERY 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 555 Fifth St., Suite 300N Santa Rosa, CA 95401 707.888.6105 info@madelocal.coop madelocal.coop

8 | vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14

Note: This is an adapted excerpt from Petaluma writer and artist Douglas Gayeton’s new book, Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America (Harper Design, 2014; $35).

One moonless February night I walk through a freshly cut hay field in Sebastopol. My destination is a single incandescent bulb.

It illuminates the front door of the Sebastopol Grange Hall. Inside this modest building people have gathered, their heads bowed in deep concentration over rows of folding tables. On each are clusters of carefully marked glass jars, which they inspect closely, even hold up to the light. After some consideration they may gently open their lids, take a sniff, then dip some of these precious contents into small envelopes that are thrust into their now-bulging pockets, but not before scribbling cryptic admonitions like “careful—a real climber” or “full sun only” or “must have drainage.”

This is a seed swap, and the people here have come to share seeds—and stories—before spring planting.

“The world is crying out for more community,” says Sara McCamant, cofounder of the West County Community Seed Exchange and organizer of tonight’s event. “People are coming together and sharing resources, learning what grows well from one another. We’re strengthening their ability to grow their own food, because when you share seeds you also share knowledge.”

In earlier times, seed swaps were a yearly occurrence in any farming community. Farmers grew plants, saved seeds from those that performed best that season—or tasted sweeter or produced more beautiful flowers—then replanted them the following year as the cycle of life repeated. These seeds were open-pollinated, meaning they were “true-to-type” and would produce plants just like their “parents” the following year. Over time, each successive generation adapted to its geography’s unique climate, temperature, soil, pests, and even plant viruses. Open-pollinated seeds were a cultural record.

They store vital information about a community, passing it

vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | 9

from one generation to the next. Civilizations rose or fell—and even went to war—depending on the success of these seeds.

“America’s founding fathers were ‘founding farmers’ who recognized that we lacked the appropriate seeds to feed a growing nation,” explains Matthew Dillon of Seed Matters, a nonprofit dedicated to organic seed preservation. He tells me stories about how Thomas Jefferson smuggled rice seeds out of Italy by sewing them into his coat lining, and how our earliest ambassadors were ordered to collect seeds from each port of call. “Seeds have been a public natural resource that has been shared among people for over 10,000 years,” he continues. “In our republic’s early days, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office even grew out seeds, documented their collections, and sent out letters to agricultural journals announcing their discoveries.” More important, they gave seeds away—more than a billion before the close of the 19th century. To hear Dillon tell it, spreading seeds was a patriotic act.

The story of how our seeds lost their innocence is both interesting and obvious. We evolved from an agricultural system based on biodiversity to an industrialized model that grows much less diverse crops. The antecendents of this shift date back to the 1920, when trade associations exerted enough leverage to radically curtail the USDA’s public seed program. The responsibility to breed and distribute seeds shifted to the private sector and land-grant university plant breeding programs, whose research primarily supports farmers and food processors.

During this period, plant breeders popularized the use of hybrid seeds by combining qualities from different plant varieties. These new hybrids produced perfectly uniform crops but their “false-totype” seeds could not be saved. Farming quickly evolved from a diverse system to one of rotating monocultures, and since hybrid seeds could not be saved, the art of saving seeds at harvest and storing them until next spring’s planting nearly disappeared.

In 1980, passage of the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act presented universities with a new challenge: instead of relying on federal grants, these institutions were now asked to find outside funding sources and to secure patents and royalties as additional sources for revenue.

Large seed companies are interested in technology advancements that boost their bottom line, which means their gene jockeys are more likely to focus on patentable breakthroughs related to the largest agricultural markets—corn and soy, for example—rather than breeding the tomatoes that will grow in the cool summer climate of Petaluma. And by focusing research on large crops, they can exert control over their commercial production.

As Micaela Colley of the Organic Seed Alliance points out, “When you invest all your effort into plant breeding being done by a few people, what you’re really investing in is breeding for the needs of a centralized food production model. We’re not advocating that every farmer needs to breed his or her own crops, but we believe in creating regional networks of farmers, seed companies, and university-based support, plus independent and public plant breeders that all work together to address the needs within a region.”

Article resources: lexiconofsustainability.com/local

M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | vol. 1. issue 5

10

CATHRYN COUCH Founder and executive director, Ceres Community Project

Nº.2

Nº.2

Cathryn Couch is the founder and executive director of the Ceres Community Project, a nonprofit that provides free nutritious meals to those facing debilitating illness while training teens to cook— and eat—well. We recently checked in with Cathryn to see how the program is flourishing.

The Ceres Community Project launched seven years ago with the aim of involving teens in the work of providing wholefood-based, organic nourishing meals to those struggling with severe illness. How, if at all, has that mission evolved?

From a “meal program” where youth made the meals, we are now actively engaged in at least these five key program areas: • Food as Medicine. Focused primarily on low-income people struggling with a serious health challenge. We are the only program that we are aware of in the country delivering free organic meals to people with illness.

• Youth Empowerment! Ceres now operates a comprehensive youth program in a food production garden with three commercial kitchens in Marin and Sonoma counties.

Through serving as volunteer gardeners and chefs, youth learn to grow, prepare, and eat healthy organic whole foods, understand how their food choices impact their lives, their community and the planet, and develop the skills and leadership they need to be successful at work and in life.

• Community Nutrition Education. Through our Nourishing Connections Cookbook, Healing Foods Basics class, and Nutrition for Wellness program, Ceres is shifting the conversation about the vital role that fresh, organic, and whole food makes in our health.

• Strengthening Social Connections. Surprisingly, the quality of our social connections makes an even bigger difference for our health than what we eat. The experience of “belonging” is essential for people to be well.

• National Replication. Ceres has helped eight communities across the country replicate our model and we are in conversation with nearly a dozen more.

Numbers. Ceres began with three client families and one teen chef in addition to you. Where is Ceres today in terms of clients and volunteers? What percentage is teenaged, what adult?

