Publisher's Note
by Torrey Douglass
The science fiction writer, Octavia Butler, is buried in a Pasadena graveyard under a gravestone displaying her quote, “The only lasting truth is Change.” Her words echo those of the Ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who famously declared “There is nothing permanent except change.” And I have to agree. It seems like as soon as I begin to move fluidly through life’s dance the tempo shifts, and I am, again, stumbling over my feet. Maybe the trick is to learn to stumble with grace and humor, and to forgive each other for trodden toes even as we seek balance.
Just like everywhere else, Mendocino County sees its fair share of change, and sometimes those changes paradoxically preserve what we value. In this issue you’ll find stories about local businesses under new leadership, like Roundman’s Smokehouse (p18). As of 2021, this popular butcher shop in Fort Bragg is continuing its legacy of high quality meat processing under Steve Rasmussen and Greg Braden. Wickson Restaurant at The Madrones in Philo (p42) is now in the capable hands of local girl Claudia Almeida, making mouth-watering pinsas (a lighter but equally delicious cousin of pizza), among other wood-fired dishes and handmade pasta. Over in Hopland, Topel Winery was purchased by Roger Peng in 2018 and renamed Alta Orsa to evoke both the rugged mountainside location of its vineyard and the team’s commitment to craftsmanship (p37). This small winery is currently producing and sourcing sustainably farmed fruit for all of its wines, including what one wine industry friend claims to be “the best cabernet in Mendocino County.”
It’s important to remember that, even as we are affected by change, we can be agents of it as well. Researchers at the Steinhart Aquarium are working on a sea star breeding program (p15) to restore this essential species that has largely been eradicated in the underwater wilds off our coast. Today’s economic challeges have resulted in a spike in pet surrenders to local animal shelters, prompting the Humane Society of Sonoma—with the help of Anderson Valley-raised Celestino Jimenez—to start the Community Action Team (or C.A.T.) program with his work colleague, Jorge Delgado (p39). The program integrates pet food donations into existing food banks so pets can remain in the homes where they are loved.
That quote on Octavia Butler’s gravestone begins with the words, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.” We are not powerless. Take a break from the dance floor from time to time if you need to—particularly if the current song is not your jam. But the dance floor is where life happens, it’s where your friends and neighbors are. You might not always pick the track, but you can always pick your moves. So once you’ve caught your breath, step back into the fray, choose your partners wisely, listen for the beat, and boogie down with whatever choreography is most true to you.
Torrey Douglass
Co-Publisher & Art Director
MendoGrass
Sun Grown & Local Power Greens—Available All Year!
by Torrey Douglass
When Mendo Grass owner Adam Goldberg and his wife, Amanda Tuttle, started their wheatgrass and microgreens business in 2020, he was “hell-bent on growing with the sun.” Sungrown plants have better flavor and a lower carbon footprint, and this approach aligned with Adam’s priority to work with what he already had in order to keep overhead costs low. It is also less time-intensive since he doesn’t have to purchase and maintain complex climate control systems—though he does use a germinator shed where plants spend their first 3-5 days. This shed can be warmed or cooled, protecting young plants from winter’s freezing temperatures and extreme summer heat. After that, they are moved to the greenhouse where they will stay until harvested 10 to 21 days later, depending on the time of year.
Unlike diversified farming, wheatgrass and microgreens can be grown year-round, even when eschewing climate manipulation. This means Adam’s schedule doesn’t include the cold-season break other farmers enjoy. “It’s a marathon,” shares Adam. “Winter is slower but still busy. The rhythms are different from a regular farm.” Thanks to the greenhouse environment, Adam’s microgreens business is easier on his body than traditional farming. He doesn’t have to work on the ground, and the use of vertical space means a lot can be grown within a smaller footprint.
The success of Mendo Grass can be traced back to Adam’s past job with the former Solar Living Institute in Hopland, where his role included growing wheatgrass and microgreens for local restaurants and grocery stores. The program was let go after a time, but he had seen its potential as a sustainable local business. So when he and Amanda moved into a tiny home outside of Hopland in 2020, he had the time and bandwidth to launch Mendo Grass.
That was also the year that Adam lost his mom to cancer. He’d always admired how she had “lived on her own terms,” as he put it, balancing career, family, and personal interests so she could make the most out of the time she had. Her illness put things in perspective, motivating Adam to follow her example and take the entrepreneurial plunge so he could build a career that provided more time for family, as well as experience the satisfaction that comes from working for oneself. As someone with a Master’s in International Education, Adam appreciates how the intellectual and analytical challenges of running a business complement the physical and mental demands of farming. “I appreciate the balance of admin and dirty hands,” he reflects.
An early break helped get the business off the ground, when a Hopland business owner saw the potential for Mendo Grass and granted Adam a rent-free year on his ranch to get started. There was no infrastructure save a vineyard pond, but the price was right, so Adam and Amanda built a greenhouse on the site and proceeded to figure out, through trial and error, what it takes to grow and sell organic wheatgrass and microgreens to Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
These baby plants sell themselves in a lot of ways. They contain up to nine times more nutrients than their adult counterparts, making them beloved as an immunity-boosting superfood. Microgreens work beautifully as a garnish for restaurant dishes, delighting both the eye with their bright green hue and the palate with their tender taste. They go great in salads, smoothies, and sandwiches—for example, they add a little crunch and a lot of fresh flavor as a topping on avocado toast.
For folks who like to include fresh wheatgrass or microgreens in their morning smoothies, a convenient subscription program is available. You can find Mendo Grass microgreens at the Ukiah Farmers Market, Ukiah Natural Foods Co-Op, and Mariposa Market. Outside of the county, they are at the Healdsburg and Sebastopol farmers markets. In addition to the microgreens and wheatgrass, jars of fresh “peasto” and refreshing “Mendomosas”—a mocktail that combines a shot of wheatgrass, orange juice, and kombucha—are for sale. Both were developed by Amanda, whose expertise includes a background in the culinary arts. In addition to creating delicious, value-added items for their farmers market table, she also manages branding and marketing for the business.
Adam and Amanda’s belief that Mendo Grass was a viable business idea has been proven correct thanks to their hard work and creativity. Now, four years in, the business is stable, and they are a year or two away from hiring a manager to help carry some of the load so they can enjoy an even better work-life balance. Even with all the demands launching a startup business requires, Adam feels it allows him to live on his own terms, able to spend time with Amanda and their daughter, providing food that supports his customers’ health, and growing his plants according to his values: organic, sungrown, and watered with rainwater. “We are part of our community, very embedded,” Adam shares. “Being a local farm business and providing local, healthy foods is very rewarding.”
To get a delicious taste of Adam’s microgreens, make your avocado toast with the recipe below for a tasty and healthy start to your day.
Great Start Avocado Toast
INGREDIENTS
1 slice of artisan bread, toasted to perfection (we love Grainsong bread!)
1/4 cup Mendo Grass Peasto
2 oz microgreens
1 avocado, mashed
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt + pepper to taste
Optional: red pepper flakes or toasted pumpkin seeds
INSTRUCTIONS
Toast a slice of bread until it reaches your desired level of crispiness. While the bread is toasting, mash the avocado in a bowl until smooth. Season with lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.
Spread the mashed avocado evenly over the toast. Next, generously spread ¼ cup of Mendo Grass Peasto on top of the avocado. Top with 1 oz of Mendo Grass Microgreens, then sprinkle more salt and pepper over the microgreens if desired. Serve immediately and enjoy the delightful combination of flavors and textures!
Subscribe for regular deliveries of wheatgrass and/or microgreens at mendograss.com, or visit Healdsburg, Ukiah, and Sebastopol farmers markets to purchase.
Photo courtesy of Mendo Grass
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.
The Loose Caboose Cafe
The Best Hot Sandwiches in Willits
by Holly Madrigal
When my childhood friends come back to Willits to see their parents or to visit, they structure their stay around a stop at the Loose Caboose Café. This restaurant could well be considered a beloved institution. In 1988, Jill Persico (then Pieretti-Cessna) was getting ready for work at her retail job at Sidney’s clothing store in downtown Willits when she overheard a radio program talking about how the cabooses of trains were becoming obsolete. Jill loved the idea of a little romantic café—her favorite place to dine when traveling. As she thought about the sadness of losing the cabooses with their small cozy spaces, somehow the ideas combined in her mind. She thought about making a caboose-themed eatery and calling it the Loose Caboose Cafe.
Locals may remember that the cafe—which turns out hot sub sandwiches, many different salads, and soups—was originally located in the old Country Mall now occupied by JD Redhouse. A former ice cream shop in the front of the mall was closing down, and Jill snapped up that equipment, adding real ice cream milkshakes to the menu. Loose Caboose Café was born, and Jill created a menu with a combination of recipes from her mother—that’s where the meatball sub came from—and a deli called Bensoni’s that used to exist back in the day. Jill’s twist was to serve all of the sandwiches hot.
Loose Caboose moved across Wood Street to its current location and never looked back. Serving up hot sandwiches, salads, and shakes turned out to be a winning combination. The interior has been updated over the years but it remains warm and inviting. A huge mural of a caboose careening through a meadow sets a playful tone. They added a wonderful patio, creating a shady space covered in hanging flowers. Visitors with pups love the outdoor space, where their furry friends can hope for a dropped bite of a sandwich. The focus is on good food and gathering with friends and family. If you are not family, you will be welcomed in as if you are. You can’t stop by without running into a neighbor or high school teacher.
Jill & Aimee
Everyone that I know has a favorite dish, and though they may pretend as if they are perusing the menu, they know what they want and how they want it. Mine is a Turkey Depot with no bell peppers. The savory melted cheese, lettuce, onions, black olives, and mustard combine with the sliced roasted turkey drizzled in an oil and vinegar dressing that is as zesty as it is addictive. The best method is to eat there, in the restaurant, because if you wait you risk losing the perfect toasty crunch of the roll with the hot ingredients within.
I called a friend who now lives in the Bay Area, and she confirmed that she is also a Turkey Depot devotee, and did not appreciate that my call had made her hungry for that very dish. My husband preferred a Vegetarian Station, adding pesto for an extra kick. Others swear by the Meatball Express—I mean, it IS Jill’s mother’s very special recipe from Italy. And though I have my favorites, I went through a phase of getting the Southwest Chicken Salad, as their spicy ranch is crazy good, drizzled on the crunchy greens and topped with tender chicken that is its own delight.
The soups are amazing as well, and don’t just take my word for it. Loose Caboose has won Best in Show at the Sip Some Soup fundraiser for our Daily Bread multiple times. And if you are feeling decadent, get an espresso or chai milkshake before you leave. The Chai milkshake manages to mingle the spices of apple pie with rich ice cream, creating, basically, liquid ala mode.
