With more shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, and fewer options to interact with local food-service small businesses, it’s harder and harder to enjoy a simple trip to get a sandwich or grab a cup of coffee. Dining rooms are off limits and the weather is just a bit too cold most days to dine outside.
Therefore, it’s more important than ever to find those quick grab-and-go outposts that offer safe and convenient locations with delicious food and customer care.
We’ve seen more than a few food fads in the last decade. Most of them, for the betterment of the local food scene, have stuck. Food trucks appear here to stay. Poke joints, though fewer in number than before COVID shutdowns, are still plentiful and delicious. The resurgence of old-school barbecue seems like a permanent fixture on the West Coast.
The latest of these fads is, without a doubt, Nashville hot chicken. Four restaurants have opened in the last year that serve the geographically specific and orally intense chicken dish. It’s a niche, but one that is deliciously filled by the flavorful and sometimes overwhelming fried chicken first made famous in Music City.
The former City Tree Nursery soon will be growing again under the new branches of a nonprofit called Planting Justice.
Earlier this year, the city of Sacramento entered into a lease agreement with Oakland-based Planting Justice for a subarea of the city-owned 5-acre site in the James Mangan Park neighborhood. Planting Justice is partnering with Sacramento’s Yisrael Family Urban Farm and West Sacramento’s Three Sisters Gardens to bring life back to the land.
When Michael Bosworth started a grassroots food distribution business in 2006, he was thinking small. Small enough to notice that the organic rice farm around the corner and a fancy sushi restaurant in East Sac could be partners. Yet big enough to consider the stability and growth of future farmers and generations of farms.
Bosworth, founder and CEO of Next Generation Foods, is a fifth-generation farmer. His family’s involvement in beef cattle evoked Bosworth’s interest in agriculture at a young age. He holds a BS in crop science and management, and an MS in agricultural and resource economics, both from UC Davis. For Bosworth, some days are spent as a farmer out in the field before the sun rises, and others as a salesman in his West Sacramento office.
We are, as a city, spoiled when it comes to pizza. From the beautifully precise Neapolitan pies of Masullo to the old-fashioned beauties at Luigi’s, the New York-style grease-gorgeous slices at Giovanni’s Old World Pizzeria, the California cuisine pizzas of Zinfandel Grille, the new American masterpieces of OneSpeed Pizza and the perfect family pies of Roma II Pizzeria, all make Sacramento a pizza-pie wonderland.
Is there room, then, for newcomers to the pizza landscape? Is there space in our stomachs and hearts for new slices and squares? Of course! Why would we even ask such silly questions!
Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers to you and me) was a constant source of inspiration for generations. He rarely looked away when there was strife or difficult conversations to be had, especially with children. During the Civil Rights Movement, Rogers filmed an episode featuring his African American mailman sharing a cool dip of feet with him in a wading pool. The simple gesture was a strong message during those times of unity, compassion and, of course, neighborliness.
Rogers learned a lot about dealing with difficult situations from his mother. He said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
