Publisher’s Note
Holly Madrigal
Co-Publisher & Managing Editor
One thing I appreciate about Mendocino County is our exceptional adaptability. When life gets challenging, we roll up our sleeves and figure it out. While chatting with friends and small business owners over coffee at a local cafe, the group swaps stories about how business is down this year. Naturally, these reflections provoke anxious concern, but they also inspire determination and creativity, grounded in the awareness that a rich life has less to do with what’s in your bank account and more to do with the people, places, and pursuits that occupy your time. And no matter what the economy is doing, here in Mendocino County, we have resourceful people, beautiful places, and interesting pursuits in abundance.
That resourcefulness allows us to solve problems and find joy by making the most of what we have on hand. Have too much zucchini? Make zucchini flour. Have a sweet tooth but detest corporate candy? Then stop by Sunshine’s Confections to relish an elevated version of your childhood favorites. Looking to add an unconventional crop to your garden? Julia Dakin’s work with landrace seeds (p 11) is remarkable. Her organization, Going to Seed, is developing vigorous seeds that are both locally specific and able to thrive in our changing climate with minimal interventions.
Redwood Forest Foundation has been in operation since 1997 and knows all about adaptability. The best practices they have developed are transforming our relationship to the local ecosystem of the north coast (p 29), eschewing extractive logging for a more community-centric style of timber management with forest stewardship at its heart. Big Mesa Farm (p 19) has done their fair share of adapting as well, moving from their former location in Bolinas—with a coastal climate and big-city access—to the hot weather and rural market conditions of inland Mendocino County. Yet with creativity, flexibility, and grit, they are making it work, continually tinkering with their approach to provide for their customers and live their values.
We at Word of Mouth also continue to grow and evolve. Our “new” co-publisher has been here all along. Torrey is the one who makes this magazine visually stunning while contributing thoughtful, investigative stories. Her advancement this spring to co-publisher acknowledges the position she has held for years. Along with our extremely talented editor, Dawn Emery Ballantine, and our rock star advertising director, Lisa Ludwigsen, we have a combined 84 years experience living and/or working in this beautiful county. I love this group of opinionated women and the particular alchemy of word wrangling and local pride that creates each issue. Our amazing contributors and advertisers complete the picture, keeping Word of Mouth exploring and sharing the stories of this place, in this time. So next time the financial news casts a pall on your thoughts, take heart and remember that Mendocino County is scrappy as hell. We make it work and have a good time doing it. Thank you for sharing in the fun.
Holly Madrigal
Co-Publisher & Managing Editor
Zucchini Flour
A New Use for ThisProlific Plant
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
Zucchini is a prolific plant, so much so that there are running jokes about keeping one’s car doors locked during harvest season to prevent the “gift” of the green gourd. It is a versatile vegetable, delectable on the grill, in a sauté, and in baking. It is high in nutrition and antioxidants, particularly Vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium, as well as both soluble and insoluble fiber. We don’t have a garden (thanks to the long-legged rodents some folks call “deer”), but if you have too much zucchini in yours, and no one to gift the excess to, you might try making zucchini flour.
Sometimes known as Amish Flour, zucchini flour has long been used in Amish and Mennonite communities, and became used more widely in the U.S. during the 1940s with the rationing of wheat flour. Theoretically, one could use any summer squash, and even some winter squash, to make this flour, which is typically used in a 1:2 ratio (that is, 1/3 cup zucchini flour and 2/3 cup wheat flour for recipes that call for 1 cup of flour). It acts like coconut flour in terms of absorption, but offers a much smoother texture. It can be used in baking, to thicken soups and sauces, and to bread meat and veggies. If used in baking, chocolate is a nice pairing to help cover any residual zucchini flavor. My then-12-year-old son’s blue-ribbon-winning Chocolate Zucchini Poundcake comes to mind!
Larger zucchinis impart a milder flavor to the flour, so what better way to use those giant clubs of zucchini, which are not especially flavorful when stir-fried or grilled. Keep in mind that larger zucchini have a tougher skin and bigger seeds, so it will yield a better end product to peel and scoop them away. If using smaller zucchini, leave both the peel (where much of the nutrition is) and the seeds intact. Zucchini is 90% water, and typically 5 pounds of squash yields 1 cup of flour. Yellow squash has a mellower flavor and is drier than zucchini, so it will take even less time to desiccate.
Alternatively, to preserve the squash for later use as either fresh flour or re-hydrated veg, simply shred/slice, dehydrate, and store as is, without grinding into flour. When needed, either grind the veg into flour, or soak the shreds/slices in water for 5 minutes before adding to your recipe, saving the soaking water for use as needed.
Zucchini Flour
Gather your zucchini, wash and dry, trim the ends, and peel and de-seed if necessary.
Thinly slice (1/4” thickness or less) or shred zucchini (for faster drying). Drying times will vary depending upon how the zucchini is prepared. Drain in a colander for 15-20 minutes. (Some folks squeeze the shredded zucchini in cheesecloth to remove more moisture.) Thinly spread the zucchini onto dehydrator screens, or on parchment paperlined baking sheets.
To dry in the oven, preheat to 150°F. Place the baking sheet in the center of the oven, with the door propped open 2-6”. (Note: Placing a fan at the open mouth of the oven aids in air circulation.) Dry zucchini for 2-5 hours, until brittle. Let cool for 10 minutes before grinding.
If using a dehydrator, set it at 135°F. Rotate the trays half way through the process, which will take from 8-10 hours. The squash must be completely dry and crispy.
Once the squash is completely dehydrated, put it in the blender or food processor and blend on high for 5-8 minutes, until it is a fine powder. PRO TIP: Leave the lid on for a few minutes after grinding to let the dust settle, or you will have a fine dusting of zucchini flour everywhere.
Store the flour in an airtight container such as a mason jar—a silica packet is a must—for 6 months to 1 year. Do not store in the refrigerator, as the moisture will damage the flour. The flour can also be vacuum sealed.
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she curates and sells books at Hedgehog Books, edits this magazine, and dreams of having a fenced-in garden.
Noyo River Grill
A Family Operation with a Side of Sunset
Perched on the precipice of a cliff overlooking the entrance to Noyo Harbor, the Noyo River Grill is the only dining location in Fort Bragg to catch a bird’s eye view of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Spacious and open, this jewel of a restaurant occupies the former location of the Cliff House, with table to ceiling windows that look out onto both the ocean and the harbor, and a welcoming ambience that takes an already enjoyable dining experience to the next level.
Locals know that Noyo River Grill has been serving up delicious seafood and traditional American classics for years before it opened its doors in this location. The Medina brothers, Gabriel and Guillermo, first opened Noyo River Grill five years ago in a cozy spot along the Noyo Harbor frontage, near the former Cap’n Flints and Silvers on the Wharf. They built that business on a long history of culinary experience which began shortly after their parents arrived in Fort Bragg in the 1980s.
The elder Medinas moved to Fort Bragg from the Yucatán, and after settling in and seeing lots of opportunities, they brought the family to join them—four girls and three boys. The parents initially worked for Caito Fisheries. The children graduated from Fort Bragg High School and feel rooted in the community.
When their sister, Andrea Mex, opened Café One (see Word of Mouth, Winter 2022), the entire family stepped in to help. Gabriel worked as a server for many years as the diner grew into a local favorite. Meanwhile, Guillermo completed his culinary training in Santa Rosa and began advancing his career, working at a large international steak house chain where he gained valuable experience. The restaurant where he worked burned in the 2017 Sonoma County wildfires, so Guillermo moved back home to Fort Bragg. The family then started planning to open another restaurant, eventually purchasing an existing business in the Noyo Harbor. The siblings launched Noyo River Grill with the help of their parents, with the whole family pitching in to help where they could. The restaurant quickly became popular as the go-to location for cioppino and other fresh seafood delights.
Not everyone could pull off working so closely with their siblings, but the Medina family is the exception. Noyo River Grill is a family affair. Gabriel, the eldest son, has become the “do everything guy.” Guillermo is the main chef. And Eric, the youngest, has recently graduated and joined the business in their new location as the General Manager. Their oldest niece, Cynthia, works behind the full bar, and their father enjoys baking fresh bread and making pasta for the dishes that Guillermo creates.
Gabriel explains, “After five years, we’ve learned to balance each other out. We’ve been working together as a family since Café One. The whole family jumped in to help her [his sister, Andrea Mex], then they all jumped in to help us [with the Noyo River Grill].” Eric says, “I feel like our mother is watching over us, and dad is still there baking bread and making pasta.”
Noyo River Grill opened their doors at the new location in late May. They are thrilled with the site, though it has been a big change. It has taken some adjustments for the staff, as the new location is three times the size of the former spot and can seat up to 200 guests. Gabriel notes, “It’s exciting to see people enjoying the space again. Nice to see our regulars back and some new faces . . . Our staff are very flexible and excited, working out all the kinks by asking ‘What’s going on, what can we fix?’ All are on-board and positive. All of our staff came with us, and we’re looking to hire more folks.”
The team has added a number of new menu items and specials including filet mignon, duck breast, and a couple of new salads. They serve up fresh and delicious tacos—rock cod, salmon, or roasted vegetables served on home-made tortillas, with a side of crispy fries or salad. Fresh Oysters and chicken picatta are enjoyed with a crisp salad of gem lettuces and roasted beets. Fresh seafood still has pride of place and a soft spot in chef Guillermo’s heart. He explains, “We went to school with Anthony Caito [of Caito Fisheries] and their kids. We feel really appreciative that the local community has been supportive of us, because these are the people we grew up with.”
The family has taken on this new challenge with the skill, flexibility, and hard work that they bring to all their efforts. The food is fresh, the prices are reasonable, the staff are friendly, and the views are unbeatable. The sunset bathes the dining room in golden light as diners celebrate an anniversary or savor a family vacation. And the sounds of music fill the room as local musicians entertain. Meanwhile, Gabriel, Guillermo, Eric, and the rest of the family work hard to make it all look and taste good. At the Noyo River Grill, it truly is a family affair.
Noyo River Grill
1011 S Main St, Fort Bragg
(707) 962-9050 | NoyoRiverGrill.com
Open Fri - Wed, 11:30am - 9pm
This piece was written collaboratively by Holly Madrigal and Dawn Emery Ballantine.
Cover photo and cliff-side location photo by Torrey Douglass. Bar photo and interior photo p8 by David Ballantine.
