Rocking spandex and battling butterflies, road cyclists by the hundreds will gather in Windsor on April 25 for the 17th edition of Levi’s GranFondo, featuring seven routes of varying difficulty.

Clustered at the front of the bunch—the pointy end of the peloton, in velo-speak—will be elite riders contesting the most daunting of those options, the mountainous, 138-mile sufferfest called “The Growler.” The men’s and women’s winners of that one-day road race will each collect a cool $25,000, courtesy of presenting sponsor Skipstone Winery, and a unique trophy created by a local artist who is also passionate about bicycles, although not in a Lycra-clad, leg-shaving kind of way.

You may not know Klaus Rappensperger’s name, but you’ve almost certainly seen some of his metal work, ubiquitous across the county, including the stainless steel logo with cedar background fronting the MacRostie Winery in Healdsburg, and the plump Northern cardinal atop a corked bottle outside Bird & The Bottle in Santa Rosa.

Those signs are a small fraction of his output, which ranges from sacred geometry tiles and candle pedestals to bath cabinets, sculptural metal sunshades, staircases, and conical flues for gas fireplaces.

Before he evolved into a full-time artist, steel fabricator, and designer specializing in custom-made pieces, Rappensperger went through a “clunker” bicycle phase. A founding member of the now defunct Whiskeydrunk Cycles, a Santa Rosa-based group of bike aficionados, he earned local renown for his prowess at refurbishing vintage two-wheelers.

“I’ve had hundreds of frames,” says Rappensperger, who expressed a preference for pre-World War II Schwinns while guiding a visitor on a tour of his industrial studio, Schnitzkraft Metal Artistry, on Guerneville Road where Santa Rosa’s landscape transitions from urban to rural.

Outside the studio, the tour takes him past a pair of slanted concrete ramps. Art installations, perhaps?

“That’s my skatepark,” explains Rappensperger, who turns 50 in November but still drops in on those ramps, especially on Mondays. “A lot of my buddies are skaters, so we come out Monday night. It’s evolved into a kind of men’s club.”

A certain brand of derring-do—fun, sometimes borderline-dangerous wheeled adventures shared with friends—runs like a leitmotif through Rappensperger’s life. Around 2011, he and other Whiskeydrunk members built the Whiskey-Drome, a steeply banked, 26-foot-wide wooden exhibition track, composed of 215 slats and inspired by early 20th-century photos of a similar contrivance, reminiscent of an oversized barrel. “Centrifugal force keeps you on the side of the wall,” he says.

A popular exhibit at public events, the drome made an appearance at an early Levi’s GranFondo, recalls Carlos Perez, the founder of Bike Monkey, which produces the annual cyclosportive. Long an admirer of Rappensperger’s work, Perez commissioned him in 2024 to make the trophies for the event. He was tapped to create this year’s awards, as well—though at press time the concept and design of those trophies had yet to make their way from his brain to his workbench.

Rappensperger made last year’s trophy from a burl—a gnarled growth from a redwood tree along the Growler course in Cazadero. Using computer-aided design (CAD), he superimposed the profile of the Growler’s highest climb onto the swirling grain of the burl, and with inlaid brass, turned the trophy into a representation of that ascent. Perez gravitates towards Rappensperger’s work, he says, because of the passion the artist pours into his pieces and how he gets “immersed in the little details.”

A career as an artist and metal fabricator is a singular niche, one that was influenced early on by Rappensperger’s father, also named Klaus, who owned a repair shop for high-end German cars. As a boy, Klaus the younger spent much time in the shop, “doing brake jobs from an early age.” His mechanical bent would manifest whenever he got a new bike. “The first thing I would do was go out to the garage, take it apart, and put it back together,” he recalls.

But Rappensperger gives the most credit for his creative success to his mother, Rebecca, whom he says gave him “the tools and space to be an artist and maker” and the encouragement “to think outside the box.”

He admits it took him a few years after his 1994 graduation from Montgomery High School to find his way, noting he was governed at times by “some rebellious blood.”

He worked early on as a carpenter and framer, then “fell into” land surveying for several years. Ready for something new, Rappensperger enrolled in an AutoCAD class at the College of the Redwoods. During this deep dive into 3D computer-aided design (which also found him devouring a yellow copy of “AutoCAD for Dummies”), he purchased his first welder.

“So I’m welding in my garage, I’m doing AutoCAD, and that kind of just morphed into what I do now,” he says.

On this particular day at the shop, a co-worker named Jason was busy finishing a six-foot gate Rappensperger had designed for a client.

While that gate looked finished to a layperson, Rappensberger explained it still awaited brass details and an aluminum insert with routed grooves to achieve a wainscoting effect.

This is where Rappensperger’s singular alchemy takes place. Whether he’s welding or simulating wainscoting or adding a satin patina to a fireplace panel—it looks, when finished, like molten gold—his work often crosses the line from metal fabrication to straight-up artistry.

After moving back to Santa Rosa in 2005, Rappensperger found an outlet for his creativity—and, eventually, a life partner—at a delightfully offbeat annual event called the Great Handcar Regatta.

One day each summer, from 2008 through 2011, Railroad Square was overtaken by revelers in antique costume—steampunk, it was called—cheering and racing fantastical, Seussical machines along the then-unused train tracks.

Rappensperger and the Whiskeydrunk crew hurled themselves into creating “art cars” for the regatta. They would then bring them to the after-school program at Chop’s Teen Club where Robin Stephani, a local architect and fellow regatta racer, was teaching a class on how to build and design a handcar for that quirky event.

