Publisher’s Note
I consider Willits to be my hometown. It is known for hosting the longest-running rodeo in California, the Skunk Train’s inland station, and the final resting place of the legendary racehorse, Seabiscuit. It was a great place to grow up—the wilderness was never farther than a short walk from my back door, people were warm and welcoming, and I made friendships that continue to nourish me to this day. Willits is also home to local celebrity Edie Ceccarelli (née Recagno), who recently turned 116 years old.
Edie’s notoriety has come from her ascension to the status of oldest living person in the United States (second oldest on Earth), but in Willits she is also known for being the sharpest dressed lady in town. She shared with me once that what kept her young were her love of dancing (which she did well into her nineties) and a small glass of wine at dinner. While she has a quieter life nowadays in a care home, I can’t help but imagine all she has experienced in her lifetime: the invention of flight, the widespread use of cars, the creation of the internet, and revolutions in person-to-person communication as we know it. Right here in our community, we have this remarkable woman living quietly and somewhat under the radar.
Years ago, food organizer and current director of Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, Scott Cratty, made an observation that perfectly captures our magazine’s purpose: “Mendocino County is where your neighbor is doing the most amazing things that no one has ever heard of.” Our contributors love to bring attention to the incredible projects your neighbors are involved in. For example, this season we tell you about a collaboration of folks spearheading a seed-growing and -sharing initiative that will improve food security by developing seeds that thrive under existing conditions without excessive inputs of water and nutrients (p39). Another piece describes one gardener’s quest to populate her flower bed with poppies from all over the world to keep company with those orange gems—California poppies—that originally inhabited the zone (p15). Her explorations into the vast world of poppies brought a whole new mix of color and texture to her property.
This issue also shares the story of Noyo Harbor Inn’s Harbor View Bistro, whose mixologist has crafted a unique selection of bitters using local ingredients like lilac blossoms and black currant charred cedar (p37). What fun to learn how to enhance any beverage with components sourced from our surroundings! The Candy Cap mushroom bitters, in particular, are unique to our area. As the season brings more sun and warmth, gatherings can move outside again. Our center spread features some of our favorite caterers to help your event shine (p22). Celebrating outdoors is one of the ultimate pleasures of living here, and you can be truly present at your own event if you leave the cooking to the professionals.
It is such a joy to share insights into the fascinating pursuits of Mendocino County’s inspired and (at times) charmingly eccentric individuals. By sharing their stories we can support those that make this area such a wonderful place. Happy Birthday Edie, and may we all enjoy such rewarding longevity.
Holly Madrigal
Co-Publisher & Managing Editor
Radishes
Color, Crunch, and that Quintessential Spring Flavor
by Lisa Ludwigsen
The first time I dined at the venerable Chez Panisse in Berkeley, way back in the early 2000s, the bite-sized amuse-bouche set on our table was a simple plate of oblong, pinkish, whole French style radishes arranged around a small plop of good butter and a sprinkling of some sort of flakey salt. The leafy green tops complemented the bright pink and white flesh on the plate. It was a memorable and appropriate beginning to an unadorned yet elegant meal.
On the other end of the culinary spectrum, my 85-year-old midwestern dad, who usually had no interest in being in the kitchen, would happily slather mushy white bread with Best Foods mayonnaise, cover it with a single layer of thickly sliced, deep red, early summer radishes, and gobble it down with glee. It was his favorite lunch. (He also enjoyed a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich, but that’s another story.)
Radishes come in an array of colors, shapes, and sizes. They’re featured in cuisines across a wide swath of the world, and with good reason—radishes are easy to grow and can be eaten raw, pickled, or cooked. They add sweetness, spice, and/or crunch like no other vegetable. Radish greens are edible, too!
Radishes are traditionally a spring or early summer vegetable, though those ubiquitous red globe radishes are widespread in grocery stores year-round, imported from warmer climates. Some local farmers grow radishes in hoop houses during the winter, so grab them if you see them at the farmers market or local grocer. Beyond their bright crunchy and fresh flavor, radishes hold nutritional value as well. One half-cup provides 15% of the daily recommendation for Vitamin C, and they also contain potassium and magnesium.
Keep your eyes peeled for varieties beyond the standard red spheres. Watermelon radishes are especially enchanting given their considerable size, bright pink flesh, and green exterior. These are big radishes with a slightly rough outer skin and a vibrant interior. Though they resemble their namesake, they don’t taste at all like a watermelon. A Guatemalan produce manager I worked with would make a simple guacamole with avocados, lime, cilantro, and salt, which he mounded onto a plate before covering with a uniform layer of sliced watermelon radishes. They added bright circles of pink and green, and a delightful crunch and pop of color to that bowl of green guac.
A cousin of the watermelon radish is the large tubular white daikon radish, a staple of Asian cuisine native to China and Japan. These radishes are the size of a large carrot and, like watermelon radishes, are non-starchy vegetables high in fiber and low in calories and carbs. Their long shelf life and versatility ensures that cooks almost always have a daikon in the fridge to provide crunch and flavor to salads, stir fries, or fermented dishes like kimchi.
I am partial to Easter Egg radishes, named for their pretty pastel hues and oval shape. Those colors scream “Eat me, now!” every time I run across them. They make me happy.
But radishes aren’t just for eating. The unassuming radish has a higher purpose! Caymin Ackerman, owner of Big Mesa Farm in Comptche, uses radishes to improve the soil quality on her organic farm. “When used as a cover crop, radishes can absorb excess nitrogen in the soil, keeping it from being leached into runoff,” she offered. “This helps watersheds, especially in heavy agricultural areas.”
Spring can be a rough time for local veggies as farmers wait for soils to dry out so they can get going with their planting. This year, shine a little light on the multifaceted radish. Their various colors and textures are sure to brighten any meal or palette, such as the versatile recipe that follows, which a friend whips up using any type of radish. It also works well with cucumbers or red onions.
Quick Pickled Radishes
INGREDIENTS
2 bunches radishes, or the equivalent of daikon or watermelon radishes
½ cup rice or white vinegar
½ cup water
1 T sugar
2 tsp salt
Approx ½ tsp peppercorns
½ tsp mustard seeds (optional)
PREPARATION
Thinly slice the radishes and place into as many jars as necessary. Don’t over pack. Heat the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt over medium heat, stirring until the sugar and salt dissolve. Pour over the radishes, stir in peppercorns and mustard seed. Let cool, then chill until ready to use.
The pickled radishes will last approximately two weeks in the refrigerator.
Photo by Jo Lanta courtesy of Unsplash.com
Lisa Ludwigsen is a writer and marketer working with food, farms, and family small businesses. She has worked in organic agriculture, natural foods, and environmental education for over 20 years.
Chantelle Sookram
Trinidadian Roots, French Training, and a Deep Devotion to Local Food
by Torrey Douglass
Chef Chantelle Sookram was born in tropical Trinidad, where she lived with her family before moving to New Jersey at the age of 16. She attended high school there, and by the time she graduated, she was ready to leave behind both the winters of the Northeast and traditional academic learning. So the following fall, she took her cue from the birds and migrated south to attend the Johnson and Wales culinary school in the decidedly warmer climes of Miami, Florida.
The choice to pursue a culinary career stemmed from Chantelle’s experience working at Verjus, a restaurant in Maplewood, New Jersey, while she was in high school. “I learned so much working there,” remembers Chantelle. “When it came time to graduate, there was nothing that I was really passionate about besides food.”
Chantelle’s family background also contributed to her love of food. Trinidad has a significant population of both East Indian and Afro-Carribean people, and Chantelle’s family included both, a combination that was especially evident in the kitchen. Her dad’s East Indian roots were reflected in spiced curries and roti (Indian flatbread), while her mom’s Afro-Caribbean heritage brought dark stew meats, ground provisions like yams and cassava, and plenty of fresh fish to the table. Both of her grandmothers were part of her childhood, and little Chantelle watched the two of them cook everything from scratch with precision and patience.
Chantelle’s training at culinary school added to her skillset the French techniques that are typical in fine dining. In total, she spent ten years in Florida before relocating to San Francisco to work at Nopa, an exceptionally popular Divisadero neighborhood restaurant that specializes in organic, seasonal, wood-fired cuisine. Owner Lawrence Jossel would visit farmers markets four days a week to get the best ingredients of the moment, a devotion to local food that resulted in outstanding flavors and made an impact on Chantelle’s evolving culinary ethos. As a result, she started considering the farmers behind the food and all the resources and toil that are required before ingredients arrive in her kitchen. When she returned to Florida, she delved deep into the local food movement there, taking a position with Urban Oasis Project, a Miami nonprofit created to address social justice issues within the existing food systems.
Her work with Urban Oasis Project gave Chantelle lots of opportunities to engage with local food issues. Some of her roles focused on community empowerment, like helping farmers sell their crops at farmers markets and organizing farmer dinners to showcase a local food producer by creating a beautiful meal with their harvest.
Other aspects of the job took food sovereignty to a personal level, like the GIVE Gardens program, where she built gardens at people’s homes, usually in low-income neighborhoods that lacked access to fresh fruit and vegetables.
After five years working on the front lines of Miami’s local food movement, Chantelle was ready to get back in the kitchen. Seasonal work seemed like the way to go, as it would allow her to explore different parts of the country and cook in different settings. Following a season at a family owned steakhouse in Hatch, Utah, an ad for a seasonal chef at Mendocino Grove caught her eye. After a few Zoom interviews and some online research about the area, she took off for the Northern California coast.
Mendocino Grove sits on 37 acres above the Pacific Ocean just south of the village of Mendocino. Glamping tents are grouped into neighborhoods and consist of weatherproof material stretched over raised platforms. Each contains a bed with heated sheets, and outside, guests have their own fire ring, picnic table, and deck with a chair or two. A pair of bathhouses offer clean bathrooms and hot showers, and little details—like a dog washing station, 24-hour hot beverage bar, and vases of fresh local flowers—add convenience and comfort. Campers who want to “rough it” will need to look elsewhere.
