Harvest 2011

Culturing vegetables like cabbage with salt produces lactic acid and lots of beneficial bacteria, creating a probiotic health food that can improve digestion and build immunity. While krauts can be made in almost any vessel, I prefer to use a specially designed German sauerkraut crock made by Harsch. It comes with fitted stones that weigh…

A Conversation with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau: author of The 30-Day Vegan Challenge By Cheryl Angelina Koehler, editor of Edible East Bay I came of age as a cook in the early 1970s. It was a time when prevailing ideas and values circulating through the counterculture had many of us turning toward plant-based diets. Interest in Eastern…

Oakland Contemplates a “Bill of Rights” for Urban Farmers Story and photos By Jess Watson Annabelle had always been a difficult rabbit. Esperanza Pallana acquired her in 2010 as a breeding rabbit for her Lake Merritt–area urban farm, Pluck & Feather (www.pluckandfeather.com). From the beginning the rabbit’s behavior was skittish and neurotic, and she showed…

Gardens of Darkness: Mushroom farming in a concrete jungle Story and photos by Matthew Green Nikhil Arora wears sleek glasses, a flashy watch, and a pinstriped button-down. He recently graduated summa cum laude in business from Cal, has given serious thought to investment banking, and knows how to deliver a smooth sales pitch. So when…

The Dish on Dairy Dirt: Ruminations on composted manure By Helen Krayenhoff Where does our food come from?” As organic growers of vegetable plant starts, Peggy and I get to have a hand in helping people with an enthusiastic answer to this oft-repeated question by saying, “It comes from my home garden.” Increasingly, however, I…

A Lazy Albany Gourmet goes after the Neighborhood Radishes By Cheryl Angelina Koehler When Albany resident Robin Donovan and her friend Juliana Gallin started writing a cookbook some years back, they weren’t thinking about gardening or sharing neighborhood produce. “Growing your own vegetables isn’t especially ‘lazy,’” said Robin after the release of The Lazy Gourmet:…

Seven Stars of the Harvest Season By Jessica Prentice 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 summer favorites. You can learn more about the Local Foods Wheel and the…

What’s in Season? Eggplants By Barbara Kobsar Paintings by Celia Wedding Late summer is when the eggplants, along with their nightshade sisters, the peppers and tomatoes, come to market all dressed up in vivid colors and scrumptious flavors. While the French and the British commonly refer to any and all eggplants as aubergines, Australians call…

Local Visionaries: Transition groups plant the seeds for a homegrown future By Rachel Trachten, photos by Nicki Rosario At Albany’s “Great Unleashing,” the talk was of growing food, going solar, and living more simply. On a Sunday in May, groups gathered inside the Veterans’ Memorial Building and on the lawn, posing such questions as: Can…

The Shareable Food Movement Meets the Law By Kelly Densmore and Janelle Orsi, Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) Adapted from a longer article originally published by Shareable on www.shareable.net/blog/the-shareable-food-movement-meets-the-law   The Health Department didn’t show up when I made dinner for my neighbors last night. Fortunately, our health and safety laws don’t usually dictate how…

Give and Take: The East Bay’s Growing Food-Sharing Culture By Sarah Henry Pictured: Some of the homemade goods offered at the East Bay Homemade Food Swap. (Photos courtesy of Becky Spencer.) Sharing has made a comeback. East Bay residents are now bartering, trading, exchanging, swapping, or simply giving away an abundance of homegrown produce or…

Food Forward: The Feel-Good Food Series By Kristina Sepetys Berkeley resident and filmmaker Greg Roden and his long-time friend and collaborator, the food journalist Stett Holbrook, think that the myriad problems with the American food system have been depressingly well documented. They’re more interested in solutions. So they’ve made the pilot for what they hope…

OLD BRICKS NEW MORTAR: Food Cart Meets Landmark Restaurant By Rhasaan Fernandez with photos by Robin Jolin This is the Bay Area—the great melting pot of our agrarian state and home to a unique metropolitan fondness for craft in the kitchen. Rise and Fall of a Guerilla Marketing Concept Early in 2010, I became a…

Start Me Up: Starter Bakery By Stephanie Rosenbaum, photos by Stacy Ventura What’s better than Starter Bakery’s buttery, flaky, fresh-from-the-oven croissants, made in small batches, baked locally, and sold at the Temescal Farmers’ Market? Well, imagine that same stretchy dough layered with sugar and salted butter, folded in on itself to resemble the scrunchy face…

One-of-a-Kind Chicken Coops by Just Fine Design By Stephanie Rosenbaum with photos by Stacy Ventura Here we are in Kensington, driving up winding streets named for Ivy League colleges and English prep schools, breathtaking Bay views on the left, tree-lined, lavishly landscaped houses on our right. It’s green and quiet, just what you’d expect from…

EDITOR’S MIXING BOWL NOTABLE EDIBLES: Just Fine Design Starter Bakery Boffo Cart and Sam’s Log Cabin Food Forward PBS TV Show GIVE AND TAKE: The East Bay’s growing food-sharing culture The Shareable Food Movement Meets the Law LOCAL VISIONARIES: Transition groups plant the seeds for a homegrown future The Lazy Gourmet meets Transition Albany WHAT’S…

Editor’s Mixing Bowl When the current recession started back in late 2007, I remember thinking that we would have to fasten our seatbelts tightly for what could be a wild ride through a year or so of rough terrain. I also wondered if perhaps the roads would become safer as the monstrous SUVs proved uneconomical,…