Fall/Winter 2010

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Dear Editor, I really like Edible East Bay, and I look forward to reading about upcoming events, as well as local eateries and food trends. In the Harvest 2010 issue, I was very sad to see the phrase “organic, biodynamic, or sustainable farming” in Mr. Middlebrook’s wine article. Inserting “biodynamic” in…

Those who claim they can see back through the smoke into memories of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto in the 1970s recall that there was quite a bit more going on than the currentlytold popular history tends to cover, like for instance, that there were other players besides Alice Waters, Jeremiah Tower, and Alfred Peet. Also, they…

What would it take to revive a local grain economy? Part I By Elizabet h Linhart Money Photos by Teal Dudziak We Bay Area diners can be a discriminating bunch. We like knowing where our food comes from and we want to taste the landscape in every bite. We get a kick out of curing…

California’s Intensive Olive Oil Industry By Tim Kingston If ever there was a market sector ready to take off, California olive oil is it, and Dino Cortopassi, founder of Stockton’s family-owned Corto Olive Oil, is doing all he can to give wings to his product. Cortopassi looks every inch the canny farmer and family patriarch.…

Jessica Prentice, Maggie Gosselin, and Sarah Klein created the Local Foods Wheel to help us all enjoy the freshest, tastiest, and most ecologically sound food choices month by month. Here are Jessica’s seven best bets for the fall and winter season. You can learn more about the Local Foods Wheel and the group’s other ventures…

Lessons with Rosetta Costantino story and photos By Cheryl Angelina Koehler We’re making orecchiette, a pasta shape whose name in Italian means “little ears.” It requires a deft hand, we discover, as we roll the dough into long snakes and cut thumbnail-size rounds, attempting to drag each one with the knife across the cutting board…

Coming soon to a back yard near you? story and photos By Jess Watson I press my forehead into the side of Prima’s warm belly, looking down as I concentrate on the first pull, struggling to break the seal. A stream of hot goat milk from each teat skitters the test container and threatens to topple…

story and illustrations By Gilberto Daniel Rodriguez Through the winding waterways of the Arctic, across the bright South Dakota plains, and into the dense multitudes of an Oakland boulevard, traditional Native food practices are being rediscovered, stengthened, and invigorated.  They find an ally in the Seva Foundation, an East Bay service organization. For over 30…

By Cheryl Angelina Koehler Joe and Doris Pummill have no complaints about the quality of life at Grand Lake Gardens, a 1960s-vintage retirement community located right at the Grand Avenue/ I-580 interchange in North Oakland. Well, actually, Joe does have one small complaint . . . “You’re so entertained here with all the organized activities…

As you read this, you may have just cast your ballot in the mid-term election, and while it’s appropriate to congratulate yourself for doing so, you are not done yet. You still need to go online and vote for your Local Heroes of the East Bay food community. You’ll find more information on how to…

Editor’s Mixing Bowl A Letter to the Editor A response to the Natural Wine article in our Harvest 2010 issue One Good Green Idea Leads to Another at Grand Lake Gardens By Cheryl Angelina Koehler Reclaiming a Native Harvest By Gilberto Daniel Rodriguez Goats! Coming soon to a backyard near you By Jess Watson A…

Lessons with Rosetta Costantino Story and photos by Cheryl Angelina Koehler Rosetta Costantino tends a tomato plant on the deck portion of the garden at her family’s home in Oakland’s Montclair district, where the terrain is as steep as it was in her native Calabria. We’re making orecchiette, a pasta shape that translates from the…