Healdsburg Farmers' Market Newsletter
May 2021 SPECIAL EDITION 4!
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Here's another in our series of vendor stories.
Thanks for all your positive comments about these newsletters!
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The warmth you feel when you arrive at Middleton Farm, off Westside Road outside Healdsburg, isn't just from the sun shining down on their wide-open acreage. Owner Annie Woods, and farm manager Sam Calderon's joy of farming is apparent from the first moments we begin to talk.
Buying the eight-acre farm six years ago, Annie and her husband Montgomery, fulfilled a dream. He grew up in the valley; his family founded Clos du Bois winery. She'd always loved the area, and had a passion for healthy food.
Middleton Farm had been a working farm for sixty years when previous owners Nancy and Malcolm Skall bought it in 1989. They were very active in the farming community, sold to many restaurants in the area, and were popular vendors at our market. After Malcolm died, Nancy continued farming and selling for another fifteen years before she passed away and the farm was sold to the Woods.
Annie and Monty were very fortunate to inherit the farm's manager, Sam Calderon in the deal. Sam had worked for the Skalls for twenty-six years, so knew every inch of the property and every crop grown on it.
Sam's farming education began on his grandfather's avocado farm in Michoacan, Mexico. His journey as a sixteen-year-old coming to this country with his family, and immediately working on farms in Santa Paula, sealed the deal on his future working the land. He knew this was what he wanted to do, so when his brother-in-law told him about the job at Middleton, he moved to Healdsburg and found his perfect home.
Sam and Annie show me around the farm, pointing out the vast beds of their legendary onions, the gigantic fava bean plants, the strawberries, the fruit orchard. They grow a staggering variety of crops: if it can be grown in the county, they probably have it. Peaches, plums and nectarines, asparagus, a variety of beans, berries, squashes, tomatoes, corn, carrots, beets, lettuces, garlic and much more can be found in the six and a half acres planted by Sam and his assistant, Santos. Sam points out his greenhouses, explaining he starts all plants from seeds, generally planting around 6000 plants in a season.
"We're aiming to produce the highest quality organic produce using the best ingredients and techniques," Annie explains. This quality has made them a favorite for local farm-to-table restaurants like Single Thread, Matteo's and The Farmhouse. They also sell to San Francisco restaurants, as the Woods live part time in the City, with Annie working in the health care management field, and raising two teenagers. Annie handles all sales and marketing for the farm, as well as keeping the small store on the property viable for customer direct-sales.
They feel strongly about their farm being part of the bigger picture of feeding the community. They're actively involved in Farm to Pantry, our local gleaners, to make sure the hungry of our area get fresh, healthy food. Annie's also recently joined our market's board, and is our treasurer.
This year they're adding blueberries, pomegranates, as well as aiming to create more value-added goods, like olive oil, dehydrated citrus, honey and edible flowers. Annie hopes to build more wholesale accounts, and revive ones lost by the pandemic.
We can count on their booth to always be filled to the brim with an array of produce grown with a passion for farming and community.
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Healdsburg Bagel Company
For Drew Ross, the road to starting a bagel company was not a straight or predictable one. In fact, the circular nature of the bagel is a good symbol for the path he took to get where he is today.
Born and raised in L.A., his first career was in the music industry. As a professional bass player, he performed and recorded with various bands, including Aimee Mann of 'Til Tuesday fame, touring with her for three and a half years.
After eight years on the road he decided to make a change, and went back to school to become a psychotherapist. Living in Los Angeles with his then-wife and new baby, he started a therapy practice.
His wife was also in the music industry, and shared his need to get out, so they decided to move. Having been to Healdsburg several times on vacation, they uprooted with a baby, a dog, no job and no place to live. They eventually settled, he continued his practice, ending up working with some challenging clientele.
After fifteen years as a therapist, Drew was ready to do something else. He noticed the bagels sold in the county weren't like the ones he knew and loved. Growing up in Los Angeles, a place rife with New York-style delis, with grandparents from Brooklyn, the bagel was a cherished food in his family. Drew had always enjoyed making bagels, finding it therapeutic. He began a long period of experimentation to create the perfect recipe, and "by dumb luck" he found it. Bagel-making would be his next career. He circled back to his childhood memories of the delis, the knishes, the shmears, the works, to create Healdsburg Bagel Company in 2018.
