Spurt “Our early group of apprentices were all interested in becoming organic growers,” Cynthia Sandberg recalls of Love Apple Farm‘s salad days. “Now more of our apprentices are cooking people.” That includes a recent French Culinary Institute graduate from Boston, who on a recent afternoon was busy planting erosion control perennials along the steep slope of Sandberg’s vibrant acreage. When the former Smothers Winery property high atop Vine Hill Road became available last year, Sandberg gathered a few co-investors and bought the 22-acre parcel. The compound includes cottages, a spacious two-story classroom, a house, former winery tasting room and exhibition kitchen and swimming pool (“for the apprentices”)—in short, an idyllic sanctuary for the partners, as well as the restaurant garden for David Kinch‘s two-Michelin star Manresa.
“Now we’re just 15 minutes to the restaurant,” Sandberg explains happily. And that means a much shorter haul than she and her truck used to make from the former Ben Lomond location. “All the edibles go to David,” she says, pointing to terraces holding dozens of raised beds. These fragrant, compost-intensive organic plots yield vast crops of Kinch’s beloved fingerling potatoes, edible flowers, unusual eggplants, celeriacs, chicories, garlics and of course tomatoes. “We harvest several times a week for Manresa,” she says removing a tiny yellow leaf from under a boisterous young red-veined sorrel. “And all along the back,” she points to a quartet of young apprentices in shorts and hats, “we propagate perennials to attract beneficial insects and to sustain our honeybees—and for erosion control.” Deep sigh, as she considers how much labor she has just described.
Goats, chickens, honeybees—everything here implies sustainability. I admire the raised beds of eclectic edibles just below Sandberg’s office cottage, where the view extends from Loma Prieta all the way to the distant Monterey Peninsula. This summer will be the first harvest at the new Love Apple Farm. “It’s really become a gardening and cooking educational center,” she explains. “Last week we launched our off-site educational program by giving a class on container gardening at Apple Computer.” Cheese-making, preserving and canning, tomato master classes, specialty cuisines, drip irrigation intensives—more than 100 classes will be held at Love Apple Farm this year. Check the website for details. http://loveapplefarm.typepad.com/
NEWSFLASH Can-do grower Cynthia Sandberg and Love Apple Farm will be featured in the next (August) issue of Bon Appetit. Pick up a copy and feast your eyes on Sandberg’s specialty harvests.
HOT PLATE A recent dinner at La Posta yielded an incandescent, paper-thin pizza topped with housemade ricotta and tangy wild nettles. Yes!
Send tips about food, wine and new dining discoveries to Christina Waters at xtina@cruzio.com. Read her blog at http://christinawaters.com.
