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.

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.

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.

The first thing I do when visiting another city is head to the farmers market. From Rome, Paris and Lisbon to Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama, I compare fruits, vegetables, cheeses, wines, olive oils and flowers.

Believe me when I say the Sunday Certified Farmers Market at Eighth and W streets stands tall among them all.

To learn more about this local treasure, I spoke with Dan Best, a Sunday market founder and manager. He explained the event “emanated from a regulation that allowed farmers to sell directly to consumers without packing, labeling and standardization requirements.”

The farm-to-fork movement is more than farmers and chefs. Without a produce company to connect farms to kitchens, the region’s unique food system quickly unravels.

While some restaurants deal directly with farmers, in my 15 years in the industry, every kitchen where I worked relied on distributors. Most restaurants find it impossible to operate without them.

This is where Jim Mills came in. Working with Produce Express, he created a bridge between local farmers, food artisans and restaurants. He transformed the local dining scene.

Mills entered the hospitality industry as a bartender for Randy Paragary after graduating from Sacramento State. As Paragary opened more restaurants, Mills became a general manager and chef.

Along the way, Mills recognized the potential for farm to fork—ideal growing conditions for vegetables, fruits and herbs.

If the farm-to-fork movement has a scribe who tells the story, the scribe’s name is Mike Dunne.

In 50 years of writing about regional wine and food, Dunne followed the pioneers, witnessed their successes and setbacks, and helped set standards that fortified our position as California’s capital of culinary excellence.

Dunne spent most of those years at the Bee, where he wrote about wine and reviewed restaurants. Along the way he got to know luminaries such as Alice Waters, Julia Child, Robert Mondavi, Randall Grahm and Darrell Corti.

After reporting and thinking about their ideas for a half century, he notes they “continue
to have a lot of influence and set the standards. They have very strong voices within the California wine and food scene.”