Embarking on Healing
Healing is not easy. It hurts, it’s hard, and it tests our resolve to keep going. But we are strong, we can do hard things, and the alternative—remaining stuck, sick, and sundered—is unacceptable. So heal we must, in our nation, in our communities, and in our bodies.
“We are not as divided as our politics suggest” is a favorite Obama quote of mine. And I believe that, truly. When it comes down to it, we are all just people—neighbors, family, friends—with similar hopes and needs. Those who want to weaken us attempt it through exploiting our differences. But when the chips are down, our communities and connections are what keep us strong.
And sticking together through tough times has never been more important. The folks of Mendocino County have dug deep to adapt and move forward with new ways of doing our work and living our lives, inspiring me with a fresh vision of the future. Restaurants have embraced the outdoors, co-opting adjacent gardens, parking lots, and sidewalks. (I would love to see this trend continue, even once we can be indoors again.) Café Beaujolais, a local favorite dining spot, has expanded their “Brickery”, where you can enjoy a slice of delicious brick oven pizza using Wavelength Farm produce procured at their adjacent farm stand. Friend and local farmer, Michael Foley, explains the difficult but worthy quest to break the farmer’s reliance on plastic. The Botanical Bus in Sonoma County has launched their mobile herbal medical clinic as well as a number of new programs to meet the needs of the local Latinx community of farmworkers.
As we move through winter, we will all find new ways of togetherness and celebration, while keeping everyone safe. Spread the season’s joy by supporting our local artisans, businesses, and restaurants when you can. Consider, for instance, a gift of an unusual wine from the Disco Ranch, culinary items from the Boonville Collective, or one of the many locally produced treasures one can find at the Yorkville Market.
We are coming up on one year of this pandemic—one year of lost or adjusted birthdays, one year of missed proms, anniversaries, weddings, and adventures. But we have been given the opportunity to redefine and enrich the shared moments we have, being ever more aware that life is precious and our time here is short. Togetherness is important, and community is vital. Let’s do our best to make the most of both. As we begin the long healing process, it may be uncomfortable at times. But my heart is full, and the inspiration I get from this wonderful county keeps me going.
Holly Madrigal, Publisher
McFadden Garlic
Grown to Help Sustain this Family Farm and Vineyard Year-Round
by Fontaine McFadden
Fifty years is a long time for experimentation. But in the northwest corner of Potter Valley, my dad, Guinness McFadden, has been doing just that. In 1969, he enrolled in Stanford Business School but quickly decided against a future of pin-striped suits and city offices, and instead opted for life in the country, where he would plant a vineyard. He found the ideal location when he arrived in Potter Valley in 1970. The only problem was that everyone said it was too cold to grow grapes commercially. But if you know Guinness, you’ll know that he is a man of his own mind. Not one to be dissuaded by silly warnings and cautionary tales of defeat, he paves his own way and does things in classic Frank Sinatra form, “my way.” Undeterred by the naysayers, he went ahead and planted 23 acres of grapes, to be followed in successive years by some 140 more. And boy, are we happy that he did.
Over the years, he planted and tended to the vineyards, trying many varieties to see which made the best wines. Some of his experiments worked, while others didn’t. We learned that Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, and Zinfandel all thrive in Potter Valley. Cabernet, on the other hand, is better left to Napa County.
Soon after planting the first vines, it became evident that attracting workers might be a problem. Potter Valley is miles north of Napa and Sonoma counties, and therefore crops mature later. By the time the grapes were ready for harvest, many pickers had gone south for the winter. Guinness decided to develop enterprises that provided year-round work, where people could put down roots and find stability outside of migratory labor patterns. So back to the drawing board he went. Over the years, he has experimented with wild rice, dried herbs, a fresh vegetable CSA, garlic braids, bay leaf wreaths, beef, barley, wheat, grape vine wreaths, dried beans, blackberry jam, and sun-dried tomatoes, to name just a few. The result of all that testing is a curated variety of specialty items that provides year-round work for the people who call this place home.
In the late summer, between suckering and harvest, we make Garlic Braids. After harvest, we start up with Bay Leaf Wreaths, Garlands, and Swags, which keep us very busy through the New Year. In the springtime, we plant culinary herbs which we later pick, dry, and bottle. Rounding out the lineup is our wild rice and the newest addition to our family of products, dried speckled bayo beans, a nutrient-dense varietal that is as rare as it is delicious. We’ve been organic since day one and became formally certified by California Certified Organic Farmers in 1991.
To further diversify activities around the farm, and to make sure there’s always something to fix, improve, or tinker with, Guinness built a hydroelectric power plant on the Russian River in 1983, followed by the installation of 300 solar panels in 2003.
All these facets—the combination of products we make, and the way in which we go about doing it—set us apart. This is a unique and magical corner of the world in which we are grateful to live. We strive to be good stewards of the land, honest producers for our customers, and reliable employers to our team and their families. The average tenure on the farm is about 20 years. We’ve got a thriving ecosystem of flora and fauna, and we’ve built a great network of customers who buy from us year after year. So, I think you could say the experiment has succeeded. And I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the family business, carrying on these great traditions.
Our Famous Garlic Spaghetti
Legend has it that this recipe comes from my dad’s dad, Jim McFadden. It’s been a staple in our home for as long as I can remember. Every year on our birthdays, we got to choose our dinner menu, and without fail my brothers and I would always choose garlic spaghetti. Comfort food at its finest, it’s best served with a big loaf of crunchy bread that you can dredge in the bottom of the bowl to sop up all that buttery, garlicky goodness.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti
2 peeled, chopped heads of garlic (heads, not cloves)
½ lb butter
2 or 3 Tbsp dried parsley
Lots of Parmesan cheese, granulated not shredded
Salt and pepper
Instructions
While the pasta’s cooking, melt the butter and mix in the chopped garlic and dried parsley, but do not let it boil. When the pasta is done (8 minutes or so), strain through a colander, then add to a serving bowl. Immediately douse the pasta with the parmesan cheese and mix thoroughly. Pour the garlic and butter sauce over the pasta and garnish with a little more parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Order wine, garlic, herbs, and other McFadden products on their website, bluequail.com. You can also visit their tasting room at 13275 South Highway 101, No 5, Hopland | (707) 744-8463
Fontaine McFadden grew up on the farm in Potter Valley. She was away for fifteen years before making her way back home with her husband, Brian, to work for the family business. When she’s not working on marketing, branding, or operations at the farm, you can find her playing with their brand new son, Declan, or enjoying a glass of wine with friends and family.
Yorkville Market
Deli, Market, Wine Shop, and Coffee Stop—and Yorkville’s De-Facto Community Center
story & photos by Torrey Douglass
I’m chatting with Lisa Walsh in front of Yorkville Market when a station wagon pulls up. An energetic woman with grey hair and a friendly demeanor pops out. Lisa and the woman clearly know each other, and after a quick greeting the local leans forward and asks hopefully, “Cookies?” “Just sold the last one,” replies Lisa. ”I’ve got some more to put in the oven in a bit. Maybe when you’re coming back through?” “Nah, that will be in 10 minutes,” the woman says. “Thursday,” comforts Lisa. “I’ll have more on Thursday.”
I spend just over an hour at Yorkville Market, and in that time folks drop in for coffee, a sandwich, a case of beer, and a pint of milk. Except for the cookie aficionado, they all get what they need. A pair of well-dressed travelers with a polished city vibe stop and ask to purchase some of the decorative pumpkins brightening the front. Lisa is happy to oblige for the crazy low price of $2 each, and they walk out with six of them, along with some pastries and a bottle of wine.
To survive in a sparsely populated area, diversification is key. Yorkville Market is one of the few businesses in the tiny town of Yorkville. The only other public destinations are the post office and fire station a half mile down the highway, and Yorkville Cellars tasting room across from them. The market is the local source for coffee and espresso drinks, cards and gifts, gourmet food items, and a few necessities. Pick up some wine, a salad or sandwich from the grab-and-go deli selection, Cowlick’s ice cream, or a freshly baked cookie (if your timing is right). Much of the stock is local—the art on the walls, ceramics and natural skincare products on the shelves, and garden vegetables in baskets, as well as many of the wines. Like Anderson Valley itself, it’s easy to pass right by, but if you do stop and look, there’s a lot to discover.
The store opened its doors under Lisa’s capable proprietorship six years ago, after her parents bought the property and business and spent some time upgrading the premises. Long-time Yorkville resident Terry Ryder is a fan. “Since Lisa and her parents have arrived in the community and taken over the store, there has been a ‘there there’ for Yorkville, similar to Lauren’s in Boonville. The food is mostly organic and always delicious. She’s provided so many occassions where the community can come together. It’s been awesome. We’re so grateful to her.”
