Mar/Apr 2015
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View from the Bottom
Can new use permits expand our farmers’ fiscal stability? When that soul who goes to an office for a living gazes upon a farm, it’s entirely possible that the view is a bucolic poem in the form of tidy crop rows limned with amber light and animated by pleasantly clucking hens. When the resident farmer…
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Community Treasure
The Casino’s Evelyn Casini on the importance of hippies, shoes, and feeding the people. Frequent the Casino Bar and Grill in Bodega and you’ll gain a sense of the place that goes far beyond its wildly popular and affordable gourmet meals scratched up on a hamburger grill. There’s something more than the scruffy stuffed raccoon…
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Utile Textile
How hardy, primitive sheep can weed and clothe you. Two years ago, Leslie Adkins and her husband Alden drove their Prius from Massachusetts to California with unexpected hitchhikers in the back: Two cross-bred Ouessant lambs. A primitive sheep breed originally propagated for fiber by peasant women on the rugged and grassy island for which they’re…
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Moment to Moment
Seasonal goes micro at Single Thread Farms. For everything there is a season. But for Sonoma County farmer Katina Connaughton, there are 72 to consider instead of just four. Rather than painting broad strokes across her agricultural yearbook—spring, summer, winter, fall—Connaughton and her husband are bringing a set of ancient Japanese farming techniques to Sonoma…
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Hive Mind
Natural apiarist Michael Thiele speaks for the bees. Michael Thiele stands at the top of a ladder propped against a pine tree, peering cautiously into a small hole in a barrel-shaped capsule that is propped in the branches and covered with tree bark. “Hello,” he says softly. “Good morning.” A beady-eyed fuzzy face appears in…
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Sweet Tart
Shrubs are the oldest thing to be new again. Somewhere between cordials, aperitifs, lemonade, and kombucha is a cool, tart drink that’s equally trendy and quaint. It’s also got a homely name: The shrub. Novelty-hungry foodies can brush up on its history with a raft of new shrub cookbooks, four having been released last year…
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Folks You Should Know – Steve Schwartz
Founding executive director of Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative. Steve Schwartz is a local food systems advocate with more than 25 years of professional leadership working with farmers and farm policy to advance sustainable agriculture. The founder of California FarmLink, which he directed for 13 years, Steve worked to provide access to land and financing for…