EAT LOCAL: ™
Ripe Dry Creek—Peach’s last stand.
Vol. 1
Nº. 4
DRINK LOCAL:
Along Came a Cider GROW LOCAL:
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TOO TIRED TO DANCE H O L LY T R E E T E A O U T S I D E I N N AT U R E
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delicious
refreshing refreshing
alkalizing alkalizing naturally naturallyengergizing energizing boosts boosts metabolism metabolism
promotes promotes healthy healthy digestion digestion
replenishing
thirst quenching
Please bring our bottles back. Enjoy. Return. Repeat. We miss them. To take full ownership of our To take full ownership of our product and its packaging product its packaging from startand to finish, we need from start to finish, we need our bottles back! our bottles back! Play your vital part in the Play your vital of part in the great circle 窶話uch. great circle of 窶話uch. Enjoy. Return. Repeat. Enjoy. Recycle. Repeat.
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18 A N N U A L H E I R L O O M TH
TOMATO FESTIVAL a celebration of wine & all things tomato W I N E . FO O D . S E M I N A R S . CHEF CHALLENGE . MUSIC
saturday, september 27, 2014, 11am - 4 pm Kendall-Jackson Wine Estate & Gardens . 5007 Fulton Road, Fulton
Tickets $95 per person Tickets available at kj.com/visit-tomato-festival or call (800) 769-3649
Š2014 Kendall-Jackson Winery, Santa Rosa, CA
Benefitting Ceres Community Project
. ceresproject.org
Interested in entering a tomato in our Growers' Competition? Visit kj.com/tomato-growers-competition for more information
David Goodman Redwood Empire Food Bank
It’s on. Soil amended and watered and coaxed through the drought; seeds planted and watered and coaxed through the drought; trees pruned and lightened and coaxed through the drought—it’s all beginning to offer the great pay-off that summertime promises. We’ve been thinking about the fullness of peaches since they were hard little green things. Obsessing about tomatoes since the starts were mere sprigs. Planning for pesto since the narcissus died back. And now the great seasonal celebration that showcases Sonoma County’s agricultural primacy is here. What to eat first? Nature helps with that, pushing different pleasures forward at different times. (We still have the figs and nuts and persimmons to long for, after all.) This issue intends to highlight just a few of summer’s stars as well as to introduce you to the people who help make Sonoma County such a rare spot to inhabit when once again cycling around the sun. We’ve introduced a new page, Folks You Should Know, to help with that. We’ve nobly tasted fresh artisanal cider in this effort, and taken a glorious chatty hike. We’ve forced ourselves to sip Bellinis and frequent farmers’ markets. We’ve watched movies and dreamed of homemade potato chips yet to come. Such toil, such privilege. PHOTOS: MICHAEL B. WOOLSEY
So glad you’ll share it with us. Because, yessiree. It’s on.
Gretchen Giles EDI T OR Gretchen@madelocal.coop
Terry Garrett P UBL ISHER Terry@madelocal.coop
PUBLISHER TERRY GARRETT JANEEN MURRAY info@madelocal.coop EDITOR GRETCHEN GILES gretchen@madelocal.coop DESIGN RANCH7 CREATIVE ranch7.com
8 LOCAVORTEX
Is your CSA a scam?
10 FOLKS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Meet David Goodman of the Redwood Empire Food Bank. (You’ll like him.)
12 EAT
Stone Swoon: Dry Creek Peach and Produce is the last of its kind.
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Your complete Sonoma County farmers’ market guide. Plus: Market dos and don’ts.
22 DRINK
In Praise of the Alcoholic Apple: Tilted Shed cidery.
24
Tuber Tale: On the trail of the Bodega Red potato.
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THANKS JAKE BAYLESS Made Local Magazine is a free product of Sustaining Technologies, LLC, publisher for Sonoma County GO LOCAL Cooperative. 12,000 copies produced bimonthly. Limit one free copy per person. Copyright 2014, Sustaining Technologies, LLC. Reproduction of the content in whole or part of this magazine requires written permission by the publisher. Sonoma County GO LOCAL Cooperative 555 Fifth St., Suite 300N Santa Rosa, CA 95401 707.888.6105 info@madelocal.coop madelocal.coop
Why Guayakí’s social mission is so good for business.
30 GROW
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PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL B. WOOLSEY michaelbwoolsey.com
‘The Organic Life’ documents one year on the farm. Deep nature immersion for kids.
43 END BIT
Celebrating miles of aisles.
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Become a CAFF member at www.caff.org to start using GROWN LOCAL branding today! CAFF - Community Alliance with Family Farmers advocates for California’s family farmers and sustainable agriculture. Thanks to our funders: County of Sonoma Department of Health Services
707.824.1823 www.caff.org facebook.com/CAFFNorthCoastRegion
M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | J UL /A U G 2 0 14 | vol. 1, issue 4
PHOTO: PAIGE GREEN
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Deborah Walton doesn’t mind admitting that she’s probably cutting off her nose to spite her face, because she is exactly that angry. On May 1, Walton announced to the 130 or so CSA subscribers to the Canvas Ranch farm she runs with husband Tim Schaible that she was suspending the service. It’s not that she has too much competition. It’s just that it’s the wrong kind. Community Supported Agriculture is a Slow Money concept in which area residents commit to buying food from a local farm. Based on a subscription model
in which customers agree to purchase a certain amount of food from a farm on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis, it allows small farmers literal seed money with which they can plan their year’s production and purchase the materials they need to make their fields flush. “Customers pay up front so that you can grow during the season,” Walton says by phone from her farm near Two Rock. “It was intended to help the farmer subsidize the growing of vegetables. I always say, ‘I’m your personal farmer.’ You pay up front
FARMER DISCOUNT!
and I will grow for you all season. I will give you recipes and I will educate you. We walk people through the seasonality of eating, because only if you’re growing it yourself do you understand. That was the best part of the CSA, educating people.” But the Canvas Ranch CSA is no more. What Walton is upset about is what she sees as the bastardization of a system that began in service of the small and the local has been increasingly coopted by corporations that source their food from, well, who knows where.
Citing a large operation based near Sacramento that she hesitated to name for attribution, Walton alleges that, in order to serve its enormous base of home, office, and restaurant customers, this CSA “sources from the San Francisco produce market in the early morning hours. They buy boxes and boxes just like Safeway.com and ship it up all the way [home] and then ship it all the way back down to their customers. It’s ridiculous. It’s not a sustainable model, and they’re capitalizing on something that was so good for so many people.” Walton’s “aha” moment came when she was dropping off food this spring for a Marin County hospital that had subscribed to the Canvas Ranch CSA since the service began 12 years ago. Hospital employees had asked for more fruit in their deliveries and Canvas Ranch can only provide so much, so the hospital had contracted with a different CSA to provide that staple. Walton glimpsed the fruit boxes there and, being the curious sort, peeked in. She saw bananas. “I went to the woman who was in charge,” Walton remembers. “I asked her if she knew that there were bananas in that CSA box. She said, ‘Yes. We like bananas.’ And I said, ‘Did you know that they don’t
grow anywhere near here?’” No, the woman replied, she didn’t know that. That sent the indefatigable Walton on an Internet hunt, looking up other CSAs offering North Bay delivery. She found one that particularly intrigued her, named after a woman with the appealing word “Organics” appended. There was an address. Walton Googled it and, incredulous, drove to the address. “It’s located in a suburban neighborhood,” she says, still sounding shocked. “It’s somebody’s house. They’re not growing anything. They’re buying everything.” Supported by the California Alliance for Family Farmers, AB 224 passed in the California State Assembly last September. It allows CSAs to source from many different farms as long as they clearly state what comes from where. But, like Walton, not everyone is happy about AB 224. Speaking last fall to the California Farm Bureau Federation, Oxnard farmer Phil McGrath said, “Now we have giant companies calling themselves CSAs that are essentially dot-com delivery programs . . . I would have preferred legislation that limits CSAs to providing
IT TAKES DEEP ROOTS. AND WE GOT ‘EM.