Attentive and friendly staff keep the campground operating while it is open for guests from May through Thanksgiving. One of the first things that struck Chantelle when she arrived to work there was the team’s strong work ethic and cohesion. “I was pleasantly surprised by how all members of staff are committed to providing an amazing experience for the guests,” she shares. “Even when there are disagreements, they get worked out without drama, because everyone has the same goal.”
During the summer, and especially in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, mornings can be quite chilly on the coast. That’s where the heated blankets, hot showers, and hot beverage bar come in. Chantelle’s new position included serving a hot breakfast seven days a week—oatmeal with lots of toppings, as well as coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fruit, and hard boiled eggs. “I want to make sure folks are warm and comforted since it can be foggy and chilly on the coast,” she explains.
Chantelle also oversees dinner at the grove, which is typically served Friday nights, as well as some Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The Campfire Series brings local musicians to the grove to entertain guests by the campfire, usually on Thursday and Sunday evenings, and dinner is always served on those nights. Soups and stews are typical, like chili, curry, or ramen, as well as side dishes inspired by visits to local farmers on the coast. Meat and seafood are typically sourced from Roundman’s Smokehouse or Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg.
The 2024 season will bring back the popular Farmer Dinner Series, a monthly event highlighting three farmers who provide the meat, produce, and flowers for an outstanding meal and social occasion. The dinners benefit the Good Farm Fund, which provides small grants to local farmers, and include live music and discounted tents for those who want to stay the night. These dinners are an excellent reflection of Chantelle’s culinary passion. She observes, “There’s lots of fresh food accessible on the coast—there are amazing local farms here. It sparks joy for me. I like my food to reflect where I am and what’s available.”
This season, Chantelle wants to lean a little more into her Trinidadian roots when cooking for the campers, incorporating Caribbean influences and using lots of fresh fish and produce, which are common in her native cuisine. When combined with the French flair of her training and her devotion to sourcing local food, guests can expect dishes to be balanced, nourishing, and full of flavor.
Before the season starts in May, Chantelle spends time in Trinidad with her family. She enjoys the slower pace, which allows for long conversations with neighbors over tea, as well as plenty of outside time to enjoy the beaches and rainforest. It’s a time to relax and reflect, to gather inspiration, and prepare for another season of cooking. “I want to return with fresh eyes,” she shares, “so I can increase joy and happiness for everyone in the situation.”
Joy and happiness are certainly what Mendocino Grove aims to deliver. For years, guests have traveled there to savor the fresh ocean air and peaceful forest paths, the gorgeous views, cozy beds, and toasty seats by the fire. Now they can enjoy Chantelle’s enticing food as well, adding another dimension of delight to their stay.
As a relatively young chef, Chantelle will continue to evolve as she hones her craft in the kitchen, building on her Trinidadian roots, French culinary training, and commitment to Mendocino-grown ingredients. With such distinctive and complementary influences informing her dishes, campers visiting during the 2024 season, as well as locals who come by for some music or special event, will enjoy truly unique cooking from this gifted and committed culinary talent.
Mendocino Grove
9601 California 1, Mendocino
(707) 880-7710 | MendocinoGrove.com
Locals are welcome at the Campfire Series, Farmer Dinners, and the annual live music event the first weekend of November, Mendocino Fall Fest. Keep an eye on Mendocino Grove on instagram for details @MendocinoGrove.
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.
Images by Carla Danieli courtesy of Mendocino Grove.
Haerah Baird
Tackling Food System Reform from the Ground Up
by Holly Madrigal
If you are interested in local food in Mendocino County, you have likely heard of the MendoLake Food Hub. A program of North Coast Opportunities (NCO), the Food Hub was originally created to connect farmers and producers in the area with local buyers like restaurants, schools, and hospitals. During the pandemic, the program received additional COVID funding and expanded access to individuals for home delivery. Now you, too, can purchase high quality, exceptionally fresh food grown and produced in this county.
The program provides an online marketplace that is open for orders twice a week, allowing the farmers and producers to post what is available. In addition to fruits and vegetables from local farmers, the store offers a myriad of local goods, like bread, flour and other grains, honey and bee products, eggs, mushrooms, cheese, ferments, and so much more. After the ordering period closes, farmers and producers deliver their goods to the closest climate-controlled “nodes” located strategically around the county and managed by the Food Hub. A Food Hub truck makes the rounds a couple hours later, picking up the boxed bounty from the nodes and delivering to their warehouse, where it is assembled into customer orders and delivered the next day.
At the helm of the operation is Program Manager Haerah Baird, whose diverse professional experiences provided excellent preparation for her current role. In her early career, Haerah worked for the federal government—not surprising considering she grew up in the suburbs outside of Washington, D.C. One of her many jobs included reviewing applications for emergency visas to the United States. Applicants might need a life-saving surgery, or be a recently orphaned child whose only living relatives are in the States. “That was one of my favorite jobs, but it was hard, too. It showed me at a pretty young age the extreme difficulties some people face, and how much help they need,” shares Haerah. “It also taught me the power of individual work as part of a bigger mission. I didn’t process applications, but I received and triaged all the cases, which was maybe one of the most critical parts of the entire program—to make sure the most urgent cases were reviewed first.”
Haerah had another realization during her 20s that influenced both her life and professional choices—namely, the abundance of toxins present in day-to-day life in America. Preservatives and other chemicals in our food, toxic ingredients in household products, an overreliance on pharmaceuticals, and exposure to and ingestion of synthetic components that might be detrimental to health seemed to be ubiquitous. Haerah began to look at food as medicine, and to seek out natural solutions to support her health as well as reduce negative impacts on the environment.
Yet it was Haerah’s experience in the cannabis industry that best prepared her to take the helm of the MendoLake Food Hub. This included working for a collective of small production farmers, overseeing compliance measures, developing white label products for the retail market, and managing a $1M supply chain for a large cannabis company in Los Angeles. As a result, Haerah has seen first-hand the pressures on farmers both from the marketplace and the regulatory requirements, all designed to favor Big Ag. She has a sensitivity to the economics of our regional food system, direct experience with how product travels from its source to the consumer, an understanding of how to transform goods into value-added products, and a deep desire to reform the flawed and fragile system we have now into something better.
“People already don’t remember the pandemic. The food shelves were empty,” Haerah remarks. “The food supply broke, and we still haven’t addressed it. More disasters are in our future. We need a more robust and localized system. It’s so important to build now for a sustainable future.” Fortunately, Haerah’s new position includes working on a strategic level with farmers and buyers, county food policy councils, and other food organizations, allowing her to advocate for that future on many levels.
Haerah began managing the MendoLake Food Hub in the fall of 2023. “I was happy to move back into the nonprofit world where I feel like my work is really helping people,” she shares. Working with a small but mighty staff, the Food Hub promotes and manages the website, builds relationships and contracts with farmers, and travels all over Mendocino and Lake Counties picking up and dropping off orders.
But Haerah and the team at NCO balance the big picture as well, seeking additional funding sources or collaborations to further the work of supporting local agriculture and providing community nutrition. One grant allows The Food Hub to provide group and one-to-one farmer technical training, education, and services. Another, received last year, is called the Edible Food Recovery Grant. “Many people do not know that the green ‘waste’ that enters our landfills rots and contributes significantly to methane gas released into the atmosphere. Much of what grocery stores have to remove from the produce shelves is still very usable—for example, in a bag of clementines, if one begins to mold, the whole bag is pulled from the shelf, “ Haerah shares. “We can open that bag, pull out the moldy one, wash the rest, and give them to people who have challenges accessing fresh fruit. We just delivered about 600 pounds of food to one of our local food banks that would have gone in the trash if we didn’t have the grant to fund this work.”
This program is just one of the many that the Food Hub administers to help our community in need. “Mendocino County has a number of nonprofits that help underserved individuals with specific nutrition needs,” explains Haerah. “Food pantries can often supply shelf-stable goods, but fresh produce and nutrient-dense or dietary-specific offerings can be a challenge. By helping redirect some of these perfectly good leftovers, we are both helping address climate change and giving people who need food the food they really need.”
Haerah elaborates, “Modern supply chain involves understanding of a myriad of technology, systems, scale, business operations and administration, and so much more to be competitive and provide sustainability for this version of farming, and those are the things I can contribute. The cracks are beginning to show in our existing food systems, and we need to be ready to feed our community through times of disaster and change. It’s embarrassing that we have so much food waste and so many hungry people coexisting in America.”
Growing and stabilizing our local food systems is an uphill climb since mass market produce is so heavily subsidized, and the average person does not typically think about where their food comes from and how it gets to them. “In the subsidized food industry, from field to table, farmers are not paid living wages, food travels hundreds of miles, and corporate businesses look for cheaper prices rather than promoting nutrition, food security, healthy economics, or anything else we need to survive,” says Haerah. “To me it’s a no-brainer to want to buy produce from your local farmer, to know that your money is going to the farmer or producer, and to further develop the Food Hub. Our challenge is figuring out how to make what we sell affordable for everyone, because everyone is used to the subsidized prices.”
Through these challenges, programs like the MendoLake Food Hub play a proactive role in ensuring our local farmers and producers have an ongoing and stable market outlet for their goods, and our community has access to those high quality foods, picked the day after you order and delivered right to you the day after that. It doesn’t get any fresher than that!
Order farm direct at mendolake.localfoodmarketplace.com. See The Food Hub at the Farm Convergence March 19th at Ridgewood Ranch. This annual gathering brings many new and existing farmers, buyers, and supporters together to learn from each other and connect. To learn more about Farmers Convergence or how to join the food hub please email mendolakefoodhub@ncoinc.org. To learn more about the Edible Food Recovery Program please email sseidensticker@ncoinc.org.
The Great Poppy Experiment
Exploring the Bountiful and Beautiful World of Poppies
by Brence Culp
Near my home in the Anderson Valley, there are some old raised beds from a time when someone actively cared for the property. Now the garden beds are a sanctuary for thistles the height of my waist. Every spring when the thistles rise and dominate, I’m determined to kill them, but I get distracted, then give up when the tarweed comes in.
