Local food or not?

I bought a few items at Whole Foods:

Grindstone Bakery is a small artisan bakery, 10 minutes south of me in Santa Rosa, with a label that says they use a wood fired brick oven. I can email "Mario", who's email address is on the label and ask I guess. They produce an organic and sourdough 100% Rye Bread that tastes just like it does in the "old country". A type of bread that is a staple food in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. Grindstone Bakery got this right, look at this short ingredients list: Whole Rye Flour, Purified Water, Rye Starter, Caraway Seeds, Sea Salt. That's it.
A Finn, Estonian, Russian etc, can't complain. It was actually a challenge to find real rye bread here in the Bay Area, but if you look long enough, (and at lower shelves), you can find just about anything. A loaf was $5.29 and worth every single penny.

Niman Ranch is a "quality label" I think. I was looking out for their beef/pork products. I stumbled on their sausages and bought a 4-pack of Bratwurst and Chorizo. So today at lunch, the Bratwurst "disappeared" I really enjoyed every bite and it was nice together with sauerkraut and a dollop of mustard. Niman Ranch is an Oakland CA label, but admittedly the pork products may not come from here, they include family farms from Iowa and Minnesota as well. Raised with care. No nitrates added, no antibiotics, no hormones, no artificial ingredients.

Heinkes Family Farm, Paradise California - organic Concord Grapes. This was actually a surprise. This North-American variety of grape is very unusual as a table grape. Instead, this grape disappears into grape jelly and juice. It has a very different flavor than your available-everywhere, Thompson Seedless aka Sultana grape. It leaves a deep purple color and tastes like that familiar american Welch's grape-jam, I recall from toast-and-jelly from hotel breakfasts. It contains seeds and the skin is "floppy". Thus, probably a difficult sell to people who are used to Thomson grapes. A tiny sized farm probably.

Lastly, I think I failed again, to pick up a local goat or sheep Feta Cheese. Marin Cheese Company offered I thought both varieties, but I'm now sure its simply repackaged product from "somewhere". Do they even make any cheese or have a website? I want Feta cheese in my Greek salad. The most common "Feta" in stores is Athenos, a Cow-milk based cheese from Wisconsin, that's not what I want. No offense to Wisconsin cheese-makers per se. The above company name was ridiculously close to a local artisan-cheese vendor: Marin French Cheese Company, who's cheeses I'm grabbing very soon.
I do understand that "buying local" can really be difficult. (But, at least I'm having a blast trying...) Here's an interesting blog entry on the subject. (My goat Feta cheese is perhaps from France.)

Sonoma waterhole: El Dorado Kitchen

I can highly recommend El Dorado Kitchen, located at one of the corners of the Sonoma Plaza, a well known park with Sonoma City Hall at its center. I happened to see their executive chef, Ryan Fancher, not too long ago at one of the local public events, Salute to the Arts, where he was showcasing a few of the their abilities. He mentioned that all their organic local vegetables came from Oak Hill Farms in Sonoma. I only had time for a light starter for now, but I'll be back for dinner for sure.

Charcuterie plate - (served two people just fine for a taste)

House made rillettes (meat pâté), artisanal sausages, brie tour de marze, whole grain mustard, house made marmalade $18.00

For a drink I picked a fresh Pomegranate Martini, just right, not too sweet. They have four different cheese plates on their brunch menu, they look wonderful for another visit.

A trip to Berkeley: Berkeley Bowl Market.

I got a chance to go to the quirky and hippie Berkeley to check out Berkeley Bowl, on Oregon Street, a well-stuffed high quality food-outlet. That place was totally packed with people. I'm pretty sure they manage to operate with a lower markup on quality foodstuffs than for example Whole Foods Market. I picked up a local, handmade, Fra'Mani dry salami, Salametto with only natural ingredients, made right here in Berkeley, no less. A twelve inch chub cost me $10.99, worth every penny.

Fra' manis dry salami is a hand tied salami with natural twine, mold ripened, and slowly aged. Seasoned only with sea salt, spices, garlic and wine. No added nitrites.

Surrounded by farmers

I finally took a picture of the farm closest to me, Oluf's Ranch, being less than one mile away. Their field of ever-growing pumpkins and maize-corn grow taller each day. I can come by for a hayride (see the roadside sign) in the first week of October, whee! When I googled, I noticed that they participate in something called Farm Trails, that I assume everyone in Sonoma County already knew about, except for me. It seems like I'm interested in what's referred to as Agritourism, knowing where the heck the food comes from, how it was made and grown - seeing it first hand.

Farm Trails publishes a Farm Trails Map & Guide of Sonoma County, whereby you can visit hundreds of farms, ranchers and so on. I'm told that they pioneered the idea of agritourism in California. When I looked at the Farm Trails map, it also mentions for example Golden Nectar Farm, two miles away from me... Look at that, I had no idea, I'm surrounded by farmers. Local Harvest describes them as having a hundred varieties of organically grown fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs.