produce from no more than five farms. That would have been fair.” Walton says, “What I really bristle at is the idea that people are passing themselves off as a CSA program and letting people believe that there’s somebody there growing the stuff and that they’re supporting the farmer. “About six months ago, there were 35 CSAs in Sonoma County. I know that I can count on one hand and a few fingers the ones that are growing their own vegetables. It’s gotten out of control. I’ve asked very smart people if they know the difference. They don’t.” Walton has since taken a full-time job off the farm to make up for the revenue Canvas Ranch lost by suspending its CSA. “I don’t want to be slogging it out against people who have 1,200 CSA members because they can buy it cheaper than I can grow it,” she says. “In my heart of hearts, I want people to know what’s going on,” she says, “and I want them to support local farms.”
SRCITY.ORG/BIZ
M A D E L O C A L . C O O P | J UL /A U G 2 0 14 | vol. 1, issue 4
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DAVID GOODMAN Executive Director, Redwood Empire Food Bank
With this issue, we launch a new page that gives you a quick snapshot of a North Bay resident we think you should know. Our inaugural subject is the energetic David Goodman, ED of the REFB, a nonprofit that serves some 78,000 hungry Sonoma County residents each month. Last September, the REFB launched its Value Market, a grocery store just for low-income shoppers that models all the best aspects of high-end markets, from its look and feel to the quality of its goods and customer service. An avid theater-goer and yoga practitioner, Goodman has led the REFB for 19 years.
How did you come to the REFB? After a career in the film business, I applied with 200 entities, everything from the CIA to the Food Bank. Truly. I’m very interested in many different things. And the San Francisco Food Bank took an interest, probably because I been working for a couple years with Niman Ranch. Looking back, I figure they probably thought I was a good source of protein. I know how these food bankers think! So they hired me. That being said, I now recognize how special it is to be in a position to help so many people. I consider it a privilege to be a food banker. And, to be accompanied by an engaged board, dedicated colleagues, and generous donors and volunteers—what could be better? The Value Market is nearing its first anniversary. How is it going? It is going great. We’re growing a business, which is always a challenge. Every week, we are increasing the number of customers and sales. All the while we are improving our product assortments. Everything just gets better. A year from now, we’ll be dangerously close to breaking even. As a nonprofit grocery store, that is the measure of success. It’s a point of pride that the Value Market is being considered for replication in other areas across the country. People call us about it all the time. Our donors are excited to see us engaged in the multitude of ways that we respond to hunger, food insecurity, health, and nutrition. When a customer says, ‘Thank you for being here,’ it makes it all worthwhile. What is the next new initiative? Our latest program is the Diabetes Wellness Program. We are leading the work in making a connection between diabetes and food insecurity. We have a nurse on staff who offers blood sugar tests to food recipients. If they have a high likelihood of being diabetic, we refer them to a medical clinic. If the clinic meets someone who has diabetes and is food insecure,
they refer them to the food program. We have over 400 people participating in the program now. It is really important that when people gather enough courage to ask for food assistance, that we can provide them with the help they need. What is your summer lunch program like this year? This year, we have 48 locations throughout the county where low-income children can get a free summer lunch. The program is in its 11th year. When we started, there were only 4,000 meals being served throughout the summer in the entire county. We are now providing 5,000 in a week. By the end of the summer, we’ll have provided more than 90,000 meals to children. The most important part of this program is ensuring that when school begins, children have a better opportunity return healthy and strong. How do you spend your time outside of the office? I consider myself to be an outdoorsman. I enjoy camping, fishing, and hunting with my dog, Olive. Sometimes I laugh at myself because my interests are so varied. When I get off the lake or out of the field, I can be found sewing clothing or practicing yoga. You go to Ashland often. What’s the best thing you’ve recently seen? Hands down, The Unfortunates. There is also a great play that just opened on Broadway called All the Way, about LBJ, and that is also fantastic. It premiered in Ashland and went straight to Broadway. This fall I have tickets to The Great Society, which is a continuation of Johnson’s story. And finally, if you had your druthers, REFB would be . . . Understood by everyone as to our necessity and value in the community. Article resources: refb.org
Petaluma Pie Company
Bistro 29
125 Petaluma Boulevard N., Petaluma
620 Fifth Street, Santa Rosa
petalumapie.com | 7MMM-PIE
bistro29.com | 546.2929
A farm-to-table bakery café specializing
Traditional French bistro fare featuring
in sweet and savory pies made with
fresh buckwheat crepes, sweet
local and organic ingredients.
crepes, and a full bistro menu.
Sprenger’s Tap Room 446 B Street, Santa Rosa
sprengerstaproom.com | 544-TAPS Great pub food, 40 beers on tap (the most taps north of SF), 10 big screens full of sports, ‘nuff said!
Seared Steak and Seafood
170 Petaluma, Boulevard N., Petaluma PetalumaSeared.com | 762.5997 Serving the freshest local ingredients Oyster Bar • Sustainable Seafood Grass-Fed Beef • Local Draughts, Wines & Spirits
Russian River Brewing Cº. 725 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa
russianriverbrewing.com | 545.2337 Home of the world-famous Pliny the
Stout Brothers Irish Pub & Restaurant
Younger beer, Russian River Brewing
527 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa
offers a full menu, fantastic pizza,
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and live music.
This downtown Santa Rosa’s authentic Irish pub has a full bar with live music and offers a traditional Irish menu and much more.
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Gayle Okumura Sullivan
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Dry Creek Peach and Produce is the last devoted orchard in Sonoma County
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n Korea, the peach is honored among the 10 immortal plants and animals of mythology, and is believed to help chase away unwelcome spirits. In China, its kernels are still used in traditional medicine to move the blood and ease inflammation; in ancient times, its limbs were also relied upon to scare away spirits. T.S. Eliot used the peach to connote female sexuality in his aching epic, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and Duane Allman launched a Southern rock craze when he said, “Every time I’m in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace,” and then named an album from the phrase. Recent research from the Washington State University indicates that peach extract can cause tumor cells to “commit suicide.” The redder the peach, the more cancer-fighting it is now thought to be. And that lovely aroma, so delicate and appealing and purely peachy? It’s composed of 80 different elements. CONTINUED ON PAGE 15
*Sugar in a 20-oz soda. Calculations based on a 3 gram sugar packet.
This initiative supports the Sonoma County Food Action Plan. Check out the website to pledge your support for a healthy and viable food system in Sonoma County SonomaFoodAction.org
Drinking even one sugary drink a day may lead to obesity and diabetes.
ChooseHealthyDrinks.org
Made possible with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Community Transformation Grant.