One spring, I bought coveralls and a weed whacker to clear a path to the beds. It was strangely satisfying to level the towering giants, which I did for hours until my coil of orange cutting string ran out. I then switched to hand-to-hand combat inside the bed, shoveling thistles out by their roots, kneeling to excavate lesser weeds by hand, cursing as they stung me through my gloves. While indiscriminately yanking everything I saw, I caught sight of a short clump of greyish-green leaves showing themselves, all lacy and light. A poppy? With an orange bloom, most definitely a California poppy.
Is it possible a person once planted poppies in the vegetable garden for the pure beauty, comfort, and pleasure of a flower? Thirty years ago, a husband and son built this house to create a gardening sanctuary for their wife and mother. Had she introduced them here? I got onto my knees and into the weeds to pull each weed by hand, carefully avoiding the delicate poppies. By the end of the day, a scattered bed of lacy leaves and small blooms were free to the sun and the air: the beginnings of my first recovered garden bed.
Later that night, thistle remnants still behind my ear—but at least now with a cocktail in hand—I searched online for poppies. Having raised our children in Southern California, I had seen California poppies a million times. My mother-in-law had a yard full of them in Pasadena. But what about other varieties? Was there a New York poppy? An Illinois poppy? My mother-in-law once told me her scientist colleague from Greece snuck a pocket of poppy seeds back to the States for her. Were there also poppies from Kazakhstan? The Andes? Were they different? The same? Most importantly—could I grow them here?
What I discovered online was, literally, a world of poppies. In addition to my mother-in-law’s Greek poppies, there are Spanish (Papaver rupifragum, actually from Morocco), Icelandic (Papaver nudicaule, growing in places far beyond Iceland), Mongolian (a type of Icelandic poppy), Japanese (Glaucidium palmatum, not to be confused with Oriental poppies, Papaver orientale), as well as others hailing from the wilds of the Caucuses (Papaver commutatum and its Iranian and Turkish domesticated cultivar Lady Bird, along with Turkish tulip, Papaver glaucum). There are poppies that showcase the imperial reach and refinement of Europe’s formal gardens (including Sissinghurst White, one of many gorgeous cultivars of Papaver somniferum, Flemish Antique, featured widely in 17th century Dutch paintings, and Danish Flag), and poppies that imitate other fabulous flowers on tall stems such as large, showy Peony poppies (Papaver paeoniflorum).
Lucky for me (as I now know they grow well here), there are about 100 cultivars of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica), with colors ranging from buttercream to flaming red, including my favorite, the dazzling vermillion Mikado. Equally beautiful and drought-friendly are the Mojave (Eschscholzia glyptosperma), Matilija (Romneya coulteri), and Prickly poppies (Argemone munita, also known as Chicalote, with a fascinating medicinal history dating at least back to the Aztecs), to name a few.
My explorations through the world of poppies online revealed an abundance of varieties. Both wild and cultivated poppies are beautifully displayed across websites and seed catalogs, with seeds for sale in little paper packets with seductive photos and long explanations of their cultural and historical significance. For example, the American Legion poppy is a cultivar of Papaver rhoeas which is known, among other names, as Corn poppy and Field poppy, since surviving relics depict it as emerging in fields after corn was planted by the ancient Egyptians (who revered the poppy). Papaver rhoeas is also known as Flanders poppy and Remembrance poppy, because it bloomed on a field where more than 50,000 soldiers died in WWI, a moment that was captured in a famous poem. Flanders poppies still signify commemoration of lost soldiers in many English-speaking countries.
In the middle of all this online digging, a search prompt popped up: “Is Growing Poppies Illegal?” I am not a practicing lawyer, and I am not giving legal advice. However, in response to this particular question, the collective wisdom of the interwebs seems to be that: 1) there are two main types of poppy—one from which heroin is made and the other from which it is not; and, 2) if you grow the one from which heroin is made, you are not breaking the law unless you intend to and are, in fact, using it to make heroin. The seed companies advise you to independently confirm that it is not illegal to grow poppies in your country. Yet they also say, “If we’re selling this to you, then obviously it’s not illegal.”
From that perspective, I figured a few packets of so-called Breadseed poppies would be okay. I justified their addition to my garden since I used their beautiful deep-blue poppy seeds to make my grandmother’s beloved German poppyseed cake for New Year’s, a treat both my dad and his brother particularly enjoy. I like the grow-your-own culture of Mendocino and, while I don’t grow-my-own you-know-what, I really enjoy great dinners from my own backyard, and growing poppies for poppy seed would be a special addition to that. As far as I can tell, the best poppies to grow for poppy seed are the Pepperbox or Florist Pepperbox (apparently also great as a cut flower), Hungarian Blue or Hungarian Breadseed, and Giant cultivars of Papaver somniferum (the Latin name referring to sleep, as depicted by the sleep-inducing poppy fields in the Wizard of Oz). Papaver somniferum is alternately known as Breadseed poppy (apparently boasting dramatic California history episodes including the Poppy Rebellion of the 1940s) and Opium poppy, again, depending on the intention and the use.
For my part, I watched the California poppies in my reclaimed garden bed bloom and form seed pods that look like little wizards’ hats. By mid-summer, the poppy leaves had mainly died back. By late-summer, the dried seed pods burst, scattering millions of tiny black seeds everywhere. I had purchased 20 different varieties, mostly from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, prioritizing beauty first, then diversity, and finally those that would likely thrive in the microclimate of my garden. In November, a friend helped me sprinkle the seeds in open areas of the poppy bed, each marked with a Sharpie-inscribed wooden shim. Three weeks later, most had sprouted.
After leaving them alone all winter, the following spring, we had poppies galore. The specimens that were most successful included Lady Bird, Sissinghurst White, American Legion, Flemish Antique, and Mikado. They are all reseeding themselves, and I hope to see them ultimately take over the poppy bed where thistles once dominated, with little to no intervention from me.
My dream is that someday in the future, the garden beds will be teeming with towering poppies boasting massive, feathery blooms the size of your hand. I hope that, long after I’m gone, the next person to approach the long-overgrown beds may see, instead of the reign of thistles, an empire of poppies from around the world.
Brence Culp lives with her family in Anderson Valley, where she’s learning to become a gardener.
Photos by Brence Culp
Eastside Ranch
Raising Happy, Healthy Animals for Local Meat
by Melissa Arana
Every morning I wake up in the most beautiful place on earth. The sun-kissed mountains peer through the wispy fog in the quiet Willits valley. This idyllic haven is where my partner, Paul, and I rise each day and look out over our beautiful ranch that we, along with upwards of three hundred animals, call home.
I was born and raised in the heart of Mendocino County, in the quaint town of Willits. Home-birthed, I was a feral “hill kid” with acres to roam and a beautiful garden that was my mother’s labor of love. Though we only had chickens and dogs, I always had a love for pigs and dreamed of having some one day. Paul grew up in the city of San Jose. Always a lover of animals, he was ecstatic when his mom would take him to fairs where he could see the livestock. He would beg his mom to let him buy a cow or a horse to take home, but that wouldn’t have been suitable in their suburban neighborhood. One of his favorite parts about his childhood was a trip to Portugal, when he would wake up with the sunrise to go milk the cows with his uncle. He was always a big dreamer with ambition, and when work brought him to the Willits area, he fell in love with the landscape and people. After months in a hotel, he put down some roots and purchased agricultural land.
When we started dating, Paul and I talked about all of our dreams, including having the opportunity to grow our own food and live off the land. We decided to start with a few pigs to see how that would go. After hog paneling the existing fence and installing water lines, Paul set off to find some piglets for sale. I can’t say I was surprised, as nothing Paul does is in small gesture, but more than a few pigs came home to the ranch that day—18 to be exact, running around in their large open pasture, squealing and rooting away. We were in hog heaven.
Shortly after the pigs came the goats, followed by sheep, cows, and chickens. Several litters of piglets and many lambs have been born and nursed in our pastures as Eastside Ranch has blossomed. The spacious, inclined landscape provides the perfect drainage as well as room to roam, resulting in not just healthy animals, but happy ones.
Our evenings turned into self-taught classes as we read up on what each animal requires and the different approaches to raising them. Friends were the best of teachers, giving insight and advice to our newfound farm life. From castrating to roping cattle, we learn something new every day.
Paul has taught himself the art of cutting and harvesting the hay from our field—an energy- and time-consuming process that few farmers still do. We find the effort worthwhile, though, because preserving grass feed has allowed us to nourish our animals from the land all year round, especially in the winter months when the fields are dormant. Our friends at Kemmy’s Pies have been giving us their fruit and vegetable scraps, which the pigs gobble up with joy. All other GMO-free feed and supplements we purchase locally in Willits, Laytonville, or Ukiah to support the community as they support us. Our goal is to utilize the land we have and all the by-products from it, from making our own lard and tallow, to using the organ tissue from every animal to make nutrient rich capsules.
Paul has taught himself the art of cutting and harvesting the hay from our field—an energy- and time-consuming process that few farmers still do. We find the effort worthwhile, though, because preserving grass feed has allowed us to nourish our animals from the land all year round, especially in the winter months when the fields are dormant. Our friends at Kemmy’s Pies have been giving us their fruit and vegetable scraps, which the pigs gobble up with joy. All other GMO-free feed and supplements we purchase locally in Willits, Laytonville, or Ukiah to support the community as they support us. Our goal is to utilize the land we have and all the by-products from it, from making our own lard and tallow, to using the organ tissue from every animal to make nutrient rich capsules.
As the Ranch grew, so did the aspiration to share what we were raising with the community. We started by looking into the regulations to sell at the farmers market, at which point we discovered the lack of local USDA-certified slaughterhouses in close proximity. To minimize trips on the road, we settled with a certified slaughter and butcher in Sonoma County. We started selling pork, lamb, and eggs at the Fort Bragg, Willits, and Ukiah markets, and then to a few local restaurants. We currently sell meat to the Willits TNT Indian food market (where they make a phenomenal curry), and occasionally to the up and coming Munchery. It was a dream come true when we started having regular orders coming in, and that made all of the hard work feel worth it.