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Tucked away on a back street, I find Drew leaning on a stainless steel counter across from an employee making bagel chips, discussing supplies with his assistant, Elizabeth. It's a small kitchen, but a far cry from his garage where he started.
He doesn't want a brick and mortar location: preferring to sell wholesale and do farmers' markets, which have been a saving grace for the company since 2020, given the decrease in wholesale business due to the pandemic. His accounts, primarily coffee houses and cafes, plummeted from twenty-seven to four last year.
So he's increased the markets he's doing, and now you'll find his bagels not only at both our markets, which he's been doing since 2019, but both the Santa Rosa markets, Petaluma, Windsor and the Fort Mason market in San Francisco. Because of them he was able to keep his full staff employed last year.
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Look for their booths to have all the classics: poppy seed, sesame, onion, garlic, plain, egg, rye, whole wheat, cinnamon raisin, jalapeno, and other grab and go items like knishes, bagel dogs, various flavors of schmear and bagel chips. They also make sandwiches reminiscent of traditional Jewish deli's. New hot offerings this season are Pastrami and Swiss, Turkey Melts, and "The Works," is ever-changing, dependent on ingredients available seasonally.
Currently they're baking 4500-5000 per week, but can produce more, and hope to have the need to do so. They're working with Costeaux Bakery to distribute their goods to grocery stores, and are starting to rebuild their wholesale business.
Drew has 'been there, done that' when it comes to changing careers, so has little fear of it. Were this something he tires of he could see moving on. He firmly believes you should "do what you love and when you stop loving it don't do it anymore." But he's thriving in his bagel-filled world right now and sees tremendous potential in the years to come, educating the county, and beyond, on how an authentic New York-style bagel is supposed to taste!
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Longer Table Farm
Will Holloway didn't start out dreaming of farming. Buildings, not blossoms, were on his mind, when he got his degree in architecture at the University of Colorado. After graduation, Holloway returned to Sonoma County where he began working at his cousin's winery. For fun, he planted vegetables and raised chickens on a quarter acre in the family’s backyard.
Soon after, he began selling produce in Santa Rosa’s West End Market. In 2014 he began the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market.
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This parcel, located off Llano Road, is now home to Longer Table Farm. When I drive down the gravel driveway, several excited dogs rush out to welcome me. Farm manager, Dylan, waves my car in and Will arrives a minute later, via tractor.
The farm is ten acres, with six being farm-able. When he first bought the farm he changed the name to Blue Leg Farm, for the French-Bresse chickens he was raising, famous for being one of the best tasting chickens in the world. Over the past several years Will has moved away from poultry and honed in on produce.
Holloway has taken production in a very specific direction; producing a small amount of restaurant wholesale and focusing more on farmers' markets and grocery store sales. Though this strategy has its restrictions and challenges it allowed him to see a huge increase in sales during the pandemic. In 2020 Longer Table Farm sold 200,000 certified organic produce.
Focusing on markets and grocers has allowed Holloway to produce what he knows people like to have around the dinner table. These staples include spring mix, tomatoes, summer squash, and broccoli. Additionally, the farm’s passion for peppers has made it an ideal niche for specialty varieties and adding a little spice to your life.
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Holloway quickly realized he needed more land and more produce to make the company financially sustainable. As luck would have it, in 2017, he found Quetzal Farm just down the road from his parent's home. Kevin and Keith, who leased the land from the city of Santa Rosa, had farmed there for seventeen years and were looking for someone to buy their equipment and take over the lease. |
For a small farm, it's well mechanized. Will had an advantage in the original purchase including infrastructure, but no equipment, so he's invested substantially to make the farm as efficient as it can be.