EAT LOCAL
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
From myth to health to love to sex to rock ‘n’ roll, this is one weighty little fruit, and it used to dominate the orchards of Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Valley with other stone fruit, like prunes. Today, there is only one peach orchard of any significance left in Dry Creek, the eponymous Dry Creek Peach and Produce, owned by Gayle Okumura Sullivan and husband Brian Sullivan. While most of the valley has been replanted to grapes, Dry Creek Peach continues the old ways in raising this ravishing fruit.
Locally owned and operated since 1987
Because here’s the thing about peaches: Unlike bananas or even tomatoes, peaches don’t ripen once picked. They might soften, but they don’t continue
When Alice Waters serves one perfect peach with a knife for dessert at Chez Panisse, it comes from Dry Creek Peach. to produce sugars. Meaning: raising peaches is time-intensive, hands-on, darned hard work.
210 Western Ave. Petaluma, CA 94952 (707) 762-5464
With six-and-a-half acres to farm and nearly 1,000 trees, the Sullivan’s land produces roughly 30,000 tons of peaches in a good year. When Alice Waters serves one perfect peach with a knife for dessert at Chez Panisse, it came from here. When asked, Waters also told the New York Times that one of the Sullivan’s peaches would be on her menu if she had to choose a last supper. Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Kitchen, Campo Fina, and Scopa are customers. So is John Ash. San Francisco’s acclaimed A16 restaurant does an annual dinner based entirely on the Sullivan’s farm production. There’s something about these peaches. CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
PetalumaMarket.com
EAT LOCAL
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15
The fact that they’re handpicked as each variety comes into peak has something to do with it. “It’s a labor-intensive crop,” Gayle says. “You have to prune every branch of every tree every fall. And you’re up on ladders and it takes hours per tree, and the same thing with the thinning. And then, it’s highly perishable. I mean, you have to move it. We pick ripe so it does not last. You have to have everything in place. But after 14 years, we’ve got a pretty good system.” Gayle and Brian—she was in technology marketing, he is still in finance—bought Dry Creek Peach and Produce in 2000 after the birth of their son, Patrick. In the deal, they were fortunate enough to inherit farm manager Eusebio Sayago.
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“He’s awesome,” Gayle says enthusiastically. “And he stayed with us. Everyone who works on our farm is part of his family, so it’s really two families here.” Planting the orchard to grapes like most of their neighbors have done never occurred to the Sullivans. “We never looked to grow grapes,” Gayle says. “I feel like there are incredible vineyards here and people who have grown up with it who are sixth generation. It’s in their blood. That’s not what we wanted to do here. And peaches grow well here.” Harvest began on Memorial Day weekend and continues through late September with 30 different varieties ripening throughout the summer. Dry Creek Peach and Produce fruit is certified organic, hand-picked, and packed in single CONTINUED ON PAGE 33
550 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol • 823-4916 1465 Town & Country Drive, Santa Rosa • 546-FOOD
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Bodega Bay Community Farmers’ Market 2255 Highway 1, Bodega Bay. Sundays, through–Oct. 26, 10am to 1pm. Cloverdale Certified Farmers’ Market cloverdalefarmersmarket.com Cloverdale Boulevard, between First and Second streets, near the Plaza, Cloverdale. Fridays, through Aug. 29, 5:30pm to dusk. Accepts WIC and EBT. Cotati Farmers’ Market communityfarmersmarkets.com La Plaza Park, at the corner of Old Redwood Highway and West Sierra Avenue. Thursdays, through Aug.28, 4:30pm to 7:30pm. Accepts EBT. Forestville Farmers’ Market forestvillefarmersmarket.com Now at Corks Restaurant and the Russian River Vineyards, 5700 Highway 116 N., Forestville. Tuesdays, through Oct. 28, 3pm to 7pm. Guerneville Farmers’ Market Held in the Sonoma Nesting Company parking lot adjacent to the town Plaza, 16201 First St., Guerneville. Thursdays, through Sept. 25, 3pm to 7pm.
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Kenwood Community Farmers’ Market communityfarmersmarkets.com Kenwood Plaza Park, 200 Warm Springs Road, between Channing Row and Park Row, Kenwood. Sundays, through Sept. 14, from noon to 4pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Healdsburg Farmers’ Markets healdsburgfarmersmarket.org North and Vine Streets in the parking lot. Saturdays, through Nov. 29, from 9am to noon. Purity/Cerri lot on North Street between Grove and Foss streets. Wednesdays, through Oct. 30, from 3:30pm to 6pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Oakmont Farmers’ Market In the Wells Fargo Bank parking lot at Oakmont and White Oak drives. Saturdays, year-round, 9am to noon. Accepts WIC and EBT. Occidental Bohemian Farmers’ Market occidentalfarmersmarket.com Main and Second streets, Occidental. Fridays, through Oct.31, 4pm to dusk. Accepts WIC.
Petaluma East Side Farmers’ Market communityfarmersmarkets.com At the Community Center at Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Ave., Petaluma. Tuesdays, year-round, 10am to 1:30pm. Accepts EBT. Farmers’ Market petalumafarmersmarket.org Walnut Park, Corner of D Street and Petaluma Boulevard South, Petaluma. Saturdays, through Nov. 22, 2pm to 5:30pm. Theatre District, on Second Street. Wednesdays, June 4-Aug. 13, 4:30pm to 8pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Rohnert Park Farmers’ Market rohnertparkfarmersmarket.org In the library parking lot, 500 City Center Drive, Rohnert Park. Fridays, through Aug. 29, 5pm to 8pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Santa Rosa Original Certified Market thesantarosafarmersmarket.com 50 Mark West Springs Road, on the north east side of the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa. Wednesdays, year-round, 8:30am to noon. Saturdays, year-round, 8:30am to 1pm. Accepts WIC and EBT.
Bringing a world of good things to Healdsburg
BAKERY • DELI • PRODUCE • MEATS • SUSHI • CHEESE • WINE
1345 Healdsburg Avenue (at Dry Creek Road) Healdsburg 707.433.7151 Monday-Saturday 7:00 am - 9:00 pm - Open Sunday 7:00 am - 8:00 pm - www.bigjohnsmarket.com
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
Santa Rosa (cont.) Certified Farmers’ Market 1450 Guerneville Road, adjacent to the WIC office, Santa Rosa. Thursdays, through Sept. 25, 9am to 1pm. Accepts WIC. Community Market communityfarmersmarkets.com In the Veterans Building parking lot, 1351 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa. Wednesdays, year-round, 9am to 1pm. Saturdays, year-round, 8am to 1pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Southwest Santa Rosa Farmers Market cpifarmersmarket.org At the California Parenting Institute, 3650 Standish Ave. Thursdays, through Sept. 25, 4pm to7pm. Accepts EBT.
Wednesday Night Market srdowntownmarket.com Downtown Santa Rosa, between Fourth and E streets. Wednesdays, through Aug. 20, from 5pm to 8:30pm. Plans to accept WIC and EBT this season. West End Farmers’ Market wefm.co 817 Donahue St., Santa Rosa. Sundays, through Dec. 14, from 10am-2pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Sebastopol Farmers’ Market sebastopolfarmmarket.org In the Sebastopol Plaza, Weeks Way and Petaluma Street, Sebastopol. Sundays, year-round, 10am to 1:30pm. Accepts WIC and EBT.