One such occasion is the monthly community dinner the market offers. Though it no longer can be the in-person social event it once was, people can still enjoy a hearty meal for a reasonable price. Dinners are pre-ordered for pickup, and customers sometimes stick around for a glass of wine and a chat. They take their meal home or enjoy it at the picnic tables. A recent dinner cost $25 a plate and included tri tip steak, a baked potato, a garden salad with Yorkville-grown tomatoes and cucumbers, and apple pie made with apples grown in Terry’s yard and figs from trees on the ranch where Lisa’s parents live.
Dennis and Mary Lou Walsh bought the ranch in Yorkville in 1975, then moved there full-time in 1993. Prior to following them to the area, Lisa worked in a wine importing business, specializing in wines from Spain and Italy. But she prefers being her own boss. “I love what I do here. I like seeing people, cooking for people, talking to people, and I make my own hours.” As a mom to two young kids, ages seven and three, the freedom of setting her own hours is appreciated. “They’ve basically grown up in the store,” she reflects.
Staffing is down to one employee because of the pandemic, another mom with kids who are four and eight, close friends with Lisa’s two. Parenting in a store full of delicious foods has its challenges, however. Her daughter and youngest, Rosalie, was recently explaining how she needs to have an ice cream cone. “But you already had ice cream an hour ago,” Lisa said. Rosalie wisely responded, “But I haven’t tried that flavor yet.”
It takes a lot of effort to keep the various spaces in the store functioning. Her workday involves preparing the pre-made deli items, pouring wine at the wine bar, and whipping up espresso drinks over in the deli, as well as baking those hotly-pursued cookies. “I love finding local treasures for the store, like the art and pottery,” Lisa shares. “I wish I had more time to develop the retail side.” The deli is by far the busiest part of the business, pulling in locals at lunchtime and hungry travelers going through town. The wines and beers are popular, too. But Lisa’s favorite part is cooking for the community. “For the last dinner, I was here from 9am to 10:30pm, and I loved it,” she remembers. “It was fun and chaotic.”
Lisa earned a degree in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and she likes to spend a little time flexing her writing muscles when sending out updates and announcements to the market’s email list. Other than the occassional email, however, Lisa is not a fan of technology. Yorkville Market does not have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, so it won’t pop up on most of the radars folks use when sussing out an unfamiliar area. For that reason, you’ll be forgiven if you drive right on by when travelling Highway 128 through the mini-town of Yorkville. Forgiven, but poorer for it, at least if you’re a fan of cookies.
Yorkville Market
Wed–Thu 11am–5pm, Fri 8am–6pm, Sat–Mon 11am–5pm
26701 Highway 128, Yorkville
(707) 894-9456 | yorkvillemarket.squarespace.com
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville with her husband, two children, and a constantly revolving population of pets and farm animals.
Farming without Plastics
by Michael Foley
When I started farming back in Maryland, I based a lot of my organic farming methods on Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower. Somewhere in that book, he presented a back-of-the-envelope calculation comparing the carbon footprint of a head of lettuce grown in California and shipped to the East Coast versus a head of lettuce grown under plastic in his Maine hoophouse. His head of lettuce won hands down.
Coleman convinced me that year-round farming was the way to go. I put up my first hoophouse in 2005 and haven’t looked back. But when we moved to Willits in 2007, it was already clear that Coleman’s calculation couldn’t apply. A Salinas Valley head of lettuce had a lot less miles on it traveling to Willits than those shipping to eastern markets. Still, I built hoophouses and encouraged others to do so. I bought row covers to protect outdoor plants through fall, winter, and spring. I bought shade cloth to protect tender lettuces from the bright California sun. And a couple of years ago, we started buying ground cloth to kill off weeds and prepare the soil for planting.
I already knew plastic was bad for the environment, but I consoled myself that the most common plastics in our farming practice were the least bad: black plastic polyethylene mostly, and polypropylene for the greenhouse plastic and row covers. But plastic turns out to be much worse than I imagined. It is not just another fossil fuel product. It’s a product that pollutes all by itself as it off-gases additives and degrades into tinier and tinier pieces. The scourge of micro-plastics (plastic fragments less than 5mm in length) is becoming clearer, as they turn up in the intestines of fish and wildlife, in our drinking water, and in our own guts. We know that the bigger pieces kill plankton and other small forms of aquatic life, and many of them carry toxic chemicals, from BPA to phthalates, both responsible for a lot of reproductive harm in mammals, including humans.
Bioplastics aren’t necessarily better. Some of them biodegrade, but only under special circumstances—not in your compost heap, garden soil, or the ocean. Some of them don’t. Recycling, in the meantime, is in something of a crisis.
From an environmental perspective, we have to get plastics out of farming. But can we? On the one hand, the answer is, “Of course!” Humans farmed for 10,000 years before the advent of plastic just a few decades ago. We can do so again. On the other hand, this farmer—and I’m sure many others—is finding it hard to break the addiction.
Winter farming without that plastic hoophouse? The French market gardeners of the 18th and 19th century did it, with glass topped cold frames and “hot beds” warmed by composting manure, but it took a lot of labor, glass, and manure. Then there are the “fruit walls,” south-facing walls of cob or brick that absorb the sun’s heat during the day and stave off the cold during the night. Put a glass window in front of the wall and you have the beginnings of a greenhouse.
So there are tools out there that we might adopt and adapt as we try to find our way past the Age of Plastics. The glass greenhouse will be very expensive but last a long time. Other alternatives vary a lot in durability and cost. One of our mainstays at Green Uprising Farm in cooler months is row covers, sheets of spun polypropylene draped over low hoops down each row. Plants get protection from wind and chill, and the ground stays a couple degrees warmer. We’ve experimented using large pieces of cheesecloth and have found that they’re better than plastic. They stay up in the rain and snow, and they seem to last longer than the plastic version. They are also twice the cost.
In hot weather, we depend upon shade cloth. It covers much of our salad garden and our propagation house. This summer I tried the old alternative, used for centuries in farming cultures around the world—reed mats, sold as “reed fencing” here. It only took a few to cover the propagation structure. They’re much cheaper than shade cloth and much more attractive, and they give very effective shade for tender starts and microgreens.
Before market gardeners adopted plastic landscape cloth to kill weeds and prepare soil for working, organic gardeners and permaculturists advocated plain old cardboard. It works, and big pieces can be obtained from your friendly local furniture store. It can be cumbersome and ugly too, and we still have all that landscape cloth, but we’re using both now.
Bigger farmers depend upon sheet plastic mulches to suppress weeds, especially around delicate strawberry plants. But I met one farmer in Monterey County’s strawberry belt who was experimenting with burlap. We’re now trying out burlap to preserve the moisture around slow-germinating carrots, following the advice of Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser at Singing Frogs Farm.
Our old poly seed starting trays are coming apart, and it’s time to think about alternatives. Eliot Coleman introduced soil blockers to the U.S., a clever European device for producing compact “plugs” for seedlings without need for plastic. We’ll be trying them out soon.
As for packaging, we seem to be stuck with bio-plastic bags for our salad greens, but there are lovely cardboard fruit boxes on the market now that work just fine for tomatoes, pears, plums, and apples.
The biggest challenge is irrigation—miles and miles of poly tubing, with plastic fittings of all kinds. Invented to save precious water, it would be hard to part with and will probably be the last to go, if we ever manage to leave behind everything else plastic.
Can we get plastic out of farming? Yes, but we have a long, long way to go to end our dependence!
Michael Foley farms at Green Uprising Farm in Willits with his wife, Sara Grusky, and daughters, Thea Grusky-Foley and Allegra Foley. He is the author of Farming for the Long Haul (Chelsea Green, 2019).
Grapes, Eggs, Meat, & More
Full Circle Farming at Inland Ranch in Redwood Valley
by Torrey Douglass
Every good farm has at least one dog. They can serve as doorbell, intruder deterrent, pest hunter, livestock steward, and just good company. Not a bad exchange for some daily kibble and affection.
Jessica Taaning-Sanchez, who goes by Jessie, clearly knows the value of a good farm dog. She’s been farming Inland Ranch for the past 36 years, always with a canine cohort by her side. These days it’s Cincin, a terrier beagle cross. When one of her pups chases their last stick into the great beyond, Jessie commemorates its life and loyalty by burying it by the pond and stationing one of her giant rose quartz rocks above its grave. A line of five of the stunning geologic gems sits among flowers following the edge of the pond, a testament to her years spent on the ranch, working with a dog by her side.
Jessie loves the flowers almost as much as the rocks, evidence of the variety of beautiful things the earth can provide. She was 19 when she married Thomas, a man from the city who bought the 15 acre property in Redwood Valley. It included 12 acres of vines, so Jessie managed the farm and tended bar while Thomas continued to work in San Francisco, commuting back home on the weekends.