Stephani, a former college soccer player who knew Rappensperger from pickup games in Santa Rosa, was struck by his generosity of spirit and creative energy. “I talked him into teaching a welding class, and it really put Chop’s on the map in terms of the summer artists program.”

Watching teens who didn’t consider themselves especially creative at the start of the program develop “and start thinking of themselves as artists,” recalls Stephani, “was such a cool thing. It was amazing.”

To help pay for students’ welding materials, Rappensperger and his Whiskeydrunk associates would throw “epic” bike-themed art shows on the top of parking garages in downtown Santa Rosa. Among the most popular was a mustache competition called “’Staches and Spokes.”

It was during this heady epoch of handcars and steampunk and ’staches that the two became a couple and eventually married. Despite his love of bikes, her husband has never taken the start at a Levi’s GranFondo.

“He’s a huge cyclist advocate,” says Stephani, “but less on the sporty side, more on the whimsical side.”

The post Santa Rosa Industrial Artist Welds Winning Designs appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

When it comes to buying and gifting locally, Willow Peterson is a bona fide expert.

The Sebastopol flower farmer and real estate agent purchased Made Local Marketplace in 2020 to prevent it from closing its doors for good in downtown Santa Rosa. After moving to Montgomery Village later that year, she’s continued to grow and refine the shop that features local artisans and makers and is beloved by shoppers for offering an alternative to mass-produced goods.

A Made Local outpost opened last year in Novato, and in February, the Santa Rosa store relocated within Montgomery Village. Peterson sees the move as an opportunity for growth and plans to add a small section of wine and beer from boutique producers.

424 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa. 707-583-7667, madelocalmarketplace.com

A believer in using products that are sold at Made Local Marketplace, Peterson keeps chili crisps from Hei Ma (formerly Big Spoon Sauce Co.) in her cupboard at all times. “I make a savory oatmeal in the morning and I use the Kraken Sauce,” she says describing the mild, seaweed-based chili crisp, one of the seasonal specials from Hei Ma’s founder, Lani Chan. “It’s got a fried egg on top and Sriracha sauce and the seaweedy crispiness. It’s amazing. It’s the weirdest breakfast, but it’s so nourishing.” heimamade.co

Peterson has two big dogs — Akbash mixes — including one, named Zeke, who weighs in at 150 pounds. And big dogs need big treats, which is why she heads to Panizzera Meat Co. for their super-sized snacks. “They have bones that are cheap, but very good quality,” she says. “I give my big guy big beef bones so that he doesn’t destroy the house.” 3905 Main St., Occidental. 707-874-9770, panizzerameatco.com

As a busy working mom, finding time to work out can be a challenge. After dropping her daughter off at school, Peterson sometimes heads to Helen Putnam Regional Park to squeeze in a micro-hike on the Panorama Steps. “It’s this long set of stairs that goes to the top of the hill and has this amazing view,” she says of the 123-step climb nicknamed The Stairway to Helen, which she climbs twice. “Then I get back to the car in 20 minutes, huffing and puffing a little bit.” 411 Chileno Valley Road, Petaluma. parks.sonomacounty.ca.gov

Living in Sebastopol, Peterson and her family are all about apples and grow their own. In April, the Apple Blossom Parade and Festival is a long-standing family tradition. “We love to watch the parade. It feels like the unofficial start of spring.” When harvest rolls around a few months later, they take apples from their trees to Slow Food’s community apple press to make cider. Apple Blossom Parade & Festival is April 25-26. appleblossomfest.com; for community apple press, see slowfoodrr.org.

The post Made Local Marketplace Owner Shares Favorite Things in Sonoma County appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

At first glance, it hardly looks like the beginning of a sea-urchin foraging expedition: a circle of 40 people on the grass pretending to be kelp, feet rooted to the ocean floor, swaying from the knees up in the current, arms elastic like stalks, heads bobbing. It could be a flash mob reviving the ’60s dance sensation “The Swim.”

“Wave your kelpy arms all around as your back warms up and your arms warm up,” says teacher Ryn Sullivan, who, along with colleague Ricardo Romero Gianoli, leads curious landlubbers into the ocean for Fork in the Path, a Berkeley-based company that curates wild-food foraging adventures throughout the Bay Area.

It’s a late Thursday afternoon alongside the Fort Ross State Historic Park parking lot, not far from a sheltered cove where briny treasure awaits at low tide. “Now we are sea urchins,” Sullivan beckons, encouraging everyone to squat down on the sea floor of grass.

Earlier, a puzzled park ranger stopped by to take in the scene. “You guys have a pretty big group—what’s going on?” he asked a would-be forager.

They’ve come from miles around—some as far as Connecticut and Los Angeles, others as close as Occidental and Sebastopol—a ragtag band of foragers all in search of the notorious purple sea urchin. Martin Wobig drove over an hour from Santa Rosa to learn to harvest a creature he’s never actually tasted, although he’s seen uni on the menu many times at sushi restaurants. “I’m curious to see what they taste like. I mean, they’re gonads, so that’s the initial thought,” he says, grimacing slightly. “But they’re supposed to be a delicacy.”

There’s something about the spiny, round marine invertebrate that draws people in. Maybe it’s the forbidding exterior or the salty sweet interior that is the roe. Or maybe it’s the hard-to-fathom stories of how this seemingly innocuous little creature is directly responsible for the destruction of more than 95% of the kelp forest along the North Coast. It turns out climate change and the centuries-long mass hunting of sea otters have left the hungry sea urchins without any natural predators. To convey the impact, Sullivan asks people to imagine a similar outcome on land. “What if the redwood forests just disappeared overnight? That’s kind of what happened with the kelp forest. But people can’t see beneath the water, so we’re trying to give them that same kind of scale and understanding.”

