Publisher’s Note
The first step in trying something new is a little kernel of interest—a persistent tug on your thoughts, a spark of inspiration that makes you want to drop everything else and delve into a topic that’s captured your imagination. It’s like following a tempting scent through a warren of streets and alleys in search of the bakery creating it. The itch to hunt down the source is hard to resist.
I get that feeling when I’m learning about birds, wood working, and yes, local food. The anticipation of exploring a new subject or starting a new project evokes a giddy kind of joy, perhaps because stepping into the unknown requires some vulnerability, or maybe because it can include adventure, play, and creativity.
Perhaps it’s the crisp snap in the air or the understanding that there’s a dwindling number of months left in the year, but fall is the time when that inspiration can easily turn into action. Curiosity combined with initiative can transform a fleeting interest into action and next steps. This is what happened to Jesse Stenberg, who not only began baking his own unique style of long-fermented breads, but took the time to study and perfect his skills before opening Hard Head Bread (p13) in Fort Bragg.
Learning is a critical component when embarking on a new project. Fall is the season when students return to the classroom, ideally hungry for the challenge of absorbing fresh knowledge. It was a different hunger—one of a growing young person who loves food!—that led Mendocino High School student Phannarai to move out of their comfort zone and into the culinary classroom (p9). Over in Anderson Valley, high school seniors Sammy and Mariana embarked on their own culinary adventures through a pair of internships at The Boonville Hotel and Offspring (p39).
Of course, you don’t have to be a student to embrace learning. Sarah Wuethrich of Maggy Hawk Wines considers her winemaking career to be a “lifelong learning process,” leading her to explore new farming methods to increase the sustainability of the vineyards (p36). And Rosemary Campiformio jumped into the unknown the day the St. Orres chef walked out (p6). Entirely self-taught, Rosemary took over the kitchen and remains the executive chef to this day—a lucky thing for anyone with functioning tastebuds fortunate enough to dine there!
As our days grow cooler and shorter, I’d be interested to know what kernels of interest are pulling at your attention. Perhaps you want to take advantage of composting recommendations from master gardener Matt Drewno and get serious about building your own soil (p30). Or keep it simple and just try a new recipe, like a seasonally appropriate Apple Crisp from farmer Darshawn Mayginnes of Shamaz Farm (p16), who grows fruit with his daughter Ambrosia. We have gathered a bounty of articles that will pique your interest and entice you to learn more. Let’s roll up our sleeves, embrace this season, and follow where our curiosity leads us.
Holly Madrigal
Co-Publisher & Managing Editor
Autumn in a Glass
Frosty “Cocktails” with Gowan’s Heirloom Cider
by Holly Madrigal
Local tip: if you are driving to the coast on winding Highway 128 on a warm autumn day, make a stop for a special treat‑— the Frosé Margarita in the shady tasting grove at Gowan’s apple orchard. Travelers have stopped for years at Gowans Oak Tree for apple juice, dried fruits, produce, and snacks. The tasting grove, just a few hundred yards further west, opened in 2020 when the idea of an outdoor tasting room was fresh and new.
Beneath the dappled green shade of the apple trees, Sharon Gowan served up their signature hot weather treat. Frosty and rose-hued, the Frosé is made up of Gowan’s award-winning Rosé Applewine Cider, chilled to a delicious frappe consistency and dolloped into a Tajín- and plum powder-rimmed glass. (Sip with caution or you might suffer brain freeze.) The Rosé Cider is a blend of heirloom estate cider with Pinot Noir. The addictive spicy-salty rim complements the notes of plum within the Pinot. Sweet but dry, the combination is a delightful refresher on a hot afternoon.
The family has been busy developing a number of new ciders, turning heads and winning prizes at competitions like the Good Food Award. The 1876 Heirloom Cider and their Gravenstein Cider are local favorites, but they continue to explore other single varietals. Sharon shares that the Red Delicious Cider has flavors of tropical fruit. They have some creative blends like the Honey Citron, created by adding California honey and a zesty touch of citron (an heirlooom citrus) juice to the estate cider. The result is an explosion of complexity, honey ginger notes with a dry, not-toosweet finish. They have also begun serving cider in “cocktails,” such as the Gravenstein Cider Mimosa (cider and fresh orange juice) or the Rosé Cider Mint Julep.
With a storied legacy of growing apples in Anderson Valley since 1876, the Gowans continue to evolve. Sharon explained that they have a new addition to the farm—an autonomous tractor. This robot tractor can maneuver unattended to the orchard for mowing, do the work, and then drive itself back into the barn. Sharon believes this is the first commercial use of an automated tractor in an orchard in the United States.
Gowans also offers apple tastings, pulling in some boxes of what is at peak harvest to tempt the traveler’s palate with a slice of what is in season: Gravenstein, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, or the Sierra Beauty, which they have been growing since 1906. For a non-alcoholic beverage option, they have frozen apple juice as well. The orchard welcomes well-behaved dogs who can rest in the shade as you taste. So swing by and taste the season among the trees. Just be sure to sip slowly to avoid that brain freeze.
Apple Cider Margarita
INGREDIENTS
• 1 bottle Gowan’s Rosé Applewine
Cider
• Lime
• Tajín (Mexican chile/lime spice mix)
• Plum powder
DIRECTIONS
Pour the cider into a shallow glass cake pan. Place in the freezer, stirring and folding with a spatula every 30 minutes until it has a nice shaved ice consistency. Alternately, pour into an ice cube tray to freeze and then into a blender to reach slushie stage.
Using a lime wedge, moisten the rim of a margarita glass, then coat it in a mixture of Tajín with ground plum powder (also called Li Hing Mui Powder, which is available in Asian groceries and online). Pour the frozen cider slush into the glass and garnish with the lime wedge. Enjoy!
St. Orres
36601 S Highway 1, Gualala
(707) 884-3335 | www.saintorres.com
Open Thurs - Mon
Photos by Torrey Douglass
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and drinking good coffee with a friend.
St. Orres
Old School Hospitality and Outstanding Food on the South Mendocino Coast
by Torrey Douglass
According to executive chef Rosemary Campiformio, “St. Orres is a healing place camouflaged as a country inn and restaurant.” Her assertion might be referring to the soothing effects of the towering redwoods that grace the property. Or it could be the stunning view of the ocean combined with the calm shushing of its waves. Possibly it’s the wonderful cuisine—both deliciously fresh and scrumptiously satiating—or the beautiful, Russian-inspired architecture. Likely it is all of the above, coming together to create a food and lodging experience that is decidedly unique and delightful.
This distinctive “country inn and restaurant” sits on 50 acres between Gualala and Anchor Bay, boasting a grand two story building with 8 upstairs guest rooms, as well as an esoteric collection of cottages and cabins around the property. There are a handful of meadows, but most of the land is covered by the aforementioned redwoods. (Side note: The documentary Giants Rising, shown at the 2024 Mendocino Film Festival, shared research that revealed how even just looking at pictures of redwood forests has a beneficial effect on one’s nervous system—though it’s safe to say that experiencing them in person is infinitely more enjoyable.)
In the 1830s, homesteader George St. Orres settled on the original 29 acres. George came from a family of Russian immigrants—a large one, verified by the sprawling family plot at the Anchor Bay Cemetery. He made his living creating the loading equipment that transferred goods to and from ships that used the many “doghole ports” along the north coast.
In 1929, the land was acquired by Sid Johnson, who built a hotel there. Sid rented the 10 upstairs rooms and 5 newly built cabins to fish catchers in the winter and loggers in the summer. Called the Seaside Inn, the hotel included a dining room, general store, and gas pumps to serve travelers passing by. By 1971, the hotel had passed its heyday and fallen into disrepair, at which point it caught the eye and imagination of a master woodworker from Mill Valley named Eric Black.
Eric and friends Robert Anderson and Richey Wasserman pooled their resources and bought the old hotel and property, eventually pulling up stakes in Mill Valley and relocating with their families to this slice of heaven by the sea. Hopefully the gorgeous location compensated for the rustic old cabins they and their families moved into, referred to in St. Orres literature as “funky.”
The partners dismantled most of the Seaside Inn and then rebuilt it according to Eric’s vision. His design was influenced by his father (a well known architect in San Francisco), his experience working in the 1960s as an apprentice carpenter on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin Civic Center, and the Russian stave church design of the original structure. He also had building experience under his belt from working on high-end homes in Marin which incorporated the octagon shape so popular at the time.
It took five years of sweat and hustling to prepare the new restaurant and inn for the public. A bounty of local talent contributed to the project, providing bespoke landscaping, wood carvings, light fixtures, stained glass windows, quilts for beds, and prints and paintings for the walls. Together these efforts created a space that is undeniably unique and intriguing, a one-of-a-kind destination that captures the craftsmanship and character of the community.
But there’s a lot more to creating a successful business than a stunning structure. In those early days, a young tax accountant named Rosemary Campiformio, who had recently relocated to Gualala from Berkeley, was hired to set up the accounts and manage the books. Before long, Rosemary had fallen in love with the area and St. Orres itself, officially becoming a business partner in 1975.
Rosemary was integral to the St. Orres inn and restaurant by the time the doors opened in 1976. As a new venture, profits were put right back into the business, so Rosemary got her real estate license to support herself. Her role expanded when, one day in the early 80s, the current chef walked out of the kitchen right before service. Rosemary walked in, and she never looked back.
To this day, Rosemary is the Executive Chef of St. Orres. Raised in Connecticut in a large Italian family, food always played a central role in her life and relationships. Except for a 2-week culinary class taught by Madeline Cameron in Napa in the 1990s, Rosemary is entirely self-taught. She crafts her menus around what’s happening outside the window, including dishes focused on foraged ingredients like mushrooms and berries, and wild game like boar, venison, rabbit, and pheasant.