Working the ranch was a natural fit for Jessie, who grew up in Redwood Valley since the age of 5. Her dad was a teacher and her mother a regional secretary for CalFarm Insurance, raising three kids and tending their gardens along with meat animals like ducks, pigs, sheep, and chickens. Her mom canned, and her father fished and hunted. She estimates 70% of the family’s food was raised, grown, or foraged.
After growing up witnessing the essential relationship between food and the land that produces it, it’s natural that Jessie would choose to manage her vineyards organically. The ranch was certified in 1991 by CCOF, and not long after Jessie entered into a handshake deal with Frey Vineyards Winery, the first organic winemakers in the country. “They are an incredible family to deal with,” says Jessie, who continues to grow Cabernet and a bit of French Colombard grapes for Frey to this day.
It’s hard to make a living on farming alone, even when the crop is premium wine grapes, so Jessie tended bar for 25 years on top of her ranch duties. Her easy laugh, straightforward nature, diligent work ethic, and low BS tolerance makes her well suited to both. It was many years before she left bartending for good to farm full-time, and lots of little steps got her to the point where she could do that.
It started when Jessie became involved with the local 4-H program through her son. The leader had passed away suddenly, and she stepped up to manage the pig program. While she isn’t the program head anymore, she continues to raise piglets for the 4-H and FFA members, who receive them when they are 60 lbs and continue caring for them until they weigh 280 and are ready to show. Afterwards, the members sell their animals at the local Livestock Auction during fair time. In the early days, Jessie would bring her retired sows to auction as well, where they would fetch a paltry 30¢ per pound—not a great return. So she reconsidered her options and decided to transport some sows to Redwood Meats in Eureka for butchering, with the intention of creating a line of organic pork sausages.
Jessie’s flagship sausage was “Gloria’s Italian,” made from a recipe by Gloria Thompson, a longtime family friend with Italian heritage. She also makes a sweet sausage using anise and fennel that’s inspired by Mario’s, a popular local Italian restaurant where Jessie had worked in the past. A sage sausage followed, based on a Jimmy Dean recipe, then two spiced sausages—a mild chorizo and a spicy chipotle. Keeping both the meat and the spices 100% organic makes the sausages exceptionally flavorful and popular with foodies, and their success inspired Jessie to keep expanding.
With the popularity of the sausages, Jessie expanded into other meats and then produce, so that today Inland Ranch is a veritable cornucopia of local food. The front of the property is graced by the vineyards, followed by rows of crops—peppers, brassicas, garlic, artichokes, basil, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and much more. An irrigation pond is next, with an expansive willow tree providing shade over the aforementioned dog graves. The home and work buildings are just beyond the pond, followed by structures for laying hens and farrowing pigs, a hay barn, another plot of land for crops, and, lastly, fenced sections for sheep, feeder steers, horses, and a couple of mules.
Jessie thinks of her work as “full circle farming,” which recycles the animal manure into compost for her crops, enriching the soil while reducing waste. The work involved in this type of diversified farming is endless, yet Jessie describes herself as “spoiled.” “I like working for myself,” she muses, as she waters the flowers beside the pond. “And things feel solid. I’m grateful for that, since the restaurant and bar business has flatlined.” Going back to tending bar to stay in the black isn’t an option during COVID times.
Unlike so many businesses, sales have increased for the ranch during the pandemic, up 30% from last year as more people want local, trusted sources for their meat. One popular customer segment includes former vegetarians who have been advised to eat meat for health reasons. The quality and flavor that comes from well-raised, organic animals can’t compare to Big Ag’s equivalent.
While Jessie heads up this multifaceted operation, it requires a lot of hands to function. After Thomas, her first husband, passed twenty years ago, she married Joe, a man with a talent for construction and captaining heavy equipment. The ranch employs one full-time farm worker, Marin, for 50 hours a week. Jessie’s brother and sister-in-law tend their table at some of the farmers markets that serve as their primary sales channel. The ranch vends at seven markets in total, with only Tuesday off, traveling all over the county to sell their produce alongside organic eggs, pork sausage, lamb, and beef.
The markets give Jessie a chance to connect with her customers, one of her favorite aspects of running the farm. “I like feeding people and selling them good, nourishing food,” she reflects. “And the fellow vendors are all wonderful people. We have a good time.”
With 36 years of ranching and farming behind her, Jessie shows no signs of slowing down. The pond is seeing some upgrades—Joe’s working on a palapa next to it that will provide shade for an outdoor barbeque patio, and a fancy high-powered pump is on track to be installed for frost- and fire-protection. The ongoing demands of seeding, weeding, and feeding, not to mention the road hours spent driving south to Petaluma for bulk purchases of organic feed and north to Eureka to butcher the animals, all make for long days. It’s doable, though, as long as one has a kaleidoscope of flowers to lift the spirit, home-grown food to feed the body, and a sweet and stalwart companion in the form of a good-natured dog.
Find Inland Ranch at most of the county farmers markets. Keep in touch with Inland Ranch on their facebook page: facebook.com/pg/inlandranchorganics
Farm to Pizza
Café Beaujolais & Wavelength Farm
by Holly Madrigal
You may have heard of the farm to table movement, highlighting the connection between a delicious meal, where it was grown, and the farmers that grew it, but have you ever heard about Farm to Pizza? Wavelength Farm and Café Beaujolais are pioneering just that.
Kelan and Carly Daniel are part owners of Wavelength Farm in Manchester, on the east side of Highway One. Kelan’s enthusiasm is infectious when he speaks about his farm. “Our farm is coming alive,” Kelan says. “Even though we’re not in the sun belt, we planted five hundred different fruit trees—citrus, plums, pluots, and apples. We are really digging in this year, solidifying our roots so that we can branch out with a ton of diversity.”
Their farming methods are both old-fashioned and forward-thinking. He elaborates, “We’re working to recreate the intensive grazing that used to be accomplished by herds of elk. Now we are doing that with sheep and goats. Our chickens are producing manure to fertilize the crops,” Kelan adds. “And my wife is an amazing, badass farmer. She studied regenerative agriculture at the University of Vermont. This is her eighth season doing this work.” They grow several annual crops such as beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, and squash. “We grow staples, but the purple version, the heirloom version, the most flavorful version. We do things differently,” he says. And because Kelan had worked as a chef for many years with Chez Panisse and other kitchens that focused on ultra-fresh cuisine, he cultivates specifically for certain flavors.
Kelan studied metalworking, woodworking, and landscaping in Santa Cruz, and he is still a novice to farming. He, Carly, and friends Kelsey LaCroix and Austin Carlson are learning constantly. “I have noticed over the past few years a whole new wave of young people choosing to make a life here, people in their 20s and 30s settling around Point Arena and Mendocino. We are part of this, and we learn from the work they are doing at Oz Farm, Nye Ranch, and Fortunate Farm,” he adds. “We love to collaborate with the restaurants that want to highlight the unique flavors we are growing.”
Chef Julian Lopez and his parents, Peter and Melissa, bought Café Beaujolais four years ago. They dove into the local landmark, retaining the high standards of quality cuisine while bringing in fresh and innovative ideas. In addition to the French American menu in the dining room, they began selling pizza, as well as their fresh baked bread, out of the Brickery window in the rear garden. The massive brick oven is nearly thirty years old, built by famed oven maker, Alan Scott. Utilizing the blistering heat of the oven, Julian has experimented to get the perfect dough, the most satisfying chew, and the most delicious flavors.
Julian has made deep connections with local farmers for both the restaurant menu and the Brickery. “When I roast these vegetables at their peak of freshness,” says Julian, “it adds a complexity of flavor that you just can’t get with other methods.”
Julian and his dad, Peter, had reached out to Lavi, Kelan’s dad, to redesign their large garden seating area at Café Beaujolais. Lavi is a true renaissance man—a painter, designer, and grower specializing in South African and Australian plants. He was able to weave these beautiful, drought-tolerant, exotics into the Café Beaujolais landscape, working in tandem with Julian’s restoration of the raised beds of vegetables and beehives.
Both families had grown up in Los Angeles but moved north seeking a different lifestyle. They all became friends, and the Farm to Pizza idea was born. Lavi designed a farmstand outside of the Brickery, built by repurposing old-growth redwood from salvaged barn flooring. Kelan and Carly come twice a week to fill it with whatever is freshest in season. Wavelength Farm values this relationship. “Peter became one of our biggest supporters,” says Kelan. “He appreciates the beautiful diversity in our soil, in our crops. These flavors come through when our produce is served at the restaurant.”
“Mendocino is a somewhat older community, but I have found that locals are hungry for new ideas,” Julian explains. “This farmstand allows us to collaborate with our friends, bring attention to their farm, and solidify the connection between our food and where it comes from.”
