Edible Santa Barbara Spring/Summer 2025 by Edible Santa Barbara

Eats and Wine Tasting Daily at the rum & Barden Tasting Room ornian, 19 East Mason, Santa Barbara

for the Pancakes by Maya Schoop-Rutten

Lowdown on Loquats by Anna Bower

Crop

Spring, Sprout Your Own Seedling Stand by Meg Handler

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

As the seasons go, springtime has always represented rejuvenation and regrowth. If we were judicious with our time in winter, we should have things to look forward to. Buds break from dormant grapevines, stone fruit trees burst into vibrant bloom and young shoots sprout from seeds in the ground. We awaken.

The inspiration for this issue comes from a question: Who is putting in the work for a better tomorrow and cultivating that potential? Springtime is full of potential. Every seed has the potential to grow. Every parent is working to raise their children. Every teacher is making the effort to support their students. Every school is a marketplace of ideas, where everyone learns. Nurture this, make room for seeds to grow or for us to learn. Obtain knowledge and you’ll have something bigger and better to look forward to. For these reasons, the theme of this issue is Seeds of Optimism.

My humble request: Prepare for tomorrow. Invest in growing plants or growing ideas. Invest in the next generation, not because of the immediate rewards but because it’s the right thing to do. Invest in the people who are already doing this to multiply their worthy efforts. It won’t always work perfectly. In fact, in the first round, maybe allow failure to be a feature. The act of trying has more potential than the act of doing nothing.

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future,” goes a well-known statement by Noam Chomsky. “Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.” Be a good steward for everything around you, in the big picture and the little.

In this issue, I’ve put a spotlight on Lompoc, a city with a lot to look forward to and a lot going on. Seeing a mature loquat tree laden with fruit is the sign of an older home, and there is a lot to learn about this unassuming evergreen in Santa Barbara’s history. I’m delighted this issue tells the story of Chef Charlie Fredericks and Santa Barbara City College’s School of Culinary Arts and Hotel Management. I feel honored to have been at the Dutch Garden just as it was transitioning out of his and Jen Fredericks’ hands. The sense of family the entire team had with each other at those moments was genuine. Once ownership changed, everything had the potential to change, but that day they were together it felt special.

In this same way, Edible Santa Barbara is part of a team, and we work to support each other. The more closely I work with all of them, the more I enjoy the connection with everyone.

Rosminah Brown, Publisher

Email us at info@EdibleSantaBarbara.com and visit our website at www.EdibleSantaBarbara.com

Member of Edible Communities

Edible Communities

James Beard Foundation Publication of the Year (2011)

PUBLISHERS

Rosminah Brown

Rob Bilson

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Krista Harris

STORY EDITOR

Sandrine Thompson

COPY EDITING & PROOFING

Doug Adrianson

DESIGNER

Freeman Design Group

SOCIAL MEDIA

Liz Dodder

Jill Johnson

WEBSITE

Rob Bilson

CONTRIBUTORS

Annie Addis

Pascale Beale

Rob Bilson

Anna Bower

Rosminah Brown

Janice Cook Knight

Liz Dodder

Jamie Edlin

Kate Griffith

Meg Handler

Krista Harris

Laurie Jervis

Jennifer LeMay

Stephen Lewis

Maya Schoop-Rutten

Carole Topalian

George Yatchisin

ADVERTISING

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Edible Santa Barbara® is published quarterly by Brown Ink Media, LLC and distributed throughout Santa Barbara County. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Publisher expressly disclaims all liability for any occurrence that may arise as a consequence of the use of any information or recipes. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

Loquat season in the '70s.

The SBCC Promise

The SBCC Promise has provided more than 7,000 local high school graduates with the opportunity to pursue their dreams at Santa Barbara City College.

Launched in 2016, the SBCC Promise covers all required fees, books, and supplies for two years, and is funded entirely by private donations.

“I am excited to be working in the culinary world, and thankful for the education I received at SBCC.” Your gift makes it possible.

– Ava Engle, SBCC Promise Alum

Ava Engle participated in the SBCC Promise for two years and graduated with an associate degree in Culinary Arts in 2021. She now works as a cook at Oracle’s world headquarters in Austin, TX.

sbccfoundation.org

edible Notables

Crispy Crunchy Cheese Bites from Eat Happy Kitchen - Santa Ynez

Anna Vocino, who already has a line of tomato sauces, spice blends and glutenfree cookbooks, has just introduced a variety of Crispy Crunchy Cheese Bites. Having celiac disease herself, Vocino has devoted her business Eat Happy Kitchen to gluten-free options. Her cheese bites have no added sugar and no artificial flavors. They are rolling out in late April at grocery stores including Whole Foods in Santa Barbara, Pavilions Market in Montecito and New Frontiers Market in Solvang.

Website, including product lines and where to buy: www.EatHappyKitchen.com

Instagram: @eathappykitchen

Tè’Stees Cupcakes – Lompoc

Santa Barbara born- and -raised Shante Norwood started baking as a hobby with her children. With growing popularity and the support of her family, it expanded to fulfilling orders for friends and relatives. Thanks to the California Homemade Food Act, which allows certain home-based production for commercial sale, Shante created Tè’Stees as a full-time business in 2019 and offers her creative cupcakes by pre-order. She’s always experimenting with new flavors and custom designs for clients, but her most popular flavor is the banana pudding cupcake. While most of her work stays in Lompoc, she’s been known to venture farther out in the county, most notably for a Duke and Duchess who reside in Montecito.

Available by online ordering weekly or special events: www.t3stees.com Instagram: @te_stees

Margerum Wine Company's Fizzy Riv – Santa Barbara

Fizzy Riv is the latest beverage from Margerum. It’s a peach-hued sparkling Grenache rosé sourced from the Central Coast. With tasting notes of fresh-cut strawberries and early-season cherries, this bubbly is a toast to the Riviera life. Limited to 1,000 cases produced, it’s a celebration of spring and summertime, and may last only as long as these seasons. Find it at their tasting room in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone and anywhere Margerum Wine is sold.

Margerum Tasting Room at the Hotel Californian

19 E. Mason

Santa Barbara

Open Sun–Thu noon–8pm and Fri–Sat noon–9pm

www.MargerumWines.com

Instagram: @margerumwines

Smoked Turkey Sandwiches at Eye on I – Lompoc

Eye on I opened in 2020, originally an offshoot of Jeff Olsson’s Industrial Eats in Buellton, with Heather Hovey managing the space. When Olsson passed in late 2023, the casual eatery was fully acquired by Hovey.

Now, Hovey has honed her menu to offer wood-fired oven pizzas and “not pizzas.” Among the non-pizza options is a signature sandwich: smoked turkey with basil mayonnaise, baby arugula and roasted red peppers served on ciabatta bread. She acquires whole turkeys to be broken down, which undergo a 10-day cure, then are smoked weekly in-house with applewood, resulting in a flavorful sandwich with a devoted following. Paired with her exceptional housemade pickles, Eye on I offers a small space packed with vibrant creative personality and local art.

Eye on I

131 N. I St. Lompoc

Open Tue–Sat noon–8pm www.TheEyeonI.com

Instagram: @eye_on_i_84

small Bites Small Sips

The Future is Bright for Small-batch Winemakers at Garagiste Festival

by Rosminah Brown

In a world full of big wine labels, how do you find the smaller ones? That’s the point of Garagiste Festival. It was co-founded by Doug Minnick and Stewart McLennan in 2011 as a way to bring multiple small-batch winemakers together into one place to showcase their work and collectively find their audience.

Minnick was further inspired by a speech from Jerry Lohr of the successful J. Lohr Winery that encouraged others to “pay it forward” by supporting the Wine and Viticulture Program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Starting small, and growing ever bigger 14 years in, proceeds go to the Garagiste Festival Scholarship Fund to benefit Cal Poly students.

For background, garagiste was a term originally used in France to disparage small-batch winemaking. Making wine in a garage, not following rules, doing it your own way. Now it’s a movement that embodies the optimistic and inspirational efforts of small-batch winemakers.

Garagiste Festival participants are all creative and passionate producers, some of whom were pouring their wines for the public for the first time. This doesn’t mean they were fresh graduates or new to the industry; it was the opposite. Many we spoke to came from larger wineries and developed a few barrels of their own in

a corner of their workspace. Some had left careers far outside the winemaking industry to pursue their passion.

This made their small operations truly hand-crafted and hard to find in an otherwise vast sea of big production wine. Experiencing the wine from them felt sincere and authentic, expressed in so many ways: the label names, the bottle artwork, the names of their blends. When you have a chance to make something your own, such as these winemakers have, every part of it has meaning.

Garagiste Festival occurs in multiple regions: Northern California, Southern California, and here on the Central Coast. Each winemaker produced 1,500 cases or less. Everyone was passionate and enthusiastic about their work. Everyone. When pressed to disclose a favorite within their lineup, each winemaker was reluctant to answer. “I can’t pick one, I love them all!” was the most common response, and I get it, small batches prioritize quality over quantity.

For this Garagiste Festival, located indoors at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Solvang, we focused on all the Santa Barbara County labels, but there were winemakers pouring at the event from the Central Coast up to Napa and Sonoma.

Garagiste Central Coast covered a full weekend of activities. Yet to come this year are Garagiste Festivals for Northern California, Southern California and another for the Central Coast in Paso Robles. For those who can’t attend, there is a Tasting Pass available for purchase that covers over 70 winery tasting rooms throughout California and is good for the entire calendar year. For $69, you’ll get two-for-one tastings at wineries throughout the state, enjoy discounts on purchases, and support the Garagiste ethos of celebrating small-batch winemakers.

www.GaragisteFestival.com

Rosminah Brown is a Santa Barbara native who types fast and eats slow. She once jumped in the Neptune Pool at Hearst’s Castle. She is always seeking a perfect, singular, exquisite bite of food paired with a small sip.

In alphabetical order, the representatives of Santa Barbara County:

Adorato Wines

Winemaker Kristin Fione www.AdoratoWines.com

Bocce Ball Wines

Winemaker Jason Scrymgeour www.BocceBallWine.com

Cote of Paint Wine

Winemaker Kristin Luis www.CoteofPaintWine.com

Dusty Nabor Wines

Winemaker Dusty Nabor www.DustyNaborWines.com

Exprimere Wines

Winemaker James McPhail www.Exprimere.Wine

Final Girl Wines

Winemaker Anna Lancucki www.FinalGirlWines.com

Fuil Wines

Winemaker Matt Espiro Jaeger www.FuilWines.com

Pars Fortuna Wine

Winemaker Kira Malone www.ParsFortunaWine.com

Sapien Wines

Winemaker Trevor Bethke www.SapienWine.com

Slouch Hat Wines

Winemaker Matt Fowler www.SlouchHatWines.com

Tabalipa Wine Company

Winemakers Paula Tabalipa and Michael Greenberg www.TabalipaWineCo.com

Tomi Cellars

Winemaker Boyd Shermis, with Denise Tomi Davis as the owner www.TomiCellars.com

Adorato Wines

Dusty Nabor and Dusty Nabor Wines

Trevor Bethke and Sapien Wines

Kira Malone and Pars Fortuna Wine

Slouch Hat Wines

Final Girl Wines

Paula Tabalipa and Tabalipa Wine Company

KELLY

small Bites Consider an Everlasting Bouquet

Sustainable, Succulent Creations at Sun Rose Farms

by Rosminah Brown

Ifirst encountered Sun Rose Farms at the Saturday Farmers Market in downtown Santa Barbara. I was roaming around with friends visiting for the weekend, and they were in search of a Mother’s Day gift. We knew we’d find something suitable here. Off in a corner there it was: a lineup of bouquets made from succulents and other everlasting blooms. The immediate math ran through my head: Here is the gift of a bouquet ...

• That is great for Mother’s Day, and for anyone who deserves flowers

• That supports the farmers market

• That is beautiful as it is, and …

• That you can plant afterwards, to enjoy for years to come, especially in this climate.

Considering all this, and for being a similar price to most other bouquets, a collective light bulb went off in our group. My friends bought them.

Ariana Rose is the proprietor of Sun Rose Farms, and she tends to it alongside her family on a quiet one-acre patch in the foothills of Santa Barbara. She practices regenerative techniques, which prioritize growing the soil into a rich, thriving ecosystem. It started with her father over 40 years ago, using a method called swale farming, which helps capture water and reduce erosion and provides a fertile space for growing. The family farm does not require any additional irrigation. And it works. When this good soil provides, her family and her flowers thrive, too.

She’s at the Santa Barbara Tuesday and

Saturday markets downtown. This springtime you can celebrate Mother’s Day, Mother Earth and anyone who deserves a bouquet by considering a succulent bouquet for the occasion. It’s a gift, it’s grown with care and it’ll pay forward by continuing to grow in the ground.

And by the way, have you ever gotten flowers for yourself? They brighten up any room and brighten up your life. Consider this, too.

Rosminah Brown is a Santa Barbara native who types fast and eats slow. She once jumped in the Neptune Pool at Hearst’s Castle. She has degrees in botany and horticulture and thinks flowers are amazing. She is always seeking a perfect, singular, exquisite bite of food.