“I like the specials and menu to reflect what’s local, fresh, and not available anywhere else,” Rosemary shares, adding that the rack of lamb is especially popular. “I love the work that I do, I don’t just enjoy it. When you are in a place for a long time like I am, it’s a springboard for giving to the community, watching families grow, providing a stable place where people can come and celebrate their birthdays, memorials, and anniversaries. And I love feeding them.” While no longer working in the kitchen, Rosemary can still be found at the restaurant most nights, greeting guests and making sure the dinner service goes smoothly.
Guests can sit either in the Seaside Bar or the more formal cathedral-ceilinged dining room. Regardless of where a guest is seated, they can order from the cafe menu (spaghetti with clams, chili relleno with rice and beans, grilled burger, and more) or the somewhat fancier dining room menu (filet mignon, quail, venison, and lobster dishes, to name a few). I started with a salad listed on the menu as “organic greens and blueberries,” a humble description that was outshined by the generous pile of vibrant greens and berries that arrived at my table. It was light and flavorful, a beautiful balance of sweet, spice, and tart achieved with the combination of nasturtium petals, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries all topped with a tangy dressing.
This strong start was followed by wild mushroom ravioli. The serving size at first had me concerned I’d leave with room to spare, yet the dish was entirely satisfying by the last bite. The pasta pockets were filled with wild mushrooms and parmesan covered in a creamy parmesan sauce, uplifted by fresh cherry tomatoes, basil, and spinach. It was filling without being heavy, luscious but not overwhelming. And while I demurred on the dessert menu, there was plenty there to tempt a person to find a little extra room for a sweet something.
When the restaurant was new, Gualala was not serviced by food delivery companies, so St. Orres got a van to drive to Santa Rosa every week for flowers, produce, meat, and fish. These days the restaurant can get those things delivered, and though the pandemic put some of their former providers out of business, many have now returned and, according to Rosemary, “things are starting to feel back to normal.”
Though they now enjoy the luxury of food delivery, Gualala remains out of the rush and bustle of the busier Bay Area cities found just down the road. “Things are a little slower here, but that’s what we love about it,” Rosemary reflects. That slower pace allows for a more balanced life, and Rosemary takes full advantage. On top of her work with the restaurant and her real estate business, she is a rock hound and a master falconer. “I feel so blessed to be here all this time, living here in this beautiful environment and doing what I love,” she muses. “It’s a well crafted life. People who live in Mendocino County are up here crafting their lives.” With the redwoods and the sea, this piece of the California coast is an excellent location for building those well crafted lives, made all the more delicious by the exceptional room and board to be found at beautiful St. Orres.
St. Orres
36601 S Highway 1, Gualala
(707) 884-3335 | www.saintorres.com
Open Thurs - Mon
Photos by Torrey Douglass
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and drinking good coffee with a friend.
Cooking at School
Mendocino High School’s Culinary Program
by Phannarai Inkun
Hungry bellies wait patiently outside a classroom’s wide metal doors next to a bright red and white food truck. Ten minutes before the school bell rings, the yoga club finishes their meeting. As they funnel out, the first culinary class of the day funnels in. It is a quick exchange made necessary due to the limited room during renovations on the campus. Immediately, students work to transform the yoga studio back into a culinary classroom. The padded rug is rolled up, the tables are moved back into place, and the kettle is turned on. The most impressive part? This is all happening in the former band room of the Mendocino High School.
When the high school first began its renovations in 2021, the culinary class was forced to move into the band room. Instruments were moved into their cases, metal tables were brought out, and electric burners placed on top. With no oven, one sink, and initially no hot water, the culinary students were forced to work with what they had. No longer able to do larger kitchen-based projects, their new project became running a retro-looking food truck that was donated by Fedele Bauccio of Bon Apetit. It looks like a VW Bus, and two or three of us can fit in there. We sell dishes like Pad Thai or fresh burritos to students and teachers. Sometimes we sell drinks or cookies, and we always sell out.
The culinary classroom is a constantly evolving environment. Eventually, construction will be completed in the new kitchen, featuring more stove tops, a washing station, actual ovens, and more space. More advanced students will be given their own section to complete their projects. Other students interested in the dessert aspect of the program will be given the opportunity to bake and make pastries. And on top of all of that, the food truck outside the culinary room will continue its sales to our community. We students dream of what the future holds, but until then, we have to work with what we have and continue to learn.
Carolen Barrett—our culinary teacher, yoga instructor, and honorary tía—makes the most of the situation. The lockers for instruments and pictures of former band students on the walls make it clear we are not in a normal teaching kitchen, but she has somehow managed the impossible: transforming the space into one where we are able to cook. The culinary class is not merely a room with pots and pans, it is an exchange of skills and experiences.
Carolen was formerly a cook at the Fog City Diner in San Francisco. There, she worked tirelessly until she was about to be promoted to chef. She was a woman in her thirties that was about to receive a very notable promotion. It was a big deal, but something in her changed. Sure, she may have been able to create incredible dishes, but she was not sharing them with the people she loved most. She found that she was no longer happy in the big city environment. She wanted more from her life, the ability to cook and also spend time with her family, to also have time for herself. She says, “Sometimes we think we know our path, but we have to follow our hearts to find what’s right.” So she made the decision to move to the Mendocino Coast. Twenty years later, her children were going into high school. And so that was how we got our Carolen, our Chef.
Monday mornings are spent doing book work and satiating our stomachs and brains. Beginners learn from a textbook from the Culinary Institute of America. More advanced students learn from online modules and more complex books. Around fifty students from various grades and levels of culinary expertise come through our doors to learn. But culinary skills cannot be grasped merely from reading and watching videos. It is done through trial and error, through practical and physical experience.
On Wednesdays and Fridays, Carolen pairs beginners with advanced students. We learn from each other: how to cook, how to clean, how to plate, how to compromise and work together, and even how to run the food truck. We learn the skills needed to not only feed ourselves in our own homes, but others in the culinary world. The class gives students the skills and experience they need to work in commercial kitchens. Future hospitality workers are trained within our walls. The classes are a direct pipeline to careers and jobs within the community through the information learned and the connections made. We are a team, a family, and more.
I have personally always been around and in the culinary classroom. I love any opportunity to eat. Whenever I have a moment between classes on the days we have Culinary, I pop in to see if anyone needs a taste tester or if someone has leftovers they are willing to share. I have been met with nothing but kindness from these people. And this year, it was my first time being on the other side of things. I am taking culinary courses as a beginner, and it has been such a filling experience, in both senses of the meaning.
I did not merely learn from a cookbook. I learned from the experience of my peers. We have made Mexican and Japanese and Middle Eastern cuisine, and each time different classmates put their own culture and experiences into the dishes. Everyone in that class comes from a different background, and they incorporate that into their work. I have been taught how to cook by classmates that have been doing it since they could remember. I cooked alongside people who are just trying to make a meal for themselves for the first time.
Despite being originally from Thailand, I never learned how to cook the food. Cooking was never my strong suit. I always preferred to bake, a process which is precise and clear. Cooking was a whole new territory for me. It involved tasting and changing the dish as you went, feeling out the kinks and fixing it when needed. Baking involves following a set of instructions to the T. Yet I wanted to try my hand at the culinary class because I absolutely love to eat, and if I wanted to do the thing I loved, I had to learn how. Carolen’s culinary program has created an environment where each and every member of that class feels as though they can grow as cooks, not just through the recipe book, but from each other. Our hungry bellies and our thirst for learning are satisfied here.
Photos by Phannarai Inkun
Phannarai Inkun is a senior at Mendocino High School. They can usually be found stuffing their face full of food or spending time with friends (usually eating with them).
Hard Head Bread
Baking to the Beat of a Different Drum
by Will Stenberg
Jesse Stenberg—along with his partner in business and romance, Maria Flynn—is the founder of Hard Head Bread, a cottage bakery in our hometown of Fort Bragg. Jesse is also my younger brother. Jesse and I grew up there, first as barefoot kids running around in the woods, then as disaffected young punk rockers who couldn’t wait to get out. We both did as soon as possible but have since come to love our hometown, warts and all. Jesse even came back to Fort Bragg, where he and Maria started Hard Head Bread in December of 2022 in our childhood home. In fact, the bakery itself is in my old bedroom, once festooned with Ramones posters and angsty poetry, now producing the finest long-fermented breads on the North Coast. Life takes some unexpected turns.
I had a chance the other day to talk with Jesse and Maria about the origins of the bakery. Jesse was hired at Grand Central Bakery in Portland, Oregon in 2002, where, “being young and without any formal college education,” he fell into the kind of counter-service job that had kept money in his pocket since his early teens. But this time, Jesse became friendly with head baker Mel Darbyshire, who asked if he wanted to come back and learn. To this day he gives “big props” to Mel, whom he says has always been available for “questions, support and advice” on his journey to becoming a master baker.
It was in 2007 when fate played its hand and Maria ended up with the same company. She recalls how she felt “very much like the bakers were the cool team, rowdier and having more fun, throwing dough balls at each other”—as opposed to the more composed and conventional front-ofhouse. I don’t know if Maria sneaking salt in Jesse’s water was what started everything, but if so, her prank caught his attention. The two have been inseparable ever since.
Jesse found baking “pretty interesting from the beginning.” He recalls, “I remember when I first transferred to the baking department, Mel printed me out a forty-page pamphlet from one of her books. I dove into it. I asked questions. I’ve always been fascinated with stats. That’s one of the reasons I’m such a big baseball fan, and baking is all percentages.”