The marching orders are clear as Sullivan, who uses gender neutral pronouns, tells everyone, “We can take 35 sea urchins per person today. All together in our 40-person class, that is 1,400 urchins removed from this tidal ecosystem, which takes some pressure off the reef.” Their hope is that starving urchins off the coast, where the kelp once grew, will come in and fill the void, and the next round of foragers will remove them, creating a continuous cycle of population reduction.

On a mission, the harvesters—some decked out in expensive waterproof gear from head to toe, others in jeans and hiking boots—gather their bags and makeshift tools, and off they go, hiking down to a cove where a minus tide has exposed glistening tide pools rich with aquatic life.

Long before the Russians ran aground in this same inlet in the late 1700s, later building Fort Ross trading post in 1812, the Kashia Pomo harvested sea urchin and abalone here for as long as anyone can remember. Their nearby village of Metini moved every few years so they didn’t deplete natural resources in one area. At the time the Russians settled, Metini was a little to the east of the fort, closer to Highway 1.

“For Kashia, we are from the ocean,” says Anthony Macias, Cultural and Tribal Preservation Officer for the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians of the Stewarts Point Rancheria. “We have a lot of contact with the ocean. It’s been with us since the beginning, you know, since Creator made us.”

Most often, they ate sea urchin raw. Occasionally, they would dry it by curing the roe over a fire and saving it for a snack later. They also used urchin roe in fish traps made from willow branches.

But that all changed when the Russians arrived. Driven by greed and an endless demand for hats and coats, fur traders nearly wiped out the entire North Coast population of sea otters by the end of the 19th century. According to tribal lore, the Pomo tried to warn them about driving the sea otter to regional extinction. “To this day, everything we have said has come true,” says Macias.

As a boy he pulled abalone from the sea, many more than a foot long. “Now we can’t hunt our abalone because of what happened to the ocean—how it got depleted, how we lost the kelp forest, how we’re even losing seaweed.”

In 2015, when the Kashia Pomo regained nearly 700 acres of their ancestral land near Stewarts Point, it was the year after what many scientists call “a perfect storm” was set in motion. In 2014, an El Niño heat wave raised water temperatures around 10 degrees above average. Soon after, a lethal bacteria began infecting sea stars—especially the sunflower sea star, the only other major predator of sea urchins after the sea otter. The sea star wasting disease spread quickly, from Mexico to Alaska, destroying around 99% of the sunflower sea star population in Sonoma County. Left unchecked and without predators, purple sea urchin populations exploded, increasing to around 60 times their average number, voraciously devouring more than 95% of the bull kelp forest along the Northern California coast.

Over the past decade, myriad volunteer groups have taken to the ocean to try to curtail the rampant spread of urchins. Sullivan, the Fork in the Path guide, volunteers with the Purple Urchin Removal Project (PURP), free diving to collect and remove urchins in Stillwater Cove, 4 miles north of Fort Ross. And Gianoli is a member of the Caspar Cove Project, a team of divers who have an emergency permit to destroy purple sea urchins in designated waters off the Mendocino coast.

“Diving underwater, all you see is just this barren landscape like Mars or like a deforested plain,” says Maya Munstermann, a marine ecologist working toward her Ph.D. while studying purple sea urchins and kelp forest restoration at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. “It’s weird because there’s no shade. The bull kelp provided all the shade. Now, under this wide-open bright light, you see urchins all over the ground, all these purple spines and nothing else.”

Urchins typically gnaw away at the kelp’s base, the holdfast that roots its long trunk or stipe (often 100-150 feet long) to the seafloor. Once detached, kelp plants drift away to die, leaving vast urchin barrens covered with starving “zombie urchins,” barely sustained by algae and seaborne nutrients. Without much food, their roe shrivels up—to the point where unlucky harvesters crack open the shell to find hardly any food inside.

But Munstermann is working with fellow marine ecologist Dr. Dan Swezey on an “urchin ranching” project that will hopefully create a rich uni pipeline for restaurants and provide jobs for the Kashia Pomo, a non-gaming tribe. Last year, as part of a grant to restore the kelp forest, the tribe teamed up with commercial divers and several marine science organizations to remove tons of sea urchins off the coast near Shell Beach in The Sea Ranch. A team of Pomo divers is currently in training. For now, they’re turning the high-calcium urchin remains into compost for farmers. But, by next year, they hope to have an aquaculture facility in place to farm both urchins and abalone—a shellfish of great cultural and spiritual importance to the Pomo. Eventually, the goal is for tribal divers to collect tons of empty, starving urchins from kelp forest restoration sites, fatten them up in about two months with a special diet (including kale, carrots, and cabbage), then sell them to local chefs.

“The big vision is for it to support the ocean restoration and to also be that critical piece that’s missing, which is traditional food,” says Swezey, director of oceans and aquaculture for the Kashia Pomo. “This is something that is valuable to the people. If we’re going to be removing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of urchins year after year to restore kelp forest, the tribe feels a lot better about making use of that resource for food rather than just compost.”

Back in the Fort Ross tide pools, the class of newbie urchin wranglers are trying to do their small part in the restoration process, hoping to reach their limit in the last hour of daylight. Sullivan’s advice to “sneak attack” the urchins and come at them from the side, seems to be working. “You want to twist,” they tell everyone. “You don’t want to pull it off. You want to push to the side. Straight off is how they’ll suction themselves back to the rock.”

Adam De La Montanya, of Healdsburg, makes the most of a stainless steel frosting spatula to pry urchins off the rocks. “I snagged it without my wife knowing,” he says, later explaining how one of his daughters wrote a long letter to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife encouraging them to focus more on reintroducing sea otters along the North Coast.