Bouquets for now and for later.

Ariana Rose at the Saturday farmers market in Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara Culinary Experience

Returns May 12–18 for Weeklong Celebration

The highly anticipated Santa Barbara Culinary Experience (SBCE) returns May 12–18, 2025, offering an expanded lineup of immersive food and wine events across Santa Barbara County. Presented in collaboration with The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, the SBCE brings together Santa Barbara County’s vibrant food and beverage scene, spotlighting the region’s world-class chefs, winemakers, farmers, artisans, and hospitality community.

“This year’s Santa Barbara Culinary Experience is our most ambitious yet, featuring an extraordinary lineup of events that truly reflect the spirit and bounty of our region,” said Jamie Knee, director of the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience.

Tickets are on sale now at sbce.events, with a diverse selection of exclusive dining experiences, hands-on cooking classes, tastings, farm excursions and more.

One of the signature events is the Grand Wine Tasting at El Presidio de Santa Barbara on May 17. Attendees will immerse themselves in the flavors of Santa Barbara County’s renowned wine country, set against the stunning backdrop of the historic El Presidio de Santa Bárbara. They will be able to savor wines from more than 40 wineries, indulge in delectable bites from local chefs and food artisans and enjoy live music as they explore this historic venue. There is also the opportunity to dive deeper into what makes Santa Barbara County wines so great by attending engaging panel discussions, led by Santa Barbara Independent wine writer Matt Kettmann, featuring the visionary winemakers shaping Santa Barbara’s wine legacy.

“It’s also very important to us that SBCE is accessible to our entire community, so this year we’ve expanded our programming to offer a variety of events that appeal to all our audiences — including kids! We’re committed to providing an educational platform for important conversations about our region’s food and wine businesses to help deepen connections between the community and these industries. We’re excited about this year’s program, and look forward to welcoming everyone back,” said Knee.

A portion of the event’s proceeds will benefit Santa Barbara County nonprofit organizations dedicated to strengthening the local food system, ensuring that the region’s culinary culture continues to thrive for future generations.

Tickets for individual events vary in price and availability. The full lineup, event details, and purchasing options can be found at https://sbce.events

Grand Wine Tasting at El Presidio de Santa Barbara. Matt Kettmann leads panel discussions with the winemakers shaping Santa Barbara’s wine legacy.

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

Farmers Market Guide

Celebrate spring with Santa Barbara County’s farmers markets.

Recipes

Metro’s Murray River Sea Salt Brown Butter Buttons

Recipes from Metropulos

by Annie Addis

Since closing Metropulos in the Funk Zone in early 2024, I’ve been surprised, sometimes even overwhelmed, by the number of recipe requests I’ve received. Hearing from the community about the impact our shop had, and the small void it left in Santa Barbara’s culinary world, has been humbling. In time, I hope to put together a simple cookbook featuring our most-requested recipes. Until that cookbook comes to life, I hope to satisfy some of those requests (yes, I’m looking at you: Super Fudgy Moist Brownies, gyro meat, Peanut Butter Brittle Cookies, and more).

I thought I’d start with one of the most-requested: our Murray River Sea Salt Brown Butter Buttons. This cookie came about in an unusual way, and its name has a story, too:

Early on at Metropulos, a customer told me about her friends up the coast in Cayucos who were dedicating their market space exclusively to cookies. Their shop, Brown Butter Cookie Co., was just getting started.

(If you haven’t been there, you should go. It’s adorable, and their cookies are divine.) We began selling their cookies at Metropulos, and they were an instant hit. The company itself experienced such rapid growth it became too difficult to keep sourcing them.

I decided to try my hand at making them in-house. I found an old Gourmet Magazine recipe from 1961 for brown butter cookies and used it as my starting point to create a signature cookie for Metropulos. The result came close to the original’s flavor and texture and our customers agreed. They were easy to make, the dough froze beautifully and the cookies stayed fresh for a long time—if they lasted that long at all. We could hardly keep them in stock.

As for the name—Murray River Sea Salt Brown Butter Buttons—this was my adaptation to make the cookies uniquely ours. The Murray River in Australia produces an exceptional, clean, flaky salt, which I sprinkled on top. I shaped the cookies into rounds, poked four little holes in them like buttons, and finished them with a few flakes of Murray River salt. If you’d like to make your own, you can use any flaky or crunchy salt, but I wouldn’t recommend table or kosher salt. Choose something special—the right salt makes the flavors really pop.

Metro’s Sea Salt Brown Butter Buttons

MAKES 18 2-INCH COOKIES

2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (227g) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons (24g) granulated sugar

2/3 cup (145g) brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract

Crunchy or flaky sea salt, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 325°F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Use a larger pan than you think you need to prevent overflow. Once melted, increase the heat slightly and let the butter simmer. It will become foamy as the milk solids separate. Stir frequently and watch closely to prevent burning.

When the butter turns golden brown and has a nutty aroma, remove it from the heat. Let it cool slightly, then transfer to a bowl to solidify at room temperature. Do not strain out the browned bits as they add flavor. (This step can be done in advance; store browned butter in the fridge and bring to room temperature before using.)

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer), cream the cooled, room temperature browned butter with both sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla extract.

Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until combined. Do not overmix. Gently knead the dough in the bowl to bring it together.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes to help it hold its shape. Note: If the dough feels too crumbly, add 1 tablespoon of melted butter (does not need to be browned) and mix it in for additional moisture.

SHAPING THE COOKIES

At Metropulos, we made these cookies in two sizes, but the mini size is particularly fun.

Use a 1-inch cookie scoop for small cookies or a 2-inch scoop for larger ones.

If you don’t have a scoop, pinch off a piece of dough and roll it between your palms to form a tight ball, a little smaller than a golf ball.

Arrange the dough balls on a parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet, spacing them 2 inches apart. Gently press each ball into a flat disk, smoothing the edges to retain their shape.

Bake small cookies for 7-9 minutes and large cookies for 10-12 minutes

The cookies are done when they just begin to turn golden brown.

Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle each cookie with flaky sea salt. To create the signature buttonlook, use a wooden toothpick to poke four small holes in the top of each cookie.

Let the cookies cool completely before eating (they are crisper when cooled) and store in an air-tight container.

Annie Addis (née Metropulos) grew up in an Italian-Greek family where home-cooked meals and Sunday feasts were cherished traditions. Annie co-owned the beloved Metropulos Fine Foods Merchant with her husband, Craig, for nearly 20 years.

Recipes

If it’s Hummus

It’s Made from Chickpeas

by Rosminah Brown

Ihave a memory of the potlucks of my early-’70s childhood, where my senses were overwhelmed by a gritty, textured, lumpy mass strongly flavored with garlic and lemon juice. It was called hummus and it appeared alongside woody grocery-store carrot sticks and stringy celery. I rejected it fully in the midst of Santa Barbara’s embrace of conscious cooking that included alfalfa sprouts in sandwiches and peanut butter that required constant stirring (although somehow I was OK with carob?).

Thankfully, I grew up. Now I love hummus! Credit goes to my time living in England, always feeling a little cold and a little poor, but luckily living within a few minutes of a corner shop that sold exceptionally decent baguettes and exceptionally decent hummus—cheap carbs that also tasted great. It was my go-to quick meal when I didn’t have time to prepare food, which was often.

On a visit to Motley Crew Marketplace in Buellton, I spied a fabric bag of garbanzo beans stating “Jalama Valley— dry farmed by a small family farm.” It immediately went into my shopping bag with the plan: hummus.

The humble chickpea, Cicer arietinum , also called a garbanzo bean, is in the legume family along with peas and beans. It dances in the world of superfoods, considered to be both a carbohydrate and a protein. It is high in fiber and easy on your blood sugar. It is a staple ingredient in numerous cultures and cuisines, and is thought to have originated in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, approximately modernday Syria, Turkey and Iran. Its uses range from flour—called besan or gram flour—to a whole-food pulse in curries, soups and salads, but here it is for hummus, a purée that can delight me for any meal.

The hummus that sustained my life while I was going to school in England was a whipped creamy dream that needed no addition of toppings (the tub didn’t come with them, and I couldn’t afford them anyway), and was scooped up with pieces of baguette I tore off and snacked on throughout the day. Upon returning to Santa Barbara, I followed recipes here and there, but didn’t achieve hummus heaven until my first trip to Philadelphia with my future husband. There I experienced the hummus from the restaurant Zahav just as it received the 2019 James Beard Award for best restaurant in the country. This was it. A hummus based on Mediterranean recipes, blended to creamy perfection, served alongside hot laffa flatbread baked fresh to order, often by the chef himself. Toppings varied from a simple drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of za’atar, to fresh salads, nuts and braised meats. There’s no other way I could make it now.

If you want instant gratification, with no time to cook from scratch, go down to the Santa Barbara farmers market and pick up a tub of Baba’s Hummus. You can also buy the chickpeas from them if you do want to prepare a fresh batch.

Q

A note about hummus. The word hummus means chickpea in Arabic. I really need to make this clear. The addition of tahini to another purée does not make it hummus. Only chickpeas make hummus. If you see a soft, creamy white-bean puree with tahini, I’m sure it’s delicious but it is never to be called hummus.

Hummus Tehina

Adapted from restaurant Zahav in Philadelphia and myriad recipes from numerous countries of the Middle East

MAKES ONE GENEROUS QUART OF CREAMY HUMMUS.

1 cup dried organic chickpeas (Local sources include Jalama Valley’s garbanzo beans sold at Motley Crew Marketplace in Buellton, or the Baba booth at the Santa Barbara and Goleta farmers markets.)

2 teaspoons baking soda, divided

TAHINI SAUCE:

4 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed

⅓ cup lemon juice, from 1–2 lemons, more to taste

1¾ teaspoons kosher salt, divided, more to taste

1 cup organic tahini

Cold water

½ teaspoon cumin

OPTIONAL TOPPINGS FOR SERVING:

Olive oil

Fresh chopped parsley

Lemon juice

Sumac

Smoked paprika

Za’atar

Toasted pine nuts

Roasted vegetables, cut into bite-size pieces, such as butternut squash, carrots, beets

The night before, soak the chickpeas with 1 teaspoon of baking soda in a covered bowl.

In the morning, drain and rinse the chickpeas, then place in a medium pot along with the second teaspoon of baking soda and cover with water, about 4 inches above the chickpeas.

Add the cup of tahini and blend. The tahini will quickly become a clumpy paste. Drizzle in the cold water, about ⅓ to ⅔ cup, a little at a time and continue blending until it forms a smooth, creamy and pourable sauce.

Add the cumin and remaining salt, and blend. This tahini sauce is a base that can be used for a plethora of other recipes, but this batch will all go into the hummus.

Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to a low boil, cooking for up to an hour until the chickpeas are very soft. It’s OK to get them go mushy; this is the key to creamy hummus. Check the pot periodically to ensure the water doesn’t boil over or to top up with water if it gets too low.

Meanwhile, prepare the tahini sauce: Place the smashed garlic and lemon juice in a blender or food processor, along with ¼ teaspoon of salt. Blend lightly to break up the garlic.

Once the chickpeas are boiled and very soft, lightly drain, retaining the drained liquid.

Add the boiled chickpeas to the tahini sauce and turn the blender on full and let it go until completely smooth, adding the drained liquid back as needed. Note that while it’s hot, the hummus will appear more liquid and will firm up once it starts cooling.

Taste the hummus and add more water and salt as needed; keep blending, 2 minutes or more. As long as your machine doesn’t overheat, you cannot overblend this—creaminess is key.

To serve: Place a generous scoop in a shallow bowl and swirl your serving spoon through the hummus to create a crater. Drizzle in olive oil and lemon juice for a simple dish. Your hummus can also contain a variety of other toppings, like fresh chopped parsley, sprinkles of smoked paprika, sumac or your favorite za’atar. You can pile the center with roasted vegetables, braised meats, olives or any variety of Mediterranean salads for a more substantial meal.

Fresh warm hummus is special, you cannot get this in the store. Ideally, hummus is consumed within a couple hours of preparation, alongside warm bread like pita, or scooped up with whatever bread you love. For a less carb-filled meal, eat your hummus with vegetable crudités.

Then sit down with a friend and catch up over this humble seed, or bring it to a potluck meal and be prepared for recipe requests.

If not consumed immediately, store in the refrigerator. This will keep for 2–3 days.

Recipes Comeback for the Pancakes

by Ma ya Schoop-Rutten

Ihad longtime dreams to open a restaurant with a casual atmosphere, good fresh food plate du jour style. It was 1992, I was pregnant with our first child and had gotten a temporary job at a UC Santa Barbara sorority house. The woman who ran the sorority house was from Texas. She was a little rough around the edges but sweet on the inside. One day, she asked me to make pancakes for the house’s breakfast. I quickly told her I was going to make some crêpes instead, which did not fly well with her. As a response, she gave me this pancake recipe from her mother and asked me to follow it to the letter.

The buttermilk pancakes were fantastic! So fluffy, so tasty and so simple.

The rest is history. The Comeback Café was created in my head, and in the next few months the restaurant was born—and so was our first child.