In 2014, Ceres will deliver about 85,000 meals to more than 550 clients and their families in Marin and Sonoma counties. The meals will be prepared by 450 youth from

60-plus schools during 18,000 hours of service learning.

We also have nearly 500 adult volunteers who will donate 25,000 hours of service and dozens of community partners who will donate nearly $100,000 worth of food.

One of the founding “policies” of Ceres was the belief in the goodness of the universe and karmic fulfillment. It seems nearly magical how the project gets what it needs when it needs it.

How have you seen that continue to happen in recent years?

There are so many examples of this and, yes, it continues to happen. One great example is how we came to start the Ceres Community Garden at O’Reilly Media in Sebastopol.

Sara McCamant, a long-time food gardener and friend of mine, approached me in the late summer of 2011. She was leaving a job and told me that she really wanted to grow food for Ceres. Right around the same time, O’Reilly called because they were interested in someone putting a community garden on their property. Then I got a call from Diana Rich at Sebastopol Community Center who had a donor interested in funding some sort of physical activity program for youth.

Gardening came up in that conversation. In the span of three weeks we suddenly had land, a farmer, and a donor.

The universe had decided that it was time for the Ceres garden, something we had talked about for several years.

If you had your druthers, the Ceres Community Project would be . . .

Fifty percent funded by an endowment! I can’t resist! I wouldn’t want it 100 percent funded because I’ve always believed that one important way people can be involved is to write a check, and I wouldn’t want to lose that opportunity.

I also love talking to donors about our work and growing the family of individuals, companies, and foundations that partner with us each and every day to make people, communities, and the planet healthier and more whole.

Article resources: ceresproject.org

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M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | vol. 1. issue 5

vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

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EAT LOCAL

Grain Gain

By Leilani Clark

Will our local heritage grain movement save us from ourselves?

W

hen Peter and Mimi Buckley started Front Porch Farm, east of Healdsburg in a valley near the Russian River, they did the unthinkable in grape-growing country—they planted grain. On a recent blisteringly hot day in late July, sun-baked winnows of straw cover two long fields at Front Porch. These are the last remnants of an earlier-than-usual harvest that yielded literal tons of rye, oats, barley, polenta, and other grains. Might these humble, grass-laden fields be a harbinger of the future of farming in Sonoma County?

“Growing grain is the right thing to do for an outfit concerned more with the resiliency of local food systems than becoming wine magnates,” says Front Porch Farm manager Johnny Wilson. “What do people eat on a day-to-day basis? Bread, hopefully produce, meat, wine.” The farm’s ultimate goal is to sustainably produce food for the entire table, Wilson adds. They’ll sow 15 acres of organic grain this fall.

Farming-wise, grains and grasses work as part of crop rotation, Wilson says. Vegetables strip the soil of nutrients, making it unwise to plant them in the same location year after year. As a low-labor crop that overwinters, needs little to no water, and lends itself to multi-functional uses after harvest, grains make sense.

“In a mature grain economy, you keep the Grade A stuff for market,” Wilson says. “Anything cracked or filtered out becomes fodder for the animals or carbon sequestration for our compost. Grain is part of the larger story of creating a thriving local food system.”

Lou Preston has run his Dry Creek Valley farm and winery for 40 years. Lately, he’s moved away from monoculture in favor of crop diversification. A hobby baker, Preston began to toy with the idea of growing the grain for his sourdough bread a few years back. At the time, he used MidwestCONTINUED ON PAGE 15

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sourced organic grains produced by Central Milling in Penngrove. Soon, the failure of two vineyard lots led Preston into new territories. Inspired by the artisan bakers he’d met at the EcoFarm Conference in Pacific Grove, he decided to switch things up. Instead of replanting the lots with grapes, he sowed wheat berry and rye instead.

“I didn’t know where to get grain,” Preston recalls.

“I went to Keith Giusto at Central Milling and said, ‘Can I plant this stuff?’ And it was successful. It was beautiful. You can’t imagine how exciting is it is to have a crop that’s not grapes, and all of a sudden you have these amber waves of grain.”

Nothing but the best, naturally.

Preston and a small cadre of Sonoma County grain growers, millers, and bakers are working to develop a local grain economy where water-wise heirloom grains, ones that work symbiotically with local growing conditions, are grown, harvested, milled and then baked into wholesome food products.

Lindsay Challoner took over commercial breadbaking duties for Preston four years ago. Four times a week, she mills 10-12 pounds of such Preston-grown grains like Bluebeard Durum and Marquis Red, a process that takes about 20 minutes. She transforms the fresh-milled flour into sourdough breads sold in the farm store.

Baking with whole grains isn’t necessarily more difficult than baking with white flour, Challoner says, but it does result in a “denser flavor.”

Figuring out which grains grow best in Dry Creek Valley and then using those to produce a completely original loaf of bread is the next step.

“The nice thing about having grains grown on the property is that it tastes like the property,” Challoner says. “The way they do with estate wine, we’re trying to do that with food and bread.”

Sure, it tastes like the property, but does this denser, whole grain bread actually taste good? Some of us still have memories of the brick-like brown bread made by a Hippie Mom in a backwoods kitchen.

Fortunately, Challoner, along with superstar Bay Area bakers Chad Robertson at Tartine Bakery, Craig Ponsford of Ponsford’s Place in San Rafael, and Nathan and Devon Yanko at M.H. Bread & Butter in San Anselmo are steadily proving that bread, pastries, and pizza dough made from whole grains can be surprisingly airy and flavorful while maintaining nutritional vitality.

But before the bread rises, the grains must be grown and harvested. That’s where Doug Mosel CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

comes in. As part of the Mendocino Grain Project, Mosel and his partners raise and mill sustainably-cultivated heirloom grains and legumes on a farm just south of Ukiah. They also help out other grain growers with harvesting and cleaning their yields.