Nearby, Serena Ingre is using a three-pronged garden rake to claw urchins from the rocks. She drove up from Berkeley with her husband, Sean Gibson, who has memories of melt-in-your-mouth uni in Tokyo sushi bars. But after tasting one mid-harvest, he declares, “It’s best fresh out of the ocean.”

How would he describe it for the uninitiated?

“Silky, a little buttery, but also salty at the same time.”

But Kenny Guay from San Francisco isn’t so sure. “It’s not as strong as I thought it would be coming right out of the ocean,” he says, after cracking open an urchin.

His girlfriend, Jen Goza, seems unfazed. This day has been on her bucket list for years. “Honestly, I started eating more purple sea urchins because of the overpopulation,” she says. Goza is hoping to raise awareness by sharing tales of her adventure. “I’m telling everyone, ‘Look what I did. It’s fresh from the California coast.’ This is a way to be more mindful of our surrounding habitat and how we as humans can try to help.”

It’s the same philosophy that inspired the Mendocino County Purple Urchin Festival. A conscious effort to rebalance the coastal ecosystem is also behind everything from branded Urchinite marbled table- and countertops made from crushed sea urchins to fabric workshops, titled “Help the Kelp: Create Natural Dye with Sea Urchins,” led by artist Margaret Seelie.

Also trying to do their part, local chefs up and down the North Coast often forage for purple sea urchin to bring back to the kitchen, or specifically order purple instead of red urchins from their seafood distributors. Traditionally, the prized uni at sushi restaurants—which can fetch more than $200 for an extravagant uni rice bowl at fish markets in Japan—comes from the red sea urchin, not the purple. But there’s been a push over the past decade to get the purple urchin on local menus. Part of the trick is finding chefs willing to tell the story and come up with creative ways to encourage their guests to try it.

At The Sea Ranch Lodge, not far from Shell Beach where the Kashia Pomo are hauling out urchins by the ton, executive chef Ryan Seal makes a popular uni carbonara with purple sea urchin foam, pancetta, and squid ink pasta sprinkled with katsuobushi (skipjack tuna flakes). The kitchen goes through nearly a pound of uni roe—around 60-80 urchins—every night it’s on the menu.

“We’re not using it because it’s weird. We’re using it because we should and need to, to keep the other sea life around us growing and happy,” says Seal, who foraged for purple urchin when he was cooking at the now-closed Sacred Rock Inn in Elk. A mile down the coast, chef Matthew Kammerer has been known to pluck urchin from local waters for his two-Michelin-starred Harbor House Inn, making tempura-fried maitake mushrooms and fried crispy mustard leaves topped with purple sea urchin roe.

But Seal might win the prize for most creative and unlikely urchin dish: Behold “the Banuni”—a surprise starter with roasted banana sorbet, conjuring notes of caramel, but also slightly savory, similar to a plantain, topped off with what he describes as “the fresh ocean taste” of uni.

At a recent conference in San Francisco, Swezey talked with seafood industry experts about challenges they face marketing purple urchin to new customers. “Many people think it tastes sweeter,” he says. “But the market sort of wants this mango, yellow-orange color and purple urchin roe sometimes looks like that, depending on what they’re eating, but it also looks a little bit different sometimes.”

Purple urchin can display more of a light yellow, he says, and sometimes less desirable “gray twinges” depending on diet. Red urchin are also more meaty and larger in size on average, and hold their shape a little better.

“If we can kind of get over this size thing—like maybe you could combine a couple gonads from a purple urchin and make a bigger piece that is as appealing—the flavor is there,” Swezey says.

When David Hopps, chef and owner of Izakaya Gama in Point Arena, gets a batch of purples with less than perfect roe, he often uses the uni as a thickening agent in pasta sauce, blitzing it down with cream and shallots and serving it over thicker noodles sprinkled with chives.

When he’s not serving it raw as sashimi, Hopps likes to wrap it in a shiso leaf, fry it in tempura batter, and serve it with a dipping sauce. But his favorite uni dish might be layered on top of chawanmushi, a savory egg custard. “It’s the counterbalance of the sweet umami to a really savory umami of the egg custard itself,” says Hopps, who tries to keep purple urchin on the menu about half the year.

The problem with foraging, he says, is the often unpredictable yield. “I’ve had great days where you go out and get like 50 sea urchin and you crack them and they’re all perfect,” says Hopps. On other days he says he can crack 100 and get less than what he could purchase from a seafood purveyor with much smaller investment of time. Occasionally, he wanders down to the Point Arena pier when a dive boat is offloading excess urchins and they’re giving them away.

“When you do get great purple sea urchin, I think it’s just as good, if not better, than the red sea urchin. It’s sweeter,” says Hopps, who often fields questions from tourists curious about the latest news on purple urchin and the local ecosystem.

As night falls on the cove near Fort Ross, the class gathers on the beach beneath the spotlight glow of headlamps to learn how to clean their urchins. Gianoli teaches them to use small scissors to remove the hard five-toothed mouth on the bottom, known as Aristotle’s Lantern, to gain access to precious urchin innards. Then he demonstrates how to run a finger along the inside lip of the shell to dislodge any other teeth gripping the uni flesh. After making a smaller, circular cut around the opening of the shell, and a little more finger prying, he dunks it in a small bath of seawater, then shakes the uni into his hand—something that’s easier said than done.

Under a beach tent, the instructors fire up a hearty miso soup over a gas burner, chopping green onions to sprinkle on top. They offer handrolls of seaweed and rice so guests can top it with fresh uni, and Sullivan explains how to make uni butter at home.

