Publisher’s Note
Torrey Douglass
Co-Publisher & Art Director
An herbalist friend once pointed out how we can weather the change of seasons more gracefully if we mimic the behavior of plants. Spring is for letting creative ambitions out to play, then guarding and guiding new growth, while in summer you pare back what isn’t working in order to allow the strongest contenders to flourish. Then there’s the crescendo of effort in fall to deliver the harvest, followed by some well-earned partying. And after that?
After that … rest. This is the time of year when plants let go of what isn’t needed—parts that have served their purpose die back and fall away. The energy is pulled inward, down into the earth, where it can abide safely while winter dances upstairs with boisterous, cold feet. The green life force is not dead and gone, but sleeping. On quiet winter afternoons when I walk through the forest, I like to imagine I can feel the rumble of its snores through the soil.
But what do humans usually do this time of year? Make a hot drink and put up our feet by the fire? Hardly. We keep up the pace, ignoring the counsel of plants and opting to add on an extra bushel of demands—on top of our home responsibilities and 40+-hour work week—called The Holidays. And what’s the result? Our bodies revolt, undermining our determined productivity with sniffles and coughs. Friction shows up in interactions large and small, and even just within ourselves as we hit the inevitable roadblocks life brings.
I don’t really have an answer for the late-year hurry-and-hustle we all go through, but it does bring to mind a comment Father Greg Boyle made in an interview that has stuck with me, in which he recommended that people “Hold life lightly.” The bumps in the road are easier to endure when we are not gripping the wheel with blanched knuckles. Let’s give ourselves and each other a little grace, defaulting to the assumption that everyone is just doing the best they can with what they have and who they are in the moment.
This grace is on full display at The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, a pop up project in Japan that is staffed entirely by people with dementia. It’s evident at the Parents & Friends garden, a program supporting adults with developmental disabilities, and also at Bee the Change Microfarm, where Susanna and Ian are creating the infrastructure and expanding their managerie to make their vision of a regenerative farm a reality. It’s sadly absent in the tangle of regulations that have brought legacy cannabis farmers to the brink, according to farmer and owner of The Bohemian Chemist, Jim Roberts. But it’s embraced by the wise, balanced approach Gowan now brings to winter at Fortunate Farm as she awaited the birth of her first child (now happily arrived, and all are well).
I wish all of you a peaceful and happy holiday season, and a grounded start to 2024. It’s an election year, and there are going to be a lot of feelings that come out of the swirling madness that ensues. But if we all give each other a little grace—and keep a dollop for ourselves—I trust we’ll get through it okay.
Torrey Douglass
Co-Publisher & Art Director
Caramelized Onion Jam
Sweet and Tangy with Winter Spices
by Laurel Gregory
I love finding new recipes and experimenting with things, especially condiments (can’t have too many of those!) My mom did some canning while I was growing up—I have memories of making blueberry and blackberry jam from fresh-picked berries and then pouring wax over top of the jam to seal it. As an adult, I have been very drawn to self-sustainability, gardening, and cooking in general, and I find that canning and food preservation is a lovely vector where these passions intersect.
I usually make recipes from the fruits and vegetables in our garden, but some years I have to supplement from the farmers market or other growers. Onions are something I always have to buy a little extra of, since I only grow a couple dozen on a good year, if that. I am fortunate to have a partner who loves to garden as much as I do, and who loves to eat whatever I make as well. My kids also enjoy the bounty—mostly their favorites are the simple ones like jams or pickles, but my oldest loves spicy goodies, so he’s always up for fermented hot sauce or salsas. Canned goods always make great gifts, and if people bring the jars back, I always send them home with more.
This time of year I get a powerful craving for carmelized onion jam. I came across this recipe on the YouTube channel ”That 1870s Homestead.” The host shares great info for people who enjoy canning or gardening. The recipe is simple, but unique. Use it as you would a chutney, or pour it over baked brie for the holidays.
Caramelized Onion Jam
INGREDIENTS
20 c sweet onions, diced
2 T unsalted butter
1-¾ c brown sugar
6 T maple syrup
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cardamom
2 tsp cinnamon
1 c balsamic vinegar
1 c apple cider vinegar
(You can use garam masala, if you have it, in place of some of the nutmeg and cardamom.)
INSTRUCTIONS
Caramelize onions with butter (this means cook them low and slow), then add the other ingredients and simmer until reduced. Fill half-pint jars and keep them in a waterbath at a rolling boil for 15 minutes. Safely remove onto a clean towel. Sit back and enjoy the pings of a properly sealed treasure.
Photo by Skyler Ewing courtesy of pexels.com
Laurel is a Mendo-grown mother to three, and a creative powerhouse with over 20 years as an artist and brand strategist. When her computer is off, she enjoys creating in the kitchen and nurturing her houseplant jungle.
MacCallum House
Phenomenal Food and Cocktails with an Ocean View
by Holly Madrigal
I’m obsessed with the Elderflower Martini at MacCallum House. The signature sophisticated glass reflects the shape of a woman with her arms reaching toward the sky. The glass is chilled and contains swirling liquid of the palest green hue. Dried rose petals circle gently as I take my first sip. Astringent in the best way, cucumber vodka with only a hint of sweetness. The St. Germaine Elderflower Liqueur and Roederer Estate sparkling wine keep this cocktail in the clouds, while the barest hint of orange bitters brings the aroma gently back to earth. I have tried other amazing and noteworthy seasonal cocktails at this establishment. The Smoke & Smash, concocted of Del Maguey Vida Classico mezcal, lime juice, pomegranate, and house made huckleberry sage syrup, is found nowhere else. Served in a tulip-shaped glass, it brings to mind sitting in your favorite leather chair and perusing world maps for your next adventure. The Paper Plane is comprised of Redemption Bourbon, deep umber Aperol, and Amaro Nonino. But I keep coming back to the Elderflower martini, completely under the spell it has cast on my tastebuds.
The restaurant and classical bar at MacCallum House are steeped in history, but the creations from its kitchen are anything but dusty. The former home of Daisy Kelley MacCallum, a wedding present from her father in 1882, is an architectural jewel of Mendocino Village. A total of 19 rooms make up the inn on the main property, with 13 other accommodations elsewhere in the village. One of my favorite rooms is the whimsical, pagoda-roofed former playhouse to the west of the main building. The wrap-around porch holds a number of dining tables, each with a view of the waves crashing in the bay, and within is a cozy dining lounge complete with roaring fire to ward off the chill.
The space reflects the best part of the house’s historical stature, and yet the design and culinary offerings are fresh and modern. Classical architecture is a standout from its Victorian time, and the garden’s lush landscaping boasts electric vehicle charging stations tucked discreetly into a rustic cabinet. It is easy to see why so many choose the expansive lawns for vows and receptions. This location is classic in the best sense, retaining the beauty of another time while pushing the culinary edge.
Chef Alan Kantor helms the kitchen at MacCallum House, with Aaron Welge serving as sous chef. Kantor has a long history with the locale, starting from before his culinary school education, when the restaurant and inn were separate entities. Noah and Zoe Sheppard purchased the inn in 2002 and the restaurant in 2004, and Kantor remained to hone his culinary craft.
Chef Kantor strives to make as much from scratch as possible. “The sauces, the bread, the breakfast tortillas, the cocktail syrups—our kitchen has a standard of fresh, organic, homemade ingredients,” says Saya Hansen, General Manager at MacCallum House. A meal here is not the time to forgo carbs, as the fresh-baked sourdough bread slathered in butter has an addictively satisfying chew and a crunchy crust.
Kantor’s kitchen reflects the seasonal bounty of the Mendocino coast. The winter months have brought flavors of chestnut and acorn squash, and for dessert, an apple beignet with salted caramel syrup and cinnamon ice cream. Locally foraged mushrooms reveal their wonders in dishes like the baked porcini gnocchi with fennel sausage, Bolognese gratin, or the trumpet mushrooms found in the Nightly Noodles. The value of the Nightly Noodles is a poorly-kept local secret with an ever-changing seasonal presentation, like a recent fettuccine with seared steak, kale, trumpet mushrooms, and dry jack in a Dijon white wine sauce. (You were warned about the carbs.)
MacCallum House excels at reinventing classics, such as the Liberty Farms Duck Breast, which Kantor serves with a huckleberry Pinot Noir reduction and a porcini bread pudding. Perfect for a special occasion is the Chef’s Tasting menu, with wine or whiskey pairing, which includes treasures like the pan-seared scallops with chanterelle duxelles, a rasher of bacon, puff pastry, and other wonders. If you crave a more relaxed offering, Mac House is known for their fried chicken sandwich with house made pickle, slaw, and the works. But even this classic comes with the modern twist of a Japanese milk bun and smoked paprika fries.
The legacy of excellence at MacCallum House is upheld by the staff. Saya has been there more than 11 years. She has watched many local students, in their first high school job, learn to create the fine dining experience. “We are finally back in the swing of things,” comments Saya. “A lot of senior staff, the seasoned team, left us during the pandemic.” Now the restaurant is back to being open seven days a week for breakfast and dinner.
You can hear the pride in her voice when she describes the important role that MacCallum House has played in the community over the years, giving dinner for two and room nights to in-county causes almost weekly. “We would love to get back to hosting winemaker dinners and Dine Out for a Cause, events that raise funds for our local nonprofits like the Kelley House Museum and the Mendocino Art Center,“ she adds.
The historical architecture and stately design may not have changed much since 1882, but within this Mendocino Village icon is a kitchen that is continually exploring fresh culinary ideas. This appetite for continual reinvention makes every visit a new experience. So if you’re ready to spoil yourself a little and discover some new and enticing dish or cocktail in the process, an evening at MacCallum House is just the thing.
MacCallum House Restaurant and Inn
45020 Albion St., Mendocino
(800) 609-0492 | maccallumhouse.com
Breakfast Mon - Fri 8am - 10am, Sat & Sun 8am - 11am
Dinner 5pm - 8pm
Photos by Holly Shankland courtesy of MacCallum House
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.