A commitment to quality and delighting their customers has made this restaurant stand the test of time. Jill reflects, “I figure I will do this as long as I love it. And I still do love it. My Italian upbringing connected family and good food, and that has always been at the center of this work.” Most of the staff in the kitchen have been with Loose Caboose for years, and the business has trained many a young person in the hospitality business. Jill’s generosity in supporting the community goes beyond the restaurant to sponsoring sports teams, events, and nonprofit auctions. At a recent live auction for the Seabiscuit Therapeutic Riding Center, a “Year of Loose Caboose Sandwiches” went for $3,100. “That brought me to tears,” Jill adds, “that our business is so appreciated and valued. I still don’t know who the winning bidder was,” she laughs.
Jill attributes the secrets of her longevity to the consistency of the food and having an onsite owner. “It is important for me to be out there greeting the customers, checking in. I consider myself semi-retired. My daughter Aimee is now stepping in and we are co-managers. We are the perfect team, and she is allowing me to take time when I need to. I know that the restaurant is in good hands. Her sister, Caprice, does all of our bookkeeping. Aimee is helping us shift to the next generation,” Jill says.
Jill’s daughters grew up amidst the hustle and bustle of the business. Both girls moved out of the area, and Aimee and her husband, Ben Dawson (a Willits alum), returned to the area after their boys were off to college. “The boys spent their childhoods running around on the ranch in Willits, and they love to come visit,” adds Aimee. And after nearly forty years in business, Aimee is busy streamlining processes like finally accepting credit cards after 36 years. “We work so well together,” says Jill. “Aimee is bringing the business up to modern standards and ensuring that our business is going strong.” The duo has not wavered in their commitment to the community. Jill’s Catholic faith is very important to her, and she and Aimee have begun teaching confirmation once a week at St. Anthony’s Church in Willits. When I stopped by, Jill had her homework planned to prep for this week’s class. The love of hometown and community runs deep in the ethos of this little café.
Sometimes, when something is so consistent in life, it can get overshadowed by the glitzy and new. But it benefits us all to remember the heart of Willits, which resides in a little shop off Wood Street. The Loose Caboose Café has given so much to the town of Willits, and I cannot imagine a visit without stopping by for a hot sub sandwich and a catch-up on the local buzz. When waitress Liz Persico Day left to spend more time with grandkids after a decade with the Loose Caboose, I remember thinking, “Who else is going to call me sweetheart and get away with it?” But time goes on, and these local favorites keep serving up classically delicious food. Thank you to all the cooks in the kitchen, the waitstaff, Aimee, and most importantly Jill, for warming our hearts and bellies all these years.
The Loose Caboose Café
10 Wood St, Willits
(707) 459-1434 | loosecaboosecafe.com
Open 10am - 3pm Mon - Sat
Photos courtesy of Loose Caboose Cafe.
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.
Jude Thilman
Integrating Cannabis into Mainstream Medicine
by Jude Thilman & Joyce Perlman | photos by Joyce Perlman
Jude Thilman, a medicinal cannabis educator with over 20 years of experience in the cannabis industry and co-founder of Dragonfly Wellness Center, is nothing if not practical. She ardently believes in health care as a human right and sees a return to traditional, herbal medicine as heralding the death knell for a “pharmaceutical-dominant” approach to treating “dis-ease.” At the same time, she recognizes that, “Western medicine, or allopathy, is not going away tomorrow.” One focus of her cannabis educational work is to build bridges between allopathic medical practitioners and traditional healers who utilize cannabis in their practices.
Jude herself is a cannabis patient and a former coastal cultivator. Before joining the Mendocino cannabis community, she spent two decades working for social justice causes globally, including publishing stories about the anti-war and civil rights movements while in high school, for which she was forbidden to write for the school newspaper. Later she worked in South Africa on Nelson Mandela’s presidential campaign, provided support for women activists running a domestic violence hotline in Budapest, and served as the Director of the Marin County Human Rights Coalition Against Hate Violence, in addition to many other projects.
Jude became involved in the cannabis community after moving to the Mendocino Coast in 2003. She was dismayed that, while there was a large amount of global research on healing properties of cannabis, in the U.S. there was very little information available to the public about its medicinal value. This, in spite of the fact that there are written records on the healing properties of cannabis for over 5,000 years. This “missing story” is changing, though, as modern science is increasingly recognizing cannabis as an herb and not a drug. The National Institutes of Health identifies over 540 chemical compounds in the cannabis plant. These compounds come together to provide many healing benefits on a root level. Jude reflects, “If medical practitioners are willing to partner with traditional herbalists and healers, it would be a significant step forward. Couldn’t today’s healing practices include elements of both? For example, osteopathic doctors and chiropractors are clearly not very interested in using pharmaceutical drugs, and they have been accepted into Western practice.” Jude isn’t the first to think this way, and she won’t be the last. Herbalists are already taking huge steps to integrate cannabis into their herbal healing practices.
Jude Thilman, a medicinal cannabis educator with over 20 years of experience in the cannabis industry and co-founder of Dragonfly Wellness Center, is nothing if not practical. She ardently believes in health care as a human right and sees a return to traditional, herbal medicine as heralding the death knell for a “pharmaceutical-dominant” approach to treating “dis-ease.” At the same time, she recognizes that, “Western medicine, or allopathy, is not going away tomorrow.” One focus of her cannabis educational work is to build bridges between allopathic medical practitioners and traditional healers who utilize cannabis in their practices.
Jude herself is a cannabis patient and a former coastal cultivator. Before joining the Mendocino cannabis community, she spent two decades working for social justice causes globally, including publishing stories about the anti-war and civil rights movements while in high school, for which she was forbidden to write for the school newspaper. Later she worked in South Africa on Nelson Mandela’s presidential campaign, provided support for women activists running a domestic violence hotline in Budapest, and served as the Director of the Marin County Human Rights Coalition Against Hate Violence, in addition to many other projects.
Jude became involved in the cannabis community after moving to the Mendocino Coast in 2003. She was dismayed that, while there was a large amount of global research on healing properties of cannabis, in the U.S. there was very little information available to the public about its medicinal value. This, in spite of the fact that there are written records on the healing properties of cannabis for over 5,000 years. This “missing story” is changing, though, as modern science is increasingly recognizing cannabis as an herb and not a drug. The National Institutes of Health identifies over 540 chemical compounds in the cannabis plant. These compounds come together to provide many healing benefits on a root level. Jude reflects, “If medical practitioners are willing to partner with traditional herbalists and healers, it would be a significant step forward. Couldn’t today’s healing practices include elements of both? For example, osteopathic doctors and chiropractors are clearly not very interested in using pharmaceutical drugs, and they have been accepted into Western practice.” Jude isn’t the first to think this way, and she won’t be the last. Herbalists are already taking huge steps to integrate cannabis into their herbal healing practices.
Mendocino County is home to many traditional healers who have integrated cannabis into their practice. Wendy Read and Annie Waters are just two of the many herbalists who include cannabis in their healing work. Also, decades-old small, craft cannabis farmers, such as Emerald Spirit Botanicals (winner of the Emerald Cup Regenerative Farm Award), are among those cannabis farmers dedicated to making medicine with cannabis.
Dragonfly Wellness Center is unique in its emphasis on caring for people’s medical needs through the informed, science-based choice of cannabis medicinal products, such as tinctures. Dragonfly itself was inspired by a group of women dedicated to holistic, natural healing in all its forms and modalities. That first group included practitioners of massage, Bowen (a type of touch therapy), cranial-sacral therapists, yoga, and meditation.
From the start, Jude decided against a typical “pot shop,” which usually emphasizes high THC smokables. Instead, Dragonfly sought to be a community resource for people seeking pure and potent cannabis medicines combined with other traditional healing medicines and modalities. Dragonfly believes that, like all healing herbs, cannabis use must be true to the meaning of “holistic.” It must be part of a comprehensive approach that includes nutrition, exercise, movement, music, meditation, spirituality, and all treatments that consider the body as a whole, not a collection of segmented parts.
Dragonfly opened its doors in 2011. As it evolved, Jude developed its educational and patient advisory missions—work she continues to this day. She wants Dragonfly to be a resource for people seeking the education and information they would need to understand how cannabis heals and how best to choose and use their cannabis medicine. While there are few adverse effects from herbal medicine, it is up to the patient to find what works best for them. Jude upholds the #1 rule of herbal medicine—that we are individual metabolisms, not cookie cutters of each other, so patients must find out what ratios of phytocannabinoids and what dosing are best for their individual bodies and needs.
Education is key to Dragonfly’s identity. Jude regularly teaches a free class at Dragonfly called “Cannabis is Medicine: Changing the Narrative.” She studies the science of cannabis medicine, largely drawing from the formative groundwork of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians. This group of professionals from the pharmaceutical industry, allopathic medicine, and traditional healing has produced studies and reports based on lab research, clinical testing, and communications with international colleagues. This last is especially important, as research around cannabis as a healing herb was conducted around the world in countries that did not have a “War on Drugs” that included cannabis.
Thankfully, as more states legalize cannabis, research within the U.S. is growing. Jude has attended cannabis conferences and interviewed leaders in the medicinal cannabis sector of the industry. She featured these interviews in her program, “Cannabis News and Views,” produced by Mendocino TV and broadcast biweekly via the internet in 2022. She also secured funding to take her educational presentations on the road throughout the state, presenting at events such as the Emerald Cup and Cannabis Farmers’ Markets, the 2017 Dandelion Medicine Conference, patient support groups (Cancer, Parkinson’s, vets dealing with PTSD, seniors, and others), hospital community education programs, Chambers of Commerce, civic and professional groups, and everywhere people were open to the changing narrative about cannabis. Over the last ten years, a growing segment of the population has been seeking scientific information about how cannabis heals. Education is the key, and the Mendocino community is finally seeing years of prohibition-defined misinformation slowly dissolve into irrelevance.
Many cannabis farmers incorporate principles of herbal medicine in their growing methods. Unfortunately, state and county regulations after legalization have not been friendly to the medicinal cannabis movement. Small, craft farmers in the Emerald Triangle have been forced to spend all their resources paying exorbitant license and permit fees and taxes, struggling to meet state and county regulations for participation in the commercial cannabis marketplace. And true to a profit-driven system, the commercial cannabis industry prioritizes adult recreational use, which is unfortunately defined by high THC content—not sun-grown, organic, sustainably produced flower, with the requisite combination of chemical compounds needed for healing. It is only through the efforts of groups like Origins Council, which consists of seven county trade associations, that a strong voice exists in Sacramento advocating for small, craft cannabis operators best suited to produce cannabis medicines.