Eventually, Jesse and Maria left Portland for California’s Central Coast, where Jesse continued his education in other bakeries. It was there that the two first began thinking seriously about opening a bakery of their own. They partly credit their friends Jesse and Christina at Hey Brother Baker in Long Beach, who showed them an example of “serious and passionate” baking on a “smaller scale.” Jesse embarked upon a reconnaissance trip in order “to see the scope and hang out with them and see what their set-up was. [The trip] made it less abstract and more tangible, where I realized this was a feasible thing.”
But why choose to come back home to Mendocino County to make this dream a reality? “I missed being around ferns,” says Jesse. Maria adds that a visit to Fort Bragg around the time that Fort Bragg Bakery was being sold gave her hope that they could succeed here. Hanging out at The Golden West one evening, a whole crew of old friends encouraged them to move back and try their luck, promising support. “And then when we moved here,” says Maria, “people followed through with that support. Unique to this town is that people just want to see you succeed, and they’ll help you as much as they can. Most towns talk about it; this town backs it up.”
“Look at the fight to keep big box stores out,” adds Jesse. “We’d rather keep our Corners of the Mouth, our Down Home Foods, our Pippi’s Longstockings, our Purity. Small local shops. Fort Bragg really stays true to that.”
When I ask Jesse about what style of baking he practices, this long time Wu-Tang fan says, “I like to say we’re kind of the ODB [Ol’ Dirty Bastard] of baking: there’s no father to our style.” Maria chimes in with, “Some might describe it as a rustic style where the crust is meant to be very crusty and the interior is soft…”
“… Like me,” offers Jesse, getting a chuckle. Then, more seriously: “I want to make bread that everyone can afford. We’re here to feed people. We’re here to nourish people. Being an elitist can be detrimental to the mission, which is to make people happy. Keeping it small—no staff, baking at home with an affordable rent—we’re able to maintain our prices at a reasonable level.”
Some staples include the Sourdough Country Loaf, the Baguette, the Sourdough Bagels and, for those with a sweet-tooth, the indispensable Triple Chocolate Rye Cookies. Recently, Jesse has been “super into the Sesame Khorasan Loaf,” stating that “toasted sesame is in our blood as Lebanese people. I love the smell of it.”
With Jesse baking and Maria handling “literally everything else,” Hard Head Bread has been servicing the Fort Bragg area since December 2022, offering primarily pick-up, while delivering for a few choice retail accounts. They recently celebrated their best month ever, and couldn’t be more grateful.
“We have been so supported,” says Jesse. “I couldn’t imagine doing this anywhere else.”
As for me, while it’s always a bit of a shock to go into the room where I played my first guitar chord and see a commercial baking oven, I couldn’t be prouder of my little brother, his wonderful partner, and all they’ve accomplished.
Order bread online at hardheadbread.com
Photos courtesy of Hard Head Bread
Will Stenberg is a screenwriter, poet, and musician who hails from Fort Bragg and currently lives in a cabin in Oregon with his dog and turtle.
Shamaz Valley Farm
Farming Uncommon Apples for 50+ Years
by Lisa Ludwigsen
As a visitor arriving at the pristine home of Shamaz Valley Farm on a crisp fall day, the first take is that this place is not just well cared for, it is well loved. Situated just east of Potter Valley, the land abuts the Mendocino National Forest and evokes the feeling of being in the Sierra foothills. Surrounded by a mixed conifer forest of ponderosa and sugar pines, Douglas fir, oaks, bays, and madrones, the farm’s well-appointed log house sits beyond a bubbling pond that provides hydroelectric power to the residence. The hot, flat Ukiah Valley, just a few miles to the southwest, seems a long way off.
This is the 108-acre parcel that Darshan Mayginnes has been stewarding for over 50 years, first as a part-time weekender and now as a full-time fruit farmer. His home is completely off-grid, generating energy through solar and that hydropower system. He explained, “We’re lucky to have plenty of water here in the Eel River watershed so we can generate hydro power to supplement our solar system. The high water table allows us to dry-farm our orchards. No irrigation is needed.”
Darshan, with assistance from his 15-year-old daughter, Ambrosia, grows over 45 varieties of apples, along with pears, peaches, cherries, and nuts. They sell mainly at the Ukiah farmers market on Saturdays, where you’ll find them from June through December. Darshan explained, “Our market season begins in June with cherries and transitions to apples in July with the earliest ripe apple, the Yellow Transparent. The final apple of the year, Hauer Pippin, ripens in December.” That’s almost six months of freshly harvested apples.
Most apples on grocery store shelves have been in storage for months, or even up to a year. Yes, apples are a dependable staple, but Darshan has strong opinions about eating and enjoying fresh apples. “I don’t want to sell anyone an apple that has been in storage, so I only sell apples that are picked the day before,” he offered. “Ambrosia and I get great pleasure sharing samples of our apples at the farmers market. It’s a big part of what we offer. It changes the way people think about apples, and they almost always come back for more.” The superior taste and overall quality are obvious. Shoppers can also find Shamaz Valley Farm apples at a few select local grocers like the Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op and through the MendoLake Food Hub.
If names like Arkansas Black, King David, Rubaiyat, or Sierra Beauty don’t ring a bell, you aren’t alone. A wide world of taste profiles and textures reach well beyond a Honeycrisp or Fuji. Other Shamaz favorites include Rhode Island Greening, Macoun, Tompkins County King, and Esopus Spitzenburg, an apple first discovered in New York in the late 1700s and planted by Thomas Jefferson. Rhode Island Greening, developed on the east coast in the mid 17th century, are highly prized for pies because of the complex flavor and that they hold their shape when cooked. Darshan and Ambrosia delight in describing each variety’s distinctive characteristics. Clearly, apples are their jam. Their animated stories and accounts express their shared passion for their vocation.
In his book, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan reported on the ways plants have evolved to create symbiotic relationships with humans. Apples originated in the forests of Kazakhstan and were brought to North America via seeds with the pilgrims. As apples slowly became sweeter, their interactions with humans increased. John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, followed western expansion in North America at the beginning of the 19th century, planting apple orchards at new settlements. Chapman lived eccentrically, mostly barefoot using a cooking pot as a hat, and occasionally sleeping in tree trunks while tending his burgeoning orchards, some of which still stand today. Because those apples’ bitterness rendered them virtually inedible, they were pressed and fermented into hard cider, which was enjoyed around tables at all times of the day, because the cider provided a safe beverage when water quality and supply were of concern. Pollan writes, “Really, what Johnny Appleseed was doing and the reason he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio and Indiana was he was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.” The apples were also turned into vinegar, a key ingredient in food preservation. Two hundred years later, that symbiotic relationship between apples and humans has flourished, and we would do well to follow Darshan’s lead to seek out and enjoy the less common varieties. The apples want us to enjoy all of them!
Feeding and developing her entrepreneurial spirit, Ambrosia is an integral participant in the farm. Her education through Ukiah Independent Study Academy allows her to apply her talents and interests to all aspects of running a farm. She’s already adept at pruning, grafting, harvesting, and general farm maintenance. Ambrosia also takes care of the farmers market set-up and marketing of the business. An Apple-of-the-Month club, offered through the MendoLake Food Hub, may be in the works as well. Just like heirloom tomatoes lifted us out of the expectation that tomatoes are hard, watery, uniform orbs, farms like Shamaz Valley help us remember the immense joy and satisfaction of seeking out different versions of old staples. We’ve seen that consumer interest and demand can shift how and what producers grow. It may just be the time for apples!
What is Mayginnes’ all-around favorite apple? “The Thompkins County King, because it reminds me of my childhood.” The best pie apple? Rhode Island Greening.
Darshan and Ambrosia’s shared commitment to thoughtful caretaking of the land and their orchards is evident throughout their operation. Ambrosia may take the reins from her father one day, but for now they’ll continue to spread the apple gospel one taste at a time.
Darshan’s Apple Crisp
INGREDIENTS
• 8 cups sliced apples
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
DIRECTIONS
Mix cinnamon and maple syrup with sliced apples. In a separate bowl, combine butter into flour and
brown sugar. This is easiest to do by hand. Place apples in baking dish, add ¼ cup water, and top
with butter/flour mixture. Bake for 45 minutes or until apples are soft.
Find Darshan and Ambrosia on Instagram @ShamazValleyFarm.
Lisa Ludwigsen has been working in environmental education and small scale agriculture for 25 years. She chronicles her experiences and travels at Food, Farms & Families at https://lisaludwigsen.substack.com
Cover photo by Lisa Ludwigsen
All other photos courtesy of Darshan Mayginnes
El Mitote Cafe
Coming Home to Ukiah with Coffee in Tow
by Holly Madrigal
El Mitote’s hot pink coffee cart is hard to miss. It pops like a ball of cotton candy jumping up to give you a kiss. El Mitote means “gossip”—not just any gossip, but the feisty chat that only comes over a good cup of coffee. Adrian Mata is the owner of this candy-colored café. He checks in with Cassie, who is working the cart, making sure that she has enough ice and all that she needs for the lunchtime rush. They are parked on Talmage Road in Ukiah near the Grow West Farm Supply.
Adrian’s idea for El Mitote came out of his college senior project for a business class. “We had to come up with a unique business idea. I went with a coffee cart,” says Adrian. “The course required me to figure out everything: the market, main clientele, where to find the trailer, start-up costs, and the taxes. I was working as a bartender at the time, and one day I wanted some coffee but we were out of cream, so I used horchata instead and it was SO good. Wait a minute this is so good. I had that coffee cart idea, and maybe this is the trick to make it special.” He and his girlfriend were living in Sacramento at the time. Adrian got to work completing the idea and coming up with the menu. He decided to draw from his heritage and give El Mitote a Latino flair. “I wanted it to be Mexican-forward,“ he says with a smile in his eyes.