ROB BILSON

Comeback Café’s Buttermilk Pancakes

MAKES 6 PANCAKES, ALLOWING 2 PER PERSON

3 eggs

1 cup flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon white sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 pinch salt

1 tablespoon butter, softened

¾ cup buttermilk

Preheat a cast-iron pan or nonstick skillet to medium heat.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy.

Add flour, baking powder, sugars, salt and soft butter cut in small pieces; finally, add the buttermilk.

Mix all together gently. Do not over-beat; you do not want the batter to be smooth. It needs to be a little lumpy for a fluffy pancake.

To cook, add a little butter to coat the heated pan.

Pour ½ cup of batter into the pan. The pancakes should be about 4 to 5 inches wide.

Let them cook slowly, until bubbles form on top, about 2 minutes. Flip, and let cook for an additional minute. Set aside on a plate and keep warm while cooking the remaining pancakes.

Serve 2 pancakes per person, dressed with additional butter, maple syrup or sliced seasonal fruit and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Maya Schoop-Rutten owned and operated the Comeback Café from 1992 to 2003 on lower State Street in Santa Barbara, offering ample servings of breakfast and lunch. She opened Chocolate Maya shortly afterwards, just a block away on Gutierrez Street.

Before she was Chocolate Maya

Edible GARDEN

The Lowdown on Loquats

by Anna Bower

Ifirst encountered loquats when I moved to Santa Barbara. They seemed to lurk everywhere as a tall shrub with leathery evergreen leaves, an underappreciated feature in the landscape. When I first tried the fruit, I was put off by its large, numerous seeds and the fuzz on the skin. But upon closer inspection, the juicy flesh revealed flavors of apricot, mango, pear and cherry. I was intrigued. What else could this unassuming plant have to offer?

Loquats in Horticulture and Botany

The loquat, or Eriobotrya japonica , belongs to the Rosaceae, or rose family, alongside many other commercially important fruits in the apple subtribe such as apples, quince, medlar, pear and our native toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia). This evergreen shrub or small tree can grow up to 30 feet tall and spread 15 to 30 feet wide. Thriving in sunny locations and tolerant of a wide range of soil conditions, it makes an excellent background shrub in the garden. In fall and early winter, creamy white fragrant flowers appear. Many parts of the plant, including the undersides of its leaves, flower buds and fruits, are covered in rusty brown hairs.

The genus Eriobotrya derives from the Greek erion (wool) and botrys (cluster of grapes), referring to the tomentose yelloworange fruits that grow in clusters. Loquat fruits resemble a small pear-shaped juicy apricot containing three to seven large seeds and ripen 90 days after flowering. The fruits must ripen on the tree, and are fragile once picked, limiting their potential as a commercial fruit crop. When harvesting loquats, look for fruits that are dark in color and slightly soft but not wrinkled. Some consumers prefer to peel off the fuzzy skin before eating.

Loquat History and Cultivation

Eriobotrya japonica is native to south-central China but has been cultivated in Japan for over 1,000 years where it was first thought to have originated. In China, loquats are called pipa ; in Korea, bipa ; and in Japan, biwa. Interestingly, all three countries have loquat-shaped lute musical instruments that share the same corresponding name.

It's loquat season.

Kinton Stevens’ horticultural catalog from 1891.

R. BROWN

How to Eat a Loquat

When selecting a ripe loquat, pick ones with the darkest yellow color, almost glowing. The kind that if you don’t eat today will be taken by the birds tomorrow. Similar to an apple or pear, the fruit of the loquat is an enlarged fleshy structure called a hypanthium.

Hold the loquat fruit with the stalk (pedicel) resting in your fingertips. Starting at the top, carefully peel away the skin, like a banana. If your fingers can’t do it, use a paring knife to get the peel started.

The small sunken disc remaining at the top of the fruit is where the other floral parts were attached to the hypanthium. It can be removed with a paring knife or fingers and should come out in one piece.

Shallowly cut the loquat in half lengthwise with the paring knife, then pull it apart to reveal the large seeds. The seeds will easily fall out of the fruit. These seeds can be dried and used to make nespolino, if you like—an infused liqueur similar to amaretto or nocino

At this point, you can gently pull away the soft fibers (pericarp) that had surrounded the seeds, or leave them, as they have no effect on the taste or texture. You now have two juicy bites of fresh, sweet loquat to enjoy. These can go into fruit salads, or be made into jam, but please take some simple bites just as they are.

The global distribution of loquats began when they were introduced to Paris in 1784 and London in 1787, before spreading to the rest of the Mediterranean region. Between 1867 and 1870, loquats were introduced to California from Japan and to Florida from Europe. By the 1870s loquats were commonly cultivated in California, as an ornamental plant. Climates farther south, from Santa Barbara to San Diego, proved superior for fruit production and loquats became a common feature in mission gardens. Ralph Kinton Stevens, the first owner of

Tanglewood—the property that would later become Madame Ganna Walska’s Lotusland—included Eriobotrya japonica in his 1891 nursery catalog, noting that it was “too well known to need description.” Prices ranged from 25 to 75 cents each.

Charles P. Taft, a fruit grower who settled in Orange County in 1883, took it upon himself to improve commercial loquat varieties. After raising 50 plants from seed, he introduced his first selection, ‘Advance,’ in 1897. In the years that followed, he amassed a collection of over 1,500 loquat trees on his property and introduced other cultivars to the trade, including the still-popular ‘Champagne’ in 1908.

Many cultivars have been selected for fruit color, flavor, shape and a higher fruit-to-seed ratio. The “Chinese group” tends to produce large, deep orange, pear-shaped fruits, while the “Japanese group” bears smaller, lighter-colored fruits. White-fleshed varieties are generally better suited to cool coastal areas.

Loquat Uses

After harvesting (March–June), loquat fruits can be stored in the refrigerator for one to two weeks. One of the more common ways to process loquat fruits is by making jams and jellies. Due to their high pectin content, no additional pectin is needed for the preserves to set. Loquat salsas and chutneys are also popular, and the fruits can be baked into cakes, crumbles and cobblers.

Loquat leaves can be made into a tea after the fuzzy hairs on the undersides are removed. In Japan, loquat leaf infusions, or biwa-cha, are traditionally used to treat coughs, stomach issues and kidney ailments. Warm compresses made from the leaves are also used to relieve arthritis and joint pain.

Evergreen loquat tree in landscaping.

Silk bag dyed with loquat leaves and branches (kusakizome), then embellished using a stencil-dye technique (katazome) where additional dyes are brushed on the fabric with a surikomi brush in the pattern of a loquat fruiting branch. Additional dyes were extracted from Chinese skullcap (Scuttellaria baicalensis), Japanese indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and lac insects for added color.

In Italy, the seeds are used to make an aromatic liqueur similar to amaretto (made from stone fruit kernels and seeds) and nocino (made from unripe walnuts). Like other stone fruits, loquat seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides that break down to release hydrogen cyanide in the body. Great care should be taken when consuming seeds or seed extracts.

Last spring, I attended a dye class in Japan where I dyed a silk bag with a background of loquat dye extracted from crushed leaves and branches. Loquat leaves are high in tannins, similar to tea leaves, and have a tendency to adhere to natural fibers. When soaked in warm water for several days and repeatedly brought to a boil, loquat leaves yield a delightful pink-orange color that can be used to dye both animal and plant fibers.

The next time you are walking around Santa Barbara in the spring, try to find loquat trees. They are quietly growing in unexpected places—ripe for foraging. This often ignored and undemanding fruit tree has so much to offer, not only for its pure ornamental value, but for the edible and creative products it inspires.

Biwa-Cha, or Loquat Leaf Tea

This herbal infusion has a dark honey hue and is lightly sweet, similar to South African honeybush (Cyclopia intermedia) tea.

2 loquat leaves, glossy green on top, furry on the bottom

10 ounces water

Sweetener of your choice (optional)

Pick 2 fresh unblemished loquat leaves. Ensure these are free of pesticides or other chemicals.

Using a knife or a clean scouring sponge, scrape off the soft fur from the underside of the leaves. In addition to them clouding your tea, the fine hairs can cause irritation. If your skin is sensitive to contact dermatitis, wear gloves for this task.

Using a knife, cut away the central rib of the leaves, then crumple the leaves to break them up, and slice them into slivers.

In a small saucepan, add the leaf pieces and 10 ounces of water. Bring to a boil for 5 minutes, then steep 10–15 minutes. Strain into your favorite mug. This tea already has a light sweet flavor, but add optional sweetener of your choice, like honey.

Anna Bower is the assistant curator of living collections at Ganna Walska Lotusland. She holds an MS in Plant Science from the University of Delaware. Anna serves as president of the Santa Barbara Cactus and Succulent Society. She is also a member of the Santa Barbara Fiber Arts Guild and enjoys natural dyeing, knitting and making watercolors from plant pigments.

R. BROWN

Lompoc’s Next Crop Growth,

Wine and Community

by Kate Griffith

Once known as the flower seed capital of the world, the City of Lompoc is sowing seeds of optimism with its commitment to a five-year trial participation in the new Santa Barbara County Wine Business Improvement District. (Wine BID). This initiative promises greater inclusion for Lompoc-based wineries within the broader Santa Barbara County wine community. In particular, Lompoc stands to benefit from the Santa Barbara Vintners Association projected $1.6 million annual marketing budget.

Undoubtably, the recent show of camaraderie and concern from wine industry and hospitality colleagues across the county played a role in persuading the Lompoc City Council to support the Wine BID. A 1% assessment on all retail sales at tasting rooms and wineries will fund marketing, public relations, community and industry relations and government education to the benefit of the entire industry.

One heartfelt testimony from Gabriel Fabela Jr., the directory of hospitality and private client sales at Tyler Winery, described how he is “living proof of what is possible,” in support of the Wine BIDs potential impact. “Growing up, my family re-

ceived support from the food bank and other social services, and today, I am proud to be a successful middle-class professional, born and raised here. This is the kind of sustainability the Wine BID will help secure for others—not just for businesses, but for professionals and families in this community and across the county who rely on them.”

For five years, Lompoc was hesitant to accept the Wine BID. Perhaps the city’s history of being marginalized within the county, and its resulting self-sufficiency, contributed to the skepticism. Local historian Dennis Headrick noted in a recent phone conversation, “Lompoc has not been at the forefront of the Santa Barbara County consciousness over the years, which has contributed to the stalwart attitude of Lompoc to make it happen, regardless of county government.” Originally this included mitigating the lack of basic county services, such as roads in and out of town.

According to oral history, Lompoc’s mothers and other women in the community were fed up with the inconsistent electricity, especially when it disrupted ironing and washing machines. Their influence led the City to launch its own electrical department in 1923. Lompoc later became the first jurisdiction in the county to

invest in sustainable energy resources, including geothermal and hydroelectric power, long before it became a trend.

As a public power utility, the City offers commercial and industrial electricity rates that are significantly lower than those of its competitors. Combined with the affordability of other City-owned utilities and ample industrial space, Lompoc offered business incentives that attracted the wine industry.

Steven Gerbac, winemaker and general manager at Rusack Vineyards and vice president of the Vintners board of directors, acknowledged, “Lompoc has been instrumental as an incubator for small wineries, offering lower barriers to entry than many of the other local communities.” He also emphasized that joining the Wine BID will “give outsized attention and opportunities to the many small wineries.”

Lompoc has a substantial wine community, with 72 distinct wine brands registered within city limits. Most are boutique and owner-operated. Winemakers, fieldworkers and other wine-related support service employees live in the community, representing a cross-section of the industry. The city also contributes to the county’s socio-economic diversity.

The affectionately named “Lompoc Wine Ghetto” organically emerged as California’s original urban wine tasting venue. After Richard Longoria established his wine production facility in a Lompoc industrial park in 1998, other wineries followed, and the first tasting room opened in 2005. Today, the Ghetto is home to 12 tasting rooms, with several more located throughout town.

When I moved to Lompoc in 2002 to promote the City’s economic development, Lompoc was just beginning to gain national recognition as a cult wine mecca. Three Lompoc winemakers even graced the cover of Wine Spectator in July 2003: Greg Brewer (Brewer-Clifton), Kris Curran (Sea Smoke) and Brian Loring (Loring Wine Co.). Numerous other acclaimed wineries now call Lompoc home, including Sandhi, Domaine de la Côte, Fiddle head, Flying Goat, Ampelos, Tyler, Chanin and Pali.

Located 20 miles west of Highway 101 and off the beaten path, Lompoc serves as the gateway to the prestigious Sta. Rita Hills wine appellation. Sta. Rita Hills is renowned for producing award-winning Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other coolclimate wine grape varieties. The region is also gaining recognition for its exceptional méthode champe noise sparkling wines.

On the north end of town, Allan Hancock College operates a satellite campus that expands local educational opportunities with outstanding programs in viticulture and enology, English as a

second language, theater and history. Fifteen years ago, I took a popular wine sensory evaluation course and enjoyed tasting wines from around the world. Remarkably, Allan Hancock College now has an on-campus and student-run vineyard and winery producing award-winning wines. It also hosts the annual West Coast College and University Wine Festival.

