A Sensory Journey
Gabrielle Myers joins Inside Sacramento this month as our new Farm to Fork columnist. Her work celebrates and explores the region’s remarkable bounty of food.
For Land’s Sake
Not long ago, there was a short list of local developers who could pull off big projects. Their names were Lukenbill, Benvenuti, Tsakopoulos, Petrovich and a few others. Successful people with deep community roots, they had big ideas and access to money. They got things done.
Today, major new players have much deeper roots.
Two Native American tribes, Wilton Rancheria and Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, are investing heavily Downtown, bringing excitement and cash.
“These tribes are making a lot of money and they are investing a lot of money in the core. That is a great thing for the city,” developer Sotiris Kolokotronis tells me. “We should be grateful for that.”
Food Fest
Sacramento’s glide path to all-star status in the food world gained momentum when the Terra Madre Americas conference took over SAFE Credit Union Convention Center and surrounding Downtown streets for three days in September.
Food was the focus for thousands of ranchers, farmers, vintners, distillers, chefs and community members, all sharing ideas for more environmentally responsible, productive and sustainable ways to grow and consume food.
Booths featured all things food, including olive oil, cheese, wine and spirits, ranching, fruit production, restaurants and policy experts. Renowned chefs Alice Waters, Ann Cooper and Jeremiah Tower, along with local grocery stars Darrell Corti and Danny Taylor, spoke at free public seminars.
Cattle Call
When I moved to Sacramento, people called it a cow town.
Coming from back east, I had no idea what this meant. I imagined feedlots filled with cattle, their feet kicking up dust. But the city, lush with fruit trees and palms, ringed by farms, divided by two major rivers, has no cows.
After almost 12 years in Midtown, I still don’t know what cow town means, other than a reference to put down the city and tie it to its agricultural roots.
Dirty Job
A productive ranch, like a sustaining farm, starts with dirt. At PT Ranch in Ione, the Taylor family practices regenerative agriculture, which restores and revitalizes the ecosystem by caring for the soil.
Emily Taylor’s father bought the ranch east of Elk Grove in the 1950s. After a career as an interior designer in San Francisco, Emily, husband Ned and daughter Molly took over the ranch. They changed the way PT Ranch operated.
Gone were chemicals and fertilizers. In their place came regenerative fields, ecologically balanced pastures to feed sheep, pigs, chickens and turkeys.