Going to Seed
Adapting Resilient Seeds for Local Conditions through Promiscuous Pollination (Frisky!)
by Julia Dakin
Imagine Mendocino County’s gardens and farms sowing diverse, locally adapted varieties that grow into healthy and hardy plants, bursting with more delicious flavors than you can find in produce you buy. For example, tasty melons and squash growing on the coast, and cucumbers and kale thriving in Covelo’s hot summer weather.
Locally adapted varieties, or “landraces,” are the natural next step for the local food movement because they’re selected for what local eaters prefer, rather than for increased shelf life and long-distance shipping. Most supermarket produce isn’t local. It travels long distances from industrial-scale farms and is bred for uniformity to facilitate harvest, shipping, and storage. Landraces, on the other hand, are often diverse in size, shape, and ripening times, making them less compatible with the large-scale agricultural systems that supply most supermarkets. These varieties become suited to the areas where they are grown, perhaps requiring less water and fertilizer, and they become more resistant to local pests and diseases.
When we purchase seeds from far away, the plants don’t adapt to our local environmental challenges, making them much more susceptible to pest attacks, summer heat or fog, blight, and all the other hundreds of challenges gardeners face each year. These non-adapted plants require more resources and money to survive: row covers, heat mats, hoop houses, and soil amendments.
The organization I’m part of, Going to Seed, evolved out of a passionate group of people that wanted to support “inspiring a shift in agriculture towards adaptation, community and diversity.” We started by developing online courses and a community around them. Then we added a seed project, where gardeners from all over the country select and save seeds from the earliest, tastiest, and healthiest plants. They send those in to be mixed with others’ best seeds and made available for free to anybody getting started with adapting their garden plants to local conditions.
The main challenge for gardeners with this method is learning to embrace diversity instead of avoiding it. Plants are less able to adapt and thrive when they have a very narrow genetic base to pull from. When you save seeds from the healthiest plants, if there is diversity, the plants in your garden will quickly—even just over a couple of years— rearrange their genes to resist the bugs, the pests, and the other challenges that store-bought seeds would succumb to. Taste everything from your garden and only save seeds from the fruits or vegetables you love.
Growing locally adapted, community-selected varieties was how many of our great-grandparents gardened. But over the last hundred years, gardeners have become increasingly dependent on seed companies, and we have lost 95% of crop genetic diversity, mostly because gardeners have stopped saving their own seeds.
Many indigenous communities in this country are still stewarding the seeds of their ancestors, and internationally, many rural and indigenous communities never lost the practice of looking for the healthiest plants with the tastiest grains, roots, or fruits. Re-adopting some of these practices isn’t new, unique, or difficult.
Some very cool seed initiatives are evolving in Mendocino County, including the first two collaborative seed projects. The Round Valley seed librarian, Patricia Sobrero, is facilitating the first one that is becoming a model for other collaborative community seed projects starting up.
A community collaborative seed project starts with a workshop on the why and how, to get everyone on the same page. Then the community chooses a few crops to grow together. The Mendo coast group chose melons, butternuts (Cucurbita moschata), and sweet corn. The Round Valley community picked cucumbers, artichokes, kale, peppers, corn, and melons. We choose crops that are local favorites and a few that may be a stretch to grow in that climate. For example, melons aren’t known to thrive on the coast, but I know it’s possible, so working on melons as a group will increase our chances of success.
Going to Seed gathers, mixes, and distributes diverse seeds for a variety of crops. These free seed packets are a great starting point for community projects. In Round Valley’s case, we didn’t have artichokes, so Pat (the seed librarian) bought starting seeds for the participants from a few seed companies. In Caspar, I supplied all the seeds to get started because my seeds had already survived at least one cool coastal summer. Participants will save seeds from the earliest, tastiest, and healthiest plants, then drop them off in a central location. The seed librarian will ask volunteers to thoughtfully mix the seeds and host a seed exchange where participants and the wider community can access the mixes.
To truly minimize agriculture’s carbon footprint and reduce farmers’ dependence on toxic chemicals (even organic ones), we need to start caring about how our seeds are grown. Growing hardier, more diverse, adapted crops would mean less dependence on plastics, which are still commonly used in regenerative agriculture. I tell people that if they care enough to make their compost, they must also start growing or finding healthy local seeds. If higher nutrient density is a goal, the genetics of the plants make much more of a difference than improving soil quality, so we need to care about the seeds just as much as we care about the soil.
And, when we talk about mitigating the effects of climate change on our food system, seeds and genetics become even more critical. Diverse, locally adapted crops are more resilient to climate variations and extreme weather events.
Going to Seed offers online courses that teach a person how to develop their own landrace, learning both the why and the how of shifting their mindset toward a different way of growing food and becoming re-inspired about gardening. People enjoy reconnecting with traditional ways of growing food and the better flavor, higher nutrient density, and beautiful colors that emerge. Some gardeners find a sense of liberation in allowing nature to have a greater say. It’s a whole new perspective when you aknowledge that the pests and diseases are teachers helping your plants get stronger instead of enemies to be avoided at all costs.
With landrace, there are no more “varieties.” After the first season, all the plants have cross-pollinated with something else, and they are something new and their own thing. If plants are healthy, if the harvest is delicious, and if it matures early enough, it will be part of next year’s seed population. If not, then it won’t, and there is something kind of zen-feeling about how simple that becomes. Anything that got a disease was not meant to be there. It becomes fun just to relax, sit back, and focus on the ones doing just fine and producing plenty of food and seed, instead of focusing on the plants that need more attention.
Developing new landraces isn’t for everyone or every crop. If you have family heirlooms or any variety that has cultural significance for you, protect them. Many of us have lost local connections and plant and seed relationships, and have given up control to the seed companies. We love the stories associated with heirlooms, but they are usually somebody else’s stories. What was once a thriving, locally adapted farmer variety has likely suffered inbreeding depression after 50 or more years of isolation. Moreover, the world has changed. There are new diseases and weather patterns. Many people have migrated to new countries with different environmental challenges. Isolating populations is like trapping them in amber—they can’t adapt, and we can’t expect these heirlooms to continue providing reliable harvests without significant interventions on our part.
We’ve recently received a grant to support farmers in growing and selling genetically diverse produce, so we’re expanding in that direction as well. Our farmers are already heroes in the local food movement, and transitioning to a different model of growing food involves a couple of years of uncertainty and learning new skills. When I was in Covelo supporting their evolving seed project, Brandon Gatto (formerly of Covelo Organics) said something like “This sounds like a lot of extra time which I don’t have…” There’s a gap period that everyone else can support—gardeners by starting the initial adaptation process, organizations by providing financial support, and everyone else by looking for that diverse produce at the farmers markets and through CSAs. As another (gardener) participant said enthusiastically, “We’ll grow the seeds! We want to support our farmers!”
Over the last year, I’ve also been working on a new online course based in southern Mexico, taught by campesinos who practice the same seed-saving and selection techniques as their communities have for hundreds of generations. I think there is a need and desire for change in how we think about growing food, and that’s what the course is about: polycultures, seeds, and community food sovereignty.
My passion is starting and supporting community seed projects, so I’m excited to support our current pilot projects this year and expand next year with grant funding and donations. This will allow us to put on a series of workshops, create a mobile seed library, and expand into new communities throughout California.
Food is an essential aspect of the human experience and has shaped our culture since its beginning. With so much history, it can be tempting to look to the past for direction. But to prosper in a changing world, we need to look ahead. It’s time to rebuild relationships with seed, time to create the heirlooms of the future—the ones that thrive in our communities and gardens, and take on the stories of our communities as they exist now.
Find out more at GoingToSeed.org. Thanks to Anna Mieritz who contributed to this piece. Anna runs the seed program and online store at Going to Seed.
Julia Dakin grows food and seeds in Caspar, where she has been adapting some warm-season crops to coastal summers, and sells seeds locally through Quail Seeds. A couple of years ago she co-founded a non-profit called Going to Seed.
Reza’s Bread
Community Rising
by Holly Madrigal
Reza Ghannadan goes to Petaluma every Monday to pick up 500 pounds of organic bread flour, which he needs for the week's baking. Reza praises the flour he can get from his favorite miller, Central Milling. “Their methods are so consistent after all these years of milling. They have been in business since 1867!” Reza smiles as he bustles about his small state-of-the-art breadery, created from a former garage in a quiet Willits neighborhood, stating, “I’m bringing about 150 loaves to market tomorrow.”
Reza’s earlier career was in the medical industry, maintaining the electrical devices that dispense medications for hospitals, but he baked as a hobby for decades. While working at Adventist Health Howard Memorial Hospital for the 10 years of his final professional position, he would bake bread on the side and bring it to the doctors and nurses. Reza became fast friends with Dr. Bowen, famed orthopedic surgeon. They worked side by side over the years, and Dr. Bowen would often tell him, “You know, Reza, you could be selling this bread. It’s delicious.” Reza also delivered bread to his friends twice a week. But then the pandemic changed everything. “I went from working elbow to elbow with my colleagues and friends to a complete shutdown.” When he could no longer serve in the way he used to, Reza decided to begin baking professionally in 2020.
Reza and his wife, Debbie, live in a beautiful home in Willits. When asked how they met, Debbie laughs gently. “Reza’s other life was as a programmer and field technician. I made a service call, and this man showed up within minutes! It turned out he had already been in the parking lot for another purpose.” The two bonded over their shared love of hot sauce when Debbie noticed Reza's hot sauce holster, and the two were smitten with each other from that moment forward.
Their custom-built home, where they have lived since 2017, is made for entertaining, with a wrap-around porch and a sunny patio where they had a brick pizza oven installed. Before they found this oasis, they lived for a short time at the Willits Senior Center Apartments. They got to know a lot of people there, and they learned that when there was a power outage, the seniors in the housing community suffered. Those who relied upon supplemental oxygen or other medical measures that require electricity were being sent to the hospital. So the Ghannadans decided to host a fundraiser pizza party to help the Senior Center purchase a generator. Along with Adventist Health Howard Memorial Hospital and the Willits community, they helped to raise over $43k. Now the senior community has alternative power for their residents.
This began a legacy of baking for charitable organizations that are close to the Ghannadans’ hearts. Reza has joined the board of directors for the Senior Center. They also support Our Daily Bread, the Caring Kitchen, Veteran’s Hall in Ukiah, and many other organizations. “You see tangible results to this kind of giving, and it really makes me happy. It is really rewarding,” says Reza.