California’s Farm to School Program
Improving Access to Fresh Food in Public Education
by Lisa Ludwigsen
There is good news to report for California’s school children and their families. Yes, that’s right, good news which extends to regional farms and even the future of local agriculture.
Imagine the resources and creativity it takes to feed 6 million students, kindergarten through grade 12, two meals each day. Those meals need to be nutritious, tasty, and prepared on a very tight budget, every day for nine months. It requires a sophisticated system of suppliers, cooks, administrators, and other staff managed by district food service directors at the state and federal levels. California’s school meal program is big business.
The federal school meal program dates to 1946, when it became clear that malnourished children did not grow up to be strong, productive workers. Today, many of the raw ingredients used to prepare school meals originate on large, centrally located farms, heavily subsidized by the federal government and shipped long distances. It is a food system with a heavy slant toward commodity food like dairy, corn, soy, and wheat. Families pay for meals if they can afford to, or they can qualify for free or reduced meals. It is by no means a perfect process, but it has been in place for decades.
Ironically, COVID helped bring about a seismic shift in how we source and serve school food. During the long shutdowns, schools were allowed to provide free meals to all students, regardless of family income, often through drive-thru parking lot pick-up. Families were no longer required to fill out paperwork or prove financial need. School administrators no longer had to navigate the complicated system of verifying financial eligibility, nor did they need to pursue late or delinquent accounts that sometimes ended up denying food to hungry students. Not surprisingly, engagement from families skyrocketed.
Following through with that success, in 2022, California became the first state to make universal free meals permanent for all students. Eight other states have followed. Not only can California’s school kids now eat two meals free of charge, regardless of financial need, but the food they are eating may very well be sourced from a nearby farm or dairy.
The Office of Farm to Fork, a new branch within the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), is overseeing a $100 million allocation to assist school districts in sourcing organic, climate-smart, and local ingredients through the California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program. It also provides training and infrastructure for on-site meal preparation. This is great news for small local farms that typically get short shrift in getting accepted into large distribution networks, and it is great news for California’s students who can eat fresh, healthy, unprocessed food to fuel their minds and bodies.
“California’s Farm to School program has incredible potential to contribute to the sustainability of our local farmers and producers,” said Haerah Baird, project manager of the MendoLake Food Hub, which is working on the distribution end of the equation. “More money will stay in our counties, investing money into farms and the local food system, instead of paying corporate entities.”
Sourcing from local organic farms also offers schools expanded options for plant-based and culturally relevant meals, which can support long-term positive health and climate impacts. It has even been suggested that free school meals should be considered equally important as textbooks or computers to academic success.
Pamela Lee, North Coast regional lead for Farm to School, shared her thoughts on the nascent program’s potential, “I am excited that school nutrition departments and farmers are being recognized for the important roles they play within our communities.” She added, “I’m also excited that children are being taught, through hands-on experience, the importance of eating locally grown foods.”
Beyond schools and students, local economies also benefit. Lee explained, “Schools and farms are being supported to form new relationships that will bolster local economies, lower greenhouse gases, and improve the health and well-being of our communities.”
Lots of questions arise about the challenges of retooling a massive system that has been in place for many years. Can small farms ramp up production to meet the demand? How does the food get distributed to schools or school districts? What happens in urban areas without nearby farms?
Working out all the details is the job of regional teams that are now creating and rolling out the program. Meerae Park, producer engagement specialist for the North Coast Region, shared, “A major challenge has been the wide geography of the North Coast.” Park adds, “For farms, I believe a major challenge is finding a balance between competitive pricing, volume, and profitability.” Food hubs, like the MendoLake Food Hub, are an important resource. They aggregate and distribute regional food, and will play a key role in getting food from small farms to schools, especially in rural areas.
Park also points out that “schools are challenged with labor– for both administrative duties and scratch cooking.” Pamela Lee adds that additional challenges include aging school kitchen facilities, school procurement regulations, and staffing shortages, all of which the additional infrastructure will help develop.
Nick Anicich, Farm to School program manager, is looking forward to the future, saying, “In five years, we hope Farm to School programs will be embedded in every school district across the state.”
The pandemic revealed many of our strengths and weaknesses, especially when it comes to our food systems. One of the most valuable lessons was that we can’t always rely on freeways and trucks to deliver food that magically appears on our grocery shelves, or in our school meals. The Farm to School program offers a way to create a more sustainable regional food system, while also helping to establish lifelong healthy eating habits for our young people.
If you would like find out more about the Farm to School program, sign up for the Farm to School Network newsletter on the CDFA California Farm to School Program webpage:
cafarmtofork.cdfa.ca.gov/CaFarmtoSchoolProgram.htm
You can also get involved with your local school district and connect with the regional staff member in your community.
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.
Parents & Friends
How a Local Garden Helps Adults with Disabilities
by Anna Levy
Parents & Friends at the farmers market
Parents and Friends, a local organization focused on providing services and support to adults with disabilities, has a long history in Fort Bragg. Since its inception in 1955, when a group of women founded it to support families whose children were not allowed to attend school, it has been a mainstay of the community, seeking opportunities to help people integrate into everyday life on the coast through a variety of experiences, connections, and job support. It has only been in the last decade, though, that they’ve gotten into gardening.
According to Robert Kuhn, the garden leader for Parents and Friends, the CEO of the organization was inspired in 2013 to reach out to a local expert, Gowan Batist, to ask about the possibility of starting a garden on Cypress Street. “She built the garden,” Robert says, “and I was the first employee to take it over.”
From the beginning, the garden project fell under the LIFE initiative at Parents and Friends. “It stands for Learning Independence from Experience,” Robert explains, “and our department is called Community Integration.” In that department, he says, some people “get jobs, other people go on outings.” The garden, however, gives people a chance to do many things at once: get their hands dirty, learn the ins and outs of growing and tending to vegetables and flowers, and work with others.
It also gives people the opportunity to participate in the farmer’s market on Wednesdays in Fort Bragg, selling what they’ve grown and building a sense of community among other vendors. “We have regulars that come every week, and they love our flowers and lettuce, so people get to see those friends,” Robert notes. “It’s a way for them, our clients, to pretty much run the booth. They need a little bit of help with making change and answering questions. They get the feeling of independence.”
For Robert, that sense of community extends to other experts and resources throughout the Mendocino Coast. He regularly connects with others working on home gardens and larger projects, and he’s particularly appreciative of the group that works on the Garden Friendly Community Fort Bragg project. “People have really helped us,” he said. “They’ve helped us grow this.”
It’s a project that is likely to continue to grow. According to Xaviera Hall, the Program Director of Parents and Friends’ Community Integration Services, the organization serves 105 participants, and the garden has become an important part of services offered to their population. “The five who help Robert regularly are a small group from the LIFE department,” he says, though “there are other participants who assist in the garden but do not participate in the harvest and farmers market.”
It can be an important part of overall development. “The garden gives the participant the ability or opportunity to work on their individual goals,” he continues. “This could be healthy eating, counting money, or taking care of the environment. The garden has also been beneficial to our aging population.” He notes that, “it has helped with fine and gross motor skills and sensory therapy.” During the pandemic, the garden even helped fill the need for access to healthy food, for both participants and some staff. Through the garden project, they have built what he sees as “great natural support and lasting relationships.”
Of course, as a nonprofit, it seems that there is always a need for additional support. To that end, Robert says, he would love to have more people volunteering on their Sunday work days in the garden. “We are always there by noon,” he says, “and we work until 3:00 or 4:00.” Anyone who is interested can contact him directly or reach out to Parents and Friends through their main contacts. Xaviera adds that there are additional needs as an organization. “We are always looking for funds to help with paying for training, transportation, or even updated technology,” he says. “We are also looking for Direct Support Professionals, board members, and volunteers—people who want to make a difference in people’s lives.”
The goal for participants, he notes, is straightforward: “Help them be as independent as possible, confident, and live their best lives.” Though Robert has been gardening since the 1970s, it’s not his long history that he looks at for guidance. Rather, as he considers the people he works with and the possibilities within the garden, “it’s the future that inspires me.”
Parents and Friends, Inc.
parentsandfriends.org
Contact Robert at gardenleader@parentsandfriends.org or Xaviera Hall at xhall@parentsandfriends.org for additional information. Find the garden project participants at the Fort Bragg Farmers Market every Wednesday afternoon.
Anna Levy lives on the Mendocino Coast with her family.
Photos courtesy of Parents & Friends
Fairall’s Farm Goods
Luscious Jams and Decadent Baked Treats Right Off the Truck
by Terry Ryder
Amanda Fairall is an excellent ambassador for her jams and other products. Her logo declares that her jams are “Jam packed with love,” and after meeting her at the Willits Farmers Market, I can easily believe that is true. I found an enthusiastic Amanda in the serving window of her cheerful blue food truck. Signage on the truck reads, “Preservin’ & Servin’ Local Flavor” and “Celebrating Mendocino County Agriculture.” In between serving her customers, she answered my questions and told me a little about her business.
It all started in 2005, when she joined the Redwood Valley Farmers Market to sell “bumper” (excess to her family’s needs) eggs and produce. In 2011, Amanda added jams and relishes to her offerings. She thought jam would enlarge the reach of her business and provide an opportunity to indulge in the flavor-tinkering that she loves to do. The jams serve as bases for some of her food truck specials like Ginger Plum Chicken, and she serves her berry jam with French toast fingers made from sourdough focaccia.
A huge fan of experimental cooking, Amanda is always coming up with new flavor combinations—a habit that has become one of her strongest selling points. She has come a long way from unadorned eggs and vegetables. I tasted her Cherry Port Jam, incorporating Barra dessert wine and lemon; the Zesty Pear Relish, featuring rosemary, hot peppers, and cider vinegar; the Chow Chow Relish, with red onion, cabbage, heirloom tomatoes, and both sweet and hot peppers; and Apricot Mango with Peppers. The relishes are very snappy and would be a great addition to a grazing table with any cheese platter. And the jams would level-up your morning atop a slice of your favorite toasted bread. Some other jam names that piqued my interest were Apricot Boysenberry, Whiskey Apple Pie, Strawberry Balsamic, Blueberry Rhubarb, and Saucy Blackberry with Zinfandel.
