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.
… 2025 is gearing up to be a big year for the school farm project at Del Mar Elementary School. The idea to create a school farm for Live Oak School District on an unused baseball field on the Del Mar campus has gone from vision to reality, thanks in part to new support from an anonymous donor.
District nutrition director Kelsey Perusse, who is spearheading the project, and her team are preparing for their first Farm Benefit Dinner at the farm on May 2. And, starting this fall, all of the broccoli, carrots and kale used by the district’s central kitchen – which provides meals for more than 1,000 elementary, middle and high school students at all six schools in its district, plus two nearby schools that purchase their meals from LOSD – will come from the farm.
Last winter, the project partnered with Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, a nonprofit organization that helps fund philanthropic endeavors in the county. A few weeks later, the foundation connected the nutrition program with an anonymous donor who will match $125,000 of the project’s $250,000 funding goal.
The Lookout Santa Cruz app is available now in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Learn more here.
… Beloved Soquel breakfast and lunch spot Silver Spur opened a second location last week in the East Lake Village Shopping Center in Watsonville. The new restaurant offers the same menu and specials as the original, but aims to add beer and wine, including mimosas, within the next month.
“It’s the same menu, same specials, same experience,” owner Daniel Govea told me. “We’re not switching Soquel for Watsonville. We’re adding a second location to continue to serve Santa Cruz County.”
The new location is in good company – it joined Ozzy’s Pizzeria, Fruition Brewing and Staff of Life Market in the shopping center, a growing food hub of locally owned businesses on the east side of Watsonville. Here’s the full story.
… FYI, a very cool pop-up event is coming to Bantam restaurant on Fair Avenue on Santa Cruz’s Westside this Saturday. Chef Scott Clark of Dad’s Luncheonette in Half Moon Bay – you know, the one in the train caboose just off Highway 1 – is taking over the kitchen and cooking up dishes from his new cookbook, “Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip.” This event is co-hosted by Bookshop Santa Cruz, and they’ll be on site selling hard copies of this beautiful book. No tickets or reservations needed – it’s first come, first served. More information here.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
This May, in preparation for the groundbreaking on Santa Cruz’s mixed-use library project, the weekly downtown farmers market will move from its current location to a site two blocks away along Cedar Street and Church Street. The market plans to stay at this temporary spot for two to three years while it looks at options for a permanent home downtown – possibly on the site of the current downtown library. Here’s the story.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Attention Lookout members! Join me for a Westside Wine Walk on Sunday, April 6, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. At this members-only event, we will visit three fantastic local wineries in the hip Westside neighborhood between Fair Avenue and Swift Street – Madson Wines, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard and Margins Wine. We will taste two wines at each stop and learn about the winemaking process from the winemakers, while enjoying snacks from a nearby food business. I’m looking forward to tasting some fabulous wines and showing off one of my favorite neighborhoods in the county. Tickets are $10 each, and there are only 20 spots. Reserve your spot today.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
The “keep Santa Cruz weird” call to arms is alive and well on Santa Cruz’s Reddit channel, where every once in a while some real gems are brought forth, especially when it comes to food. Case in point: a recent conversation that praised our region’s wineries, and in the same sentence asked for the community’s favorite pairings with meals from Taco Bell. Had the original poster, as one commenter pointed out, likely enjoyed one of Santa Cruz’s favorite medicinal herbs? Maybe, but the comments embraced the query with suggested pairings like an Alfaro Family Vineyards pinot noir with a Mexican pizza, and Equinox Winery sparkling wine with Nachos BellGrande. Are they pulling our chain? Probably, but I can’t deny that I’m tempted.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ With empty egg shelves at grocery stores now a common sight, one Bay Area company is seizing an opportunity. The CEO of vegan egg replacement company Eat Just said sales have increased fivefold since early 2024, just before the spike in bird flu began devastating chicken flocks across the country. (San Francisco Chronicle)
➤ Praised by chefs and food publications, kosher salt has replaced table salt in many American pantries. Why has this expensive, big-flaked salt become supreme? The answer may be simpler than some foodies would lead you to believe; one chef said that, in the fast-paced world of restaurant dinner service, it’s simply easier to pinch. (The Atlantic)