At the start of Reza’s professional baking career, the pandemic was still new, so they built an honor system bread stand in front of their house. “At first, we would take the donations and gift them back to the organizations we care about, but then it evolved into a business,” says Debbie. They became profitable within the first nine months.
Reza’s baking efforts quickly outgrew his small kitchen. At that time, Reza was using his home oven to turn out loaves of sourdough, which he could only do one at a time. The baking process took more than eight hours. It was unsustainable, so they transformed their garage into a bakery. Now he bakes 600 loaves a week with the help of Jessica Cichowski, who preps for him so that he can bake in the early hours for market. A culinary school graduate, she comes in three days a week. “I could not do this without her,” Reza explains. “We have the same work ethic. Jessica is intuitive and a very fast learner. I find myself texting her photos of the loaves that she helped create. They are so beautiful!”
Reza is entirely self-taught. His shelves are filled with books about baking. Iranian by birth, his ancestors were confectioners. His last name—Ghannadan—means confectioner in Farsi. Reza believes that, “Food is something that becomes part of the eater’s body. It is a sacred exchange.” Reza’s voice takes on a reverent quality when he speaks of his key ingredient. “My sourdough starter is 32 years old. The sourdough is my baby. Her name is Ava. [Interesting side note: there is a library of registered sourdoughs—Puratos in Belgium—and Reza’s sourdough is registered as number 43.] When the sourdough is ready to mix, she lets me know. She is my boss … My classic sourdough is water, salt and flour, and sourdough starter. No additional yeast is used.”
Reza elaborates, “We have created 30 different varieties of sourdough, all organic and with the best ingredients.” He started with traditional sourdough rounds, then branched out into Seedalicious—to this day, the most popular. Debbie lists all the heavenly sounding flavors: cinnamon walnut raisin, whole wheat, Rumi (saffron, cardamom, and rosewater), and holiday special breads. ”We make a Persian naan … Because it is flat, you need to eat it that day—ideally, snacking on the way home from the market,” Reza jokes. “I make a glaze of flour and water and brush the naan with that, and it helps preserve it. I top it with nigella and sesame seeds. It’s hard to stop eating because it is so delicious.” They also make multiple kinds of focaccia, such as gorgonzola and caramelized onion, tomato garlic rosemary, and garlic parmesan, and they sell frozen pizza dough.
People are not the only ones who love sourdough. Reza explains, “One day, I put six buckets of sourdough starter outside because we were making rye, and it was hot, and I wanted to slow it down as it was cooler outside.” He left it there, only to return and find all six buckets gone. A bear had passed by and ate the entire lot. “That almost brought me to my knees. It was so much of our starter. We still had the mother, but it took a while to re-ferment some. They ate it all. It was horrible,” says Reza. ”The deer have stolen our Persian naan!” adds Debbie. “We never leave the door open these days.”
The timing window for baking is very narrow. Jessica starts on Thursday for the Saturday market. Mixing takes about forty five minutes, then the dough rises in tubs. She stretches and folds the risen dough four times, then she leaves those tubs for about five hours. Reza scales them, cutting to size, weighing out portions, and pre-shaping the loaves. He takes those and creates the final shape, then he puts them in bannetons (wicker baskets) and places those in the fridge for about eighteen hours. Reza explains, “That is the time that the starter does its magic. It develops a slow, steady flavor, breaking down the starch and creating a natural sugar. That natural sugar caramelizes and makes that gorgeous, glossy sheen. The tang and sweetness develop. When I do a rye, I leave it for thirty hours because I want that real tanginess.”
“I also like to introduce people to interesting and exotic grains and flours like Khorasan.” According to Reza, Khorasan was originally cultivated 9000 years ago in Iran. Trademarked as kamut, the berries are 3x the size of a regular wheat berry and the color of golden turmeric. Reza uses that grain and shares the history with as many people as he can. “That bread is, in my opinion, what bread should taste like.” He likes those ancient grains. He also works with spelt, which has a very fragile gluten structure, so it’s sometimes better tolerated for people who have a gluten sensitivity.
The couple tried selling their breads in restaurants and markets, but they found they enjoyed the one-on-one connection of the farmers market. They now attend the Windsor, Willits, Fort Bragg, Ukiah, and south coast markets. Reza says, “I learn things at every market. I let the customers tell me what they want, what flavors they are interested in. I have been baking for 30 years and I still learn things every day.”
“Willits has been so welcoming,” Debbie adds, “We are good friends with our neighbors. Reza's former colleagues at the hospital are still my best customers. In community, you get what you give. The director of the Senior Center drove all the way to San Francisco to pick up our current oven." Bolstered by their reciprocated love of community, the duo provides nourishing loaves to their dedicated customers and friends. And on weekends, they host fundraising events for the non-profits they want to support. “As long as there is a need, I will keep baking. Baking is my passion,” declares Reza.
Word of Reza's bread made its way to Food Network's Guy Fieri, who has stopped by the Windsor Farmers Market twice to meet Reza. Guy's co-executive producer for Guys Grocery Games has now scheduled Reza's Breadery to be included on a future episode. Filming begins in August to be televised soon after. While it will be fun to see our local breadmaker on television, it can't compare to delicious gratification that comes from enjoying one of his fresh loaves in all its glory.
Reza's Breadery
Rezasbreadery.com
Available at Fort Bragg, Willits, and Ukiah farmers markets.
Holly Madrigal is a Mendocino County maven who loves to share the delights of our region. She’s fortunate to enjoy her meaningful work as the director of the Leadership Mendocino program and takes great joy in publishing this magazine.
Photos by Holly Madrigal
Sunshine’s Confections
Organic Interpretations of Chocolate Bar Classics
by Torrey Douglass
Sometimes all you need to turn your day around is a bite of something lusciously sweet, a decadent indulgence that revs your previously sputtering engine and gets you back on the road. In moments like those, you can do no better than to seek out Sunshine at the Willits or Ukiah farmers markets.
True to their name, Sunshine brings a little light into people’s lives. Their farmers market tent includes offerings to refresh and nurture: herbal tinctures, a seasonally-inspired drink, and a delightful selection of hand crafted chocolate creations based on—and much better than—the standard big-name candy bars you usually find in the grocery store check-out aisle.
The herbal remedies, both single herb and formulas, are created with herbs grown on the farm outside of Willits where Sunshine lives. Produced under the name Medicinal Allies, they are designed to aid with sleep, respiratory issues, reproductive concerns, stress, immune strength, and more. Besides the tinctures, many of the blends also utilize “succus,” or fresh juice of the herb, and are preserved with alcohol.
“I’m very blessed to live with people who have a lot of herbal and farming knowledge,” Sunshine remarks. Those herbs can show up in the seasonal beverages Sunshine sells—refreshing quenchers like Raspberry Limeade or Rose Lemonade in the summer (both sweetened with maple syrup), and warming drinks during the colder months like hot chocolate or wild mushroom tea. Chocolate confections can seem like an incongruous addition into the herbally-inspired mix until Sunshine explains, “I’ve always had a sweet tooth. I feel like it’s really important to have a balance of things to help cleanse the body and make it stronger, and to be able to indulge in things that bring us joy.”
Created under the name “Sunshine’s Confections,” the chocolate treats are inspired by the classic candy bars we all grew up with. There’s the “Snickers” option: date nougat topped with peanut maple caramel, sweetened with maple syrup and local honey and using 70% semi-sweet chocolate chips. The “Twix” equivalent has almond meal and coconut flour shortbread with a maple syrup caramel on top. And the “Butterfinger” doppelganger uses crushed-up cornflakes sweetened with organic fruit, caramel from maple and coconut sugar and coconut oil, and organic peanut butter. Every bar is frozen before it’s dipped in chocolate and graced with a topping like sea salt or bee pollen.
At a recent gathering, a particularly busy farmer was overheard praising Sunshine’s chocolates for putting some spring back in her step at the end of an especially hectic couple of weeks. Since almost all the ingredients are organic and only alternative natural sweeteners are used, these delicacies are ideal for satisfying the hankering for something sweet without corn syrup or other processed sugars.
“Because I like to make a lot of different things, the farmers market is a natural choice for me,” shares Sunshine. And their booth does indeed offer all sorts of creations, from the herbal remedies, to feminist zines, to vulvas handcrafted from felt (in case you misplaced yours someplace and need a new one). But no matter what brings you to Sunshine’s table, you’d be missing out on some joy—and some extra rev in your engine—if you left without one of their magnificent chocolate confections.
Sunshine’s Confections are available at Willits and Ukiah farmers markets. For more of Sunshine’s work, visit them on instagram: @medicinal_allies
Photo by Lama Nasser-Gammett
Big Mesa Farm
Adapting and Evolving in Comptche
by Anna Levy
Big Mesa Farm in Comptche is always evolving. Owner Caymin Ackerman founded the CCOF-certified organic farm in 2012 in Bolinas and moved to Mendocino County four years ago. For her, change is nothing new.
In some ways, Big Mesa Farm is a long way from its roots. Now encompassing four acres, four hoop houses, and completely off-grid, the farm had a much more modest beginning. Caymin explains, “I worked for a quite masterful farmer [Blake Richards of Wild Rose Farm] up in Humboldt for about eight years. I was very inspired by what he did and by the individual himself.” It seemed to make sense for her to go into farming, but she wasn’t clear how to start. “My friend’s advice was to go look for a place where you want to be, where you want to spend time. Bolinas is right on the ocean, and I like to surf, so I said—how about there.”
The instinct was right. After “knocking on doors” to find possible land, Caymin met some folks who had planned on farming their own land before changing direction. They were willing to lease some of their land, so Caymin started Big Mesa Farm in their front yard, growing a single herb that first year and earning herself a reputation as “Lady Cilantro.”
“It got more diverse from there,” she says, “I expanded over across the driveway—that was the second land. Then I was doing five acres with two different landlords basically with virgin land; no one had done irrigation or anything, so that was basically doing it from scratch.” It was satisfying, productive work, yet over time, Caymin says that she started to feel worn down by the process of farming others’ land. “There were multiple leases going on during those seven years,” she explains. “And I felt really good about all my landlords, but it became apparent that it would feel good to have a little more security.”
In 2019, she found herself back at almost the beginning, though this time she was searching for land that would support a business she’d already built. “At the time, I was doing quinoa farming on the side in Mendocino County,” she says. “We had a combine that would always break down. There was this mechanic we’d flag down, and he turned out to be a friend. Through that connection, he mentioned that his daughter was selling her place out in Comptche.” The timing and connection were fortuitous. “This place was previously a cannabis operation, and cannabis was falling through. We were super fortunate to be able to get into a place out in Comptche that’s incredible.”
