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EMB Brunch Club Pops Up in Big Sur Sunday, 06 May 2012 Written by Deborah Luhrman Hiking and a very special breakfast, sweeping ocean views included  Kick off your Memorial Day weekend with a hike in breathtaking Big Sur followed by brunch at the renowned Restaurant at Ventana—all part of Edible Monterey Bay’s very first pop-up brunch on Saturday, May 26 th. Following up on the success of EMB’s Pop-up Supper Clubs at Lokal in Carmel Valley in March and at Charlie Hong Kong in Santa Cruz in April, we have teamed up with Ventana for another fun and delicious event. The day will start at 10:15 when you meet your guide Stephen Copeland in the lobby of the Ventana Inn & Spa and set out on an easy one-hour hike through the beautiful Big Sur wilderness. Stephen owns the company Big Sur Guides and has been showing visitors around for decades. If you have ever wanted to learn more about the redwood forests and hear the secret stories of Big Sur, Stephen is the guide you want to follow. Along the way, you will have time to chat and get to know other members of the Edible Monterey Bay community. We all share a love for local food, wines and sustainable farming, so there should be lots to talk about. After working up an appetite you will head to the Restaurant at Ventana for a gourmet brunch prepared by... Read more...
Food Town: A very fun reinvention of the farmers’ market in Sand City Wednesday, 02 May 2012 Written by Mike Hale Sand City’s Independent Marketplace will be back tomorrow, Thursday, May 3, at 600 Ortiz Ave. from 4–9pm with its fresh and local organic produce, live music and terrific local drink! The theme is “Tres de Mayo,” a warmup for Mexican Independence Day; expect a tequila tasting and Latin-inspired hot foot from Vivas Organic Mexican Restaurant, Taquitos Nayarit, Mundaka, Cruz N Gourmet, Babaloo Cuban Cuisine, Aqua Terra Culinary and Wild Plum, and all sorts of local art and artisanal food products. It’s free with suggested donation to the night’s nonprofit partner, the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association. A kids’ area, an ATM and a bag check for your goodies will be provided. Read on for Mike Hale’s account of how it all got started and what a blast it was for all at the Marketplace’s opening night, April 5.  Todd Champagne first discussed the idea of a reimagined farmers’ market in Sand City at a Valentine’s Day party. Less than two months later, he launched the first Independent Marketplace, a green-leaning community gathering of farmers, vendors, artists, musicians and like-minded foodies.
“I came home from the party and my wife said, ‘I think I just saw your dream job,’” said Champagne, co-founder with his wife Jordan of Happy Girl Kitchen Co. in Pacific Grove. At the... Read more...
Earth Day Delight Monday, 30 April 2012 Written by Amber Turpin Chaing Mai noodles, a chance to meet fellow environmentally–minded foodies and tips for growing organic blueberries were all part of the menu at Edible Monterey Bay’s second Popup Supper Club, with Charlie Hong Kong and the UCSC Farm & Garden.  The premise of Edible Monterey Bay’s new Supper Club series is ultimately all about community building, creating opportunities for the public to come together, sharing a delicious meal and cultivating bonds that celebrate the food of our region. The platform is also aimed at thanking the magazine’s supporters, and it is exciting to think of the possibilities that could come out of the new monthly event. The magazine's lastest Supper Club, its second, proved to be a terrific example of what could result.
 Breaking from your typical tasting menu, this event opened up the stage for collaboration and served as a fundraiser all at once. The afternoon began with the perfect nod to Earth Day, also falling on this date of April 22, as attendees met at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at the UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden for a tour. It ended with a rare chance to experience most of Charlie Hong Kong’s... Read more...
Local fare gets its 15 minutes of fame Friday, 27 April 2012 Written by Elaine Hesser and Sarah Wood Monterey Bay’s own seafood, fruits and veggies are on the rise at Pebble Beach Food & Wine  | | The talent: From left, Ben Spungin, Levi Mezick, Gus Trejo and Craig von Foerster | The Monterey Bay region’s extravagant wealth of locally grown delicacies—like our talented local chefs—have generally played a minor role at Pebble Beach Food & Wine, the massive annual foodie blowout staged by Monterey’s Coastal Luxury Management. But at a special lunch held as part of PBF&W at Restaurant 1833 on April 13, local food played a starring role in a meal that also brought together some of the area’s best chefs.  | Playing: Ben Spungin and Levi Mezick,
with chocolate mustaches made by Spungin | The lunch, “Vineyard, Farm & Sea: Monterey’s Bounty,” featured homegrown abalone and a variety of local... Read more...
Edible Monterey Bay’s April Supper Club Thursday, 12 April 2012 Written by Sarah Wood Celebrate Earth Day with Southeast Asian Street Food and a Very Special Farm Tour  Participants will meet for a tour of UCSC’s Farm & Garden, at 3pm on Sunday, April 22, and experience a special tasting menu of earth-friendly and tasty, organic Southeast Asian street food dishes at 5pm at Charlie Hong Kong in Santa Cruz. Price for the event, including tour, dinner, tax and tip: $20. Charlie Hong Kong will donate $5 per participant to the Farm & Garden. Beer will be available for an additional charge. Only 30 tickets are available; click on the PayPal button below or on our home page to purchase.
Charlie Hong Kong founders Carolyn and Rudy Rudolph will host Edible Monterey Bay’s second Supper Club, an exciting Earth Day celebration on Sunday, April 22. The event will begin at the Farm & Garden at University of California, Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems—one of the country’s most important and exciting sustainable agriculture and social justice research and teaching centers—where we’ll be given a private tour and will learn about the Center and issues like organic farming and food... Read more...