Over the past 2 years the farm has worked with Kitchen Table Advisors who have helped in many ways, one of which is helping craft the farm’s current mission statement; “Supplying accessible, healthy, ad ethically-grown produce and flowers to our community to cultivate meaningful relationships in the kitchen and over the table.” These words have also prompted the recent rebranding of the company. Holloway wanted a name more representational of what the farm has become. After hearing the quote, "When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence," he remembered his own family’s generosity in always having a 'longer table,' inviting friends and neighbors into their home. He wanted his farm to have that same sense of sharing and openness.
Included with these exciting changes, Longer Table Farms is also happy to introduce Gina Strathman as a new co-owner and flower farmer. Gina uses her studio on the westside of Santa Rosa to carefully craft the farm’s floral arrangements and graphic designs.
While Longer Table Farms will always be developing and growing, they'll continue to produce all our favorite menu items. In addition, we'll see an increase in products such as spice mixes, hot sauces, flowers, and dried chilies. You can find these goods in Healdsburg, Occidental, and San Rafael’s Sunday market at the Civic Center.
At 31 years old, Will Holloway is likely one of our youngest market farmers which makes his success in this realm all the more impressive. He says there are still many layers to uncover, and farming can be a "bear" sometimes, but it's clear he's got what it takes to take this farm to impressive heights. Grow on, Will Holloway!
Find out more at logertablefarm.com
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These days Isaac runs the Sebastopol facility, making dozens of baguettes, crusty sourdoughs, seedy loaves, English muffins and Ciabatta rolls, while Linda works with her bakers in Cotati, making their beloved pastries, cakes, bread puddings, cheesecakes, and other sweet and savory delights. AJ is at the markets, selling these goodies as fast as they can make them. All the while they've raised four children between the ages of seven and twenty-one!
In the not-too-distant future, when COVID regulations ease, the Cotati location will have its beer and wine license. Then the plan is to extend the hours into the evening and make pizza, sandwiches, etc: becoming more of a cafe/deli.
During this interview I reminisced with the Cermaks and AJ about our teeny Wednesday evening market (in the parking lot next to SHED), and marveled how they hung in, even when it was painfully slow. Linda acknowledged they do this even now with smaller markets. They love doing them, keeping them alive, and being a part of the market community. We're forever grateful for their loyalty, and for their continued production of some of the most incredible baked goods this area has to offer.
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Red Bird Bakery
It's a "Baker's Life" for Isaac and Linda Cermak, and has been for a long time.
Linda was fortunate to begin her career at the renowned Della Fattoria, working there with her then-husband. She hired Isaac as one of the company's bakers, which is how they met.
They each left and worked elsewhere. Linda was with Cowgirl Creamery for awhile, then created her own brand; Baker Girl. Isaac worked as head baker at Model Bakery. At this point they were a couple starting a family, and decided to return to Della Fattoria to do the work they love.
Eventually they knew it was time to start a business on their own. Seven years ago they found an industrial space on Dutton Ave, and Red Bird Bakery was born. Isaac's family name, Cermak, means red bird in Czech, so to honor his deceased father, and give a nod to the street his grandfather lived on in Oroville, they chose it as the name of their business.
Initially they focused on farmers' markets only,
doing as many as eight a week. Linda was doing them all, as well as much of the baking, buying and bookkeeping, while nursing an infant. In 2015, AJ King, working for the ACE farmers' market at the Veteran's Building, saw her overwhelm and offered to help by doing some markets for her. He's been with the company ever since, doing five markets a week.
They began to build up a solid wholesale business to coffee houses, cafes, and grocery stores. In 2019 they moved into two retail locations almost simultaneously: one in Cotati, in the shopping center with Oliver's Market, and the other in Sebastopol; in the Barlow, behind Acre Pizza. Both have production kitchens, with Sebastopol being a grab and go location, and Cotati a full cafe.
It's there you'll find long, thick wooden picnic-style tables and benches: perfect for big groups of people to gather, or strangers to meet and converse. But the pandemic put a stop to that. Within a few months of opening they had to convert to to-go only.
Their coffee house wholesale accounts plummeted, but their grocery wholesale and the farmers' markets have allowed them to keep their staff fully employed.
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