Sonoma Sonoma Valley Certified Farmers’ Market svcfm.org In Arnold Field, First Street West, Sonoma. Fridays, year-round, 9am to 12:30pm. Accepts WIC and EBT. Valley of the Moon Certified Farmers’ Market vomcfm.com Sonoma Town Plaza, 2 E. Napa St., Sonoma. Tuesdays, through Oct. 28, 5:30pm to dusk. Accepts EBT. Windsor Certified Farmers’ Markets windsorfarmersmarket.com On the Windsor Town Green, Market Street, Windsor. Sundays through December, 10am to 1pm. Thursdays, through Aug. 28, 5pm to 8pm. Accepts WIC.
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It was a mild mid-spring day and Nancy Skall of Middleton Farm had a few baskets of rare French strawberries for sale. Each basket held a precious clutch of maybe 15 of the delicate, tiny things—so fragile that they would need to be consumed that day.
“May I taste one?”
CC BY 2.0 BRIAN BOUCHERON
asked a prospective customer. Skall, a farm market veteran, hesitated as she searched for a polite way to say no. She shook her head kindly. “But you can smell them,” she offered, lifting the basket toward the man’s nose. He took a deep, appreciative whiff, nodded thanks, and moved on.
The normal rules of politesse were observed in this exchange: He asked nicely, she found a solution with her denial, and he thanked her. But the rules of farm market politesse can sometimes be trickier than Emily Post might have reckoned. With help from Sebastopol Farmers Market manager Paula Downing, we came up with few standards to shop by . . . CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
end west farmers market SundayS
March 16th to
December 14th 10am to 2pm Donahue Street Santa Rosa, CA www .wefm.co
CONTINU E D F ROM
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1. YOU MAY EAT SAMPLES. They’re easy to see, usually presented as cut-up pieces replete with toothpicks to spear them. You may not eat one perfect French strawberry from a tiny clutch of rare things; if you’re unsure, remember: berry baskets rarely hold samples. 2. THERE’S NO RUSH. If you’re squeezing your purchase into an eight-minute window of time before dropping baby Oona off at knitting and picking little Johan up from surfing, you should go to a grocery store. The farm markets set a different pace. Downing recommends that you even take the drastic step of leaving your cell phone at home. Imagine! 3. DON’T HOARD YOUR CHANGE. Every stall expects its customers to come laden with $20 bills and every stall has small bills on hand to accommodate that. But once you start rolling in the $1s and $5s, it’s time to return the love right back in the form of small bills and exact change.
4. NATURE CALLS, CUSTOMERS LISTEN. Sometimes you find just the loaf of bread you’re looking for but there’s no one to sell it to you. Often an adjoining stallmate will handle the transaction, but sometimes, they’re busy or also absent. If you’ve got exact change, it’s OK to leave it tucked where it’s visible but won’t blow away, and take your loaf with you. 5. TALK TO YOUR FARMER. “They spend a lot of time working alone and are generally very proud of their products,” Downing says. “Plus, farmers know a lot about growing, plant varieties, gophers, cucumber beetles, all of it. You might get a few tips to use in your own garden.” Of course, Emily Post would also caution you to remember that there may be a line of other people waiting behind you.
APRICOT & ALMOND CHERRY & COCOA NIB CASHEW & COCONUT SIX SEED SENSATION HONEY & HAZELNUT FIND US LOCALLY @ Andy’s Produce Market Big John’s Market Community Markets Glen Ellen Village Market Molsberry Market Oliver’s Markets Pacific Markets Petaluma Market Shelton’s Natural Foods Sonoma Market Whole Foods Markets
6. BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. Re-use produce bags from one market to the next. As long as they haven’t held raw meat or fish that might have leaked, they’re perfectly good to use again. 7. KNOW WHERE YOUR KEYS ARE. According to Downing, farmers markets are a favorite place for car keys to go AWOL. Check vegetable boxes and under tables if yours have made a break for it. 8. REMEMBER: REAL FOOD COSTS REAL MONEY. Downing says, “If you are distressed about the price and feel the need to complain, be prepared to hear about how much work and love goes into bringing the produce to you. This is not a government- or supermarket-subsidized enterprise. These guys are not getting rich. They are earning a living—with ‘earning’ being a really important word.”
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Ellen Cavalli and Scott Heath
vol. 1, issue 4 | J UL /A U G 2 0 14 | M A D E L O C A L . C O O P
O
urs is a story of not really knowing what you want to be when you grow up,” Ellen Cavalli says thoughtfully. She is standing in the airy kitchen of her Forestville farmhouse, surrounded by her seven-year-old son Benny’s projects, her husband Scott Heath’s artwork, and several empty cider bottles when a chicken struts in the back door. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she says affably to the bird, shooing it back out. It’s clear that whatever Cavalli wanted to be when she grew up no longer matters, because where she is as a grown-up is plenty fine. In truth, Cavalli wanted to be a writer; Heath, an artist. While she still works as a freelance cookbook editor and Heath’s handsome lithographs adorn the walls, what they both are is cider makers.
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Their idyll was interrupted when what they were supposed to be as grown-ups finally happened.
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apple trees already there. Heath immediately planted 80 more.
The timing was right. According to the 2013 Sonoma County Economic Development Board’s report on local craft beverages, cider sales were up 70 percent nationally in 2012. As an example, Cavalli and Heath’s Tilted Shed cidery has quadrupled production since they started in 2011. Tilted Shed joins the California Cider Co. (which produces Ace Cider), Daunted by the amount of apples Murray’s Cyder, Sonoma Cider, they had (“I could never make and Devoto Orchards Cider in that much applesauce,” Cavalli this burgeoning local market. laughs), the couple decided to press the fruit. “We had a Perhaps best of all from a double-sided press and put it producer’s point of view, cider in a few carboys, put it out in costs more than beer, and our barn, and let it sit over unlike that beverage—which the winter. We didn’t have any has an 80 percent male fan expectations for it,” she says. base—cider is gender-neutral. “Every cider we’d ever tasted Everybody likes the stuff. was just so sweet—it was just If they can understand it. Tilted like apple juice with vodka.” Shed’s hard apple cider taste
“Our first year there, we had a bumper crop of apples,” Cavalli remembers. “We were trying to learn skills, those skill sets that we’ve all lost through modern culture and industrialization. We tried to do a lot of canning, a lot of processing of our own foods, and of course—trying to make your own booze is a natural.”