Many reminisce about the prolific and fragrant flower fields that once surrounded Lompoc. I’ve been told that in 1964, the Lompoc Valley produced 70% of the world’s flower seeds and by the mid-1980s more than 1,500 acres were planted in. Surprisingly, beans were the cash crop! That is worthy of its own story.

The Wine BID promotions and engagement program will position Santa Barbara County as a premier winegrowing region and a leader in the global wine industry. Lompoc’s unique coolclimate wines, and the weather that makes them possible, is a worthy feature of the county’s range of award-winning wines.

Lompoc Mayor Jim Mosby believes that he is sowing seeds of optimism by choosing to join the Wine BID. As a farmer himself, one who provided me with community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares over 22 years ago, he knows a thing or two about cultivation. Mosby has already invited the Vintners Festival to return to Lompoc after a seven-year hiatus. With a City-owned venue, Explore Lompoc grant resources and dedicated community volunteers, Lompoc presents an enticing opportunity for collaboration with the Santa Barbara Vintners.

Kate Griffith is chief philosopher and proprietor of Flying Goat Cellars, a boutique winery mastering Pinots and sparkling wines from Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley vineyards since 2000. She enjoys living and working in Lompoc, where locavore food and libation abound.

Gabriel Fabela Jr. of Tyler Winery.

R.BROWN

Brian Loring–now and then. KATE GR FF TH

This Spring, Sprout Your Own Seedling Stand

Create Your Own Earth Day Tradition with Homemade Newspaper Pots and a Pop-up Plant Stand

by Meg Handler

If your spring planters are popping or you’re simply inspired to start some seeds, this activity is for you. Starting seeds is an alltime winner for ease, joy and community-building for kids and grown-ups alike. A neighborhood seedling share quickly became one of our family’s favorite homegrown Earth Day traditions, as the smiles and conversations it inspired continued to bloom weeks afterward.

The impetus for our first seedling stand was completely, well, organic. Our perennial basil plant had dropped a bunch of seeds, and volunteer sprouts were crowding around Mama plant in the big old pot. Seeing that the sprouts needed either to be eaten or to find a new home, we rolled a bunch of fresh newspaper pots, filled them with soil, then wheeled them (in old pizza boxes) in a wagon to share with neighbors at the end of our block.

Here’s what you’ll need to start

• Some seedlings. You can either plant your seedlings from seed and tend them, or transplant seedlings from last year’s volunteers.

• 3-inch pots—instructions for easy newspaper pots are on page 29

• Organic potting soil

• A homemade sign

• A table or cart

Tip: We love sharing kitchen herbs. They smell great, are easy to grow in small spaces and are yummy to eat. Hearty herbs like rosemary, mint, thyme, oregano and African basil are some favorites and can be enjoyed in different types of cuisine.

Free seedlings grow plants and community. MEG HANDLER

What to do

• If you need to transplant seedlings from another container, gently dig into the soil around the base of each seedling using a finger, twig or a blunt chopstick to lift out the roots. Use your tool to dig a hole as deep as the dangling roots, lower the plant in— roots first—and gently press the soil around the stem to stand the seedling straight in its new pot.

• Once seedlings are in individual pots, pack them in a wagon (or a pizza box) and take them to a neighborhood gathering spot. Or you can pop-up in front of your house like a lemonade stand and spread the Earth Day love!

• Put up a sign to invite folks to take one.

• We went an extra step and made a little handout with some info about our basil seedlings, including how to care for and cook with it, in hopes that this would encourage even garden-shy neighbors to take one home.

To complete the cycle, you can make your own pots. Here are instructions to make your own plantable newspaper pots for your seedling share.

Make Your Own Newspaper Pots

With these recycled newspaper pots, you can start your own seeds for food, flowers or herbs using materials you have at home. You can plant these pots right in the ground when the seedling is ready, since newspaper is biodegradable and it feeds our friends, the worms! Here’s what you need to get started:

MATERIALS

• A cardboard roll from paper towels, toilet paper or holiday wrapping paper.

• A sheet of newspaper, cut horizontally into 5-inch strips; it doesn’t have to be perfect.

• Organic potting soil

• A spoon

• Scissors

• A pack of seeds (Now’s the warm season; try tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, eggplants, melons, or your favorite garden flower) or volunteer seedlings from your garden.

• A thick stick, blender tamper or the handle of your shovel

• Optional: an empty berry basket

DIRECTIONS

1. Place your cardboard roll on the newspaper with a couple inches of the cardboard roll sticking out from one end.

2. Roll the newspaper around the roll tightly. There should be a couple inches of newspaper sticking out from the other end.

3. With one hand holding the seam of the newspaper around the cardboard roll, use your fingers to push and mash the open end of newspaper down around the bottom of the roll.

4. Use a thick wooden stick or blender tamper to tamp down the bottom of the newspaper through the roll to “lock” the newspaper pot bottom.

5. Pull the newspaper pot gently off the cardboard roll.

6. Plant seeds in pots:

• Use a spoon to fill newspaper pot with soil up to about ½ inch below the top of the pot.

• Gently press a dent into the soil about twice the length of the seed (deeper for larger seeds), or according to seed packet instructions.

• Place seed in the dent, then cover with soil.

• Water gently with a few squirts of a spray bottle on mist setting.

Tip: Sometimes newspaper pots can be a bit tippy. We like to nestle a few at a time inside a used strawberry basket to keep them steady during watering and care.

CARE

To grow your seedling into an adult plant, put your plant in a sunny window. Give it a little water every day. Watch it grow. When it is a couple inches tall, you can plant your seedling outside in its newspaper pot directly in a garden bed or planter.

Meg Handler, PhD, is founder and executive director of the Human Nature Center, a nonprofit that teaches ecology to all ages using gardening and the arts as teaching tools. Meg likes to try out new family activity ideas at home with her two young daughters. For more play and learning ideas, join her monthly newsletter: TheHumanNatureCenter.org.

Knock One Back with Nigella

The Pseudonymous Seed Cocktail

WORDS BY George Yatchisin

PHOTOS BY Rob Bilson

This spring’s drink seems as if it was created after Ted Allen left a mystery box at my doorstep, but I promise it’s a sassy seasonal delight. I insist something whipped up with the help of artichoke, apricot and cherry pits, juniper and the cocktail’s star ingredient—nigella seeds—really works. (Also note: Artichoke, apricot and cherry are all in season.)

But those nigella seeds are the inspiration for the drink’s name—the Pseudonymous Seed Cocktail. To get Latin for a sec, Nigella sativa —the name for both the flowering plant and its seed—is also called black caraway, black cumin, nutmeg flower, Roman coriander, black onion seed or kalonji. (This tear-shaped dark seed has so many aliases, you’d think someone put it into the witness protection program.) Often used in Indian, North African and Middle Eastern cuisines, its zippy flavor profile suggests distinct savoriness—think shallot, oregano, black pepper. World kitchens feature nigella in a host of ways: in naan or dosa, as a kicker for roast vegetables, as a crunch in grilled cheese. It’s a mighty mite.

liver from damage. This is far from hard science, plus you’d probably need to consume enormous amounts of the seeds to make any difference, but even being able to think your drink might help your liver and not hurt it is comforting, no?

I’ve worked the seeds into the drink twice to keep underlining the flavor. You infuse some gin with nigella to add kick, particularly as matching Indian spice notes with gin performs exponential multiplication of botanicals. You also make a nigella seed simple syrup, so the sweet you add to the cocktail ends up more round, less saccharine. And that sweetness gets cut some by the lemon juice, but that’s Meyer lemon, so you get a bit sweet there, too. Any good drink is a Wallenda balanced high on its wire.

For what such claims are worth, nigella seeds contain compounds known to be antioxidants, others that reduce inflammation, and animal studies suggest it might protect the

I do apologize for the two relatively unusual liquors required to complete the drink, but I promise both will have other uses and be welcome additions to your cabinet. I’ve praised the Italian Cynar before—way back in 2014 with the Wet Your Thistle cocktail (issue #23). And the artichoke-labeled amaro has become a beloved mixer for me, adding a pungent herbal bitterness to all sorts of drinks, from a Mezcal Martinez to Negroni variations. It’s really not that ’choky, more vegetal and earthy, comprised of a proprietary and non-publicized 13 herbs and plants.

Also a bit puzzling at first blush, the Crème de Noyaux has no cream—that milky texture comes from a higher sugar level than many liqueurs, and the crème is the one in the phrase crème de la crème—but has a wonderful 19th century French history. Distilled from apricot and cherry pits, dyed a vivid red thanks to cochineal (a scale insect, so this is not a drink for vegans, sorry, or anyone who goes and finds what the bugs look like), it’s basically liquid marzipan. Think of it as a heartier

Pseudonymous Seed Cocktail

MAKES 2

3 ounces nigella seed–infused London dry gin

1 ounce Cynar

1 ounce nigella seed simple syrup

1 ounce Meyer lemon juice

¾ ounce Crème de Noyaux

2 lemon peel strips

In a cocktail shaker full of ice, add the gin, Cynar, simple syrup, lemon juice and Crème de Noyaux. Shake well until quite cold. Strain into two pre-chilled Nick and Nora cocktail glasses. Garnish each glass with a lemon strip after expressing some of the oils over the cocktail.

NIGELLA SEED–INFUSED LONDON DRY GIN

In a mason jar, add 250 ml of gin to 1 tablespoon of nigella seeds. Close tightly and shake. Leave in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. Strain the seeds. Store infused gin in a clean jar at room temperature. (Note: You can increase the recipe using the same proportions.)

NIGELLA SEED SIMPLE SYRUP

In a small saucepan, add 1 cup water, 1 cup granulated white sugar and 1 tablespoon nigella seeds. Stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to boil over medium heat. Lower to simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Strain the seeds. Store simple syrup in a clean jar in the refrigerator.

almond-flavored cousin to Amaretto. Even better, Novato, CA, distiller Tempus Fugit has revived the product with a fine rendition, so you get to go Californian with it. Supporting Tempus Fugit is easy, given their mission is to re-create fine rare spirits that were once staples in pre-Prohibition cocktails and are currently hard or impossible to access. Nothing like getting the chance to lap down some history.

Alas, the Pseudonymous Seed Cocktail is not the most gorgeous in the glass. Think apple cider in a rose taupe hue and cloudy consistency. But it is bracingly scrumptious, one of those drinks that truly becomes a new, unified composition and not merely a hit of gin on this sip, a touch of Cynar on that. Sometimes a seed of hope is the inoculation that just the right amount of boozy bitterness brings.

George Yatchisin happily eats, drinks and writes in Santa Barbara. Recently named the Santa Barbara Poet Laureate 2025-2027, he blogs at GeorgeEats.com.

Finding Home and Hope in a Downsized Life

WORDS BY Janice Cook Knight

PHOTOS BY Rosminah Brown

Three months ago, my husband, Jim, and I packed up our lives—along with our small fox terrier, Milo, and our tuxedo cat, Bob—and moved to a new house. We left behind a home of 20 years, a sprawling space with ocean views, a massive garden and a kitchen we had lovingly remodeled.

Downsizing felt like the right decision. The old house, once perfect for raising three of our kids in our blended family, had become too much for just the two of us. Still, the transition hasn’t been easy. Some days, I catch myself calling our former house “home,” as if this new place is temporary, a rental we’ll soon leave.

But then I remind myself: We chose this. And we are fortunate. Unlike the thousands of families displaced by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, we weren’t forced to start over—we had the luxury of deciding. That shift in perspective helps.

Adjusting to Less

Our new house is smaller, simpler—fewer bedrooms, less square footage and less than half of the land. But an acre is still plenty, and the house itself is beautiful: high fir ceilings, expansive windows, soft natural light. My new office, perched upstairs with views of trees and mountains, is my favorite space.

We gave our five chickens to a farm before moving, knowing we wanted a lifestyle with less upkeep. And yet, we still arrived with too much. Piles of unpacked boxes remind us daily that we overestimated our storage. The kitchen, in particular, is overloaded—stacks of pans, jars of pastas and vinegars, an embarrassing number of jams. We’ve started embracing the challenge of living with less, keeping only what we truly need.

Landscaping a New Life

Our old garden was a lush, productive paradise—40 fruit trees, a full array of herbs and raised beds overflowing with greens. The new property, though promising, is bare by comparison. Just four fruit trees remain: a towering Giant Fuyu persimmon, a gnarled old plum, a thick-skinned lemon and a citrus tree that has yet to reveal its identity.

The life of a new garden will reveal itself with care and patience.

Visitors to the vernal pond.

We’ve begun planning: fencing to keep out the deer, new garden boxes and the planting of another dozen fruit trees— apple, tangerine, avocado, peach, blood orange. We brought over our beloved potted fig trees and ‘Ice Cream’ banana and many succulents, their roots still waiting for a permanent home.

Scattered across the property, native live oaks stand sturdy and timeless, their twisted branches reaching skyward. A few Monterey pines and a towering deodar cedar add to the mix, while small olive trees—favorite snacks of the local deer— struggle to hold their ground. There’s an unexpected Australian presence too: two striking red-barked Tristania and several delicate paper-bark trees. Near the house, slender birches frame the front windows, their leaves catching the light. And by the pond, two willows dip their branches toward the water, as if willing it to stay year-round.