This year, the Mendocino Grain Project planted 50 acres of heirloom wheat, rye, oats, barley, and lentils—a drop in the bucket compared with the 45.7 million acres of wheat, according to the USDA, that is harvested in the United States each year. But considering that locally grown grains have become the stuff of agricultural history in Northern California, 50 is still significant. Mosel says that what’s going on in Mendocino and Sonoma counties is part of a larger local and national resurgence in small-scale grain production.

A brief look at the media landscape indicates that’s true.

Michael Pollan championed whole local grains in his latest book Cooked. This past spring, New York Times columnist and chef Dan Barber chastised the farm-to-table movement for ignoring a “whole class of humbler crops” like millet and rye, in favor of sexier farmer’s market favorites such as asparagus and heirloom tomatoes. “Diversifying our diet to include more local grains and legumes is a delicious first step to improving our food system,” Barber wrote. Oakland’s Community Grains have made it their mission to promote whole-grain, locally milled products from California growers—and they make great pastas.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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“You can go to almost any part of the country and there is a local grain movement,” Mosel says. “It kind of started up simultaneously in Mendocino, Sonoma, Humboldt, and Lake counties. Farmers showed an interest in trying out grains again.”

The key word is “again.” It wasn’t so long ago, less than 40 years, that the annual crop report produced by the Agricultural Commissioner reported a variety of grains and beans grown in Northern California, says Mosel. Most every town had a flour mill.

But, the industrialization and centralization of grain growing and processing—what Michael Pollan calls the “white flour industrial complex”—made it cheaper and significantly more convenient to buy a loaf of highly processed bread at the grocery store. The mills, equipment, and granaries all disappeared.

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As a result, the biggest challenge facing local grain growers is infrastructure. At harvest, Mosel drives down from Ukiah to lend his 1960s-era John Deere combine to Canvas Ranch, Foggy River Farm, Preston, and Front Porch. The grains must then be processed and cleaned, but that equipment is difficult to procure—much less afford. When the mill broke at Front Porch, they stopped milling in small batches while Wilson struggled to find someone who could service it.

Deborah Walton oversees the cultivation of farro (botanical name: emmer) and golden flax at her Canvas Ranch in Two Rock Valley outside of Petaluma. Three years ago, upon learning that farmers had once successfully grown oat and wheat in the valley, Walton and her husband Tim Schaible decided to plant a one-acre plot of farro, an ancient wheat they’d fallen in love with in Italy.

The grain didn’t need water and could grow in poor soil, making it an almost no-fail proposition.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

“It’s wonderful as part of a crop rotation,” Walton says. Her grains thrived, and once they were cleaned and bagged, she says that they “sold like crazy.”

This past season, Canvas Ranch grew seven acres of farro and two acres of flax, which is sold at farmers’ markets and specialty stores across the Bay Area.

Unfortunately, lack of equipment has been the biggest challenge, Walton says. Combines can cost up to $150,000. “Few farmers have that kind of money,” she adds.

The need for collective resources and streamlined equipment sharing is key to building the local grain economy, a point reiterated by Walton, Wilson at Front Porch, and Evan Kaiser, a farmer at Foggy River Farm. A report due out this fall from the USDA Rural Development fund project on regional food systems in Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Lake, and Mendocino counties came to the same conclusion.

The report advises support for young growers with the expansion of funding for processing equipment like threshers, cleaners, and packaging of grains.

A second, and equally important challenge, is getting people to understand and appreciate the health value of whole, local grains in the U.S., where most of us (at least, those without Hippie Moms) were raised on nutritionally desolate slices of white bread.

And then there’s the cost. A one-pound bag of polenta from Front Porch Farm retails for around $8. Because that’s how much it actually costs to produce small-scale grain production not supported by the government.

That hasn’t stopped Healdsburg SHED co-owner Cindy Daniel from becoming an evangelist for the local grain movement. On a recent Friday afternoon, Daniel watches as her husband Doug Lipton mills Bolero—a soft wheat used in pastries and muffins— in a sleek, wooden Austrian-made mill. The freshly ground wheat smells the way flour should: earthy, nutty, warm, still glowing with sun energy. The flour goes directly from sack to cooler, where it’s immediately available for sale to the general public.

To explain the value of whole grains, Daniel gets out a set of small glass tubes that looks like a lab display from a high school chemistry class. The tubes hold

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Article resources: canvasranch.com healdsburgshed.com foggyriverfarm.org fpfarm.com mendocinograin.net prestonvineyards.com

white flour, bran, germ, and endosperm, elements that—thanks to the introduction of roller mills in the late 1800s—are separated out of grain at largescale, commercial milling operations. White flour is basically milled endosperm, a process that acted as a boon for industrial food processing because the parts that go rancid without refrigeration are completely removed, making it easy to transport and store. But the same elements, the germ and the bran, hold the vitamins, amino acids, and protein our bodies crave.

With whole grain, the nutritional elements stay intact.

Daniel educates at SHED not only about the health benefits of locally grown, whole grains but also the ways these crops can be so integral to establishing healthy soil and, in turn, a diverse, resilient local food system. It’s an important task because, in the end, if consumers don’t buy the locally grown flour, the farmers have no reason to grow the grains.

“We need to be developing a whole-grain community complex,” says Daniel. “We want to support the farmer’s diversifying in that way. It’s not at the point where it’s a common thing, but we want to be part of building it and exploring it.”

Lou Preston and Lindsay Challoner

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vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

Monday No markets Tuesday

Forestville Farmers’ Market forestvillefarmersmarket.com 5700 Highway 116 N., Forestville.

Through Oct. 28, 3pm to 7pm.

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

Year-round, 10am to 1:30pm | Accepts EBT. Valley of the Moon Certified Farmers’ Market vomcfm.com Sonoma Town Plaza, 2 E. Napa St., Sonoma.

Through Oct. 28, 5:30pm to dusk | Accepts EBT.

Wednesday

Healdsburg Farmers’ Market healdsburgfarmersmarket.org North and Vine Streets in the parking lot.

