Community Corner
From Farmers To Chefs: The Best Food Is Sourced Locally
Healdsburg eateries strive to use fresh local produce, eggs and meat on their menus every day of the week.
"Local" is the one of the main ingredients for menu offerings in Healdsburg.
We're seeing an emphasis on locally grown products from Barndiva’s Chef Ryan Fancher, who buys produce from Mix Garden Produce and many other local vendors, to Jimtown Store’s owner Carrie Brown, who searches the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market for retail items, produce for her recipes and food for her family.
With an eye to checking out the local produce-to-restaurant resources and partnerships between farmers, eatery owners and chefs, I started by calling Mick Kopetsky of MIX Garden Produce. Kopetsky offered me a few names, and as I began to follow the contacts, the connections were instantly apparent and much more broadly-based than I had ever imagined.
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My first visit was with . Brown and I “walked the market” one Saturday morning, so she could show me how she goes about selecting retail items, such as honey, lavender and wine vinegar; vegetable starts, for Jimtown’s own garden; how she chooses the produce for her recipes as well as the produce she buys for herself and her family. It was a mouth-watering, eye-opening stroll.
Brown starts by a reconnaissance of HFM, looking at “what they have” to offer. “I ask questions to see when things will come in and order some things and buy for the store,” said Brown.
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She goes on, “We have a garden, as well, so I’m buying [vegetable] starts.” We stop at Earlybird’s Place and talk to Myrna Fincher to look at the tomato starts. Brown picks cherry tomatoes and says, “Oh, Sun Gold,” as she selects the plants.
“Black ones have a depth of flavor—they’re soulful,” Brown enthuses, as she selects Black Kim and Cherokee Purple varieties.
Next Brown gently squeezes Meyer lemons and selects three and says, “We already use their lemons in our recipes.”
“I shop Yael,” [Bernier of Bernier Farms, whose new farm is just up the road from Jimtown]. Brown continues, “I order things and pick them up in Alexander Valley.”
“I have to order Padron pepper starts from Yael.”
Then she digresses to food. “Sweet turnips quartered and sprinkled with sea salt, there’s no need to peel them,” giving the first of several of food tips.
Next, Brown and I stop at Sophie’s Five Acres, where Joan Conway and Horace Criswell show us lavender buds and savory lavender. They also have lavender salt. Brown says, “These will be fun to have in the store,” as she orders them for later pick up.
Foggy River Farm is our next stop, where we try micro-greens. Pea shoots are just $1.00 an ounce and they are sweet and crisp. Pea shoots can be used as a sandwich topping, or sautéed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Delicious new food adventures.
“The raspberry is sooo good,” says Beth Sawatzky, as Brown greets her in front of is the farmer and she shows us fresh, organic strawberries. Middleton Farm is certified organic and has won awards for their raspberry preserves.
Brown chatters, “Dan Magnuson’s Soda Rock Farm has a relationship with Jimtown Store.” His motto is “We’ll serve no tomato before its time.
“We get delivery [of tomatoes] twice a week, during the season,” Brown continues. “We don’t have enough in our garden.”
We continue our market ramble past O’Malley’s Mobile Knife Sharpening, where Ian O’Malley says he makes “house calls” to a business like Jimtown Store to sharpen knives.
A stop at Vivo Vinegar and owner John Trull teaches us how to taste vinegar on sugar cubes. Again, Brown orders for the retail portion of her store.
Brown says, “I try to see what may sell of what are super, local ingredients.”
We taste curly celery, we stop to see Phil McDonel’s water color of Jimtown Store’s truck, we stop so Brown can order honey from Sandra Alvarez, co-owner of Hector’s Honey. Brown sniffs a candle and says, “Bee’s wax candles are divine.”
A stop at Ridgeview Farm to talk to Renee and Joel Kiff and to learn that peaches are still very small and the season is slow coming on. Brown confides they buy “cases and cases of apples” from Ridgeview, both to sell in the store and to make things with them.
They make things like pumpkin-apple bread, crisps and coffeecakes and apple butter. They also add them to Jimtown Store’s boxed lunches.
Joel Kiff confides when asked about melons, “I just planted them yesterday.”
A few days later, I talk to Barndiva’s co-owner, Jil Hales. We agree to an e-mail interview and a video (at right) of a produce delivery by Alex Lapham, of MIX Garden Produce.
Mix Garden Produce supplies produce to the “who’s-who” list of local restaurants.
Barndiva is a family partnership between Geoffrey Hales (Jil’s husband) and eldest son Lukka Feldman.
Jil Hales writes, “We were… [committed] to the real goal of local farming, which is keeping sustainable agrarian traditions alive and vital.
They have owned a farm near Philo for more than 30 years.
Barndiva’s chef is Ryan Fancher. Hales says, “Ryan is an astonishing chef whose singular talent is allowing ingredients to sing.”
Hales states, “The world may come for the wine, but it stays for the food.” She goes on, “…we’ve been honored to be able to contribute to supporting a foodshed with such diversity and quality.”
“We host thousands of wedding guests from all over the country who leave with indelible memories—we want one of them to be of what ‘real food’ tastes like,” she continues.
“Our hope is that they will use the great culinary experience they had with us to seek out farmers’ markets where they live, because wherever that is, no matter the climate, chances are they have a seasonal foodshed that needs their support, one they will benefit [from] having a connection with.”
Chef Ryan Fancher, Barndiva’s “astonishing chef” says they, “Crafts dishes around what’s available and looks amazing.”
“Local produce drives the menu writing process,” Fancher continues, “If something amazing becomes available we try to find creative ways to work it onto the menu.”
This week says Fancher, he uses, “Stinging nettles, strawberries, artichokes, green garlic, spring onions, beets...” and a long list of other local produce, eggs, olive oils, honeycomb and herbs.
Fancher even offers some food advice to readers, “Choose the best. Don’t over process. Keep it simple and elegant.”
My final stop of the week is with two of Simi Winery’s chefs. I watch and create a digital video of chef Joshua Feliciano as he prepares a Margarita pizza with flare for the outdoor oven in Simi’s Landslide Terazzo. The Landslide Terazzo is a pizza restaurant open just Friday and Saturday seasonally. It opened on May 13.
Once again, at Simi, I find myself walking with Simi’s delightful PR rep, Kristen Green and Chef Eric Lee, through the gorgeous winery grounds up past the winery, out to the crush pad, where the new raised garden beds are located.
According to Lee, they used to get their garden produce from their own farm on Chalk Hill Road, but that was inconvenient, so they decided to create their own beds at the winery. In addition, he has plans to create herb gardens along Healdsburg Avenue in containers that will be placed among the landscaped flower beds.
“What’s in our gardens are things planted specifically for the pizzas,” says Lee. “We are going to try to use only what is planted in our raised beds.”
I see the vegetable starts and the beautifully designed new planting boxes. They contain a plethora of vegetable starts—Swiss chard, lettuces, torpedo onions, Padron and banana peppers, tomatoes and sugar snap peas. In addition, at the edges there are blooming strawberry plants and citrus trees.
They purchase, as their plants grow, their vegetables from Love Farm Certified Organic, located on Grove Street and Sonoma Organics.
Says Lee, “We source as much local as we can.”
In addition to the eateries mentioned, there are many others, like Dry Creek Kitchen, Scopa and Zin, who raise their own vegetables, purchase from MIX Produce, the Healdsburg Farmers' Market or other local farmers and ranchers.
It seems like Healdsburg really is as serious about its local farms and locally produced food as it is about its local wines—and that’s a good thing.