Did I mention we have a pond? Or, as the realtor optimistically described it, a “vernal pond.” In winter, it fills with rainwater, attracting mallards and an ear-splitting chorus of tree frogs. By late summer, it’s an eyesore—cracked mud, buzzing with mosquitoes. We’re still debating its future. Filling it? Redirecting the runoff? Could it become a seasonal water source? For now, we watch and wait.

Making Home, One Meal at a Time

The hardest part of moving isn’t the logistics—it’s the feeling of disorientation, of being untethered from routine. After weeks of unpacking, I finally did the one thing that made me feel grounded: I made marmalade.

We are lucky—our old home’s new owners generously let us pick fruit from the trees we had planted years ago. With bags of blood oranges, Meyer lemons and store-bought pink grapefruit, I simmered a batch of my favorite, Three-Citrus Marmalade, see recipe on page 34. As the jars sealed with their familiar pop, I felt something settle inside me. I am comforted by these provisions. Here is plenty for now, and plenty for the future. This kitchen—still a work in progress, still imperfect— was mine now.

Some traditions, like new garden boxes to fill with herbs, tomatoes and beans will return in time. Others will evolve, shaped by this new space, this new rhythm.

Change is hard. But the more I cook in this house, the more I dig into our new garden, the more it feels like home.

Living simply, but well.

New life in a new garden.

Three-Citrus Marmalade

Recipe adapted from Well-Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods, by Eugenia Bone (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2009).

YIELD: APPROXIMATELY 10 HALF-PINT JARS

1½ large red grapefruits

9 medium blood oranges

5 large Meyer lemons

8 cups sugar

1 teaspoon unsalted butter

Using your hands or a paring knife, peel two blood oranges and three lemons, keeping the peels in the largest pieces possible. Scrape off most of the white pith from the peels using a paring knife or the tip of a grapefruit spoon. Remove any remaining pith from the peeled fruit, though leaving a little is fine. Slice the peels into thin matchsticks, yielding about 1¾ cups. If needed, peel an additional orange or two to reach the desired amount.

Peel the remaining fruit the same way, discarding or reserving the peels for another use. Remove any remaining pith from the fruit.

Halve the fruit along the equator and remove the seeds with a paring knife. Pulse the fruit in a food processor until it forms a chunky pulp, yielding about 8 cups. The amount may vary based on fruit size, so be sure to measure it. Use 1 cup of sugar for each cup of pulp.

In a medium saucepan, cover the slivered rinds with 5 cups of water and cook over medium heat until tender, about 25 minutes. Do not drain. Let cool, then add the pulp and refrigerate, covered, for 2 hours.

Transfer the rinds, pulp and cooking water to a large, wide, heavy pot. Add the sugar and butter (which helps reduce foaming, though some may still occur). Use a wide pot rather than a deep one for quicker, more even cooking, and ensure it’s no more than half full. A 12-quart stainless steel pot is ideal, but a wide 8-quart pot will work. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium-low for about 30 minutes, stirring often and skimming foam as needed. The marmalade must reach 220°F to jell. If using a candy thermometer, attach it to the pot for quick readings, or use an instant-read thermometer.

If you don’t have a thermometer, use the spoon test. Keep a large spoon in the freezer, then place a small amount of marmalade on it. If it jells within a few seconds and wrinkles when pushed with your finger, it’s ready. It’s best to use both the thermometer and spoon test—if the spoon test indicates doneness, trust it, even if the temperature is slightly below 220°F.

CANNING INSTRUCTIONS

In a large pot fitted with a rack, bring 10 half-pint jars to a boil (yields may vary, so include an extra jar or two just in case). Boil for 10 minutes, then remove with tongs or a jar lifter. Alternatively, you can sterilize jars in the dishwasher by running a cycle just before canning.

Place new canning lids and rings in a small pan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat, leaving lids in the hot water until needed.

While jars are still hot and dry, ladle in the marmalade, leaving ½-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims, place inner lids, and screw on bands until just tight. A canning funnel makes filling easier, and a magnetic lid lifter helps transfer lids without burning your fingers.

Place filled jars in a canning pot with a rack and add enough water to cover them by 3 inches. Cover, bring to a boil over high heat, and process for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, wait 5 minutes, then remove jars with a jar lifter. The marmalade may seem runny but will thicken as it cools.

Set jars on a kitchen towel and leave undisturbed for 6 hours or overnight. As they seal, you’ll hear a popping sound, and the lids will become concave. If needed, process a second batch, ensuring jars are always submerged under 3 inches of water.

The marmalade will keep for about a year, though it may darken slightly over time. Refrigerate after opening. If a lid doesn’t seal (remains convex), store that jar in the fridge and use it first.

Janice Cook Knight is an award-winning writer and cooking teacher based in Santa Barbara. Author of the Follow Your Heart Cookbooks, she’s worked as a restaurant chef, food coach, recipe tester for Bon Appetit Magazine, and as a lecturer on Julia Child for the Road Scholar program. She moved recently and is in the process of creating a new edible garden with her husband, Jim.

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CookingUp theFuture

Chef Charlie Fredericks and the Santa Barbara City College School of Culinary Arts

WORDS BY Jennifer LeMay

PHOTOS BY Rob Bilson and Rosminah Brown

Grilled fig, poached pear, black walnut salad with Point Reyes blue cheese and watercress.

When I met up with Charlie Fredericks, the renowned Santa Barbara chef and longtime instructor in the School of Culinary Arts and Hotel Management Program at Santa Barbara City College, it was obvious why so many of his students speak fondly of him, even long after they’ve graduated. He’s smart, passionate about cooking, kind and generous. And he has a contagious laugh.

With the new semester just under way, I asked Charlie how things are going with his classes at SBCC, and what he’s looking forward to in the weeks ahead. I was also curious about the students—what they’re excited about, and how the program prepares them for a culinary career.

“Many students are excited about cooking and learning new skills, and some are gaining experience that will help them figure out what they want, or do not want, to do,” Charlie said. “That’s the beauty of community college, and it’s so important.”

He added that students get the opportunity to explore and learn, with encouragement from instructors and peers, in a setting that prepares them for being in a professional kitchen. Students can choose the culinary or hospitality track and pursue certificates of achievement or an associate degree. Many graduates stay in the area and work at local restaurants, bakeries and hotels.

Chef Charlie at the pass through.

Corn crisp and bluefin tuna with lime, cilantro, ruby grapefruit and Thai basil.

Culinary student Kellmer McFarling prepares the corn crisp and bluefin tuna appetizer.

“Our community is filled with graduates from this program,” Charlie said. Some go on to work at award-winning venues such as San Ysidro Ranch; Caruso’s at Rosewood Miramar Beach; and Bouchon, the celebrated Santa Barbara restaurant founded in the late 1990s by Charlie and fellow restaurateur Mitchell Sjerven, who is also an instructor in the Culinary Program.

“There are some incredible success stories,” Charlie added. He also mentioned that a lot of students are eager to put their skills to use as soon as possible. More avenues beyond brick-and-mortar are open now, and some graduates start their own private catering or small food production businesses. He always encourages students to get as much real-world professional work experience as they can during their careers, as this will help them grow, build a resume and pursue new opportunities.

Charlie and his wife, Jen, have been in the restaurant business for many years, and first met

when they both attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Charlie is a native of Santa Barbara and a Santa Barbara High School graduate. He worked at iconic restaurants right out of high school—Downey’s and Michael’s Waterside— and came to realize he loved the culinary world and would make a career out of it. After culinary school, which included Charlie’s six-month externship at the San Ysidro Ranch, he and Jen managed a restaurant in the Caribbean, Morgan’s Mango, then moved back to New York for a while before heading west to work at Auberge Du Soleil, a wine country resort in Napa. Charlie said it was a dream job for a chef—creating tasting menus—and a great fit for Jen, who was growing her expertise in wine and hospitality.

When Santa Barbara beckoned, Charlie and Jen set out to start their new chapter here during an especially exciting time to be in wine and food. The wine industry was taking off, and many prominent

Petit mixed berry layer cake and berry coulis by culinary student Grace Parkey.

Team Charlie and Jen Fredericks.

winemakers and chefs were just getting started. Jen worked at Santa Barbara Winery, creating wine-pairing menus, and Charlie started teaching at SBCC in 2004 while he was still at Bouchon.

More recently, Jen and Charlie helped reopen and revitalize the historic Dutch Garden restaurant, which had closed during the pandemic. The reopening was eagerly anticipated and a resounding success. The popular spot is back and bustling, serving classic German fare in a welcoming atmosphere. After a few fun and rewarding years, the duo decided to step away and leave it in the good hands of their business partner.

Charlie still loves teaching, which may have something to do with the fact that he’s always learning. When he and Jen travel, their preparations include scoping out all the farms and food artisans in the places they plan to visit.

“I’ll be learning about food for the rest of my life,” he said. “As in any creative field, your work can never be just about the paycheck.” He always looks forward to seeing what students come up with when planning their menus for the advanced

“I’m proud to be part of a community that makes it possible for anyone to get a post-secondary education. It gives people a choice, and that’s something special.”

Chef Charlie examines the plating before service.

Maître d' Monica de Alba and Chef Charlie Fredericks. Deconstucted cheesecake with pistachios, white chocolate and figs.

restaurant and culinary course, helping them take their dishes from good to great—“something that makes people say ‘Wow!’”

Students get invaluable hands-on experience planning, preparing and serving a four-course menu, including wine pairings, to the public every Thursday and Friday evening throughout the semester in the John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room on campus. Reservations book up fast. Charlie said that these experiences can be the spark that leads to a culinary career, when parents and friends come in to dine and are amazed by a dish a student has created.

“We give people the skills to succeed in a professional environment,” Charlie said. “We’re teaching technical skills with an understanding of the changing marketplace.” The program has changed over the years and gives students more flexibility and program completion options. Students must first learn fundamentals, including sanitation and safety, and can then select from a myriad of courses, including baking, charcuterie and food preservation.

Charlie stressed the importance of hands-on work experience, and the program is recognized for providing training in a realistic work environment. “The newly renovated kitchen on campus is amazing,” Charlie said. “Enrollment is up, and there’s a greater variety of students, including those who come back to learn after pursuing careers in other fields.”

Students who’ve recently graduated from a local high school can pursue their culinary dreams, or any area of study, full-time for up to two years with all fees, books and supplies covered. “The SBCC Promise is incredible,” Charlie said, referring to the SBCC Foundation program that provides this opportunity. “I’m proud to be part of a community that makes it possible for anyone to get a post-secondary education. It gives people a choice, and that’s something special.”

Charlie is part of a small but mighty team, and they continually add new lessons, such as artisan bread making. He referred to a couple of his colleagues who walked by, Roberto Carrillo Lopez and Monica de Alba, as “stars of the show.” They keep everything running smoothly and share his passion for learning, growing and sharing their talents with students. It’s inspiring, and everyone is invited to be part of the experience at a School of Culinary Arts Dinner Service. I highly recommend it!

A Recipe for Success

When culinary and hospitality students need hands-on experience in their curriculum, Santa Barbara City College offers a learning space that looks, and operates, like a fine dining establishment.

The John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room, or GDR, at Santa Barbara City College is first and foremost an instructional lab. Under the supportive direction of Chef Charlie Fredericks and Maître d’ Monica de Alba, the advanced culinary students are here to learn all aspects of gourmet food preparation and service. They develop their own dishes, collectively create the semester’s menu, then learn it, practice it and, upon mastering their dishes, teach it to their classmates.

The menu is prix fixe: four courses paired with wine for $50 plus tax and a gratuity. The gratuity goes into a collective pot that is used to fund an end-of-year student excursion to a restaurant, such as Bouchon in downtown Santa Barbara or the Stonehouse in Montecito. At the GDR the diner becomes part of the experience. Guests are encouraged to be curious, ask questions and provide feedback. Service is just getting started again and there is much to look forward to.

The Gourmet Dining Room operates on Thursdays and Fridays throughout the spring semester, for tables of four or fewer, starting at 5:30 pm. Reservations required. Email gdr@pipeline.sbcc.edu to check on availability or join the waitlist.

Information for reservations and the menu for the semester are available at www.sbcc.edu/dining/gourmet. php

—Edible Santa Barbara

Jennifer LeMay loves shopping at our bountiful farmers market and writing about local food and farms. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring our region’s trails and photographing birds.

The John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room.

Planting Seeds

Farming and Feeding at Midland School in Los Olivos

WORDS BY Jamie Edlin

PHOTOS BY Stephen Lewis

Seeds of optimism. Students preparing the next crop of beans for the gardens at Midland.

Driving onto the Midland School campus off Figueroa Mountain Road in Los Olivos on a sunny, spring-like morning makes me smile. Seeing the rustic cabins scattered across the campus in the shadow of Grass Mountain makes me think of summer camp. Another smile. Entering Stillman Dining Hall with the welcoming sweet scents of something baking makes me smile and, well, makes me hungry.