After many trips back and forth to Sonoma, Paul got the idea to have a facility more local, for ourselves and others in our neck of the woods. The next in our list of many goals is to open a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse and butcher shop in Mendocino County for local ranchers and hunters, so they can raise and process their own animals from start to finish. This will not only strengthen our community’s food supply, but also provide new career opportunities for residents. Our goal is to help ranchers make their products marketable and obtainable to the patrons of this beautiful place we call home.
Meat from Eastside Ranch is sold at the Laytonville feed store, Fort Bragg and Willits farmers markets, and occasionally at the Ukiah Natural Foods Coop. Check our website for online sales.
EastsideRanchWillits.com | Insta: @eastsideranchwillits
Paul and Melissa are up and coming ranchers managing and growing a sustainable ranch, while utilizing the land and each animal to its full potential.
Photos courtesy of Eastside Ranch.
Get Catered Away!
The spring brings new adventures and lots of celebrations as the days get longer, graduations are on the horizon, and weddings beckon. Here are just a few of our favorite folks* who can help you take your party to the next level.
Fig & Brie Charcuterie and Catering
Sandra Mann out of Willits creates signature “grazing tables” and charcuterie boards that are bountiful works of edible art. The highlight: guests are delighted by a rustic rack of golden honeycomb that drizzles upon fresh fruit, cheeses, cured meats, and other delights.
FigAndBrie.org | Insta: @figanbrie
Black Dog Farm Catering
Along with co-owner and chef Jason Pluck, head chef Caroline Radice looks to her background in farming to craft stunning dishes that are piled high with edible blooms and delectable produce from the garden. Black Dog Farm Catering provides meals for weddings and parties all along the Mendocino coast and throughout the county, often playing a leading role at the Good Farm Fund events.
BlackDogFarmCatering.wordpress.com | Insta: @blackdogfarmcatering
Ellery Clark Catering & Produce
The swoon-worthy photographs from Ellery Clark Catering—showcasing locally sourced roasted vegetables, pomegranate fig chicken with saffron yogurt and pistachio dukka, or smoky ribs cooked to perfection—will make your mouth water. Ellery has an extensive garden in Potter Valley which he uses to make his own quince membrillo and to harvest peaches from his abundant trees.
ElleryClarkCatering.com | Insta: @elleryclarkcatering
Mendough’s Seasonal Catering & Woodfired Pizza
Olan and Lia Cox transport their mobile pizza oven around the county, serving perfectly authentic, chewy, blistered pizza along with other delicacies. They specialize in Farm to Table meals using locally sourced produce at the peak of ripeness. Their efforts often support local nonprofits working in biodynamic and organic agriculture.
MenDoughs.com | Insta: @mendoughs
*Mea culpa if we did not list your favorite–Mendocino County is blessed with a bounty of great caterers!
Pilón Kitchen
Since their start in a Venezuelan food truck, Pilón Kitchen has rapidly expanded their offerings to include wedding planning and full catering. Sauli Molina and Erick Diaz left careers in optometry when they moved to the U.S., and now cook up plates of Pabellón Criollo—perfectly seasoned shredded beef, with arepas (a fluffy patty made of maize and sometimes stuffed with cheese), as well as rice and black beans using a special family recipe. You may become obsessed with the empanadas, served with piquant bright green chimichurri sauce! PilonKitchenVF.com | Insta: @pilon_kitchen
Boont Berry Farm
For over 40 years, Boont Berry Farm has been serving delicious, high quality food for all kinds of events, from small family dinners and picnics, to weekend retreats and weddings. Typical menus include plenty of organic, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options. Homemade cakes and desserts provide the perfect finale to leave guests smiling. BoontBerry.com | Insta: @boontberry
Uneda Eat
Rob & Jill Hunter have been based in Point Arena on the Mendocino Coast for over 20 years. Their fresh and stylish fare can be found at weddings, parties, and other festive occasions throughout Mendocino and Sonoma counties. The wood-burning oven on their truck cooks pizza to perfection, but also roasts meats, fish, and vegetables. Meals typically feature local ingredients from farmers and fish catchers in the area. UnedaEat.com
Good Earth Kitchen
Good Earth Kitchen collaborates with clients to create globally-inspired menus that are well-composed and deeply satisfying, emphasizing peak-fresh ingredients and prepared entirely from scratch, to make your event truly special. Their menus are perfectly suited for your guests, location, theme, and vision, with an abundance of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available. GoodEarthKitchen.net
Craft House Baking
Creative Custom Cakes from a Willits Kitchen
by Maryann Grunseth
Growing up, Jackie Cobbs, owner of Craft House Baking, did not have a love of baking. “I think I tried making chocolate chip cookies a few times, messed that up, and was banned from trying again,” says Jackie with a laugh. It was only later in life, when her gluten and dairy intolerances became more pronounced, that Jackie turned to baking cakes to satisfy her sweet tooth and to create birthday cakes for her two sons, Henry and Marshal, and her husband, Kale.
From looking at her epic confectionery creations, you would not know that these splendid inventions (cakes, cupcakes, tarts, macarons, and croquembouches) were born out of necessity. Jackie’s love of cooking is evident. Creativity and experimentation took the place of any formal pastry education. While Jackie does not want to be pigeonholed as a gluten- and dairy-free baker, her extensive menus prove that she can craft a dessert for both discerning palates and restrictive diets.
Jackie launched Craft House Baking in 2022 after being told at a family event for the umpteenth time, “You should sell your cakes.” So she gave it a go, applied for a Cottage Food Permit, and set up Facebook and Instagram pages. Word spread, and the orders started coming in. About a year later, when both her boys were in school, Jackie took to baking full-time. She appreciates that her cakes let her be a part of other families’ celebrations. She shared that while most of her requests are from moms for their children’s birthday parties, she has received some novelty orders, including boob- and cannabis-shaped cakes.
When asked how Mendocino County inspires her, she says, “People in Mendocino County have a laid-back, classic style, and I feel like my cakes have that look.” She adds, “I bake everything from scratch, and people around here appreciate that.” Jackie’s work marries the homemade taste of a sponge cake with extravagant and detailed decoration that includes everything from space kittens (for her son Marshal’s birthday last year) to elegant wedding and celebratory cakes with fruit and drips. Her favorite flavor combinations include a matcha cake with passion fruit curd, as well as the classic chocolate and peanut butter.
“I have never considered myself a perfectionist, but with cakes I am,” shares Jackie. Each cake can take three to six hours to mix, bake, assemble, and decorate. When asked about some of the challenges that come with opening and operating her business, she shared that the bumpy country road out from her family’s property has made transporting cakes a little more eventful. Additionally, she and her family live off-grid, and that comes with its own challenges.
In the fall and winter of 2023, Jackie entered the Greatest Baker, an online baking competition run by TV personality and cake baker, Buddy Valastro. The competition ran through February 2024, and the public cast their vote daily for their favorite local baker based on the photos posted each week. The prize for first place was an article in Bake from Scratch magazine and $10,000.
Though she didn’t win, Jackie made it to the quarterfinals, competing against the top 1% of contestants, including many bakers who have been in the business for decades. Jackie appreciated the experience, reflecting, “It’s been great putting myself out there, trying to toot my own horn. It is not something I am great at, and it has pushed me outof my comfort zone.” This willingness to try new things, combined with her self-taught baking chops and endless creativity, makes the future of Craft House Baking look pretty sweet.
Custom orders start around $75 for a 6-inch round. To place an order, call Jackie directly at 707-272-3523. Insta & Facebook: @crafthousebaking
During the day, Maryann serves as a nonprofit fundraising consultant. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, cooking, and taking in the beauty of Northern California.
Photos courtesy of Craft House Baking. Jackie image by Maureen Jennison
Urchin Ranching in Noyo Harbor
An Edible Approach to Restoring Kelp Forests
by Trey Petrey
In 2013, a mysterious disease called “sea star wasting syndrome” was first detected along the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts, and it very quickly decimated the main predator of purple sea urchins, the sunflower sea star. Without the sunflower sea star, urchin populations boomed.
Urchins and kelp have long coexisted in subtidal ecosystems, and when the urchin population is kept in check, kelp forests thrive, providing habitat, food, and shelter for other marine life, including the urchins. When the urchin population grows unchecked, however, the kelp forests disappear. As a result of the increased number of urchins and the warming ocean temperatures, the kelp forests along our coast were reduced by as much as 96% between 2016 and 2020—and they have yet to recover. With no kelp, what is left behind are urchin barrens, where only spiny purple urchins cover the sea floor.
Although they are opportunistic omnivores, eating decaying plant and animal matter and even other urchins, sea urchins generally consume algae to survive, including kelp. Without enough to eat, they use up the reserves in their gonads, the orange colored “uni” that is sought after as a culinary delicacy, making them of little value even as a food source. Interestingly, they have the uncanny ability to change their metabolism, so instead of dying, the emaciated shells continue to roam the reefs in search of drifting algae and eating up new kelp as soon as it begins to grow.
One solution to the over-abundance of purple urchins is to remove the starving creatures from the ocean and fatten them up in a process called “urchin ranching,” transforming them into rich umami-flavored uni.
In November 2023, Noyo Center for Marine Science purchased a 40-foot shipping container outfitted with a land-based urchin aquaculture system. This compact urchin ranch is one of several projects funded by a grant through Congressman Jared Huffman’s Community Projects Funding, administered through National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. SeaGrant/Moss Landing Marine Lab built the system and will be one of the center’s partners moving forward.
With this system, purple urchins collected from the barrens are placed in “raceways”—troughs with circulating salt water in a temperature-controlled environment—and fed a seaweed-based nutrition to fatten them up. In approximately 10-12 days, the urchins begin to develop the first lines of roe, and it takes approximately 6-10 weeks to get them up to market size. The center hopes to be able to use water directly from the Noyo River for the system, making needed adjustments to the salinity and temperature. Ranching urchins in this environment also has the benefit of more consistency in the flavor and size, since uni’s flavor stems from its diet; in a wild environment it’s difficult to know what, or how much, the urchin is eating. Fort Bragg urchin diver, Grant Downie, was recently quoted in Sierra magazine, noting that, “With ranching, you would always have good urchin to offer, so you’re not going to lose your markets to other countries’ urchin.”