Through Oct. 30, 3:30pm to 6pm | Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Original Certified Market thesantarosafarmersmarket.com Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa.

Year-round, 8:30am to noon | Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Community Market communityfarmersmarkets.com Veterans Building parking lot, 1351 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa.

Year-round, 9am to 1pm | Accepts WIC and EBT.

Thursday

Guerneville Farmers’ Market Sonoma Nesting Company parking lot (adjacent to the town Plaza), 16201 First St., Guerneville.

Through Sept. 25, 3pm to 7pm.

Santa Rosa Certified Farmers’ Market 1450 Guerneville Road (adjacent to the WIC office), Santa Rosa.

Through Sept. 25, 9am to 1pm | Accepts WIC. Southwest Santa Rosa Farmers’ Market cpifarmersmarket.org California Parenting Institute, 3650 Standish Ave., Santa Rosa.

Through Sept. 25, 4pm to 7pm | Accepts EBT.

Friday Bohemian Farmers’ Market occidentalfarmersmarket.com Main and Second streets, Occidental.

Through Oct.31, 4pm to dusk | Accepts WIC and EBT.

23

Friday continued

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

Year-round, 9am to 12:30pm | Accepts WIC and EBT.

Saturday

Healdsburg Farmers’ Market healdsburgfarmersmarket.org North and Vine streets in the parking lot.

Through Nov. 29, 9am to noon | Accepts WIC and EBT. Oakmont Farmers’ Market Wells Fargo Bank parking lot, Oakmont and White Oak drives.

Year-round, 9am to noon | Accepts WIC and EBT. Petaluma Farmers’ Market petalumafarmersmarket.org Walnut Park, Corner of D Street and Petaluma Boulevard S., Petaluma.

Through Nov. 22, 2pm to 5:30pm | Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Original Certified Market thesantarosafarmersmarket.com Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa.

Year-round, 8:30am to 1pm | Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Community Market communityfarmersmarkets.com Veterans Building parking lot, 1351 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa.

Year-round, 8am to 1pm | Accepts WIC and EBT.

Sunday

Bodega Bay Community Farmers’ Market 2255 Highway 1, Bodega Bay. Through Oct. 26, 10am to 1pm.

Kenwood Community Farmers’ Market communityfarmersmarkets.com Kenwood Plaza Park, 200 Warm Springs Road, Kenwood.

Through Sept. 14, noon to 4pm | Accepts WIC and EBT. West End Farmers’ Market www.wefm.co 817 Donahue St., Santa Rosa.

Through Dec. 14, 10am to 2pm | Accepts WIC and EBT. Sebastopol Farmers’ Market sebastopolfarmmarket.org Sebastopol Plaza, Weeks Way and Petaluma Street, Sebastopol.

Year-round, 10am to 1:30pm | Accepts WIC and EBT.

INSPIRE & CONNECT Showcasing the breadth and depth of local organizations, North Bay Innovation Week provides forums where entrepreneurs of all ages an d s t a g e s c an c o n n e c t an d exchange ideas that inspire the entrepreneurial spirit.

SEPTEMBER 15-19 • 2014

GO LOCAL

, its partners and members

have been implementing one big social and economic innovation: buy what we produce locally from locally owned stores.

• Each year Sonoma County residents collectively spend $2.1 billion on food in restaurants and grocery stores.

• We could see local food businesses generate an additional $285 million per year if we shifted just 10% of our buying to locally owned grocers and restaurants carrying locally grown, raised and produced food.

• That's an additional $285 million per year that our local farms, ranchers, processors, retailers and restaurants would see as income to hire more employees, upgrade operations, expand their businesses and start new businesses.

IMAGINING A HEALTHY LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM • SEPT 17 SPEAKER LINE-UP . . .

KENNY BELOV TwoXSea (Sustainable seafood company) EVAN WIIG Farmer’s Guild (Farmers thinking inside the row) HEATHER GRANAHAN CAFF (Opportunity: seeking entrepreneurs)

EVENT LINE-UP Switch Vehicles Open House

MON. SEPT. 15, 10AM - 3PM Includes lectures and rides in Switch Vehicles.

A Call to Entrepreneurial Thinking and Action

TUE. SEPT. 16, 12PM - 1PM Sonoma State University

How Do We Improve Quality of Life Through Quality of Work THU. SEPT. 18, 6:30 PM WORK Petaluma

Venture Greenhouse: Top Five Keys to a Successful Funding Pitch WED. SEPT. 17, 10 AM - NOON Renaissance Center

SoCo Nexus: North Bay Innovation Summit

FRI. SEPT. 19, 8AM - 6PM (two sessions) Where startup and early-stage companies compete for recognition and cash prizes and pitch for investment.

Sonoma Mountain Village • soconexus.org

WIMPspace Grand Opening Celebration

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DRINK LOCAL

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M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | vol. 1. issue 5

How naked, cultureless wine is remaking Sonoma County viticulture

By Alastair Bland

W

ay back in the 1980s, Ted Lemon worked the vineyards in Burgundy, the French heart and home of Pinot Noir. When he returned to the United States and settled among the apple orchards of western Sonoma County, it was never his intention to emulate the French. Rather, the young winemaker wanted to explore the wild country east of the foggy coast as it stretched north to the Anderson Valley. Steep slopes and soils of many types promised Lemon excellent wines, and here he sank his roots. France was easily forgotten.

Today, Lemon spends his days among his Sebastopol vines, and the barrels and bottles of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The 56-year-old New York native makes wine under the Littorai label, the small winery he launched with his wife Heidi in 1993. That was about the time that countless entrepreneurs were looking to stake a claim in the state’s burgeoning wine industry. Many followed a formulaic approach to their craft, using extra ripe fruit to make highalcohol fruit bombs that, through the 1990s, became the proud signature style of California, the blowsy, teeth-staining lip-smackers that critics loved.