Cavalli describes cider making, But this cider was different. A profile is based around tannins and their Tilted Shed cidery light bulb went off, Cavalli says. and acids, very much like a good in particular, as a “hobby gone They had no idea that cider wine. They are typically dry with wild.” The couple first met as could be dry. That it could have a light natural effervescence six-year-olds growing up in nuances and layers of flavors. and utilize bittersweet and Alameda, but reconnected as bittersharp apples, which are “We started reading everything 23-year-olds in New York City. becoming increasingly rare. that we could on cider,” she Heath was getting his MFA and And, Tilted Shed bottles boast says, “and then that’s when she was working for a magazine. an alcohol by volume (ABV) we started to learn about the Their relationship grew and rating higher than most beer. history of cider, that there are they decided to set out from special apples for cider, that there Their Barred Rock Bourbonthe city on their own. After one Aged Cider, for example, clocks are people doing this in really failed attempt to live off the in at a stiff 8.8 percent ABV; traditional way where they’re land in New Mexico, they briefly Graviva and Lost Orchard making cider beautiful, so we returned East to revamp before blends, at 8 percent ABV. started tasting it—and then heading back to the area between it just became an obsession.” “This is a very interesting Santa Fe and Taos determined point with cider,” Cavalli says. The obsession directed their to try again. This time they got “We ferment to dryness, that’s lives. They moved back to lucky. The two-acre farm they what the fruit gives us. Just as California, looking for land on rented had a small orchard. with wine grapes, the factors which to grow apples so that “It was a classic apple-growing with the apples change. They’re they could make cider. West site, actually, but that was starting to pick grapes earlier to County, given its history with secondary to us,” Cavalli says. restrain the ABVs. You can’t do the fruit, was the natural choice, “We started doing market that with apples. The starches and in 2010 they were able to farming, raising chickens for haven’t converted to sugars yet buy the modest two-acre lot on eggs, selling at the local farmers’ and they’re not quite ready. Gravenstein Highway where market. We had a little baby.” they now live. There were five CONTINUED ON PAGE 26
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juice to their product isn’t because “Even though we’ve lived all over, California is where our tastes they’re intrinsically evil or want were formed,” Cavalli says. “We’ve people to drink more watery known really good wine, we’ve juice; as with so many things, it’s about regulations. If the product known really good beer. That is at 7 percent ABV or higher, it’s informs how we approach our categorized as “still wine” and ciders, and we have a real respect for the traditions. Just to make has a whole different set of legal And, if you’re finding lower ABVs something a low ABV, if that’s not obligations. Cavalli can’t label her in your ciders, Cavalli says, you’re Tilted Shed ciders as “gluten-free,” what the fruit should be, that’s probably getting a healthy dose of not what it should be for us.” even though they are, because it’s water and/or apple juice in the mix. a health claim that a still wine Tilted Shed—and there really is “For us, if you start putting juice can’t make. She can’t list a vintage a wobbly old building at the foot back or you start putting water year or a harvest date because of Cavalli and Heath’s property there, you don’t have the true that’s reserved for grape wine. supplying the name—sources expression of that fruit,” Cavalli its apples from 10 farms within “People who want to avoid all of says. “You don’t have cider. You a five-mile radius of their home, that will dilute their ciders so have juice mixed with cider. You including from two “lost” orchards that they can put whatever they have some other product. And it’s want on their labels,” she says, that were planted to heirloom just something we won’t do. We cider varieties some four decades noting that beverages under categorically refuse to do it.” ago and forgotten about. Heath 7 percent ABV go under FDA The reason that other cider makers heard about them in conversation voluntary guidelines, which might be tempted to add water or and sought the owners out. A are friendlier to the producer.
You’re just dealing with unripe fruit. We pick when those sugars have concentrated and it’s a fully developed apple. If it’s a high brix, it’s a high brix. We can’t control that. The only thing we can control for is our blending.”
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secret—Cavalli won’t even begin to hint at their whereabouts—the old orchards are now tended by her family, coaxing the last dryfarmed apples from those wizened trees while they wait for their own orchard to come into maturity. Planting apples in wine country has a quaint sound to it, but for Cavalli, replanting apples after they’ve been torn out for grapes is part of a fuller circle. Plus, it’s a radical act.
It’s part of why people are into heritage grains and why people are into kombucha and all of these other things, to see what we can do here that gives our place real culture and meaning when so much of it has been taken away from us by the industrial food complex.
weren’t the right venues for us, but working with these apples and working with the dirt and the land and getting to know it and getting to experience it over time— perhaps for us, that’s our creative outlet. I’ve always heard about people getting swept up in passion “We’re all trying to grasp some real and I thought that was bunk, but we’ve really love it. We love authenticity where people really it so much that we moved here.” are connected to what they eat— and what they drink, by extension.”
“I think that part of it could be due to what Slow Food has been doing, what the Go Local movement has been doing, asking us to look at what you have in your own backyard,” Cavalli says. “You know: Let’s save this; it’s worth saving. This is part of our heritage, this is part of our culture—it’s putting the ‘culture’ back in ‘agriculture.’
And so, the printmaker and the writer, the couple who just wanted to make art, find themselves with a full life and filthy hands. “Lately, I’ve been thinking: ‘This doesn’t make any sense. Why are we doing this?’” Cavalli says. “And the only answer I can come up with is that we’ve always wanted to create the sublime, to make beautiful things. Art and writing
Article resources: tiltedshed.com murrayscyder.com devotocider.com sonomacider.com acecider.com
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eople, Profit, Planet” is the unofficial slogan of Guayakí Sustainable Rainforest Products, an international beverage company based in Sebastopol. Guayakí’s flagship product is yerba mate, a caffeinated beverage derived from the leaves and stems of a holly tree native to the Atlantic rain forests of Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The national drink of those countries, yerba mate is brewed to be shared as a gesture of hospitality in all settings. Traditionally mixed in a gourd and sipped with a filtered straw, yerba mate may also be a savior of the rainforests from which it is harvested. Named for a tribe in Paraguay that harvests and grows for them, Guayakí uses what it calls a “market-driven restoration” model for its workers and habitat. With a goal of providing 1,000 living-wage jobs by 2020 in the impoverished countries in which its mate is grown, Guayakí is also committed to restoring the rain forests that provide its fortunes. Money, they like to say, does grow on
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trees. It’s taking care of the trees—and the people who tend them—that’s the real trick. Yerba mate is a shade plant that thrives under a canopy. Guayakí pays its workers to maintain the shade areas and replant under their protection. Yerba mate grows quickly and adds nutrients to the forest floor, thus helping to replenish the shade that it needs. Like everything with this drink, it’s all about the cycle. Paying a fair wage, paying attention to 21st century concerns about the environment, and instituting social welfare programs for its employees is a costly risk, one that more companies are now taking, and one that appears to be paying off. While South American rain forests have typically been seen as cash drawers from which corporations could endlessly draw, Guayakí sees them as containing sustaining riches—if only it can be sustained. Only 13 percent of Paraguay’s rain forest still remains after being brutalized for the past century; only 7 percent of the South American
rainforest total is intact. The formerly hunter/ gatherer communities that live there, like the Aché of Paraguay, are slowly being drawn into the 21st century. In a recent short documentary about the area, the World Wildlife Fund shows Aché community members armadillo-hunting for dinner, one wearing a Guayakí T-shirt. Because indeed, working for Guayakí is perhaps the best of a bad situation. Nowadays, Guayakí founders Alex Pryor and David Kerr would be hailed as startup gods. The two met nearly 20 years ago near San Luis Obispo. Pryor is from Argentina, where yerba mate is the national drink; Karr is a California native. They both cared about surfing, having fun, and sure, giving back. They founded Guayakí in 1996 around such ideals, but as they have matured, so has the company. Their CEO has an economics degree from Harvard and the company has launched a foundation to offer no-interest loans, ensure food security for the people who harvest their product, and help convene community councils in their worker’s villages.
The company has recently expanded into the iced tea market with canned and bottled beverages available in markets throughout the U.S., but the real thing can be tried during a short weekday window at their Mate Bar in Sebastopol, open Monday-Friday, 10am-3pm. Guayakí recently gained local acclaim for donating 11,000 pounds of used mate powder to area farms for compost. Their former compost outlet no longer available, they saved the stuff until they could find a local recipient. The good news is that doing the right thing can net a healthy profit, something that more companies are coming to realize as they raise the living wage for their workers, help to sustain the land from which they are harvesting, and still have time to go surfing.