Kelan and Julian discuss the “Pizza of the Week” that uses farmstand ingredients to best effect. The BLT Pizza is a regular favorite, featuring wild boar bacon, heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, and “pizza greens”—a mixture of collards, chicory, and radicchio—topped off with fresh mozzarella and dusted with pecorino cheese. A visitor can stop by the farmstand, grab the ingredients for the Pizza of the Week, and bring it to the window to have it cooked right there, or the ingredients can be purchased to make the pizza at home. As the seasons change, the farm now has lots of winter squash, so the menu will soon boast roasted butternut pizza with toasted spices.
Collaborative relationships have helped carry all of them through this pandemic. “When this all first started, we partnered with Erica and Haley of Fog Eater Café and let them sell their pies here. It helped them make it through until we all figured out the outdoor dining,” Julian explains. “We are feeding more people than ever from the Brickery and the walk-up window for Café Beaujolais, but it has been challenging because the income is not the same as from the dine-in restaurant.”
Julian is constantly striving for what is new and innovative. His love of craft breweries has led Beaujolais to develop a collection of 120 different beers, and “we keep these constantly rotating,” he explains. “Most places will have their beer sitting around, but ours is rarely more than two months old.” A good friend always makes it a point to stop for pizza when in Mendocino, and her method is just to ask for an IPA. The house picks one for her. She has never received the same one twice, and she has never been disappointed.
Julian does not limit his fresh ideas to the beer selection. The family is working on sprucing up another structure on the property into The Waiting Room—part coffee shop with WiFi, part place to enjoy a cozy glass of wine or pint of beer before dining in Café Beaujolais. “It is beautiful in there,” says Julian. The space is wrapped in warm redwood walls with a wood stove to keep it cozy. It will be a great addition to Mendocino Village once we can safely gather indoors.
Until we are able to snuggle up again, we can still enjoy the outdoor offerings at this culinary delight. The beautiful gardens designed by Lavi create outdoor “rooms” to safely enjoy the pizza. The raised beds overflowing with kale, tomatoes, and various edibles are tended by Julian and his friends, Martin and Andres. Their three beehives buzz with activity as the residents zip out to pollinate the garden before returning to their community hub. All this activity reminds me of the friendship and collaboration between Café Beaujolais and Wavelength Farm, sharing their gifts with the rest of the hive.
DIY Pizza Dough
If you have some time on your hands and a hankering for the zen exercise that is kneading dough, give this recipe a try. Stop by the farm stand at Café Beaujolais for some locally grown toppings, grab your marinara sauce of choice and favorite cheeses, and you’re good to go!
Ingredients
1 packet active yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c warm water
2 Tbsp olive oil
1-2/3 c all purpose flour
2/3 c fine cornmeal
Add the yeast and sugar to the warm (not hot!) water, stir gently, and let it rest for 5 minutes. Combine dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, then add the yeast mixture and the olive oil. Mix roughly then transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Roll the dough into a rough ball and place it into a clean bowl. Drizzle a bit of olive oil on top, then move the bowl in a circular motion so the dough rolls around to gather a light covering of the oil. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and place in a warm area for an hour. Once the dough has doubled in size, knead lightly and roll out into a circle. Pizza sheets are great but a cookie sheet will work just as well. Be sure to oil it lightly first, and bake your pizza at 425˚F.
Café Beaujolais, 961 Ukiah Street, Mendocino, CA
Open Wed to Sun 11:30am - 7pm. Brickery Pizza open Wed to Sun 11:30am - 5pm.
(707) 937-5614 | Cafébeaujolais.com
Wavelength Farm produce can be found at Fort Bragg Farmers Market, CSA, and multiple wonderful restaurants. (310) 433-4604 | wavelengthfarm.com
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.
Elkfield Wines
by Jane Khoury
If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be back in my hometown of Ukiah making wine, I probably would have laughed. In those years away, I found my passion for winemaking and viticulture, and moreover the health benefits from it. But is all wine created equal?
Growing up on an organic vineyard, I knew exactly the type of wine that I wanted to make—wine that has extraordinary health benefits with minimal interventions. When I started this journey, I sought to find the balance between the land and the vines by transitioning the vineyard to biodynamic practices, exceeding the standards and regulations of organic farming.
Biodynamic farming has been proven to restore the normal antioxidant production of plants, which in turn increases the nutritional value of the fruit! It avoids all herbicides, insecticides, synthetic fertilizers, and, ultimately, relies on the health of the soil. In conventional farming, the soil is depleted of minerals such as potassium, magnesium, sodium, calcium, and iron. With the focus on soil health, natural minerals are able to be incorporated into the fruit, allowing them to be more absorbable and usable by the body, naturally enhancing its function. A true healthy wine starts in the vineyard with a focus on organic and biodynamic management.
Biodynamic wine is even more beneficial since it’s made free of artificial interventions such as color, yeast, and additional winemaking enhancing strategies. Instead, biodynamic wine is created with indigenous yeast that naturally flourishes in the vineyard and concentrates on the fruit. As a result, biodynamic wine is filled with greater amounts of the gene longevity and anti-aging compounds such as resveratrol and flavonoids. Higher amounts of procyanidins are also found, which lessens your risk of heart disease while helping lower cholesterol, protecting against stroke and metabolic syndrome. It can be difficult to find wineries that make biodynamic wine. Luckily for Mendocino County, a new winery is certified biodynamic: Elkfield Wines!
When I started Elkfield Wines, I was determined for our wine to be an expression of our vineyards, with minimal interventions and zero additives, allowing our wines to fully express our viticulture practice, micro-climates, and terroirs. Every vine is delicately crafted with intention and precision, creating extraordinary components that are used in the architecture of Elkfield’s red and white wines.
As winemaker, I carefully tailor my winemaking techniques and implementations to the personality of each vintage and lot, beginning with organic and biodynamically certified estate grapes. The wine ferments using native yeast, while being closely monitored and fully expressing the biodynamic practices. With new world fruit and old-world winemaking, every wine is full of expression and unlike any wine you’ve tasted before.
Now, as you go to your local store to purchase wine, whether it is Elkfield Wines or another wonderful choice, I hope you use the following tools to help you choose the wine that is healthiest for you. Always look to see where the grapes are sourced. Are they grown organically or biodynamically? Most wineries that use organic or biodynamic grapes will state that they do. It is also important to see if they are certified, as certification by an independent third party means that there is a standard and a list of guidelines which need to be followed to continue certification. Grapes that are grown organically but not certified are able to use additional measures to their growing cycle if need be. Next, how do they make the wine? Are they free of interventions? By interventions we are looking for words such as enzyme, acid additions, adding color, or even adding sugar. It might be difficult to find these answers, but any winery that doesn’t use interventions will proudly say so on their website or label. Sulfur, too, can be seen as an additive, though low amounts of sulfur in wine allow for the wine to age and be drinkable in a year or more. Personally, I always look for a wine that has a little sulfur in it so that I am able to enjoy it in the future, not just immediately.
Finally, I leave you with this: Antioxidants, naturally found in wine and amplified by our Biodynamic farming, help keep our immune systems healthy. With all the stress we are facing these days, it is so important that we take advantage of natural immune boosters when we can. Wine is an enjoyable way to do so. Cheers!
Elkfield Wines
7801 East Hwy 20, Ukiah, CA 95482 | www.elkfieldwines.com
Tastings are by appointment only. Email info@elkfieldwines.com to book an appointment. Find Elkfield wines at Ukiah Natural Foods Coop or Mariposa Market.
Jane Khoury obtained her Bachelor of Science in Viticulture and Enology from the University of California, Davis, and a Masters of Business Administration in Wine Business from Sonoma State University. Jane pursues winemaking and regenerative agriculture while being an Intensive Care Unit Registered Nurse.
`Āina, Community, and Culture
A Small Hawaiian Island Strives for Sustainability
by Juice Aguirre
On a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean lives a small organization doing BIG things for their community. Mālama Kaua`i was founded in 2006 and is a non-profit that focuses on advocating, educating, and driving action toward a sustainable Kaua`i. Their focus in the last few years has been on local food production and consumption, as well as building community capacity and growing interest in sustainable tourism.
Mālama Kaua`i has three important core values:
`Āina—We are rooted in the core value of aloha ‘aina (love and connection to the land). We create solutions that foster sustainability and work in harmony with nature while producing abundant, healthy, and local food.
Community—We care for our children, our economy, our society, and our island’s future. We envision a Kaua’i where people enjoy a high quality of life and the sense of community is strong.
Culture—We are built on healthy relationships with each other and our kinship with the land. We respect and perpetuate the local culture and indigenous wisdom of our ancestors.
Just like the rest of the world, Mālama Kaua`i (MK) and our beautiful communities have been affected by COVID-19. Although these are still very important core values, MK and most local farmers were forced to pivot their businesses due to the pandemic. Since it began, tourism and hospitality employment alone have plummeted across our island by 52%.
Many of our farms participated in subsidized programs, providing food for the vulnerable and needy in their community during the period of pandemic emergency response. They now need to change their business models to survive. Yet during all this time of duress, MK has been able to move forward with their current project, the Moloa`a `Āina Center Food Hub.