But Lemon veered early on from the path most traveled. He believed the state’s soils and

microclimates had much more to offer than heavyhanded Cabs, oak-ruined Chards, and peppersharp Zins. So he diverged, and with an interest in showcasing California’s terroir, Lemon has spent the past 20 years not so much creating wines as simply allowing them to emerge from a time and a place. For Lemon, that place is the wild seaward hill country of Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Visitors to the Littorai winery, where tastings are arranged by appointment, find a lineup of single-vineyard wines, all either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay. These two grape varieties, in Lemon’s estimation, can channel a location’s character to the bottle more fluidly than any others.

“They speak wonderfully of tiny little pieces of land,” he says, referring to sites like the Charles Heintz, Platt, Mays Canyon, and Haven vineyards from which he harvests. “Inherently, Cabernet doesn’t.

It’s not quite as expressive of an individual site.”

The eponymous Hirsch vineyard, named for famed vintner David Hirsch, who owns the land and makes fine “sense of place” wine of his own, lies just east of Salt Point State Park and is probably the most esteemed of the sites in Littorai’s portfolio, offering all of the elements that Lemon finds so exciting. Hirsch’s

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DRINK LOCAL

Heidi and Ted Lemon

70-acre vineyard features dozens of distinct plantings on hillsides facing every way but south. The soils come in every geological make, from sandstone to shale to greenstone to loam. Aside from Hirsch himself, Lemon was one of the first winemakers to recognize this site as truly special. So, while winemakers in the Napa Valley were minting money producing wines with overbearing styles that made critics count to 100, Lemon quietly entered into a long-term lease agreement with Hirsch in 1994 and has been farming several acres of the property ever since.

While not certified, Lemon follows the tenets of biodynamic farming, which essentially requires him to work each vineyard himself, which he does through lease agreements with their owners. He grows herbs at the Littorai property to render into teas and tinctures that are sprinkled through the vineyards during certain phases of the lunar cycle. Soil composted in buried cow horns is similarly dispersed. Outside elements, like commercial fertilizers, are forbidden.

Even water is considered an affront to a vineyard’s personality nuance, and Lemon’s grapes are mostly farmed dry. In the winery, commercial yeasts are not added to each vat of juice; instead, they are fermented with ambient native yeasts. Oak is used with restraint.

What goes to the bottle, then, is a representation entirely and only of one location—a naked, cultureless wine as unmarred as possible by human fingerprints. Whether critics love or hate a Littorai wine doesn’t matter, Lemon says.

Littorai is not the only winery focusing on microterroir and location. Ridge Vineyards, Donkey and Goat, Siduri, and many more small-batch operations make site-focused wines that, in some way, showcase the essence of a place more than winemaker finesse and prowess. San Francisco Chronicle wine editor Jon Bonné thoroughly discusses this viticultural revolution in his 2013 book, The New California Wine. Ted Lemon, kneeling among his vines with a pitchfork in hand, is pictured on the cover.

Bonné says a growing number of winemakers are crafting wine simply. “They’ve looked beyond the simple axis of critical success,” he says. Wine Spectator magazine is often named as the force that drove fruit-forward, overripe, high-alcohol winemaking. By the early 2000s, the California industry found itself nosed into a tight corner. With little room to expand or grow, winemakers in all parts of the state have tried to reverse out of this pigeonhole and pursue a CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

different route by making more transparent, softspoken wines. Lemon, Bonné says, led this shift.

“Other people are creeping up on these ideals of place and terroir, but Ted was so far ahead of the game,” he says.

“Unlike almost every other winemaker in California, [Lemon] didn’t just wrap himself in the mantle of Burgundy,” Bonné says. “He went in the other direction.”

Bonné’s book also prominently features Abe Schoener, owner and winemaker at the Scholium Project, a renegade microwinery in Fairfield that focuses on, and holds very dear, small and often abandoned vineyard properties. Unlike Lemon, who would prefer to plant his own vines than pick up where a prior owner left off, Schoener embraces a vineyard for its very history. He has made deals with owners of vineyards in abandoned corners of the Napa Valley and on forgotten islands of the Delta. By striking up long-term deals with the owners of such sites, which have otherwise been cast off by the conventional

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wine industry, Schoener has said that he feels that he is preserving California’s archaeological record in his bottles of wine. Unlike Littorai, Scholium Project’s wines include a range of grape varieties.

But Lemon, Schoener, and other winemakers interested in microcosmic terroir have at least one prominent characteristic in common: They don’t believe in blending. Instead, the wine that a vineyard produces, virtues and idiosyncrasies together, are accepted in one embrace.

“You can’t blend away shortcomings,” Lemon says.

“The blender can say, ‘I want to make a better wine than this.’” By adding such flavorings as oak chips, simple syrup, acids and artificial yeasts, “mega-purple,” and even water, a conventional winemaker can bottle up a product that he feels is greater than the sum of its parts.

Of course, not every vintage is perfect, and for those times when a great vineyard underperforms, Lemon keeps an escape hatch: regional blends. When the fires of 2008 essentially CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

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DRINK LOCAL

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28

smoked much of the North Coast grape crop, Lemon declassified almost all his single-vineyard wines and combined the juice into his two backup wines—cuvées from the Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley. The wines still maintain regional characteristics and the expected varietal traits of Pinot and Chardonnay, but the beloved locations of their birth are, in essence, lost.

“Experiences like those are painful,” Lemon says.

So why the deepening appreciation of California terroir, among both winemakers and drinkers?

Bonné feels it’s simply the next natural step in the maturation of the California palate. He compares it to a simultaneous shift in American beer appreciation: Sweet and aromatic IPAs have served as the welcome mat for many drinkers into the craft beer culture because, as Bonné points out, they’re like candy to the palate. Now, many beer drinkers are backing off as they seek out subtler styles, like saison, kölsch, and other low-alcohol beers.

Likewise, newcomers to wine, Bonné explains, are often attracted to the big and rich wine style that

became, unsurprisingly, California’s signature as the state emerged as a winemaking power. Then, after 20 years of overly ripe, overly oaked wines, consumers and winemakers alike grew fatigued. They wanted restraint and subtlety. They wanted to taste place.

