April 8th, 2013 by Sarah Bruhns
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Our friends Karen and Bob at Lucero Organic Farm in Lodi say the berries they planted in December are just around the corner from being ready. Karen predicts in a week they’ll be at farmer’s market in Berkeley, with the high season hitting in May. …..
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August 29th, 2012 by Catherine Meng
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We hit the Derby Street 63rd & Adeline Market yesterday to check in with some of our favorite tomato farmers and find out how the season is progressing.
Last time we’d checked in, things were off to a slower and cooler start than expected which led to our decision to reschedule this year’s Tomato Dinners for mid-September. This time around, we found an eye-popping barrage…
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August 7th, 2012 by Catherine Meng
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Gearing up for this year’s Tomato Dinners (originally scheduled for the end of August) we started asking our farmers about how the season was progressing and what we kept hearing back was, actually tomatoes weren’t happening…yet.
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July 16th, 2012 by Catherine Meng
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you can imagine Oliveto’s excitement when we learned that our friends at Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg, CA (who have played an important role in helping to develop a local grain economy here in northern California), are also the first farmers outside of Italy to be raising this breed of pigs. Because the name, Cinta Senese…
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May 24th, 2012 by Bob Klein
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Last night we had a surprise visit from an old friend, Sarah Willis, daughter of Paul Willis. Maggie and I met her ten yeas ago when we were out making this video, and we’ve long felt a bond with Paul Willis and family. This was the early days of restaurants thinking about meat as “whole animals”, and the early days of …
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May 21st, 2012 by Catherine Meng
We always love an inside look at what’s happening on the farm, and Welling Tom has always supplied us with some of the best insights into the day to day, season to season, happenings at Brookside Farm in Brentwood, CA. Here’s the update he emailed us from last week, complete with a Steely Dan quote:
Some [...]
December 22nd, 2011 by Catherine Meng
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After a particularly beautiful batch of Brookside Farm’s Meyer lemons arrived last week, we followed up with Welling Tom to find out what else is going on at their Brentwood, CA farm. Here’s what he had to tell us:
“Our Meyer lemons are some of the few things we currently have available. We also have a few Oroblanco pomelos already picked. Growing in the field, we have …
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August 17th, 2011 by Pastry Chef Jenny Raven
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As often as I come across a “perfect” piece of fruit, however, I rarely employ the philosophy of showcasing its perfection by serving it untouched; as Chef Paul Canales says, “the customer is not paying me to shop for them – I’m here to cook!” Only once or twice a year does a fruit come along that I feel is featured best by serving on its own, without setting it in a composed dessert context. That time has come…
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June 3rd, 2011 by Bob Klein
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For our first field trip of 2011 we visited two farms in Contra Costa County––both in Brentwood. First we stopped at Brookside Farm, owned and operated by the generous and kindly Tom family: Anne, Quong, and Welling. Welling showed us what’s in bloom and described to us a little of the journey from earth to table. The Toms grow some of our Early Girl tomatoes, greens,…
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May 18th, 2011 by Bob Klein
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The predominant explanation for toasted pasta from Puglia, is that after the wheat fields are harvested and burned to remove the chaff and weeds, gleaners would come and pick through the ashes for the remaining charred kernels of wheat, which they would then mill and make into pasta. Chef Jonah found…
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