This new food hub will be developed in partnership with the Moloa‘a Irrigation Cooperative, which comprises 70 commercial farms and spans 600+ acres. Located a half mile off the highway and on the primary farm road in Moloa’a, the hub will create immediate opportunities for farmers to increase their revenue at this critical time of pandemic market disruption.
This project will increase access to healthy food in the Anahola area and address the loss of the previous Anahola Food Hub site due to COVID-19. It will also create new opportunities for farmers to preserve their produce into value-added products for longer shelf life. It will be FSMA compliant (to abide by food safety rules), and will provide farms with washing, processing, and storage space, opening up institutional distribution channels such as farm-to-school programs.
These new farm-to-school programs will help educate youth on the importance of sustainability, farming, and knowing where the food they consume actually comes from. It creates a connection to community and is exactly what our island needs now more than ever. To be able to even slightly imagine ourselves as an island that can sustain itself is a step in the right direction. With our tropical climate and amazing growing conditions, the possibilities are endless. We have become so reliant on having consumables shipped to us from the mainland and all over the world. Imagine what we could do for our community and economy if we shifted our focus to what we can grow here locally?
We are truly blessed to have so many amazing supporters and to live in such a magical place. Our sense of togetherness and community support is more vibrant than ever. It is critical to the health of our community to remain strong, dynamic, and resilient together! We will always be Kaua`i strong.
Learn more about Mālama Kaua‘i and how to support their efforts at malamakauai.org. IG: @malama_kauai Facebook: Malama Kaua`i
The Boonville Barn Collective
Adjusts to the Challenges of Uncertain Times
by Krissy Scommegna
If you’ve driven the stretch of Highway 128 between Boonville and Philo, you’ve probably noticed the big wooden barn situated between 2 vineyards. Well, that’s us—the Boonville Barn Collective. We’re a small farm focused on producing hard to find chile powders, but we grow more than just peppers. Our farming operation spans both sides of Highway 128, with chile peppers, dry beans, and strawberries on one side of the highway and our olive trees and processing facilities on the other. Overall, we have about seven acres in production in the heart of the Anderson Valley.
In 2011, while I was working as sous chef at the Boonville Hotel, I first learned about Piment d’Espelette. We used this sweet, spicy Basque red chile powder constantly in the kitchen, but it was pretty expensive to import. With Johnny Schmitt’s encouragement, my dad Roger Scommegna, his vineyard foreman Nacho Flores, and I set out to see if we could grow a local version of the pepper. Anderson Valley has a similar climate to the Basque region in France, and Nacho’s first trial of 50 plants, sowed in June of 2012, resulted in a successful harvest of chiles in September. Piment d’Ville was born as the pepper of Boonville!
We grew more chiles with each consecutive year, and the business evolved from a startup to a stable operation. It was a good time to take a break, allowing me to move to Boston in 2015 to pursue a master’s in Food, Agriculture and the Environment from Tufts University. I led an anti-hunger nonprofit and worked as a whole animal butcher, and my partner, Gideon, worked as the Development and Marketing Manager for a regional non-profit food hub. We both reached the point in our careers where it was clear a change was needed. Coming back to Boonville seemed like both the most challenging and most rewarding option.
So Gideon and I moved back to Boonville and formed the Boonville Barn Collective shortly thereafter in January 2020. While we started as a farm focused on producing California-grown Espelette pepper for restaurant chefs, our goal is to both diversify what we grow and to encourage more home chefs to explore domestically grown spices—and that goes beyond our Piment d’Ville. Nacho has been cultivating different crops from Mexico that are hard to find here in Mendocino County, and we’re looking forward to helping him share what he grows with both our local community and across the country.
Now the foreman of the Boonville Barn Collective, Nacho has been farming since he was 10. Hailing from Michoacán, Mexico, his family has been growing peppers, corn, and tomatillos for generations. Switching to the French pepper took some adjustment, but over the past nine years, Nacho has learned the ins and outs of growing and drying these chiles. As a Mendocino Renegade certified farm, managing nutrient deficiencies and pests requires just a bit more work. In addition, the cyclical drought conditions over the past few years continue to challenge how and what we are able to grow.
As the pandemic started to change our world in March, we recognized the importance of investing in feeding our community. Nacho and Martin Flores, our Assistant Foreman, planted seeds for a staff garden that helped feed 40 people throughout the summer. Watching restaurants across the country close down was the warning sign that our business plans for the year needed to shift. We sat down to think about what we could grow that could be consumed locally. We knew we didn’t want to completely revamp the farm, since we do well producing shelf stable goods! We decided to shift some of our cropland to dry beans.
For the past five years we’ve been growing heirloom Italian beans, but in small quantities for local restaurants and friends of the farm. As we explored what we could easily add to our fields, it became clear that expanding bean production made the most sense. As seed suppliers began to sell out, we raced to secure pinto and peruano beans to plant in a section of the farm that was originally slated for peppers. As summer transitioned to fall, we knew our next challenge would be figuring out how to thresh the plants. Once the plants die back and the pods dry, threshing involves removing the dry beans from their pods and winnowing away any of the remaining plant matter. Our production is too small to require any kind of commercial bean combine thresher (think Iowa cornfields-size), but too big to thresh by hand. In the 1960s, there were solutions for farms like ours. Called “bean specials,” they were manufactured for smaller operations, but fell out of production as the USDA encouraged farms to “get big or get out.”
One of Gideon’s friends from college reached out with plans for a bike-powered bean thresher, and Nacho immediately got to work building one. This year, our five different varieties of dry beans were all cleaned with our bike-powered bean thresher. Nacho, Martin, Gideon, and I all spent time on the bike, but Martin was truly the main bike thresher. Together we rode our way to 1,000 pounds of dry beans.
This year, we’re launching the Boon Box, our take on a CSA, but from a farm that grows little fresh produce. Delivered three times a year, the subscription box allows us to have the capital we need in the winter for seed purchases and for making improvements on the farm for the next growing season. Customers are guaranteed beans, and we’ll share some of the peppers we grow on a micro scale for ourselves, giving individuals the opportunity to try out new varieties. It’s also a way for folks to give us feedback on what we’re growing, helping us determine which special crops they’d like to see become a mainstay going forward.
While 2020 was not the year we had planned when we started the business, I’m proud of our team’s resilience. We’ve pivoted and figured out how to make things work, whether facing an almost empty irrigation pond or a complete shift in what our business looks like. It hasn’t been easy, by any means. It’s a game of shifting energy, adjusting expectations, and focusing on what is most important. And then a lot of hope that we made the right choices.
We’ve had time this year to think about what we could improve and do differently. Much of this has been centered around how we can better take care of our land by implementing climate smart practices. This past summer, we received a $10,000 grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Healthy Soils Program to plant a 1,000 foot hedgerow along the edge of our property. We worked with Linda MacElwee of the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District to design the hedgerow, focusing on native plants that are adapted to our climate, provide pollinator habitat for our bees, beneficial insects (does anything eat that cucumber beetle?!), and will sequester carbon in the soil. While we can’t easily transition our tractors off of diesel, we can change the way we use and produce energy on the farm. Our goal is to install solar panels on the barn in the near future to generate power back into the electrical grid.
Looking to the future, we hope to continue thoughtfully expanding the diversity of crops we grow, while keeping the focus on shelf stable products. We’re working to bring attention to not only spices from a single origin, but those that are truly farm to jar spices, like ours here in Boonville. In a part of California that cares so deeply about where their food comes from and how to support local businesses, we hope our chile powders earn a dedicated home in your spice drawer.
Visit www.boonvillebarn.com to learn more about the Boonville Barn Collective and their products. Many retailers across the county including the Farmhouse Mercantile and The Disco Ranch in Boonville, Surf Market in Gualala, Barge North Co in Mendocino, Harvest Market in Fort Bragg, Mendocino Bounty and the Ukiah Natural Foods Co-Op in Ukiah, and Mariposa Market in Willits.
Table of Contents photo and p 29 photo by Gilbert Bages. Photos pp 30 and 31 by Krissy Scommegna.
Krissy Scommegna owns and operates the Boonville Barn Collective with her husband, Gideon Burdick.
Mendocino County’s Carbon Farmers
Harnessing Agriculture to Help the Planet
By Connie Higdon
I’ve been roasting chiles this week—my favorite post-harvest activity—and thinking about food, dirt, and carbon. California’s recent fires have made it clear that the climate crisis is now, not ten years away. Our planet is burdened with excess carbon in its atmosphere, and one of the major sources of that pollution is agriculture.
But what if the food we eat didn’t only fuel our bodies but also helped save our planet? What if the world’s agricultural lands could help offset atmospheric carbon? Right now in Mendocino County, ranches, farms, and vineyards are doing just that—storing more carbon in the soil than they release through crop and livestock production.
