Established 1985

Owners

Andrew Brait, Paul Muller, Judith Redmond, and Dru Rivers

Seasons

They pick and pack fruit and vegetables year-round

Practices

“Full Belly’s system includes: growing and marketing over 80 different crops; providing year-round employment for farm labor; using cover crops that fix nitrogen and provide organic matter for the soil; developing innovative marketing strategies; and planting habitat areas for beneficial insects and wildlife. This set of strategies allows the farm to integrate farm production with longer-term environmental goals.

Full Belly is also home to many outreach activities, including educational tours, school group visits, and the much-acclaimed annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival (pictured above). The Hoes Down Festival celebrates rural life and educates the public about growing food in a sustainable manner. Through such programs, Full Belly seeks to create awareness of farm realities and to stress the importance of farms in the fabric of our society.”

Chef Canales says Full Belly was the first farm to provide Oliveto with Rosa Bianca eggplant.  ”They also supply us with superior whole wheat that is used to give our pasta a unique texture and nuttiness.  They are very involved in the larger issues around food policy and practices and set an admirable example for other farms.”

Community Supported Agriculture Programs

Operates a Community Supported Agricultural project that forges a direct connection between the farm and the people who buy and eat its produce. By belonging to the CSA, members support organic farming practices that are healthful for people and the environment. Members receive boxes of fresh produce delivered to convenient neighborhood locations in the East Bay, San Rafael, and the South Bay, as well as in Sacramento, Davis, Woodland, and Esparto.  Learn more here.

Length of relationship with Oliveto

15 years

Location

250 acres in Guinda, part of the Capay Valley

Crops

Vegetables, stone fruit, walnuts, herbs, flowers

Organizations / Certification

CCOF since 1985

Distribution

Majority is distributed within a 120 mile radius to restaurants, stores, farmers’ markets, and through their CSA

Farmers’ markets

Berkeley Derby Street – Tuesdays
Palo Alto – Saturday
San Rafael – Thursday

Website

http://www.fullbellyfarm.com/

Today marks the first day of Summer 2011 and many signs of the season were on display at the Derby Street Market: fragrant basil, cherry tomatoes from Full Belly, summer squash & those knockout long stem Seascape strawberries from Lucero, and piles of “ripe shamefaced peaches” (had to get in a belated Bloomsday reference) at Blossom Bluff.

But one of the definitive signs that it is truly summer at the Derby Street market is the appearance of our friends from Dirty Girl Produce.  And there they were!  Right next to a freakin’ harp player!

Seems that Santa Cruz was not as waylaid by rain as it was last year, so most of Dirty Girl’s crops were planted on schedule.  Their romanesco was looking particularly lovely today, as well as some smaller bunched broccoli.  Coming up: beans. Lots and lots of beans (haricots vert, romano, cannellini, among others) should be arriving from Dirty Girl Produce within the next few weeks.  And the official statement on dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes?  ETA: 4-5 weeks.

Everyone is out & about in their shirtsleeves but market wise, spring’s a little late this year.  We visited the Derby Market on Tuesday and talked to Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm in Yolo who said that due to the late rains, the ground has been too wet to work.  Finally, this past week, they have been able to get new plantings in the ground.  So it will probably be another few weeks before we see full blown spring produce at most of the markets.  The asparagus has been good so far, but other early perennials such as strawberries haven’t quite hit their mark yet.

Rumor has it there was one box of peas at the Full Belly stand, but they were all gone within an hour.

We’ve been getting the first local freshly dug potatoes from the Capay Valley for the past few weeks.  The above beauties are German Butterballs from Full Belly Farm.

The only way you can tell if a potato is freshly dug is by its peeling, delicate skin.  Because their skins haven’t had time to harden, they need to be refrigerated if kept more than a few days.  They are creamier, less starchy, and sweeter, although the flavor is less concentrated.

For mature, cured potatoes, Full Belly will cut the leaves of the plant & keep the potatoes in the ground until the skins harden, allowing the potatoes to be stored without refrigeration.

New potatoes will continue to be harvested from different parts of the bay area over the next few weeks and then go into storage.  So right now (the next crop won’t be until the fall) is the time to get them when they are in fact “new” & also delicious.

Chef Canales will have freshly-dug potatoes on menu this weekend served with scallions, crème fraîche, and caviar…

because even though you don’t have to do much to make these potatoes taste great, if you can, why not?

Yesterday, Bill & Paul hit the Derby Street market just in time to see all the purple asparagus vanish.  No bother.  There was plenty else to ogle including ‘crazy’ cabbage from Full Belly Farm and beautiful red romaine lettuce from Riverdog Farm.   Also some massive goose eggs from Arthur Davis of Ludwig Avenue Farm and a few tips from Chef Canales on how to poach them.

From this point on it only gets better with berry season just around the corner and stone fruits soon after.

Last June we were troubled, as many were, to learn the news that Bill Fujimoto would be leaving Berkeley’s Monterey Market.  Bill has been a friend and supporter of Oliveto from day one, and to many restaurants. More importantly, Bill has been a virtual lifeline for many small farmers in northern California and beyond.   We were anxious around the possibility of losing such an influential voice and presence in the East Bay food community and eager to keep in contact with both Bill and his wife Judy once it became apparent that a suitable arrangement with Monterey Market would not be forthcoming.