I was actually not so fond of pumpkins, however a year ago a friend of mine's girlfriend decided to make a pumpkin pie from scratch that knocked my socks off - it really was that good. I think the "secret" ingredient was a little Rum...

Scandinavian dinner in San Francisco

A real Scandinavian treat in the Fog City, served up by a Swede, Chef Pelle at one of its oldest institutions (founded in 1898): the Norwegian Club of San Francisco. Dinner consisted of wine-poached Atlantic Salmon, a delightful dill sauce, potato and grilled beans, complete with a shot of real Aquavit, a Scandinavian vodka. Finished off with a swedish Princess Cake for dessert.

The day was started with a delightful lunch at the Cheesecake factory on the top floor of the Macy's building, at Union Square I picked Renee's Special which is a chicken sandwich, homemade soup and salad, $9.95. As usual portions are huge, I only ate about half of it.

Slow food heaven at Ferry Plaza Market

Today I went down to San Francisco, for a quick tourist-trap-visit, including a chance to visit the Ferry Plaza marketplace. I had recently read about it but not actually gone there. This place is packed with fabulous local food-makers. On Tuesdays they also have a Farmers Market when local farmers and ranchers show up with even more organic goodies.

Inside, I particularly wanted to check out the Cowgirl Creamery's Artisan Cheese Shop. They sell their own cheeses, made with Straus milk, they also offer others' artisan cheeses. Lined up in the fridge display case I saw their own Red Hawk, Pierce Pt and Mt. Tam. In my fridge was already their Red Hawk, a brie-like but more stronger flavored, creamy and slightly orange-colored wonderful cheese, very nice. It won Best-In-Show at the American Cheese Society's Annual Conference in 2003. Before I forget, I just want to mention a few local artisan cheese-makers in the shop that I have either bought something from, or that keep appearing in stores that I want to track:

• Laura Chenel's Chevre
• Elk creamery
• Bellwether Farm
• Pug's Leap (hard to find)
• Cypress Grove Chevre
• Redwood Hill Farm
• Pt Reyes
• Vella Cheese Company
• Achadinha Dairy

...many fabulous California goat cheeses are nowadays available, thanks to Ms. Laura Chenel apparently.

Lunch was grabbed at one of the Ferry Plaza shops, San Francisco Fish Company, I picked a Crab Hamburger for $9.50. By the way, San Francisco Bay has a few hundred crab fishermen, but the local season only starts November 15 I'm told. In the fridge display they had local California Halibut in stock, $21.99/lb which is a favorite of mine. I like their message and emphasis on "wild caught" rather than farmed fish.

McEvoy Ranch located in west Petaluma, Sonoma County, also has a shop in the Plaza, I had already bought their organic olive oil, (a gorgeous package and bottle) and in the shop they offered their range of flavored California olive oils. The olive oil is peppery. I'm still on a hunt for greek olive varieties: black Kalamata for eating and Koroneiki olive-oil.

Lastly, Prather Ranch, out of Mt Shasta-area had a shop offering all kinds of organic beef, I sure hope I get a chance to buy some some day. They were also promoting organic no-nitrate hotdogs. How about that, $7 bucks for five upscale hotdogs...

Salami War Won by Italians in California

I went to downtown Sonoma by the historic plaza today , with a friend visting from Sweden. The place is historic because its the birthplace of the state, (the Bear Flag revolt June 14, 1846) and home to California's last mission. While I had my mind set to pick up some local artisan cheeses, (which I did) dairy is not what I'm going to write about. Instead this is about something else I really enjoy: salami. After some googling, I discovered that San Francisco is apparently the home to America's best Italian salami, after a curious salami war 1967-70, according to a 2003 story in the LA Times. According to Wikipedia, the term "Italian Salame" is a protected term for salami made in the United States.

In the back of my mind, I remembered the taste of some some terrific salami, back in Sweden (I don't know what kind); I really wanted to find something similar or hopefully even better. My first local salami-purchase-attempt wasn't anywhere close. Luckily for me, the proprietor to Vella Cheese Company, Mr. Ig Vella, who recognized my stepfather told me to try Colombus Salame Secchi. So of course I bought some from him, (together with three of his cheeses no less). After coming home from some winetasting at Sebastiani and Kunde Wineries, I couldn't wait very long to cut into the salami. (Life is good?)

The verdict? This was just the type of salami I was looking for: a mellow tasting, made the old-fashioned way, beautifully moldy, tied-by-hand and aged in natural casing, a locally hand-crafted salami. This was simply put, a truly wonderful salami "chub" in my opinion. I'll keep my eyes open for other Columbus 'artisan' line of salamis, a few of their common products are not that exciting, but the Secchi Salami was truly a classic match for my tastebuds.

A few other local quality San Francisco salami makers:

• P.G. Molinari


• Fra'Mani


• Fatted Calf

As an example of a cheap made salami I guess is Gallo Salami: "corn syrup and synthetic casings" don't belong in a salami, in my opinion. They are knowadays owned by the huge Sara Lee corporation. Like another blogger said: "they spend very little on the ingredients and a ton of money on advertising".