Jams come in both 8 ounce jars and smaller “sampler size” 1.5 ounce jars, which make great gifts and can be bought in larger quantities for weddings or other special occasions, complete with custom labeling. “Spread the Love” or other words of your choice can deliver your desired message, though a lead time is required to accommodate the custom printing. Special Samplers sets include “chocolate lovers,” “champagne lovers,” “wine lovers”—you get the idea.
There are other products like puffed corn (gluten free with no hulls) in wild flavors like Bourbon Bacon, Pumpkin Spice, and Cinnamon French Toast. Amanda is always looking for new taste sensations. She loves to search online then put together a bit of this with a bit of that in unlikely but entirely delicious ways.
Fairall’s is definitely a family affair, with her 19-year-old son working the food truck, her husband, the jack-of-all-trades who keeps everything in working order, and her 7-year-old helping out any way he can. I noticed that kids at the market were very attracted to the food truck, and while their parents might have been buying jam, they were more interested in the banana bread with chocolate chips. There is even a chocolate, chocolate bread (yes, 2 times chocolate that actually has 3 different kinds of chocolate chips). Fairall’s bakes boldly and does not shy away from truly over-the-top deliciousness. Amanda told me, “I don’t sell anything that I don’t eat. I grow what I can and shop from the farmers market for other ingredients whenever I can.” As the manager of the Redwood Valley Farmers Market, she is very sympathetic to market vendors.
You can find Fairall’s Farm jam on Etsy and also locally at the Redwood Valley, Willits, Fort Bragg, and Ukiah farmers markets. With her trusty food truck, she also does special events like the Ukiah Summer Music Concerts, Laytonville Craft Fair, “Arker Day’’ at the Anderson Valley Brewery, and the annual Pumpkin Festival. She also caters by special arrangement.
When it was time to go, I asked her if the business was her full-time job. She laughed and told me that she had gotten up at 3 AM that morning to bake the goodies on offer in her food truck that day. It is very full-time, but she loves the opportunity to evolve and grow as a cook—developing the skills that have built her business—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Fairall’s Farm Food Wagon can be found at Redwood Valley, Willits, Fort Bragg, and Ukiah farmers markets. Find details at MCFarm.org.
Photos by Terry Ryder
Terry Ryder Sites lives in Yorkville with 4 cats and 1 husband. A graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College, she writes a weekly column for the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
Bee the Change Microfarm
Building a Sustainable Poultry Farm One Dream at a Time
by Susanna Seidensticker
Bee the Change Microfarm is nothing short of a labor of love. Neither I nor my partner, Ian, have backgrounds in farming. We both share a deep love and respect for Mother Nature—Ian grew up around agriculture in Davis, and I rode horses for almost two decades when I was younger. We weren’t aware that the other might even have an interest in farming when we started dating, and we had been together for about a year when I casually asked if he might consider enrolling in a community college course on natural beekeeping with me. To my surprise, the answer was a resounding yes. I truly believe that in that very moment, Bee the Change Microfarm was born.
We were both immediately taken with beekeeping and started hatching harebrained ideas about keeping bees in the suburbs. We lived in the city of Santa Maria at the time, just south of the Central Coast of California where I grew up. We had a concrete backyard where we grew fruit trees in big pots and flowers for pollinators, and I tried and failed to keep worms for vermicompost. It didn’t take long before we both started dreaming of more.
It did not feel like it at the time, but it was almost kismet when our landlord decided not to extend our lease, forcing us to choose between another year of rent or taking the leap into home ownership. We decided to take the plunge and started the stressful process of house hunting, and we somehow managed to purchase a house on an acre of land in the very arid Paso Robles region. I don’t think we’ve stopped working since.
We lived in Paso Robles for just over four years, and unsurprisingly, we acquired a beehive almost immediately. Our goal was merely to be more sustainable in our way of life, to live intentionally, to get our hands dirty and maybe, just maybe, lighten our footprint on this earth. All my life I have wanted to make a difference, and our little property was where I poured all my angst over the state of the world. I cannot say if it was the bees or the chickens that were our gateway drug into farming, but I know that once we got our first chickens, it cascaded from there. We started with only two hens, given to us by a friend of a friend, and named them Cluck Norris and Nugget. Anyone who has chickens knows that they are like potato chips and as such, we rapidly acquired more from wherever we could find them. As time went on, I began getting more and more interested in chicken breeds, genetics, and standards of perfection. So began my obsession with rainbow eggs and poultry breeding.
To be honest, I started selling eggs as a way to justify hatching more chicks. I absolutely love doing research and believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right, and the more I learned, the more breeds I wanted to add to our flock. I knew I would never have the most eggs to offer, nor the cheapest, so I made it my goal to have the prettiest. The intersection between chicken genetics and egg color is quite interesting, and it is this combination of art and science that has kept my interest to this day. Of course, the real goal was still to feed my family in the most sustainable way possible, but I also felt truly honored to be able to have my eggs out in the community, hopefully giving people a little bit of joy with their beauty. It was truly wonderful to see our customers delight over the different colors, thick shells, and rich yolks, and I felt inspired to dig deeper and see what else we could offer.
As our chicken flock grew, we began adding ducks, guinea hens, geese, and quail to our menagerie. We decided to choose heritage breeds for our waterfowl, specifically Ancona ducks and Pilgrim geese, due to their status on the Livestock Conservancy priority list. These breeds are relatively rare in the United States, and being able to steward their genetics felt like the right step for our farm. However, it was the quail
that ended up stealing the show. Quail are unique. They begin laying eggs as few as eight weeks after they hatch, making them ideal for both eggs and meat. We decided to raise a jumbo breed that gets significantly larger than typical quail birds, and almost by happenstance ended up selling them to a few local chefs. Last year we were honored to provide close to 250 quail to a Michelin-mentioned restaurant in Paso Robles, our proudest accomplishment thus far as a farm.
As much as we loved our property in Paso Robles, we always knew that it was not destined to be our forever home. When Ian secured a job in the Bay Area, we immediately set our sights further north. We have always loved the forest and often dreamed of being in a more rural location. We had traveled through Mendocino County together before and loved the natural beauty, diversity, and community the county had to offer. Leaving our old property behind was bittersweet, but we still felt as though we were gaining so much more than we were losing.
While rebuilding on our new land in the hills outside of Willits is undoubtedly daunting, especially due to the fact that our land is far from prime farmland, we are excited by all the opportunities it has to offer. It is steep and wooded, but instead of seeing this as a detriment, we are looking forward to stewarding the forest via regenerative farming. I had always hoped to adopt a regenerative model, but our old property, with its arid climate and small amount of land, made this goal unrealistic. Regenerative agriculture is an incredible tool to combat climate change, as it helps to put carbon back in the soil, but it requires the ability to graze animals on a rotational basis. Rotational grazing in an arid environment would require a lot of irrigation, something I never felt comfortable with, but here in the cool shade of the forest, it just might work.
We plan to incorporate other animals into this model as well, and have already welcomed five adorable Kunekune pigs to the farm, who will be rotationally moved throughout our property when they are old enough. We continue to expand our quail operation and are also working towards providing the community with chicken meat. The commercial chicken industry is one I find to be problematic, as the vast majority of meat birds are a breed called Cornish Cross. While they grow incredibly quickly and efficiently to become the plump, big-breasted birds most are accustomed to seeing, the reality is that they are a hybrid that cannot actually live past the age of eight to ten weeks old. They suffer from heart attacks and other ailments, do not feather out due to their rapid growth, and often end up unable to walk or with broken legs due to their large front ends. They are the standard for meat chickens and they have their place on many farms, but I wanted something different.
In search of a more sustainable option, I started raising a breed called the Bresse. These heritage birds originated in France and can live just as long as any other chicken breed, meaning I can run a closed-loop system by keeping a breeding population and not having to buy chicks every year. Not only that, but they are known for a gene that allows fat to be stored in a different pattern than is generally seen in chickens. Some liken this to marbling, but in actuality it just means that they have more widely distributed fat throughout their bodies, making them an incredibly tasty, if not quite so plump meat bird.
There was zero infrastructure on the property when we got here, so we are still in the building phase. We’ve started “hatching out” quail this winter and hope to have our quail operation up and in full swing by spring. The meat chickens will take longer as we have to build a breeding pen for them, hatch them out, and raise them up to slaughter weight, which all takes time. I am also refining the breed and will be adding a second genetic line next year to work on their body type, growth rate, and so on. I hope to offer hatching eggs and chicks by 2025 as well, for the Bresse as well as a few other breeds that I raise.
We hope to sell quail to local restaurants and ultimately offer direct-tocustomer sales via our website for pickup or local delivery. Someday we’d also like to offer a poultry-based CSA. Our eggs are available through the MendoLake FoodHub when they are in season—chickens slow way down in the winter, and we opt to stick to the natural cycle rather than providing artificial lights.
Ian and I have many dreams for our new home, some reasonable and some completely preposterous, but we would not be where we are today if we did not allow ourselves to dream. We dream of bettering our land and feeding our community. We dream of living a more sustainable existence in harmony with the natural beauty around us, and above all, we dream of making this corner of our world a better place. Everyone knows that dreams without work are just that, but luckily we are not afraid of a little work. We look forward to finding our place here in Mendocino County, growing in ways we cannot even imagine yet, and seeing where our preposterous dreams take us next.
Keep up with everything at Bee the Change Microfarm at BeeTheChangeMicrofarm.com.
Photos courtesy of Bee the Change Microfarm.
Cover Photo of Ian and Susanna by Sonja Burgal.