I’m greeted by Kitchen Manager Gloria Murillo. She leads me to a table past a group of students making dumplings for next week’s Lunar New Year celebration. A bowl of roasted butternut squash with strands of baby kale and another of roasted red beets sit at the center of the table where Murillo and I are seated. The squash is nutty and buttery, and the beets taste as sweet as candy. Murillo promises me that both dishes are simply roasted with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Perhaps the flavors are so remarkable because the vegetables are grown on Midland’s 10-acre certified organic farm just down the path from the dining hall. In the 19 years that Murillo has choreographed Midland’s meals, she hasn’t had to go any farther than the campus farm for produce. Vegetables, fruit and flowers have all been within easy reach.

Everything about Midland makes me smile. This co-ed college preparatory boarding school is unlike any other I know. While students study the usual high school courses, Midland does one better in offering an experiential hands-on learning environment. Along with a working ranch, the 2,800-acre property boasts more than 35 miles of backcountry trails for hiking, climbing, camping, biking and horseback riding. Some of the students are even allowed to bring their dogs from home, a chicken or two, maybe a fish and an occasional parakeet to live with them on campus.

After all, the campus belongs to the students—all 71 of them, half girls, half boys—and they’re all responsible for maintaining their campus. They chop wood to fuel the stoves that heat their cabins. They feed pigs, groom horses, herd cattle, repair fences, collect eggs and weed gardens. They grow fruits and vegetables that nourish the community, where students and faculty dine together at communal tables, and handle both the service and cleanup. It all matters.

Farm Manager and Educator Michael Sibalski came to the Santa Ynez Valley and specifically to Midland in 2021. With a diverse background from leading mountaineering expeditions to working with young people in a wilderness therapy program, he was ready for his next chapter.

“Falling into the rhythm of life at a boarding school was new to me,” says Sibalski as we settle at a picnic table on the edge of the farm, a chorus of black birds punctuating every word of our conversation. “Taking over management of Midland’s farm property and having to develop an educational curriculum was initially a real challenge in trying to meet the needs of both the school and the students. But it quickly became clear that teach-

ing kids to grow something, to understand the successes and the struggles of farming and the value of work, teaches them some very critical life skills, such as leadership, problem solving and communications.

“And, of course, it’s important that they know where their foods come from and how they’re connected to the ecosystems, how they own the land and therefore need to respect it.”

Farm Internship at Midland is a pass/fail course offered to students as one of their electives every semester after freshman year. The school feels strongly that it’s important that kids know their food sources and understand what it takes to get from seed to table. It’s also a perfect way for students to connect with each other and interact with nature in a safe and constructive setting. Working the farm for at least one semester is a requirement for graduation at Midland.

At the time of my visit, there are 14 students divided into two sections involved in Farm Internship. Each section is given their own plot in one of the fields, typically about 1,200 feet of growing space. They get to choose their crops—a mix of produce and/or flowers—based on what will grow best at the particular time of the year. Under Sibalski’s supervision, the students order seeds and create a crop plan. The seeds are nurtured and grown in a greenhouse until the plants are ready to be transplanted in the fields. The day-to-day farming chores are all in the students’ hands, including tractor work, soil analysis, irrigation, composting, pest management, weeding, pruning, crop cultivation…and eventually harvesting the crops that they’ve so diligently grown.

Michael Sibalski, farm manager and educator.

“We also take a pause from farm work to talk about leadership skills,” explains Sibalski. “Farming happens in cycles—seasons and growth cycles. The more a student is involved with the different cycles, the more they’re aware of the various patterns of a plant’s growth. Students are allowed to take Farm Internship for as many semesters as they choose following their freshman year. Those who stay with the course move beyond the basics and are then able to step into leadership roles, mentoring their peers while deepening their own sense of farming.

“In fact, some of my students choose to focus specifically on developing their leadership skills. In those cases, I meet with each one of them several times during the semester to see how they’re feeling about their growth as leaders—about their productivity on the farm and in leading their fellow students.”

Sibalski called on a handful of his students to meet with me, most of them in their junior year at Midland and all of them involved in Farm Internship. We gather around a table outside the dining hall. A rooster is crowing in the background lest we forget we’re in the midst of farmland.

“Farming opened my eyes to certain realities,” says Hayden, a student who plans to study agricultural science after graduation. “I had no interest in farming when I first came to Midland, but that changed. Farming has inspired me in so many ways. One of our projects as part of the internship is to understand how our farming goes beyond Midland, how it affects so many people and so many issues all over the world, how our little community has the potential to connect with so many other communities.”

and a just-harvested bunch of carrots.

In fact, Midland’s students grow enough produce to feed the school and then some. As Sibalski puts it, growing enough means you always have extra. That lesson isn’t lost on the students. They get it, that they’ve put in a lot of work to create a productive farm that has the ability to feed the community that surrounds them.

This past year, Midland donated more than two tons of food to Veggie Rescue, a Santa Barbara County–based nonprofit that collects surplus produce from farms and, in doing so, delivers food to those who need it while also eliminating waste.

The students fill me with stories about how gratifying it is to be able to donate produce to Veggie Rescue and to those suffering from food insecurities, about Thanksgiving at Midland and how they’re able to share their abundance with those less fortunate.

Thanksgiving is a time when students get together on campus with their families, faculty and alumni to create a three-day event that’s largely about farming and food. In the weeks leading to Thanksgiving, students put in extra hours to ready the produce that will feed their extended Midland family over the holiday. Faculty and alumni join Murillo and her team in the kitchen to put the meal together. Families of students arrive with desserts to share with everyone. Two days after Thanksgiving, students and their visiting families take part in

Mateo

Midland School.

“Experiential Saturday,” continuing the harvest and packing crops for Veggie Rescue, which delivers the food to those in need. “Working on the farm, we’re feeding ourselves and, at the same time, we’re doing something meaningful in giving back to the community with the extra food we’re growing,” exclaims Mateo.

“That we have a farm makes Midland unique in many ways. Like in the spring, we’ll have a surplus of strawberries. At a time when everyone is stressing about their final exams, we’re told to go out in the field, eat some strawberries and get some sugar in our systems. What other school is like that? What other school has strawberries in their backyard?”

Mateo is farming broccoli and cornflowers this semester. Another student, Julissa, is growing potatoes, as well as Sunset zinnias, purple moonflowers and ‘Classic Magic’ cornflowers. She came to Midland because of its outstanding horse program and ranch-related activities. She signed up for the Farm Internship because she figured it would be a nice break from academics.

“I absolutely fell in love with farming—everything from pruning the grapevines to planting and picking vegetables and learning about soil science,” says Julissa. “But my favorite job is caring for the chickens. I was able to bring my two chickens from home to Midland. They’re at the coop. I can hear them when I’m working in the fields. I’m really lucky because my job now is to tend to the chickens, feed them, clean their coop, make sure they’re happy and collect their eggs for the kitchen.”

One of the students tells me about how disappointing it was when his carefully cultivated pea plants produced nothing. He tried again with a little more success and one more time resulting in a very rewarding and tasty crop of peas. Failure and success are all part of the process of farming, he reminds me.

Another student chimes in that the best part of Farm Internship is being able to eat while she works. Carrots being her favorite.

Mia shares that it’s the quiet and calm that most attracts her to the farm because she finds that plants are simply not as complicated as humans. And that’s a welcome respite during these often-frenetic teen years.

As I walk back to the dining hall with Sibalski so that I can pick up my takeouts of roasted squash and beets, Murillo is setting up for lunch. Today’s menu features quiche with tomatoes and peppers and, as always, a bountiful salad bar. The quiche is made with eggs from Julissa’s hens. The tomatoes and peppers were harvested from the farm in late summer, frozen and thawed for meals throughout the winter months, including the nearly 25 pounds of salsa the kitchen goes through every week. And the salad ingredients are, of course, fresh from the farm today.

Murillo hands me a copy of her cookbook, Flavors of Midland. Her introduction reads, “Transforming fresh food into delectable dishes makes me happy. My job is my good fortune. My gratitude is reflected back to me as I observe people’s pleasure eating the meals I cook.”

She invites me to stay for lunch. I accept. That makes me happy, too.

“It’s unlikely these kids are going to be farmers when they’re out of school,” says Sibalski when asked about his vision for the farm program. “I just hope that there’s some bit of understanding that students get from this farming experience. At the very least, that they care about the world in a slightly different way. We need to grow food, because we need to eat. That’s reality. But we need to balance our needs and be thoughtful about how we go about realizing them.

“I would love to see the students eventually take over the farm. I’ll simply be their guardrail. That will indicate to me that there’s enough experience and knowledge within the student body to do what we have to do to to grow the food that we need to grow. More than that, I want the students to feel empowered. I want them to feel that they have some ownership over this place.”

My impression after spending a couple of days at Midland with Sibalski and his students is that the farm program has clearly enriched these young fertile minds. As he has said, most students won’t go into farming, but the lessons they learn will stay with them. And that leaves me with a smile.

Jamie Edlin writes Chew on This, profiling local farmers, ranchers, fisher people and other growers and gatherers of the foods we eat. She also heads Hollywood & Wine, a marketing agency geared to the wine and hospitality industries. She resides in Santa Ynez with her husband, two dogs and a cat along with a micro farm and a well-used kitchen.

A new crop of peas and pea tendrils.

Mother Dough bagels with seasonal toppings.

THE GERM OF AN IDEA

Flour, Water, Salt and a Blooming Good Time!

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY Pascale Beale

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight,” said M.F.K. Fisher. That smell is intoxicating. My children can attest to my near obsession with it.

“It’s that smell!” I once cried triumphantly to my young children, rushing them up the narrow, cobbled Provencal street towards a little boulangerie. The tantalizing, yeasty aroma of fresh bread infused the warm summer air, drifting in tantalizing currents, beckoning passersby into the spotless bakery.

“Can you smell it?” I asked as we stepped up into the shop. I stood, eyes closed, inhaling deeply. The children thought I’d gone slightly mad. “Mum, mum, are you OK?” asked my daughter. Given the quizzical look on the owner’s face, I’m sure she was asking herself the same question.

“Madame?” she asked, pointing towards the baguette- and pain au levain–filled shelves. I had momentarily traveled back at warp speed (memories do that to you), back to one of my earliest childhood memories. The smell of freshly baked bread is imprinted in my very being like an olfactory time stamp.

I’m perhaps 3 or 4; I’m holding someone’s hand—my mother’s or grandmother’s—standing in a bakery; it’s a definitive image, albeit one with the most tantalizing, seductive scent. I regained my composure and bought bread.

“You’ll remember this moment,” I told my children as we walked away. They were skeptical, as only children can be.

So, what is it about bread that is just so seductive? Why do so many artisan bread makers go into trance-like reveries as they wax poetic about all things bread? How is it that simple grain can be so transformative? Bill Buford, the American writer and author of Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking, has the most apropos explanation in his video filming Yves Richard, a renowned artisan bread maker in Lyon:

“Is wheat the most poetic ingredient on earth?” he asks. “Grind up any other grain, add water; you get porridge. Grind up wheat, add water; metamorphosis!” he enthuses, then adds, “It becomes stretchy, push it, pull it, it’s sticky, glutens are forming. The Chinese call it the muscle of flour…” His fervor for bread matches the intensity with which Yves bakes. I’m mesmerized every time I watch the video. There’s so much passion!

I have come to understand this passion. Fifteen or so years ago, I unexpectedly embarked on a sourdough adventure. I had baked bread before but never sourdough. I became slightly obsessed after an informative hands-on tutorial from my friend John, whose sourdough bread and pizzas are legendary. After we baked together, he gave me THE most precious gift—a jar with some of his decades-old starter. This was a gift of time, of history, and the transmission of know-how from the creative hands of one person, one family, to another. It is hard for me to describe how life-transforming this jar filled with two simple ingredients—flour and water—has been!

Chad Robertson, master baker and owner of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, spoke about the unique chemistry of those ingredients in a video about bread baking: “Bread, to me, is a mixture of flour and water that is transformed into something through the course of fermentation that transcends the simplicity of those basic ingredients.”

Bakers I’ve spoken with talk about bread as an extension of themselves, the place they reside, and creating something that has soul. Part of the charm and seduction of bread making is that you start with a blank canvas each day, working with and adjusting to the elements around you, such as the ambient temperature and humidity that affect every loaf you make. For me, making bread is grounding, nurturing, calming and deeply, deeply satisfying. There is, for instance, a magical moment when you add the salt, which transforms the shaggy, sticky mixture into a smooth, elastic dough. This alchemy takes place in less than 30 seconds and this metamorphosis makes me smile every time.

Once I started baking, I couldn’t stop myself. I baked dozens and dozens of loaves on a weekly basis, giving most of it to friends to get their feedback. Is the crumb airy enough? What is the flavor like? Is the crust crunchy? Too hard? Too soft? After months of experimentation, successes and failures, doughs that failed to rise, doughs that were over-proofed, and testing different flours and fillings, I felt I had finally nailed the technique and started teaching other people how to make sourdough.

To this day, this is one of my favorite classes to teach. It is not just satisfying for me, but as I watch each participant ooh and ahh as the seductive aroma of baking bread fills the kitchen and their faces light up when the first loaves are pulled from the oven, I know that it is satisfying for them, too. Better yet, when students send me photos of the bread they have baked at home, I am chuffed to bits that their baking journey has bloomed.