Article resources: guayaki.com
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Dry Creek Peach Bellini Adapted from the Hotel Cipriani/ Harry’s Bar in Venice 1/3 c. water 1/3 c. sugar 1 Tbsp. lemon juice 1 lb. ripe white peaches, pit but not skin removed A handful of fresh raspberries for color Puree all ingredients and strain. At this stage, you can pour the mixture into a Ziploc bag and freeze for future use. If you are serving immediately, pour into a glass pitcher and add a bottle of Prosecco. Stir lightly to mix. Serve in chilled Champagne glasses.
layers, while larger commercial outlets run the fruit, Gayle says, like “balls” through sorting and washing machines. Her produce is simply too delicate. “We’re small enough,” she explains of the intensive labor her and the Sayago families spend on the orchards, “and it’s the only way you get really flavorful fruit and—it’s the only way you get tree-ripened fruit.” The Sullivans inherited a traditional farm stand on the property from the former owners. Set smack amid the trees, it is open for business Wednesday and FridaySunday, from noon to 5pm until mid-September. When the harvest is too large for their many restaurant and farm stand customers, they sell to local grocers like
Shelton’s in Healdsburg. When asked if she ever wearies of the fruit, Gayle laughs. “That’s what’s nice about the season,” she says. “There’s a start and a real stop. The length of time we’re in-season is much shorter than not. By the end, I’ve had a lot, but when it starts again, I can’t wait for that first Rich May peach. I’ve learned to moderate myself and not just gorge on them.” “It is a very fragrant, very subtle, very seasonal fruit,” she continues. “There’s just nothing like a real peach in the summer.”
Article resources: drycreekpeach.com
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his is a story of buried treasure. The tale of a wayward sailor, Luther Burbank, Chilean immigrants, Mexican land grants, an arranged marriage, blight, neglect, racism, a play, a song, a band, and distrust. This, naturally, is the story of a potato. The Bodega Red potato, to be exact. Frequently mentioned by Luther Burbank and thought to be the predecessor of his famed Burbank Red potato, the Bodega Red was once the favored potato of Sonoma County. It grew so hardily and was so well liked for its thin skin, nutty flavor, and great cooking qualities that we were briefly the premiere potato purveyor in California, back in 1850, when the population was a bit smaller. Most potatoes have come our way via a circuitous route, generally following from Peru to Europe, Europe to the U.S. One of only six potato varieties so far found to have made it to North America directly from South America—Chile, in this case—the Bodega Red is a heritage breed that may have come with a land-sick sailor when he jumped ship in Bodega Bay or may have had its seeds sewn into the hem of a dress worn by a young bride arriving here over 150 years ago to marry a stranger who needed a foreign wife to secure a local land grant. No one is really certain. What is known is that the Chileno Valley west of Petaluma is named for the numerous Chileans immigrants who settled there. That the Squatter’s War of 1859 broke up land grant strictures in Western Sonoma County in order to facilitate more potato planting. That the Bodega Red was so popular and grew so well that it was shipped to the gold fields to feed the Forty-Niners. And that Spud Point in Bodega Bay was named
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for the tuber after a boatload of the vegetables memorably sank there. At its height, some 60,000 pounds of Bodega Reds left our fields each year.
“I tried contacting them but they didn’t contact me back.”
And then it all stopped.
“I understand it,” she says. “You have families who have been on their land for a very long time, since the 1850s. I came to Sonoma County in 1975, and it was pretty empty then. I’ve seen so much change, I can kind of understand why they might be taken aback when someone says, ‘Oh, you’ve got blah-blah-blah, and I want some.’”
By the 1970s, the Bodega Red potato was thought to be extinct, kaput, gone—a victim of its own success, institutionalized racism, and a local taste for the thing that found 19th century farmers eating the best ones and returning the poor growers back to the earth. That eventually led to a weaker genetic strain susceptible to the same blight that brought Ireland its infamous famine. Disease and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 run. There was no labor left to pick what potatoes didn’t succumb. Presumably, the Bodega Red was forgotten. Except that several longstanding families from Chileno Valley to Two Rock to Bodega continued to quietly grow it, eat it, and enjoy it. Telling no one.
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o good mystery is complete without a detective. Enter Elissa Rubin-Mahon. A chef with a business purveying preserved foods, Rubin-Mahon is also active in the Slow Food Sonoma County North convivia and works on the Ark of Taste, in which seeds from such heritage products as the Gravenstein apple are saved to forestall extinction.
In 2005, her friend Judy Christensen was reading Press Democrat historian emeritus Gay LeBaron’s book, Santa Rosa, a 19th Century Town, and came across mention of a potato with which she was unfamiliar. Christensen thought RubinMahon might be interested in tracking it down for the Ark. She was more than correct. “I started looking around and found the names of some people who were growing the potato,” Rubin-Mahon says.
In fact, Rubin-Mahon says that no one would talk to her about the potato.
Spurred by her rebuke from area families, Rubin-Mahon turned to friends at the Bodega Land Trust. Claiming that she had no interest in the tuber beyond its historical associations (when all the while she was planning to reintroduce it to area fields and certainly eat it) she says she was “able to procure some potatoes from an anonymous source. It could have been a supermarket potato for all we knew.” The next step in her mission was to verify the potato. She reached out to UC Davis Extension farm advisor Paul Vossen who, she says, mostly wanted to know what she wanted from “an old potato anyway when the new ones are better.” But he referred her to retired UC Davis professor Ron Voss, who in turn referred her to Dr. Chuck Brown, a USDA researcher in Washington state who was working on the six unique varieties of straight-from-South-America potatoes that had all migrated up our West Coast. He requested samples and photos. She sent them. And waited. For several years. It was worth the wait. In 2009, Dr. Brown confirmed that her samples were “indeed distinct and had originated in Chile,” Rubin-Mahon says, which corresponded with what Luther CONTINUED ON PAGE 36
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Historically Delicious On the mysterious trail of the Bodega Red potato.
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Burbank had written. He also connected her with Pure Potato, a company that specializes in reinvigorating heirloom produce. They were eventually able to isolate clean, blight-free potato seeds that were ready for planting. The Bodega Land Trust planted some Bodega Reds in its demonstration garden. Rubin-Mahon nominated it for Slow Food’s Ark of Taste. Even the initially recalcitrant farm families slowly thawed. “I’d wanted to eat it all along,” Rubin-Mahon says with evident glee, “And they became a lot more involved at that point after they saw that I wasn’t some nurseryman trying to take the potato away from them. There were some lumpy times when we were talking about the tissue cultures and
“I was worried at one point that they wouldn’t taste good.” ELISSA RUBIN-MAHON
they freaked out thinking that we were trying to make a GMO from this. But generally, they’ve been pretty supportive of the project.” The Bodega Red was back. In 2012, Bodega Red potato seeds were given to a handful of local farms, including HomeFarm and Bernier Farms in Healdsburg, First Light Farm in Sebastopol, and Wild Garden Farm in Chileno Valley, among others. The initial seeds were very expensive, and each farm was given a small amount. Two years down the road, the farms produce their own potato seeds and its numbers are rapidly growing. Roanne Kaplow of Wild Garden Farm reports, “This is my second year of growing the potatoes and they are very well adapted to the climate here. It grows beautifully, it’s very versatile CONTINUED ON PAGE 38
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in recipes, and it stores well.” Rubin-Mahon praises the potato’s flavor as “a combination of floury and creamy. If you steam it,” she says, “it’s almost like a russet. It also makes the most amazing potato chips you can imagine. I was worried at one point that they wouldn’t taste good.” Local restaurants like Backyard in Forestville and Spoonbar in Healdsburg now feature the Bodega Red on their menus, and it should appear at farm markets and local grocers this summer. What’s more, the tuber has its own fan base, the Bodega Red Potato Club, and its own tribute act, the Bodega Red Potato Band. A short musical play, “Manuela, Beauty of Bodega” (she of the potato-lined dress), written by Rancho Bodega
Historical Society’s chief archivist Robin Rudderow, premiered this May. It features a song titled, “O, Bodega!” intended to be sung to the tune of “O, Susanna!” Sample lyrics run thus:
O, Manuela! Our beauty from Peru We’ll keep planting red potatoes In fond memory of you.