Susanna Seidensticker operates Bee the Change Microfarm with her partner, Ian.
Seasonal & Sweet
Pine Rosemary Ice Cream
by Torrey Douglass
The U.S. Forest Service website lists no fewer than seven types of pine trees in the Mendocino National Forest, including Western White Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Foxtail Pine, and the Sugar Pine, so named thanks to the sweet flavor of its sap. Our county is also the only place where you can find Pinus contorta var. bolanderi, the Mendocino Shore Pine, which is a variety of the common lodgepole pine. The “contorta” part of their name is apt—shore pines grow twisted and bent due to the coastal winds, creating shapes reminiscent of a gnarled hand grasping at the ocean breeze.
Mendocino County also has an abundance of fir trees. Pine and fir trees belong to the same genus (Abies) and can look similar, but you can differentiate between them if you look closely. Fir trees are the classic Christmas tree, with a triangular shape and soft, relatively short needles (rarely more than 2”). In contrast, needles of the pine trees have sharper tips, grow in clusters, and can be just under 1” all the way to 12” or even 16” long. The branches of pines grow less densely than fir trees, and their overall shape can vary from an irregular triangle to a roughly round shape with jagged edges—think a circle that’s had a hard life.
Pine trees might not seem like an obvious foraging source, but the fact that its needles can be foraged throughout the year has inspired some colder climate foragers to get creative. You can brew pine needles into a vitamin C-rich tea for a wintery hot beverage that smells and tastes like the forest. In Japan, pine branches are added to the glowing coals under a grill to deliver flavors of evergreen and citrus to the fish or mushrooms above. Some high-end restaurants tempura-fry them for an interesting crunch on top of their dishes.
It’s easy to get nostalgic when confronted with the scents of evergreen trees, since they are so closely associated with the holidays and the final bow of one year before another steps onto the stage. Capture that nostalgia in a dessert with the following Pine Rosemary Ice Cream created by Miro, the pastry chef of New York City’s legendary Gramercy Tavern. It’s subtly sweet and the pine essence includes echoes of mint—a fitting finale for a winter dinner.
Pine Rosemary Ice Cream
Yield: 2.5 pints
INGREDIENTS
1-1/2 c milk
1-1/2 c heavy cream
3/8 oz (half a small herb package) rosemary stalks
3/4 oz pine sprigs (needles and small branches)
1 c sugar
4 egg yolks
DIRECTIONS
Add milk, cream, rosemary, and pine to a large pot. Allow to almost boil before removing from heat. Let it cool and leave it for at least four hours. Can be left overnight, but not longer.
Remove the pine and rosemary from the infused milk/cream and then add one cup of sugar to the pot. Again bring just shy of a boil. Remove one cup of the liquid and whisk 4 egg yolks into that cup before returning the yolk mixture to the pot.
Stir constantly on low heat for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture heavily coats the sides of the pot. Remove from heat and refrigerate for 4 hours until chilled.
Spin in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Remove to freezer- safe container and harden in the freezer for at least 4 hours before serving.
The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders
A Japanese Eatery Embraces the Serendipity of Imperfection
by Torrey Douglass
I had a business coach who would periodically remind me that mistakes are simply unavoidable while working on and in one’s business. It’s not whether mistakes are made, but how one responds when they inevitably are, that sheds light on a person’s grace and integrity. As a frequent mistakemaker, I’ve held that advice close for years.
It’s also why I am attracted to the Japanese art of kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi, the practice of restoring broken things—often ceramics—in a way that highlights and beautifies its legacy of breakage. An example could be a shattered ceramic bowl that’s been reassembled with lacquer dusted with powdered gold (silver or platinum are also common). The shards appear outlined with shimmering ribbons dispersed randomly around the piece, calling attention to the cracks rather than using the more common repair methods that seek to make those cracks invisible. The restored dish has a spontaneous, completely original beauty, and speaks of hardships weathered and lessons learned.
It’s a creative way to roll with the punches, to embrace the fact that mistakes happen. Gracefully accepting the inevitability of errors is a form of protest against our times’ unrelenting pressure to 1) look and be perfect, 2) document and share said perfection, then 3) receive acceptance and approval in return. Of course we all want to do our best, but understanding that we’ll sometimes stumble can bring a sense of lightness and fun to life. This might be one reason why the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders is such a delightful concept, since detachment from perfectionism is one of its essential values, as is acceptance of whatever comes, perfect or not.
The idea for the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders originated when TV producer Shiro Ogun was working for NHK, a Japanese news outlet. One story covered a group home run by Yukio Wada that embraced a unique approach for its residents dealing with dementia, centering their humanity before their diagnosis, and recognizing that people with memory issues can still perform many tasks for themselves and others. At lunch during his visit, Ogun was served a plate of potstickers instead of the hamburger steak he ordered. He was about to protest when he noticed his companions happily eating their food, and realized accepting the situation was a much better strategy under the circumstances.
When health issues forced him to step away from TV producing five years later, Ogun reached out to Wada to see if he was interested in pursuing his unusual restaurant concept. Together they refined the vision—an eating establishment where all the serving staff were individuals with dementia. “We wanted to make a place where, when the customers come, they feel that it looks delicious and fun, and people with dementia just happen to be working there; a place to spontaneously interact with dementia,” Ogun said in an interview with The Big Issue Japan. “We didn’t want to depend on excuses like, ‘We’re doing a good thing, so even if we make mistakes, please forgive them.’ So the chefs perfected their cooking to almost Michelin-star level.”
The launch event was in September of 2017, and 300 people were served over three days. Mistakes were made aplenty—iced coffee arrived at one table instead of soda, one server needed assistance from the guests to manage the oversized pepper grinder, and another delivered food to the table before promptly sitting down to join the group. A video about the launch depicts a server asking which customer ordered the hamburger. “That was me,” says a young man. “Are you sure?” asks the server. “Because I’m not!”—and polite laughter and smiles blossom around the table.
In each instance of confusion or error, diners responded with lighthearted humor and gracious acceptance, which is the whole point of the enterprise. In a video promoting the project, Ogun explains, “Dementia is so widely misunderstood. People believe you can’t do anything for yourself and the condition will often mean complete isolation from society. We want to change society to become more caring and easy-going, so dementia or no dementia, we can live together in harmony.” By all accounts, the launch event was a success, with the restaurant sharing that “37% of our orders were mistaken, but 99% of our customers said they were happy.”
Since the launch, the project has published two books, The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders and How to Create a Restaurant of Mistaken Orders. They’ve held other pop-ups around Japan and won a number of awards, both in Japan and internationally. From the start Ogun hoped the idea would spread around the world, embraced by and adapted for each particular culture and community. So far, similar pop-ups have launched in China, Korea, and the U.K.
The restaurant is not an ongoing operation, but instead an occasional event. It’s an inspired example of creating community, including people of various capacities, and celebrating what’s possible rather than focusing on what’s missing. If we feel shame when we fall short of certain ideals, we miss out on a lot of the joy of life. Better to embrace it and find the beauty. All those cracks can be pretty dazzling when they are filled with gold.
More information can be found at mistakenorders.com/en/home.html
Kintsugi photo photo by JuDPjcutors courtesy of Unsplash. All other images courtesy of Restaurant of Mistaken Orders.
Pest-Predator & Pollinator
Reflections on California’s Beneficial Bats
by D. R. Darvishian
A Canyon bat
And how bewildered is any
womb-born creature that has to fly.
As if terrified and fleeing from itself,
it zigzags the air, the way a crack runs
through a teacup. So the bat quivers
across the porcelain of evening.
– Rainer Maria Rilke (1923)
Forever. That’s approximately how long bats have been taking it on their often wrinkled, pug-nosed, leaf-shaped little snouts. Bats, reads the cultural record, have been so maligned for so long in the West that Rilke’s elegant stanza above can be thought of as kind—an interspecies epiphany. A clarifying moment between mammals, one way or the other.
For millennia, bats quivered around in the night as enigmas. No one knew quite where they belonged among the animals. They flew like birds, and in some places they were considered to be. It was only in the late 18th century that they were classified taxonomically, placed into the order Chiroptera, meaning “hand wing” in Greek.
Rilke, at least, understood that bats have nipples and navels and suckle their young. In fact, bats have nurseries and lick their pups clean, like the family retriever. Unlike dogs, though, bats would do just fine without people. Yet while bats may not be our best friends, they’re one our greatest agricultural heroes and do us all kinds of good.
From insect control and plant pollination to seed dispersal in the Southern Hemisphere—where without them rain forests might never regenerate—bats provide irreplaceable benefits. One estimate asserts that, across the nation, insectivorous bats save farmers nearly $4 billion a year in crop loss and reduce pesticide bills. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, over 300 species of fruit depend on bats for reproduction, while in warmer climates, bats pollinate fruit trees like bananas, mangoes, and guavas. And you might want to thank them for your next margarita—without the bats pollinating the blue agave plant, the source of tequila would not have survived its first season.
In Northern California, bats consume millions of insects each night, spring through autumn, including vast numbers of mosquitoes. State officials worry about the introduction of West Nile virus, as well as other “highly virulent mosquitoborne viruses,” yet bats eat the irritating bugs that carry them without harm. California itself is a bat bastion. With its long, temperate coastline and varied landscapes, the state hosts 25 bat species—more than half of the 47 species living throughout North America, all of them nocturnal. Most people would be lucky to glimpse just a few. Bats naturally have favorite habitats, so any dedicated bat spotter should be prepared for a lot of night hiking.
Evidence indicates that people have been bat-curious and telling tales about them for thousands of years. In some places bats embody a deity, in others they may bring good luck or bad, and in yet others, they are cunning, mystical creatures. Bat images were found in Egyptian tombs dating from 2000 BCE. In Zuni fetish tradition, Bat is guardian of the night. In Cameroon, Africa, bats have allegedly sucked the life out of sleeping adults, and tales from Sierra Leone have children suffering exsanguination by hammer-headed fruit bats. Urban folks rarely see them in real life, often rooting their understanding of the creatures in the legends and myths that have developed around them over the years.