The immediate issues that rural cannabis growers faced in this legalization process, especially in the early years, included helicopter raids, busts by a county prosecutor running his own “pay-to-play” scheme, license fees and taxes well above those commonly charged in any other industry, profiteering by banks and insurance companies, and regulations so burdensome that adherence would bankrupt most small farmers. This has been, and continues to be, a deck that is utterly and completely stacked against them. Small cannabis farmers have had to spend all their time trying to stay alive in this new, “bigger is better” marketplace.
But there was a bright side to these difficult times, as longtime cultivator Nikki Lastreto of Swami Selects noted back in 2017:
Cannabis is what has actually brought together our community in a way that was not possible before. … there is a lot of open space in this county and it can take up to four hours to drive from one end to the other. Hence, it has always been difficult to meet our neighbors, as our ranches are often miles apart. It took the common cause of cannabis to bring us together into an active community. The gift of the many friends I have made through this process is priceless.
Times have changed since Dragonfly opened in 2011. Located in close proximity to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, Dragonfly hosts ever-growing numbers of cannatourists. The well trained staff offers product guidance, education, and concern for everyone who comes to visit. They are not called “budtenders” but rather “staff counselors,” symbolizing an important difference in what Dragonfly offers to the community. In response to their disillusionment with other dispensaries, customers Anna and Lee Gardner sent the shop a letter of thanks for its “fantastic selection of products,” “excellent prices,” and “location that is easily accessible.” The letter also shared their gratitude: “Thank you for the peace of mind you give us. … We are so grateful for the simplicity, comfort, and ease you have brought to this experience.”
Every day, more and more people are turning to cannabis as medicine. They are disillusioned with the pharmaceutical model: the high cost, the adverse effects, and the ineffectiveness of many “medicines” that do no more than treat symptoms. But the cannabis industry itself is shackled by a lack of scientific information. It continues to operate from its 40-year-old incomplete narrative that, at worst, touts the mystical magic of cannabis as the end-all solution to world problems—solving everything from war and global warming to economic inequality. At its best, the cannabis community knows that cannabis can be both a “recreational” inspiration and a healing herb. But it is threatened by an economic system that will degrade and denigrate the broader value of cannabis in the world.
The next chapter on the fate of the best cannabis in the world, from Mendocino and surrounding producer counties, is yet to be written. Hope, prayers, and this precious community are tasked with keeping cannabis—as it is meant to be alive.
Dragonfly Wellness Center
17975 N Hwy 1, Fort Bragg
(707) 962-0890 | dragonflywellness.org
Open daily 9am - 9pm
Dragonfly photo by Bojh Parker. All other photos by Joyce Perlman.
Jude Thilman is an entrepreneur and medicinal cannabis educator, bringing over 20 years' experience in the cannabis industry. She is ready to retire from Dragonfly and is looking for buyers that share the vision and values of the Mendocino cannabis community. If you are interested, contact Themos Pentakalos—themos@drivemeta.com, (858) 361-6364, www.drivemeta.com.
Joyce Perlman is a photographer living in Mendocino. In 2022 her photographs of Jude were selected as one of the chapters for the One in Six project, which examines how 25% of the workforce will be 55 or older by 2030 (1in6by2030.com/stories/a-journey-of-activism). See more of Joyce's work at jperlmanphotography.com.
The Fate of the Stars
The Effort to Restore Pycnopodia to Our Coastal Waters
by Sarah Reith
Not that long ago, one of the reliable delights about a day at the beach was piles of rotten seaweed, buzzing with contented flies. On the way home, the car would smell like wet, seaweed-infused dog. That’s how you could tell that sunflower sea stars, pycnopodia helianthoides, were patrolling the waters nearby, devouring purple urchin or terrifying them into submission. Purple urchin have an insatiable appetite for seaweed, but the pycnopodia has an insatiable appetite for urchin. Adult pycnopodia can weigh up to 13 pounds. They have 16 - 24 limbs, spanning a meter and covered with thousands of tube feet. Compared to most sea stars, whose mobility level borders on the ornamental, pycnopodia are sprinters. They would run down purple urchin, dissolve their hard spines, and relish the uni inside.
Prior to 2013, they were so good at what they did, no one bothered to learn much about them. That year, a heat wave began to linger in the Pacific Ocean. Since then, an estimated 99% of the pycnopodia from Mexico to Alaska have succumbed to a wasting disease. The previously well-controlled purple urchin proceeded to eat 96% of the kelp, outcompeting other grazers like abalone. (Another beachgoer’s delight used to be plucking an abalone off a rock and eating it shoreside with friends. The large mollusks have faced other pressures too, including poaching, but those days are long gone.)
The waters off the Mendocino coast were hard hit by the kelp die-off. Animals that relied on the underwater forests saw their habitat dwindle to a few forlorn fronds. Remnant populations of wild pycnopodia do survive in the fjords and British Columbia, and there are regular sightings of a single charismatic juvenile off the Mendocino headlands, and scattered reports of others. But divers and tidepoolers report that purple urchin are the dominant life form in areas that used to swarm with variety.
A consortium of organizations has assembled a plan to restore the pycnopodia. In 2022, The Nature Conservancy published a “Roadmap to Recovery for the Sunflower Sea Star Along the West Coast of North America.”* An incomplete list of participating entities includes multiple state departments of fish and wildlife, as well as federal agencies, aquariums, and universities across the continent.
Much of the roadmap is a guide to acquiring basic knowledge of pycnopodia biology and genetics. Can they be inoculated against the wasting disease? How resilient are they? And can viable strains be bred in captivity?
Norah Eddy, associate director of the oceans program for The Nature Conservancy in California, is especially proud of the captive breeding program that’s flourished since the Roadmap was published. Though sightings in the wild are encouraging, she noted drily that, “We’re not doing back flips” about the occasional appearance of a celebrity sunflower sea star here and there. She maintains that the captive breeding program has resulted in “a ton of strides in epidemiology,” as well as an understanding of the inherent resilience of captive-bred specimens. Scientists at the Friday Harbor Labs at the University of Washington, led by Dr. Jason Hodin, have already released, and are now studying, two small cohorts of captive-bred pycnopodia, one in April 2023, and the other in August 2024. It’s a vital step on the way to a strategic reintroduction.
Closer to home, a few thousand tiny pycnopodia are swimming in carefully maintained quarantine at California Academy of Sciences’ Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. Some are barely flecks, and others fit in the frame of a fingernail. Urchin, oysters, and other kinds of sea stars are also being raised onsite to feed them.
Interest in the pycnopodia is gathering momentum. One Friday afternoon, Kylie Lev, a curator at Steinhart Aquarium and pycnopodia project lead, had back-to-back engagements with writers eager to meet her tiny charges. Spawned on Valentine’s Day at San Diego’s Birch Aquarium, they’ve graduated from floating passively in the water column and eating phytoplankton to settling on the bottom and catching prey. “They’re trying to eat us out of house and home right now,” Lev laughed, as a tiny pycnopodia perched on top of a tiny oyster, dining at a leisurely pace.
But apex predators don’t even need to eat herbivores to keep them in check. Eddy reported that, “Sea urchins are actually terrified of sunflower sea stars.” When a pycnopodia is on the prowl, she said the urchin behave like herd animals on the Serengeti, giving a wide berth to a hunting lion. “Recovering the pycnopodia will not only reduce sea urchins because the pycnos will eat them,” she explained. “It’s also going to change the way urchins behave…They are just out there doing whatever they want to do. They are eating kelp like crazy.”
Dr. Hodin has been breeding and studying sunflower sea stars at his lab in Washington since 2019. But this is science, where every data point has to be pored over and replicated and reviewed before it can be presented as fact. It’s unlikely that captive-bred pycnopodia will be deployed to restore order in the urchin barrens immediately. But stocking every tidepool is not the only metric of success. Lev insists that the effort is proceeding apace, “as long as you’re learning along the way and it has a positive impact in both data gathering and collaborative efforts.”
In the meantime, some humans are trying to fill in for the missing predator. Another consortium, with many of the same players that are working to restore the pycnopodia, is working on strategies to discourage urchin and restore the kelp forest. Tristin Anoush McHugh, the kelp project director with The Nature Conservancy, reported on efforts to clear urchin from two sites off Mendocino, one near Portuguese Beach and the other off Albion. “It’s been a great summer,” she declared, shortly after Labor Day. Since June, partners from Moss Landing Marine Labs, Sonoma State University, U.C. Davis, the Sea Urchin Commission, CDFW, the Ocean Protection Council and California Sea Grant, Reef Check and Above/Below had removed 52,910 pounds of purple urchin from a combined six acres from beaches in Big River and Albion.
But the tactics aren’t limited to suppressing the urchin. The Nature Conservancy is simultaneously leading tests in kelp enhancement methods, which, if successful, could lead to overall vegetative recovery in targeted restoration areas.
Scientists have also developed a technique that allows kelp to grow on strings from experimental modules above the seabed, where urchin can’t reach it. Two years after the first outplanting at Albion, Anoush McHugh exulted that much of this kelp “grew to adult, hit the surface of the ocean, created the sorus (reproductive) tissue, and has now released back into the system.” She described early signs of habitat restoration, from unicellular organisms creeping back onto the scene to the recruitment of rockfish, which is a valuable commercial species, especially with the closure of the salmon fishery. “We’re obviously still tinkering in the early days,” she conceded, “but everyone has been so on it, and we’re so excited by what we’re seeing.”
Eddy, too, is optimistic about the chances for both species. “We’re not talking about old-growth forests,” she said, acknowledging the climate change despair that sets in at some point during any conversation about restoring the environment. “Kelp are some of the fastest-growing organisms on the planet. Marine invertebrates have an amazing capacity to rebound when conditions are there … a lot is moving in our favor.”
The human effort to bring both species back from the brink is extensive. It includes raw labor, like clearing urchin and farming seaweed, and plenty of scientific innovation. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums is collecting reproductive cells from sunflower sea stars and cryogenically preserving them, to diversify the captive breeding program as much as possible. And nature itself could be poised to welcome the return of the missing species. Though the wasting disease is not yet fully understood, it appears to be strongly correlated with warming waters. The pending La Niña system is expected to cool the oceans, which could invigorate both pycnopodia and kelp.
It’s been over ten years since a day at the tidepools involved sightings of sea stars with a lot more legs than anyone else. Lev, the curator at Steinhart Aquarium, hopes to introduce her young ones to the public soon. And maybe someday, they will eat their way out of the house and find their way home to a welcoming sea.