The years since have brought lessons about farming in this unique climate, the value of a strong community, and the importance of leaning on others. Without an irrigation system in place in the beginning, for example, much of the land was dry farmed the first year. At the same time, Caymin worked to understand the rhythm of the seasons. “I am unaccustomed to this climate—hot in the summer, cold in the winter—so we’re still figuring out what we should be growing.” She’s enjoying the lessons but also understands that they take time. “That’s a long process. We’d love to still spend some time with the weather so we learn the lessons: sunburnt tomatoes, beans are stunted, oh it’s either too hot or too cold for early radish.”
Being in Mendocino County has also brought specific changes in how the farm does business. Caymin explains, “We do wholesale and direct.” The farm’s produce can be found both on the coast and inland, at Harvest Market, Corners of the Mouth, and Ukiah Natural Foods. Though they have been traditionally a wholesale farm, Caymin says, “Farmers markets get amazing support up here. We’re doing about 50% gross sales in farmers markets, making us turn our eye towards putting more diversity in the field.”
As Big Mesa broadens their focus to honor the presence of farmers markets, they also look toward increasing the types of crops they grow. “There’s not a huge population overall. So that’s difficult—it means more diversity at the markets that you do go to. In the Bay Area, I could do three different crops and be fine, and move tons of them. Here you have to break it up a little more because you can’t sell as many of any one thing during a week.”
Still, Caymin is loving the challenge and the community. “It’s really been a joy to move to this county. I love the community. I’m super thankful. We’ve been very well received, I’m really happy about that.” It allows her to dream of continuing to work with good people and in a peaceful place. To that end, she has started inviting volunteers out to work the farm once a month. She is also contemplating how to grow the farm’s presence in the winter months, and how to strengthen the farmers markets during the slower seasons overall. She also continues to commit to processes that are least harmful to the planet: organic practices, managing water and sewage on the farm, even using an electric delivery van that is powered by solar energy.
The electric van is just part of the efforts to make the farm entirely carbon neutral, spearheaded by Caymin’s dad, Bruce Ackerman, who lives on the property. The farm is powered by solar, and water, electricity, and waste are all managed on-site. The residents use induction cooking, passive solar, and electric water heating, as well as general efficiency and even electric car charging capabilities, to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels.
Regardless of the form it takes, these measures are rooted in Caymin’s core values, which have always guided Big Mesa’s work. “We’re trying to do things in ways that are better for the planet,” she explains. “I do believe in a small, local farm. I also believe in the intrinsic value of a farm in a community. It makes it more fun.”
“A farm takes a community,” Caymin says. And Big Mesa Farm is one that will continue growing here, ½ hour from the sea, reaching into both wholesale markets and into people’s homes, simultaneously building the farm itself and the sense of interconnectedness.
Find Big Mesa Farm at the Fort Bragg and Ukiah farmers markets, as well as at BigMesaFarm.com.
Anna Levy lives on the Mendocino Coast with her family.
Madrone Bark Tea
A Toasty Tea for Fall
by Torrey Douglass
The Madrone tree ( Arbutus menziesii) stands out in the forest like a peacock among chickens. Muscular branches, decked out in shiny bunches of deep green leaves, are wrapped in smooth, red-brown bark and arc gracefully toward whatever direction delivers the sunlight. In springtime, clusters of small white flowers appear before becoming bunches of tiny, scarlet berries. And sometime in late summer, that red-brown bark starts to peel away in papery curls as the tree sheds its old bark to reveal its new, light green skin—definitely the best Hulk impression in the forest.
The bark falls of its own accord, so it can be collected without harming the tree and made into a mellow, woodsy-flavored tea with notes of cinnamon and smoke. It was traditionally used to soothe upset stomachs and treat colds. Earthy and comforting, this is a great autumn sipper to warm your bones as the earth spins away from the sun and cooler temperatures nudge aside summer’s memory.
Madrone Bark Tea
Gather the bark curls beneath the tree at the end of the afternoon when they’ve had all day to dry. Take a bunch of clean, dry bark curls and crush them with your hands into smaller pieces. Place them in a wire sieve and shake gently to get the tiny pieces out prior to using them.
Put about 1/4 cup of bark in a teapot and add 2 cups of boiling water, then let steep for 5 minutes. (Some folks boil the bark in the water, but that can generate strong tannic flavors.) Pour through a tea strainer into a mug and enjoy. Add a little honey if you’re feeling sweet. Store in a mason jar in a dark, cool place for future mugs of happiness.
Original photo by and (c)2007 NaJina McEnany. Photo prepared by User:Ram-Man. Used by permission., CC BY-SA 2.5
Rachel’s Farm
An Australian Actor/Director Turns to Regenerative Farming to Address Climate Change
by Torrey Douglass
There are events—sometimes tragic ones—that are the mental equivalent of blowing a fuse, a soft pop followed by a plunge into disorienting darkness. It can happen when we bear witness to more devastation than we are equipped to comprehend. Such was the response of the people of Australia and around the world when the bushfires erupted across that continent in the summer of 2019/2020. The disaster burned 26.4 million acres and killed or injured almost 3 billion animals, along with 34 humans. For many, what had been a disturbing but distant theory—climate change—shape-shifted into brutal, inarguable fact.
Actor and director Rachel Ward owns an 840-acre property in the Nambucca Valley, a gorgeous region of rolling hills, lush rainforest, and coastal beauty in the Mid North Coast of eastern Australia. She’s been married to actor Bryan Brown for 40 years, during which the farm served as a restorative escape for them and their three children. Their neighbor, Mick Green, ran cattle on the land using traditional ranching methods, a practice Rachel didn’t think to question until the fires raged along their property line, consuming nearby structures and threatening their own.
Their land was spared, but the fires left Rachel with a heavyhearted despair. What about next time? What kind of planet was she leaving to her new grandchild? What could one person do to reverse the ecological ruin brought about by climate change?
According to the United Nations Committee on World Food Security, at least 13% of the world’s carbon emissions are caused by agriculture and forestry. Learning that her ranch was exacerbating, rather than addressing, climate change did not sit well with Rachel, so when Mick suggested they change their livestock management practices from one that contributed to climate change to an approach that would help mitigate it, she was decidedly interested.
In previous years, land on the farm used for growing feed for the cows was treated with herbicide in order to kill the wild-grown plants, then tilled and planted with grass seed. But exposing the underground soil to air and light through tilling destroys its biodiversity, wiping out the community of microbes, fungi, plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates that live underground and create the ecosystem that provides nourishment to the plants above. Tilling also releases both moisture and carbon out of the soil and into the atmosphere, leaving depleted, lifeless soil behind, forcing the farmer to apply chemical fertilizers to sustain the new seeds.
In contrast, Mick suggested they switch over to regenerative farming, a collection of practices designed to mimic rather than override the natural processes that are already in operation, sequestering carbon, restoring soil health, and increasing its capacity for absorbing moisture, which reduces the impact of both droughts and floods on the land. While cattle are often portrayed as climate culprits, they can actually be partners in this approach, benefiting the land if they are intentionally managed. By dividing the grazing areas into small paddocks and moving the cows through quickly, the animals leave nourishing outputs behind to feed the soil without causing damage through overgrazing.
While her husband enjoyed spending time with the family on the farm, its operations and management were Rachel’s responsibility alone. So it was Rachel who dove headfirst into learning about regenerative farming, its challenges and its benefits, ultimately deciding to pursue it with the single-minded devotion of someone who knows there is no time to waste. Not one to pass by an opportunity to share good ideas, she decided to apply her storytelling skills and make a film about the experience, documenting the farm’s transition and interviewing experts along the way.
Rachel’s professional experience was primarily narrative film, so she attended the Melbourne Documentary Festival in the summer of 2020 to look for potential partners. It’s there that she met Bettina Dalton, an Australian documentary producer and director, as well as the Executive Producer and Principal of WildBear Entertainment. Bettina specializes in wildlife documentaries, and her projects have been produced for companies like Disney, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel.
Bettina says that she realized the power of storytelling while working with David Attenborough early in her career, but she acknowledges that “Shooting those films without people gave an idyllic impression of the natural world so viewers thought everything was fine, whereas off screen there were significant environmental issues that needed attention.” As a result, Bettina includes what she terms “the human element” in her films. “I like stories where the protagonist shifts gears from being part of the problem to part of the solution,” she reflects. “And Rachel is a formidable, incredible individual.” Their meeting allowed the two women to combine their different skills around a shared passion, and the film Rachel’s Farm was the result.
Two significant scenes in Rachel’s Farm capture the soil tests performed by The Savoury Institute’s EOV (Ecological Outcomes Verification), both before and after Rachel and Mick enacted regenerative farming practices. Between those scenes, the film depicts the many struggles, stumbles, and successes they experience along the way. The transition is difficult, involving flood damage, serious injury, and compromise when an infestation of Buffalo flies torment the herd to distraction, requiring the use of chemicals outside of regenerative principles. At one point the expense involved forces the layoff of Mick’s ranch hand, with Rachel stepping into the role with considerably less experience and physical strength. But she is enthusiastic and undeterred, and Mick is patient and persistent, and together they experiment with a variety of measures that begin to yield results.
The film is sprinkled with reflections by various experts, including Charles Massy, an Australian rancher and proponent of regenerative farming who stopped using chemicals on his family’s farm in 2000. Since then, wildlife has emerged on his land that he never saw there as a child, a sign that nature is coming back into balance, a process he documents in his book Call Of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth. When Bettina reflects on the current lush abundance of Rachel’s farm—now achieved without chemical inputs—she quotes Massy’s statement that “We have to take our foot off nature’s neck” to allow the natural processes to work on behalf of the farmers’ goals.
When asked how Rachel’s farm is doing now, Bettina smiles as she comments, “It’s going gangbusters.” Rachel has been able to return to working on film projects, leaving the ranch management to Mick. Without the expense and labor involved in chemical inputs, he primarily moves the cattle between the small paddocks of lush grasses. The land is healthier, more resilient in the face of floods and fire, and cheaper to manage,* but getting there was not easy. For this reason, Bettina advocates for banks and insurance companies to provide interest-free loans to support farmers who are transitioning to regenerative farming. Considering that the land is more stable and productive, with less boom and bust—as well as less vulnerable to natural disasters—it would benefit these institutions financially to support regenerative practices in agriculture, not to mention how it would benefit all of us by addressing climate change.