In Aesop’s Fables, there is a story about a great war between the world’s birds and beasts, featuring bats—who were neither—as duplicitous schemers who changed sides when battlefield fortunes waned for their allies. They were freelancing, but when both sides finally noticed, bats were banished into the night. After that, “neither the birds nor the beasts would have anything to do with so double-faced a traitor, and so he remains to this day a solitary outcast from both.”
In a more modern-day defense of the winged creature, Canadian author Kenneth Oppel employed Aesop’s yarn to see things from the bats’ perspective after the war. His award-winning Silverwing novel series follows the often harrowing adventures of Shade, a Silverwing bat, from his life as a newborn colony runt through adulthood, using their banishment to propel Shade’s quest for his day in the sun.
Superstition and folk tales aside, bats go back more than 52 million years, judging by the oldest known bat fossil. Discovered within an ancient Wyoming lakebed, the bones look remarkably similar to those of modern bats. The finding astonished some researchers. “The very first fossils of bats were bats that are already bats,” paleontologist Tim Rietbergen of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, Netherlands, told Smithsonian magazine (April 2023).
For generations, it has been thought that bats are attracted to human hair. Not true, notes Mary Jean “Corky” Quirk, director of NorCal Bats in Davis, a group focused on bat education and rescue. She has known of cases where bats that are busy feeding—say, pursuing moths gathered around a parking lot light—can get tiny claws tangled in the hair or clothing of human observers. While such moments can be hypertensive for all concerned, Corky counsels calm … or as much of it as can mustered. Bats are pretty adept at extricating themselves and are likely to fly off without assistance.
Since all North American bats are nocturnal, finding one on the ground during the day may be a sign that the animal is sick or injured. Any potential Good Samaritan would be well-advised to find a pair of sturdy gloves before lending a hand. Norcalbats.org offers other advice on handling bats safely. But once the critter is secured, what next?
NorCal Bats is one of the few bat rescue outfits in Northern California, and they often help by activating their informal network of bat enthusiasts. To handle bats professionally requires certification, but anyone can transport a bat to safety. “We’ll often meet a person halfway and make the transfer,” said Quirk. “We deal with injured bats, which are quite often hurt by cats, but I get calls about crows and ravens. We can usually offer advice. I’m one of those people who will get out of my car to move a dead squirrel off the road, so the turkey vulture swooping down for a meal doesn’t get clobbered, too.”
Although California’s bat population appears stable, bats elsewhere—mainly in the eastern U.S. and Canada—have died in the millions, killed by a cold-loving fungus that causes white-nose syndrome (WNS), characterized by its color and fuzzy appearance around the muzzles of hibernating bats. First encountered in 2006 in upstate New York, the fungus seems to have been transported accidentally from Eurasia. It has been traveling, likely on the gear of unwitting sport cavers, and is assumed to have made its way to northeastern California based on amplified testing.
Globally, the biggest threat to bats is habitat destruction, said Frick. Homes and roads built too close to roosts; people entering maternity caves, where mothers care for their pups until they can fly on their own; runoff water clogging or polluting cave streams; wanton destruction by vandals—all of these actions, and others, including uninformed cavers spreading disease—can drastically affect bats. The over-harvesting of bat guano, used as fertilizer by many Northern California growers, can alter cave environments irrevocably. Guidelines for guano mining have been promulgated by the likes of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but acceptance has been slow.
As climate change heats up our summers and brings heavier rains, mosquito season will last longer, and our alliance with bats will become even more important. Quirk says people can make their properties more bat-friendly by “reducing or not using pesticides, supporting farmers that use integrated pest management or grow organic crops, and planting native plants, especially those that bloom at night to support the native insects.“ You can also provide bats with some excellent accommodations in the form of bat houses (see sidebar). Keeping these winged mammals happy and healthy preserves balance in the ecosystem, as well as the opportunity to witness their balletic hunting flights before a backdrop of stars on summer evenings.
Installing a Bat House
Mounting a bat house on your property is the perfect way to help bats who are in need of a safe place to live while protecting your yard from pesky night-flying insects.
It is also a great way to get involved in bat conservation. Habitat loss is a major problem for bats, and putting up a bat house can give your local bats a safe and comfortable place to live.
The invaluable online resource, NorCalBats.org, is home to the NorCal Bats organization that is devoted to bat education and rescue. It has plans for how to build your own bat house and links to purchasing one if you’d rather do that. It also includes these important tips for how to install that bat house once you’re ready.
Bat houses should be mounted on buildings or other large wooden or concrete structures.
It is best to install bat houses at least 12’ from the ground (15’ to 20’ is better). Bats don’t want to be too close to the ground, and predators.
Bat houses should receive at least six hours of daily sun exposure. Generally we recommend that it be mounted facing east, to get the morning sun, but south works also. You are trying to maximize the amount of time that the box temperature is between 80°F and 100°F.
Mounting on a pole may work well in climates that are moderate to hot, without extreme temperature variance. We find that they don’t get occupied as often as bat houses on a building (properly located). If you do mount on a pole, it may work best if you have two bat houses mounted back to back to increase temperature retention.
Avoid mounting a bat house in trees. In California, we rarely see bats occupy a bat house mounted in a tree. It is too easy for predators to access the box. Aim for 20’ to 30’ from the nearest tree if possible.
Don’t let wasp nests accumulate. If they do, they should be removed in late winter or early spring before either wasps or bats return.
If you are installing a bat house on a farm or other large property, it works best if it can be placed within a quarter mile of a permanent water source, such a canal, pond, or stream.
Bat houses in warmer areas, such as the Central Valley, can sometimes overheat, and pups may fall out due to stress or overcrowding. Consider adding a bat house pup catcher. This would be a nylon mesh pouch that you would mount at least 24 inches below the opening in the bat house. Fallen bat pups will be able to crawl back to the bat house if you build the catcher properly. Note that you may have to clean guano out of the pouch periodically.
Be patient—it can take several years before bats decide to move in. But if you don’t have any occupants after 3 years, you might consider moving the bat house to another location/ orientation.
More information is available at NorCalBats.org.
D.R. Darvishian is a longtime writer, journalist, and editor living in Lakeport, CA, and now sees bats in his dreams.
Bat cover photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Article Bat photo by Bob Johnson, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Story of Mendocino Wines
Mendocino Roots & Ridges 10 Years Later
by Torrey Douglass
Mendocino County doesn’t do anything by the book. It’s a county full of mavericks, eccentrics, visionaries—people who look at how things are usually done and think, “Ok, but what if we …?” The area is nothing if not unconventional, a tendency that is revealed all over the county, even in its long history of grape growing and winemaking.
It was quite a cast of characters who farmed the first grapes in Mendocino County. This history was captured in writer Heidi Cusick Dickerson’s book, Mendocino Roots & Ridges: Wine Notes from America’s Greenest Wine Region, published in 2012 by Mendocino County Museum. In it, Cusick Dickerson tells the story of the Italian families who settled along the benchlands of the Russian River in and near Redwood Valley in the 1890s and early 1900s, families who started iconic Mendocino County wineries like Barra, Testa, Graziano, and Parducci.
The late John Parducci was known locally as “Mr. Mendocino.” His inherited and dogged persistence in the industry began with his grandfather Adolph’s immigration from Tuscany to rural Ukiah, where he planted grapes just as Prohibition began. John helped his grandpa by accompanying those wine grapes by train to the East Coast for “altar” wine, and by constructing 20,000 gallon wine tanks from redwood. In his 80s, after selling the Parducci brand, John partnered with his own grandson, Rich, to start McNab Ridge Winery.
The late Charlie Barra was another local wine legend. Referred to as the “Godfather” of Mendocino grape growing, Charlie traced his Italian roots to his grandparents who came from the Piedmont in Italy, where both worked in vineyards. In 1945, while still in high school, Charlie leased a vineyard, convinced his principal to let him go to school half a day during harvest, then proceeded to sell his grapes and make three times more than the principal was paid! The next year, the bottom fell out of the grape market.
“I got a lesson in farming,” was the philosophy that drove Charlie and Barra winery and vineyards since then. Charlie and his wife, Martha, have always been devotees of organic grapes. One of Charlie’s favorite quips was “We grow grapes the same way we always did. Now they call it organic.”
Greg Graziano is among Mendocino County’s wine luminaries as well. He is known as the fellow who “never met a varietal he didn’t like,” especially if that varietal is Italian. His grandparents came from Italy in 1918, and they too, shipped their grapes back east. Today, Graziano sources grapes from his vineyards as well as small growers. “I love the family traditions of the old growers, and I find their prices to be fair, which allows me to price my wine fairly.”
Maria Testa Martinson, whose immigrant forebears established Testa Vineyards in 1912, decided to make wine from those vineyards in the old Italian style. Her benchmark wines are called simply Black and White, “just like [the wine] my Nonno made from the grapes he grew,” says Maria.
This group of industrious, ambitious grape growers and winemakers set the stage for the groundbreaking wine businesses Mendocino County is known for today. Since the publication of Mendocino Roots and Ridges, an additional thousand acres of grapes are grown organically in the region. In total, one third of all wine grapes grown in the county are organic, making Mendocino County the top producer of organic grapes in the state.
This should not be a surprise considering the area’s history of firsts in ecologically friendly grape and wine production. Mendocino County is home to Frey Vineyards, the first all organic, then Demeter Certified Biodynamic winery, and Bonterra, the world’s first carbon neutral winery. Every year, an increasing number of industry leaders from our county are recognized for organic grape growing and sustainable business and winery practices.
A key player who made Mendocino County synonymous with sustainability is Fetzer, who declared a zero waste policy in the 1990s for all used paper, cardboard, and metal. They also began composting grapes stems, seeds, and skins. Their 2006 solar installation was one of the industry’s largest solar panel arrays. Today, Masut, owned by third generation Fetzer family members Jake and Ben Fetzer, continues the organic practice for their estate grown Pinot Noir.
