Jul/Aug 2019
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Letter from the Editor
Summer always feels like a time when I get to reconnect a bit with my childhood self. To be honest, the moments that spark joy for me haven’t changed much since I was an eight-year-old on summer break from Evergreen Elementary School: A bite of fresh, cold watermelon on a hot day; a trip to…
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Locavortex: A Green New Deal for Agriculture
One of America’s earliest nationwide ecological disasters unfolded a century ago. Urged by railroad companies, land speculators, and the U.S. government, farmers flooded the American West, bringing unsustainable practices to the frontier’s arid climate. Years of over-tillage coupled with drought resulted in the Dust Bowl, which swept a sixth of our precious topsoil away, decimating…
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On the Move: Mike Hudson Distributing
For fifty years, Mike Hudson Distributing has been the hard-working middleman between local vendors and markets. And they just keep going. Today’s breakfast is a piece of toasted sprouted wheat from Alvarado St. Bakery in Petaluma, smeared thick with Clover Sonoma butter, both of which I bought at Oliver’s Market. Most of us who are…
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Tales of Backyard Sustenance
In which one Cotati mom attempts to abandon bananas for whatever’s growing closest to home. First Garden In 2014, my husband and I moved from San Francisco to a newly purchased home in Petaluma, which finally afforded us the space to garden. This patch of dirt is where I plopped into the ground my very first…
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Sonoma County Cider Week Celebrates Local Golden Nectars
Sonoma County apples are arguably some of the best in the world. With a history of local cultivation spanning roughly 200 years, apples were once a pillar of the local economy, from Luther Burbank’s praising of Gravensteins in the late 19th century to the processing of the sweet, crisp, dried fruit into vinegar at The…
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Adventures in Drinking: Rio Nido Roadhouse
With summer in full swing along the Russian River, few signs of February’s dramatic and destructive flooding remain. No place in the forested community has shown such a quick and thorough rebound as Rio Nido Roadhouse, a favorite with locals. Tucked off the north side of River Road, the the roadhouse’s history as a live…
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Beef as a Solution: Freestone Ranch Completes Carbon Farm Plan
Misty West Gay and Jon Gay, along with Jon’s sister Susan and her family, started Freestone Ranch in Freestone back in 2006. More than a decade later, their grass-fed, grass-finished beef operation is the first ranch in Sonoma County to have completed a Carbon Farm Plan in collaboration with Fibershed and Gold Ridge Resource Conservation…
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Radical Family Farms: A Farm With Heart
At Radical Family Farms, vegetables are more than food. They are a bridge to reclaiming lost history and culture. A favorite in Chinese cuisine, pea shoots happen to make an excellent cover crop for degraded soil. For that reason, Leslie Wiser, a child of immigrants from Germany and Taiwan, planted peas (along with clover, hairy…
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Savorbang! Forget-Me-Not Salad
Welcome to our regular recipe column from teacher and stand-up comedian Sarah Gray. This time around, she shares a summer-vibes blackberry and fennel salad that’s hard to forget, unlike that self-care you keep forgetting to do. According to the news, I have forgotten to do . . . EVERYTHING. I didn’t realize it had gotten…
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My Favorite Eats
Neil Pacheco loves food. He shares his passion for Latino food (and non-food related) entrepreneurs on his La Morenita FM show, What’s Cookin’ Sonoma County and through a heavy social media presence. In 2019, he was included on North Bay Business Journal’s list of notable Forty Under 40 professionals. Born in Texas, of Oaxacan roots,…