Making a film is a lot of work, and after it’s released to the public, that work shifts from creation to promotion. Throughout this fall, Bettina and Rachel will be screening Rachel’s Farm across the United States, ending with a bipartisan screening in Washington, D.C., in December that coincides with the vote on the latest farm bill. The film screened at the Mendocino Film Festival back in June, but if you missed it, they are touring the West Coast in September and October 2023.
When facing the challenges of climate change, hope can feel a little thin on the ground. But with success stories like Rachel’s, demonstrating how farms can be profitable without damaging the soils on which they rely, long-term, practical solutions seem within reach. As Bettina says, “Nature has the power to recover. We just have to give it a chance.”
*See AusFoodFarming.com.au/regenerative%20agriculture.php for details.
Catch a screening of Rachel’s Farm during the film’s West Coast Tour in September and October of 2023. Details at theregenerators.org/rachels-farm.
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville with her family. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and drinking good coffee with a friend.
Bettina Dalton photo by Torrey Douglass. All other photos courtesy of Rachel’s Farm.
Helping the Forest to Heal
Be the “Community” in “Community Forestry” with the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc.
by Alicia Bales
Volunteers in early summer conducted a “Sudden Oak Death Blitz.”
In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Mendocino County was a flashpoint for a historic conflict over logging in its redwood forests, a time known as the “Timber Wars.” Over a century of extractive harvest had devastated the once-majestic ancient forest, and huge corporate timber companies were busy liquidating their holdings of any second- and third-growth redwoods that remained. Protests erupted throughout the region, from lawsuits and ballot initiatives to road blockades, tree-sits, and huge rallies at the mills. It was clear to loggers and environmentalists alike that the rate of cut was unsustainable, devastating the forest and imperiling the forest-dependent local economy.
Seeking common ground, a diverse group of local community-minded visionaries came together to try to find a better way forward. Many of them had met over the years at public hearings and meetings about the forest, sometimes on opposite sides. They were people from local elected government, finance, mill owners, forest advocates, academics, and environmental protesters. Their goal was to transcend the polarization of the day and devise a community-based solution that would protect both the trees and the jobs.
From this alliance was born the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc, or RFFI. Through inclusive community engagement, RFFI’s mission is to acquire, restore, and manage depleted forest landscapes to benefit the environment and the well-being of the people of the Redwood Region. Founded in 1997, their ambitious aim is to bring once-corporate forestlands into local ownership, thereby stewarding the land for the long-term health and viability of both the forest and human communities. This includes local Native tribes, who were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands and severed from their traditional land-management practices by violence and settler colonialism.
In 2007, RFFI acquired the Usal Redwood Forest, formerly owned and logged by Georgia Pacific Corporation, among others. Usal covers 50,000 acres in northern Mendocino County that spans from Legget to Piercy and west to the Usal Road. For a local nonprofit, financing the purchase was a monumental undertaking. In the decade since the purchase, RFFI has grappled with the complexities of collaborative management while trying to generate enough income to pay for the land.
Even today, Mendocino’s forestlands are severely depleted from the ravages of corporate liquidation. Logging the Usal Redwood Forest to pay the bank—even if RFFI wanted to—was simply not an option. From ridges to streambeds, the land was in desperate need of repair. Restoration and forest health efforts have been funded through state grants, and annual timber harvesting has brought in some revenue, supporting local contract loggers while providing logs for area mills, including a small hyper-local redwood mill in Piercy. But ultimately it has been RFFI’s ongoing carbon project at Usal, thanks to the emergence of the viable carbon market, that has provided the income to retire the debt. Essentially, the trees are being paid to grow.
RFFI now finds itself in an exciting and busy new era, returning their focus to the “community” part of community forestry. Through regional partnerships, RFFI is working to address forest health, fire resilience, and climate change impacts. The Redwood Forest Council (RFC) is RFFI’s forum for local engagement, with management priorities and community-initiated projects. This spring, RFC volunteers participated in on-site workdays to eradicate invasive French Broom and monitor the spread of the Sudden Oak Death pathogen in Usal. Because of these efforts, community members will have on-site opportunities this fall to learn first-hand about shaded fuel breaks, biochar production, and prescribed burning. And local Kineste’ (Wailaki) tribal members have developed a Native American- led stewardship program to bring cultural practices of prescriptive fire back to the landscape at two sites in Usal, one to restore an upland meadow and the other to rehabilitate a gathering grove for acorns and huckleberries, enhancing animal habitat while building tribal capacity and providing living-wage jobs for tribal members. All of these projects provide real-world engagement and increased understanding of possible solutions for some of the huge challenges facing our communities.
RFFI is not the only organization in the region now working to redefine our relationship with the forest and repair the damage of the past. In northern Mendocino and southern Humboldt counties, there is a groundswell of new stewardship models emerging. Grassroots groups like Mattole Restoration Council and Sanctuary Forest, The Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, Lost Coast Forest lands, Eel River Recovery Project, and the new Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance are making huge progress toward planning for fire, climate change, and habitat restoration, while exploring issues of economic development to create local jobs.
Change is in the air. It’s an exciting time to be working in the forest. RFFI invites everyone to join the effort. Attend the virtual annual meeting in September, become a member, and add your voice to the evolving vision of the Community Forest.
Visit RFFI.org to join the mailing list, become a volunteer, find out about upcoming events, and donate.
Alicia Bales is the Program Director at RFFI. She moved to Mendocino County in 1991 to join Earth First! after Redwood Summer, and has worked locally as a community organizer, radio journalist, paralegal, and voice coach. She lives in Ukiah with her son, Jude.
Photos courtesy of Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc.
Fish Friendly Farming
Reducing Erosion and Sediment in Our Rivers
by Barbara Barielle
Fish Friendly Farming (FFF) has a nice ring to it. It sounds like good sense—guidelines for how farmers, vintners, and everyone working in agriculture should approach the use of land so that they respect waterways, watersheds, rivers, and oceans in ways that allow the fish to thrive.
Thanks to both the implementation of FFF in Anderson Valley and Mendocino County and the willingness of farmers to adhere to its guidelines, the Navarro River is the one remaining tributary in California that still has Coho Salmon. Though plentiful in Oregon and Washington, the Coho in California are considered extremely endangered (California has other salmonid fish varieties like Steelhead and King).
The Fish Friendly Farming program was written by Laurel Marcus in 1999, and she continues to lead the program’s efforts today. Although originally written for the Russian River watershed, the plan was adapted to the Navarro and Gualala rivers as growers expressed interest. It was soon followed by a specific program for the Napa River watershed that was heartily adopted by the Napa County Grapegrowers with an over 95% participation level.
Anderson Valley is close to 80% participation and growing. Wineries and growers that have actively sought to farm in fish-friendly ways are big proponents, and continue to look for ways to enhance their practices to reduce and even eliminate run-off into waterways. And while many observers may believe that pesticides and fertilizers—or even cow manure—are the culprits bringing unfriendly elements into our streams and rivers, it is actually the remnants of another industry altogether—timber.
While less than 15% of the land in the Navarro River Watershed is comprised of vineyards, there were 35 working timber mills at the height of the lumber industry in Mendocino County. To get to the redwoods that were their focus, roads were cut into forestry areas for the passage of trucks. Once the trees had been removed, these temporary dirt roads were abandoned, leaving unfinished, unmanicured cuts across the land. Over time, these roads deteriorated, and silt and sediment flowed into waterways in the Navarro River Watershed.
Wineries and grape growers have a greater interest in keeping their lands intact and preserving healthy soils for the future, yet they still are plagued by these raw cut roads that criss-cross many of their properties. The FFF practices are a result of input from an advisory committee that included grapegrowers, representatives from government agencies, and environmental groups to produce a workbook of Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs) and a Farm Conservation Plan Template.
In Anderson Valley, several wineries were early adopters and continue to employ fish-friendly practices as their wineries and related farming expand. Zac Robinson, manager of historic Husch Vineyards, currently owns two properties in the FFF program totaling about 80 acres of land and 40 acres of grapes. Husch implemented the program in 2000. “We like the FFF program because it puts a focus on choices and tradeoffs inherent with farming. It triggers thoughtful conversations—and sometimes debates—about the ‘right’ choices,” says Robinson.
“One FFF focus is on erosion,” continues Robinson. “Since we were no-till for decades, at the time we thought we had this issue solved 100%. But FFF reminded us about our ranch roads and culverts, and educated us on modern approaches to reduce erosion from these sources. We added water bars to our roads, built new culverts, and started the routine maintenance that is an important part of erosion control.”
Robinson points out that during the March 2023 downpours at Husch—which was one of the wettest 15-minute periods he has seen—soils held firm under the strain of massive runoff. It is also worth mentioning that the vineyards at Husch are seeing a golden age in terms of consistent quality and yield. Lots of factors contribute, but Robinson thinks it is fair to say that the FFF farm plan is part of the winning formula.
Director of Vineyards for Roederer Estate, Robert Gibson, also adheres to FFF at the winery’s massive ranch. “We have 620 acres of vines, 1280 acres overall, and all are certified FFF. I started certifying our ranches back in 2008,” says Gibson. “Some of the main things we did to assure compliance was grass filtration strips on all borders around the vineyard, ensuring that energy dissipators were installed on any culverts that may have erosion potential during large storms.”
Roederer also checks all drop inlets on drainage areas throughout the vineyard before the winter rains, keeping them clean and ensuring they have erosion prevention supplies on hand for possible emergency repairs. “It forced me to have a specific vineyard plan in place, and this review process made us more aware of any potential issues for the future,” says Gibson. “Annual photo monitoring is done and is essential to show progress in problem areas and document all the good work that we, as stewards of the land, are already doing.”
Sarah Cahn Bennett speaks with authority on Fish Friendly Farming as the manager of her parents’ historic ranch, Navarro Vineyards, as well as her own Pennyroyal Farm, where she raises goats, sheep, and grapevines. “Navarro Vineyards was one of the first ranches that Laurel certified. We certified the entire ranch, 910 acres (of which 110 acres are planted) sometime in early 2000,” says Bennett. “Pennyroyal, I believe, was certified when we planted the vineyard in 2008, but again we certified the entire ranch.”