The key is nature’s carbon cycle, the process through which carbon atoms move from the atmosphere to the earth and back into the atmosphere. In this closed loop, the amount of carbon doesn’t change. What changes is where the molecules end up—in plants and soil or in our air. By using methods that capture more carbon in the ground, farmers and ranchers can help to shift the skewed carbon cycle.
More than 15 local food and fiber growers are engaged in a multi-year experiment to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases and improve soil health. The “carbon farming” they practice uses the natural growth cycle of plants to pull CO2 out of the air, break it down, and store the carbon in soil organic matter and plant roots. Biodiverse and organically enriched dirt, it turns out, maximizes carbon capture.
At Strong Roots Farm in Potter Valley, Sorren and Gina Covina baled 25 acres of mixed grass and clover hay this past May. The previous year’s crop had been large—over 900 bales—due to a long rainy season. In the winter and spring of this year, however, less rain fell and the weather was cold. But something else had changed at Strong Roots.
“Last November, we began implementing the carbon farming plan I wrote for our Healthy Soils Program grant application,” Gina told me, as we looked out across long rows of amaranth, tomatoes, squash, and herbs. “The first step was to spread a thin layer of compost everywhere on the farm.”
Compost works in part by increasing plants’ ability to capture and use carbon, which produces crops that are healthier and larger. Sorren happily noted that the first hay cutting of 2020 produced 1,176 bales of hay—276 more than the prior spring. “And the garlic is huge this year,” she added. This increase in yield means that an investment in soil carbon results in significant gains for the farmer. Gina, who operates Open Circle Seeds, noted that such a change enables her business to produce more seeds to sell in a year when, due to the pandemic, many people are turning to home gardening.
According to Jeff Creque of the Carbon Cycle Institute (CCI) in Petaluma, “Agriculture is the one human activity that actually can transform itself from a net atmospheric emitter to a net storer of carbon.” Healthy soil-based farming turns pasture and croplands into deep sinks for the carbon that commercial agriculture strips from fields by excessive tilling and use of chemical fertilizers. It not only offsets on-farm outputs like fossil fuel use, but also improves the productivity of livestock and crops.
CCI’s modeling shows that carbon farming on 25 million acres of California’s arable land could sequester (store) 42 million metric tons of atmospheric carbon annually. Removing this amount from the atmosphere would render our state carbon neutral.
“Adding even a half-inch of compost leads to more grass growth, and that means more carbon capture,” Jeff pointed out. “Now, some of that carbon ends up in the soil, and that increase is measurable. Also, an increase in soil carbon leads to greater water holding capacity. Which means, in the subsequent year, we capture more rainfall on the compost-treated plots and grow even more grass. So, each year—and we now have ten years of data—we see more carbon coming into the soil, at a rate above that of our untreated control plots.”
This measurable increase in carbon storage begins with the development of carbon farming plans tailored to individual land conditions and uses. The grower usually collaborates with the county’s Resource Conservation District and other soil and water specialists. Together, they evaluate the present state of the property and clarify goals for cropland, pastures, forests, and riparian areas (creeks, springs, etc.), identifying opportunities to enhance carbon capture.
Locally, multiple organizations assist with carbon plans. These include the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), CCI, and Fibershed, a textile fiber group based in Marin County. Several farmers and ranchers have funded plan implementation strategies with grants from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Healthy Soils Program, the NRCS, and private foundations.
Katy Brantley, the MCRCD’s soils program manager, finds that a wide variety of the county’s farmers and ranchers express interest. “Mendocino County has a lot of agricultural diversity,” she pointed out. “We’ve just completed carbon farming plans with Pennyroyal Farm in Boonville and the Apple Farm in Philo, and we’re starting several more throughout the county. Thanks to the latest round of CDFA Healthy Soils Program grants, Haiku Vineyards in Ukiah and the Boonville Barn Collective will begin implementing climate beneficial practices this fall.”
The diversity of food producers involved in carbon farming highlights our county’s unique agricultural community. Speaking of the Magruder Ranch, Kyle Farmer noted, “Carbon farming looks to a different paradigm for agriculture, one not based only on short-term gains. Wendell Berry put it this way: ‘Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest.’ It’s a matter of how far beyond the immediate yield you can be thinking.”
Carbon farming also boosts shorter-term production, he added, “because carbon is such a useful molecule to have around. For example, if you’re feeding cattle with a bale of hay and some of that gets trampled into the soil, should you keep that from happening? Yes, you lose a little hay, but you also gain soil carbon.”
The Magruder Ranch has practiced elements of carbon farming since Mac Magruder took over management from his father forty years ago. Mac implemented rotational grazing—moving cattle from pasture to pasture on a schedule that allows grass recovery. Kyle and his wife Grace, Mac’s daughter, have introduced additional strategies to increase soil health and biodiversity, writing their first carbon plan in 2017 with the county Resource Conservation District.
“We’ve gone forward with spreading compost on every acre of land that’s flat enough,” Kyle told me. “We’re doing the soil tests to see how much carbon increase we can get in our upper hillsides.” They also are planting oaks and faster-growing trees to create silvopastures—tree-studded grassland. Planting trees in perennial pastures results in minimized soil loss and maximized water retention. In the midst of climate-related drought, water-holding capacity is critical.
Peggy Agnew, another Potter Valley rancher, runs 30 to 40 sheep on irrigated pastures and some hill slopes. Over several decades, she has crossbred her flock to develop a breed with soft sturdy wool for spinning. She and her husband are in the first year of implementing a carbon plan, funded by the CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program.
Through the Mendocino County Wool Festival committee, Peggy connected with Fibershed, a regional group that links textile fiber growers with resources and promotes farming methods that enhance soil and watershed health. Working with them and Agricultural Extension staff, she focused on compost spreading to enhance her ranch’s carbon capacity. Like Sorren and Gina, she spread a half-inch of compost in November 2019. Over the next three years, she will test the soil for carbon increases.
“Knowing that we’re improving soil and pushing back against climate change gives what we do more meaning,” Peggy shared. “If I can do this, then so can my neighbor. We’re creating scientific data that demonstrates how much small farms can do.”
Has she seen a difference since applying the compost? “My irrigated pastures usually get grazed down by summer’s end. That hasn’t happened this year. And the sheep are loving the extra clover and grass.”
Across the county in Caspar, Fortunate Farm is finishing up the third year of their carbon plan implementation. Farm manager and co-owner, Gowan Batist, says that the techniques they’ve included so far—composting on a large scale, reducing tillage, and cover cropping in the big vegetable patches, eradicating invasive gorse thickets, and rotational grazing for their sheep—have made a significant difference in the farm’s soil and fertility.
“North Coast Brewing Company supplies us with spent hops and grain,” she told me as we toured the compost yard. “We did our original carbon plan with the Carbon Cycle Institute and the MCRCD. Now we’re also working with Fibershed, because of the sheep.” Fortunate Farm has received funding assistance from the NRCS and a private foundation.
Gowan’s plans for the farm include building up the native plant landscape, intercropping vegetables with native grasses and wildflowers, and introducing hedgerows of elderberry, thimbleberry, and wax myrtle to reduce wind intrusion and hold soil along the creek. “I started out gardening with really low-income kids in the county schools,” Gowan shared. “I see our carbon farming as a continuation, an expansion of my environmental justice work, helping the planet.”
A major goal of the Carbon Cycle Institute and California’s Resource Conservation Districts, as well as many carbon farmers and ranchers, is to scale up these strategies and engage as many growers as possible. “We’d like to see full funding for a carbon farm program through the Resource Conservation Districts all across California,” Jeff Creque said. “There needs to be a significant commitment to the work by society at large.”
The Mendocino County food and fiber producers who practice carbon farming are in the vanguard of this critically important direction for agriculture in the age of global warming. Together with localized food transport projects like the MendoLake Food Hub and watershed restoration and protection programs, they lead the county’s push-back against the climate crisis. As consumers, we can commit to this movement by supporting our local carbon farms, ranches, and wineries, and the businesses that use and sell their products.
For more information on carbon farming:
Carbon Cycle Institute www.carboncycle.org
Fibershed www.fibershed.org
Mendocino County Resource Conservation District www.mcrcd.org
LandSmart www.landsmart.org/programs-services/landsmart-carbon-farm-plans/
North Coast Soil Hub www.soilhub.org/
California Department of Food and Agriculture, Healthy Soils Program www.cdfa.ca.gov/healthysoils/
US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
Connie Higdon writes on land conservation and environmental issues and is working on a book exploring local solutions for climate change. She lives in Ukiah and can be reached at higdongannon@gmail.com
Toyon
California’s Christmas Berry
by Torrey Douglass
Toyon berries (or pomes) can be found along the entire California coast, and its nickname, “Christmas berry,” is well earned. It boasts festive small, bright red berries October through January, and at one point was so popular for foragers making wild-sourced holiday wreaths that the state passed a law prohibiting their collection on public lands. Toyon is a shrub, but it can grow quite large—up to 8 feet in chaparral, scrubland, and mixed-oak woodland habitats—and its drought-tolerance, fire resistance (if healthy), and ability to grow in different types of soil make it an ideal choice for erosion control and pollinator support.