Photos at Steinhart Aquarium and of the baby pycnopodia by Gayle Laird © California Academy of Sciences. Photo of sea star found in the wild by Nicole Ravicchio © California Academy of Sciences. Photo of group in sea cave by Sarah Reith.
Sarah Reith is a writer and nature enthusiast living in northern California.
*Find Roadmap to Recovery for the Sunflower Sea Star Along the West Coast of North America at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366177598_Roadmap_to_Recovery_for_the_Sunflower_Sea_Star_Along_the_West_Coast_of_North_America
Roundman’s Smokehouse
A Carnivore’s Paradise in Downtown Fort Bragg
by Lisa Ludwigsen
Sometimes life works out in unexpected and altogether gratifying ways. For Steve Rasmussen and Greg Braden, co-owners of Roundman’s Smokehouse and Butcher Shop in Fort Bragg, a series of coincidences and a couple of leaps of faith have landed them in just the right spot.
Roundman’s has been a fixture on Main Street in downtown Fort Bragg for over 30 years. As its name reflects, Roundman’s smokes and sells a full selection of meat, fish, and cheese to retail and wholesale customers in Northern California. Roundman’s is also a full-service butcher shop, that increasingly rare place where the butcher will expertly cut, trim, or filet to order and offer excellent advice on how to prepare your selection. It’s hard to find a good butcher shop these days, and Roundman’s butchers stand out for their expertise and service.
It’s not unusual to hear an out-of-town visitor to Roundman’s exclaim, “I wish we had a store like this where I live.” The residents of Fort Bragg are indeed fortunate. But the secret sauce for the success of this relatively modest shop in a small coastal town isn’t just the high-quality ingredients, careful sourcing, or the onsite, full-time USDA inspector. At its core, Roundman’s success stems from its people. From the owners to the loyal, hard-working staff, everyone at Roundman’s shares a dedication to the success of the business.
Though Greg Braden’s background in Mendocino County ranching and farming, and as a private chef, follows a relatively straight line to owning a smokehouse and butcher shop, Steve Rasmussen’s path is more unorthodox. As an instructor with Ford Aerospace satellite and surveillance systems in San Jose, Rasmussen used to ride his motorcycle up the coast to visit his aunt in Fort Bragg, back when the town was just a little “hole in the wall,” as Rasmussen called it. She introduced her nephew to Roundman’s Smokehouse, and when it came up for sale, something told Rasmussen to go for it. So he did. That was 34 years ago.
Braden got to know the Roundman’s staff from the back door, literally. He delivered Covelo Beef from his neighbor’s inland ranch each week. “Through those deliveries, I came to respect the entire staff and appreciate how they run their operation.” When Rasmussen’s partner decided to sell his half of the business, Braden was at the top of the list of potential buyers, much to his own surprise. It wasn’t on his bucket list to own a smokehouse and butcher shop. But he bought in on September 1st, 2021. The rest is history, as they say.
“Buying into the business is an incredible opportunity for me,” shared Braden. “The shop allows me to serve people high quality food and still be home for dinner every night,” he said. There aren’t the long, demanding hours of a restaurant. “I can create new recipes and forge new relationships with suppliers and customers.”
The two partners agree that building and maintaining a strong team is essential for the success of their business, and while many businesses talk big about company values and team building, these guys walk their talk. “This is an employee-driven business,” said Braden. Rasmussen added, “We treat our 18 employees as family, and we love them as such. We’re on their side.”
In an era when employers complain about finding and retaining employees, Roundman’s folks stick around. “Because we want to offer the best possible product, we make everything by hand,” said Braden. This is a very labor-intensive operation. “None of our equipment is automated, so all of our slicing and processing is done by hand, including smoking and slicing up to 3,000 pounds of bacon each week and 1,000 pounds of sausage, hand ground and twisted.” That attention to detail by well trained staff results in a loyal customer base who can purchase in the store, wholesale by delivery, or by mail order. With low staff turnover, the business is able to keep expanding to meet the needs of its growing customer base.
That customer service is key to Roundman’s success. They deliver twice a week to restaurants, wineries, and grocery markets throughout Mendocino County. “If a customer wants just one or two of something, we’ll deliver it,” Braden said. Chances are that if you enjoy a fabulous flat-iron steak at a local eatery, it was cut and delivered by Roundman’s. They are permitted to sell products outside the shop because of their onsite USDA inspector. (As an interesting aside, large chain grocers are inspected by the FDA just twice a year.)
Braden’s expertise and a task he loves is tweaking traditional recipes and creating new ones that reflect current culinary interests. He uses celery as a natural sodium nitrate for flavor and preservation, for instance. He and Rasmussen also take the time to carefully nurture relationships with their suppliers to ensure that the products they’re selling are sustainably raised. Producers like Stemple Creek Ranch, Demkota Beef, Vande Rose Farms heritage pork, and Superior Lamb are a few of the established companies they do business with. It is easy to know where your food comes from with this shop.
It takes creativity and persistence to create and maintain a successful business, regardless of size. After 34 years, Roundman’s Smokehouse is going strong and the future looks bright, even in these uncertain times. It is the type of small business that strengthens its community by offering trustworthy products and steady jobs. The next time you’re in Fort Bragg, make sure to stop in and stock up for your picnic or dinner. Your tastebuds will be delighted, and you will know that you are supporting a healthy and vibrant community. A win-win.
Roundman’s Smokehouse
412 N Main St, Fort Bragg
(707) 964-5954 | roundmans.com
Open Mon - Sat 9am - 5:30pm, Sun 9am - 3:30pm
Lisa Ludwigsen has been working in environmental education and small scale agriculture for 25 years. She chronicles her experiences and travels at Food, Farms & Families at https://lisaludwigsen.substack.com
Photos by Nick Zvolensky
Delicious Little Coconut
Spice Up Your Festivities with Vegan Coquito
by Erica Schneider
Creamy, tropical, and cozy all at the same time, Coquito (“little coconut”) is a traditional Puerto Rican Christmas cocktail. Made with coconut milk, rum, and warming spices, our version is reminiscent of eggnog, but without the eggs or dairy.
At Fog Eater, we use four types of coconut milk to really get that island taste. Some traditional recipes use evaporated and/or sweetened condensed dairy milk, which might be easier to find at your local market (though we easily found the coconut versions in Fort Bragg). If you do switch up milks, make sure to taste and adjust sugar accordingly!
Use your favorite Puerto Rican rum—we used a spiced variety for this recipe to give it even more Christmas warmth, but golden, white, or even a blend would be lovely.
Fog Bottle Shop & Wine Bar
45104 Main Street, Mendocino
(707) 397-1806 | fogeatercafe.com
Open Wed - Sun 12pm - 7pm
Coquito
INGREDIENTS
2 cans (13.5oz each) full-fat coconut milk
2 cans (5.4oz each) coconut cream
1 can (7.4oz) sweetened condensed coconut milk
1 can (12.2oz) evaporated coconut milk
2 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 cups spiced rum
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine the milks, spices, and sugar in a pot and bring to a light simmer, then cut the heat. Allow to cool a bit, then add the vanilla and rum. Chill overnight, then remove the cinnamon sticks and star anise. If you have the time and self-restraint, Coquito tastes best if allowed to sit for a couple of days before drinking. Heat (if you want), pour it into your most festive glass, and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon or, if you’re fancy, a cinnamon stick.
Erica Schneider is co-owner of Fog Eater Cafe and Fog Bottle Shop. She creates incredible vegan dishes for her patrons. She and her cat live in a little cottage by the sea when they are not out foraging in the wilds of the Mendocino coast.
Photo by istock.com
Staff Picks Local Gift Guide
Mendocino-Made Give-ables for Your Favorite Folks
A collection of Mendocino-Made gifts perfect for giving this holiday season.
For the food lover in your life, Six California Kitchens contains culinary wisdom and recipes from The Apple Farm’s Sally Schmitt. Available at philoapplefarm.com, The Apple Farm, and The Farmhouse Mercantile. $38
Get your hands on Eternal Bliss Body Oil from AfterGlow, maker of natural skin and body care products. Then get your hands, massage style, on someone you like. Available at afterglownaturals.com. $15
According to its label, the Cloud of Protection Spray by Nieves is a “Defense against illness, bad vibes and stinkiness.” We just like the complex combination of juniper, eucalyptus, and rose. Find it at Unique Boutique in Willits or at bynieves.com.
Black Oak Coffee Roasters Black Bart is earthy and smoky—and it’s made right in Ukiah. Available at their Ukiah location or online at blackoakcoffee.com. $16
Melinda Price of Peace & Plenty Saffron Farm says she’s been put on this earth to make her Saffron Infused Raw Honey. Crimson strands of locally grown saffron impart a unique flavor that’s delicious drizzled over yogurt or in tea. Get yours at peaceplentyfarm.com or at the Peace & Plenty Farmstand in Kelseyville. $20
From her Albion studio, Lee of Lee’s Haven encapsulates the ocean in her beautiful jewelry by using iridescent abalone. Available at The Farmhouse Mercantile in Boonville.
Mendocino Grove boasts platform tents with heated sheets, as well as bathhouses with spotless facilities and hot showers. Their package certificates include 2 nights, your first batch of firewood, and a s’mores kit. Available at mendocinogrove.com. Starts at $530.
Terra Savia produces a line of delicious olive oils, including this tasty Meyer Lemon variety that can’t be beat for salads or pasta or even dipping. Terra Savia owner, Yvonne Hall, drizzles it over vanilla ice cream—yummy! Get yours at the Terra Savia tasting room in Hopland or terrasavia.com. $25
Woodworker Bob Nelson of Rohnert Park makes stunning wood bowls with wood sourced from Anderson Valley’s Mailliard Ranch. Available at The Farmhouse Mercantile in Boonville.
Add some local flavor to your holiday cocktails with craft vodka and agave spirits from the Boonville Distillery, available at their location in downtown Boonville (boonvilledistillery.com). $39/$48
Black Trumpet Infused Pink Himalayan Salt by Mendo Family Forage is created with wild-gathered black trumpet mushrooms from the Mendocino Coast and adds an earthy richness to soups, rice, or sauces. Available on Etsy.com from MendoFamilySpirit. $16
Caramelized Onion Ghee by Ghee Well is a slightly nutty spread or cooking fat with a higher-than-average smokepoint made in Arcata with Walla Walla sweet onions from Shakefork Community Farm of Carlotta, CA. Available from Gheewell.com. $32.