The region’s agricultural enterprises are hardly restricted to grape growing. Fruit, vegetables, and livestock are grown by farmers and ranchers throughout the county—including some wineries. A chapter entitled “Lamb Mowers, Turkeys and Other Vineyard Creatures” talks about Chance Creek Vineyards in Redwood Valley, where “owner-winemaker Lou Bock, bundled in a heavy coat and baseball cap, has been seen walking between his rows of sauvignon blanc surrounded by wooly ewes and a bevy of lambs” mowing weeds between the vines. Sheep are also in use at both Pennyroyal and Navarro Vineyards in Anderson Valley, and the chapter is illustrated with a photo of Pennyroyal proprietor, Sarah Bennett, with her sheep.
McFadden, a beautiful, solar powered, all-organic ranch in Potter Valley, produces a variety of wines, from sparkling to dessert, as well as garlic braids, herb blends, ranch grown beef, and holiday bay wreaths. At Terra Savia in Hopland, also a producer of sparkling wine, rose, and still wines, you’ll find an assortment of extraordinary Olivino olive oils (the lemon is not to be missed). The commercial olive press is in the modern industrial tasting room, where special meals take place throughout the year, hosted by proprietor Yvonne Hall and winemaker Jim Milone.
Since its publication in 2012, some of the wineries profiled in Mendocino Roots & Ridges have ceased operation, yet their stories endure and continue to be worth telling. Both the book’s author and its photographer moved to Mendocino County in the 1970s, and spent much of the intervening four decades writing about and photographing vintners, grape growers, and vineyards across the county. They have legit local bona fides as well. Tom Liden, originally from New York City, built his own house on a steep slope off Comptche-Ukiah Road. He worked as the Executive Director of the Mendocino County Vintners Association and pursued photography, reflecting gratitude when he shares, “I love the place where I live and that I am able to give back through my photographs.” In appreciation for Liden’s work, Mendocino County bestowed him with a “Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Arts.
Since moving to the county, Cusick Dickerson operated several local businesses including a restaurant, deli, and catering. She taught cooking classes for the college and was the director of the college culinary arts program on the coast, all the while writing a food column for the coast papers and articles for many publications around the country. She even authored several cookbooks, including Soul & Spice: African Cooking in the Americas and The International Pantry Cookbook.
The pair’s appreciation for Mendocino County’s wine world comes through loud and clear in the pages of Mendocino Roots & Ridges, capturing the area’s off-the-beaten-path ethos, intriguing personalities, and trailblazing accomplishments. If you want fascinating tales and interesting insights into how local wine started and has evolved, you could do no better than picking up a copy for yourself.
Purchase Mendocino Roots and Ridges locally at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino.
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.
Photo by Tom Liden
California Scheming
The Tangled Landscape of California Cannabis Regulations
by Jim Roberts
As the long shadows of fall arrive, farmers throughout the North Coast prepare for another harvest full of anticipation, excitement, and the usual anxiety of bringing in the bounty. Our small farm sits on a ridge with a vine-covered stone house that has sweeping views of the fertile Anderson Valley, encompassing old growth redwood forests and rolling hills patch-worked with vineyards. Nothing could feel more idyllic, as our postage-stamp plot of 160 cannabis plants ripens in the honey-hued golden hour of autumn. Nothing could also feel so precarious, as we help launch new political campaigns that advocate for a fair playing field, resources for equity operators, access to banking and capital, and sensible policy, not to mention respect from our neighbors as well as our community and state leaders.
As part of the LGBTQ community, I know the fight all too well. The marginalized and the stigmatized are the scapegoat for all of society’s ills. I watched a whole community die without resources, support, or compassion during the AIDS crisis. Then there were those years of CAMP raids—“Campaign Against Marijuana Planting”—that terrorized communities, putting them under military-style assault by our government’s war on drugs. Decades later, it can only be expected that a trauma response would be triggered as I watch the systematic culling of small family farms, which were promised a leg up with the passing of Proposition 64. You dare not ask what can happen next after your insurance company drops you, your bank threatens to call the loans of your other business, and legislation moves past state lawmakers to the Governor’s desk that could completely shut you down. All for a plant that has been cultivated for thousands of years for medicinal, spiritual, and recreational use.
Seven years after the end of cannabis prohibition, the environment could not be more challenging, especially for our small cannabis farms in our legacy growing region. Proposition 64 laid a roadmap to bring into the fold hundreds of small heritage farms, which were then operating under Proposition 215, better known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, a California law permitting the use of medical cannabis. This is what 57% of our state residents voted for, with the intention to create a five-year grace period that would allow only farms that were one acre or under to be licensed by the state.
The five-year head start for small farmers was a concession specifically designed to win support from—or at least quell some of the opposition by—growers in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, who worried that well-funded corporate cannabis interests would crush them right out of the gate. The delay mechanism in Prop 64 would give them time to get licensed under the new state regulatory regime and carve a toehold in the new legal marketplace for recreational pot.
Unfortunately, at the 11th hour, lobbyists for the most well-resourced cannabis start-ups like Steven DeAngelo’s FLRish, Inc and Grupo Flor, based in Salinas, were pushing on lawmakers. They are thought to be some of the force that influenced the change of rules put out by the California Food and Agriculture Department—rules that would open the playing field immediately for large scale industrial grows of cannabis. Looking back through articles and interviews at that time, all the predicted fears came true years later, when an over-production of flower by a multimillion dollar investment machine forced a collapse in the emerging market. That collapse ruined the future of families in our communities, forced farmers to sell their property, and created an oligopoly where the most powerful and well resourced could push the market into any direction they willed, driving out competition and crushing the little guy.
At the same time, local politics and lobbying here in Mendocino County were stacking up with a drama of their own, slowly building up to another extinction event for small legacy farmers—who were jumping through all the hoops to conform to the new regulations set forth in Prop 64. With large-scale production underway in counties such as Monterey and Santa Barbara, a few home-grown local cannabis brands such as Flow Canna and Henry’s, now backed with rounds of outside investment funding, wanted an on-ramp to compete with some of the biggest players in the state. Carrying the weight of the Mendocino region branding with them, the stakes were high. Historic growing regions in the Emerald Triangle garner international recognition, not to mention historical significance in California’s cannabis culture.
Lobbyists for these companies now had the ear of key local government leaders, convincing them that the only tenable format was large-scale cultivation. To further exacerbate the situation, those forces had an ally running the local cannabis department, who also was a strong proponent of industrial cannabis agriculture. With these power plays in motion, the applications and paperwork of hundreds of small family farms were all but ignored, let alone processed for permits. Our file—even after rounds of submitting duplicate paperwork and constant follow up—sat untouched for almost seven years. Fewer than six sun-grown cultivation applicants/ permits out of 1300+ in our county had made their way to an annual license, the lowest success rate in the state.
With a tenfold growth expansion in play by local government leadership, communities finally started to rally, with a gathering of signatures and a punitive referendum in the making to shut those expansion plans down. Little did we know that shortly afterwards, the California market would completely collapse, taking out over 54% of the market value of the largest players in Salinas alone. Unfortunately, valuable time has been wasted, pushing out local farmers, complicating an already difficult process, and creating unprecedented stresses on the greater local economy. It’s hard to find a restaurant, grocery store, or shop owner that isn’t wringing their hands as local dollars have completely vanished. Some may try to box the troubles within the cannabis community alone, but in reality the grave economic fallout cannot be contained.
Whether we like it or not, our communities have been sustained for decades by the money generated from the weed industry, traditional and legal. Michael Katz, Director of the non-profit Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, states, “County sales taxes are down over 5% throughout the county, most markedly in the Ag and Gardening sectors where the most recent year-to-year decrease was over 42%. When our local cannabis community is thriving, the dollars they generate stay within the community and contribute significantly to our local economy, both through purchases at local businesses and by infusing the county coffers with significant tax and fee revenues.” He adds, “Since the inception of the program, local cannabis taxes have generated over $20 million for the county, nearly $8 million more than projected. The harder it gets to operate a small cannabis business in this environment, the more of these businesses we will lose, all to the detriment of the entire community.”
As we examine the series of events that has brought us to this place, it is equally important to take stock of where we are now and the possibilities of what lies ahead. Thanks to an intervention from the state and a new commitment from local leadership, the Mendocino County Cannabis Program is finally operating in a positive and productive manner. State financial assistance has allowed for additional resources, as well as consultants, to work through the backlog of cultivation sites which already have provisional state licensing. For those local small farms and brands that are still in business, the future remains precarious, but our infrastructure, talent, and idyllic growing region can carry us through to a new chapter in what is projected to be a $5.4 billion annual sales market by 2030 in California alone.
It is now becoming obvious that a true craft model of small production is not only viable, but will be in demand for the years ahead. We have noticed this with our Bohemian Chemist brand over the past few years, as we market to and develop relationships with retail partners across the state. The industry has become far more educated about sungrown cannabis—with its minimal carbon footprint—as well as the quality of flower that comes from a farm with sustainable growing practices.
Cannabis enthusiasts are also very interested in the history of California consumption culture. The state has even awarded a large grant to study the North Coast growing regions, and specifically the legacy story. The grant is tied to Cal Poly Humboldt’s Cannabis Studies Program, with the goal of preserving the history, value, and diversity of California’s rural legacy cannabis genetics and the communities that steward them.
A primary lead in this work is Genine Coleman of the non-profit Origins Council, who represents over 800 family farms across Northern California, most of which are cultivating 1/2 acre or less of cannabis. “For me, this study is about cultural preservation, and healing our communities from the impacts of the War on Drugs through quantifying and honoring the tremendous agricultural contributions California legacy cannabis has offered, and will continue to offer the world,” says Coleman.