Having written BMPs that everyone can go back to and use as a checklist is always great, she explains. “For both the ranches, there was a history of erosion. Navarro ranch was logged in the 1950, and most of the current roads were logging skid roads with many wash out points and ‘Humboldt crossings’ across the larger stream gullies.” Bennett continues, “Much of Pennyroyal’s Robinson Creek bank was stabilized with old cars and trash. So many of the improvements we saw were with improving the drainage systems around our roads and streams. We added a lot of rocks to disperse the energy of the water at the end of culverts. One of the larger projects we did with FFF wasworking on outsloping a half-mile road and eliminating some problem ditches. This road has required very little maintenance and has been a major improvement to the original road that was there.”
Bennett feels that having a FFF plan is incredibly helpful in a number of ways. “The plan does a great job of mapping and documenting your inventory and practices. As we have trained new vineyard managers or ranch managers, the maps all put us on the same page, and doing the certification and photo documentation turns their focus to erosion issues not only in the vineyard but around the entire ranch. The documentation has also helped us work with operators and other agencies to get funding for improvements to stream crossings and bank stabilizations with other agencies.”
Bennett continues, “I believe in regenerative agriculture and carbon farming. Both of our ranches also have carbon farm plans [CFP]. Although both plans are pretty similar, FFF is more about monitoring and CFP is more about current practice and identifying goals. But they both really have a lot of the same goals—improving monitoring and awareness of issues, documentation of progress or issues, and working with farmers on ways to improve their land.”
As these Anderson Valley farmers have discovered, Fish Friendly Farming is not only the right way to do things to protect and enhance watersheds, but it is relatively straightforward and has a lasting effect on the health of vineyards and surrounding ecosystems. It is not the only solution to the challenges involved in reducing harms inflicted on the environment by mainstream agricultural practices, but it is an important step in that direction.
Learn more about Anderson Valley wine, vineyards, and wineries at AVWines.com.
Barbara Barrielle is a freelance wine and travel writer as well as a film producer. She is also the press contact for Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association and can be reached at press@avwa.com. Follow her @barbarabarrielletravels.
Photo by Linda MacElwee
Plowshares Meals-On-Wheels
Nourishing Elders & Community for Over 25 Years
by Torrey Douglass
Volunteers gather in the Plowshares 2000+ square foot dining room in south Ukiah, a cavernous, echoing space with industrial kitchen equipment along the back wall and doors to offices along the side. People cluster in small groups, packing food into bags crowded on top of the folding tables, chatting over pastries, counting quarts of milk in their blue plastic crates, and setting up steam tables for a hot food assembly line. There is an unembellished practicality about everything, and the volunteers seem to inhabit that sweet spot where busy and relaxed overlap. This is the center of operations for the Ukiah area Meals-On-Wheels program, and like the room it inhabits, there is more going on than first meets the eye.
Meals-On-Wheels has been operating for 26 years in Ukiah, originally managed by the Senior Center. Today, Meals-On-Wheels is part of Plowshares, a community dining center started in 1983 to provide free meals to hungry community members. The program was initially handed off to Plowshares for a short period in 1997, then permanently in 2002. Program Manager Rhonda De Los Santos came on board at roughly the same time as Meals-On-Wheels, and she now oversees all of the Plowshares programs. Rhonda shares, “I just love feeding our seniors. And I get to meet so many wonderful people.” When remembering the early days of the Meals-On-Wheels program, she reflects, “When I got hired, we had three routes with 15 to 16 people each. The need has grown.”
It definitely has. In May of this year, with the help of a committed group of Redwood Valley volunteers, Meals-On-Wheels added its ninth route. In 2022, the program fed 156 seniors seven meals a week, for a total of over 56,000 meals delivered over the course of the year. This year, they are serving nearly 200 Meals-On-Wheels participants and are on track to provide almost 70,000 meals. Originally the program dropped off a hot meal five days a week, but after acquiring a reach-in freezer in 2018, they began to drop off extra frozen meals on Thursdays and Fridays to see participants through the weekend.
Not surprisingly, the COVID pandemic forced the team to adopt a new approach, one they continue today. Volunteers drive the nine routes twice a week, delivering three meals on Mondays and four on Thursdays for each participant. A driver stays behind the wheel and a runner walks the food up to the front door. Volunteer Coordinator Makayah Tollow quickly learned to refrain from reassigning volunteers to different routes. When he tried shifting volunteers from one route to another, several protested, emphasizing that they’ve been serving the same participants week after week for ten years or more. CEO Michelle Shaw elaborates, “Sometimes we’re the only person our recipients see during the week,” and out of that regular contact, year after year, lasting relationships evolve.
Some of the 100 volunteers who regularly help the program have been coming for decades. They serve as cooks, packers, drivers, and runners. Volunteer Lloyd moved to Ukiah in 2002 when his wife was ill, and he found himself looking for a meaningful way to spend his time after she passed. “It’s a godsend for me. It gets me out of bed in the morning,” Lloyd shares. He’s been volunteering for 20 years, and says after every route he always feels like “I don’t have a problem in the world.”
Margaret, who volunteers as a driver and assembly line worker, has been helping Plowshares for an impressive 35 years. She quips, “We’re like Santa Claus—everybody’s glad to see us!” And it’s easy to understand why. The gifts they bring include bread, green salads, fresh fruit, dessert, and a weekly quart of milk. Frozen meals can feature ground beef and macaroni with a side of garden squash, chicken with mashed potatoes and broccoli, or pork chops with herb roasted potatoes and grilled zucchini. Vegetarian options are available and always include a source of protein. Michelle says they do their best to introduce new recipes into the mix to avoid repetition, but they are limited by the food that is donated.
Those donations primarily come from Ukiah supermarkets like Raley’s, FoodMaxx, Lucky, Costco, Safeway, Walmart, and Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op. The program also partners with Redwood Empire and Fort Bragg food banks, so when a large volume of food is donated—like a pallet of rice, pasta, or canned foods—multiple organizations can take advantage of it while it is still usable. Some ingredients do have to be purchased, but those can be bought through the Redwood Empire Food Bank, which lowers the cost.
Born and raised in Ukiah, Michelle Shaw was hired as the Meals-On-Wheels CEO in 2018. When asked about her least favorite aspect of the role, she admits that she is not fond of the stress that comes from relying on uncertain funding. But for her, the flip side of that coin is also the best part of the job: “Making it all work, regardless.”
86% of the funding comes from private donations, 11% from grants, and the remaining 3% from other sources. They usually do not qualify for federal funding because they are a “no questions asked” program. Besides their annual holiday season appeal, Plowshares hosts two major fundraisers a year—an Empty Bowls event in October and BBQ-On-Wheels in May. For the Empty Bowls event, ticket holders receive a hand-crafted ceramic bowl, made by either local ceramicist Jan Hoyman or the Mendocino College Ceramics Club, along with their dinner of homemade soup and tri-tip dinner for two, with an abundance of sides. The BBQ-On- Wheels offers a choice of tri-tip, chicken, or both, plus potato salad, fresh green salad, bread, and dessert for four people. If you’re still hungry, you can add a family serving of mac and cheese, and, as always, a vegetarian option is available.
Jim and his wife Patty have both volunteered for over 10 years. When asked to explain the longevity of service from so many volunteers, Jim says it is the relationships with the people. He glances down at his phone to check the date before confirming that one of his participants should be getting knee replacement surgery that same morning, and he’ll be visiting him in the hospital later. He even goes so far to say, “It’s not the food they care about, it’s the contact. It’s what makes us human.” In light of the Surgeon General’s statement earlier this year asserting that loneliness is a serious health risk for Americans, Jim concludes, “We are the solution to that.”
When discussing the people they serve, Jim comments that, “Nearly all of them are in difficult situations.” He says healthy boundaries are a must, and volunteers who get easily overwhelmed emotionally don’t last very long. That said, within those healthy boundaries, volunteers can often be found going above and beyond, like the time Craig returned to a participant’s home to fix their table after his shift ended. Volunteers will investigate if a typically responsive participant is not answering their door. More than once they’ve discovered someone stranded from a fall and in need of help. And if they notice anything amiss—things like slurred speech or symptoms of poor treatment—they can reach out to the participant’s emergency contact or refer the situation to staff who can find the resources to help.
Patty worked as a public health nurse for 40 years before she retired. She talks about the difficulties she experienced when trying to deliver to one participant, in particular, a reclusive gentleman who would not open the door to accept food deliveries. Instead he had her come to the kitchen window so he could scrutinize her before cautiously opening it. The gap in the window was narrow, and she wanted to prolong the conversation, so she took one food item out at a time and talked about it before passing it through. During one delivery she pulled out an entire box of Girl Scout cookies and the shy man’s face blossomed into a huge smile. She hears from his neighbors that he has become less isolated and standoffish since joining the program.
Patty leans in like she’s sharing a secret, confiding with a mischievous smile, “The main reason I’m here doesn’t have anything to do with the participants. An older person feels isolated, and here I meet new people, find friends—it’s a huge boost for mental health.” Then she and Jim head back to the steam tables to help finish dishing out the hot meals before they are added to the bags, at which point drivers and runners will leave for their routes. In less than two hours they will be finished, having distributed their bounty for another day.
Patty might downplay the altruistic aspect of her participation with Plowshares, but Makayah holds no illusions about how essential his volunteers are to the program. “What surprised me most when I started working here is how everything is pretty much run by volunteers. We have a small staff, so everything we do would not be possible without them. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it—spending so many hours of their time here when they could be doing anything else.”
It’s a straightforward process—make some meals, then deliver them to low income seniors who need them. Yet the benefits are much more profound than simply filling some bellies. What Meals-On-Wheels provides is nothing less than community resilience, built on a virtuous circle—the volunteers find joy in giving, and that joy inspires more generosity. Through a multitude of friendly interactions and good deeds large and small, the program weaves a safety net for people who would otherwise face increased stress and struggles in their lives. And in the end, everyone involved comes away nourished, in more ways than one.
Plowshares Peace & Justice Center / Meals-On-Wheels
1346 S State St, Ukiah
(707) 462-8582 | PlowsharesFeeds.org
Free hot lunch served Mon - Fri, 11:30am - noon
Saturday & Sunday 3:00pm
Cover photo by Michelle Shaw. Additional photos were provided by Torrey Douglass.
Embracing Autumn While Growing More Than Crops
by Gowan Batist
In the fall, our freezer’s mouths open like baby birds, and we stuff them as diligently as the sparrows raising their hatchlings in the spring. The pantry shelves also gape at us hungrily, and we line up canning jars into its maw like rows of gleaming teeth.