Adrian had a number of other jobs before embracing his entrepreneurial spirit. He worked for the NBA for a time in different sales positions. He worked at Yelp for a bit, along with other jobs that gave him insight into this new business. He had graduated in 2014 from Ukiah High, and as the coffee trailer idea became reality, he and his girlfriend thought that Ukiah would be a good base to try it out. “I bought the trailer, and we fitted it out and brought it over last Thanksgiving to try it out, and it was a hit,” says Adrian. “So we decided to stay here for a bit. I was a popular athlete back in school and still have a ton of connections here.” They hit the ground running and haven’t looked back.
Right now, as a new business, their idea is to go everywhere. “We are mobile and can go any place we are invited,” he laughs, continuing, “So if you are doing an event in Point Arena, we’ll be there. We did the Willits Hometown Celebration and the Rodeo. We went to the Potter Valley Rodeo, and everyone has been thrilled.” They did a number of weddings this summer, and they were hosted by Mendocino Coast Health Centers to do “Coffee with Rod,” the CEO Rod Grainger, outside of their clinics, which was a big hit.
The drinks are as fun and interesting as Adrian, with a definite Latino style. He worked hard to design drinks that bring to mind the nostalgic Mexican candies of his youth, but in adult form with a generous shot of caffeine in a frappe. “The Mazapán is this childhood nostalgic snack, and The Ferrero was inspired by chocolate gold coins,” Adrian adds. Cassie chimes in, “The Ferrero Rocher frappe is very popular.”
The iced horchata cold brew has a cinnamon sweetness that adds depth and lightly spiced roundness to the drink. A strawberry, vanilla milk, and matcha drink is inspired by the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag. The flavored refreshers and infusions come in a rainbow of flavors like Mangonada Tajín and Chamoy. The refreshers can also be ordered con crema (with cream) to make them a rich treat. If you crave a warmer beverage, you can order the Abuelita Hot Chocolate or the Café de Olla con Piloncillo.
Adrian hopes to bring back memories of childhood treats, but anyone will find flavors that bring a smile to their face. The best way to find the current location of the El Mitote is to check Instagram @elmitotecafe. Once you know the neighborhood, the bright pink color of the cart will make them easy to find. The beverages will satisfy your sweet tooth with a caffeine kick—a killer combination that will keep you coming back for more.
El Mitote
elmitotecafe.com
Instagram @elmitotecafe (best place to find current location)
Little girl photo courtesy of El Mitote. All other photos by Holly Madrigal.
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.
The Black Forager
Reclaiming Foraging with Infectious Exuberance
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
She frolics, she dances, she gambols through meadow and forest; she rhymes, she sings, she shouts joyously at the top of her lungs. She is Alexis Nikole, aka The Black Forager. It’s impossible to watch her short videos without smiling or even laughing out loud. Engaging and delightful, Alexis takes you out into nature and brings you home with good things to eat that you likely walk past, unnoticed, every day.
Alexis is returning foraging—even in cities—to the forefront, and her natural vivacity and evident passion for the topic has clearly hit a chord. She has been chosen as a Forbes 30 under 30 and a Fortune Magazine Creator 25, as well as the recipient of the James Beard Award for “Best Social Media” in 2022, and a TikTok Tastemaker with 5 million followers. As a recent promotion said, “. . . she reframes the world of food, asking us to consider tastefully satiating and environmentally sustainable food choices. She also peels back historical layers on African American and Indigenous food traditions that has [sic] traditionally been repressed.”
This 34-year-old, who hails from Ohio, credits both her parents for getting her out into nature when she was growing up and giving her a good foraging foundation. She had her first remembered foraging experience at the age of five, out in the garden and yard with her mother. But foraging didn’t really play a large role in her life until after college, when she was “super poor,” as she puts it, “and wanting to eat things other than ramen and canned vegetables.” Getting back into foraging helped her fall in love with food, but also spurred her into more research, which led her to some hard truths about the schism between Black folks and nature.
During her research, Alexis learned that Indigenous peoples had long shared knowledge with enslaved African Americans, teaching them how to fish, trap, and forage so they could supplement their meager meals. After emancipation, new laws were enacted which made it a crime to forage on land one did not own—and newly-freed folks did not, of course, own property. This effectively took both private and public property off the foraging map. Given the times, according to Alexis, “… being black in nature was a very scary thing to do, for the sake of your safety.” Foraging also became synonymous with poverty—people with means could purchase what they wanted at the grocery store and looked down on those who could not.
Under these conditions foraging became both disparaged and impossible in practice. Studies show that once folks lose access to a knowledge-base, that knowledge is often lost forever. Reclaiming that cultural and ecological wisdom is the heart of Alexis’ work. She reflects in one of her Facebook posts that, “There truly is something revolutionary about being black, and meeting the earth where she is, and making a trade. For too long this knowledge has been forgotten, and for too long, first out of fear of violence, and then out of cultural routing, black faces have shied away from the great wide outdoors. A space that truly belongs to us all, just as we belong to it.”
Grounded in this awareness, it’s clear why Alexis calls herself “The Black Forager,” even though she has received a fair bit of push-back in her online communities for doing so. In her words, she does it “for the culture.” In her 2021 Ted Radio Hour, Alexis explained, “... it makes my heart and my head heavy to see people who honestly believe that one’s race doesn’t affect the way we move through this world.” In an LA-based foraging spot on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, Alexis emphasized that “Foraging as a black person is an act of rebellion … I will keep talking about race and I will keep talking about socio-economic status as it relates to food.”
Alexis is conscious of how her race impacts the way in which people respond to her when they encounter her out in the wild. In a HuffPost interview she shared, “I went through a phase where I was urban foraging exclusively wearing dresses with full makeup, because I thought, ‘If I look the most palatable version of myself—even if someone doesn’t know what I’m doing and the fact that they can’t identify it makes them a little bit nervous—hopefully I look so inviting, so pleasant, that they’ll come and talk to me about it before they call the cops about it,’ which is not an experience that I feel I see a lot of my white counterparts even being a little bit familiar with … I feel like I have to have a speech ready to go at all times, regardless of where I am.”
In her posts, Alexis illustrates how to locate plants, how to differentiate them from their less healthy doppelgangers, and what to do with them once you’ve found them. She offers plenty of pointers for finding safe foraging sources and loads of recipes for turning foraged treasures into delectable—or at least interesting—edibles, such as: pickled magnolia leaves, pinecone syrup, magnolia syrup for use in making her Magnolia Snap Cookies, nocino, dotorimuk (acorn flour noodles), prickly pear syrup, dandelion fritters, and pine sprite, to name a few. On social media she notes that, in the recipe creation process, “This is one of those parts of foraging that is very ‘choose your own adventure.’” And Alexis is nothing if not adventurous, looking deeply into our natural spaces with so much wonder. During her Ted Radio Hour she reflects, “It’s like Disneyworld, but plants. And full of much cheaper food!”
To further her educational reach, Alexis launched “Crash Course: Botany” with PBS Nature and Complexly in 2023. This 15-episode series (found on PBS and YouTube) illustrates Alexis’ basic tenets: “Our lives and the lives of every other creature on earth depend on plants . . . This is a plant’s world. You’re just livin’ in it.” And her most recent foray is into the herbal soap world with Blueland, an environmentally friendly soap tablet company, launching “The Foraged Collection,” a limited edition soap line made from three of Alexis’ favorite combinations: Beach Rose, Juneberry Basil, and Lilac Clove—all plant-based and planet-friendly.
For a written source to supplement her videos, Alexis recommends Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants in helping to decide what is safe to eat in the wild. She notes, “There’s something soul-nourishing about caring about how you’re nourishing your body.” And if we can channel even a smidge of Alexis’ joy in doing so, what better way to connect with nature and explore wild edibles. Just always remember to abide by her tagline: “Happy Snacking. Don’t Die!”
The Black Forager
FaceBook/Instagram/TikTok @blackforager
Photos courtesy of The Black Forager
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she procures special order books at Hedgehog Books, edits this magazine, and delights in discovering good things to eat.
Choosing the Extraordinary
Embracing Wine, Life, and Love in Italy
by Anne Fashauer
Alyson Morgan credits her extraordinary life to one of her high school teachers. Mrs. Huber, who taught Italian and Humanities at Fort Bragg High School, told Aly and her other students: “Don’t be ordinary. Be extraordinary.” And in search of the extraordinary, Mrs. Huber took Aly, her sister Ilse, her friend Melissa, and others on a high school trip to Europe, where Aly fell in love with Italy and decided to study Italian for three years in high school. Today, Aly is a winemaker who lives in Italy, Ilse lives in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Melissa lived in Italy and now is a professor of Italian at U.C. Davis. Life doesn’t get much more extraordinary than that.
Aly was raised on the Mendocino Coast in the town of Westport, and she attended and graduated from Fort Bragg High School. Her interest in wine-making started with her father, who made wine in the basement of their home, but she never indended it to be her career. Instead, influenced by Fran DuBois, another Westport denizen and a legendary figure in California agriculture who founded the Rice Growers Association, Aly decided to go to the school of agriculture at U.C. Davis. Aly spent six years there, first studying fruit flies and then grape genetics. While working at the fruit fly lab, Aly went on a trip to Napa to collect fruit flies from fermenting punch-down bins. During this trip she realized that it was imperative for her to live in a beautiful place and not in the Midwest working with corn, soy, and wheat genetics. So she decided to study grape genetics after she completed the research with fruit flies, and she got a job working for Dr. Andy Walker, the leading rootstock geneticist in the Viticulture and Enology Department.
Aly did her first wine internship in Anderson Valley at Edmeades in the late 1990s with Van Williamson, former winemaker for the Kendall-Jackson Edmeades label and current owner and winemaker at Witching Stick Wines in Philo. Aly said, “I owe Van so much. He took a chance on me and let me experience the harvest without pampering me or giving me special treatment. It was the most grueling job I have ever had physically and mentally, but it changed my life for the better. I learned so much during my time at Edmeades. I use those skills every day.” After her exposure to winemaking at Edmeades, Aly decided to double major in both Genetics and Viticulture and Enology, and in 1999, she successfully graduated with two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in each of those fields.