The Noyo Center first partnered with the Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2019 through a grant provided to the Norwaybased company, Urchinomics. Its goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of urchin ranching to enhance kelp forest restoration efforts, which are set to continue along the Mendocino Coast until at least 2026. As part of this program, TNC plans to donate urchins harvested in restoration projects to the Noyo Center, partially offsetting costs of kelp restoration and creating an incentive for harvesting purple urchins. Urchins harvested this way will help maximize restoration outcomes and further create a circular restorative opportunity for our community and economy.
Early in their work, TNC identified a need to reduce the costs associated with raising these animals for consumption and to develop a sustainable, effective feed that worked well in an aquaculture environment. As a result, they collaborated with urchin ranchers from San Diego to Oregon, putting together a workshop that brought together a dozen urchin ranchers to share lessons learned in this nascent practice. From this workshop, TNC developed a manual for urchin ranching which can serve as a resource for would-be urchin ranchers. This interactive manual will be publicly available in the spring of 2024. Noyo Center will figure out how to adapt these practices to Noyo Harbor, factoring in the unique challenges we face with rough seas and a seaweed—Nereocystis luetkeana—that grows on an annual cycle.
Based on the work of other urchin ranching researchers, such as the company Urchinomics, and the urchin ranching trials being conducted by Bodega Marine Laboratories, we hope this small pilot project in Noyo Harbor will demonstrate one option which has the potential to have a measurable impact on kelp forest restoration, as well as the potential for the growth of the Blue Economy on our coast. There are also opportunities for educating the community, such as our school student programs, hosting uni tastings, and science workshops introducing the public to the overpopulated shellfish.
The urchin ranching project at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station is the first of several ambitious projects geared towards sustainable aquaculture and ecosystem restoration. Among them is an effort to address the collapse of the red abalone population, involving a unique partnership led by the Kashia Band of Pomo and including U.C. Davis, Bodega Marine Lab, and the Noyo Center for Marine Science. Once a vital $44M recreational fishery industry on the North Coast, abalone populations have plummeted as the surging urchin population outcompetes them for kelp. It is critical that an abalone broodstock program be initiated soon to help their numbers recover. Noyo Center hopes to create what is called an integrated, multitrophic aquaculture system that connects urchin, abalone, and seaweed grown in tumble tanks onshore into a closed recirculating water system.
The installation of a low-tech, land-based urchin ranching system will allow scientists with the Noyo Center to explore the possibility of large-scale production of purple urchin at its future Ocean Science Center on the Fort Bragg Headlands, as well as elsewhere in the region. This preliminary effort could prove essential to restoring kelp forests by transforming starving, commercially worthless urchins removed from urchin barrens into a valued, restorative seafood product—and supporting a new regional aquaculture industry at the same time.
Folks interested in getting a peek inside the urchin ranch—and learning more about the kelp crisis overall—can attend North Coast KelpFest!, running May 18 - June 16 in both Mendocino and Fort Bragg. The month-long festival includes an ongoing art show at the Mendocino Art Center, a documentary screening at the Mendocino Film Festival, a panel discussion among researchers and other experts at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station, art workshops, citizen science events, and much more. There is much to do to help the kelp forests recover, but with a multiplicity of efforts, including urchin ranching, these crucial ocean ecosystems can again thrive off the California coast.
Noyo Center for Marine Science
338 N Main St, Fort Bragg
(707) 733 6696 | NoyoCenter.org
Discovery Center open Thurs - Mon 11am - 5pm
Crow’s Nest Interpretive Center (South Noyo Headlands Trail) open daily 11am - 3pm
Find out more about North Coast KelpFest! at NorthCoastKelpFest.org.
Trey Petrey is a member of the staff of the Noyo Center for Marine Science, managing the interpretive centers and supporting work on the urchin ranching project and other special projects coming up in 2024.
Photo credits: Urchin barren image by Abbey Dias. Urchin ranch image by Richard Millis of Noyo Center for Marine Science. Other images courtesy of Noyo Center for Marine Science.
How Indigenous Nations are Rebuilding Food Systems
Local Food, Grounded in Cultural and Spiritual Values, Forms the Basis for a Growing Food Sovereignty Movement
by Richard Arlin Walker
Aaron Gilliam plants organic vegetable starts for Samish Nation elders in the summer of 2021. Many elders received vegetable starts and soil to plant in their own garden. (Photo courtesy of the Samish Indian Nation)
“We were thrown to the four winds.”
That’s how Francene Ambrose describes the fate of her people when, in 1954, the U.S. government terminated its relationship with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
The U.S. had obtained Western Oregon by treaty a century earlier. Although Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states that treaties are “the supreme law of the land,” termination meant the U.S. no longer recognized Grand Ronde and sold the lands it had protected for the tribe by holding the title in trust. The people were forced to relocate.
The Grand Ronde fought to restore their status with the U.S. government. In 1983, they prevailed, regaining nearly 10,000 acres of their original 61,000-acre reservation. Since then, the sovereign nation has made great economic and cultural strides to rebuild their economy and restore their traditional food ways.
In fact, it was traditional food knowledge—knowing plant harvesting areas, seasons, and preservation techniques—that helped the peoples of the Grand Ronde survive the 29-year diaspora.
“During termination, we didn’t have the legal authority to harvest in our traditional areas, but we didn’t know that,” Grand Ronde Chairwoman Cheryle Kennedy said. “When I was growing up, we didn’t buy foods from the store. We fished for salmon and trout. We harvested huckleberries, wild asparagus, wild celery, wild strawberries, and camas. Western Oregon was rich with resources.”
Kennedy and others believe a return to traditional food knowledge is key to restoring physical Indigenous health and ensuring the survival of a cultural lifeway. That movement—called food sovereignty—shifts people away from corporate food systems toward locally grown, locally distributed, culturally appropriate foods.
“We would not have survived colonization without the food knowledge we have,” Kennedy said. “We didn’t have all the modern amenities we have now. We had to know ways of preserving the food that we gathered.”
Connecting communities with food
Many Indigenous nations are reconnecting to the traditional foods of their ancestors. The shift from a traditional diet to government-supplied commodities and processed foods is reflected in chronic diseases like diabetes. It’s a condition that was rare among Indigenous people before the 1940s. Today, the average life expectancy of Indigenous people is nearly seven years shorter than white Americans, according to a 2015 report by the National Institutes of Health.
Food sovereignty, by contrast, emphasizes the nourishment provided by traditional foods hunted and gathered locally, honored and shared in traditional ways. In the Pacific Northwest, those foods include an array of nutrient-dense plants, as well as salmon, bear, deer, and elk meat.
“Elders come out on the floor during our First Foods Celebration and share their favorite memories of tribal foods and their favorite stories about fishing, hunting, and harvesting while growing up,” said Ambrose, manager of Iskam MǝkhMǝk-Haws (“House where you get food”). Iskam MǝkhMǝk-Haws provides traditional foods to tribal citizens and hosts classes on gardening, cooking, and food preservation.
“Some of our families are from what I call the grocery store generation,” Ambrose said. “They’ve been disconnected from traditional foods, or they have a distant memory of a food but don’t remember what it was. Elders will say, ‘Oh, we used to make this. Could it be this?’ And then there’s sharing going on and reconnecting. Our elders are helping families regain knowledge of those foods—the traditional names of those foods, the locations and harvest times, and how to prepare them.”
New systems, old traditions
For years, elders of the Samish Indian Nation in Anacortes, Washington, met Monday through Friday for lunch in the elders building to socialize and enjoy a meal together. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and elders could no longer congregate.
In response, the Samish Nation revamped the elders’ meal program into a food distribution system that incorporated traditional foods and other necessities. It took shape as a home delivery program that skirted supply chain issues by purchasing food from local growers.
“In the past, we would send out food items that were basic,” said Allison Coonc, Director of Samish Food Services. She said that changed in response to a food preference survey she included with a delivery.
“We gathered, dried, and prepared stinging nettles for soup and tea and foraged for mushrooms,” Coonc said. “We welcomed a gift of salmon caught by Upper Skagit Tribe fishermen and donated to Bellingham Food Bank. The food bank wanted to give the salmon back to local tribes, recognizing these are their ancestral lands and that the people have a deep and powerful connection to this place.”
The program partnered with Native-owned Long Hearing Farm for fresh produce. Elders received local, certified-organic produce in summer and fall.
In addition to salmon, cod, nettle soup, and fresh produce in their delivery bags, elders might find recipes, nutrition tips, cleaning products, and personal health care items. They may receive cultural items, such as a language activity book and a book to document their Samish lineage. Elders are encouraged to start their own gardens.
“We offered various organic vegetable starts, seeds, herbs, and natural and chemical-free soil,” Coonc said.
Take your ancestors shopping
Alaska’s First Peoples lived on the bounty around them: berries, plants, caribou, deer, moose, fish, seal, and whale. With the arrival of colonization, much of the knowledge of harvesting and preparing native foods was taken away as aboriginal Alaskans adapted to a Western cash-based economy. The result: dependence on store-bought processed foods.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium is reconnecting Indigenous Alaskans to traditional foods through a program called The Store Outside Your Door that reintroduces Alaska Native people to a lifestyle of identifying and harvesting foods where they live. The program works with communities to build food-sharing networks that employ traditional harvesters and hunters and make native foods more available.
In the program’s instructional video series, Traditional Foods, Contemporary Chef, chefs go out with local Alaska Natives to fish and harvest, then return to the kitchen to prepare a meal. Viewers might learn to make Alaskan fresh roll consisting of salmonberry shoots, sea asparagus, herring eggs, rice noodles, and lettuce wrapped in a spring roll skin; halibut with a salmonberry reduction sauce; or rockfish braised with yarrow, wild parsley, and spring greens, topped with seal oil and seaweed accents.
Crossing treaty boundaries
In the years when Grand Ronde was terminated, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had licensing authority over the tribe’s ability to fish and hunt. And when the federal government restored its recognition of Grand Ronde’s sovereignty, the state didn’t want to relinquish that authority. So the federal government gave the tribe a choice: Your land can be restored to you or you can have fishing and hunting rights. Not both. Grand Ronde chose the land.
