Page 434 – Pacific Sun | Marin County, California

Feature: Model Partnership

Tanya Henry

May 17, 2017

By Tanya Henry

It’s a well-known fact that Marin has been at the forefront of numerous organic and sustainable food producing and farming trends for decades. Pioneering practices for everything from grassfed beef to farmstead cheesemaking to organic vegetable farming have provided a blueprint and model for countless producers around the country.

One name that is synonymous with early organic farming is 54-year-old Marin native Peter Martinelli, who established his Fresh Run Farm in West Marin, near the town of Bolinas, more than 20 years ago.

In the 1940s Martinelli’s grandfather purchased land along Pine Gulch Creek where Martinelli’s father raised cattle and sheep. Eventually the family’s Paradise Valley Ranch was dedicated to artichoke farming until 1983 when another organic farming pioneer, Warren Weber, began leasing the land to grow row crops. Martinelli would work for Weber at Star Route Farms for 10 years learning, in his words, “everything from how to operate a tractor to sales management.”

Twenty-two years ago Martinelli struck out on his own and established Fresh Run Farm on 25 acres of his family’s Paradise Valley Ranch, where he started planting potatoes, beans and pumpkins. Today, he grows more than 30 varieties of carefully selected heirloom fruits and vegetables and has built up a roster of select restaurants that have coveted his organic offerings for their superior taste. Martinelli cites the dark loamy soil and unique coastal Marin climate as key factors in producing his sought-after produce.

“This area is unique in its topography with its hills and south-facing valleys—and it’s on the San Andreas Fault—it has amazing soil,” he says.

One of the chefs who discovered Martinelli’s high-quality greens, potatoes and fresh beans was Sausalito resident Michael Tusk, chef/owner of San Francisco’s celebrated Quince and Cotogna restaurants. The Chez Panisse and Oliveto alum met Martinelli through mutual chef friends and began showcasing his offerings on his California/Italian-focused menus more than 10 years ago. This last year, the long-running partnership became an exclusive arrangement and took the trend of the farmer/restaurant relationship to a whole new level.

It has become a common practice for restaurants to denote where the ingredients on their menus have come from. As diners, we have grown accustomed to learning the names of the ranches, family farms and orchards where the eatery has sourced their eggs, chickens, vegetables and fruit. But this level of recognition for the farmer is a relatively new practice. Though a number of high-end restaurant chefs have relationships with farmers, the model that Martinelli and Tusk have adopted could be a game changer for both farmer and restaurateur.

Rather than making deliveries to multiple restaurants and hauling his kale, beans, pumpkins and strawberries by truck to local farmers’ markets in the wee morning hours, Martinelli now has an exclusive agreement to only provide his organic specialty produce to Michael Tusk’s two restaurants.

“This partnership allows me to be on the land and focus on the crops where I love to be,” says Martinelli, who works closely with Tusk to educate him about the types of crops that are best suited for the region.

“Peter gives me a reality check on what is doable,” says Tusk, who recognized the opportunity to build something meaningful for both parties. “I saw the freshness in the ingredients, but also this amazing historical background—it seemed like a great starting point to do something new and different.”

On a recent sunny morning, Tusk and 10 of his kitchen staff members and servers visited Martinelli’s farm to help plant more than a dozen different varieties of potatoes. The opportunity for the restaurant staff to physically plant the food they would ultimately be preparing and serving in the fall and winter brings them not just closer to the source—but directly to it. And as anyone who has ever sunk their hands into cool, dark dirt knows—the connection is powerful. Creating that proximity and connection for people who prepare food not only makes for a more informed staff, but quite literally redefines the notion of farm-to-table restaurant dining.

Though staff won’t make it to the farm weekly, they will be invited to participate in plantings, harvests and even occasional lunches throughout the year. During peak season—between June and October, “we pack the restaurant van twice a week” Martinelli says.

While this exclusive partnership allows Martinelli to spend more time on his farm, it allows Tusk more time to be out of the kitchen and on the farm. A revamped greenhouse will allow them to do starters year-round and in response to proposed upcoming menus, a full range of crops including tomatoes, peppers, cool-season vegetables, lettuces and broccoli have all been planted on what Martinelli refers to as the farm’s “bottomland 25 acres.”

“Our real goal is to take advantage of our mild seasons and grow year-round,” says Martinelli, who is also planning on perennial crops that can take as many as five years before they begin producing.

A sampling of some of the items recently showcased on the San Francisco restaurant menus include fiddlehead ferns, fava beans, rose geranium and lemongrass at Quince. The more casual sister restaurant next door featured a wild nettle sformato, fava greens and Roman broccoli.

With this new chapter unfolding, Martinelli still finds time for the important causes he championed so many years ago. He continues to advocate for the preservation of local family-scale farming in Marin, and in the fall of 2014 the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) purchased a conservation easement protecting the Martinelli family ranch forever. Though he is pleased, Martinelli hopes to see more family farms and ranches in the greenbelt surrounding the town of Bolinas preserved as well.