In 1998, Aly made her way back to Italy on a vacation, working in an interview with Tenuta di Arceno, an Italybased Kendall-Jackson winery. The interview went well, and she was hired to work with them after graduation. During this trip, Aly’s high school friend Melissa introduced her to Fabrizio Polloni, who invited a group of people, including Melissa and Aly, to his home for dinner. They immediately hit it off. Aly says, “During the evening, he touched my shoulder, and I could see our life together. It was surreal.” He asked her to have lunch the following day, but she was unable to meet him due to other commitments, and she had to fly home the day after that.
Fast forward a year later, after arriving in Florence for her new job: Aly and Melissa were walking down the street and happened to bump into Fabrizio. ”We ran into him out of the blue,” Aly exclaimed, still surprised. He asked her to lunch again, and they’ve been together ever since. Aly shared, “I had butterflies in my stomach, which I still have to this day when I see him.” A former professional soccer player, Fabrizio is now the coach of a semi-professional team in Florence, and he teaches sport science at a university for study abroad students. Aly continued, “From that moment we have been together. I do recognize that the love we have is rare. Not everybody finds their soulmate, especially on the streets of a city on the other side of the world. We are incredibly blessed with two amazing children [Niccolo, 15, and Gaia, 17] and our beautiful life in Tuscany. It really is just as romantic as it sounds.”
After meeting Fabrizio, Aly accepted a job at a different Italian winery, Villa Sant’ Andrea, where she spent a year setting up their lab. She worked for next three years at Azienda Uggiano in Chianti, where she held the title of winemaker but in actuality was in charge of bottling. While that may not sound like much, they were bottling 15,000 bottles a day, every day. After she left that job, she gained experience at three other Italian wineries, finally settling in where she is now at Podere Capaccia in 2012, first as product manager, then head winemaker. Aly’s cumulative experience—which included managing estates, building wineries, and creating brands, as well as making wine—prepared her for her current role at Podere Capaccia—as of 2015, she is the company’s CEO and manages the entire estate.
Sitting high atop a hill on the north side of Radda in Chianti, Podere Capaccia overlooks the Pesa River valley with spectacular views of Radda and Volpaia. The estate includes a Medieval hamlet made up of six buildings that date back to the 1200s, surrounded by six acres of vineyard, three acres of olive orchards, and 20 acres of chestnut forests for Belgian owner, Herman De Bode. The forest of chestnut trees, which surrounds the estate, produces chestnuts that fall to the ground in October. While some are kept by the estate to cook and enjoy over an open fire, they are shared with the people from the village of Radda, who come to collect the chestnuts every year.
Podere Capaccia is in the heart of Chianti Classico, and it is the home of Sangiovese. The 1500 foot elevation, the limestone, shale, and sandstone soils, the southern exposure, and the constant breezes and cool nights make Podere Capaccia the ideal site for high quality wine production. They make primarily Sangiovese wines, but also a very small production of a Supertuscan called Capaccia—50% Cabernet sauvignon, 25% Cabernet franc and 25% Sangiovese.
I met Alyson through my husband, Van Williamson, at her home in Florence, Italy, and it was one of the highlights of our visit. She made us the best meal of our trip and shared her incredible wines with us. Dinner was white beans cooked with large garlic cloves, spinach sauteed with olive oil and more large garlic cloves, polpettine (fried Italian meatballs made with ground veal and pork, parmigiano, bread, and egg—which are even more delicious than they sound), and a Fiorentina steak from the Chianina cattle local to the area. Aly’s cooking tip for the beans and spinach is to keep the garlic cloves whole, as this allows the flavor to stay very subtle.
The wines we shared from Podere Capaccia were the fruity, fresh, and smooth Chianti Classico DOCG 2021 made with 100% Sangiovese that is aged in large oak casks; the rich, concentrated cherry and balsamic Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 2017 made with 100% Sangiovese from a very hot vintage that was aged in oak barrels and oak casks; and the Querciagrande IGT 2019 which is a vineyard designate 100% Sangiovese from 12 year old vines—smooth, elegant, and full of cherry, rhubarb, and wildberries that marry with soft oak tannins. The last wine, Capaccia IGT 2019, is a Bordeaux blend that has a powerful cassis nose with a clean and elegant palate. All the crisp, pleasantly acidic wines paired wonderfully with the rich flavors of the dinner.
Learn more about Podere Capaccia at www.poderecapaccia.com.
Landscape photo and Aly in barrel room courtesy of Podere Capaccia.
Anne Fashauer is a real estate broker working in Anderson Valley who loves mountain biking, travel, and amazing local wines.
The Dance of the Elements
Matt Drewno on How to Compost with the Carbon Cycle
by Torrey Douglass
If Matt Drewno could ask of you one thing, it would be to “Challenge yourself to grow your own soil as best as you can.” It’s easy to walk into a nursery, feed supply, or big box store’s garden center and walk out with a bag of high quality dirt, but Matt recommends against it. “People feel like they have to buy things to make it work, but that’s not necessary. You don’t need to spend $1,000 to grow a head of lettuce.”
Matt is the Vice President of Ecology Action, founder of Victory Gardens for Peace, and Director of Biointensive Community Garden Initiatives in Fort Bragg and The Stanford Inn Biointensive Research Garden in Mendocino—so he knows a thing or two about how to care for plants. Rather than buying soil, Matt encourages people to simply mimic how nature makes it. It’s arguably the best thing we can do for our food supply. As Matt puts it, we should “feed the soil, not the plant—a healthy soil will grow healthy plants.” To do so will deepen your relationship with nature as you connect with its cycles, harnessing the perpetual dance of our planet’s elements, a process both primordial and poetic.
The basis of all life on earth stems from the photosynthesis and respiration of plants—an ongoing reciprocation between a plant and the four elements. The sun (fire) provides warmth, air supplies CO2 and oxygen, earth offers its minerals, and water carries nourishment throughout the plant’s body, much like blood does within ours. The plant turns sunlight into sugar, and sugar into energy, then uses that energy to pull carbon (CO2) from the air and minerals from the soil to grow more of its plant body, while simultaneously breathing out the oxygen we humans are so fond of.
Matt describes topsoil as “where atmosphere meets earth,” continuing, “at that interface there’s a lot of transformation and dynamic processes that generate abundant, healthy soil that feeds the plants. [There are also] microbes and other organisms living in the soil, making paths and tunnels, and leaving their waste.” That waste adds nourishment while the tunnels allow air flow, an important benefit since the biological material can’t break down without it.
It takes 500 - 2,000 years to build an inch of topsoil naturally, and agriculture requires increased nutrient cycling, so it makes sense for humans to step in and help things along. Feeding the soil keeps land from becoming depleted, and when done correctly, that land can remain productive indefinitely. Matt points out that there are farms in Asia that have been producing food for over 4,000 years, yet in the United States, farmers often have to rely on inputs like chemical fertilizers to maintain productivity after just 40 years. And considering that we are headed toward a post-fossil fuel future where those toxic inputs may be less affordable and local food will be the default, maintaining rich, healthy soil to grow that food will be essential. Matt encourages, “You can grow your own soil—it’s cheap and easy and it’s one of the best things you can do now, and for the future.”
At the heart of growing soil is harnessing the carbon cycle— that dance between plants and the elements. Once moisture is removed, plants are roughly 50% carbon by dry weight, so the goal of composting is to create carbon-rich soil that can become future plant life. Carbon farming involves growing plants not just for the food they produce, but also for their biomass—the unused parts of the plants left over after harvest. Selecting crops that generate high volumes of biomass in addition to their edible output will increase the carbon removed from the atmosphere during their lifespan and give a gardener lots of raw material for soil building after it. Organic gardening pioneer Alan Chadwick was fond of saying “Life into death into life,” describing how plants grow, then die, then feed new life. This is the dance soil-building gardeners step into, learning the steps and feeling out the rhythms. And with an expert like Matt at the lead, you will be finding your groove in no time.
The key, according to Matt, is the balance between mature and immature plant material. In the past, composting advice has categorized the types of materials to add to your compost as brown/green, wet/dry, or carbon/nitrogen. A better approach is the mature/immature description. Immature materials come from plants before they’ve flowered, transitioning into mature materials once that process begins. Explains Matt, “once they begin flowering, their carbon structures transform, becoming more rigid to support the plant getting off the ground and into the air, resisting the wind and ultimately flowering and bearing the weight of seeds.” To find out if a part of a plant is mature or immature, test its rigidity—if it snaps when you break it, it is mature.
Matt continues, “Immature materials are soft and flimsy, and have simpler carbon structures which break down quickly. They help drive a more intense decomposition process with a greater degree of sugars and starches.” Examples can include garden cuttings, fresh cut grass, cut fresh flowers (provided they are organic and not treated with preservatives), cooked food waste, livestock manure, and pruned plants provided the stems and leaves are fresh green and pliable.
In contrast, “Mature materials break down slower, often require a diversity of microbes and host a small ecosystem to break down completely. This slows down the carbon cycle.” These materials can include dried leaves, sticks, and branches from cleared land, corn cobs, rigid vegetable cuttings like a broccoli stalk, and raw potatoes, celery, or carrots.If it takes some effort to chew, you can consider it a mature material.
The balance between the two types of materials is essential to quality compost. Says Matt, “Compost derived from immature materials tends to be rapidly utilized and doesn’t persist as long in the soil. Compost derived from mature materials tends to break down slower, cooler, and is less rapidly available and more persistent in the soil. Having a mix of both helps generate organic matter (compost) which is both available in the short and long term throughout the year.”