Elissa Rubin-Mahon has reason to feel proud. Her selfproclaimed “nagging mother” instincts finally paid off. “My feeling is that, if people just looked around and remembered what they used to eat, or paid attention to the plants that interest them, they should find out about them and pass it along,” she says. “That’s how we’re able to bring things back.” She sighs with evident satisfaction. “It’s not gone until it’s really gone.”
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Article resources: www.wschsgrf.org/articles/ ataleoftwopotatoes
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Elissa Rubin-Mahon
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hen Austin Blair met Casey Beck in college, he had just dropped out of an engineering program and she was studying to be a filmmaker. When her The Organic Life documentary about their lives together debuted last fall, they had both graduated college, he was a fulltime farmer, and yes, she was a filmmaker.
Still in their 20s, Blair and, to some degree, Beck, are the subjects of her new film documenting one year in their lives on a Sonoma Valley farm. This look at everyday farming is emphatically not mawkishly glazed with Vaseline or even tears. Sure, there are gorgeous shots of morning dew and thriving plants and even the idyllic sun-over-the-fields rack we’ve come to expect, but The Organic Life’s main examination is of much tougher stuff. How, it asks, is small-scale modern day farming possibly a sustainable way of life? A sweet man who is seen chewing right off the plant in nearly every scene, Blair just really loves food. He loves to eat it, he loves
Blair works for Paul Wirtz and Candi Edmondson, co-owners of Paul’s Produce in Sonoma. “If people of our generation don’t carry on what Paul knows,” Blair tells the camera thoughtfully, “that would be knowledge lost.” Of course, back when Wirtz was a young farmer, he didn’t have the effects of climate change to deal in addition to all the other hardships of farming. But he probably did lack time. In the film, Beck bemoans that, unlike other 20somethings who take three-day weekends to go camping or stay out late on Saturday nights, she and Blair are too tied to the land to take a three-day jaunt and too physically exhausted to even go dancing. A crisis of small measure arises around this and, in what passes for drama in this affable little film, he agrees to quit working four extra hours each day on their home garden after returning from his job at the farm.
Love’s Labors ‘The Organic Life’ documents a couple’s year on the farm
PHOTO: JAKE BECKER
to cook, can, preserve, transform, and dry it—and he certainly loves to grow it. But the question arises: With his farmer’s income hovering just above the poverty line, does it love him sufficiently back for he and his sweetheart to make a life around it? That’s a question that The Organic Life doesn’t answer; it can’t—this is all still a work in progress.
Reached during a break from her job working for a youth center in Richmond where she teaches video production to underserved youth, Beck sighs comically about her man’s obsession. “He’s now open to planting flowers,” she says, “when before it was just more food, more food, more food.”
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In the film, Blair confesses that he had the Taco Bell menu memorized as a kid, loved junk food, and had probably never eaten a “real” carrot. There was nothing special or artisanal or natural about Beck’s childhood food, either. But once they began to eat straight from the land, they never looked back.
“If he needs help, I’ll go out and help him,” she says. “In the same way that he doesn’t enjoy filmmaking, I don’t really enjoy farming. And, farming is really a profession where people want you both to do it. And it’s like no, we can’t do this together. You don’t expect that of any other profession.”
After college, Beck won a Fulbright that sent her to Argentina. Blair was still unsure of his future, so she encouraged him to accompany her. At night, they would gaze out at the city’s rooftops and wonder why that real estate wasn’t being used to grow food. But the transition really happened when they volunteered on a South American farm and Blair caught sight of the host family’s root cellar.
Blair doesn’t expect it. One of the many pleasures of The Organic Life is watching the two of them interact as they sort out the tension between their two different paths.
“It was filled with their home-cured meats, their prosciutto, their salumi, their jams, their sauces, their vegetables, their pickles,” Beck says. “When Austin saw that, it kind of clicked. He said, ‘I want this!’” Ever loyal, Beck willingly went along when Blair proposed coming to California to try his hand at farming. But the passion doesn’t translate: She’s no farmer.
“I did this partly to comfort myself,” Beck explains about the film while on camera, “partly to show other people, and partly out of complete awe.” The film took two crowd-funding rounds, two fundraisers, and all of Beck’s savings to complete over a three-year period of time. Premiering last October at the Mill Valley Film Festival, the documentary has since screened at the Sonoma International Film Festival and those in Oakland and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Beck continues to show it at community screenings, replete with a chance to speak afterwards.
“It really never gets old to have that light bulb turned on with audiences,” she says. “On some level, we all know [what farming might entail], but when you actually see it, there’s a Eureka moment. There is a person out there growing my food! It’s so incredibly rewarding to have people say, ‘Now I want to go to the farmers’ market.’ It’s just really beautiful to witness that.” There’s a nice convergence here as, in the film, Blair explains his choices by saying, “I want what I do to make a difference for people, even if it’s just a couple hundred people at the farmers’ market.” Back on the phone, Beck says, “The real goal of the film is to encourage people to go out and meet their own farmers.” She gives a merry laugh. “I know mine pretty well.”
Article resources:
www.theorganiclifemovie.com
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he trick is this: Your Ring of Awareness should be larger than your Ring of Disturbance. We each have both. The Ring of Awareness is the depth at which you’re able to understand, notice, and translate the details of life around you. The Ring of Disturbance is the amount of noise, clutter, and disorder you might swing out into the life around you. Think of Charlie Brown’s buddy Pigpen reanimated as noise. Naturalist Peter Bergen has an easy illustration. Say you want to go on a hike and see some wildlife. You drive out to the Pt. Reyes National Seashore and park. Excited, you leap from the car and slam the door. “Right away, all the animals are like, ‘Here they come,’” Bergen chuckles. “The birds alarm and when the animals that hear that, they just disappear.” Better, Bergen suggests, is to quietly step from the car and click the door closed with your hip. “When you’re quiet and you put your own mind at ease,” he says, “you can move closer to the animals.” This is just one of the small lessons that Bergen dispenses all summer long to children at his Outside in Nature day camp program held at Petaluma’s Tara Firma Farms. The other thing campers ages 7 through 12 immediately learn to do is to use knives. After all, they’ll need them to whittle throwing sticks, darts, and fire kits. Even after nearly two decades teaching children about nature, Bergen remains most mystified by their parents. “A lot of parents think of knives as really dangerous,” he says, standing in the shade of Tara Firma’s “Nature Nook,” an alcove in the large pass-through barn. “We go swimming in the pond, and the parents are enthusiastic about that. But if the kids cut themselves, we can fix that with a BandAid. If they have trouble in the water, that could be very serious. People’s perception of what’s dangerous and what’s not . . . ” he shakes his head. “Knives are just tools, if you teach the safety protocols.” On a late spring day, Bergen, 59, indulged his visitor with a hike around Tara Firma’s property, on that portion of the land where he leads his Outside in Nature program.