For now, thanks to Martinelli and Tusk’s partnership, select restaurant dining just got fresher and more informed. No longer will a simple farm or orchard name on a menu suffice; instead, a plate of pristine microgreens, heirloom carrots and edible flowers presented by a server might very well have been planted and harvested by that same server. He or she can now tell Martinelli’s Fresh Run Farm story firsthand: The crops personally planted, what will be harvested next and when they will appear on the menu in various dishes. It’s a meaningful connection, and insatiable foodies will undoubtedly eat it up.

Clearly the bar has been raised. Perhaps more restaurants around the country will adopt this model and truly close the loop from farm to table. It wouldn’t be the first time that Marin would be credited with designing a forward-thinking model that would change the world.

“Chefs are the best people to give feedback on taste, flavor and texture because they know food,” Martinelli says. “It pushes the farm in different directions.”

Advice Goddess

Uncategorized

Amy Alkon

May 10, 2017

By Amy Alkon

Q: I’m a 40-year-old man who can’t seem to keep a relationship going for more than a year. There’s never bitter fighting or betrayal. I just gradually lose interest. I can’t blame my girlfriends—most of whom are pretty exciting people. I’m the problem, but why? And can I change?—Frustrated

A: Ever gotten new carpeting? The first month, it’s, “No shoes and no drinks whatsoever in the living room!” A few months after that: “Oh, we don’t use glasses anymore. Just splash red wine around and drink right off the rug.”

In the happiness research world, the psychological shift behind this is called “hedonic adaptation”—“hedonic” from the Greek word for pleasure and “adaptation” to describe how we acclimate to new stuff or situations in our lives. They rather quickly stop giving us the buzz they did at first, and we get pitched right back to our baseline feeling of well-being (Yeahwhatevsville). Bummer, huh? But there’s an upside. Psychologists Timothy Wilson and Dan Gilbert explain that hedonic adaptation is part of our “psychological immune system.”

There’s another possible bummer at work here, per your longing for less wilty love. You may be more “sensation-seeking” than most people. Research by psychologist Marvin Zuckerman, who coined the term, finds that this is a personality trait with origins in genes, as well as experience, reflected in strong cravings for novel, varied and intense sensations and experiences.

If this is driving you, basically, you want it new, you want it now, and all the better if it’s a little life-threatening. In other words, some benefits of a committed relationship, like deeply knowing another person, may end up being deeply boring to you.

Research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky finds that three “intentional activities” help keep hedonic adaptation from overtaking a relationship—appreciating, injecting variety and incorporating surprise. Appreciating simply means regularly reviewing and “savoring” what’s great about your partner and what you have together. Bringing in variety and surprise means filling the relationship with “unexpected moments” and “unpredictable pleasures,” big and small.

Be honest with women about your befizzlement problem. When you find one who’s up for the challenge, get cracking with her on keeping the excitement alive. Be sure to do this both in romantic day-to-day ways and, say, with the perfect romantic weekend for a guy like you—one that starts with the valet at the spa opening the trunk, removing the hood over your head and cutting the zip ties so you can go take a sauna.

Q: Two years ago, I met this beautiful, intriguing girl. I gave her my number, but she never called. Last week, she texted out of the blue. Weird! My friend said she probably had a boyfriend until now. Do women really hoard men’s info in case their relationship tanks?—Wondering

A: Consider the male BFF. A woman may not consciously think of hers as her backup man. But should her relationship go kaput, there he is—perfectly situated to dry her tears. Um, with his penis.

There seems to be an evolutionary adaptation for people in relationships—especially women—to line up backup mates. It’s basically a form of doomsday prepping—except instead of a bunker with 700 cans of beans and three Hellfire missiles, there are two eligible men on the shelves of a woman’s mind and the phone number of another on a crumpled ATM receipt in her wallet.

Evolutionary psychologists Joshua Duntley and David Buss explain that in ancestral times, even people “experiencing high relationship satisfaction would have benefited from cultivating potential replacement mates” in case their partner cheated, ditched them, died or dropped a few rungs in mate value.

Duntley and Buss note that female psychology today still has women prepping for romantic disaster like they’re living in caves and lean-tos instead of condos and McMansions. For example, in research on opposite-sex friendships, “women, but not men, prioritize economic resources and physical prowess in their opposite-sex friends, a discrepancy that mirrors sex-differences in mate preferences.”

Getting back to this woman who texted you, she probably saw something in you from the start but was otherwise encumbered. So, yes, she’s likely been carrying a torch for you, but for two years, it’s been in airplane mode.