Matt continues, “The carbon cycle is CO2 from atmosphere absorbed into plants as carbon, then broken down by microbes and transformed into organic matter. Organic matter is largely carbon-based organic materials undergoing various stages of decomposition, dead microbial bodies, living microbes, carbon chains, and complexes—all of which have a spongy character that can hold moisture, nutrients, life, and fertility.”
A home compost pile should be a minimum of 36” high, wide, and long. If it’s in a container, creating a frame with walls of hardware cloth or old fencing is ideal since it will allow air in while keeping critters out. Start with a 3” bed of dry sticks. This will keep the rest of the pile off the ground and will also aid air flow. Follow that with 3” of mature material, 3” of immature material, and a sprinkling of soil followed by water. Continue to add alternate pairs of layers of the two materials along with the intervening soil sprinkling until the pile is 36” high.
It’s important to “build the pile with as many different materials as you can, and no more than one third of any one material,” according to Matt. “Keep the pile straight and vertical—not tapering, not leaning—build it as if you were building the foundation of a house, nice and sturdy.”
Turning the pile will speed decomposition but will also release carbon into the air, thus removing it from your future soil. For a more carbon-rich compost, resist the urge to turn over your pile and just let it be, occasionally adding water to keep conditions moist. Matt calls this “cold composting,” describing how the process “heats up at first, but has a slow cooling off period without the drastic booms and busts in microbial populations produced by turning. This slow cool off curve represents a dynamic and complex ecological succession, resulting in a richer and more complex end product. Think a good cave-aged wine or cheese that are set in the right direction and minimally interfered with, vs. pasteurized products which lack the complexity and character which defines quality in nature.” And if you build that pile on a vegetable bed, once the resulting compost has been removed to feed other areas, any fertility that has leached from the pile into the soil will benefit whatever you choose to plant there. Matt recommends potatoes or sunflowers as excellent options for a post-compost-pile garden bed.
Ultimately, Matt advises that you think of your compost pile as “an organ of digestion for microbes to transform once living organisms from death into the raw materials for life again. The more diversity of materials in the pile, the more diversity of life breaking down those things, the more diverse and complex the compost end-product.”
When your soil is rich with complex organic matter, it has a robustness and resilience it will transfer to the plants it feeds. Matt reflects, “Many important antibiotics and other medicines come from microbes which inhabit compost piles, like penicillin! Quality compost is like a “farmacy” for the soil and helps plants resist disease and pest outbreaks, while promoting good health and balanced nutrition.”
Adapting to whatever the future holds will require looking at things with a fresh perspective. The ingredients for a thriving compost pile are materials often seen as waste, yet with a revised outlook and a willingness to learn the rhythms of the carbon cycle, that waste can be transformed into biologically rich organic matter, pulling life from death and preserving the valuable topsoil that we rely on for our food.
Register for Matt’s fall Sustainable Agriculture Course at the Mendocino College Coast
Campus at www.mendocino.edu.
To find out more about composting, Matt recommends:
growbiointensive.org/PDF/FarmersHandbook.pdf (pgs. 3-6)
Victory Gardens for Peace is a project of Ecology Action. They offer a free seedbank with 1500+ varieties, affordable soil testing and analysis, free sustainable gardening resources and growing guides, internships, apprenticeships, and classes covering sustainable agriculture. www.victorygardensforpeace.com (Passcode for the seed bank: saveseeds!)
The Transgressive Joy of Tractors
by Gowan Batist
I have been farming for approaching 15 years, and before that work, I was a shop kid working in large industrial studios.
When I did metal fabrication for a living I wore ear protection, a particulate mask, a hair covering to keep it from burning or getting full of soot and particulate, or getting tangled in spinning hand pieces, eye protection with magnification lenses that could drop down over it, suction hoses at my hands, my elbows in support rests, and when working with valuable pieces, a lemel apron attached to the bench and clasped behind my back. It was like being in a space station.
I always wore earbud headphones under my bulky hearing protection.
At the time I was working in that intensely focused job, I was mourning the loss of my childhood best friend and first love, who had tragically died one early morning in the driving rain on Mendocino’s twisting roads. In order to do my job, I spent up to ten hours per day completely separated from other humans, unable to talk or hear, smothered in gear, with all our music and favorite audiobooks piped into my ears via headphones. Some days I cried literally all day while working, in the utter privacy of a loud and crowded shop. No one could see my face; I was unreachable.
Initially I found that work very freeing, but it went from cathartic to living burial very quickly. I became addicted to the weekends I spent volunteering on farms, with my hands in the dirt. The pure physicality and embodiment and ability to communicate was thrilling and grounding, and the immediate return between my actions and their obviously necessary result—food—cut through the existential floating and meaninglessness of grief. Is there any point to consciousness in a random and cruel world? I sure didn’t know, but I did know that the kids in the transitional housing program I gardened and cooked for would be hungry that day, the same as every day. The needs of the world of farming were understandable, immediate, and most importantly, able to be met. My own needs were none of those things.
Meeting a single practical need for another living being is a great antidote to the molecular drift of loss. On the farms I was increasingly involved in volunteering for, I could meet many dozens of them in a day, spreading water and compost for plants and food for humans behind me like the wake of a ship.
This is how my farming career started: a paradoxical crawling out of the grave into the dirt. It was also the mid ‘00s in Portland, Oregon, and farming was suddenly cool. The Omnivore’s Dilemma had been published, the French Laundry was popular, and it was suddenly fashionable to work in the fields, which shocked the hell out of me, having been decidedly uncool as a kid for doing all the same things. I realized a lot of the people working and volunteering had never done any of this before, and I had. I could save them hours of miserable effort with a small nudge, just by sharing a trick my grandpa had taught me as a small child. They appreciated this, and I soaked up feeling valuable in a new way.
Of course, because I was already a shop kid and had some experience with heavy equipment, when I stopped volunteering and actually made the jump to farm employee, I got put on tractors right away. There was a huge social, cultural, class, and usually racial difference between the long-time farm hands and the crews of idealistic volunteers on the farms I was on, and entering the heavy equipment world dropped me solidly into the farm hands’ camp.
My early teachers were maliciously disinterested in having a girl on their crew. For my first experience on one farm, I was put on a tractor so old all the symbols had long worn off the clutch. It was put in gear, and as the old farmhand stepped off it, he told me I had 500 row feet to learn to shift and turn. I learned fast out of spite and defiance and felt bitterly vindicated by their grudging respect.
Heavy equipment became another way that I was entombed in my work, with all vulnerable forms of information intake covered or filtered. I loved it. It felt good in the way that smashing bottles feels good. Like scratching a mosquito bite feels good. Like gossip. Toxic, powerful, transgressive, addictive—liberating as a fairly small person with hand injuries. On a tractor I weigh 7500 pounds of hydraulic powered metal. I can do anything. And no one can come near me.
Sure, I had male employees interact with the tractor shop for me because I was tired of being disrespected, condescended to, and ripped off, but when I was actually on the machine, it was a great equalizer.
I loved the roar, and I loved the feel of the work and its attendant smells and textures. Hydraulic oil and dust remind me of my grandpa. They feel safe and homey, even as I intellectually know they are dangerous. My Gramps loved me deeply and he taught me the things he thought would help me in life. He also collapsed every one of his vertebrae and had to support his chin in his hand, elbow propped on the dinner table, in order to sit up in his later years. He worked with dangerous tools and they hurt him, and he was in pain a lot as an old man.
The fact that I was using this tool to do what I consider to be objective good—clearing invasive brush, making compost, growing food—doesn’t mean that the tool itself is good. It’s powerful. It runs on the condensed blood of eons. Its skeleton is the same as the earth’s, torn loose and forged into a tool we can wear like a dress to dance in, but it’s not good. Purity, wholesome moral goodness, and fun don’t always go together.
In the last year, I spent much, much less time on the tractor. I was warned that being pregnant was not safe on the tractor. The one time I saddled up to move some wood chips, very slowly, across a flat field, my mom came running outside yelling at me. “You’re going to bounce that baby right out!” We hired an amazing operator who I’m very grateful for, but I have since had people assume that I never have been on a tractor myself.
I was reminded of Good Husbandry, Kristin Kimball’s book about her farming journey in which, after she was taken out of the field by having children, people assumed she’d never farmed at all. Interns even scoffed when it was mentioned. My face burned the entire way through those passages with a rage and grief that was finally being articulated in another woman’s words about farming.
As a butch woman, we have no cultural cache once we retire. Old men get to be oracular fonts of wisdom about farming long after their knees and eardrums have been consumed by their work. As a woman, the moment you are sidelined, aged out, injured, or caught in a growth area, your whole past competency is nullified. You have to carry the totality of your experience into every moment, and any weakness is holistically and immediately applied to the past, present, and future. I have even seen women do this to each other. A young intern spoke disdainfully about a woman who wrote a book about farming despite the fact that she “… only did the accounting and office work.” The author was elderly by the time she wrote her book, running the business after a long career in the field. She had made her bones by any stretch of the imagination in any field—if she had been a man. Because she was no longer in the field herself, her decades of experience were sneered at, presumed to be a fraud.
Today, my baby was entertained by our squad of farm grandmas while I covered for our tractor operator, who was out of town. Though I had done the specific job at hand for a decade, after a break filled with months of body-breaking and mind-altering child rearing, I was awkward and jerky when I first started the tractor. It felt uncomfortable, like shoes a size too big on rocky ground, slipping where I expected it to hold.
When I settled into the machine, started wearing it, everything changed. I felt the same thrum of power and connection and extension of will. The same smooth burn like a good whiskey. The same knowledge that this tool, while so powerful and so useful, is also a type of power that disconnects, that pollutes even with our fancy diesel particulate filter and efficient hydrostatic transmission, so different from the dinosaurs I was raised on. It’s still a tool that is the exact opposite of the tending tasks I spend my days doing now.