Amid sounds of cracking and grunting, people try their best to wrestle open the brittle shells and unearth the gooey prize. Finally, the moment of truth—the first slurp everyone has been working toward. But not everyone agrees on the taste.

“It’s interesting, but I’m not sure I would go, ‘Wow!’” says Martin Wobig, a first-time harvester and taster from Santa Rosa. He compares it to a soft cheese, more sweet than salty.

A few feet away, Max Aukes is celebrating his 6th birthday with his family. After straining to “take out the mouthpiece” and open the shell, how would he sum up the taste?

“Slimy, yet satisfying,” he says with a big grin.

Another way to size it up: “It’s salty, ocean-flavored butter,” says Keeley Waite, who drove up from Sausalito for the day. “But if you don’t like oysters, you’re not gonna like this.”

No matter what they think about the taste, everyone in the class can agree on one thing: The cautionary tale of the sea urchin, the sea star, and the kelp forest is impossible to ignore. It makes you want to join in and lend a hand, even if it’s just pulling three dozen sea urchins from the millions of spiny invertebrates blanketing the ocean floor.

“It’s nice to engage in a way that doesn’t feel extractive,” says Vanessa Wilbourn. The singer and bass player in the popular folk-rock trio Rainbow Girls is back for her second time, bringing along a friend visiting from Connecticut. “I feel like we’re actually working to bring some measure of balance, or at least that’s what I hope is happening.”

The post Bay Area Locals Are Helping To Save the Coast From Purple Sea Urchins appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

One of the year’s most anticipated movies is “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” but the sequel is already a blockbuster in the eyes of Healdsburg’s Gallery Lulo.

The gallery, which specializes in independent jewelry, art, and design, lent 150 pieces of jewelry for the fashion-forward film that reunites cast members Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt.

Gallery Lulo’s co-owner, Anne Kathrine (Katrina) Schjerbeck, has been following social media posts and movie trailers and, so far, has spotted at least 10 of the gallery’s accessories on cast members, including a pair of earrings custom-made for Blunt’s character and a gold chain ring worn by Hathaway’s character from Petaluma-based designer Siri Hansdotter.

Fans and fashionistas will want to save the May 1 movie release date to check out the one-of-a-kind statement pieces, which range in price from approximately $200-$2,400.

“We’ve held them back because we want the originals to be available when the movie comes out,” says Schjerbeck. The devil may wear Prada, but locals get first dibs at Gallery Lulo.

303 Center St., Healdsburg. 707-433-7533, gallerylulo.com

Screen stars

Gallery Lulo and True West Film Center have teamed up for a preview screening of The Devil Wears Prada II at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 30. A ticket includes a small popcorn, bubbles and wine, and a commemorative True West Film Center wine glass. Guests can enjoy a cocktail party from 5:30-7 p.m. in the courtyard, where they can meet some of the artists whose designs are featured in the film and see the jewelry in person modeled by clients of Gallery Lulo. Tickets for the screening are $50 and can be purchased at truewestfilmcenter.org.

The post The Devil Wears Prada — And Jewelry From Gallery Lulo in Healdsburg appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

From a modest start in September 2020 intended to reconnect the community and support 11 young small-business owners, SoCo Market is entering its seventh year with a full slate of more than 90 vendors. The market runs monthly from April through August in Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square, and its founder, Mercedes Hernandez, is a powerhouse of Sonoma County entrepreneurship and event planning.

Hernandez launched her first retail business in 2014 while a student at Santa Rosa Junior College. Since then, she’s opened (and closed) one more retail shop, created the Fork’n Good Food Festival and the Michelada-Mimosa Festival, and managed The Trade, an open-air marketplace at The Barlow in Sebastopol.

These days, the SoCo Market and its growing family of gatherings get all of her attention. “Highlighting the creative small business and local talent that we have here in Sonoma County, that’s the heart of all of the events that I put on,” Hernandez says.

Curating the SoCo Market

It definitely is more of a feel. We highlight unique businesses that are millennial-owned and -run. We’re looking for people who want to do more with their business, versus just a hobby. That’s what we look for, and just the creativity behind it as well. We’re all about diversity at our events; we love supporting BIPOC-owned businesses. And we don’t want to oversaturate each category. So it’s a really strategic process when approving applications.

By Millennials for Millennials

That is our target audience. So we’re making sure that we are picking small businesses that cater to that audience. That’s something we’re always transparent with. And I’ve been on both sides. When I opened my first boutique, I wanted to make it affordable for college students, because I was a student at the time. I offered those prices because I knew who my customer was, and that’s what it all comes down to, knowing who your customer is.

Success Stories

Some of our longtime vendors have expanded into brick and mortars. Many have quit their part-time job to do their small business full time. One example would be Falling for Dainty, a jewelry shop in Healdsburg. Brooke has been with us from the beginning. And then Omar, with Galvan’s Eatery, they just opened their first restaurant. They’ve been with us for a long time as well.

Future Plans

A new project is a permanent food truck location and a community hub in Santa Rosa. I’ve always been inspired by larger cities, and San Francisco has an amazing food-truck park called Spark Social SF. I love bringing the community together, and having a permanent spot where we can do that and have live entertainment is a dream of mine, and something that I’m working towards.

The next SoCo Market will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 19 at Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa. thesocomarket.com

The post SoCo Market Founder Connects the Community While Boosting Small Businesses appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Sonoma County is home to 60,000 acres of vineyards, and 99% of them are certified sustainable. Impressive as that is, not all local vintners share the same level of dedication to earth-friendly practices. Here are three Sonoma County wineries that go above and beyond.