Just because most people can consume turkey tail without any issues doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful. When you first try a new foraged food, ingest just a small amount and then wait for a day or two before consuming more.
Photo by Tom Fisk courtesy of pexels.com
Pretty & Plentiful
Trametes Versicolor Makes an Invigorating Immunity Tea
by Torrey Douglass
The trametes versicolor mushroom is found throughout the world and, as such, is known by many names. In Japan it’s referred to as kawaratake, meaning “mushroom by the riverbank.” In Holland it’s called elfenbankje, or “fairy bench.” The Chinese name is yuh chi, or rain cloud mushroom, and the German one is schmetterlingstramete, or butterfly tramete (tramete is a fungi genus). Here in the U.S., its common name is turkey tail, and they are lovely and abundant, with a host of health benefits that our beleaguered winter immune systems will appreciate.
The Latin name reflects the delicate beauty of turkey tails—trametes means “one who is thin” and versicolor means “multicolored.” They do what all mushrooms do—break down organic matter to make its nutrients available to other plant life. Found on decaying hardwoods a few weeks after a soaking rain, they are distinguished by stripes of earthy grey and brown colors rippling out to the edges. There are several look-alikes (none of them toxic), so be sure to check the underside for small white pores rather than fins.
In Chinese medicine, these mushrooms are used as an anti-inflammatory and to combat infection, benefiting respiratory, urinary, and digestive systems. They are believed to improve energy and stamina, increase circulation, and even prevent cancer and regulate cholesterol. Over 400 scientific studies in Japan over the past 30 years have demonstrated its benefits to cancer patients, improving their immune systems both in conjunction with and in the absence of chemotherapy.
When foraging for turkey tail, always leave a third of the body to disseminate the spores and yield more mushrooms for future foragers. After collecting the fruiting bodies, clean them carefully with a dry brush to remove dirt and any other forest debris. You can dry them at home in a dehydrator or spread out on a cookie sheet someplace warm and dry, covered by a screen. After they are dried, be sure to store them in a dark place inside an airtight container to preserve their nutrients. The dried mushrooms can be added to soups or heated at a gentle simmer to make tea. The result has a flavor reminiscent of mushroom soup, which can be balanced by adding some lemon and honey to perk up the taste. Follow the recipe below for a warming, zingy, immune-boosting tea that will support your system during the wet and chilly winter weather.
Winter Immunity Turkey Tail Tea
INGREDIENTS
¾ cup diced turkey tail, fresh or dried, well cleaned
2 tsp fresh ginger, diced fine
lemon juice to taste
honey to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Put diced mushrooms and ginger in a saucepan and cover with water. Simmer gently for at least an hour and up to 2 hours, and monitor it carefully so it never boils vigorously. Pour through a fine sieve to remove the solids and add lemon juice and honey to taste.
Just because most people can consume turkey tail without any issues doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful. When you first try a new foraged food, ingest just a small amount and then wait for a day or two before consuming more.
Just because most people can consume turkey tail without any issues doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful. When you first try a new foraged food, ingest just a small amount and then wait for a day or two before consuming more.
Photo by Tom Fisk courtesy of pexels.com
The Quest for Clean Water
Tackling the Plastic Pollution that Plagues Our Oceans
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
At the age of 16 while scuba-diving in Greece, Boyan Slat was appalled to discover that he could count more plastic bags than fish in the ocean. So with the fervor and impetuosity of youth, he decided to do something about it.
Slat went back to his high school in The Netherlands and put together a research project to develop a methodology for removing plastics from the ocean without harming the sea life. He became world-famous in a TEDx video in 2012, and in 2013, he founded The Ocean Cleanup, whose mission was “to develop technologies to remove plastics from our oceans.” Though many said that his dream was and still is impossible, 38,000 donors in 160 countries thought otherwise, providing Slat with 2.2 million crowd-funded dollars so he could begin to develop his ideas into reality.
The problem was huge, and the R&D process was time-consuming. In 2020, The Ocean Cleanup calculated that there were 7.25 million tons of plastics in the ocean which needed to be removed. And all of that debris refuses to stay in one place since the five rotating ocean currents, known as the gyres, move the plastic pollution around, poisoning sea life and, ultimately, the food chain.
Slat chose to place his initial focus in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, found roughly mid-way between Hawaii and California. The ocean currents themselves were viewed by many as a major obstacle to the cleanup. Predicting where the extrudable trash could be found and sending ships after it required constant re-calculations, not to mention fuel and person-power. But Slat eventually chose to use the currents as part of his solution. Initially employing a roving model of trash nets pulled by ships, he then decided to fix the ships, redesigned as platforms, to the seabed, letting the ocean currents bring the garbage to them. With their manta-ray shaped platforms, they hoped to capture more than 55 shipping containers of plastic per day. They planned to sell the captured plastics for recycling in order to recoup their operating expenses. Their lofty aim was to put themselves out of business by 2040 by removing at least 90% of the ocean’s floating plastic pollution.
Their early attempts were full of failures that Slat refers to as “unscheduled learning opportunities.” Only 60 bags of garbage were captured in 2019 before the fledgling system broke apart. They went back to the drafting board, and their next model collected more than 10 tons of garbage in 2021. An updated operating system was launched in 2022, liberating more than 153 tons of garbage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It may be just a fraction of the estimated 14 million metric tons of plastic waste that enters our aquatic ecosystems each year, but it’s a start.
The majority of the plastic pollution consists of single-use packaging, plastic bags, and cutlery, all of which eventually break down to microplastics. These tiny specks of plastic cause harm to wildlife and ecosystems, posing risks to vulnerable communities, the climate, the world economy, and to human health. Recent research posits that people could be ingesting 5 grams of microplastics per week— equivalent to the weight of a credit card! These microplastics and their components are not readily eliminated from the body. They have been shown to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and even the maternal/fetal placenta. Measurable levels of microplastics have been found in the bloodstreams of 80% of people tested, and recent autopsies show that human brain samples contained approximately 0.5% plastics. Plastics have been linked with a plethora of health concerns, impacting hormones, metabolism, and fertility, and contributing to neurodegenerative diseases, ADHD, anxiety, and depression, as well as cancers and heart disease.
In 2020, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) spearheaded a report which motivated nations around the world to tackle the plastics problem. WWF secured more than 2.2 million signatures on a plastics petition in order to present it to the United Nations and spur the world to act. According to WWF, “The unique potential of a global, United Nations-led treaty is to hold all countries to a high common standard on plastic consumption and create a clear path toward a future free from plastic pollution. This will create a level playing field that incentivizes and supports national actions.”
This petition, among others, was presented in March of 2022 to the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, which had convened to discuss the crisis of plastics. Their staff had spent five years exploring possible global actions to address plastic pollution and the elimination of marine garbage, and the result was the United Nations Environment Programme Resolution called “End plastic pollution: Towards an international legally binding instrument.” The resolution was adopted by 175 nations, who all agreed upon an accelerated timeline of implementation as early as 2025. The United Nations Development Programme described it as “the most important multilateral environmental pact since the Paris Agreement on climate change,” and that “the decisions made during these negotiations could radically transform the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastics.”
If you know anything about how these committees function, you know that it will likely take a miracle to see the implementation of this treaty to fruition. There have been many bumps and setbacks along the way, but the final negotiation will take place in late November 2024 in Busan, South Korea. While the resolution remakes the system to change the overall system around plastic production and waste management, organizations like The Ocean Cleanup are reckoning with the mess that our current systems have generated. In 2022, the same year as the Nairobi plastics summit, Boyan Slat and his team realized that cleaning up the ocean plastic would remain Sisyphean unless they could find a way to target plastics pollution before it made it to the oceans. So they set about identifying the rivers of the world which released the majority of plastics pollution into the sea, with the plan of launching a fleet of Interceptors to sequester that plastic before it reached the oceans.
The idea of an interceptor was initially developed by an environmental scientist and shipbuilder, John Kellett, who was commissioned by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Interceptors are stationary and semi-autonomous devices placed at the end of a river or stream to capture the waste that flows into and out of them. Kellett created and installed his prototype, Mr. Trash Wheel, in May of 2014. Mr. Trash Wheel is now joined by Professor Trash Wheel, Captain Trash Wheel, and Gwynnda the Good Wheel of the West, and they can be found in the creeks, harbors, and coves of Baltimore. They have been fitted with googly eyes, which have humanized them enough to turn them into social media celebrities. Powered with solar and hydro, and built to withstand large storms, they are designed to pull hundreds of tons of trash out of the water each year. Given the difficulties with recycling sorting technologies, however, the plastics still cannot be separated from the other trash, so it is all incinerated to create electricity.
The Ocean Cleanup expanded on Kellet’s model, deploying their own interceptors in targeted rivers in Indonesia, Malaysia, The Dominican Republic, and Vietnam in the middle of 2022. Those interceptors collected 840 tons of plastic before it reached the sea. With the tailwind of that success, additional interceptors have been launched in Thailand, Los Angeles, California, and most recently in Guatemala, where they extracted 272 tons of plastic (within 816 tons of trash) in the first three weeks of operation.
As of August 2024, The Ocean Cleanup has retrieved more than 35.3 million pounds of garbage from waters around the world. At its current rate, without drastic and immediate action, plastic pollution is projected to triple globally by the year 2040. With hard work and a lot of luck, the UN accords and the work of companies, governments, and individuals can help to make a difference in the manufacture, use, and proper disposal of plastics.
Some leaders have taken measures—or said they aim to—in the fight against plastic pollution. In March of 2023, President Biden announced a goal of replacing over 90% of petroleum-based plastics with bio-plastics over the next 20 years. In September of 2024, Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, signed into law a ban on all single-use plastic carry-out bags at grocery stores beginning in 2026.
The problem is big, but some of the solutions are small enough to be easily implemented. One of the most effective solutions was dreamed up by a 16 year old boy from The Netherlands. Imagine if the entire world decides to focus on the problem. One can only imagine that solutions will abound. Check the sidebar for some plastics facts and some proposed solutions for staying safer and healthier in a world full of plastics and their by-products.
Some Practical Strategies for Reducing the Impact of Plastics
• Avoid exposure reduce drinking from plastic bottles and use of plastics whenever possible.
• Reduce the use of BPA/BPS-lined cans.
• Utilize reverse osmosis filtration in your home water sources. (R-O removes 99.9% of microplastics from the water.)
• Avoid plastic-wrapped food, or wash well if unavoidable.
• Avoid heating foods in plastic.
• Avoid cooking with non-stick pans. Use cast iron, titanium, or ceramic.
• Avoid disposable paper products that are lined with plastics, e.g., to-go coffee cups. (The heat causes the plastic lining to break down more quickly.)