I can feel the sneer now, the disavowal of my competency, since my life isn’t on a tractor every day anymore. That’s okay. If the youngsters stick with it—which most don’t—they will understand someday.
Ultimately, I’m less and less interested in forcing patriarchy to respect me in the limited conditional ways it will as a woman in the trades. I’m less in love with the acetylene burn of heavy equipment and its paradoxically destructive creative potential. I recognize my attraction to it as part of my cultural indoctrination, and the way the tractor freed me from the limitations of my body as a diesel-soaked bandage on a wound I was avoiding—the work of healing.
I’m grateful for these skills and the work they can create. I don’t regret the time I spent on tractors, and I will use them in the future when appropriate. However, I’m no longer attached to being defined by them. I want to work, most of the time, with my mouth, ears, and eyes open and uncovered, my feet on the soil, and in the realm of human connection.
Gowan Batist of Fortunate Farm is a Post-Industrial Pastoralist following sheep around the skeleton of a boom town. She is seldom seen, but sometimes glimpsed with a baby on her back, propagating native plants, spinning wool, hand shearing sheep, or meal prepping baby food with local bulk food via the MendoLake Food Hub.
Embracing Sustainability
Sarah Wuethrich of Maggy Hawk Wines
by Emily Pickral
Sarah Wuethrich stands at the helm of Maggy Hawk Wines, yet she didn’t come from a wine-drinking background or have any prior experience in winemaking before attending U.C. Davis. Her unexpected journey into the world of wine began her freshman year, sparked by her father’s newfound hobby of crafting wines at home. Sarah enrolled in an introductory winemaking class on a whim, unaware that it was a decision that would ultimately shape the rest of her career.
Sarah graduated with a degree in Viticulture and Enology in 2001, then honed her technical winemaking knowledge in both large-scale production and boutique settings at Sonoma County wineries like St. Francis and Lambert Bridge. In 2010, Sarah’s journey led her to Copain Wines as Assistant Winemaker, where her passion for cool-climate wines and minimal-intervention winemaking flourished. Seven years later, she assumed the lead winemaker role at Maggy Hawk—a winery owned by Jackson Family Wines (JFW) and synonymous with exceptional cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as well as distinctive White Pinot Noir and Petite Naturelle wines.
Sarah believes that great wines begin with healthy vineyards. One of her most ambitious projects has been a collaboration with U.C. Davis, partially funded by JFW, to study the impact of regenerative farming practices on wine quality. Wine grapes are sensitive crops and susceptible to subtle changes in temperature and precipitation, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Regenerative agriculture, which uses holistic farming and grazing practices to strengthen soil health and crop productivity, may help grape vines become more resilient to changing climate conditions. This research might eventually increase the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in other vineyards. “We’ve already seen positive changes,” says Sarah. “Improved water holding capacity in the soils, healthier and more resilient vines, and the ability to produce wines with substance and character—wines that leave a lasting impression.”
Sarah has spearheaded the integration of regenerative farming techniques across many JFW properties, including Maggy Hawk’s vineyards, as part of their Rooted for Good initiative. “Regenerative farming isn’t just about improving soil health,” Sarah explains, “it’s about fostering a thriving ecosystem around our vines. By avoiding pesticides, we encourage greater biological diversity in the soil, maintain cleaner water, and support a variety of plants and wildlife. These elements contribute to natural fertility and pest control, ensuring the longevity of our land for future generations.”
Terroir refers to the unique soil and climate conditions present for each vineyard block, as well as the weather conditions during a particular growing season, and well-crafted wines allow the natural terroir that produced its fruit to shine. With this goal in mind, Sarah works closely with veteran vineyard manager Mario Espinoza, employing meticulous farming practices like caring for the vines by hand and on a case-by-case basis. Maggy Hawk has transitioned to full no-till farming, which was previously implemented only in blocks with steep slopes to prevent erosion. Sarah’s fine-tuning techniques throughout the growing season ensure that each vintage embodies the vineyard’s distinct narrative, aiming for a very light touch once the grapes reach the winery.
In the world of cool-climate Pinot Noir, Sarah Wuethrich is a name to watch. Her efforts have earned industry accolades, including the North Bay Business Journal’s Women in Wine Excellence in Winemaking and Sustainability Awards. Yet, reflecting on her career, Sarah remains humble. “I can’t say that I’ve mastered anything—and I never really want to. I consider myself a lifelong student of winemaking,” she says. Currently, she is focused on enhancing her skills in the vineyard and implementing regenerative farming practices across more of JFW’s properties. She is also expanding her business knowledge through the Sonoma State Global Executive Wine MBA program, from which she will graduate next spring. “I view winemaking as a lifelong learning process,” she says. “Each vintage presents new challenges and opportunities to refine my craft.”
Sarah’s work is not just her career—it’s a passion rooted in a commitment to quality, creativity, and environmental stewardship. This enthusiasm is evident in her Instagram video updates from the vineyard and the lab, where she shares what’s happening in the farming or winemaking process at the moment. Friendly, clear, and engaging, the videos can snag the attention of wine lovers at any level, providing interesting insights into Sarah’s work while also capturing her affection for the area.
“Maggy Hawk is my love letter to Anderson Valley,” shares Sarah. Whether you find her in the lab, the cellar, or the foggy vineyards of the Anderson Valley’s Deep End (the northwest portion that is closest to the coast), Sarah will continue to craft wines that narrate the land’s story, reflecting her deep-rooted passion and unwavering commitment to sustainability.
Maggy Hawk
9001 Highway 128, Philo
(707) 901-9040 | maggyhawk.com
Open Thurs - Mon 10:30am - 4:00pm
Photos courtesy of Maggy Hawk
Emily Pickral, a Master Sommelier since 2013 and the 19th woman in the world to earn the title, has over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing for importers, distributors, and California wineries. Emily now serves as the Priority Activation Director for Jackson Family Wines.
Paying It Forward
High School Internships at Anderson Valley Restaurants
by Eden Kellner
In the heart of downtown Boonville is the Boonville Hotel & Restaurant. In business for thirty-five years, it is the legacy of the late Don and Sally Schmitt, founders of the French Laundry. The Schmitt family also owns The Apple Farm in Philo and are involved with Paysanne, Offspring restaurant, and the Farmhouse Mercantile. They are long-time local employers who have had generations of families work in their establishments.
How do businesses last through generations? They are rooted in the community. One of the tendrils of community is mentorship. Chef Perry Hoffman is a third-generation chef who has fond memories of being mentored in the kitchen by his grandmother, Sally Schmitt, whose recipes he still looks to for inspiration. Perry carries forward the practice of mentorship for the students at Anderson Valley High School by participating in an internship program through the Anderson Valley Education Foundation. Other young people find jobs there through the vast network of people who have been part of the Hotel family of employees.
Social anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wegner, founders of the Social Learning Lab, see internships as “legitimate peripheral participation … [which] provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts and communities of knowledge and practice. It concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice.” They stress the importance of immersion into a community where they learn, emulate, and mature within and into that group. Here, the community is the kitchen and the greater community of Anderson Valley. Anyone who has ever worked in a professional kitchen knows that it has its own culture with norms and practices that guide the relationships and the creation of the food. The chefs at Offspring and The Boonville Hotel cultivate a culture of exquisite delights while preparing the next generation to carry on the culinary traditions. This and other internships allow high school students to gain foundational knowledge that can open doors for future career opportunities.
Sammy Guerrero and Mariana Flores Almanza are two examples of students who flourished into integral employees of the kitchen culture at the Boonville Hotel and Offspring. After years of mentorship through high school, they are now employed as saucier and garde-manger, respectively. This means that Sammy is responsible for preparing the delectable tomato butter on the Gnocchi Alla Romana and the basil crema in the Confit Chicken Cannelloni, while Mariana proudly adds “dramatic touches” to the beet and pluot salad currently served at Offspring. These two budding chefs based their senior final projects on the lessons in the culinary arts that they learned at the Boonville Hotel.
Both Sammy and Mariana cite their moms as the first inspiration for their love of culinary arts. But both recently graduated seniors credit their internships as instrumental in shaping their future, developing their self-confidence and expanding their ideas of what is possible to achieve. Mariana says, “I used to be too shy to call back [a term used to repeat orders during service] or say much in general, but now I am able to call back with a full chest.” Sammy “could go on forever about how grateful” he is for everyone who shared their expertise in the kitchens.
Like Perry, these kids are a testament to mentoring relationships and the power of “absorbing a community’s modes of action and meaning as a part of the process of becoming a community member.” Mariana and Sammy both advise others to pursue internships and, as Sammy says, “listen and work hard.” Boonville is a small town, but the people who live here make a big impact on future generations.
Find out about internships and other student opportunities at andersonvalleyeducation.org.
References:
Klantzis, M., & Cope, B. (n.d.). Lave and Wenger on Situated Learning. New Learning Online. https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/lave-and-wenger-on-situated-learning
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 33, 29, 40.
Photos by Eden Kellner
Eden Kellner has worked in restaurants since she was 13 years old. She has worked at the Boonville Hotel and is currently embarking in a career as a first grade teacher at AV Elementary.