Winemakers like Lemon, Schoener, Hirsch, and Paul Draper at Ridge have showed them how. In a state awash in wines that, at best, showcase an entire region’s profile but more commonly simply meet consumer expectations of fruit and alcohol, the notion of micro-terroir seems like a brand new one.

But of course, it’s actually as old as the hills and the humans who have tended them over the centuries. Lemon doesn’t fool himself. “There were certainly people making wines of place before we came around,” he says thoughtfully.

Article resources: littorai.com hirschvineyards.com ridgewine.com

scholiumwines.com donkeyandgoat.com siduri.com

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The innovation driving the natural foods industry is comparable to anything you see coming out of Silicon Valley. Organic foods and drinks are taking up more conventional grocery shelf space each year, and our palettes are warming up to everything from chia pudding to unsweetened quinoa milk. Yet with all of the effort companies have put into bringing new, sustainable products to market, few take any revolutionary approaches to reusability.

S

onoma County’s Revive Kombucha is not the only kombucha competing for organic buyers in the cold ready-to-go drinks case, but they are one of the only brands encouraging customers to return their bottles to any store selling their products so that they can be reused.

The “buch” comes in four flavors: the original flavor, or “OG,” begins with a black tea culture; “Red” roots from a culture of hibiscus flower; “Gold” is brewed from coffee; and Revive’s latest flavor, “Solar,” is derived from yerba mate. The brews are raw, organic, non-GMO, fair trade, and gluten-free.

Brewed and batched in Windsor, each flavor comes in a size 16 oz. amber bottle or large 64 oz. The high-quality bottles are worth a deposit on the original cost: $2 for 16 oz. drinks and $5 for 64 oz.

Revive’s bottle exchange program has helped the company divert 180,000 pounds of glass from landfills, according to data collected in Northern California between August 2010 and December 2012. That’s 130,000 bottles.

“It’s like running two different businesses,” says Revive founder Sean J. Lovett of creating

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the kombucha, which is still brewed in small batches as it was when the company launched in 2010, and running Revive’s bottle exchange program. “It’s challenging.”

not inconsiderable. But Lovett points out the benefits, notably customer loyalty in a competitive segment of the market, and being aligned with a larger purpose.

Sustainability on this level takes work to pull off efficiently. The used bottles are collected by truck drivers as part of their usual delivery routine: when a drop-off is made, old bottles left by customers are picked up and brought back to rejoin the system. And as new amber bottles don’t need to be made, a great deal of energy is being preserved.

“I think that culturally, it provides a really cool foundation for our business,” he says.

“We’re not just working to sell a product, there’s a greater mission behind what we’re trying to do.”

The inspiration behind the bottle exchange program came to Lovett while he was in the beginning stages of his business. “I woke up one day designing packaging [and] got a vision of one of our bottles at the time that wasn’t going to be reusable,” Lovett says. “I just thought, no, I don’t want to contribute to that.”

“There are a lot of companies that should be using capital money to innovate their packaging,” he says. “They should be thinking, they have the resources. They should have a perfectly biodegradable plastic bottle by now.”

Years later, customers are contributing to Revive’s sustainable system, with a return rate of 71 percent for 16 oz. bottles and 76 percent for 64 oz. bottles.

While the company works for a sustainable ideal, the cost of enacting this system is

While he admits that it’s a costly program, Lovett says there are plenty of others that can follow suit.

When faced with the realities of running a hardline sustainable business, Lovett is not squeamish. But ultimately, he chooses change.

“It’s going to take a long time,” Lovett says.

“It’s not a practical reality the whole industry is going to change. But we use it, and it’s fine.”

Article resources: revivebrands.myshopify.com

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From salmon to trout to algae to nuts, two entrepreneurs are closing the loop on seafood production and everyone’s waste

By Alastair Bland

Kenny Belov of TwoXSea

vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

S

peaking with Bill Foss for the first time, it’s easy to get lost in his interconnected web of plans, projects, and ambitions, all geared in creative ways toward reinventing the industrial food system. Foss, who lives in Healdsburg, co-owns Fish Restaurant in Sausalito, Kenwood Restaurant, and TwoXSea, a sustainable seafood wholesale company based in San Francisco.

But now, in a quest to change what—and the way—Americans eat, this food entrepreneur is stepping beyond the sea. On a hillside above Bodega Bay, Foss and several business partners are preparing to launch a shellfish farm that will grow oysters, scallops, abalone, and several forms of algae in landlocked tanks.

The facility, which was developed in the ’80s as a Coho salmon farm, will provide shellfish for TwoXSea, which he owns with partner Kenny Belov. It will also produce kelp, a fast-growing superfood that has sustained humans for centuries and is experiencing a new

35

plans share a common thread: “Everything we’re doing is about closing loops,” he explains.

plankton. Oyster farming is generally considered a very clean type of farming.

That is, Foss is looking in all directions for ways to productively utilize surplus nutrition and energy and, ultimately, eliminate waste streams from global food production. Consider his trout.

Their diet is rounded out with California-grown nuts rendered unmarketable because they’re broken or disfigured and which would otherwise be discarded (he and Belov wish to keep the type of nut a secret for now). And at the Bodega Bay shellfish farm, the plan is to someday power the operation with tidal pumps and simultaneously generate electricity for the grid using turbines, water, and gravity. The creatures there would eat nothing but algae and kelp grown onsite, and the facility’s environmental footprint would

“It kills me that, in a world where people need food, we’re shutting down one of the best aquaculture farms around,” says Foss, who is working on the shellfish farm with another partner, David Cooper, a clean technology and real estate consultant from San Francisco.