• Utilize re-usable ceramic or stainless steel mugs for your to-go coffee.
• Be aware of your salt source. Sea salt has the highest level of microplastics contamination; rock salt has the lowest.
• Use a HEPA filter to trap airborne microplastic particles.
• Wear natural fiber clothing and use natural fabrics when possible. (Synthetic fibers shed microplastics in the laundry and the world at large.)
• Avoid taking thermal receipts, which are chock full of BPA.
Ways to Help Reduce Plastics Harm in Your Body
Keep your liver healthy. Your liver absorbs, processes, and converts the plastic by-product chemicals into water-soluble forms for excretion in urine. These microplastics and their by-products have varied excretion time frames. BPA can be excreted in 6 hours; phthalates in 12-24 hours; PFAs in 2-5 years; and for some nano-particles, perhaps never.
Eat your cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, etc., which are full of Sulforaphane (also available in supplements). This both helps to clear out toxins and to produce enzymes which bond to the chemicals, assisting with excretion.
Eat more dietary fiber, which binds to the chemicals in the GI tract and assists in excretion, thereby reducing absorption into the bloodstream.
Get sweaty. Exercise, sauna, and hot tubs all help to eliminate these chemicals and compounds from the body, reducing the toxic burden.
Learn more about The Ocean Cleanup at theoceancleanup.com. You can find the UN resolution at: wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/39812/OEWG_PP_1_INF_1_UNEA%20resolution.pdf
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she edits this magazine and is forever searching for her next favorite book.
Say Labneh!
Fresh, Delicious, and Surprisingly Easy Homemade Cheese
by Lisa Ludwigsen
A bite of carefully crafted cheese evokes its place of origin and the people who made it. The complex flavors can be a full-body experience, engaging all the senses. Or maybe that’s just how I experience good cheese. Even a simple fresh cheese made in your kitchen can be transcendent, and it is surprisingly easy to make. A handful of everyday ingredients and a little patience yields a delectable and versatile addition to a meal or snack. Fresh homemade cheeses are almost always mild and uncomplicated, making them particularly kid friendly. Kids can dive right into a cheese-making project around the kitchen table.
My interest in homemade cheese was sparked many years ago after an aikido class. On a bench by the door, the sensei’s young daughter would set up a little produce shop, selling the harvest from her garden. She would set out berries, lettuce, zucchini, and tomatoes. It was hard to resist her big brown eyes and beautiful produce. Sometimes, off to the side, she had small cellophane-wrapped packets of cheese made that day from the milk of the family’s goats. The only additives were lemon and salt. The cheese was room temperature, creamy, fluffy, and fragrant. It carried in it the essence of the grass, earth, and sky above the rolling northern California hills. It was so fresh and delicious that I couldn’t resist eating it all on my drive home. That sweet 9-year-old girl taught me that fresh cheese could be simple, delicious, and nourishing, for body and soul.
One of my favorite homemade cheeses is labneh, a traditional Middle Eastern cheese made by straining yogurt until it has a consistency between a thick spread and a soft cream cheese. It is typically seasoned with savory spices and served as a dip or spread.
While some cheese requires heating the milk and adding a coagulant like rennet or lemon, labneh happens by simply hanging whole milk Greek or European style yogurt to remove the liquid. Greek yogurt is preferred because of its thickness and lower moisture, and using whole milk yogurt is a must.
The following recipe for labneh is inspired by the cookbook, Home Made, by Yvette van Boven, which features a chapter on homemade cheese-making. Like all recipes, it’s more fun to make with friends, so I enlisted a couple of young neighbors to help me out.
Labneh Balls with Herbs in Olive Oil
INGREDIENTS
• 4 cups plain, whole-fat Greek or European-style yogurt
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper or red pepper flakes
• ½ cup dried herbs: basil, parsley and/or herbs de
provence
• Approximately 3 cups olive oil
• Lemon zest, small dried chiles, or other spices
• Cheesecloth or large dish towels or even a large square
of an old clean sheet
• Visually appealing jar for storing the cheese balls
INSTRUCTIONS
In a medium bowl, mix yogurt, garlic, salt, and pepper. Line a colander or sieve with four layers of cheesecloth placed cross width. The pieces should be large enough to gather and tie a knot at the top.
Pour the yogurt into the center of the cheesecloth and let it drain for a few minutes. Depending on the type of yogurt used, you may see a lot of liquid coming out.
Gather the corners of the cheesecloth and tie a sturdy knot at the top. Gently push the yogurt to the bottom of the bundle. Hang over a bowl (to catch the liquid) in a cool spot for three to four days. You’ll notice the yogurt becoming smaller and firmer each day, as liquid drains from the yogurt. A couple of times a day, squeeze the yogurt to release more liquid and form into a cohesive ball.
After three days, the ball will be significantly smaller, firmer, and a bit flatter. Peel or cut away the cheesecloth to reveal the pretty ball of cheese inside. It’s labneh!
Now for the fun, kid-friendly project. I invited my two favorite neighbors, Axel and Abby, to give me a hand: Fill an attractive jar 2/3 full with olive oil. The jar will need to be large enough to hold about 20 small balls without pushing them down. Add lemon zest or dried chilies.
Onto a plate or flat bowl, sprinkle a layer of dried herbs.
Cut or break the ball into large pieces that kids can easily handle. The small balls will be made from these pieces. Roll about two tablespoons of the cheese into a ball roughly the size of a walnut. With kids, the balls won’t be uniform, which is great.
Roll each ball into the herbs, making sure to press hard enough that the herbs stick.
Gently place the balls into the jar (I use a spoon). Make sure the oil completely covers the cheese.
Store the jar on the counter if the cheese will be eaten within a week, and in the refrigerator for longer term storage. The oil will solidify if the jar is kept in the refrigerator, so you’ll need to leave it on the counter to warm up.
Serve as an appetizer with crackers and a glass of wine, with fruit, or as part of a post-dinner cheese course. Because kids almost always eat food that they’ve prepared, they’ll welcome a labneh cheese ball or two with a piece of fruit after school.
In a pretty jar, they also make great hostess or holiday gifts.
Homemade labneh is so easy and satisfying you may be encouraged to try making other cheeses at home. The world is full of possibilities to share with family and friends. Give it a try!
Shepherding Life: The Surreal Nature of Lambing Season
by Gowan Batist
People who frequently use the phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn” probably sleep in. It’s not darkest before dawn at all. Daylight slowly seeps in around the edges of the core of the night like a melting ice cube, sliding gradually across the sky propelled by its own liquefaction. The process of lightening, here on the foggy coast, is so subtle it’s not always discernible as a singular event. Morning comes like a drawing back of layer after layer of sheer scarves that reveal the form beneath so slowly, and distract and beguile with each movement so completely, that the moment of gazing on the naked day is anticlimactic. There is always a belated clicking off of your headlamp a while after you’ve stopped using it.
What it is, is coldest before the dawn. Even as the black turns to blue and the edges of trees begin to pull themselves free of their backdrop, a deep chill settles into the brightening land. Like the last slow icy breath night takes before relaxing back into the hollows of trees and holes of shrews until the sun sets again.
This deep exhalation of cold is where we enter this morning’s story. I was walking tightly, with my shoulders up and my hands deep in my pockets, along the blue strip of road, watching the trees emerge from the uniform dark and feeling the night’s final breath on my face. As I approached the barn, no dogs were waiting for me at the gate, which means someone was lambing.
I had been worried about the small Moorit ewe, #21-847. I never breed yearlings, and she was so small. It is industry standard to breed on the first heat, but I have never endorsed that. Animals bred young usually never fully express their potential weight and conformation, their wool suffers, and so do their lambs. As I watched her get rounder and rounder over the days she spent inside the clearspan building, as rain slammed against its curved roof, an ominous little ball of yarn started to wind around in my head, with each turn up the lane gaining more yardage and weight.
This morning, in the sharp LED eye of my headlamp, I saw her vulva glistening with a thick strand of cervical mucus. I felt my bones resettle my weight, my solar plexus pause, my body responding to labor with automatic aware relaxation. It’s rare for an ewe to lamb in the dawn or dusk hours, the peak hunting time of large carnivores. They generally lamb either in the middle of the darkest part of the night, or in the middle of the afternoon. 2am and 2pm are their favorites, so this was a bit of a surprise, but not too much. Not for a first timer who might have had an extended first stage.
I watched, not moving any closer, aware that my eyes are the same orientation as the large predators that walk in the dim morning, and that she was likely feeling vulnerable. To be looked at with both eyes at once is rude for a sheep, but it’s the gaze of urgency for shepherds like us, the wolves and lions and primates. I try to be thoughtful about how I use it, so it was a point above her left shoulder that I was looking at when I saw a pink and rough surface swelling out of her vulva. The fleeing dark pressed me, and I breathed sharply out of my rhythm, startling the ewes close to me. I have never had a prolapse in my flock, but this yearling I had gotten from another farmer was going to be the first one.
The next 24 hours are hard to look at for me—they remind me of the stack of plastic projector screens that would sit on the teacher’s desk. Each scene makes sense when set on the light table and directed at the wall, but on top of each other, the lines stitch together into an impassable hedge. When I lift the last day and night up to the light as one stack, there’s nothing I can read there.
I know I spent a lot of it lying on my side, with some close and sturdy people who came in and out to help. I now know what it feels like to press an entire internal organ back into a body, the resistance and yielding tissue over flexing muscles and abrupt hard bones. The little ewe’s cervix had not dilated. She was pushing against a brick wall, and having no other way to make progress, she had pushed herself inside out. With the direction of a terse mobile vet over the phone, I found the tight ring of the cervix that feels like cartilage, like a chicken neck buried in a bread pudding, some dark fairytale dish. Opening that hard ring would bring on labor within twelve hours. In that time, I had to return her internal organs to their natural habitat several times.
The vet came after her working rounds and used a portable ultrasound on her taut abdomen. There was a stormy sky of cloudy shapes on the screen, which she identified as gestational sacs. In that swirl and swish of internal cumulus, there was only one fluttering bird. One heartbeat. Several sacs.
There are many points in a farmer’s career when all you can do is commit to having an awful experience. Your boots are full of rain, but the order must be filled before the truck comes. The calf you struggled to intubate aspirated, and spilled all your effort and their inhaled amniotic fluid all over the barn floor, but it’s still time to get up and go to work, or explain to the students, or be the wall for your crew to hurl their disappointments and frustrations against, because they need to shatter them dramatically, and need that to be witnessed. It’s the paperwork that can’t be put off, the cramp that you can’t stop to stretch out, the imperfect options that have to be endured because the resources to create perfection are out of reach.