Today, Grand Ronde comprises 11,662 acres, but tribal fishing and hunting continues to be regulated by the state. Senate Bill 3126, introduced in November 2021 by Oregon’s U.S. senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, would change that by expanding the tribe’s fishing and hunting rights.
Meanwhile, Grand Ronde continues to bolster its food sovereignty initiatives through partnerships. The tribe receives salmon from hatcheries and meat from bear, deer, and elk culled by the state. The tribe’s cultural committee organizes trips to harvest plants on tribal, federal, and state lands. And some neighbors have made their lands available for harvesting.
“When we’ve opened the First Foods Celebration to the public and we’ve talked about these foods and where they grow, neighbors have said to us, ‘I have a pasture and I see those purple flowers everywhere. We didn’t know that was camas. Would you like to come and harvest from our fields?’” Ambrose said.
Ambrose collects recipes—she calls them “rez-ipes”—that are designed to make traditional foods easier to prepare. Ambrose uses bear meat in spaghetti and meatballs, elk meat in chili, and deer meat in meatloaf and stew. For younger generations raised on grocery store food, the rez-ipes can help make local foods more attractive.
Feeding body, mind and soul
Harvesting close to home is not easy for Indigenous people who live in metropolitan areas. Long Hearing Farm owner Elizabeth Bragg, who is Blackfeet/Cherokee/Gros Ventre, has a favorite saying: “When shopping for food, take your ancestors with you.” She credits Muckleshoot nutrition educator Valerie Segrest with that teaching.
“When shopping I ask myself, ‘What would my grandma want to see in her veggie box?’” Bragg said. “She’d like to see sweet corn. She’d like to see snap peas. She’d like to see tomatoes and lettuce and foods that she grew up eating. She might want someroasted beets. That would be exciting for her.”
This piece was originally published by Underscore News on April 3, 2023 as part of the Food Sovereignty Project, a special series that tells stories about traditional Indigenous knowledge and practices that honor and strengthen the relationship to the plants and animals that sustain all of us. The seven-story project was co-managed by Nicole Charley and Jackleen de La Harpe for Underscore News with generous support from The Roundhouse Foundation. Read the entire series at: https://www.underscore.news/work/food-sovereignty-project
Richard Arlin Walker, Mexican/Yaqui, is an ICT correspondent reporting from Western Washington. He writes for Underscore News, Hamiinat magazine, and other publications.
Thinking with Your Palate
Delving into the Complexities of Tasting
by Holly Madrigal
Learning to taste is a skill. When I try, I find myself struggling to describe the sensations happening in my mouth. Try this: Bite into a piece of dark chocolate, say 60% cacao. What do you taste? At first, sweet … chocolatey … Then taste deeper … a hint of bitterness … creamy … Is that a flavor like black coffee or brown sugar?
Tasting is a talent that can be developed and honed like any skill. Some people have become expert tasters, practicing and learning until they can detect quality, difference, and flavor notes. Steve Cuevas is one of those people who has trained his palate to sense slight alterations in flavor and texture. He was, until recently, the head roaster at Black Oak Coffee, and he has become an award-winning “cupper,” meaning that he can taste region, roast level, and quality. He does this by sussing out the acidity, body, and astringency.
Steve started at Black Oak ten years ago working as a barista, and he asked to sit in on the roasting process. Sample roasting introduced him to coffee tastings, where coffee farmers from around the world would send small samples of their beans to be roasted in-house and tested to determine if Black Oak wanted to carry that varietal. Coffee tasting can also be used for quality control and barista training. Steve participated in testing and tastings for a month until he graduated to roasting, which required constant tasting of the finished product to ensure the coffee met Black Oak’s standards.
Steve used to live in San Leandro, where his roommate was learning to roast at a shop called Zocalo. They roasted by sight and smell, noting in a journal the times and temperatures for each roast. Black Oak’s original owners, Jon Frech and Keith Feigin, were trained at Ritual in the Bay Area. “When I came to Black Oak,” Steve explained, “they had a whole other level of data. Here they have a computer that notes factors like the temperature of the roasting beans and the temperature of the air exiting the machine. So we’d have all sorts of nerdy conversations about data.” Steve blended the two methods as he was learning to roast.
On first taste, acidity or bitterness often comes up initially. Astringency, which you can think of as the flavor aspect that makes your mouth pucker, comes after. In small amounts, it adds a wonderful complexity. Hard cider for example really blooms when using apples with a high astringency. Steve marveled that owner Jon has a really good eye, with the ability to identify most regions just by sight. “Just by looking at the beans, he can tell that it comes from Colombia or Ethiopia.”
The industry uses a rating scale for coffee that measures its quality from 0-90 points. Anything that is specialty coffee is over 80, so it is rare that Steve tastes anything below that. He considers anything 88 or above to be something special. He explained, “I never rate anything 90, because that would be a perfect score, and that is not achievable. As a taster, I also know that some things that I love personally are not as popular. We have learned what the customers prefer, and we will roast to what they like.” They have learned that many customers tend to like low acidity, as well as chocolate or nutty notes. Steve continued, “We do light roasted coffee really well, but not everyone likes those. We have a collection of coffees sourced from all over the world.”
There is a process called cupping, where they line up a series of cups, fill each with coffee, and taste each one while recording their nuances. “The year I won the national cup tasters competition in 2017, I was tasting 70 samples a day, three or four days a week. And we might be tasting different countries, or it could be the same country but different farms, or it could be one farm with different parts of the farm, or the same coffee roasted multiple ways,” said Steve. When I asked what goes through his head during these tastings, he added “I am thinking about nothing, keeping my mind open. I try to keep variables the same. I space the cups the same distance apart, I cover the beans so that you don’t have visual cues of color or if it has been washed. It helps that I have bad short-term memory, so even I forget what I put where.”
At these tasting competitions, there are three cups. Contestants taste all three, then set aside the one that is different. Accuracy is the most important factor in scoring, followed by the speed of determination. The most correct wins the competition. Black Oak Coffee won the Golden Bean roasting competition two years in a row. It involves a four-day tasting where they judge how good the coffee is, and how well it expresses the desired traits.
Those who have developed their palates over time can judge with surprising accuracy. I once attended a blind tasting of Alsatian white wines, where the host offered a mix of imported bottles and local wines from Ukiah and Anderson Valley, all hidden within brown paper bags to obscure their origin. A friend tasting with us pinpointed the one that was grown in the deep end of Anderson Valley—she claimed that she could taste the terroir. Owner Keith has a similar tasting skill. “We used to go to wine education nights at a place called Bergamot Alley. They would do these double-blind tastings. Keith could taste where a wine was from. He would say, ‘I think this is from the northern Rhone area, it has the acidity that usually comes from cold climates’ … it was crazy,” Steve shared.
When asked about what traits he tastes first, Steve first pointed out that the taste map of the tongue (salty at the tip, then sweet with sour on the sides, bitter in the back) has been disproven. “I just taste,” he said. He explained that some people are supertasters—they have more papillae in the same amount of tongue space. “[When] I do a training for our new baristas, I do an infusion of nutmeg, because similar to the relation of cilantro to soap, for certain people nutmeg has a similar gross flavor. They have an extra ability to taste another chemical present in nutmeg.” The point is to try to make them think. He puts lime rinds in a water infusion and colors it yellow, then lemon rinds in another and colors it green. “You get acidity with both, but they are different flavors. I want them to evaluate what they are tasting.“
“You may not know that you can do tasting like I do. It can be intimidating. People are kind of shy having opinions of their own,” Steve added, continuing, “I like to help people realize that they can develop their palate and appreciate what they like regardless of popular opinion.” He has been amazed at where his career has taken him. “When I got to do the world championship, I was able to travel to Europe, Paris, Budapest. I was amazed that this skill let me experience a whole other world. We traveled to South Korea, and they were eating bugs so I had to give it a try. I like to taste different things,” he added with a smile. “Of course, there are times that I am just eating and the flavor is pass or fail. You just want a taco or a burger. But then there are times when I want to be thoughtful, to taste thoughtfully. I think about texture and flavors. I’m a very textural person.”
When asked what he is excited about at the moment, Steve mentioned that some farms are experimenting with fruit. Coffee comes from a cherry, which is added to a water tank and sometimes fermented slightly before removing the hull and drying before roasting. Some growers add fruit and wine yeast to the water tank at that stage, particularly producers in Panama, Guatemala, and Ethiopia. “It is a big gamble to do this to your beans because some buyers may not like this style. The price of coffee is a big determinant as well. Some growers cannot afford to take risks if the price of the coffee would go up significantly. But I enjoy it,” said Steve.
Black Oak used to have a tasting chart displayed, its rainbow colors catching the eye. “The outer ring is fruit, and then the inner ring narrows it down to tropical or apple. Or the outer ring might be chocolate, then narrows down to milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and baker’s chocolate, narrowing down what you might be tasting. It is a tool to help you think about what you are tasting,” said Steve. “That is kind of how I taste.” He added, “It’s acidic . . . it’s sweet . . . then I taste for body. This is very bright and acidic, I might think lemon, but then if it is acidic and sweet, then I might move more towards white grapes or green apple. Together, flavors combine to create different perceptions of things.”
Steve encourages tasters to try to pick out notes, think about what they are tasting, and then convey that experience, explaining, “Descriptions of things are so subjective. For example, if I gave you three coffees, all are identical but the body of each is different. You would say that the sweetness level and the type of sugar are different. The lighter body might taste like white sugar, a thicker body might be molasses or brown sugar. So the words we use to describe the coffee can better convey what the taste is like.” Some coffees have a thicker mouthfeel, similar to wines (red wines generally have a thicker mouthfeel and whites a lighter one).