So we were pleased as punch to find our old friend last Thursday arranging pyramids of beautiful produce at Diablo Foods in Lafayette (925-283-0737).  Bill has been working at Diablo for the past few months as a consultant.  He looks great.  He says he feel great.  And he already seems to know 87% of his customers by name.  In the short time we were there, we learned so much (there is an “official” navel orange for Chinese New Year!) and we were so inspired by that contagious-Fujimoto-enthusiasm, we decided we needed to create a mainline to the source.  Who better to tell us what we should be shopping for than Bill himself?  So, we’ll be posting Bill’s Farmers’ Market Reports -  full of fun facts, shopping tips, and insightful observations throughout the spring and into the summer.  We’ll go shopping with Bill at some of our favorite farmers’ markets in the East Bay and find out from the expert what to buy and how to buy it.  Alongside that, we’ll get Chef Canales’ take on how to cook and eat it!  Should be fun…

‘Tis the season of abundance and acute ripeness, as summer crops put all their remaining energy into their final fruits and seeds in one last attempt to be sown back into the earth.  The farms themselves seem at their most beautiful, and the harvest months have a certain celebratory cheer about them, the true pleasure in a job well done.

It’s also the season when farmers and chefs alike are borderline overwhelmed with an onslaught of fruits & vegetables that are ripe RIGHT NOW.  It brings an immediacy and a level of creativity to the kitchen and menu that is unique to this time of year. The term farmers use to describe some of their produce (specifically tomatoes and stone fruit) around now is “dead ripe”.  Chef Canales explains to us what that means exactly and describes the sense of timeliness it brings to the act of cooking during this brief yet vibrant season.

Brookside Farm Autumn 2009 Brentwood, CA

We queried our farmers last week, just before the Autumnal Equinox on September 22nd, to get one last report as tomato season comes to a close and to find out what is planned for the cooler months of fall.

Welling Tom of Brookside Farm had this to tell us:

Most of our tomatoes are finished, except for the San Marzano, which is still going strong.  It turns out that most of the tomato plants which we bought from the nursery (a rather large operation which I will not name) as Early Girl were not Early Girl. We suspected something was not right when the fruits began to ripen in late June. They were much too big and squatty shaped, and the vines never grew as tall as Early Girl vines should. Early Girl fruits should be a bit pointed at the blossom end, and the “shoulders” around the calyx should not be very broad. Those girls are not supposed to look so butch!

New fruits ceased to appear after only about one month, while Early Girl should continue to produce as long as the weather remains warm and dry (through the month of October in most years). We never sold any to Oliveto, except a few green (unripe) ones for the Tomato dinners.

Many of the Brandywine plants which we bought from that same nursery turned out wrong also. They had the broad “potato” leaves, but the fruit were a bright orange-y red rather than the pinkish red of true Brandywines. They didn’t taste right, either. Still, despite these problems, our tomato harvest turned out pretty well. We will get our tomato plants from a smaller, more reliable nursery next year. Kassenhoff Growers of Oakland has been our source for specialty varieties, like the Pineapple, San Marzano, and Momotaro. We will turn to them for Early Girl and Brandywine too.

As of today, this eve before the Equinox, we have broccoli, rainbow chards, Lacinato kale, and snow peas already growing. We will try to grow more greens and beets and turnips in the next week or so, and garlic and torpedo onions too (October-November). This autumn should yield a heavy crop of Fuyu persimmons. We are looking forward to that.

We will have Comice pears available this week. Last Sunday, when I was delivering a late-summer bounty of okra, Japanese eggplants, ‘Figaro” peppers, and San Marzano tomatoes to the Oliveto kitchen, Jenny Raven asked me if we have any autumn fruits. We will have the persimmons about a month from now, but the Comice pears are already ripening.

Welling

Many of the farms we source from have gatherings at this time of year to celebrate the harvest.  Full Belly Farm’s Annual Hoes Down Festival happens this weekend, October 3rd, and is always a good time with live music, tons of activities, and lots of excellent food.

On Sunday, October 18th, Riverdog Farm will host a Pumpkin Patch Party with hayrides, pumpkin picking, and a meal served under the walnut trees.  They will post more details about this event on their website in the next few weeks.

Brookside Farm held its annual Corn Harvest party September 13th.  Here are some photographs from the afternoon:

More photographs of the event were taken by Eisaku Tokuyama, a friend of the Toms, and can viewed here.

In the meantime, the current showstopper is eggplant.  Chef Canales shows us the three varieties he’s particularly fond of and explains how he likes to use them.  Eggplant will be on the Oliveto menu in a variety of dishes over the next few days including:

Conchiglie with Rosa Bianca egglpant and pancetta

Stuffed chard and fried ricotta polpettini with wood-oven-roasted eggplant purée

Last Tuesday, Chef Paul Canales and Bill Fujimoto met up at the Derby Street Farmers’ Market in Berkeley to get a taste of what’s great right now, and also to show us what to look for as the summer progresses.

video shot and edited by Ben Schwartz