Food is as simple as possible, and prepared on a large scale. No more slicing and dicing—tomatoes go whole into the broiler to roast and then unceremoniously into the blender. Cucumbers fly through the mandolin, and peppers and eggplants blister in rows on the grill. Last fall, 2022, I was living in a perpetual steam bath, stuffing the pantry with jars of salsa and carefully measuring the acidity on each jar of tomatoes in the tropical kitchen late into the night, while the vines in the pumpkin fields passed the tipping point from a thick verdant jungle to a withered brown tracery.
When the pumpkins and winter squash are finally ready, they throw their robe of green to the ground as dramatically as a burlesque dancer, and suddenly stand revealed in all their gleaming roundness. The tomato vines follow suit, leaching all the very last moisture into the final fruits. I can’t bend over to lift any of them, and my muscle memory wonders where the truckloads of crates are, where the familiar back strain has gone. Not for me this season. I won’t be shearing sheep either—somehow sitting out that step of the fall dance feels the most surreal. Thankfully, I have good friends who are shearers, and a partner who went to shearing school in Ukiah specifically to prepare for this moment. The sheep will be divested of their gleaming fleeces in the golden light of the season, as always, and are in good hands.
There is an urgency in the bodily awareness that we are losing the sun, the days slipping away into the winter. So we catch as much of it as we can, in the vibrancy and color of the seasonal abundance before our environment gives way to the more muted tones of brassica greens, mushrooms, and bins of potatoes. We clutch at color to save for the gray days.
This fall, I’m honestly not sure how much more canning I’m going to get done. I am growing exactly one pumpkin this year, the highest maintenance crop I have ever tended, and I’m carrying this rapidly ripening fruit under my ribs. I no longer fit comfortably in the narrow gallery of our kitchen, and lifting a steaming rack of sterilized jars over my pregnant belly leaves me exhausted.
Even so, all local food preservation is a love letter to the future. The food we store away this season will be especially helpful in the sleep-deprived state of newborn care. I think of us stumbling to the freezer between baby feedings, and I want to make sure there’s something good there to reach for, as a gift to whoever we will be when that moment comes. I can feel our baby kicking while I work, and let them know this is for them, too, to make it easier to spend more time with them and less time cooking.
I’m not planning on doing much this winter except baby care, so everything I want to make this fall is simple and utilitarian. Less fancy sauces and pickles than last fall, more tomato soup base, pre-cooked stuffed peppers, and trays of shepherd’s pie that we can take out of the freezer and place directly into the oven. The gorgeous rainbow of deep ruby and stormy sky blue and swirling purple corn will be made into bags of tamales for quick meals … as soon as I can bear to stop looking at them and grind them up into masa.
The infrastructure of local food is critical to the functioning of our community. The small-scale resources and tools that allow an actual agricultural economy to function had mostly disappeared by the time my farming career began, replaced with the kind of global trade infrastructure that took pears grown in Argentina, packed them in Thailand, and sold them in Idaho. Over the last ten years, I have seen them come back in the form of community resources like the MendoLake Food Hub, the Mendocino Wool Mill, and the Good Farm Fund, among others. It’s not lost on me that many of these projects are the work of an overlapping cast of characters.
The discussions we share on the next stages have focused on combining resources for access to commercial kitchens for value-adding, navigating cottage food laws, and exploring solutions to the large gaps still remaining, like the accessibility of certified slaughter facilities for legal meat sales. While major infrastructure gains have been made in many areas, we have lost significant ground in others not directly connected with growing food, but still essential to our ability to function as a thriving intergenerational agricultural community. Farmers as a demographic across the country are aging rapidly, and many farming communities have inadequate medical care for them. The number of farmers in their twenties are increasing, but falling off sharply in their thirties. A large reason for this is the opposite side of the life cycle challenges facing our elders—lack of prenatal care and safe childbirth options in our rural communities.
When the decision was made to close Labor and Deliveryin Fort Bragg, I was among many community members who spoke out against this—and against the equally disturbing fact that it is also now impossible to obtain a surgical abortion in Mendocino County. I didn’t know at the time that I would end up pregnant myself, navigating how to survive and thrive in our current situation as a remote community which does not have the ability to deliver a baby within an hour and a half of where we live. The dream of giving birth at home, surrounded by our canning jars and piles of pumpkins, was dashed by the hospital closure. Licensed midwives must be able to transfer to a hospital within a certain distance. Not having one available, we can’t give birth at home with a midwife either. Bloom Waterbirth Center in Ukiah is one of the few options for a freestanding birth center that is able to care for us, though we must pay out of pocket for their service and also traverse Highway 20, in labor, during fire season, to reach them. As a freestanding Birth Center, Bloom can only take the lowest risk families. If our baby is breech, or if I have warning signs of preeclampsia, or a condition like placenta previa, my only option covered by insurance is in Santa Rosa, almost three hours from our home, much of the drive without cell phone service.
When this decision was made, it was openly discussed that people in labor—and their babies—will inevitably be harmed by the closure, and that some of them may die. I sat in those meetings and heard the doctors’ dire warnings. The list of families impacted includes us, and our baby that is currently happily kicking me in the ribs will face their first hurdle of rural living just by coming into the world. For a lot of the far reaches of the county, this issue isn’t new. My mother went into labor with me in Gualala, which to this day has little more than an infrequently staffed rural clinic, and she drove down the coast through Jenner to Santa Rosa in labor with me in the early hours of the morning, after first changing a tire. She described dodging skunks and deer on the road in the thick fog that rolls in during the summer on that stretch of coast. I told her it sounded incredibly stressful, especially with no cell phones, but she said that she actually loved the drive and has great memories of the peacefulness of the ocean glimpsed around each hairpin turn. “Until heavy labor kicked in around Guerneville, that is. That’s when it stopped being fun.”
Usually when faced with these infrastructure gaps, I feel really confident that we can just do it ourselves. Form a co-op, write a grant, have someone donate some barn space to a committee meeting. However, it turns out that moving turnips efficiently around the county is a little different than birthing babies, and I have to admit that I’m entirely out of my element here somehow, despite the hundreds of lamb births I’ve seen.
It has felt destabilizing, filling these jars and stacking these freezers while knowing we may not be close to home when this baby comes, and might not have the ability to feed ourselves the way we would like during this most vulnerable and intense time. However … there's more than one way for our community to handle things. We have a little camper, and I have friends near Ukiah and near Santa Rosa with farms and ranches on which to park it. We may take this show on the road and stay somewhere closer to medical care when our due date gets close. While I would love to be home at Fortunate Farm, chances are I will still go into labor on a farm, either in Mendocino or in Sonoma County.
As always, when the larger infrastructure of this country, state, and county doesn’t have us, we have each other, and that’s a whole lot. In the meantime, we have the work of fall to do. The produce is the best of the year, and there’s so much of it. Order it in boxes, harvest it in crates, prepare it as simply as possible, eat it, share it, save it. Winter is on the way.
Gowan Batist of Fortunate Farm is a Post-Industrial Pastoralist working towards regeneration on landscapes her ancestors devastated. She is seldom seen, but sometimes glimpsed out in the fog or the oak savanna propagating native plants, spinning wool, hand shearing sheep, or sprawling on the ground with dogs.
Sam’s Smoked Out BBQ
A Little Taste of Texas on the Mendocino Coast
by Esther Liner
There’s truth to the saying, “You know the food’s good when the table goes quiet.” Before we had language, we had fire, and once we had fire, we had barbecue. Academics argue over what our first words were, but I can tell you in my bones what I know to be true: they were “Mmm” and “Ahhh” uttered around a fire, through mouthfuls of wood-smoked game-meat. I suspect all other words were born of these two sounds.
Over the last few months, I’ve watched time and again as people are rendered speechless by their first bite of Sam Cook’s Smoked Out Barbecue. You can see the fuse of joy ignite at the base of their spines and the spark dance all the way up before erupting into a delighted grin. When Sam asks people how it is, at first they have no words, just reflexive, instinctual “Mmms” and “Ahhhs.”
As a food and travel writer, it’s been my job to scout the best BBQ in the country— Louisiana, Georgia, the Carolinas, Kansas, even Washington State. While each regional style has its merits, for my liking, Texas Style is where it’s at. I’d given up all hope of finding decent, let alone excellent Texas BBQ in Northern California. That is, until I met Sam Cook of Austin, Texas.
Sam arrived in Mendocino in 2013, at the age of 20. While he loved his newfound community, he missed Texas BBQ something fierce. In preparation for a 2018 Adult Kickball charity event at Friendship Park, Sam decided to try and recreate the flavors he calls home. He mined YouTube videos and cookbooks for rub-potions and sauce spells from top-tier pit masters. Sam took a pinch from here and a dash from there, ultimately creating his own style of Texas BBQ utilizing the hardwoods, meats, and produce of Northern California. He uses Valley oak for his smokes, and is looking to source dry orchard woods, like pecan, apple, and cherry, from further inland.
Encouraged by those who got their first taste of his cooking at Friendship Park, Sam is now doing weekend pop-up events. Every week he makes sure to serve both Fort Bragg and Mendocino at historic bars like Milano, Golden West, and Dick’s Place, as well as art openings and events. He uses naturally raised beef brisket and pork shoulder, his sides include locally sourced ingredients like collard greens from Wavelength Farm, potato salad dressed light and kept crisp, and home-baked organic white bread for Texas Toast.
Born in San Antonio, Sam was the third child in as many years delivered by a young mother who knew love alone was not enough to give her baby the life he deserved. Via a Methodist adoption agency, she pored over dossier after dossier of hopeful parents until she came across a letter written by Ben and Marsha Cook of Austin, Texas. “We loved Sam before we ever met him,” shares Ben. “We were looking for him and, I like to believe, he was looking for us. We were there at the moment of his birth. He was the most beautiful baby boy you’d ever seen. We took him home to Austin the next day where both his Grandmothers were waiting for him. It was love at first sight for us all.”
That love included the family’s pair of golden retrievers, Tory and Bear. His dad recalls how Sam taught Bear how to climb the ladder to his treehouse and slide down the slide. “All day, the two of them, up and down the ladder. He’d curl up on the floor with our dogs, rest his head on them, and they’d snuggle him like he was their own pup.”