Littorai Winery

Founder and winemaker Ted Lemon learned to embrace biodynamic farming during his early career in Burgundy. While some paint biodynamics with a “woo-woo” brush, pointing to practices like following lunar cycles, Lemon emphasizes the interconnectedness of soil, plants, and nature.

Instead of chemical inputs, Littorai uses compost and natural preparations on its Sebastopol ranch to stimulate soil vitality and improve plant health. The idea is to maintain ecological balance by treating the farm as an integrated whole.

“The goal of biodynamic farming is to work with humans as sentient beings,” says Lemon, explaining that with the rapid advance of artificial intelligence, a boots-in-the-vineyard approach is more important than ever. “We have sight, touch, smell, taste, intuition, and emotion. We have an instrument that has a value that techno-utopians cannot replace or imitate.”

788 Gold Ridge Road, Sebastopol. 707-823-9586, littorai.com

Ram’s Gate Winery

Ram’s Gate’s estate vineyards in Sonoma are Regenerative Organic Certified — one of only a handful of California wineries to hold that distinction. The regenerative approach focuses on improving everything from soils and ecosystems to the well-being of farm workers and communities.

The winery forgoes synthetic inputs, uses cover crops to boost soil health and biodiversity, and integrates animals into its ecosystem through practices like sheep grazing for weed control. Last year, Ram’s Gate launched an agroforestry initiative, planting heirloom fruit trees within the vineyard rows to enhance soils, increase biodiversity, and sequester carbon.

Caine Thompson, the head of sustainability at O’Neill Vintners, Ram’s Gate’s parent company, says regenerative farming could have positive impacts around the world in promoting climate resilience.

“It is really critical that it scales beyond small properties and individual estates,” Thompson says. “Our hope is that this can be a catalyst not only in showing what can be done in a viticultural context, but in other crops.”

28700 Arnold Drive, Sonoma. 707-721-8700, ramsgatewinery.com

Ridge Vineyards

Vines at Ridge’s Lytton Springs, Geyserville, and East Bench properties are certified organic. The winery also uses regenerative, sustainable farming practices like cover cropping, composting, water conservation, and creating habitats for beneficial insects. As a member of the International Wineries for Climate Action, Ridge is working toward carbon neutrality.

“Our philosophy…has always been to work in harmony with nature to produce grapes that reflect where they are grown,” says David Gates, senior vice president of vineyard operations at Ridge. “We believe that special wines come from special places, and you must be mindful and purposeful when growing grapes and making wine from them.”

Ridge’s sustainable practices also extend to packaging — from lightweight bottles to recycled shipping materials.

Lytton Springs tasting room, 650 Lytton Springs Road, Healdsburg. 707-433-7721, ridgewine.com

Three to Try

Ram’s Gate

2023 Pinot Blanc, Ram’s Gate Estate, Carneros, $40

The winery is best known for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but it’s also fun to explore its lesser-known offerings. This organic Pinot Blanc from the winery’s home ranch is fresh and flirty, combining stone fruit, citrus, and a touch of spice.

Ridge Vineyards

2023 Lytton Springs, Dry Creek Valley, $56

This is not your typical big-and-jammy Zinfandel blend. Made from organic fruit, the wine has aromas of dark fruits and woody spice. Take a sip to discover black cherry and black tea flavors, along with subtle tannins and food-friendly acidity.

Littorai

2023 Pinot Noir, The Pivot Vineyard, Sonoma Coast, $105

Littorai’s Pinot Noirs are legendary, and this wine is a prime example of why. Made from biodynamically grown fruit from a 3-acre block on the winery’s home property, it’s elegant and beautifully balanced, with black and red berry notes.

The post Three Sonoma County Wineries Leading the Way in Sustainability appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Two-in-one and one-of-a-kind; misunderstood and misidentified; generally mysterious and undoubtedly magical: that is lace lichen. Some think it causes harm, like a parasite. Not true, says Sebastopol lichenologist Shelly Benson. Others call it Spanish moss (which doesn’t grow in California) or old man’s beard (which does, but looks different — less lacy).

Inscrutable, perhaps — but also ubiquitous. Lace lichen ornaments trees throughout Sonoma County and the entire West Coast from Baja California to British Columbia. It was named California’s state lichen in 2015 and remains the only thus-honored lichen in the nation.

Early spring is a good time to become acquainted with Ramalina menziesii, not because of what it’s doing, but because of what it isn’t. Lace lichen is an iconoclast. It doesn’t flower like everything else in spring, Benson says. Nor does it die off in fall or go dormant in winter.

“[Lichen] don’t have a particular bloom. And they’re not like fungi that emerge after rains and they’re ephemeral,” she says. “That’s the great thing about being a lichenologist. You can look at them every month of the year.”

Instead of following the seasons like most plants and animals, lace lichen marches to the beat of its own drum, a beat that goes drip-drip-drip.

“Lichens grow when they’re wet,” Benson says, “and when they dry out, they go into a state of dormancy.” In spring, local lace lichens are fat and happy after months of rain and damp air. In summer, they will be sustained by coastal fog.

Benson explains that reproduction also happens year-round, in two different ways: asexually, through fragmentation, and sexually, through spore release.

Lace lichen grows on many different trees and shrubs. Beyond being harmless, it can actually help, especially during summer, by catching moisture from fog that then precipitates down to hydrate the soil and roots below. Birds use it for nesting, and deer have been known to munch on it. Plus, it just looks cool — especially this time of year, draped like a shawl over the budding branches of a black oak or box elder.

But what is “it,” anyway? Like all lichen, it’s not one species but two, living together in symbiosis: a fungus, Ramalina menziesii, which provides structure, and an alga, Trebouxia, which provides energy via photosynthesis.