The scientific name for Toyon is Heteromeles arbutifolia. Heteromeles means “different apple” in Greek, while arbutifolia is Latin for “strawberry tree leaves,” since the oblong leaves with serrated edges mirror those on strawberry plants. The berries are not particularly tasty on their own—mealy, acidic, and astringent. But you can coax a gentle sweetness from them through either drying or boiling. They can then be ground into flour and added to trail mix if dried, or, if boiled, simmered into a berry cider, added to pancake batter, or made into a kind of wild equivalent to cranberry sauce.
Another option for utilizing these winter gems is a sweet and chewy fruit leather. Chef and wild food expert, Alicia Funk, uses the following recipe for her Toyon berry fruit leather. Try it out for a yummy foraged snack.
Toyon Berry Fruit Leather
4 cups fresh Toyon berries
½ cup water
Lemon juice
Manzanita sugar, agave or honey
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Collect berries in the winter, then rinse and remove stems. Place in a pot, cover with water, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add desired sweetener, lemon juice, and spices to taste. Cook for another 5 minutes, then blend through a food processor or blender until smooth. Pour a thin layer—about 1/8” thick—onto a baking sheet. Let dry in the oven, food dehydrator, or place in the sun covered with cheesecloth. Cut into strips and enjoy!
Find more recipes from Alicia Funk at The Living Wild Project | LivingWild.org
Photo by docentjoyce from Los Osos, U.S.A., CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Tuber Tonic Toddy
The Perfect Cold Season Warm-Up
Turmeric had a moment a few years back, when its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits made it all the rage. But working this distinctive spice into your diet can require some creativity. Enter Tuber Tonic, a combination of potent natural ingredients, including turmeric, and made right here in Mendocino County. For devoted tea fans like myself, this signature product, created by Mendocino Tea Company, serves up a flavor-bursting, caffeine-free pick-me-up that boosts immunity and overall resilience with the help of organic turmeric, ginger, elderberries, cinnamon, and black pepper. Combine this vigorous infusion with drambuie and top it off with a cinnamon stick for a warming winter cocktail to spice up the season.
First, make the Tuber Tonic by adding two tablespoons to a quart of boiling water. Remove from the heat and let it sit for a minimum of 10 minutes up to all day (this magical mix will not become bitter). For the toddy, combine 6 ounces of hot Tuber Tonic with 1 ounce of Drambuie and garnish with a cinnamon stick. Pull up a chair by the fire, throw on whatever music soothes your soul, and sip solo or with some friends for a sociable occasion to keep winter’s chill at bay.
Purchase Tuber Tonic from Mendocino Tea Company at MendocinoTea.com.
Disco Ranch
This Welcoming Boonville Wine Bar is a Groovy Combination of Fun and Fancy
by Holly Madrigal
Wendy Lamer is the kind of person you meet and think, “We should be friends.” She has a warm, welcoming smile and a serious passion for wine. This passion has led her from Georgia to Phoenix, finally luring her to Anderson Valley, where she opened the Disco Ranch wine shop.
You can tell from the name that this place is fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously. “The name comes up a lot,” quips Wendy. When she lived in Georgia, she was part of a group of wine and food enthusiasts. She enjoyed many a dinner party and wine tasting at multiple stunning homes on Lake Lanier, down the road from her own modest place, a farm house straight out of the ’70s with llamas gracing the front pasture. The décor was so dated that “the house had a powder blue toilet, sink, and bathtub,” she groans, adding that she did not want any of her friends to see it.
But eventually, they insisted that she host the party, letting her know that she could no longer be part of the supper club if she didn’t step up. Dreading the inevitable embarrassment, Wendy finally agreed to host an evening, and a bit of magic happened. As the night went on and the guests ambled in, the music changed to disco. Folks pushed the couches to the walls and set up an impromptu dance party. A fabulous evening was had by all, and they danced well into the early morning hours. Wendy had to go to work the next morning, but when she returned home, her friends had installed a disco ball in the middle of her living room, renaming the space the Disco Ranch. The name stuck, and Wendy has brought this name—symbolizing a fun and delicious appreciation of food and wine—to Boonville.
And a visit to Disco Ranch is fun, with not a hint of pretension or snobbery. Wendy and her brother Gregg, currently hospitality director at Roederer, previously owned a bistro in Phoenix that had a wine bar component. “But the fine-dining part began to overshadow the wine,” laments Wendy. When the chef proved unreliable, disappearing for hours at a time, she found herself frantically running the kitchen while simultaneously being asked by a server to recite all the grape varieties that makeup Port. “It was just too much! That is why, when I decided to open this place, I just wanted to focus on wine. Anderson Valley has so many excellent wineries, so I’ve further focused my offerings. I sell imports from France and Spain as well as some smaller local wines that do not have tasting rooms.” The imported wine has been a huge draw. “Local winemakers hang out here,” Wendy continues, “and I would bring in these new wines and we would taste and enjoy. You can travel the world with wine and food.”
Wendy sees her spot as a complement—not a competition—to the larger wineries in the area. “I want to highlight the lesser-known boutique winemakers, some of whom are just really excellent.” When asked who she is excited about at the moment, she references Minus Tide and Waits Mast. “They are fantastic,” she muses. She also encourages guests to visit the local tasting rooms to experience those wines and hear their stories. The wineries, in turn, often refer their patrons to Disco Ranch for those hard-to-find wines like Black Kite and Maggie Hawk.
Despite not wanting to have food overshadow the wine, pairing great wines with excellent food is another of Wendy’s talents. The Disco Ranch offers a variety of Spanish tapas and specially chosen small plates. Wendy explains, “I have a background in specialty foods, so I choose to offer things with lots of flavor that go well with the wine, which was my biggest focus. It all came together. I think of this as a well-stocked pantry. After a hard day of work, when you don’t want to go to the drive-through, you can stop here for a simple dish, like shrimp and grits, that comes together quickly and tastes so good. That is how I do the tapas. I pull great ingredients off the shelf and whip up these small bites.”
The spicy pulled pork slider is a soft pillowy Hawaiian roll with richly spiced pork, topped with a creamy slaw flecked with red peppers. The effervescent glass of Raventos Spanish Cava (founded in 1497) is bone dry and stands up to smoky bites of chorizo topped with the contrasting creaminess of a marinated gigande bean. Each plate seems to hold the perfect amount to whet the appetite but not overfill, which is good because it would be easy to reach decadence by ordering one of everything. Piquillo peppers stuffed with fresh goat cheese? Yes, please. Shrimp that is bright and lemony with a delicious herbal mustard depth? I’ll take ‘em.
Along with your wine purchase, you can pick up treats like premium cheeses (including some vegan choices), spicy tomato vodka chutney, or tinned Ortiz Yellow Fin Tuna. “I stock some simple pastas and goodies that I enjoy, quality basics,” says Wendy, in addition to a cold case full of grab-and-go picnic items and well-curated shelves of local pantry staples and specialties.
The Disco Ranch has been required to “do the hustle” in its first year of business. Shortly after their grand opening, Mendocino County experienced multiple Public Safety Power Shut-off events due to area wildfires. Christina Jones, the prior chef at the Disco Ranch location, had helped bring the weekly Farmers Market to the parking lot. When Wendy purchased the business, she looked forward to catching up with friends on the sunny outdoor patio, listening to live music, hosting impromptu tastings, and providing recommendations for a bottle to enhance dinner. But then 2020 brought its next curveball with COVID 19. “It has oddly worked out,” Wendy explains. “It let me stay focused on what was important. If people were not going out, they were drinking twice as much at home. I brought in more specialty foods.”
Wendy continues, “I added to the ‘Cheap and Delicious’ section, which has become really popular. I like wine for everyday enjoyment. When I was first starting out at Happy Herman’s in Georgia, my pay was so low that I needed to find what was cheap and delicious. You don’t need to spend $100 for a good bottle of wine. I have 30-40 wines under $15, a large portion of which score between 90-92 points.” She keeps that section varied and lively. “The fact that I had charcuterie and products in tins with a long shelf life helped. We have some really fun offerings, like our selection of vermouths and bitters. The whole cocktail scene is hot right now,” she adds. “I have a beautiful Henren Miniz Spanish vermouth, infused with twenty-four botanicals, which is then stored for eight years under the floor in a sherry cask. What’s crazy is that we sell it at a great value.”