Professionals may need to taste not for their particular preferences, but for a wider audience. Skilled tasters may pursue becoming a sommelier for the wine industry and fine dining, or a taster of craft sake, pursuing the distinction of sake master. As the legal cannabis industry has progressed, a group has developed a Ganjier™ program. These tasters can separate and describe the particulars of cannabis strains, flavors, and notes. I personally envy the coveted position of cheesemonger, rating the creaminess, the funkiness, and the sharp tang of different fromages.
Developing these preferences for yourself may take a lifetime of discernment. Tasting with intention and study will allow your personal palate to evolve. Exploring what you like takes time, but it is an effort worth the journey.
Black Oak Coffee Roasters
476 N. State St., Ukiah
(866) 390-1427 | BlackOakCoffee.com
Open daily 6am - 6pm
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.
Photo by Josh Bowers
Noyo Harbor Inn Bitters
In-House Elixirs Make Mixology Magic
by Holly Madrigal
Laura mixing a Lilac Empress
The lounge area at Noyo Harbor Inn is filled with warmth, Art Deco walls surrounding an intimate bar that keeps the fog at bay. The sounds of the harbor are dimmed by noises of laughter and tinkling china from the dining room, and the drinks that come forth are a cut above. Bar manager, Laura Spradlin, has let her creativity shape the unique drinks served here, and the public has taken notice.
Laura has developed a line of specialty bitters for the Noyo Harbor Inn. “Bitters are an aromatic flavoring agent made by infusing roots, bark, fruit peeling, seeds, spices, herbs, flowers, and botanicals—all steeped in high-proof alcohol. Bitters are used to heighten taste. They help balance out cocktails, making them more complex, giving them a more complete flavor profile that adds depth and character, “ she shares.
Laura continues, “Serious bar programs these days are now listing house made bitters on their menu. Bitters go back for centuries, originally used medicinally to cure many ailments.” While creating her bitters, she selects ingredients that she feels will enhance the seasonal cocktails showcased on the menu. Like a composer or artist, she combines the notes to create a symphony of taste and smell.
Completely self-taught, Laura spent 30 years at the Albion River Inn developing her mixology craft. When she became the bar manager at Noyo Harbor Inn, her focus on unique seasonal flavors fit right in with the high-quality yet approachable fine dining offerings coming from the kitchen. As the cocktail movement has progressed in recent years, Laura has learned and adapted her drinks. She notes, “We have a Dirty Chai Martini and we have an Espresso Martini that both use our Coffee Pecan Bitters,” which she creates by combining Elijah Craig Bourbon and organic locally roasted coffee beans from Thanksgiving Coffee, adding different kinds of roots that bring out the bitter element. “They are so concentrated that you only need a few drops. It will transform your cocktail and make it truly unique and authentic.“
As a mixologist, Laura has elevated the bar menu at Noyo Harbor Inn. One year, she wanted to make a special spring offering for Mother’s Day. She decided to create a Lilac Martini called “Lilac Empress,” using Empress 1908 Purple gin. The color of this particular gin is truly beautiful, and Laura created a house-made Lilac Liqueur and house-made bitters to compose this gorgeous drink. “I reached out to everyone I knew to harvest the teeny edible purple blooms from their yards,” Laura remembers. “I drove around town in my car looking for lilac bushes and knocking on doors trying to obtain enough to create my concoctions. Lilacs only appear for a few weeks in March and they fade fast.“ The floral smell in the kitchen must have been intoxicating, and the resulting purple drink topped with dried lilacs was a huge success.
Laura also wanted to bring the house Bloody Mary up a notch. She created a bitters addition with a mixture of various hot peppers, chiles, limes, molasses, barks, and herbs steeped and infused with high grain alcohol for several weeks. “I was originally going to use ghost peppers but I didn’t want heat to overwhelm the drink. Balance and nuance are very important,” adds Laura. She also infuses her vodka with herbs to give added depth of flavor to the end result. “Customers tell me this is the best Bloody Mary they have ever had.”
One of her signature drinks is the seasonal Candy Cap Old Fashioned, which has bitters made with special mushrooms naturally foraged on the Mendocino Coast. Describing the flavor of the Candy Cap is challenging—it makes me think of apple pie spices, maple syrup, and vanilla. (There is good reason that Candy Cap mushroom ice cream is one of the favorites at Cowlicks scoop shop in town.) Laura added to that flavor some black walnut and gentian, which tastes almost like a nocino. The addition of bitters raises the humble Old Fashioned to something sublime.
These flavor additions are not only restricted to alcoholic beverages. Laura has elevated the coffee bar as well. The Vanilla Rose latte, for example, uses a simple syrup that has been infused with rose petals from the Noyo Harbor Inn kitchen garden. “What we are trying to do here is to show nuance and layers of balance when building a drink,“ Laura smiles. You can let your inner mixologist out to play by purchasing a selection of the bitters for sale in the inn’s lobby to elevate your home-made concoctions. Or, just stop by the cozy bar above Noyo Harbor and have her mix one for you.
HarborView Bistro & Bar at Noyo Harbor Inn
500 Casa Del Noyo, Fort Bragg
707-961-8000 | noyoharborinn.com
Breakfast/lunch Wed - Mon 9am - 2pm
Happy Hour 2pm – 5:30pm (food at 3pm)
Photos by Brendan McGuigan, courtesy of Noyo Harbor Inn.
MendoSeed & Xa Kako Dile:
The Urgent Work of Reclaiming Our Seeds
by Julia Dakin
Two years ago, I co-founded the organization Going to Seed, which supports food growers by helping them learn how to adapt crops to their local conditions. We received a grant from the Clif Family Foundation to support farmers, and though it’s an international organization, there are three Mendocino County farms in our grant program: Nye Ranch, which focuses on adapting sweet corn to cool coastal summers; Earthlings Veganics, which will grow melons, hull-less squash and flour corn; and Open Circle Seeds, which is adapting dry-farm watermelons in Potter Valley.
One of Going to Seed’s initiatives supports adaptation projects in local communities, including right here on the coast. At a presentation last year, about 40 people got inspired and committed to growing and adapting three heat-loving species to this cold coastal environment: sweet corn, melons, and butternut squash. But in spite of the enthusiasm, we did not receive enough seed returns to sustain the project. Participants wanted more education and support. It became clear that a culture shift was needed, with more people and resources to make it work.
A revised vision of education in addition to seed sharing evolved, and we named it MendoSeed: a mobile community seed-cleaning resource that would also function as a collection and distribution system for local seeds. We even got a physical home when the Caspar Community Center gave us half a garage to use for storage, which has become crucial.
I see adaptive crop production as a matter of life and death. The state of agriculture and the quality and quantity of non-patented, organically grown seeds is an emergency, especially in areas that face climate or pest challenges. In addition, corporate control of genetics is an existential threat to long term food security. A seed’s genes control its nutrient density, which has declined over the years in produce grown with mass market seeds. Genetics also determine the ability to grow in varied and challenging environments.
Genetics is a challenging concept for a lot of gardeners, yet drought (or fog) tolerance, disease resistance, and nutrient density are mostly genetic. In spite of this, many food growers spend much of their time and energy talking about soil health and management practices. These are also important, but I believe regenerative agriculture is missing a giant piece of the puzzle, and until we realize that our food system is under threat, we will continue to fertilize, spray, coddle, and worry about crops that are not adapted for the precise growing conditions at hand. Shifting agriculture must start with local models like this.
And it isn’t just the lack of locally adapted seeds that is an emergency. The bigger emergency is how overpowered food growers have become. We completely depend on those seed catalogs and websites. “Local food” almost entirely depends on patented hybrids from very far away. Can that really be considered local? We’re going to need to work hard to empower ourselves to become active participants in the crops we depend on.
As an under-resourced community seed project, it’s going to take us a while to get people even thinking about these issues, let alone feeling confident enough to grow, collect, and share their seeds back with us. During this time of education, expansion, workshops, and seed sharing, we need more financial support to keep going. We have applied for several grants to support building a template and supportive resources for local projects, but funding remains scarce.
While I was struggling with the challenges of sustaining this fledgling seed effort, a serendipitous series of events led to a conversation that gave me hope. I was supposed to go to Tennessee to a seed conference as part of Going to Seed. But in the end, I couldn’t get on a plane because a raccoon had snatched my purse with my ID (and lunch) off my doorstep while packing my car for the airport at 4am. I had to stay home, and gifted with a few unscheduled days, I was able to spend a full day accompanying U’ilani (U’i) Wesley of Xa Kako Dile: on a trip to speak with Sherwood Valley tribal women. On the long drive there and back, we talked a lot about seeds.
U’i had had a journey of her own while traveling around Northern California during the previous weeks. It felt like that raccoon snatching my purse was a push in a direction that might make things possible, and I’d finally found somebody that shared my sense of urgency and could be a partner in the next phase of growing a movement that could shift agriculture.
As a result of our talks, MendoSeed is integrating with Xa Kako Dile, an indigenous women-led and -directed non-profit doing work in the space of indigenous knowledge and land stewardship. Their location in Caspar will be incorporating a lot more seed work, including gatherings, concerts, volunteers, and growing for seeds as well as food. We are going to work together to secure a fuel-efficient vehicle that can be the SeedMobile and travel around Northern California with a focus on Tribal communities. Our growing seed collection can be housed at Xa Kako Dile. I am assisting with grant writing and fundraising for Xa Kako Dile:, while U’i is a charismatic and visionary voice for the project.
Stay tuned to learn and participate in local seed exchanges and ventures. Our group feels strongly that there is not a moment to waste. We will literally be growing our future.
Reflections from U’ilani Wesley
In my work with Xa Kako Dile:, I work with tribes around Mendocino County. There is a lot of diabetes because of the food that is most accessible to a lot of tribal elders—the USDA food program providing tribes with “commodity foods” is literally killing people. People need vegetables to be healthy, but they don’t have access to them. So, for the last year we’ve been growing food and sharing it with elders from tribes around the county: Sherwood, Big Valley, Coyote Valley, Pinoleville, Round Valley, and Redwood Valley.
The food people eat is either medicine or it’s poison. Through centuries of colonialism, a lot of people have lost their connection with Mother Earth, and with traditional culture. Eating plants and good food can help to both bring it back and restore health.
