Welcome to Lily Belli on Food, a weekly food-focused newsletter from Lookout’s food and drink correspondent, Lily Belli. Keep reading for the latest local food news for Santa Cruz County – plus a few fun odds and ends from my own life and around the web.
… In June, Lookout broke the news that S. Martinelli & Co., Watsonville’s 156-year-old cider company, would phase out contracts with several major Pajaro Valley apple growers over the next two years, prompting one to pull out several historic orchards. A week later, I followed up with one grower who aims to keep his trees in the ground to discuss the different avenues he’s considering to sell his apples in the wake of losing his biggest buyer.
Martinelli’s move is less a sudden rupture than the latest blow to a regional apple industry that had been shrinking for years. These shifts aren’t isolated to Santa Cruz County, either. Growers throughout California are feeling the pressure of cheaper fruit from Washington state, changing consumer tastes and higher returns of other crops, such as berries and vegetables.
“It didn’t make financial sense, frankly. The ground is more valuable for other crops,” Jim Rider, a generational farmer in the Pajaro Valley and horticulturist, told me. “Some of these crops can generate a lot more revenue than apples, particularly when you look at apples being sold for juice.” Read the latest update – let’s call it Part 3 – in this ongoing story.
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… Lookout business correspondent Jessica M. Pasko takes a look at litigation involving another legacy agricultural company in South County.
Berry giant Driscoll’s is facing multiple legal challenges, including consumer lawsuits alleging “forever chemicals” and pesticide cover-ups, while simultaneously suing a mobile app startup for spreading false claims. The Watsonville-based company denies the allegations of misconduct, affirming its commitment to food safety and regulatory standards. Here’s the breakdown.
… Former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane is spending July visiting 100 ice cream parlors across California to celebrate National Ice Cream Month. Along the way, he’s discovering inventive flavors and raising money for immigrant-focused nonprofits, and returned to Santa Cruz on Sunday for a National Ice Cream Day crawl.
Lane isn’t after a book deal or social media followers; he simply wants to experience one of his greatest pleasures in abundance.
“When I reflect on my life – past and present – it’s hard to identify anything that has been a better source of frequent, small joys than ice cream,” he wrote on a website he created to chronicle the trip, which includes a delightful ice cream resumé.
Check out this story about his journey.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Last Wednesday, Homeless Garden Project cleared a major roadblock to owning the Westside Santa Cruz land it has farmed for nearly three decades. The city’s zoning administration approved the nonprofit’s proposal to separate its 4-acre Natural Bridges Farm from a 10.3-acre plot owned by Ron Swenson, along with design plans for several outbuildings. “It’s still sinking in,” Executive Director Darrie Ganzhorn, who has worked at Homeless Garden Project for 35 years, told me after the decision. Read the story here.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
The Watsonville Strawberry Festival returns Aug. 1-2 to downtown Watsonville. This annual family-friendly event features carnival rides, kids activities, specialty vendors, artisans and local businesses all celebrating Santa Cruz County’s standout crop.
NOTED
I’m on vacation next week. The next Lily Belli on Food newsletter will be in your inbox on Aug. 4.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
When the completely average loaf of wheat bread that my kids prefer for their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches climbed to nearly $10, I decided to ask a friend for some sourdough starter. I can make about six loaves from one bag of bread flour for the same price, with better flavor and higher nutrition.
I’ve dabbled in sourdough bread for about a decade, and I’m OK at it. My biggest challenge is timing the rise – I’m always overproofing or underproofing the dough, because I can’t just hang around my kitchen all day. I have a life, after all. So I knew if I was going to start making bread regularly, I needed to loosen up on the schedule and make sure bread fit into my life, not the other way around.
My simplest hack for this is using a loaf pan to bake the bread instead of shaping a round boule. It’s much more forgiving, because the pan holds up the bread as it bakes, giving dough that might be over- or underproofed a bit more structure. Plus, the traditional shape means more sandwiches per loaf, rather than puzzling together the ends of a more circular bread.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named Salinas-based Taylor Farms as the origin for a cyclospora outbreak that sickened thousands with “explosive” diarrhea. Specifically, samples of lettuce imported by Taylor Farms from central Mexico and distributed to Taco Bell are the culprit. Although the CDC said that a sample produced a “false positive,” there is still an abundance of evidence linked to the Monterey County lettuce grower. (Washington Post/$)
➤ California’s fishing fleet is graying and shrinking due to instability and lower wages. A state apprenticeship aimed at reviving the industry showed the obstacles to sustaining locally caught fish. (CalMatters)