Eat
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Traditional Foodways on the Table
If the food products lining grocery store shelves could talk, they’d tell many a tale, including sagas of long voyages, preservatives, and shortcuts taken to maximize corporate profits. But rarely would these stories be tied to place, culture, or connection to those who produced it. But the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center (CIMCC) in…
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Back to the Land: Kim LaVere of Land + Local Cooks Up Deep Connection
In our modern grab-and-go food culture, it’s easy to forget that food is a main ingredient in our health and wellness. But Kim LaVere, chef and owner of Land + Local is helping us to remember. She’s all about the philosophy that food can be medicine. Her main goal? To lovingly and gently bring people…
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Star of the Summer: New Wood-Fired Pizza at Stellina Pronto! Debuts
Ever since husband-and-wife team Christian Caiazzo and Katrina Fried opened Stellina Pronto! three years ago, customers were patiently eying the blue mosaic pizza oven behind the counter with the sign above it stating, “Pizza—Coming Soon.’ The cafe has since become a fixture in Petaluma, offering Linea espresso roasted in San Francisco and an ever-changing menu…
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Eat Local – Spread Kitchen Makes Waves
PHOTOS BY PAIGE GREEN When Cristina Topham was living in New York City, she once went on a blind date to the Caribbean. “The guy was okay, but Anguilla was great,” she recounts. So the Wall Street tech-worker-turned-chef-caterer returned to the city and scoured job boards for culinary work in warmer climes. This is how…
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Eat Local – Sea Change
PHOTOS BY PAIGE GREEN The call of the sea is hard to resist, and Heidi Herrmann of Strong Arm Farm has both answered the call and continued the conversation. Herrmann’s one-woman venture began as a typical vegetable-growing operation selling at farmers’ markets. But all that changed back in 2009. She was at the Occidental Farmers’…
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Connect with the Source at Jupiter Foods, Your Farmers Market Grocery Store
The San Francisco North Bay Area is bountiful with farm fresh produce, but venturing to the farmers’ markets every week just isn’t always possible for many people. Luckily, Jupiter Foods Grocery Store in downtown Petaluma does all the legwork, and lovers of locally grown produce can enjoy the farmers’ market freshness all week. The intimate…
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Eat Shopping Guide
by Nichole LaStrange For the ambitious holiday planners who already have their shopping lists started (read: not us), this Sonoma County newcomer is working on your timeline. Armie Rivera, owner of Kabayan Filipino Market in Rohnert Park, says that their countdown to Christmas often starts as early as September 1st. “We start playing Christmas songs…
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From Ecuador With Love
Grand Central Cafe is more than a coffee shop. Owners Natalie and Juan Carlos Vinueza opened it during the waning days of the pandemic, and what began conceptually as a cafe, evolved into a colorful business that serves coffees and mochas as well as organic empanadas, and sells imported Ecuadorian cacao and artisanal items. A…
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Confessions of a Germophile
I’ll tell it to you straight. The majority of food in my adolescence came from a plastic bag, cardboard box or drive-thru window. My health-conscious, home-ec teacher mother was pretty tuckered out raising her fourth and fifth child as a single mom, and like many of us these days, convenience became her priority in the…
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Seasoned With Love: Cooking, Community And Culture With Morihouse
“We are not great at promoting or selling ourselves,” Adrian Lewis-Chang tells me right away as we sit down to discuss the constellation of cooking classes and clubs, pop-ups, and community creation that he and his husband Chris Lewis-Chang offer under their Morihouse umbrella. When I ask him why that is, he ponders for a…