I was hearing from my mentors and Indigenous leaders that we need to focus on the seeds as well as food. We’ve lost much of our cultural connection to seeds, and people don’t have access to good, local seeds that can grow good, nutritious food. The most accessible seeds are purchased from places like the Dollar Store or Walmart. For many generations, seeds have been grown by corporations that use a lot of fertilizers and chemicals, or the harvest they produce isn’t very nutritious. And then we keep buying them every year, because it’s not in our culture anymore to think of seeds as tied to a place, tied to us. So, we need to make healing produce available to people, but we also need to make sure they have a connection with the seeds, and with each other, and the earth. We need to re-connect with the mentality that seeds are our relatives, as Native peoples have thought of them for the past thousands of years. This will require changing the culture. Singing together, working together.
Learn more at goingtoseed.org/pages/community-seed-projects.
Julia Dakin grows food and seeds in Caspar, where she has been adapting some warm-season crops to coastal summers, and sells seeds locally through Quail Seeds. A couple of years ago she co-founded a non-profit called Going to Seed.
Photos by Yvonne Boyd
The Munchery
New Eatery Serves Up Delicious Homestyle Cooking and Craft Cocktails
by Holly Madrigal
It was difficult to hear Shauna Brown-Martin over the sound of the auctioneer at the Junior Livestock Auction. She asked me, “Do you know where to get the best peaches locally? We want to feature them on the menu at our new restaurant.” (I wondered if these auctioned animals were going to find their way onto the menu there.) Actually I do. It’s Langdon Day Farms in Potter Valley. But what new restaurant, I wanted to know. “It’s called the Munchery, and it is at the south end of town on our property next to the gas station,” she shared excitedly.
As a Willits native, this is wonderful news. Shauna’s family has owned Browns Corner in Willits for years and they have always gone above and beyond when supporting the community, hence her vigorous bids on the locally raised steers, pigs, and sheep at the Junior Livestock Auction. The Munchery fills a culinary space that has been vacant in town until now: brunch, lunch, and dinner with a seasonal outlook and fresh local ingredients. The interior space feels high-end, but the price is totally approachable. Shauna had originally considered opening a deli or creperie, but once she discovered that a coveted liquor license was being released by the former Yokayo Bowl, she jumped at the opportunity, which would allow the restaurant to have a full bar. Now you can indulge in a Bloody Mary at brunch or a signature Munch-Tini (vodka, raspberry, grapefruit, Cointreau, with a lime) at supper. Nowhere else in Willits is quite like it.
The menu is filled with classics with modern updates, like the Hearty Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie, the Cajun Shrimp Scampi, and the Wagyu Sliders. The Munchery’s love for local comes through with a John Ford Beef Open Flame Grilled Rib Eye to honor Willits’ favorite resident rancher, and the Beast Burger, which uses a smash burger from family friends Fonsen Cattle, topped with house sauce, onions, and pickles. Dustin Decker is the breakfast and lunch chef, and George Koro does most of the recipe development for evening service. Chef Joshua Landes heads up the team, and together they have created a menu they are really happy with. “We will have seasonal specials with some favorites that will stay consistent,” said Shauna.
On the north side of the restaurant is a spacious patio where diners with pups like to sit. Recently, a large group gathered there for a family brunch, with the staff skillfully stepping around happy dogs while distributing the eggs Benedict, breakfast crepes, and mimosa flights. Area heaters keep everyone comfortable while eating outside.
The full liquor license has allowed the bar to craft a line of signature cocktails and events. Bloody Mary Sundays has a full selection of a Spicy Mary, a Smoky (with smoked bacon chipotle salt), a Bloody Mendo (with gin), and a Bloody Munch (insert raised eyebrow here). When the weather is fine, the patio fills up with those wanting to partake in a lazy Sunday feast. The drink specials change with the season and what’s on hand, and the bar has a line of fruit purees—orange, mango, strawberry, and others, all of which can be added to your cocktail of choice.
The Munchery has filled a niche in Willits for casual fine dining, and the community is thrilled. Brunch, lunch, and dinner are now being provided with a smile from a great local family who celebrates their neighboring farmers and ranchers. Stop by and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
The Munchery
1797 South Main St., Willits
(parking on the north side of the building)
(707) 941-0028 | TheMuncheryWillits.com
Open Mon - Thurs 7am - 9pm, Fri 7am - 10pm, Sun 8am - 2pm
Weekdays closed 3pm - 4pm
Photos courtesy of The Munchery
Bodega Bay Oyster Company
Farming Shellfish for Almost 40 Years
by Lisa Ludwigsen
The cold clear waters of Tomales Bay in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, have provided food, medicine, materials, and transportation for thousands of years. Just onemile wide and nine miles long, this inlet of the Pacific brings fresh salt water with significant daily tidal surges, especially at its narrow mouth. Great white sharks are known to breed near the Bay’s mouth, and the San Andreas Fault runs right down the middle. Tomales Bay is a dynamic body of water, and it’s an ideal location to grow oysters that are not only delicious and fun to eat, but turn out to be an important contributor to the near-shore ecosystem.
In 1985, Martin Strain was a CPA living in San Francisco. He’d grown up in Marin County, part of a large family of Irish immigrant farmers and ranchers who had been in Olema since the 1850s. The young Mr. Strain found that he preferred working outdoors to life in an office, so after some careful research, he took the leap and leased 20 acres in Tomales Bay, and Bodega Bay Oyster Company was born.
Almost 40 years later, Bodega Bay Oyster Company is a leading supplier of wholesale shellfish—oysters, mussels, and clams—throughout the Bay Area. Martin’s two grown children, Whittaker (Whitt) and Lindsey, along with his wife Mary, have joined the business. Bodega Bay Oyster leases 90 acres in Tomales Bay and has a thriving retail outlet near Valley Ford, where visitors can purchase shellfish to go, shuck their own oysters, or order oysters (raw or barbequed) to consume on-site with a local brew or bottle of wine. Their adjacent AirBnB allows guests to fully immerse themselves in the world of local oysters with tours, as well as lessons on shucking and making a mignonette, a popular accompaniment served with raw oysters.
It’s a good time to be in the oyster business. “The pandemic was actually good for our business,” said Whitt, “because we provided a safe space for people to leave the house, gather outside in our picnic area, and eat fresh local oysters.” Sales reflect that the public’s interest in oysters and shellfish continues to grow.
People have been eating oysters as long as the two have interacted. Shellmounds are important archeological sites composed of discarded shells of oysters, mussels, clams, and other human refuse. The Bay Area city of Emeryville was originally built on a massive shellmound created by the Ohlone people, dating back to 800 B.C., which measured 60’ high by 350’ long. It held valuable evidence that oysters and other shellfish have been a crucial source of food for over 2500 years. Today, in areas across the country, oyster, clam, and mussel shells from restaurants are being diverted from the landfill to construct new coastal reefs that create habitat, stabilize shorelines, and improve water quality. In essence, they are present-day shellmounds.
Farming shellfish is a different pursuit from wild harvesting. And while it seems that farming oysters in a biodiverse shallow-shore estuary like Tomales Bay would be relatively easy, growing oysters, especially now, isn’t without significant challenges.
“The threats to the well-being of oysters change year to year. We need to be ready to adapt to the constantly changing conditions in near-shore waters,” Whitt explained. Challenges include unpredictable climate shifts, closely monitored state and federal regulations, and getting along with neighboring upstream ranches and other oyster farms. They demand patience, a measure of creativity, and commitment to resilience.
Bodega Bay oysters begin as tiny seed larvae, shipped from hatcheries in Hawaii, Washington, and Humboldt, as well as a supplier on the East Coast. Each shipment holds approximately one million seed babies, each of which is roughly the size of a red pepper flake. The larvae are promptly transferred to 2’x2’ floating bins, where they spend approximately six months under a steady flow of circulating water, being monitored and mechanically sorted until they’ve grown large enough to be transferred to 4’x2’ grow-out mesh bags in the oyster beds in the bay. Harvest takes place depending on desired size, anywhere from 18 months for extra-small up to 5 years for large oysters. Though time to maturity is very long, shelf life is short, so timing is always critical.
Oysters grow based on available nutrients, water temperature, and ocean acidity. Unlike farming on land or even other types of aquaculture, there aren’t a lot of shortcuts. The farmer can’t pump up nutrients to make the crop grow faster or employ chemical amendments to deter pests. Oysters require steady attention to ensure that storms don’t dislodge anchored frames and that natural predators, like otters, crabs, birds, and fish, don’t cause damage. Beyond that, they will grow in their spot, filtering up to 50 gallons of water per day per oyster as an added bonus.
Warming ocean temperatures, which leads to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the water, is a major concern for the health and wellbeing of oysters. The higher acidity of the water prevents young oyster shells from solidifying and also lowers their resistance to pathogens. Whitt and Martin are working with teams of scientists from National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, The Nature Conservancy, the University of California, and California State University through the Sea Grant Program to study and develop strategies to address the threat. Scientific interventions have already helped with the recovery of kelp bed collapse associated with warming oceans in northern California.
Whitt is optimistic about the bigger picture for shellfish farming and aquaculture in general. “Awareness of the critical role of shellfish in creating healthy and clean water ecosystems is encouraging,” he said.
Within the stated mission of Bodega Bay Oyster Company is a commitment to “act as stewards of the marine environment as well as acting as responsible community members.” Whitt intends to continue to honor that mission by building public awareness and support for local aquaculture through more outreach and education.
Like the Strain family, Tomales Bay oysters are hard workers. The symbiotic partnership between humans and marine animals has always benefited the larger community. Together they improve the ecosystem, help keep our coastal waters clean, and provide a tantalizing taste of the cold, briny Pacific waters we share. Eating a Tomales Bay oyster is like swimming in that wild, salty, foggy bay—without even getting your hair wet.
Bodega Bay Oyster Company
12830 Valley Ford Rd, Petaluma
(707) 876-3010 | BodegaBayOyster.com
Open daily 9am - 5pm
Photo of juvenile oyster by Lisa Ludwigsen. All other photos courtesy of Bodega Bay Oyster Company.