One of the first friends Sam made when he landed in Mendocino was Kyle Houghton. Gregarious and kind, Kyle was unafraid to show his love to friends and strangers alike, and treated Sam like a long lost brother. Though I didn’t meet Sam until recently, I, too, met Kyle in 2013. We were both at a party when he saw me wrangling more bags of groceries than I could handle, and he swooped in to relieve me of my burden. He’d carried all six bags up a treacherous staircase before I could even catch his name or say thanks. Tragically, our community lost Kyle in August of 2020. Big, brave, gentle, blonde, a total water-dog—in essence he was the human embodiment of Bear, Sam’s Golden Retriever. His sudden death left Sam bereft of the closest person to a brother he’d ever known.
Sam is not proud of the places his grief took him after Kyle’s death, but he’s learned from his travels. If it weren’t for the unrelenting faith and unconditional love expressed by his friends and family, there’s a good chance Sam wouldn’t be here. Yet when he reflects on that difficult time, Sam shares that it all came down to a feeling—“I gotta own up. My work here isn’t done. I know leaving wouldn’t fix anything. It never does. I know I owe it to the people who believe in me to try, and that I owe it to myself.”
Sam knows that while running from his problems won’t fix a thing, other kinds of running are okay, and he’s training to run his first marathon in October. Exercise helps him overcome inertia that, unchecked, can exacerbate depression. It gives him a place to channel all that stuck energy, and a chance to spend time with Sadie, his sweet black Lab-Akita mix. After a recent jaunt up Big River, he confides, “Thank goodness Sadie needed to stop for a break, or I might have been done for.” A smile spreads across his usually serious face and lights his eyes like a crackling campfire.
Sam’s good friend Vincent Lee provides space in his wooded backyard for Sam to practice his craft. “I met Sam when things were going south for him after Kyle,” Vincent recalls. “I just kept thinking, if he can follow his passion for barbecue and feeding people, he’s gonna be all right. I mean, you’ve tasted his food right?”
On a mild afternoon I visit Sam in Vincent’s back yard as he keeps the fire. Part way through, he removes the brisket from the smoker, explaining, “This is how we do it in Texas: when it’s time, we wrap it in butcher paper before returning it to the smoker, to protect the tenderness and what-not.” The 12+ hour process takes patience and vigilance, but is not without its rewards. As Sam works the grill, he confides, “There’s nothing better than that joy you see on people’s faces when you’re feeding them. It’s the best—nothing else even comes close.”
I’ve witnessed that joy first-hand. Over the past couple of months, I’ve brought Sam’s sandwiches to servers, bartenders, and my own mother. These are people who habitually give too much of themselves to others and forget to save a piece for themselves. I’ve seen how Sam’s food brings them back into their bodies.
Sam’s good friend Nicole Beauchimin was a steadfast supporter during Sam’s darker days. “Sam is one of the most loyal, loving, and capable people I’ve ever met,” Nicole reflects. “He loves feeding people. He’s at his best when he lets that love shine through.” That love is evident in an anecdote Sam’s dad shares with me. “You know my son, when y’all lost your power, he pulled his smoker into town and offered to cook up people’s meats, so that they wouldn’t spoil without electricity. That’s who Sam is.”
The flavors in Sam Cook’s Smoked Out BBQ are an expression of his generous roots, nurtured by his family and friends. They are a love letter to where he’s from and where he is now. “I wanted to show people around here what I’m saying when I say I miss home,” Sam shares. Eating his fantastic BBQ, you’ll get a little homesick for Texas, too, even as the breeze off the Pacific cools your face outside of Dick’s Place on Mendocino’s Main Street.
You can find where he is week to week on his Instagram. Be sure to get there early enough to partake—once the word is out, perfectly smoked, expertly seasoned love-on-a-plate goes fast. In a time when people seem to be wobbling somewhat under the weight of the world, it turns out that the ideal remedy for a soul stretched thin is a little taste of Texas.
Sam Cook is at Dick’s place in Mendocino every Saturday from 3pm-until Sold Out. He is also for hire for private events. You can reach him through his IG: @smoked_out_barbeque
Esther Liner is a freelance writer and photographer who splits her time between the Mendocino Coast and the East Bay. She writes about: slow food, fast times, rad art, and the Captains who make it happen. Instagram: @esther_liner / Inquiries: estherlinerwriter@gmail.com
Cover photo is courtesy of Sam Cook. Additional photos provided by Esther Liner.
Hauling for the Holdenrieds
The Enduring Legacy of a Lake County Farming Family
by D.R. Darvishian
The view from a big rig is sometimes astounding, but there are notable blind spots while perched behind the wheel high up in the cab. As it worked out, just before she disappeared from my line of sight beneath the whole-acre hood of a 1999 Kenworth model W900L truck, I saw Debbi Holdenried and came to a stop.
Standing with her hands on her hips, she was staring at me and obviously speaking, but I couldn’t make out a word. The truck’s ancient air conditioner barely chirped, so I wore a bandana and kept the windows rolled down, but I still couldn’t hear her. I shut off the motor.
“What are you doing?” she yelled.
“What do you mean?” I shot back.
“Dust! Look in your mirror. Slow down, please! Slow … down,” she said, pumping her palms at the ground, as if telling a group of exuberant cowboys to cool it.
Back in 2020, the Holdenrieds needed drivers and were paying good money, so after its ice age in limbo, I renewed my old Class A license. I’ve been a fan of this hardworking farming family ever since. Debbi and her husband Brent, along with their three sons, run Holdenried Harvesting Inc. in Kelseyville (pop. 3,382). They grow wine grapes, pears, hay, and alfalfa, and also provide custom harvesting and bulk agricultural transport services. They worry about dust because it can drift in tiny mites which feed on the leaves of pear trees and grape vines. As someone who’s been around farmers most of my life, and even had a Jack Russell terrier who barely survived a dust-borne fungal infection, I should have known better.
“Alright, I got it,” I shouted.
“Thank you!” Debbi yelled back.
I started the truck and eased on to another set of empty “gondola” trailers, the kind seen hauling grapes and holding up traffic all over California during late summer and fall. Every season, usually starting in late July, Debbi manages 20 or more truckers. She dispatches each of them, two or three times a day, into various orchards and vineyards to get 20-ton loads of pears and grapes bound for fresh-product distributors, canneries, and wineries scattered throughout the north state. The work goes on every day of the week, with some shifts lasting 14 hours a day or longer, usually into late September but sometimes into October. Like everyone else, if Debbi’s not catching a few winks of sleep, she’s onto another assignment. And she somehow finds time to shop, prepare family meals, arrange gatherings, and participate in the high school life of her youngest son, Gene.
Brent covers the farming on almost 600 acres and keeps up repairs. Though he has help from longtime mechanic, Brian Rentsch (yes, sounds like “wrench”), and a ranch foreman named Raphael Fernandez, he personally deals with what comes with farming and drayage: the endless weeding and mowing, the fertilizing and watering, the breakdowns, blown hoses, flat tires and oil changes, the plumbing and broken radiators, frost protection, seasonal laborers, the pruning, the mud, heat and mosquitos, the midnight-to-dawn spraying, worker safety and shelter, busted trailers, bent bumpers, stuck trucks, shifted loads, bad fuel, and broken straps. He’s also a fill-in driver and runs their complex and finicky machine grape harvesters.
Two years ago, he even had to chase down his own stolen pickup. Debbi shook him awake around two in the morning, when the thief started the engine. Brent found it abandoned—minus all the tools he’d had in the bed. He then got some coffee and started his workday.
After attending Chico State University for a few years, eldest son Carson returned home to run the hay and alfalfa operation, in addition to hauling and operating the enormous harvesters. Their middle son Evan followed in his footsteps, earning a degree in farm management at Chico and now working toward an advanced degree in finance from there as well. They all pitch in during harvest, whether it’s painting gondolas, digging post holes, or washing trailers. Their mother often has them working on so many projects that they sometimes call her Debbi, just like the other workers. “I live on the ranch, so she can pretty much get hold of me any time,” said Carson.“Which she does.”
Debbi is also a powerhouse of a host. Last June, the Holdenrieds feted 250 people in the backyard of their 1928 American Craftsman home to honor a retiring school superintendent. “I could do without socializing so much,” Brent said mildly during an interview with the couple. “I’m just saying.”
“I like entertaining and I like working,” Debbi said simply. “And I’ve always had a job.” Past positions included horse grooming as a girl, winery quality control, canning her own fruit, and running Holdenried Harvesting Inc., one of the most well-known such outfits around according to Shannon Gunier, co-owner of North Coast Winegrape Brokers in Lower Lake. “I think they’re well known because they’re hard working and really good people to work with,” said Gunier, whose own family business is brokering grapes and bulk or finished wines to buyers outside of California. “They’re scrappers, like us,” she said.
Debbi’s younger self, Debra Raye Tuttle, grew up in Hopland, the oldest of three daughters. They were horse sisters and rode for miles through the orchards, vineyards, and hills along the green Russian River. Later, they won top honors in state and national equestrian competitions. Her parents, David and Melodye Tuttle, were also farmers. They eventually moved to Lake County, where David reportedly planted the first European vines in the high Red Hills appellation. Andy Beckstoffer, the largest grape grower in California—dubbed “Grapelord of Napa” by The New York Times (2020)—followed his lead by expanding into Lake County and planting the well-regarded Beckstoffer Vineyards. Beckstoffer grapes can be found in a number of Northern California’s popular wines, and is now Holdenried’s largest haul.
Brent’s family has been here since 1858, raising cattle and farming the lowlands between Mt. Konocti, the volcanic massif near the county’s geographical center, and Lakeport, on the shore of Clear Lake itself. Brent’s mother, Marilyn Holdenried, is also a force of nature, not unlike his wife. She’s both a passionate voice for family farmers and founder of the Lake County Quilt Trail, a public art series of huge painted blocks imitating quilt patterns and displayed on buildings and barns all over the county. Common in the midwest, Lake County’s trail is the first of its kind in California and includes over 50 stops.
These deep roots in local farming have served the Holdenrieds well, and the family continues to build upon that legacy. The next generation is stepping up, with Carson aspiring to plant more land with either pears or hay. I so admire the grit, warmth, and talent of these folks that I’ve signed on for another season, getting paid well to deliver some of the best agricultural bounty anywhere.
D.R. Darvishian is a longtime writer, journalist, editor, and middling poet in Lakeport. He’s partial to Jack Russells and good Belgian ale.
Family photo by Jamie Johnson and courtesy of Holdenried family. All other photos by D.R. Darvishian.