Stopping by the pond, he furthers the point. “Every seven-year-old tells you that they know how to swim, so we take them up here and put them in tubes. If they can swim out to us, that’s their test. Then we decide. But they get the experience of it; it’s not me telling them, ‘You can’t swim.’ Who knows what the long-term effects of that might be?” Bergen sees the farm setting as perfect for introducing children who may not be used to wild animals to the ways, at least, of domestic ones. “When we’re out in the field with the kids, there are pigs, chickens, ducks, and cows. I practice with the kids how to approach them. How do you pull in your Ring of Disturbance? Do they stay still, do they notice you, or do they move away? Then, when we run into wild animals, like a deer or turkeys, we can approach them. I’ve done nature programs at preserves and the animals are more wary.” The curriculum is rooted in something that Bergen calls Children’s Universal Passion. He assesses his small group of campers at the start of each session, looking for their interests with the intent of building on it. “What I do here is not outdoor education,” he says, “we call it ‘Deep Nature Connection.’ We help facilitate the kids to have a relationship with the natural world. How we do that is through full immersion. We want to find the kids’ interest and passion and go towards that.” By “full immersion,” Bergen is in part referring to questioning what is around you. If a child notices a certain flower, for example, he will begin to query the child about it. How many petals does it have? What does it smell like? Is there any scat evident near it? Beginning to search for those answers allows the camper to slow down and really see the flower, rather than spotting something yellow in a field, tagging it a “buttercup,” and moving on. “That’s a doorway to a nature connection,” he says. “That’s where the engagement begins. You don’t see or recognize stuff that’s not in your brain.” If the child is interested, Bergen will take her back to the Nature Nook so that they can CONTINUED ON PAGE 45
Question Authority Naturalist Peter Bergen helps kids understand the world by asking questions of it
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43
look up the plant’s Latin name and other information; if not, the exploration has at least begun a pivot towards new knowledge. That said, the emphasis is on having fun. “It’s all the things you used to do when your parents weren’t around when you were seven, eight, nine years old,” he explains. “Splashing in the water, running fast, looking under rocks, and catching stuff.” At least, that’s the stuff that Bergen used to do as a kid, spending weekends on his uncle’s rural New Jersey farm. Today’s children often aren’t so privileged. “I actually have kids who say that they’ve forgotten something over there, up by that barn, over the fence,” he says, gesturing about 300 yards away. “I say, ‘Go get it,’ and they’re stunned, because they’ve never ever been that far away from adult supervision and they’re eight years old.”
Your Community First Credit Union debit card is also a Super GO LOCAL Rewards Card. If you have a CFCU debit card, you may activate it as a GO LOCAL Rewards Card at any electronic rewards merchant and use it in place of a GO LOCAL card. How cool is that? Not only does it get you rebates and discounts at participating GO LOCAL merchants, it also gives you an additional 5% back on a portion of all purchases.
The program also teaches respect. “Everything that we interface in the field, we look at as a gift,” Bergen says. “If we’re catching worms to go fishing and we know that we’re going to take a life, we say thank you. Something I learned from an elder is the importance of giving something back, and what we do is we get a little piece of hair from the back of our necks. After two days, the kids understand that they give their hair. It pinches a little bit, but there’s no blood. Native American traditions give tobacco and cornmeal. That’s the respect and acknowledgement that it’s an energy exchange.” Bergen started as what he calls a “brag and drag” docent at the Audubon Canyon Ranch in 1995. He laughs as he explains: “We’d drag the kids around for three hours and brag about everything they saw—and who knows what took.” These days, he’s deeply involved in the Eight Shields experiential model espoused by naturalist and author Jon Young ( What the Robin Knows) and Young’s mentor, Tom Brown, Jr., under both of whom Bergen has studied. Rooted in indigenous storytelling and knowledge-sharing traditions, the Eight Shields model embraces the importance of community in raising kids, the power of storytelling, and questioning what is around you so as to better know it. “A lot of people go out in nature and have fun on jet skis or fishing or whatever, so they’re right on the edge of nature,” he says. “I know someone who’s an avid fisherman, but he calls the oak tree outside his house ‘a nut tree.’ I grew up with nature because my uncle had a farm, but I didn’t have anyone to tell my story to and I didn’t have anyone asking me questions. And that’s what takes you into the deep nature connection. Knowledge of place—that’s how the Bushmen can survive in such a harsh place [as the Kalahari]. And not just in their lifetimes, but going back generations and generations and generations. Those stories have been told.” But kids are kids and summer is summer. The important work is fun. “I don’t think I’ve had any kids here who haven’t had a good time,” he says as he tracks the flight of a bird across the sky.
SANTA ROSA MAIN BRANCH:
5O1 COLLEGE AVENUE 7O7-546-6OOO
F I N D O U T M O R E AT
comfirstcu.org
Article resources:
Outside in Nature summer sessions run July 7-11 and 21-25, as well as Aug. 11-15. outsideinnature.com
MILES OF AISLES Amid an increasingly corporate landscape, local grocer longevity really matters
Our local markets are ablaze with candles, and yet none of them look a day over 29. It is with great cheer that we wish a very happy 50th birthday to Andy’s Produce Market in Sebastopol. Congratulations also to G&G Grocery Store on your 50th anniversary. And there are many extra huzzahs to offer to these long-standing grocers: Pacific Market (66 years), Molsberry’s Market (55 years), Community Market (40 years), Oliver’s Market (32 years), Fircrest Market (30 years), Petaluma Market (27 years), Big John’s Market (20 years), and Shelton’s Natural Foods Market (six years). Congratulations are in order for many reasons, but mainly because having staying power as a grocery store has become a considerably more difficult task during each of these grocer’s tenures. D O C U M E N T I N G P E O P L E | E V E N T S | F O O D | C U LT U R E
In 2011, the economic analysis and strategic planning consultancy Civics Economics measured the health and relative strength of locally owned independent retail establishments in comparison to national and global chains across metro areas in the U.S., Sonoma County among them. Turns out, Sonoma County is ranked No. 1 among those of similar size for strength of local retailers and indie market share.
55 Years of Serving Our Community The freshest local products from our family to yours, for four generations. We cater to you!
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This means many Sonoma County residents prefer locallyowned businesses and support them by shopping with them regularly. In return, we reap the benefits that come from stable local ownership—like better jobs, more property taxes for better schools and roads, local wealth assets for future investing, and higher donations for nonprofits. We also get area stores that understand our preferences for particular products and can provide them. Our area grocers have demonstrated their staying power against fierce competition from outside owners of big chain stores. As of 2013, Walmart alone had captured 26 percent of every grocery dollar spent in the U.S. Every time you shop with a local grocer, you vote with your food dollar. You vote to keep our food system under local control and to ensure we have a food infrastructure to serve us for generations. You vote to see another 66, 55, 40, and more years of locally owned markets serving you and your family the good food you rely on them for. And they still won’t look a day over 29. Article resources:
civiceconomics.com