Just as I had been given a starter when I first embarked on my sourdough journey, I give each participant a jar of my starter to take home at the end of every workshop. That starter contains traces of the past 15 years in my kitchen and that of the starter it was nurtured from.

This lively, microbial, organic history has been passed on to everyone who has shared the bread and continued the breadmaking tradition here in Santa Barbara and now in towns across the country, in 15 states by my last count, as its custodians have traveled home. I treasure the sense of continuity that blooms from each gram of the Mothership. Yes, I named my starter. People do! There’s even a Reddit discussion about starter names, underscoring just how attached people are to theirs, from the comical Herculyeast to the musical Doughlene.

Barnaby Draper at Santa Barbara Hives named his Madre Mia. “Mother,” in one form or another, is prevalent among bakers, no doubt cultivated by the burgeoning nature of the product starters produce. Barnaby is one of the people who, after taking the bread workshop, was bitten by the sourdough bug to such an extent that he went on to launch his own sourdough menu, including an excellent charcoal sourdough bread and pizzas in his honey-filled shop in Carpinteria.

Jennifer Gonzales-Neely, co-owner and baker at Mother Dough Bagels, also started part of her sourdough journey in my kitchen. After months and months of perfecting her bagel recipe, she launched her business to wild acclaim, with people lining up for hours to sample her sourdough bagels. Her starter, by the way, is called Rocky. I was (and still am) tickled pink; all this from a jar of flour and water! As famed Parisian baker Lionel Poilane said, “Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It’s no coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.”

After numerous conversations with bread bakers worldwide, I concluded that just the aroma (let alone the taste) of freshly baked bread elicits an almost Pavlovian response, one that is almost universally linked to a cherished childhood memory. My daughter proved that point. Years after I had pulled her

reluctantly into that little boulangerie, she came rushing into the kitchen one Sunday morning, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, shouting excitedly, “Mum, it’s THAT smell!”

I laughed as we reminisced about our travels, the different breads we had tasted, and our favorite bakeries. The conversation made us hungry. “What’s for breakfast?” she asked. “The bread has to cool, and then I’m making poached eggs for brunch,” I replied, eternally grateful for that transformative gift of flour and water long ago.

RECIPE

Bagels with Tomatoes and Herbs

Bagels are a lovely addition to any brunch menu. I like to serve mine with savory and sweet toppings to go along with whipped cream cheese. Classic toppings such as smoked salmon are delicious, but I also love a mix of cherry tomatoes and freshly chopped herbs which pair beautifully with the richness of the cream cheese. In the summer I’ll use slices of juicy heirloom tomatoes and figs too.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

4 toasted bagels of your choice

Whipped cream cheese with tobiko roe (optional)

FOR THE TOMATO TOPPING:

16 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped basil leaves

1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Pinch of coarse sea salt

5–6 grinds of black pepper

Combine all the topping ingredients in a small bowl. Spoon on top of a cream cheese–covered bagel.

FOR THE SWEET TOPPING:

4 toasted bagels of your choice

Whipped cream cheese

Stone fruit preserves or jam

Spread t he toasted bagel with cream cheese and top with large spoonfuls of your favorite jam or preserves.

Wild Mushroom Crostini Salad

My long-time friends Frederic and Fatos owned one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. The setting was hip and romantic, a mix of jazz bands played on a weekly basis, serenading guests to Django Reinhardt riffs and bluesy vibes. It was the place where you’d pop in for a savory nibble at the bar, or lounge over a long Mediterranean-styled meal on the terrace. It was my bistro du coin. One of my favorite items on the appetizer menu was a deceptively named dish, a single Mushroom Toast. The toast in question was piled high with a giant mound of shaved mushrooms that had been mixed with truffles and some grated cheese. It was so succulently decadent. This salad is a little tribute to that dish, and the lovely times spent with everyone at The Little Door.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

FOR THE SALAD:

7 ounces mixed salad greens

FOR THE VINAIGRETTE:

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or Champagne vinegar

Pinch of coarse sea salt

8–10 grinds of black pepper

FOR THE CROSTINI:

2 ounces butter

Olive oil

Cover a large platter or shallow bowl with the salad greens.

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients to form an emulsion. Set aside.

2 pounds wild mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

3 tablespoons crème fraiche

3 ounces grated Manchego or Gruyere cheese

16 thin slices baguette, toasted

In a large skillet placed over medium heat, melt the butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil until the butter foams. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until golden brown, about 3–4 minutes, stirring frequently. Depending on the size of your skillet, you may have to do this in batches, as you do not want to overcrowd the mushrooms in the pan. If necessary, add a little more olive oil to the second batch if the mushrooms seem too dry.

Place the cooked mushrooms, chives, crème fraiche and two-thirds of the cheese into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Spoon the mixture onto the toasted baguette slices to make the crostini.

Pour the vinaigrette over the salad greens. Place the prepared crostini on top of the greens and top with the remaining grated cheese. Serve while the crostini are still warm.

Poached

Eggs on Fava Bean Toast with Asparagus and Smoked Salmon

A poached egg on toast is probably my favorite breakfast. My mum would make them for Sunday breakfasts before we headed out for long walks across Hampstead Heath in London. My brother and I have carried on the poached egg tradition, each with our own flair. He makes a fantastic eggs Benedict, while I like to serve them with all sorts of herb and vegetable pestos. In this version, I’ve added al dente asparagus and some smoked salmon for a special breakfast or brunch-worthy treat.

MAKES 1 SERVING

2 tablespoons fava bean pâté (see recipe on right)

1 slice of toasted sourdough or bread of your choice

1 slice smoked salmon

1 teaspoon olive oil

6–8 asparagus spears, trimmed and cut into 3-inch-long pieces

Coarse sea salt

Black pepper

1 or 2 eggs

1 teaspoon finely chopped chives

1 tablespoon microgreens

Slat her the fava pâté on the toast. Lay the salmon over the pâté. Cut the toast in 2 if serving 2 eggs.

Heat the olive oil in a small skillet placed over medium heat. Sauté the asparagus with a pinch of salt and 2–3 grinds of pepper for 3–4 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Bring a shallow skillet or small pan of water to barely a simmer. The water should be at least 1 inch deep and just shimmering. Carefully crack the egg on the edge of the pan and gently slip the egg into the water. Use a slotted spoon to gently move the egg around the pan to ensure it doesn’t adhere to the bottom. Cook the egg for 3 minutes for a firm white and runny yolk. Carefully remove it using a slotted spoon.

Place the egg(s) on the salmon. Scatter the asparagus over and around the toast. Sprinkle the chives and microgreens on top. Dust with a pinch of salt and 2–3 grinds of black pepper. Serve immediately.

Fava Bean Pâté

MAKES APPROXIMATELY 1 CUP

2 cups peeled fava beans

⅓ cup finely chopped chives

¼ cup finely chopped green onions

Zest of 1 lemon

⅓ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice

½ teaspoon salt

10 grinds of black pepper

Purée t he fava beans in a food processor fitted with a metal blade for 2 minutes to create a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides before adding the chives, green onions and lemon zest. Blitz for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides again. Then, with the motor running, pour in the olive oil and lemon juice and pulse until just combined. Season with the salt and pepper. Pack the pâté into mason jars. Keep refrigerated. It will last for 7–10 days.

Chef, teacher and food writer, Pascale Beale, owner of Pascale’s Kitchen, grew up in an eccentric European family who cherish food, wine and the arts. She is the author of 10 Mediterranean-style cookbooks, including the best sellers Salade and Salade II. Her food memoir, 9’ x 12’: Adventures in a Small Kitchen, a multi-media book, is hosted on Substack. Her latest cookbook is Flavour: Savouring the Seasons. Visit her epicurean website, PascalesKitchen.com.

Shelby Wild and the Route One Farmers Market

Optimism for a Small Market with Big Potential in Lompoc

by Laurie Jervis

Imagine gathering weekly with friends and neighbors in the Sunday morning sun. There’s a common thread; most guests are there to buy farm-fresh produce, baked goods or a healthy juice. A curly-haired woman greets repeat and new visitors, answering questions and pointing the way to specific vendors.

That friendly woman is Shelby Wild, a native of the Lompoc Valley, and the founder and executive director of the Route One Farmers Market, held weekly in Vandenberg Village. Her passion is supporting the Central Coast farmers who farm healthy food, and, in turn, keeping fruits and vegetables easily accessible for local residents.

“We want local food to be available seven days a week,” Wild said. Even in the face of rising costs for the most basic of foods, she’s optimistic about getting area residents to eat healthy whenever possible.

In 2017, the Lompoc Valley Community Health Organization (LVCHO), a nonprofit dedicated to boosting community

health, hired Wild to support its food-access program. “I was the grant facilitator.”

When the Village Farmers Market suddenly closed in June 2018, Wild applied anew for required permits, brought back vendors and debuted the Route One Farmers Market in May 2019. “No other nonprofit wanted to step up and take it over,” she recalled.

Route One was a team effort between the Healthy Lompoc Coalition, LVCHO, the HEAL Advisory Cabinet, the Public Health Department’s Nutrition Obesity Prevention Program, the Santa Barbara Foundation and various advocates across the Lompoc Valley.

Like its predecessor, Route One market is also held on Sundays but in a new location: in the parking lot of the Vandenberg Village Community Services District.

When Route One’s first anniversary rolled around in May 2020, the Covid pandemic was in its third month. Wild arranged curbside pickup for masked customers in search of fresh produce but hesitant to leave their vehicles.

ROB B LSON

Fresh fruit from Lompoc.

Shelby Wild, founder and executive director.

ROB B LSON

“Grow it here; keep it here; eat it here.”

Today, the nearly 6-year-old Route One is the only farmers market between San Luis Obispo and Solvang to offer both CalFresh EBT and Market Match. The latter enables consumers who spend $10 at the market to double their dollars and earn an additional $10.

Route One also owns a Mobile Market truck—the only such vehicle to operate in the Tri-County region; similar mobile trucks are operated in South Los Angeles and in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, but most are foodbank-based and not managed by a nonprofit such as Route One, she explained.

In order to provide hyper-local, fresh produce to local consumers, “we want to pay our vendors and not ask them to donate.” Wild, who remains vigilant toward keeping healthy food convenient, said, “We strive to set the groundwork for real systems change, not just temporary solutions.”

The weekly market, she emphasized, has “never not been the right thing to do. Customers routinely thank me for being here, and people are super positive.”

The sheer potential for continued success “is a big part of what keeps me going.”

And Route One is a boon for the Lompoc Valley, Wild said. “Lompoc gets overlooked so often or only looked at for negative things. The need is still very present.”

Wild is frustrated that a huge percentage of produce grown in Santa Barbara County—and California—gets delivered to consumers around the world instead of those in our backyard. “We ship everything we grow to other states and other countries.”

Her motto: “Grow it here; keep it here; eat it here.”

More than a year ago, Wild was featured on the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, part of the stories featured by the Strong Towns movement. The podcast features regular people who have stepped up to help make their communities more economically resilient. “Systems change was my focus during that podcast,” she recalled.

Every Sunday, Route One hosts seven farmers. In addition, seven non-agriculture vendors (purveyors of juice, baked goods, flowers or spices) participate, and the market has 10 crafters who sell their wares on alternate weeks, Wild said. In other words, every week includes 14 vendors.

“We stay small because we are between the South Coast, which hosts eight markets each week, and San Luis Obispo,” she said.

Route One’s vendors participate for one of two reasons: The smallest ones come with just one truck and just one employee or owner. A larger vendor likely owns multiple trucks and has enough staff to work several different markets on the same day. For example, Rocking Chair Farms participates in four different markets every Sunday, Wild said.

“Little markets count, too, as we are a platform for smaller vendors who cannot get into a larger market.”

Wild, 45, lives in Vandenberg Village with her husband, Tom Brown, and their two daughters, Leyna Brown, 19, and Maizy Brown, 16.

But for her 15-hour-per-week intern who helps staff the market and with administrative tasks, Wild is a one-woman show. She voices gratitude for the persistent and vocal support from weekly visitors to the market, especially in the face of uncertain federal funding.

“Our customers keep telling me Route One is like a return to community, a place where we check on our neighbors and take stock.” And return to our roots with seeds of optimism for the future.

RESOURCES

The market is held on Sundays 10am–2pm at 3745 Constellation Rd, Vandenberg Village. Visit www.RouteOneFarmersMarket.org for more information.

Laurie Jervis, a resident of Santa Barbara County since 1989, is a writer, editor and at-large member of the Route One Farmers Market. She can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com.

at the Vandenberg Village Community Services District.

edible

SANTABARBARA & WINE COUNTRY

SUPPORT LOCAL GUIDE

Now more than ever, it’s important to seek out and support local businesses. Here is our guide of the current advertisers that we fully support and hope you will, too. Visit the websites to get more information about what they offer and any updated hours of operation.