So this spring, while you’re out enjoying all those colorful, predictable, single-species wildflowers, be sure to also look up, into the trees, for another wonder all its own.

Where to see lace lichen

• Spring Lake Regional Park, Santa Rosa
• Sonoma Valley Regional Park, Glen Ellen
• Ragle Ranch Regional Park, Sebastopol
• Healdsburg Ridge Open Space Preserve, Healdsburg

The post Local Lace Lichens Are Misunderstood Wonders. Here’s Where To See Them appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Packed with protein and ready to carry a morning, eggs are a tried-and-true breakfast standby. Sometimes the star, sometimes a background player. Humble, flexible, and usually affordable, they’re no longer confined to the breakfast table, appearing tucked into sandwiches or peeking out from burger buns. Here are a dozen road-tested, no-nonsense picks for egg-laden goodness across Sonoma County.

Best Egg Salad — Troubadour

Pencil in your date with Troubadour’s egg salad sandwich for Friday lunch. Available only one day a week, it’s anchored by freshly baked bread — pillowy Hokkaido milk bread, rich challah or crackly sourdough from sister bakery Quail & Condor. Inside, mounds of egg salad held together by Duke’s mayo have that dreamy, creamy quality that makes all other sandwiches shrink in shame. I’m not above licking the paper food wrap to get a couple of last bites. 381 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg, 707-756-3972, troubadourhbg.com

Best Croque Madame — Bijou

The better half of the croque monsieur is the croque madame, topped with a sunny-side up egg. This riff on grilled cheese is filled with ham, Gruyere and bechamel sauce. The runny yolk adds extra richness to an already decadent sandwich. Available on the brunch menu. 190 Kentucky St., Petaluma, 707-753-9155, restaurantbijou.com

Best Brioche Brekkie Sando — Eggspresso

You can count on a cafe with “egg” in its name to know its stuff. The Petaluma cafe has buttery brioche bookending fluffy, folded eggs, chives, and sweet caramelized onions. A squeeze of Sriracha mayo brightens the dish. 173 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 707-559-3313, eggspressoco.com

Best Chilaquiles — Chila-Killer Cafe

The restaurant’s name riffs on its signature dish, chilaquiles, a hearty breakfast or hangover helper of fried corn tortillas soaked in red or green salsa and topped with eggs, cheese, crema and pork carnitas. Killer portions will either break or fuel you. 5979 Commerce Blvd., 707-595-1779, chila-killercafe.com

Best Deviled Eggs — Monti’s

Dungeness crab-stuffed deviled eggs are legendary at this Montgomery Village outpost of the Stark’s restaurant group. They are generous with filling, including bits of crab, chopped chives, sunny yellow yolks, and all the mayonnaise. 714 Village Court, Santa Rosa, 707-568-4404, montismv.com

Best Ramen Egg — Ramen Gaijin

The six-minute jammy ramen egg is an obsession for food lovers. Fifteen seconds either way can mean the difference between runny and underdone or firm and overcooked. I’ve spent a lot of time and eggs getting it right. No good bowl of ramen feels complete without one. The yolk adds richness and depth to the broth. At Ramen Gaijin, the eggs soak in soy sauce, giving them deeper flavor and a caramel-toned exterior. 6948 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol, 707-827-3609, ramengaijin.com

Best Egg on a Pizza — Sonoma Pizza Co.

A baked egg on a pizza is a thing of wonder. It’s rare to see one, but this Forestville pie shop has a seasonal Spring Garden pizza with asparagus, chives, stracciatella, and Cypress Grove Purple Haze goat cheese with lavender, chile pesto, Napa honey, edible flowers, and soft-cured egg yolk dollops. 6615 Front St., Forestville, 707-820-1031, sonomapizzaco.com

Best Benedict — J&M’s Midtown Cafe

The key to a great Benedict is hollandaise; anything else is just a fancy Egg McMuffin. Whether fairy dust or flawless emulsion skills, the velvety egg-and-butter sauce — mostly butter — poured over J&M’s smoked salmon and fried chicken bennies sets the bar high. 1422 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707-545-2233, jm-midtowncafe.com

Best Shakshuka — Pearl

A mashup of North African and Middle Eastern flavors that works any time of day. Dubbed “eggs in purgatory” by the Italians, it is an apt name for soft poached eggs floating in fiery tomato and onion stew. Bread is mandatory for proper sopping. 500 First St., Petaluma. 707-559-5187, pearlpetaluma.com

Best Breakfast Relleno — Piner Cafe and Northwood Restaurant

Despite its hidden location on the menu under “additional items,” the chile relleno casserole often sells out at these sister restaurants. It’s everything you love about the Mexican classic — mild peppers, gobs of cheese, a hit of salsa — all held together by silky eggs. The recipe is a closely guarded secret for good reason. IYKYK. 975 Piner Road, Santa Rosa. 707-575-0165, pinercafe.com; 19400 Highway 116, Monte Rio. 707-865-2454, northwoodbistro.com

Best French(ish) Omelet — The Girl & The Fig

This omelet splits the difference between a delicate French roll and an overstuffed American classic. Soft curds, mounds of butter, and a few well-chosen additions — salty diced ham and Gruyere — make it magnifique. 110 W. Spain St., Sonoma. 707-938-3634, thegirlandthefig.com

Best Huevos Rancheros — La Texanita

As big as a Texas sky and built for a long morning in the saddle — or office chair. Either way, you’ve got a rib-sticking combo platter of beans, rice, and fried eggs layered between zesty ranchero sauce and corn tortillas ready to take you through life’s daily roundup. 1667 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa. 707-525-1905, latexanita.com

Best Quiche — Costeaux Bakery

“Deep dish” doesn’t do justice to the massive ham, mushroom, bacon, cheddar, and Jarlsberg quiche from this Healdsburg bakery. A flaky, buttery crust and stratospheric striations in every slice make it a ladies-who-lunch mainstay. 417 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. 707-433-1913, costeaux.com

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Crisp, sunny mornings of springtime always bring the promise of new beginnings, so it’s fitting that April marks the start of a new era for one of the oldest certified farmers markets in the state.

