Playing With Food

The on-again-off-again tariffs of 2025 have already had a local impact. The food and drinks industries on the Central Coast feel the pain, not just in the pocketbook, but also in operations.

A local delivery service fills the gap between the farm boxes, supermarket and restaurants … ordered from one place and delivered to your doorstep.

What's in a sausage? Dare one look? The owner of Lobo Butcher in Gudalupe shows Fr. Ian just how pure, local and fresh sausages can be.

Caramels - real caramels - are easy to make and delicious! One Central Coast nurse-wife-mother makes caramels in her kitchen, using honey produced by her bees.

We don't typically associate wheat crops with California, but they are here! And as a part of their Agriculture Enrichment Program, Shandon and San Miguel School Districts are growing wheat to teach kids about where their food comes from, supported by the Wheat-2-School program of the California Wheat Commission. And it's happening right here on the Central Coast!

Are you making wine in your garage? Then you may be considered “garagsiste”. But instead of in being a pejorative term, the Garagiste Festival in North San Luis Obispo County celebrates wines from wineries that produce fewer than 1,500 cases annually. (And they aren’t really made in the garage!)

Playing With Food is serving up a 3-course episode for you this holiday season! And it’s all about BBQ! BBQ hero Steven Raichlen hosted a PBS show called Barbecue University. And now BBQ U is now a real, live in-person event right here on the Central Coast. The first course is visit to a class of BBQ U. The second course is to find out how BBQ U happen. And our third course is a sit-down with the hero himself, Steven Raichlen. You will be pulling out your grill by the end of this show!

What does Corporate Social Responsibility have to do with food, and what does food have to do with Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR)? It has to do with food when a prominent farmer and wine producer in the region operates his businesses on this model…which is having a positive impact on the community.

Who would have thought that coffee could grow on the California Coast. The Playing With Food Team visited one of the first coffee plantations in California in Morro Bay, and the State's only coffee processing facility in Ventura.

Wine. It’s all around us. And there’s so much to learn! There are classes at Broken Earth Winery in Paso Robles which include learning the basics and tasting the varietals, but also pairing food and wine!