Food & Restaurants

Alessio Artisanal Gelato

1623 Mission Dr., Suite A, Solvang www.ViaGelateria.com

Alessio Artisanal Gelato is a family-owned and -operated gelato shop using locally sourced ingredients to bring authentic Italian gelato to the Santa Ynez Valley. Wholesome, real ingredients. Featuring new flavors weekly. Located in the Parc Place shopping arcade with convenient parking.

Open Wed–Sun noon–6pm.

Bob’s Well Bread

550 Bell St., Los Alamos, CA 805 344-3000

2249 Baseline Ave., Ballard, CA 805 691-9549

www.BobsWellBread.com

Now in two locations with convenient online ordering, Bob’s makes bread the old-fashioned way: handcrafted in small batches with the finest ingredients and baked to perfection in a custombuilt stone-deck oven. Drop in to taste what visitors and journalists are raving about as “worth the drive” —signature Pain au Levain, award winning artisanal breads, croissants and specialty pastries. All-day menu of made-to-order breakfast, lunch and weekly special dishes. Indoor-outdoor picturesque café. Los Alamos: Thu–Mon 7am–4pm. Ballard: Thu–Mon 8am–4pm. Café closes at 3pm. Closed Tue and Wed.

Chamberlin Beef

www.ChamberlinBeef.com

For quality grassfed beef raised entirely in the Santa Ynez Valley, Chamberlin Beef offers dry-aged Black Angus shares, raised with care on their 8,000 acre historic ranch. Delivered direct from ranch to table, each share reflects a commitment to sustainable practices. Plan for the future, and reserve your share this spring for summer pick-up.

Chocolate Maya

15 W. Gutierrez St., Santa Barbara 805 965-5956

www.ChocolateMaya.com

Chocolate Maya handmade chocolate confections: a variety of velvety truffles and chocolate-dipped temptations that are made from the highest-quality chocolate (Valrhona, Felchlin, Conexion, including small bean-to-bar artisans couverture) fresh local ingredients and exotic findings from their travels overseas. Mon–Tue and Thu–Sat noon–5pm, Sun noon–4pm. Closed on Wednesday.

Full of Life Flatbread

225 Bell St. Los Alamos, CA 805 344-4400

www.FullofLifeFoods.com

Chefs Clark Staub and Jilliana Davie create innovative dishes based on what is grown locally and in season. The menu changes weekly, offering inspired flatbreads and regional specialities from a wood-fried oven. Guests can choose to dine indoors or outdoors. Takeout and curbside pickup is also available.

Open Thu 4–8pm, Fri 4–9pm, Sat noon–9pm, Sun noon–8pm. Closed Mon–Wed.

New Frontiers Natural Marketplace

1984 Old Mission Dr., Solvang 805 693-1746

www.NewFrontiersmarket.com

New Frontiers is in the business of providing naturally delicious foods of the freshest and highest quality, as well as a full array of other choices for healthy living. Visit their website for menus, special savings and coupons. Open daily 7am–8pm.

Olive Hill Farm

2901 Grand Ave., Los Olivos

805 693-0700

www.OliveHillFarm.com

Specializing in local olive oils, flavored oils and balsamic vinegars as well as many locally produced food products. Olive oil and vinegar tastings with fresh local bread available. Open Thu–Mon 11am–5pm.

Plow to Porch

805 895-7171

www.PlowToPorch.com

Plow to Porch Organics is a local organic/pesticidefree produce and grocery delivery service to

members who subscribe. They simplify the purchase of local fresh organic produce and other organic, local foods in order to inspire good nutrition, support local farmers, protect the environment and make eating healthy food fun! Subscriptions start at $28.

Santa Barbara Culinary Experience

https://sbce.events

The Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, in partnership with The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, is an annual celebration of all things food and drink in Santa Barbara County. In addition to the signature week-long series of events held this Spring May 10–18, the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience hosts food and drink centered pop-ups throughout the year.

Wine & Beer

Au Bon Climat

813 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara 805 963-7999

www.AuBonClimat.com

The tasting room and the Jim Clendenen Wine Library are known for world-class Chardonnays and Pinots, yet other varietals are available. Jim Clendenen made wines of vision and character for over 30 years. Amazing lineup of current releases and library wines on hand. Tasting room open Mon–Fri noon–6pm, Sat and Sun 11am–6pm. Outdoor wine tasting daily. Reservations recommended.

Buttonwood Farm & Vineyard

1500 Alamo Pintado Rd., Solvang 805 688-3032

www.ButtonwoodWinery.com

A small gem set amidst the splendor of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley. Their vineyard is surrounded by a prolific farm with olives, pomegranates, peonies and their famous peaches. Enjoy wine tasting in their beautiful outdoor garden or intimate tasting room patio. Open for tasting 11am–5pm daily; food served Sat and Sun.

Clementine Carter

388 Bell St., Los Alamos, 805 344-1900 www.ClementineCarterWines.com

A boutique winery specializing in Rhône varietals crafted with premier Santa Barbara County fruit. Their wines are sold almost exclusively at their tasting room in historic Los Alamos and through their wine club. Thu–Sat noon–7pm, Sun noon–6pm, Mon noon–4pm, Tue–Wed by appointment.

Goodland Wine Shop & Bar

4177 State St., Goleta 805 695-3003

www.GoodlandWineShop.com

The shop offers locally produced wine and beer, as well as kombucha and mead. Glasses of wine and snacks are available at their wine bar. Check their website for winemaker events, held on Tuesdays at 6pm. The shop is open Tue–Sat 11am–7pm. Happy Hour Wed–Thu 5–7pm.

Margerum Wine Company

19 E. Mason St., Santa Barbara 805 845-8435

www.MargerumWines.com

Located near Santa Barbara’s waterfront across the street from Hotel Californian, Margerum Wine Company offers tastings or wines by the glass in their expansive tasting room or on the heated patio. An indoor mezzanine can host private events. All complemented with a simple fare menu—cheese and charcuterie, pizzas, paninis, salads and other foods to complement the wine. Or visit the tasting room in Los Olivos which offers bento box food and wine pairings and oyster and sparkling wine pairings with reservations in advance. The winery in Buellton is open by appointment

Riverbench Vineyard & Winery

137 Anacapa St., Ste. C., Santa Barbara 805 324-4100

6020 Foxen Canyon Rd., Santa Maria 805 937-8340

Riverbench.com

Established in 1973, when the first Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes were planted on the property. For years since then, some of the most renowned wineries have purchased Riverbench fruit for their wines. In 2004, Riverbench began producing their own still and sparkling wines in limited quantities, with many available exclusively through their tasting rooms in Santa Maria and Santa Barbara.

Travel Paso

www.TravelPaso.com

Escape to the majestic rolling hills and celebrated wineries of Paso Robles. Located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco and bordered by coastal Highway 1 and the 101, Paso Robles is California wine country with beach access and Michelin star dining. A community of cowboys and innovators, it’s where world-class food, wine and art meet small-town charm.

Zaca Mesa Winery

6905 Foxen Canyon Rd., Los Olivos 805 688-9339

www.ZacaMesa.com

Since 1973, Zaca Mesa Winery has crafted distinctive wines from their unique mesa-top vineyard. As an early pioneer of the region, they now have 150 acres planted, specializing in the production of estategrown Rhône-style wines. Tasting room and picnic area open daily 10am–4pm. Call for more information on winery tours and private event space.

Specialty Retail

ella & louie

www.EllaAndLouie.com

Floral designer Tracey Morris has two great loves: flowers and people. Relying on more than 25 years of design experience, Morris helps clients celebrate their big occasions with exquisite and expressive floral arrangements. Ella & Louie produces a range of looks from classic elegant designs to unusual and stylish. Local delivery.

Services and Organizations

American Riviera Bank

525 San Ysidro Rd., Montecito, 805-335-8110

www.AmericanRivieraBank.com

1033 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara 805 965-5942

www.AmericanRivieraBank.com

Offering a local and sustainable approach to banking. The founders of American Riviera Bank are a carefully selected group of successful, prominent, experienced and influential community and business leaders who understand the unique needs of the Santa Barbara

community. Montecito branch open Mon–Thu 9am–5pm; Fri 9am–5:30pm. Santa Barbara branch open Mon–Thu 8am–5pm, Fri 8am–6pm.

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

1212 Mission Canyon Rd., Santa Barbara 805 682-4726

www.SBBotanicGarden.org

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is a 78-acre botanical garden containing over 1,000 species of rare and indigenous plants. In this living museum, every plant is part of a special collection of California’s native plants managed by their team of gardeners and horticulture professionals. Open daily 10am–5pm, reservations required.

Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market

805 962-5354

www.SBFarmersMarket.org

The Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market Association is a nonprofit mutual benefit corporation that provides California farmers with direct access, at landmark locations throughout Santa Barbara County, to market their cultivated products to the local community.

SBCC Foundation

805 730-4401

www.SBCCFoundation.org

The SBCC Foundation has provided Santa Barbara City College with private philanthropic support for over 45 years, serving as the vehicle through which individuals and organizations may invest in the college and its students. The Foundation provides more than $5 million annually for the SBCC Promise, student success programs, scholarships, emergency grants and more—supporting SBCC students as they prepare for careers, transfer to four-year universities and pursue lifelong learning goals.

Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce

www.SBSCChamber.com

Representing 1,100 businesses and 75,000 jobs from Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Goleta and everywhere in between, the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce is proud to advocate for business, support economic development and promote tourism and visitor services.

ROB HATHERILL

Spring’s Don’t-Miss-Dish

Yuzu Snap Pea Salad with Vegan Aioli at

One thing we can always count on is this: With spring comes light. Each day brings more light, warming the earth and the soil, encouraging new life. All over Santa Barbara County, new growth and pretty colors pop up, and a fresh burst of produce appears at the markets. It’s an invigorating time, and Chef Emma West serves it up beautifully at Satellite’s serene and cozy downtown space.

Since 2017, West and wine partner Drew Cuddy have grown this neighborhood-y wine bar and restaurant into a beloved hub for sustainable, vegetarian dining and natural wines. The pair are fully farm-to-plate-and-glass, and weave thoughtfully curated flavors and responsible sourcing throughout the ever-evolving menu and lowintervention wine list. Located on one of the most walkable portions of State Street, Satellite is perfect for warmer-weather dining, people watching and natural-wine swirling.

As West artfully composes her new spring creation, her optimism at this time of year is visible. Like the plants, she’s ready to bloom, and she’s inspired by the outstanding local farmers. “The people who farm here are so incredibly knowledgeable,” she says. “The quality is always high, and they don’t hang on to one thing in particular. They let change come in, and they use what’s given to them. What the earth gives them.”

Experimenting in the kitchen is fundamental for West; it helps her showcase the best of what’s in season in the most flavorful ways. She also loves to mix the fresh spring colors.

“It looks pretty, and it tastes great because it’s what’s alive right now,” she points out. This spring salad highlights the darling of the spring market, sugar snap peas, along with fennel, pickled carrots, vegan aioli and pansies. “When the weather warms up, it’s nice to have a fresh, crunchy, light dish, to help bring you out of hibernation and into the sun.”

As experimenting with flavors is key to creating great dishes, West reminds me that this is easier to do in home cooking. At home, you have more control, and change is easier because you have a smaller audience, and it’s only for one night. You can change it the next day, as you like! Listening to her perspective makes it sound easier.

Satellite

Longer days also bring new energy. “The energy all around is higher as the sun comes out more; it stays out longer, and people come out,” West says. It’s a very pretty season in Santa Barbara. We’re lucky to live here.”

Live music is coming to Satellite in spring as nights get warmer. Satellite is in the pedestrian area, and they’re happy with that. “People are walking and biking all through here; it’s great to have safe places for this,” she says.

West and Cuddy will also be holding the Natural Coast Wine Festival (the only one of its kind!) April 26, honoring winemakers of the Central Coast who focus on wines made naturally. To spring in Santa Barbara: We love you, too!

To make this salad, prepare the pickled carrots the day before: Shave carrots on a mandoline and put slices in a jar. Bring to a boil equal parts rice wine vinegar and water, plus salt, sugar and dried oregano. Pour over carrot slices, let them cool and store in fridge for 1 day.

Make vegan aioli in a food processor: Blend 2 cloves garlic, 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons yuzu juice, and salt and pepper. Then, emulsify by slowly pouring in about 2 cups grapeseed oil, until thick. Fold in chopped parsley and mint.

De-vein peas and cut on bias. Shave fennel, and toss both with yuzu juice, salt and pepper and olive oil.

Place generous portion of aioli on plate, add mixed veggies and pickled carrots, and top with Golden Nugget or Pixie tangerine segments and a few pansies. You can also toss before plating, use orange wheels or garnish with herbs.

Liz Dodder is a drinker, eater and traveler who has eaten five kinds of foie gras in one day. She’s also a blogger, writer, photographer, recipe developer, web designer, social media maven and Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW). www.CaliCoastWineCountry.com

A PASO ROBLES GETAWAY PROMISES PEAK CALIFORNIA: Pacific sunsets, Michelin-starred dining, more than 300 wineries, and icons like Hearst Castle and Sensorio. Midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, this free-spirited small town is shaped by innovators and artists drawn to local vineyards, farms and wildflower-dotted foothills.