Cooper swears the operation, which could go live later this year, will put Sonoma County on the map as a leader in aquaculture technology. The facility consists of six 55,000-gallon tanks, a 4.5 million-gallon pond and another swath of undeveloped acreage the size of a football field.

be essentially nil. vogue. The farm will also serve as a source of algae for yet another Foss endeavor—a fish farm in Lassen County where he and Belov are raising what they call “renewable trout.” The fish are unique because of their diet, a vegetarian blend of algae, flaxseed, and nuts. A more distant goal is to use restaurant food waste and raise insects for the trout.

If Foss seems unfocused, he isn’t, for his projects and

The launch of the Bodega Bay farm comes at a pivotal moment in the local seafood market. Out in the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm, considered by many a model of sustainable, community-based aquaculture, has been shut down by the federal government, and with it has gone a major source of local oysters, which are grown in open water and filter-feed on naturally occurring algae and

The farm will grow primarily oysters and purple-hinged rock scallops, a Pacific coast native. Most scallops,

Cooper says, come from Asia from “unknown origins.”

“In California, nobody has ever grown these animals in this way at this scale,” Cooper says.

Foss, 50, and Belov, 38, might once have seemed unlikely candidates to invest in the aquaculture industry. They are both former commercial fishermen and have each rallied loudly against farmed salmon. The product, they say, is so cheap and ubiquitously available that it essentially wipes CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35

out public interest in saving wild salmon runs and the rivers they spawn in, like the Sacramento River, the source of most locally caught Chinook salmon. Salmon farming pollutes ocean waters, too, and in parts of Canada and Europe, wild salmon populations have declined due in part to the presence of salmon farming pens.

Salmon farming also requires using fish to feed the salmon. In fact, several pounds of anchovies, menhaden, sardines, and other shoaling “bait fish” are needed to grow just one pound of farmed salmon, and among environmental groups, industrial fishmeal has become an issue of growing ecological concern. Every year, about 15 million tons of small fish are netted, ground into paste and fed to farm-raised fish, like salmon

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and tuna, according to a recent story in Mother Jones magazine.

The industry is a net protein drain, producing just a fraction of the fish tonnage that it macerates into pulp.

But raising algae is a potentially low-cost, low-input endeavor that requires only clean water and tanks and could make fish farming a much more efficient industry.

Currently, Foss and Belov’s trout have a diet supplemented with algae grown in Kentucky and Hawaii, but they’re hoping to tighten the reins on production and grow the material themselves in Bodega Bay. “We want to generate the missing link,” Foss says.

Foss and Cooper are simultaneously mobilizing another venture at the historic 1927 Penngrove Hatchery, which will soon enter a new stage of life as a brewpub,

retail shop, and tasting bar for all types of goodies. Taking a page from the tech industry, they’re calling the concept a “food accelerator.” With encouragement, training, and financial support, entrepreneurs will have use of the partner’s resources to bring creative food ideas and products to life, test them against public scrutiny, and, eventually, enter them into the marketplace.

The first round of emerging businesses to occupy the site isn’t yet finalized, but the partners think that it will probably comprise a brewer, a distiller, and a maker of fermented probiotic salad dressings and drinks. The plan is for this handful of artisans to live out a residency period of several months before moving into the local economy—hopefully as fullfledged successful enterprises— CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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before a new crop of food artisans moves into the Hatchery.

On a recent sunny day, Foss, Cooper, Belov and several business colleagues met for lunch on the bayside dining deck behind Fish Restaurant. They ate wild salmon and their own farmed trout. The trout fillets were pink—colored from natural pigments in the algae they eat. Conversation drifted between the feasibility of growing scallops, how many years it takes to raise a market-sized abalone, and productive uses for leftover restaurant food scraps.

Each man cleaned his plate. It would have been a conspicuous oversight not to. One of their campaigns, in fact, is to reduce the food waste of restaurants; or, rather—make use of it. According to Cooper, about half the food

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that enters the average American restaurant is not consumed. It’s discarded—mostly to landfills.

“After all the effort and energy in raising food, processing it and delivering it, you just throw it out?” Cooper says hotly. “It’s a huge waste of energy and fuel, and we’re trying to recycle that energy back into the system.”

Already, a company called Enterra in British Columbia is developing the concept, raising fly larvae on the food waste from local restaurants. The insects are cooked and ground up into a protein mash that can be fed to fish and poultry.

The idea came, in part, from antisalmon farming environmentalist David Suzuki. Cooper and Foss say they hope to team up with Enterra and apply the system at a national or international scale.

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Foss, immersed in projects for improving the way we feed ourselves, says he has been both encouraged and frustrated by members of the public and restaurants in the Bay Area.

There’s the Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm loss, of course. And when he and Belov launched a campaign asking local restaurants to pledge to boycott farmed salmon several years ago, big names like the French Laundry and Chez Panisse did not join.

“I was really surprised and disappointed,” Foss says. But it’s a fair bet that he won’t stay on this topic for long. There’s too much need to change the way we produce and consume our food. He crumbles his napkin onto his plate and stands up.

Foss has a lot to do.

vol. 1, issue 5 | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P

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Article resources: twoxsea.com 331fish.com enterrafeed.com Good Eggs: The Penngrove Hatchery will soon incubate new food businesses.

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41

Q

uince is hard to love, and that’s because it’s not easy to eat. Unlike an apple or pear, you can’t simply pluck one from a tree and sink your teeth right in; it’s bitter as all get-out. There’s peeling involved, plus cooking, plus sugar. Lots of sugar.

There’s an old story in the Bible about a lady named Eve tempting some guy with an apple.

Scholars speculate the fated fruit was actually a quince, though I personally doubt it.

Eve: “Try this, it’s awesome.”

Adam: “What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing?”

East of Eden, quince is hard to find. According to a 1958 County of Sonoma Agricultural Crop Report, Sonoma County boasted all of two acres of quince orchards (one bearing, one non-bearing) that year. To compare, there were 5,744 acres of Gravenstein apples.

Quince is not a cash crop. It’s a cult crop.