Local Talent Tuesday, 10 April 2012 Written by Sarah Wood A taste of the inventive and exciting things to come at Lokal; the long-awaited opening to the general public could happen as early as next week.  When a new restaurant arrives with as much anticipation as Lokal has, it’s easy to wonder how it will live up to the hype.
But in just one night recently, the Carmel Valley creation of Brendan Jones and Matthew Zolan easily surpassed the promise of months of frothy press reports and social media frenzy with a menu that was both mind-bendingly creative and incredibly delicious. And whereas the food was full of exciting surprises (including six dishes on the prix fixe menu instead of the advertised three), the service had the assured calm and pleasant lack of surprises of a restaurant that’s been open for months, if not years. So if the night was any sign of things to come, Lokal should quickly establish itself as one of the area’s most beloved restaurants after it opens to the general public as early as next week. Lokal’s opening has been stalled for some seven months due to permitting and construction delays, but the restaurant was able to christen its kitchen on March 28 with a private party put on by Edible Monterey Bay.... Read more...
Chocolate, Monterey Bay Style: Ashby Confections Thursday, 05 April 2012 Written by Elaine Guiliano  | | Locavore treat: A box of Ashby Confections chocolate | “We need a marshmallow renaissance!” proclaims Jennifer Ashby, owner Aptos-based Ashby Confections. “The commercial marshmallow has ruined the marshmallow’s reputation; homemade marshmallows are awesome!” Ashby’s idea of a marshmallow renaissance is a key lime marshmallow in white chocolate with a graham cracker crust. And that’s just one of Ashby’s numerous, ridiculously creative confections, many of which the company will offer at tonight’s Independent Marketplace in Sand City. (See ediblecommunities.com/montereybay/blog/blog/food-fest.htm for more information about the market.) Although no local chocolate maker could source all of its ingredients here in the Monterey Bay region—cacao does not grow in our climate and Ashby uses a proprietary blend of chocolate from Europe—Jennifer Ashby counts on local foods for her inspiration, and uses organic and local ingredients whenever possible. “Food is such a part of our local culture I get inspired being here,” says Ashby. Such inspirations include the wine reductions from Santa Cruz vineyards that enrich a caramel cream, as well... Read more...
FOOD FEST Tuesday, 03 April 2012 Written by Sarah Wood 
A concert under the redwoods at the Henry Miller Library
(Yes, that's The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
A party at Sand City’s Independent this Thursday will serve up an indy minded menu of artisanal food and drinks, books, films, music, farmers, chefs and a veggie valet If you love food and art and want to share a drink or a meal with some of the farmers, chefs and food artisans who you’ve read about in Edible Monterey Bay over the last several months, Sand City is where you’ll want to be on Thursday night. The Independent Marketplace, to be held at the Independent, an Ortiz Avenue mixed-use building with which owner Patrick Orosco of the Orosco Group aims to nurture the area’s emerging local food and arts scene, will be a food happening like no other in the area: Picture yourself picking up a casual but delicious dinner and enjoying a glass of wine or beer and hearing DJ sets of world music as you shop for organic produce, grassfed beef, wild fish and artisanal goodies in a stylish, indoor market with lofty, 15-foot-high ceilings. Then imagine yourself checking it all with a veggie valet so you can watch winning entries from the Big Sur International Short Film... Read more...
EDIBLE BOOKS: NO HAPPY COWS Thursday, 29 March 2012 Written by Elizabeth Limbach 
A vegan writing a book about how to eat meat? This may seem far-fetched, but a little more than 20 years after writing Diet for a New America, his 1989 manifesto for a plant-based diet, Santa Cruz author John Robbins has done just that. “I have always advocated for people to make informed choices that are consistent with their hearts,” he says. This sentiment is what led Robbins to pen No Happy Cows, an informative guide to eating meat and dairy in the most responsible ways possible. It will hit local bookstores this Saturday, April 1. “A lot of the book is about realities, and the pros and cons, and how a consumer can make informed choices,” Robbins explains. The book delves into the myriad alternatives to factory farming that have cropped up since his Diet for a New America exposed the ills of the practice two decades ago. However, those looking for easy answers won’t find them in this volume. “Our food supply is more complicated than that,” he says. “I want people to enter into the complexity.” The book explores trends like grass-fed beef (“If you’re going to eat beef, that’s the way to do it,” he says), and cage-free eggs (which Robbins says is a “step in the right direction,” but is like “cutting down smoking from three packs a day... Read more...
BONNY DOON VINEYARD'S CELLAR DOOR RESTAURANT GETS NEW CHEF, NEW NAME Wednesday, 07 March 2012 Written by Deborah Luhrman 
Bonny Doon Vineyard’s acclaimed Cellar Door restaurant welcomed a new chef this month and will soon get a new name.
The chef is 30-year-old Ryan Shelton, of San Jose, and was lured away from the two-Michelin-star restaurant Baumé in Palo Alto. At Baumé, Shelton was pastry chef and later, chef de cuisine, under Bruno Chemel, a chef known for blending modern French and Asian flavors using molecular gastronomy techniques.
Tanks of liquid nitrogen arrived at the Cellar Door in early March, so does that mean molecular gastronomy is finally coming to Santa Cruz? “Over my dead body,” says Randall Grahm, the founder and visionary behind both the winery and the restaurant. “We are NOT going to go molecular. “We just want to have the most exciting and vibrant food in Santa Cruz. Not to sound too competitive, but we want to be the best restaurant in Santa Cruz,” he says.
Nonetheless, Grahm is not entirely opposed to the molecular trend.
“What is cool about molecular gastronomy is that it brings an element of whimsy to a meal that I would like to see reflected in our menus as well. It would go well with our wines, which have always had an element of fantasy and whimsy,” he says.
The Cellar Door intends to stick to its farm-to-table philosophy and its emphasis on local... Read more...
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