Tall Guy Brewing
Fort Bragg’s De Facto Community Center
by Terry Ryder Sites
Meeting Patrick Broderick, the brewmaster and owner of Tall Guy Brewing, is a lot like meeting a gigantic sevenyear- old with tousled sandy hair and twinkling eyes. He ambles amiably through his taproom and, although well into his middle years, he still seems full of wonder, curiosity, and youthful energy. His first beer-flavored memories are the smells of homebrews his father cooked up in the family kitchen. “Brewing smells like nothing else,” Patrick reflects. Tall Guy isn’t just about beer. It has become a de facto community center for Fort Bragg. More like an English or Irish pub than a bar, kids are welcome. Looking around, families are playing board games while seated on small couches and comfy armchairs. Clumps of guys are shoulder to shoulder on long benches talking sports (or whatever it is that guys talk about), while kids explore the small carpeted area which includes a sign that reads, “Please keep dogs off the black turf.”
A visit to Tall Guy is a lot like watching Fort Bragg on parade, and what a fabulous little scrappy town it is. To keep the atmosphere lively, different days of the week are set aside for different entertainments, and the music always sounds great thanks to a first rate sound system. Every Monday, the Mendocino Coast Jazz Society meets and plays, Wednesdays are devoted to acoustic music, Aaron Ford hosts an open mic on Thursdays, and on Fridays, D.J. Wally’s Karaoke holds court. To round off the week, every Saturday features a different band. (For the full calendar, see “What’s Hoppenin’” on the website.)
D.J. Wally’s Karaoke deserves a special mention as it is a truly democratic operation. Kids are just as welcome as adults to belly up to the mike. On a recent Friday, a 10-year-old with long blonde hair, a baseball cap, and sports togs sang a very credible version of Billy Joel’s “Vienna Waits for You” to a wildly appreciative audience. Next up was a Goth girl in black fishnets with hot pants and eyelashes so thick and fluttery they looked like captive black butterflies. She belted out a seductive love song to the fan club she came in with—a bunch of giggling Goth girls. Apparently, Wally can find absolutely any song you care to select by scanning the internet. There are plans to add a trivia night to the line-up soon. Anything goes, and that’s how Patrick likes it. “I was surprised by how really important entertainment is,” he shares.
July marks Tall Guy’s first anniversary, though the business plan first came together in 2022. The original concept for the venture included a barn brewery concept with an out of town location, but that idea fell through. Patrick is very grateful that the downtown location materialized, as it has worked out pretty perfectly. Despite substantial renovation costs converting the old Sears store at the corner of Franklin and Laurel into a tap room, Tall Guy has made money since day one, thanks to the draft beer—a guaranteed moneymaker once it finds an audience. By offering minimal food (hot dogs and pretzels only), while encouraging people to bring their own food from home or to order take-out locally, the whole restaurant expense and administration package is sidestepped. This simplification keeps the focus on the beer, which is how Patrick likes it. Customers report that they think it is a wonderful spot, with really good beer and a great vibe.
Tall Guy beers are classic—you won’t find exotic brews on tap. Hazy Mama is his best seller, and there are no fanciful options made from local ingredients (seaweed beer? redwood bark beer?). They try to match their hops to the beer style, using German hops for German style beer, for example. Tall Guy differs from the competition and most other breweries by subculturing their own yeast and using different yeasts in different beers. With a degree in microbiology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a Master Brewer Certificate from U.C. Davis, the science side of things is well within Patrick’s reach. Add to that his 30 years of experience working at North Coast Brewing Company under brewmaster and owner, Mark Ruedrich, and it is clear that beer-making is the easy part of his business. Patrick shares that Mark has always been his mentor and that there is no awkwardness between them now that they are “competitors”—both feel there is plenty of room for three breweries in Fort Bragg (the third brewery is Overtime Brewing at the north end of town).
For those of us who have had big dreams but stayed on someone else’s payroll as the years went by, Patrick’s story is an inspiration. He’s lived in Fort Bragg since 1992, and he loves the ocean and the fog rolling in, adding, “It feels like home.” After 30 years, he finally brought his vision to life—it really never is too late. In the process, he has helped revitalize the economy of Fort Bragg by inserting a vibrant and successful new business right into the heart of downtown. It seems Fort Bragg is just the right size and mix to support this kind of undertaking. The locals love it and the visitors love it—what’s not to love? Sitting in an airy space with so much elbow room, friends can—and do!— use this as a home away from home. The huge windows bring the sidewalk action in so you can appreciate quirky Fort Bragg as it struts its stuff inches from your beer-drinking stool. Cheers!
Tall Guy Brewing
362 N Franklin St, Fort Bragg
707-964-9132 | tallguybrewing.beer
Open Sun - Fri 1pm - 10pm, Sat 12pm - 10pm
Terry Ryder Sites lives in Yorkville with 4 cats and 1 husband. A graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College, until recently she wrote a weekly column for the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
Photos courtesy of Tall Guy Brewing
Chico Rice
Family Farming a Staple Grain for Four Generations
by Holly Madrigal
One has to appreciate the age-old practice of the barter. I was recently more than happy to deliver a box of locally grown grains for Rachel Britton of the Mendocino Grain Project to Corners of the Mouth on the coast. She “compensated” me with a bag of Chico Rice, remarking that it is “the freshest rice you will ever taste.” Most store-bought rice has been sitting in silos and storage for more than a year. “These guys,” she explained, “a father and son team, get us this rice months after processing.”
Chico Rice, run by Tom Knowles and his son Carter, is a family business. Tom’s grandfather started the farm in the early 1950s. His primary job was as a banker, and he began a side project of buying up land. Much of what he could afford was considered lower quality land, meaning more clay soils. The farm he purchased and added outside of Willows had clay soils, which turned out to be perfect for growing rice. Tom’s dad was the youngest of five sons. He took on the farming of the rice and later passed it on to Tom.
A fresh-from-the-field ethos was part of how Chico Rice made their mark. For a time they would take some of their harvest, load a mill and a generator on a flatbed truck, and set up at the Chico farmers market, processing the rice right there at the booth for purchase. It was very cool to see the raw rice grains come out the other side as brown rice or more polished ‘blonde’ rice. “It drew a crowd, but our neighbors at the market could do without the machinery noise, so now we just sell the rice more quietly,” laughs Tom. Rice has quickly become one of the major exports of California agriculture. Eaten by most cultures around the world, rice can be largely divided into the tropically grown indica type, which produces basmati and jasmine varieties, and Japonica rice. In the U.S., much of the indica rice is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas where it is super-hot and humid. Chico Rice cultivates Japonica rice, originally from China, which thrives in the more temperate climate of Northern California. Its clay soils make the perfect base for growing it.
The ancestral plant of rice is a water grass. Rice seeds are spread via small airplane, and after sprouting, the fields are flooded with a few inches of water. The clay soils retain the pools of water, which also suppress the competitive weeds. The rice is harvested in September, and the hard grains are processed to remove the hulls, which are used for non-edible purposes like horse bedding and soil amendments.
Once the hull is removed, the rice begins to oxygenate and change flavor. Tom says, “When my friends tasted our rice, they were blown away. It has incredible flavors and nuance because the germ is still on there. For the first few months, the taste is completely different than the rice you would normally eat. It is filled with natural oils and is so nutritious.” The grains are then polished—this is what they tried at the farmers market. Minimal processing retains the germ, considered ‘brown rice,’ and it has a delicious flavor and toothsome texture.
The ’blonde’ rice—rice with the hull and germ removed, also known as Haiga-Mai rice (half-milled)—still has some color to it. It is closer to a white rice but with much more flavor. The bartered bag I received was this type. It did indeed taste fresh and so delicious with a delicate, slightly nutty flavor. I was surprised by how quickly it cooked. More germ makes it so the rice is slower to absorb water, so brown rice takes longer to cook than white. This blonde rice was tender and fluffy in thirty minutes. Tom recommends a rice cooker because you can set it and forget it. “I usually set up my rice before I go to work,” he says. “It is perfectly cooked when I get home. The kids are always sneaking bites of the finished rice, so I need to make a lot.”
Chico Rice is now largely run by Tom’s son, Carter, the eldest of four siblings who has now begun a family of his own. “I was careful not to pressure him,” says Tom. “I felt like I had some family responsibility to take over, and of course I love it, but I was pleasantly surprised when—after graduating from San Diego State and some other jobs—Carter decided to move home and take on the business. Now that I know the legacy is covered, it gives me peace of mind. Now Carter has two young boys of his own.”
Of course, farming in the modern age has its challenges. California has many regulations, but they have led to a global reputation for “clean rice” grown with sustainable practices. Drought can be tough for rice production, and in 2022, the farm had to curtail their planting for the first time as an especially arid year reduced their water rights. But the rain came the following year, and Chico Rice has adapted. The water used by rice cultivation has many benefits for wildlife. As a wetland crop, rice fields make up critical habitat in the central valley bird migration corridor. “We have lots of birds in the rice fields all year round,” adds Tom. “In the winter, rains help fill the ponds and huge flocks come to rest. They help decompose leftover straw residue, and put some fertilizer on the fields.”
If you want to get your hands on this delicious rice, purchasing bulk through the website is easiest. “We had a beautiful new package designed by an artist friend of ours,“ says Tom. “Most of the rice sells direct to wholesale through a large rice processor. We hold back two truckloads, or about two percent, of the best quality rice to mill and package for our sales.” You can buy it through the Mendocino Grain Project and smaller retailers like Corners of the Mouth in Mendocino. “I love farming but I also love being a farmer,” Tom adds. “Well, I’m not doing it as a favor. It is our family livelihood, but we’re feeding people. It’s important. People need to eat and be nourished. We are part of that.” Small family farms like the Knowles’ can, despite their size, have a significant impact on a local food system, adding resilience and diversifying options while providing exceptionally fresh and nutritious food. And when their crop is grown with the skill and attention Carter provides, informed by the generations before him, it’s reflected in outstanding quality and flavor. Though be warned: once you try it, there is the risk you’ll settle for nothing but super-fresh, locally grown rice ever again.
Order rice online at chicorice.com.
Photos courtesy of Chico Rice