Film: Indigestion

Uncategorized

Richard Von Busack

May 10, 2017

By Richard von Busack

Some films you watch, thinking, “This is seriously never going to end.” The Dinner is more like, “this is seriously never going to begin.” The third film based on an international bestseller by the Dutch novelist Herman Koch, director/writer Oren Moverman’s scolding anti-comedy stars Steve Coogan (as Paul). He’s a bitter crank of a former high school history teacher. He loathes his brother Stan (Richard Gere), a congressman running for governor.

The two and their spouses—Stan’s angry new wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall) and Paul’s patient wife Claire (Laura Linney)—are to meet at a hideously expensive restaurant that has a waitlist for months. It (eventually, very eventually) transpires that the fabulously pretentious meal is to talk over some bad trouble their sons got into together—a horrifying and unprovoked assault, now visible to the world on social media.

Paul is the kind of role that a Wallace Shawn or a Paul Giamatti could nail; Coogan’s accent is fine, but his angst doesn’t compel us—he’s a smaller-than-life kind of actor in a role that ought to have a little menace to it, a little unintentional humor to the whine.

The tirade against the goddamn kids and their goddamn cellphones flatters an older audience. And the subject matter matches the rancid, acrimonious politics of today. The great Bobby Bukowski’s photography keeps the movie from total enervation: Linney glows in a crimson gown in front of the restaurant’s fireplace, and the exterior walls of the restaurant glow in orange-bronze floodlights. Aside from the occasional eye candy, this is the most thorough-going bummer since We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Music: New Beginning

Music

Lily O'Brien

May 10, 2017

By Lily O’Brien

In the early ’20s and ’30s, a lot of great blues came out of Chicago, launching careers for performers like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. So it’s no great surprise that blues guitarist and singer John Maxwell, who was born and raised there, is the real deal. On Friday, May 12, he takes the stage at Rancho Nicasio with his deep delta blues.

Maxwell, master of acoustic fingerstyle, bottleneck slide guitar, lived in San Rafael and drove a Golden Gate Transit bus for 30 years. He retired last June, and a month later, moved to Port Townsend, Washington with his new sweetheart.

“It was a rebirth of sorts,” Maxwell says, noting that he’s now able to concentrate on music full-time.

Maxwell chose Port Townsend for two reasons: He wanted to spend time with his 92-year-old dad who lives there, and he was attracted to the city’s vibrant music scene.

“I’d been coming up here for years to the Port Townsend Music Festival, so when it came time for me to decide where to move, I couldn’t think of any place better than this,” Maxwell says. “It’s really beautiful, with a lot of music and creative people.” He adds that it is also a lot less crowded and expensive than the Bay Area.

Maxwell didn’t take up the guitar until he was 15, after seeing a B.B. King concert. His older brother, he says, was already listening to Chicago blues, and it “filtered down” to him. Maxwell began studying slide guitar at a local folk music school, and eventually made the decision to study music formally.

“I was going to college in St. Louis, and at the time, the music department was strictly classical,” he says. “I was attempting to learn theory and composition, but after two years, I realized that I couldn’t really apply that to what I wanted to do.”

So Maxwell quit school and moved around—playing bluegrass and country music in Tulsa, forming a punk band in San Francisco called Eye Protection and playing R&B in Minneapolis. But a phone call from a friend, asking him to move back to San Francisco to put a new band together, lured him back. He also gradually returned to his original passion—old-time Chicago blues.

“I think a lot of what I do is pretty traditional blues, but I come at it from a little bit of a different angle, because of all the things that I have done over the years” says Maxwell, who has opened shows locally for blues performers like Roy Rogers, Susan Tedeschi and Ruthie Foster. “For instance, if I take an old song from the ’30s, I’m not going to try to reproduce what they did. I’m going to take the idea and come up with my own arrangement, with a little bit more of a personal touch on it.”

Maxwell’s signature style is evident on his 2014 recording, Blues for Angeline, a mix of originals and old blues tunes.

These days, Maxwell is playing a 2015 steel body National Tricone guitar, a retirement present to himself, along with his old 1929 National Triolian guitar, which he calls his “pride and joy.” He also plays blues mandolin.

“A lot of people are really surprised to hear blues mandolin—it gets their attention,” Maxwell says. “But it has a long, long history back to the early part of the century with the early string bands.”

Maxwell has 15 shows booked in the Pacific Northwest this month, “which is like 15 times more than I used to get in the Bay Area,” he says with a laugh. He’s also currently writing songs for a new CD, which will feature “older gems” from the ’20s and ’30s.

Though in some ways Maxwell, who will turn 62 in September, wishes that he could have devoted more time to music a lot sooner in life, he says that it all worked out just fine.

“I can’t say that I really regret the choices I made,” he says. “I would have had a very different life if I would have been able to pursue music full-time from day one. But I think maybe in a sense I can enjoy it even more now, having been through so many years of driving buses—it feels really special now.”

John Maxwell, Friday, May 12, Rancho Nicasio, 1 Old Rancheria Road (on the Town Square), Nicasio; 8pm; free; 415/662-2219; ranchonicasio.com.