Sep/Oct 2014
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Cultural Records
From a Sebastopol seed swap to the imprint of community. 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…
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With the Grain
A Letter from the Editor. 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,…
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Folks You Should Know – Cathryn Couch
Founder and executive director of Ceres Community Project. 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…
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Taste of Place
How naked, cultureless wine is remaking Sonoma County viticulture. Way 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.…
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Heart of Glass
Revive Kombucha breaks the throw-away cycle. 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…
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Sink or Swim
From salmon to trout to algae to nuts, two entrepreneurs are closing the loop on seafood production and everyone’s waste. Speaking 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…
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Taking a New Take
‘Innovation’ isn’t just about tech; it’s mostly about yield. 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…
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Tough Love
Quince isn’t a cash crop—it’s a cult crop. Quince 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.…
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Grain Gain
Will our local heritage grain movement save us from ourselves? When 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…