The Healdsburg Farmers’ Market will kick off the season in a brand-new spot: the $10-million Foley Family Community Pavilion, which opened in December after years of construction and rehabilitation on a former cannery and warehouse near City Hall in downtown Healdsburg. The new digs include a covered structure and an adjacent open-air parking lot. Together, they comprise the market’s first permanent home since it started in 1978.

The first market of spring always has a special energy to it, as local farmers and artisans fill their displays with bunches of crisp radishes, bundles of rhubarb, freshly baked bread, and bottles of olive oil. But this year when they pull up to the new pavilion to unload their trucks and cars on April 11, it will mark the realization of a decades-long dream.

Yael Bernier, co-owner of Bernier Farms in Geyserville, remembers fantasizing about a dedicated spot when her husband, Paul, started the market with some other farmers 48 years ago. “We always wanted a place to call our own,” she says. “Having a permanent home pays respect to those farmers who work so hard to bring this food to Healdsburg.”

Renee Kiff, whose family owns Ridgeview Farm in Healdsburg, adds that it feels good after all these years to settle down. Kiff, a local historian, noted that after starting in an abandoned prune-drying plant on Haydon and East streets, the market moved several times, from a tiny space in an alley to the empty lot where Hotel Healdsburg now sits. The market has been held in the parking lot behind the hotel since the late 1990s.

The new spot has two things none of its predecessors did: space and shelter.

Market manager Janet Ciel said her team will leverage the shelter for the comfort of both shoppers and purveyors. “On bad weather days we can squeeze a few more vendors onto the platform, so we can have as many vendors as possible attend,” says Ciel. “This means customers are protected too, obviously, and even on stormy or blazing days we will have good-sized markets worth attending.”

The footprint of the pavilion and the parking lot is larger than previous locations, and on market days (Tuesdays and Saturdays) the city will shut North Street between City Hall and Little Saint, giving marketgoers more room to roam. Currently the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market runs from April to December. While many locals have clamored for a year-round schedule, Ciel says the new facility has no plans to host that — at least, not yet.

Local farmers waited nearly 50 years for a permanent home; for now, they just want to enjoy it.

Book it!

In addition to new digs, this spring Healdsburg Farmers’ Market also will celebrate the release of a new cookbook, written by local award-winning author Liza Gershman.

The book, “Farm + Market: Healdsburg,” will debut in early spring and will comprise about 100 recipes — many from local farmers and chefs. Among the contributors: Melissa and Sean McGaughey of Quail & Condor and Troubadour, Duskie Estes, Dustin Valette, Charlie Palmer, and Ari Rosen, who owned the much-missed Campo Fina restaurant.

Proceeds from the book will benefit the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market. For more information, visit healdsburgbook.com.

The post Healdsburg Welcomes New Permanent Home for Local Farmers appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Spring in Sonoma County embraces us with a swirl of evocative scents: delicate citrus flowers, strawberries warmed by the sun, wisteria, and freshly cut stalks of rhubarb, one of the season’s most delightful and often overlooked treasures.

Rhubarb’s tangy and tart notes blossom with a pinch of salt. Add sugar and other spring fruit — strawberries are its ideal partner — and you have unique sweet-and-sour flavors that are both bright and delicate. But a caution is in order: The leaves of rhubarb are beautiful but poisonous, due to high amounts of oxalic acid. Add them to bouquets if you like, but never, ever eat them, though they can be safely used in mulch and compost.

Strawberry-rhubarb pies and galettes are the most familiar ways to enjoy rhubarb, but there are myriad ways to savor it. Rhubarb-leek sauce is delightful with poultry; a sauce of rhubarb and Dijon mustard makes pan-fried sand dabs sing, and rhubarb-strawberry chutney enlivens Indian curries. Rhubarb salsa is outstanding with shrimp tacos, fish tacos, tortas, and Mexican soups and stews, including pozole.

One of the simplest ways to enjoy rhubarb is in a compote with the season’s first local strawberries, a lovely addition to the table for spring holiday feasts alongside glazed ham or roasted leg of lamb. Or, if you prefer a dessert, enjoy this compote over vanilla ice cream, flan, or as a topping for cheesecake. It’s also a lovely accompaniment to freshly baked scones or with fresh cheeses such as chèvre or ricotta.

Rhubarb-Strawberry Compote

Makes about 6 to 8 servings

1 pint ripe strawberries, stemmed and diced small

1 tablespoon plus 2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 pound (3 to 4 stalks) fresh rhubarb, peeled

3 tablespoons Campari, optional

Put the strawberries into a medium bowl and sprinkle the tablespoon of sugar over them. Toss gently and set aside.

Cut the rhubarb into 1/2-inch pieces, put them into a small saucepan, add 1/3 cup of the sugar, and set over low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar is dissolved and then continue to simmer until the rhubarb is tender but not mushy, about 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in the strawberries and any juices they have released.

Taste and add more sugar, a tablespoon or so at a time, until the sweet-tart balance is where you want it. Simmer 4 minutes more, add the Campari if using, remove from the heat, and set aside to cool.

Enjoy warm or chilled.

The post Brighten Your Springtime Feasts With This Simple Rhubarb Recipe appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.