So, who loves quince? Crazy people. I’m one. You should be, too, as long as you have a good, sharp knife because cutting into the tough interior of a raw quince takes muscle. For all the fuss they require, quinces beguile, offering aromatic floral and honey notes. And their resilient off-white flesh transforms once exposed to heat, developing a deep rosy blush and a supple texture.

Whole quince are gorgeous to look at, with skin that’s bright buttery yellowgreen when ready to harvest. Sometimes that skin is lightly flocked with felty down. And they keep in a bowl on the kitchen counter for weeks. Decorative!

Independent grocery stores may start offer quince in late September or early October. A farmers’ market is a better path if you want to talk to the vendor; anyone growing quince doubtlessly has opinions and insights about how to best use them. Leisen’s Bridgeway Farm sells them. So do Dave Passmore and his partner Jim McCrumb of Sonoma Coast Organic

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Produce, who appear at farmers’ markets to sell quince grown on their Cazadero farm, but only in October and November. Passmore says they have repeat customers every year.

He likes to bake slices of quince in the oven with a little water and, he admits, “too much sugar” before enjoying them plain, or with yogurt or ice cream. He also suggests sneaking a few diced quince into apple pie filling.

Perhaps you live close to a quince tree, in which case the average quincechallenged homeowner will bless you for hauling away grocery sacks of the stuff.

Just ask first—it’s bad juju not to.

The fruit’s taste is so distinctive that it’s pointless to even consider pairings like lavender-quince or cardamom-quince; that would be too baroque. (A vanilla bean, however, will soften and lift up those floral qualities.

That’s the route to go.) Quince is packed with pectin, the substance that makes jams and jellies set. Quince jelly is labor-intensive, messy, and worth doing at least once. Skip the peanut butter sandwiches and spread it on buttered toast or scones. And quince sings when standing in for apples in tarte tatin, the upside-down apple pie of France.

I’m a dedicated poacher. It’s not particularly challenging, and the results can top ice cream, dense pound cake, or panna cotta. To make sorbet, just puree the poached quince with some of its poaching liquid and churn away. (All that pectin makes for a pillowy-smooth sorbet.)

May I be your Eve? I can tempt you with knowledge only. Don’t dilly-dally. Quince lovers have been waiting for these things all year, and they don’t mess around. If you’d like to try some, buy them when you see them.

You must seek the quince yourself, and its metamorphosis from the most astringent of Rosaceae to an otherworldly delight will be all the sweeter for it.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

Tough Love Quince isn’t a cash crop—it’s a cult crop

by Sara Bir

M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | S E P/ O C T 2 0 14 | vol. 1. issue 5

42

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41

Makes about 4 cups Cooled and covered, this will keep for about a month; it’s a nicely lazy method of preserving.

1-1/2 pounds quince (3 large quinces) 2 cups water or light-bodied white or rosé wine 1/3 cup sugar 1 four-inch cinnamon stick One large strip lemon zest ½ vanilla bean 1-3 tablespoons honey

Rinse off the quince, then peel (a serrated peeler is especially nice for this). Core the quinces and chop into 1/2 inch pieces. You should have about 4 cups chopped quince. (The cut quince may oxidize, but don’t worry.)

Place the chopped quince, sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon zest in a medium saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise; scrape out the seeds, and add the seeds and bean to the pot. Add enough water or wine to cover the quince.

Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce to a gentle simmer. Cover and poach for 10-25 minutes, until a fork easily pierces the quince pieces. Remove the quince with a slotted spoon; set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon honey to the poaching liquid. Bring to a boil and reduce until a rosy syrup forms (if the syrup reduces too much, just add a little water). Cool a bit and taste; adjust sweetness with more honey, if desired. Discard cinnamon stick and lemon peel, though I do like to leave in the vanilla bean. Pour the syrup over the quince; cool. Store, refrigerated, in a tightly covered jar for up to a month.

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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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Taking a New Take ‘INNOVATION’ ISN’T JUST ABOUT TECH; IT’S MOSTLY ABOUT YIELD

By Gretchen Giles and Terry Garrett Growing, producing, and selling local food leads to greater local self-reliance, pure and simple.

Currently, we grow less than 1 percent of our local produce here in Sonoma County. (We do a much better job in dairy, poultry and eggs, and meat production, and even manage to export it.) There is a tremendous local demand for healthy foods, grown and processed close to home, and we’ve only just begun to meet it.

Each year, Sonoma County residents collectively spend $2.1 billion on food in area restaurants and grocery stores. Imagine if we could harness some of that consumer purchasing power. Local food businesses could generate an additional $285 million a year if resident consumers did just one thing: Shift 10 percent of their food dollars to locally owned grocers and restaurants that carry locally grown, harvest, processed, and produced food.

Sure, it’s about self-reliance—but it’s also about innovation.

We tend to think of innovation as solely residing in the high-tech sector. But social and economic innovations are actually more reliable, because they usually cost less to implement and the results more immediately change the yield of a resource. For an economic innovation example, take what we suggested earlier— shift 10 percent of consumer purchasing to locally owned goods through local retailers. By shifting $210 million in purchases, we generate an additional $75 million in economic activity. That act increases the yield of an existing resource—our purchasing power to fuel local production. We would create new jobs. We would keep more money in the local economy. We would actually grow more money, like they do on trees—OK, on grapevines.

High land prices, of course, remain a stumbling block to area growers, producers, and processers. So, let’s innovate. Plant wheat amid grape rows, freeze and package vegetables right where they’re harvested, build new production plants and fill them with Central Valley produce until we can move enough of our own. Unless we pivot towards this future, we’ll never capture that 10 percent, that $285 million, that is currently flowing out of Sonoma County and enriching the pockets and tax bases of states and counties that have nothing to do with us or our way of life.

These ideas and others will be on tap at North Bay Innovation Week, slated for Sept. 15-19, 2014. The Food System Innovation workshop, a day of TED-style talks, is planned for Wednesday, Sept. 17. We hope that you’ll join us to consider how we can change to get a greater yield. It’s good for all of us.

Article resources:

golocal.coop