I settled into that space, and into the back of my truck, next to the barn for the night.
At 3am, nothing was happening. At 4am, two lambs were fully born and the third was on its way. My hand braced against her hip, giving her counter pressure and holding the edge of her vulva, making a ring with my finger and thumb that acted both to hold back and to open for the slick little head. Three lambs. All alive. The ewe, now named Anya by my friend, is intact, all her organs on the right side of daylight, and feeding her babies. The last indignity I hoped to ever do to her was inserting the large pink tablet of antibiotic bolus. I felt it slip down the vaginal canal and drop into the open space of the vestibule and vowed it would be the last object to take that road. She will never breed again, she will live here with her daughters and eat grass. She has done enough to continue sheephood upon the earth, and I have done enough to manipulate her cervix for one lifetime.
Ironically, a side effect of a cervix that does not willingly dilate is that time does. What is technically still just one day feels like an endless reshuffling of those projector pages. It all feels endless and out of order and unreadable. The facts are that I didn’t know how this would end when I wrote the first half. I predicted a shovel, but the tool I had in my hands when the saga concluded was a soft towel.
We have not yet reached the halfway point of lambing season.
Gowan Batist of Fortunate Farm is a Post-Industrial Pastoralist following sheep around the skeleton of a boom town. She is seldom seen, but sometimes glimpsed with a baby on her back, propagating native plants, spinning wool, hand shearing sheep, or meal prepping baby food with local bulk food via the MendoLake Food Hub.
Alta Orsa
Humane Society’s Pet Food Banks Help Keep Pets in Homes
by Terry Ryder
When I get Martin Bernal-Hafner on the phone, he’s multitasking: answering my call, raking grapes out of harvest bins and onto sorting tables to remove stems and leaves, and giving workers instructions in English and Spanish. It’s only October 7, but it’s the last day of harvest, and also the last 100-degree day of the year—2024’s harvest season was hot and fast.
Martin is the winemaker and general manager at Alta Orsa Winery in Hopland. Formerly Topel Winery, it was purchased in 2018 by Roger Peng. Roger and Martin met at Locals, a co-op tasting room in Geyserville. Martin had spent the previous seven years working for Sebastopol- based Paul Hobbs Winery, first as an intern in Argentina and later in California, where he worked a variety of cellar and winemaking jobs. When Roger approached him about the potential to move to Mendocino, Martin was immediately keen. “I was ready to take more on, and it sounded like a really interesting project.”
They changed the name to Alta Orsa: “alta” meaning high and deep rooted, and “orsa” meaning beginning or undertaking. They wanted the name to reflect their own style of winemaking, characterized by a scientific and holistic approach that lets the terroir speak for itself. They kept other things the same—they didn’t replant the vineyard, and they rely on the institutional knowledge of vineyard and production manager, Ricardo Garcia, who has worked on the property for 24 years.
The property is a rugged 160-acre mountain parcel clinging to the hills west of Hopland above the Russian River, of which the vineyard comprises just eight acres, all farmed using regenerative organic practices which are “not certified, but fully in practice,” clarifies Martin. The high-density vineyard, planted in the 1980s, means that tractors can’t be used to till or mow between rows, and everything has to be hand-farmed and harvested. They use animals for grazing—a hallmark of regenerative organic agriculture—and use the barest minimum of organic sprays only when absolutely necessary, like to combat mildew. “We don’t really have pest problems,” says Martin. “Nature brings things into balance if you leave it alone. We take a very patient approach.”
Happily, 2024 was a good season. “For a mountain vineyard, we’re lucky to get two tons/acre, which is about what we got this year,” says Martin. He hasn’t finished those calculations since, in addition to managing the company and making the wine, he’s also the accountant, wine club and tasting room manager, and sole salesperson for the company. Says Martin, “There’s never a dull moment, which I like.”
Alta Orsa makes 10 wines—four under the Orsa label, and six under the Alta Orsa label. Most are estate wines, but several, including a Russian River Pinot Noir and an Alexander Valley Chardonnay, are made from grapes purchased from other vineyards, a common practice for wineries of any size. Mostly, they are known for their Cabernets. The 2019 Orsa Cabernet Sauvignon won a Double Gold medal at the 2024 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition, and the 2020 Alta Orsa Estate Hillside Cuvée got a whopping 95 points from Wine Enthusiast magazine.
The vineyard has a unique flavor profile due to its steep terrain and tough shale and sandstone soil. “Our diverse topography means that each block of vines has a different expression,” explains Martin. “It’s fun as a winemaker to have all those flavor components—at blending time I have 20 variables to work with.” Most years, Martin makes a special wine using his favorite two barrels of Cabernet of the vintage. He calls it the Soil Series, and it tops out at 50 cases per year. It’s held for two years in the barrel and two additional years in the bottle before release, meaning that the 2020 vintage has only just been made available.
Alta Orsa is a small winery, producing just 1,200 cases per year. “We make a craft product, a true expression of this vineyard,” says Martin. “And because we’re small, we really get to know our customers. When you email the winery, I’m the one who responds. When you schedule a tasting, I’m usually the one who will walk the vineyard with you and take you to do barrel tastings. It’s a very personal experience.” Tastings must be scheduled in advance, and the tasting fee is waived with a wine purchase. Martin shares, “I love combining science, agriculture, and creativity in one job. I have many roles, but fundamentally, I see myself as winemaker.” He feels right at home on the Mendocino mountainside, which is fortunate as his career is destined to continue reaching new heights.
Alta Orsa Winery
PO Box 550, Hopland
(707) 540-4311 | orsawines.com
Photos courtesy of Alta Orsa Winery
Elizabeth Archer is an enthusiastic eater and promoter of the local food scene in Mendocino County. She and her husband run Carson and Bees, a beekeeping operation in Ukiah.
Local Fur-lanthropy
Humane Society’s Pet Food Banks Help Keep Pets in Homes
by Terry Ryder
In 2022, Mendocino County animal shelters found themselves inundated with 25% more intakes than in prior years. The shelter was filled with lost animals and, sadly, a growing number of voluntarily surrendered pets. The goal of every animal shelter is to move toward a world where every animal has a chance to be placed in a home where they are safe, healthy, and loved. The best chance of providing this life is by keeping the pet in its original home, with the people who know and love it. Owners part with their animals for many reasons, but one that comes up often is the cost associated with feeding their pet. If pet owners’ budgets are stretched to breaking in this world of ever increasing food prices, what can be done?
People involved in animal welfare services have studied this problem, and one solution has been applied with some degree of success. The Humane Society of Sonoma County, under CEO Lindsey McCall, began looking at ways to keep pets in their homes back in 2017. They managed to set aside some money to fund a Community Initiative Coordinator by following their motto, “Committed to Kindness.” Today, this position is managed as a partnership between two idealistic young men, Jorge Delgado and Celestino Jimenez. (Celestino was raised and educated in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley.) These men have been challenged to develop some practical and effective programs that will ultimately keep more pets in the homes of the owners who love them. They have named their program C.A.T.— Community Action Team.
The C.A.T. program focuses on food for animals. The team looked to pet food distributors, forming relationships with companies like PetCo and Costco in Sonoma County, as well as some smaller independent outlets like Cloverdog Pet Supply and Wash. When a bag of food is damaged through shipping or wear and tear, the outlet calls C.A.T., who then picks it up with their dedicated van. Once the food is collected, teams of volunteers pack and re-label it in three-gallon zip-lock freezer bags, at which point it is ready for distribution. Sometimes these businesses can also provide other items that pet owners need, like toys, beds, and grooming aids. Some of the food is given out directly from the Humane Societies, some travels to food banks to be passed out with the food for humans, and some goes to agencies that service the homeless population and their animals.
C.A.T. is a fledgling program with a hardworking skeleton staff of two, plus some volunteers. Though small, their fresh approach to keeping pets in their homes has been noted, and other shelters are trying to use similar programs to stem the tide of surrenders that are breaking hearts every day. This past July, Celestino was asked to attend an animal welfare conference in Orlando, Florida, where he shared the blueprint for the C.A.T. program. People were particularly interested in how such a program can be sustained. It is an exciting time to be involved, as many of the ideas being tested will lead to happy outcomes—more animals staying in their homes with their owners.
Jorge has mentored Celestino since he came on board. Celestino’s original job was to implement the programs that Jorge was creating. They now consider themselves partners. Both of them speak passionately about the work they are doing and the plans they have for the future. It is very inspiring to witness their idealism and commitment, and it is refreshing, too. Together they are visualizing new approaches, while also serving as the “boots on the ground” for the implementation of these ideas. Indeed, they are constantly making more work for themselves, but they don’t seem to mind.
Jorge and Celestino spend some of their time pursuing grants for the program. They recently applied to California for All Animals for funds specific to particular cities. With the aim of increased involvement in Mendocino County, they are hoping to hear soon about another grant specifically targeting our area. In the meantime, they have had a small presence in Mendocino County through the Redwood Empire Food Bank at the Fort Bragg Food Bank. They also distribute pet food through the Redwood Gospel Mission in both Santa Rosa and Ukiah, and they can often be found at the mission’s community events. Finding themselves with a surplus of donations during the holidays, they were able to share the bounty with the Humane Society of Inland Mendocino County in Redwood Valley, under Administrative Director Jenny Hanzlik. They are open to the idea of linking up directly with other local food banks that are interested in a partnership.
One or two people who care can really make a difference. One animal lover picks up food in Hopland to deliver to a non-profit called La Familia Sana in Cloverdale. Others who want to help can organize food drives and fundraising drives, or even their own similar program inspired by this one. Jorge and Celestino are excellent role models, and their example shows how creativity, ingenuity, and compassion can combine into rewarding work that can keep pets in their homes with the people who love them most.
If you are interested in volunteering for the existing program, email Jorge at jdelgado@humanesocietysoco.org or Celestino at cjimenez@humanesocietysoco.org.
Photos courtesy of Sonoma County Humane Society
Terry Ryder Sites lives in Yorkville with 4 cats and 1 husband. A graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College, and she writes a weekly column for the Anderson Valley Advertiser online edition.
Wickson Restaurant
A Long-Held Dream Realized for Young Local Chef
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
Wickson Restaurant is nestled inside The Madrones in Philo, an Italianate complex in Philo that looks like it would be equally at home gazing over the Adriatic Sea rather than the Anderson Valley vineyards that surround it. It was conceived as an inn restaurant, much like the family-run equivalents found throughout Europe, that cater to both locals and travelers. Owners Jim Roberts and Brian Adkinson initially partnered with Chef/Owners Rodney Workman and Alexa Newman (now of Elk’s Maritime Café) to offer a dining option for their overnight guests, retail and tasting room visitors, and area locals. It took a leap of faith, and when they opened in 2020, they somehow made it work during an especially difficult economic time.