In addition to her work in preserving and protecting legacy culture and communities, Genine is one of the main architects of California’s Senate Bill 67, which ratified appellations of origin for cannabis cultivation in the state. This is the first program of its type, and cannabis is the only crop outside of grapes to have a program that is based on terroir. The program has gone through several rounds of development and is scheduled to start accepting petitions in early 2024. In essence, once a petition for an appellation is submitted and accepted, only cannabis within that region which adheres to the specific guidelines set forth in that petition will be able to use the appellation name with its branding and labeling. This was another strong motivation of well-resourced outside corporate interests to gain a foothold in established international growing regions such as Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Thankfully, with the halting of large-scale expansion in Mendocino County, this control remains in the hands of our local family cultivators and the communities they live in.
Coleman states, “The existing legacy farms that have entered legalization, working towards compliance and business viability against all odds, deserve everyone’s deepest respect. To do anything but support these families—and the vast majority of legacy cannabis are family-owned and -operated businesses—is unethical and foolish.”
Coleman continues, “California is home to a wealth of incredible talent, genetics, and innovation when it comes to craft cannabis. Immediate direct-to-consumer marketing and sales opportunities are urgently needed if we are to preserve our existing craft producers, genetics, and products, much less grow the sector.”
Following a similar trajectory that the budding California wine industry tracked five decades ago, there is a host of auxiliary support industries that come along with the emerging craft category. Cannabis tourism is only just beginning to take shape, as enthusiasts want to plan their travel holidays with weed in mind. Our Madrones and Brambles properties in Anderson Valley have joined outfits like the Plant Shop in Ukiah and Sol de Mendocino in Mendocino Village to cater to cannabis tourism by featuring local products, producing events, educational workshops, farmers markets, and more to increase local visitors.
This year, Visit Mendocino County (VMC), the county’s local tourism arm, fully embraced this new travel sector, and their commitment supports local, Mendocino-grown brands. VMC has set out to make our region the leader in the state when it comes to cannabis tourism, and in so doing, has enlisted the services of Brian Applegarth, who runs a travel consulting firm and was the founder of the Cannabis Travel Association International. Applegarth compiles available data, metrics, and studies, and he likes to point out that 37% of active leisure travelers want to participate in at least one cannabis-related activity while on vacation. Keeping in mind that this segment of travelers also enjoys wine, hiking and the outdoors, and memorable dining experiences, it is easy to imagine how the whole ecosystem of the local economy could benefit.
So as the long harvest continues and we bring in this year’s flower, I feel hopeful despite the precarious road ahead. As a family, we have to take stock and find gratitude. We can continue to grow the same crop that my mom did well into her 80s. The farm continues to evolve, as we are now working with scientists and MDs to study our breeding work, seeking cultivars that possess rare and complex cannabinoid profiles that can offer therapeutic benefits. We are also doing preservation work to keep heirloom and landrace genetics available in a fickle market where they are quickly being lost.
In this daily work of ours, the outside pressures can seem insurmountable. But to weather the difficult times, we have decided to latch on to something that fosters excitement and meaning, whether it is developing a new cultivar, supporting local farmers, or finding ways to connect and lift up the greater community we all live in.
Jim Roberts is a second generation legacy cannabis farmer in Mendocino County. He is an owner of The Bohemian Chemist brand as well as The Madrones and The Brambles in Anderson Valley. Roberts is on the Board of Directors of West Business Development Center and one of CalOSBA’s 34 Entrepreneur and Economic Mobility Task Force members.
Nesting for Winter and Ready for What’s Next
by Gowan Batist
On the Mendocino Coast, the first rains land in the brown thatch, which sends up tendrils of grass and little round buttons of dicot cotyledons. The ground softens and swells, drinking in the moisture. We plant rounds of radishes, peas, and sweet greens like it was March all over again. It rarely ever frosts here, and the years it does, it’s always a surprise to see it crawling across the low spots in the garden. More common is the orange slime molds that travel the damp substrate, covering surprising ground from evening to morning like ambulatory dog vomit. They may not be lovely, but they are brilliant. A famous study in Japan found that slime molds navigate efficiently between spots of nutrients laid out across a floor in the pattern of train station stops (more efficiently, in many cases, than the true municipal system does). They won’t hurt your plants and they only eat decomposing matter, so show them some respect and just say hello if they visit your garden.
Mendocino is an incredibly diverse place, in large part due to the quick changes in ecotones—from the ocean straight up into the hills and valleys. The coastal prairie soil—really just sand invested with millennia of organic matter—grows straight, effortless carrots, but water and nutrients fall through it like a rock through the air. This quickly gives way to polarized sandstone, a highly acidic compressed soil streaked in red and white and shocking yellow. This unusual soil grows pygmy trees, a phenomenon seen almost nowhere on this earth but here, a narrow ecological band with unique and fascinating implications for all the species living in it. Unfortunately, that is where our coastal county dump site is located.
Further up the geologic staircase, we have clay soil made acidic by eons of deep leaf fall. Dark foamy streams full of tannins and protein from that forest litter decomposition give rise to place names like Whiskey Springs. The redwood and fir forests have most of their organic matter in the trees above ground, but the clay soil is dense, the particles so tiny compared to sand and minute compared to organic matter. Those who farm in clay soil often love it—it hangs on to water and compost beautifully. (It also hangs on to everything else, as anyone who has tried to use hand tools in wet clay soil has likely experienced.)
Coming up above the ridge on Highway 20, the layers of green hills fade away into the fog or the smoke, depending on the time of the year. We come into the oak savannah, which is at its mildest and sweetest in the winter. The grasslands are so productive and beautiful in the winter and spring that it’s impossible not to fall in love with them. But they are harsh and flammable in the summer and fall. Up on the ridges and down in the valley, the cold gets more intense. We even have snow, which feels like a novelty to me in spite of the disruptions it can cause, like it did last year on Highways 20 and 253. We stopped and were unable to resist throwing snowballs at the top of the hill on 20, feeling silly when much of the country was under feet of snow.
Exactly what winter looks like to us depends on which of our diverse ecotypes we reside in, but I hope for all of us this coming one is particularly gentle and restful. When I was growing up in Gualala, winter meant road closures due to river flooding, candle light, and the whole family piling into our house because we had propane for heating water and cooking. Those memories are good ones as a kid excited for the board games and stories to come out around the wood stove. Now, looking at them through a parent’s eyes, I can see that there was some extra stress and work that never registered for me.
For grazers and coastal farmers, winter isn’t necessarily the deep slow time that it is in other parts of the country. Lambing is starting for a lot of us, a time of cold hands, frosty breath in headlamps during night checks, and the slip and slide into life of so many four legged little creatures. Lambing is a time of increased vigilance for predator coexistence, as the animals are at their most vulnerable, and the predators are often heavily pregnant and hungry themselves. It’s a good time to bring flocks into barns at night, install scare devices like Foxlights and Gadflies, and pay closer attention to ourwild neighbors and their movements.
Living in a twelve-month growing season has mixed blessings. I have spoken to Midwestern farm hands who all go on seasonal unemployment in the winter and travel, write, make music, and generally get a real and significant break. I have thought of them wistfully while harvesting kale in rubber coveralls that fit like a bucket (you know the ones) with chilled prune fingers. On the other hand, making a winter soup with stored roots and fresh greens while the rain pounds outside and the fire crackles is its own kind of luxury. There is a commitment to the seasonal nature of food, and the solidarity between us and our local customers. We are still farming when both the tourists and the restaurant orders have thinned out.
I have to admit that, at Fortunate Farm’s vegetable production height, winter farming was always an act of community service operated at a loss. The Persephone Period, a time when daylight hours are very short, is a time when plant growth slows to almost nothing. In order to have a winter harvest, a lot of planting has to happen far in advance, in the warm fall, or your starts will just sit there in the waterlogged and chilly soil, stalled out for weeks at a time. This planting happens at peak fall exhaustion and sometimes might even conflict with field harvest plans—if a crop goes in a little late, it could bleed into the planting window for the next one. When we did it, our goal was mostly to keep our workers employed and keep fresh food in front of our customers, and to keep our local network strong, especially during the first year of the pandemic.
I can’t say it was a great business decision. We came into spring tired, worn out from doing twice as much work for a quarter of the income, and broke from paying the same costs for less return. Most farms lose money in the spring when everything needs to be purchased and all the work frontloaded, and we don’t start making it back until late spring or early summer. Some of the most financially successful farms I know jumpstart their seasons with business operating loans, taken out and paid back in the same year, that their strong track records allow them to qualify for. This means they don’t have to limp through lean months. Some of these loans are available from non-profit organizations set up to support farmers, like California FarmLink.
This winter, I will not be farming. The sheep will be out grazing, ignoring the shelter we make sure they have access to, aware of their roots in Iceland and Finland and dismissive of my worries about the cold and damp. My partner’s three goats will be hiding in a warm dry bedded stall, imperiously demanding room service. Some kale will stand leggy and thick stalked in our little backyard garden. Xa Kako Dile: is an indigenous women-led and -directed non-profit which will be growing at Fortunate Farm and will operate the farm stand onsite as long into the cold season as makes sense for them, in collaboration with our adjacent neighbor farms. Our family will be around the wood stove, surrounded by wool in every form—from the pelts that cover our couch cushions, to the textiles we wear—still faintly scented of lanolin when we come in from the rain, to the blankets our baby wiggles across, to the ribbons of roving processed from our flockby Mendocino Wool and Fiber, spinning into yarn through my fingers as the cherry wood wheel turns in time with my treading feet. My elderly border collie loves to lay just close enough to the pedals that they gently graze his head as he sleeps. He’s turned my cottage yarn industry into an automated dog petting machine. Our baby loved the motion of spinning wool, even from the inside of my body. Their little kicks and stretches would quiet right down every time I sat at the wheel, moving us both in the small but surprisingly muscular movements required to turn the wheel.
