San Juan Bautista
– The fourth annual Taste of San Benito 2006 will be from 9am to
2pm Oct. 15 in San Juan Bautista to highlight several of San Benito
County’s organic food producers.
San Juan Bautista – The fourth annual Taste of San Benito 2006 will be from 9am to 2pm Oct. 15 in San Juan Bautista to highlight several of San Benito County’s organic food producers.
The Taste of San Benito 2006 will tour Phil Foster Ranch, B & R Farms and Pietra Santa Winery. The tour will end with an organic lunch at the Fault Line Restaurant in San Juan Bautista. The tour is a chance for the public to reconnect to where their food comes from, said Paul Hain, owner of Hain Farms in Hollister and director of the San Benito Resource Conservation District.
“It gives people and opportunity to go meet the people who actually grow the things they eat,” Hain said.
Hain has been raising outdoor free-range chickens for five years. He said a woman from Romania told him at a recent farmer’s market that the chickens taste just like back home.
“They get to eat what chickens are supposed to eat,” Hain said. “Which is grass and bugs.”
In the past decade organic farming has taken a strong hold in San Benito County.
Certified organic farmland in San Benito County has increased from 200 acres in 1994 to 4,043 acres in 2006, comprising 12.5 percent of all farmed land in San Benito County, according to the San Benito County Agricultural Commission.
Phil Foster Ranch has been producing organic row crops, bell peppers, melons and various tree fruits since 1998. Foster uses cover cropping, hedgerows, crop rotation, barn owls, composting and alternative energy sources such as bio-diesel and solar to help preserve good soil conditions without the use of chemical fertilizers.
Foster sells his produce primarily to the Whole Foods chain, but his products can be found at the San Benito County Farmer’s Market during its season.
B & R Farms harvests one of the last Blenheim apricot orchards left in San Benito County. Many consider the Blenheim to be the “most flavorful” variety, owner Mari Rossi said.
The high heat during the 2006 summer has affected the year’s apricot harvest, making an already decreasing variety all the more vulnerable.
Joe Gimelli bought the original 455-acre property for Pietra Santa Winery in 1989. The first Pietra Santa wines were released in 1994.
After a trip to Tuscany with his wife Deanna, he imported 5,000 olive trees from Italy in 1999 and began producing some of the finest organic olive oil in California.
Gimelli sold Pietra Santa to Cort Blackburn and his family in September 2005. Blackburn has continued to produce organic products.
The tour ends with a buffet lunch at the Fault Line. Owner Edie Duncan turned her house into the restaurant right on the San Andreas fault line.
The Fault Line Restaurant is only open Friday and Saturday evenings to the public. Duncan books private parties for special dinners the rest of the week, averaging two to three events a month.
Duncan said the lunch will include organic salad with tomatoes, a pasta with organic chicken from Hain Farms and local artichoke hearts and walnuts, their famous bread fried in light extra-virgin olive oil, fresh fruits and an apricot bar dessert.
Organic food just tastes better, Duncan said.
“It tastes superior,” Duncan said. “Absolutely. Number one because it doesn’t have to be shipped in from all over the world.”
Those interested can call Leticia Hain at 831-637-4360 ext. 101. Tickets are $40 per person.
Michael Van Cassell covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 335. or by e-mail at [email protected].
