Made Local Magazine Podcast

The James Beard Awards get a Sonoma County perspective as Clark Wolf joins Daedalus Howell to talk culinary recognition, local talent and what makes an award matter. Clark shares his history with the awards, from organizing celebrations of America’s food pioneers to receiving recognition himself. Along the way, the pair consider local favorites worthy of a nomination and how you can nominate them at the James Beard Foundation website.

Then it’s out to Shone Farm in the Russian River Valley, where agricultural education meets muddy-boots entrepreneurship. With the farm’s fall festival approaching on Oct. 10, Clark and Daedalus discuss how students turn growing, making and fermenting into businesses—and why Sonoma County’s food culture deserves a bigger place in its academic life.

Where’s the Beef?

A package of grapes sends Daedalus Howell and Clark Wolf down a winding path through water use, Sonoma County pumpkin patches and a vineyard now making room for cattle. Then a national meat recall raises a question closer to the dinner table: How much do we know about where our beef comes from?

Clark and Daedalus discuss food inspection, country of origin and the local ranchers who are doing it right. They also give a shout-out to Petaluma’s Canteen Meats and find time for a story about beef cheeks that once stumped the Beef Council.

In this episode, Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell consider the humble grape—from old-fashioned varieties bursting with flavor to novelty cultivars engineered to taste like cotton candy. Along the way, they invoke Luther Burbank, question the hidden costs of cheap food and make a case for paying farmers what good ingredients are actually worth.

Then, Clark recounts the tangled history of some local farmers markets and looks ahead to the Farmers Lane market’s move to the Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Rosa. Also discussed: produce-stand etiquette, the perils of suing a farmers market and why no one needs a “support emu” among the zucchini.

Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell bite into Sonoma County apple season, beginning with McDonald’s decision to trade pumpkin spice for caramel apple pie coffee. From there, they explore the strange genetics of apples and the local celebrations, community presses and farm trails carrying the harvest into autumn and a plea for real pumpkin patches. Mark your calendar with these related events: Farm Trails Apple Pressing Event at Ethic Cider, Weekend Along the Farm Trails, and Gold Ridge Organic Farm’s Heirloom Apple Festival.

Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell go mellow for melons with a celebration of Sonoma County’s fleeting late-summer flavors. The conversation begins with the singular Crane melon—its local history, delicate sweetness and place in Slow Food’s Ark of Taste—before detouring into the county’s best ice cream and news of Screamin’ Mimi’s planned new Cotati location. Clark also visits G40, a new Graton Rancheria farm designed to supply fresh produce while respecting the property’s wetlands, and considers an orchard preserving Luther Burbank varieties. It’s a lively reminder that safeguarding local food traditions sometimes means planting today for a harvest years—or generations—away.

A farewell to great cheese, a gamble on good food. Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell discuss Vella Cheese’s closure, the singular legacy of Ig Vella and the pressures squeezing small food producers. Then, a taste of Graton Resort & Casino’s expanding culinary scene offers a hopeful counterpoint—and a reminder that Sonoma County’s food story is still being written.

What should Sonoma County celebrate next? Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell imagine a new generation of local food festivals inspired by the region’s extraordinary agricultural diversity. With the County Fair returning to July, there may be room on the calendar for events devoted to tomatoes, melons, peppers, heritage apples and whatever else is coming out of the fields. Along the way, Clark recalls the Heirloom Expo and his own Russian River Food & Wine Fest, and considers how thoughtfully conceived festivals can celebrate farmers and put a fresh spotlight on Sonoma County agriculture. Photo by Avin CP.

The Gravenstein Apple Fair has concluded and the Great Gravenstein Bake Off contest winners have been announced.

There are two apple pie baking categories: one for home bakers and another for professional chefs. This year, Geneva Melby of Sebastopol’s The Redwood took first place in the professional competition and Lauren McNaughton took top honors in this year’s annual home-baking contest with her apple-apricot pie.

Clark Wolf (our own James Beard Award winner & radio personality) was there with a panel of fellow judges that included Betsy Fischer ( retired Director of SRJC’s Culinary Arts Program), Donna del Rey (Relish Culinary Adventures), Emily Ash Lamb (The Good Food Hour), Sebastopol Mayor Jill McLewis, Ozzy Jimenez (Noble Folk Ice Cream & Pie Bar), Sean McGaughey (Quail & Condor / Troubadour), and chef and cookbook author Stephanie Klassen.

It was their very enviable task to taste and determine which of the entries were the best and most creative pies, listen in to find out how they did it…

Show notes:

 Gravenstein Apple Fair

 Dawn Zaft Criminal Baking

 Geneva Melby, chef of The Redwood

 Dan Kadan former chef of Backyard Restaurant

 Farm Trails

Mom’s Apple Pie

Flowers aren’t merely decorative—they’re part of the ecology, agriculture and everyday beauty that make a place feel alive.

In this episode, Clark Wolf and Daedalus Howell start with the seasonally ubiquitous naked ladies before wandering into sunflowers, farmers markets, pollinators, crop rotation and the interconnected life of a working farm.

Inspired by the Gravenstein Apple Fair’s sunflower theme, Clark explores the surprising culinary possibilities of sunflowers—from petals tossed into salads to young heads prepared something like artichokes—and recalls his concert-pianist mother cracking sunflower seeds while she talked.

The conversation eventually blossoms into something more personal: flowers bought at farmers markets, roses and produce echoing one another’s colors, and Clark’s late mother continuing, in a way, to buy him flowers through the sale of her beloved costume jewelry.

Along the way, Clark offers one simple prescription for living locally: when you visit the farmers market, if the budget allows, buy flowers. They support growers and pollinators, connect us to the agricultural landscape—and, perhaps just as importantly, make life a little more beautiful.

Links: Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Gravenstein Apple Fair

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This week, we’re talking with Clark Wolf about Oliver’s Market’s 25-percent-off local produce sale—and what its partnership with the farmer-owned F.E.E.D. Cooperative means for Sonoma County growers, shoppers and the regional food system.

Clark explains how F.E.E.D. connects small farms with grocery stores and restaurants, allowing more locally-grown food to reach customers while helping farmers sell beyond their stands and weekly markets. From there, we mark National Avocado Day (get your local avocados when they have them from Sonoma’s Seven Moons Farm at the Sonoma and Santa Rosa farmers’ markets) before turning to more serious concerns about contaminated lettuce, large-scale agribusiness and the risks associated with pre-chopped, bagged salads.