Spinning is deeply seasonal for a lot of us. I usually never spin in the summer and fall; pregnancy was an extenuating circumstance for me. Most of the shepherds I know save all their spinning up for the long steamy afternoons indoors, a habitat we don’t spend a lot of time in most of the year. A friend warned me that, while her baby loved watching her spinning from a safe distance when he was in the immobile grub phase, as soon as he got the ability to crawl, it became a bit of a liability. The turning parts of the wheel look so smooth and inviting, but are in fact not safe to stick a baby fist into. I have been duly warned, and will take that as it comes. But for now, spinning is the grounding act that connects the outside life walking across fields with my flock, with the inside cozy nesting space we’re making as we incubate the fourth trimester of becoming a new family. The wool still carries all those memories. I feel so blessed by the gift of baby blankets made at our local mill by my friend Kat who works there and does their weaving. The complexity and beauty of what they can make on their looms is astounding, and recently they introduced hats as well, of tight knit, good local wool that will shed the rain and keep you warm even in the snow.
Celebrating local cycles in agriculture should always include textiles, and alongside kale and bins of stored potatoes, the queen of winter is wool. If you haven’t made it to the Mendocino Wool and Fiber, Inc. storefront, get yourself over there to Ukiah and see what magic they’re spinning and weaving. Many local grazers, like Headwaters Grazing and Full Circle Wool among others, keep us safe from fire in the summer and safe from cold in the winter, all through the everyday alchemy of a sheep—grass grown from atmospheric carbon, converted into bacteria cultivated in their magical rumens, and grown on their backs as the soft blanket of wool.
We plan to spend this winter all wrapped up, feeding ourselves from summer and fall stored bounty and winter’s resilient offerings of greens and mushrooms, swathed in wool. This year of local eating is coming full circle, back to the chilly short days it started with. This time, though, there is a new family member with us, whom all the farmers in the county have nourished, through me, all year. In the spirit of deep wintering, and denning with our little one, this will also be my last “Farmer’s Voice” for a while. I have loved sharing this journey with all of you through the pages of this magazine, and I hope to come back and visit some time. But there are other talented writers among the farmers and ranchers of this county. It’s their turn to speak up, and it’s our turn to tuck in.
Have a blessed and safe winter y’all, and remember to check out MendoLake Food Hub for your bulk orders for those big holiday meals.
Gowan Batist of Fortunate Farm is a Post-Industrial Pastoralist working towards regeneration on landscapes her ancestors devastated. She is seldom seen, but sometimes glimpsed out in the fog or the oak savanna propagating native plants, spinning wool, hand shearing sheep, or sprawling on the ground with dogs.
Moon Honey Tea
Boonville’s Secret Tea Shop
by Holly Madrigal
Tucked away in an art gallery in Boonville is a secret shop. Antique curiosities sit amidst a curated collection of jewelry, gifts, and artwork. Locally harvested honey shares shelf space with home-harvested walnuts from the owner’s orchard. This small shop is the vision of Una Ann Morgan. A friendship with John Hanes, an elder artist and sculptor in Boonville, led her to open Moon Honey Tea within his gallery. When she first opened in April of 2023, she began serving fresh roasted, French press coffee and loose-leaf tea at the shop. She roasts the organic coffee beans herself every few days. “I have a background in coffee and I welcome everyone to come by for a taste. We also sell coffee you can take home with you.” If you want to taste something beyond coffee, you can try the Three Ravens Blend of coffee, chicory, and black tea. The cozy warmth will transport you to a seat by a roaring fire.
A passion to find herbal remedies that were safe and healing for her children led Una to research and make her own tea blends, and Moon Honey Tea Company was born. “I’ve always been in love with the magical and healing properties of plants, but the thing that inspired me to offer herbal blends to the public was the lack of herbal remedies available that are safe for children. I have kids, and I wanted remedies for common complaints like sore throat, tummy ache, fever, etc., using herbs that were considered safe for children and effective for the whole family,” says Una. While researching online, she kept finding products that said “not safe for children,” or those that were safe seemed ineffective. By creating her own, she was able to fill her personal medicine cabinet and share with friends.
“These are herbal blends, and I give them cute names so that you can tell a story for your child. For example, the fever reducer is called ‘Fairy Dust,’ so you can say, ‘We’re sprinkling some fairy dust in hot water to make you feel better,’” she adds. “I’ve made an antiviral blend for sore throats called ‘Mr. Frog’s Throat Tea,’—you know, since you have a frog in your throat. When I was young, my sister and I were very into natural wisdom and witchy stuff,” says Una. “Creating these teas seemed a natural fit.”
Una prides herself on making tea and herbal blends that are not just effective but delicious as well, and she welcomes visitors to try samples in the shop. Mr. Frog’s is filled with thyme as well as other ingredients that reduce inflammation, are antiviral, and taste great. She also makes a Ginger Cat tummy tea, so named because it has lots of ginger. A common myth, she says, is that you can only steep tea once.
“I encourage my customers to use the blend two or three times to make the most of your purchase.” She describes her business as an organic, loose-leaf, specialty blend tea and coffee shop, as well as an eclectic gift shop. “I love tea because it’s a wonderful way to remind ourselves, every day, to slow down in a kind of ritualistic and meditative way,” Una shares. “It also keeps us connected to nature in a multitude of ways specific to the properties and energies of each leaf, root, tree bark, stem, flower, or fruit, as well as to the seasons and regions it is harvested in.”
Next time you visit Boonville and see the open sign outside of the John Hanes Gallery, you can stop by and have your own meditative moment with a steaming cup of fresh pressed coffee or sip of tea. Bet you won’t be able to leave without a handful of gifts, goodies, and remedies to fill your personal medicine cabinet.
Moon Honey Tea Company
John Hanes Gallery 14051 Hwy 128, Boonville
(707) 489-0981 | www.etsy.com/shop/MoonHoneyTea
IG @moonhoneytea
Open Friday - Sunday 11:00 – 3:00 or when the open sign is out
Drewish Deli
New York Quality Bagels in the Heart of Healdsburg
by Barbara Barrielle
When you think of a business born in a garage, you probably think of a technology startup, not a bagel company. Yet in 2018, Drew Ross did just that when he started Healdsburg Bagel Company in his home garage—after turning it into a commercial kitchen, of course.
Originally from New York where good bagels are plentiful, Drew Ross moved to Healdsburg in 2005 after a career as a professional touring musician. When his father-in-law came to visit, Drew, then practicing psychotherapy, was hard pressed to find a decent bagel anywhere in Sonoma County. So he did what any enterprising bagel lover would, and in 2013, he embarked on his quest to create his own perfect bagel recipe.
New York’s favorite carb is boiled and then baked. While some people give credit to the water of New York for their renowned bagels, Drew had to adjust for our local H2O. Hundreds of recipe tweaks and thousands of batches later, Drew let his friends have a taste. With their enthusiastic approval earned, he started Healdsburg Bagel Company (HBC) in 2018. He converted his garage into a commercial kitchen, put his kids and some of their friends to work, and started delivering bagels to homes around Healdsburg.
He also took to social media. “I put a post on Facebook and told folks about the bagels and offered local delivery. People responded and I got pretty busy with that. I then got the bagels into Big John’s Market. They were my first wholesale account. It just kept building from there.”
I was one of his early customers and had a standing order for a dozen assorted (mostly everything) bagels delivered to my door every two weeks. Those little circles of heaven would arrive warm and fresh, hand-delivered by Drew himself. I just needed to make sure I had cream cheese on hand. “My family is all from Brooklyn but they moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s,” says Drew. “They found a good bagel shop on Beverly Boulevard and made that a regular stop after shabbat dinners and LA Dodger games on Friday nights. Fresh bagels that night and for the Sabbath the next day.” Drew branched out to sell bagels, cream cheese, breakfast sandwiches, deli specials, and other typical Jewish favorites, including challah, babka, and the classic matzo ball soup—which flies out of the door as soon as each batch is made.
During the pandemic, Drew and Healdsburg Bagel Company expanded wholesale accounts and increased the number of North Bay farmers markets he attended. He moved out of the garage and rented commercial space as demand grew. HBC was present at 14-16 farmers markets a week when his commercial accounts passed 20, and at a single farmer’s market like Fort Mason in San Francisco, Drew could blow through 600 bagels in a morning. His business was booming. It was time to take the next step.
“I had confidence in finding a retail shop. The town was rallying behind me, tourists supportive, too,” explains Ross. “I leased 1500 square feet and a kitchen in a former restaurant in Healdsburg, hired my manager Elizabeth Cosin, and have a significant staff for catering. We are open as a deli four days a week and, although I never thought this would be my full-time job, it is and it’s profitable.”
Drewish Deli opened in July 2023 on Mitchell Lane, just north of Healdsburg’s bustling downtown square. The space is simply designed with classic white subway tile, rustic wood paneling, and deep navy blue accents. The deli serves good coffee, and there’s plenty of camaraderie among the locals who gather there around the various tables. You can sink your teeth into the fresh, chewy bagel—maybe with a healthy size schmear of scallion cream cheese and a few slices of housecured gravlax, topped with fresh-sliced tomatoes and onions and sprinkled with capers. It’s delicious and much cheaper than flying to New York for a fix.
As for the Drewish future: “The deli is definitely keeping me very busy, but I am working on a rather large distribution deal in the new year and also looking at providing “deli baskets” for gifts for the holidays,” says Drew. “Also, going to continue to develop and expand the deli menu. Who knows where the future will take me!“
If you find yourself in Healdsburg, satisfy your bagel and deli craving and support a true local business every Thursday through Monday. The enterprise started with the search for a good bagel and now supports a team of employees and several families—and makes a whole lot of former New Yorkers and current bagel lovers very happy.
Drewish Deli
11 Mitchell Lane, Healdsburg
(707) 955-0600 | DrewishDeli.com
Open Thurs - Mon 7:30am – 2:30pm
Barbara Barrielle is a freelance wine and travel writer as well as a film producer. She is also the press contact for Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association and can be reached at press@avwa.com. Follow her @barbarabarrielletravels.
Photos courtesy of Drewish Deli