After a couple of years, Rodney and Alexa left the restaurant to devote more time to their growing family. Since then, Chef Jason Azevedo, who specialized in Portuguese and Spanish-inspired cuisine, and his Sous Chef, Jenny Ann, have had their successive turns at the helm. This past summer, after Jenny Ann left for an opportunity on the coast, Claudia Almeida stepped into the position.
For Claudia, her new role is a dream fulfilled. Claudia is originally from Leon, Guanajuato in Mexico. When she was 14, her family moved to Boonville to join her father, who had been working in the vineyards. They were from a city, so moving to the country was quite a change, though she has now come to appreciate how “very calm and peaceful” it is. Claudia and her two sisters and brother were immediately enrolled in the local high school, but they spoke no English, so their road was not exactly smooth.
Claudia attended Anderson Valley High School for four years. When she saw the school cafeteria on her first day, she knew that she wanted to work there, so she and her two sisters enrolled in a food service class that placed them in the cafeteria, preparing and serving breakfast and lunch to their classmates. Claudia took every opportunity to be there throughout the four years that she was in school. Thanks to the help of her cafeteria time and one particular teacher, Miss Ester Soto, Claudia was able to become fluent in English within two years. After she graduated from high school, she attended Mendocino College to take classes in the culinary arts, but because of low enrollment, classes were cancelled after she had completed only two courses. So Claudia returned to Boonville to find practical experience and work in the industry she loved.
Claudia’s first kitchen job was at The Buckhorn Saloon under Tom Towey, where she started as a dishwasher before moving up to prep cook, setting up salads and appetizers for a menu of classic American pub food. When The Buckhorn sold to new owners, Claudia advanced again, becoming the “right hand” of the new head cook. She had primary cooking responsibilities when the head cook was off, and was largely responsible for communication and translation, since her English was more fluent.
Restaurants are a notoriously precarious business, and The Buckhorn lasted only two more years before the new owners decided to close. Claudia found new work in the kitchen of The Bewildered Pig—a former bastion of fine food dining in the Deep End of Anderson Valley—where she worked under Chef Janelle Weaver. Claudia says that working there was “a great experience” and provided many of the foundational skills she now uses as chef at Wickson.
While at The Pig, Claudia watched and absorbed all facets of the restaurant. The kitchen brought in new produce each week based on what was ripe in the fields, so she learned to be creative with vegetables she had never met before. She was taught to smoke fish, to craft pasta by hand, to create confections with mushrooms, and to understand the uses and wonders of spices. And she has become passionate about never wasting food, finding a use for everything. By the time The Bewildered Pig closed its doors, Claudia had three years of high end dining experience, and she knew she was in the food business for the long haul.
That’s when Claudia arrived at Wickson. Under Chef Jason Azevedo, she was responsible for preparing salads and appetizers, graduating to Sous Chef when Jenny Ann led the kitchen. At that time, Wickson moved into general continental cuisine, which included pizzas—a natural fit with Wickson’s wood-fired oven. Claudia is now more than capable of her new role and enjoys the help and support of “… a talented, hard-working group of ladies who understand the comfort of food,” according to owner Jim Roberts.
When reflecting on her leadership role, Claudia admits that she was “at first nervous of being in charge of the kitchen,” but her focus has been to work as part of the team. Together they “create new food with new recipes that will make people happy.” And people are happy!
Claudia had never cooked Italian food, with the exception of some pastas she created at The Bewildered Pig, and she has fallen in love with the cuisine. She loves to prepare a roasted red pepper pesto ravioli, hand-made and time-consuming, but completely worth it. Another popular dish is Pasta al Ajillo—pasta with scampi, garlic, white wine, and Piment d’Ville chili flakes. Wickson also offers gluten-free pasta as well as a vegan option regularly on the menu, so most special diets can be accommodated.
The signature offering of the new menu is the Pinsa Romana—a long-fermented flatbread made from wheat, rice, and spelt flour whose origins date back to the Roman Empire. A complex undertaking, the final product results in a lighter dough which is higher in protein, with fewer calories, carbs, and gluten. Owner Brian Adkinson says, “It’s like biting into a fluffy cloud with a crispy crust.”
Wickson has recently launched a weekend brunch, where the offerings range from a delicious chili-verde topped Huevos Rancheros to the mouth-watering pinsa—add an egg for a breakfast twist. The kitchen whipped up a special vegan vegetable-topped pinsa (no cheese), which met my dining partner’s needs and tickled his tastebuds perfectly. Their roasted beet salad is a particular favorite, with the tang of the Pennyroyal Farm Laychee juxtaposed with the sweet earthiness of the beets on mixed salad greens, and dressed with a piquant vinaigrette.
The most difficult thing for Claudia in the Wickson space is the wood-fired kitchen, which is open to the restaurant. “I’m a little shy,” says Claudia. Knowing the patrons are looking at them makes her more self-conscious. But it also allows her to see customers enjoying her food and the smiles on their faces.
In the world of small business, particularly the hospitality/ restaurant sector, things are always in flux. Owners, chefs, restaurants—they all come and go, for all kinds of reasons. Though the owners are moving towards retirement, Wickson and the other businesses at The Madrones will continue to operate, allowing Claudia’s menu to evolve according to the dual influences of season and inspiration. Stepping into the role of chef may be a dream achieved, but for this young culinary talent, it is just the beginning.
Wickson Restaurant
9000 Highway 128, Philo
(707) 895-2955 | wicksonrestaurant.com
Open dinner Thu - Sat 5:30pm - 8pm, brunch Sat & Sun 10am - 2:30pm
Claudia photos by Clara Shook. Mezzaluna Club photo by Jim Roberts.
Tsar Nicoulai Caviar
Sustainably Raised in the Sacramento Valley
by Holly Madrigal
Tsar Nicoulai Caviar Eating caviar can be a ritual of luxury: Top a cracker or blini with a dollop of crème fraîche, using a mother of pearl spoon, scooping a portion of the salty jewels, sprin- kling with fresh chopped chives, and popping it into your mouth. Savor the rich sea butter taste, complemented by the cooling crème fraîche and tangy chive with the caviar bursting in your mouth.
For the caviar-curious, the product is the salted cured roe of the sturgeon fish. Considered a delicacy, it historically hailed from the wild fish in the Caspian and Black seas near Russia and Iran. These fish are now endangered (because the fish is killed in the harvest process), so enterprising entrepreneurs decided to find out if they could cultivate sustainably-grown sturgeon in the United States. Founded in 1984 in San Francisco, Tsar Nicoulai sought to create handcrafted, small- batch American caviar, and they have succeeded.
Christina Jones has been with Tsar Nicoulai for two years. Growing up in Mendocino County, she knew she wanted to pursue a culinary life from a young age. She attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, followed by a decade cooking on private yachts before returning to Anderson Valley, where she opened a restaurant called Aquarelle. Eager for a new challenge to stretch her skills, Christina went on to work as the head event and wedding chef for a retreat center in Anderson Valley. She then helped build the culinary tasting menu at Roederer Estate, which is when she got into caviar.
Caviar is a luxurious product to pair with bubbles, and Christina discovered Tsar Nicoulai when crafting the offerings to pair with Roederer’s award-winning sparkling wine. When she began working with Tsar Nicoulai regularly, they tapped her to be the local sales representative. She now provides this top-notch caviar across northern California, as well as places like Palm Springs. “We have a lot of customers in Palm Springs now,” shares Jones, continuing, “It is so easy to get there from Santa Rosa, and the restaurant scene is exploding there.”
Tsar Nicoulai’s farms are based in Wilton, in the Sacra- mento Valley, where they farm the sturgeon that produces the caviar. They work hard to be eco-certified by creating a closed-loop system that filters the fish tanks through water plants, partnering with U.C. Davis to study how to reduce their environmental impact. Water use is a big issue in California, so the company is vigilant; the primary water loss, 10% or less, occurs via evaporation. They use no antibiotics or GMO additives in the farming of the fish.
American White Sturgeon is native to the waters all along the west coast. They are very similar to the Russian and Iranian ossetra, which is the type that used to make up the bulk of the world’s caviar production. The founders realized they could farm these fish near the delta where the wild fish swim.
The fish need to age for seven years before they can be harvested for caviar, though some are grown for eight years or more for certain types of caviar. To utilize as much of the fish as possible, Tsar Nicoulai has several products in addition to their caviar. They have a state-of-the-art smokehouse on the property, and since sturgeon primarily have cartilage instead of bones, they are especially suited for making fish stock full of collagen and Omega-3s. A fish biologist friend who has visited the farm declared, “The caviar is amazing, and it is super cool what they are doing. If you get the tour, you can touch them, and it is the closest experience I’ve had to petting a dinosaur.”
“[Caviar] all comes down to levels of quality. The quality is deter- mined by color, flavor, firmness, and size ... The entry-level is darker, smaller, and not as firm ... The most exclusive variety is lighter in color, firm, and larger in size,” explains Jones. Tsar Nicoulai sells six grades: Classic, Estate, Select, Reserve, Golden Reserve, and Crown Jewel.
“It is the ultimate slow food. To eat caviar is a luxury. I love the ritual and care—it’s an event. Because it is an expensive treat, you can eat it at celebrations or when you just want a reason to savor.” Some people can be intimidated by trying caviar, and Jones shares that one of her favorite ways to introduce people to it is to top a potato chip with crème fresh, a dollop of caviar, and fresh chives. The chips are approachable, and then the tasters are blown away by the flavors of the caviar. It’s something you could try at home or with friends for a special event. “Caviar elevates every event where it is served,” Jones adds.
Recently the company, whose business offices are based in Concord, purchased a competitor, making them the largest provider of domestic caviar in North America. This is a big deal because most of the imported caviar sold in the U.S. comes from China, which has no similar ecological or safety measures.
In Mendocino County, you can purchase Tsar Nicoulai’s caviar at Harvest Market and a few other specialty shops. Or stop by their caviar tasting bar in the ferry building if you are visiting San Francisco. You can also purchase directly from the website, and Jones says that she is happy to be your caviar concierge if you would like to purchase larger amounts and have them shipped to you. So if you find yourself a bit “caviar-curious” as the new year approaches, get your hands on some California-grown caviar and welcome the new year with a little bit of luxury.
Order online at tsarnicoulai.com.
Photo courtesy of Tsar Nicoulai Caviar