Category Archives: Great Finds

A Visit to the New Love Apple Farms

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An apprentice watering vegetables at Love Apple Farm.

If paradise could be defined, it would be Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz.

It’s hard to stroll around this verdant organic, biodynamic farm without feeling in awe of all that grows here — for just one fortunate recipient.

That would be Michelin two-star restaurant Manresa, a mere 15-minutes north.

Each morning, the produce is picked, then driven to the restaurant by noon, where Executive Chef-Proprietor David Kinch spotlights that abundance on that evening’s dinner menu.

Love Apple Farm started out as a two-acre spread in lawyer-turned-farmer Cynthia Sandberg’s backyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Last spring, she moved the farm to a much more expansive 20-acre spread in Santa Cruz.

Some of Cynthia Sandberg's famous tomato seedlings.

Potatoes ready for planting.

Dainty rat tail radish with a peppery bite. A favorite of Chef David Kinch.

The property was formerly the original Smothers Brothers Winery before the comedic duo relocated it to Kenwood. Sandberg proudly shows off a couple of bottles of wine leftover from that former venture. The property is full of lore, including the fact that it was also the site of noted winemaker Randall Grahm’s first job. The colorful founder of nearby Bonny Doon Vineyard once pruned grapes here.

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Convenient CSA Pickup at a Caltrain Station

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Would you believe you can pick up this bounty at a train station?

Leave it to Luke’s Local — the gourmet convenience store at a Caltrain station — to make getting farm-fresh produce on your commute even easier now.

The tiny store, which opened last year in a long-vacant ticket office at the Hillsdale station in San Mateo, just started offering a Community Supported Agriculture “Meal Box” that folks can pick up once a week at Luke’s Local. Imagine getting off the train after a long day at work, then picking up a box that contains not only fresh fruits and veggies, but a couple of ready-to-heat meals that you can load in your car to take home.

A sample "Meal Box'' from Luke's Local.

Luke Chappell, owner of the store, is offering this new service in a joint effort with Farmshares, a Community Supported Agriculture program of local farms in the Capay Valley. When you subscribe to the service, you pick up your box every Wednesday night at the train station.

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Bakesale Betty Cookie Mix

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Bakesale Betty's ginger molasses cookies to bake at home.

The good news is that you no longer have to brave the humongous lines if you want a Bakesale Betty ginger molasses cookie.

The bad news is that you still will if you want Betty’s famous fried chicken sandwich.

That’s because blue-wigged Betty, aka owner Allison Barakat, has now packaged her popular cookie in a mix that you can buy to make at home. The Ginger Molasses cookie mix is sold exclusively at Williams-Sonoma stores. It won’t be available on the store’s Web site until the fall, though.

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Gourmet Jerky, Cookbook Recipes Finder & Curtis Stone

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Krave's Basil Citrus Turkey jerky.

Craving Krave Jerky

When you think of jerky, no doubt it’s of those jaw-breaking, tough as shoe-leather strips sold at convenience stores and gas stations that you reach for only in desperation.

Now comes Krave Jerky, which is jerky you’ll actually want to eat.

The company was launched a year ago by Jens Hoj, former general manager of El Dorado Kitchen in Sonoma, and Jonathan Sebastiani, a winemaker whose family started Viansa Winery in Sonoma.

What sets these gourmet jerky products apart is that they’re actually tender, soft, moist and even sticky with marinade. They’re so meaty tasting that you almost feel like you might need a knife and fork to eat them. But rest assured, fingers work just fine.

The jerky comes in eight varieties, including Lemon Garlic Turkey, Sweet Chipotle Beef, and Grilled Sweet Teriyaki Pork. The Teriyaki Pork is the most tender of the bunch, with a candied-salty flavor of  a perfect Hawaiian plate lunch.

The Basil Citrus Turkey is the most toothsome of the bunch with a mild tang. Surprisingly, it also boasts the most calories at 100 per 1 ounce serving, compared to the 70-80 calories of the others. It also has the most sodium at 610 mg per serving, compared to the 140-400 mg of the others. But the turkey has 0 grams of fat, compared to 1.5-2.5 for the other flavors.

Jerky that actually won't hurt your jaw.

A 3.5-ounce package is $7.

But starting today, for a limited time only, Daily Gourmet is offering a deal on Krave Jerky. The new San Francisco-based company offers gourmet food products in special discounts for limited time offers to members, who are notified via email. Among the products that have been offered or will be are jams and vinegars from The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma, and vegan cinnamon rolls by Berkeley’s Cinnaholic.

A five-pack of Krave Jerky will be $28 (includes shipping) on Daily Gourmet.

The company was started by David Rangel, formerly with Microsoft’s Corporate Strategy Group and an executive at Groupon; and Chad Jackson, a software and Internet entrepreneur.

CookBookKarma for Cookbook Aficionados

If you love to cook from cookbooks, take photos of your dishes and post the results on your blog, you’ll be glad to discover the new site, CookBookKarma.

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High on the Ham

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Newsom's prosciutto that's been aged for 15 months.

There is ham. And then there are Newsom’s Country Hams of Princeton, KY.

After all, a family that has been curing hams the traditional way since the 1600s is sure to have the method down pat. Even now, this salt and brown sugar-method has changed little since the family first started selling the cured, slow-aged hams at its Newsom’s Old Mill Store in 1917.

Today, it remains the smallest national ham curing business in the country, and one of the few — if not only — to use this old-fashioned method born of necessity when refrigeration had not yet been invented. The process of making these hams takes about a year. Each ham is hand-rubbed, then allowed to cure for a month or so, before being smoked for days on end. Then, the hams are hung again in the smokehouse for months to develop their intense flavor. After about 10 months, the hams are ready. After 11 to 15 months, the prosciutto is done.

Newsom's Smoky BBQ Ham

“We use old -fashioned methods of using just the salt and brown sugar, and hickory smoke smoldering out of an old iron kettle which fills the whole room from just one small fire, damped with green hickory saw dust,” says owner Nancy Newsom Mahaffey (aka The Ham Lady).  “We smoke for weeks off and on depending on the weather.  We are the last to still do an ambient weather curing process of circulating outdoor weather in and around our hams for the full duration of time from the time they are out of salt as the spring is warming, going through the hot, dog days of summer, and into the fall when they are finally ready for sale.  In fact, our process was born before nitrates and nitrites were even discovered.”

When illustrious chef and food writer James Beard stumbled upon the store in 1975, he was so floored by the flavor of the hams that he went on to use them in his cooking classes and to promote their attributes in his writings. As word spread about these hams, Newsom’s started its mail-order business in 1975 to keep up with the increased demand.

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