The depth of knowledge at Disco Ranch is revealed the more Wendy talks. When asked if she has a red or white preference, she clarifies that it depends on the region and what you are eating it with. “The Loire Valley and Rhone Regions are certainly the best value in the world. And I am a huge bubble fan.” She has curated collections of assorted champagnes, cavas, and prosecco in case you might be a kindred “bubble-head.”
Wendy eagerly awaits the time when she will be able to offer flights and wine education. “Part of the fun is getting to sample food and try out wines in a casual way. I miss having the smaller winemakers here doing pop-ups. I miss Pinot Fest. I would love to expand the patio.” But meanwhile, she is stocking up the take-away and preparing for the holidays. A stop at Disco Ranch could check everyone off your list. You can buy a home tasting, an aromatic whites 6-pack, six different Spanish wines, or a S.I.P. Survival Pack. Name your style or interest, and Wendy can find the perfect match. And if you want to be really socially distanced, you can order online for curbside pickup.
No matter what new adventures are over the horizon, Wendy and the Disco Ranch will adapt with good humor and good taste. “This community has been so welcoming,” adds Wendy. “We help each other out.” With any luck, she will be dancing into the future to the sound of that disco beat, the community by her side.
Disco Ranch Wine Bar + Specialty Food Market
Thu – Sun 11-6, Monday 11-3
14025 Hwy 128 Boonville | 707-901-5002 | discoranch.com
The Bilingual Botanical Bus
A Mobile Holistic Herbal Clinic Serving Sonoma County
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
We certainly live in interesting times. Most of us have had to pivot our lives and our businesses in order to create a modicum of normalcy during this pandemic. For many folks in northern California, however, this type of life-upending crisis was already the norm before COVID, dating from the big fires in 2017 which did so much damage in Mendocino and Sonoma counties and surrounding areas. And as always, in times of trouble, good things can arise from the ashes, like the community-based service non-profit known as The Botanical Bus.
When the Tubbs Fire plagued the Santa Rosa area in 2017, a local herbal apothecary—Farmacopia—turned their store into a free clinic for weeks, offering support, advice, referrals, and herbal medicinals to help meet the needs of the community. Lily Mazzarella, owner of Farmacopia, and Jocelyn Boreta, a staff member, realized that this support was essential for their community, and they set about finding a way to continue to meet that need. This brainstorming led them to co-found The Botanical Bus Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic.
Jocelyn, now Executive Director of The Botanical Bus, has learned that crisis shines a light on health inequities, as we have clearly seen with COVID-19. And during the 2017 fires, particularly in the case of Sonoma County’s Latinx community—largely farm- and vineyard-workers—these inequities were intensified due to deficits in social determinants of health such as workplace safety, toxic stress, limited legal status, lack of health insurance, and unequal access to emergency financial assistance. Not surprisingly, Jocelyn found that 90% of the evacuees in the evacuation centers were Latinx immigrants, with limited family, resources, insurance, or safety net. Jocelyn and Lily felt that “the call to action was getting more and more urgent.”
This grassroots project is grounded in community and took its baby steps in the Land Path Bayer Farm community garden, in conjunction with a group known as Cultivando para Salud (Farming for Health). Started by social worker Angeles Quiñones, every Friday for the past three years, until the COVID shutdown, Jocelyn and Angeles met with a group of mostly immigrant, Spanish-speaking women from Peru and Mexico to learn about plants and to share ideas about recipes, remedies, herbal medicine, and nutrition. The group grew in a familial way, celebrating births, mourning the passing of members, and dealing with the short and long term effects of the fires. Jocelyn believes that “the knowledge in the community is profound … and needs to be recognized, and celebrated, and empowered … Link that with health equity, then we have a thriving population.”
The Botanical Bus is based on a three-pronged approach, which began with the community gardens project. They subsequently launched the Promotoras de Salud program (Community Health Workers), staffed by women from a full range of backgrounds and expertise who provide educational trainings and workshops. Though staff feared that these might be more difficult given COVID in-person meeting restrictions, they were surprised that the move onto the Internet ultimately enriched the meetings. Suddenly, they had folks joining in from disparate parts of Sonoma County, and even from as far away as Michoacan, thus connecting sections of the community in ways that hadn’t been possible before.
The final step in the plan was the Botanical Bus itself, a mobile holistic herbal clinic which launched in September 2020, providing services to farmworkers and the Latinx community. The mobile clinic offers a range of care including acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, massage therapy, homeopathy, and more, while adhering to COVID safety measures. A free lunch of tamales and herbal aguas frescas is also provided.
The two-hour clinics currently take place at La Luz in Sonoma, La Plaza in Santa Rosa, Corazón Healdsburg, and at Red Car Wine vineyard (shout out to them for taking special care of their workers!). While the original plan was to take the bus around to the various vineyards, that has proven a bit more difficult than envisioned. They hope to build partnerships with vineyard owners to make this a reality in the near future.
One of the foundational goals of The Botanical Bus is to partner with at least ten other community organizations in their work. To that end, they have created relationships with many organizations such as Traditional Medicinals, Galen’s Way, Tadine’s Tea Company, Mercy Wellness, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, Be Here Farm in St. Helena (which tragically burned in the most recent Glass Fire), The California School of Herbal Studies, and with Daily Acts in Petaluma. Jocelyn enthuses that “the connectivity between non-profits in Sonoma County is super inspiring and empowering.”
And during this current pandemic, cooperation is essential. The Latinx community makes up only 26% of Sonoma County’s population, but they comprise 80% of the diagnosed cases, harkening back to the social determinants of health. So, says Jocelyn, “Let’s sink into the power that our Latinx community has, the power to nurture, the power to heal with culturally relevant forms of healing … There is tremendous displacement within the immigrant community, and the power of herbal medicine connects people to place, cultural identity, family, and tradition, and is really needed right now.”
The group recently launched an emergency mutual aid project with the help of Daily Acts. Since the women can no longer access their community gardens,The Botanical Bus brought the gardens to them. Their partner organizations donated 4,000 organic medicinal and culinary plant starts which are culturally relevant (think salsa garden), organic soil, seeds, bilingual literature about planting and care, and five- and 10-gallon Geopots. These Geopots make it all possible for folks who live in small places with no garden land around them. The project was eagerly welcomed by the community.
Happily, the Community Garden project is slowly beginning again. One group recently planted 70 organic herbs in the community medicine garden at La Plaza family service center in Santa Rosa. They will hold COVID-safe workshops in the garden once a month, led by the promotoras, who are now paid to teach the workshops. The topics are seasonal and include building immunity, respiratory health, wellness, and la cosecha (the harvest). The herbs are donated by local herb companies and the California School of Herbal Studies. As Jocelyn says, “We thrive off of partnerships. Partnership is everything.”
Jocelyn is justifiably proud of the program. Her grandmother and great-grandmother were farmworkers. Jocelyn grew up in Sonoma County, and though she left for 10 years, she returned when her children were small and re-invented her life, choosing to focus on what she could do to help her family thrive and to show up in her community. The early years of the program were tough, as grassroots organizing is time-consuming and all her time was unpaid. Then the press began to take an interest, and Farmacopia offered to help launch the non-profit.
True to their mission statement, they launched the Botanical Bus with a crowdsourcing campaign, raising $20,000 within 30 days. They are still figuring out the details of board development and how to secure ongoing funding, as current support is from temporary grants, sponsorships from the herb industry, and individual donors. Their goal is to secure enough consistent funding to permit them to grow their foundation programs and expand to new ones to meet the emerging needs of the community.
The next planned emergency mutual aid campaign reflects a new coalition between The Botanical Bus and Sonoma County, which recently launched the CURA project to organize doctors, nurses and community health advocates to provide outreach to farmworkers around COVID-19. The Botanical Bus’s promotoras are going through the training now and will be hired as community health advocates, bringing their skills into the field.
The joint campaign will also distribute Care Kits to everyone who attends the mobile clinics and to the farmworkers who attend CURA’s meetings. The goal is to distribute 500 bags, which contain an herbal healing salve, chapstick, medicinal teas, and referrals to community resources for both physical and mental health. They hope to raise $5,000 via VenMo for the project to cover the costs of the kits.
Jocelyn has witnessed the way that ”herbal medicine connects people to their identity, to their abuelita, the plants their families threw into soups, the smells, the earth where they’re from.” There is a wealth of knowledge of herbal medicine and nutrition in the elders of the community. Gathering together across generations to learn more about nutrition and health is helping to teach an often undervalued workforce to value themselves as human beings with the potential to thrive, by prioritizing their health and wellness in a culturally relevant way. And in these interesting times, we could all benefit from this lesson.
The Botanical Bus is based in Sonoma County. Help and learn about their trainings and clinic locations at www.thebotanicalbus.org. If vineyards wish for their workers to have these Care Kits, they can contact the Botanical Bus for distribution, at no charge.
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Boonville, where she curates and sells books at Hedgehog Books, edits this magazine, and is always happily surprised by all the folks doing good in the world.