Gilroy has its garlic and Stockton celebrates the asparagus
while Castroville has been honoring the thorny artichoke since
1958.
Lucky for Sonoma County that we get to celebrate the sweet and
juicy Gravenstein apple every August. Just think, if this was
Wisconsin we’d be gathering around the annual rutabaga harvest and
over in Minnesota they actually have a Rhubarb Festival.
Called the “Sweetest Little Fair” on earth, the Sonoma County
Farm Trails members have been gathering for this weekend tribute to
the Gravenstein long before it was adopted by Slow Food as a
heritage food and given a prominent place in the international
cornucopia of heirloom species.
At home in Sebastopol, it’s just a darned good filling for the
best apple pies you’ll ever taste. At the Fair, apples are served
in every way imaginable including on a stick, in dumplings, pies,
sauce, juice and fritters.
The 36th Gravenstein Fair takes place this weekend, August 15-16
at Ragle Ranch Regional Park, just west of Sebastopol. Admission is
$10 daily ($5 for children and $8 for seniors.) Besides apples,
there will be live music, farm demonstrations, animals, all kinds
of walk-around food and pie eating and pie baking contests.
The Fair raises money for the all-volunteer Farm Trails group
that supports sustainable agricultural diversity in Sonoma County
through the promotion of its members’ products via on-site sales.
The direct-marketing organization was one of the first of its kind
in all of America.
Farm Trails board president Susan Mall is a San Diego native
whose family visited here over a decade ago. “I knew right away
this was a special place for food and farming,” said Mall last week
while operating her produce stand at the Windsor Farmers Market.
Mall lives in the Russian River Valley, just outside of Healdsburg
where her husband operates the Zin Restaurant. “I married a
third-generation farmer, so naturally I didn’t get too far from
farming myself,” she said.
Farm Trails offers the perfect mix of farming, volunteering and
building a sense of community, said Mall, noting that her father
instilled lifelong volunteering in her from an early age.
Other board members include Chris Messina, Glenda Castelli,
Marie Ganister, Pat Peters, Carla Howell and Peggy Jo Sayre. Farm
Trails has over 100 farm family members. A few dozen of the members
will participate in Weekend Along the Farm Trails, Sept. 26-27,
offering farm visitors special demonstrations, sales and
entertainment.
Money raised at this weekend’s Fair also supports annual
agriculture student scholarships. The scholarship program had its
modest beginnings just after the Fair was created in 1973. Today,
as many as six scholarships are awarded each year and are now
partially administered by the Santa Rosa Junior College Agriculture
Foundation.
Students Kyle Dubro, of Rohnert Park and Jimmy Bachor, of St.
Helena will receive scholarships during the Fair. One of the
memorial scholarships is named after John Smith, the deceased
former county ag advisor who first suggested the creation of the
Farm Trails organization. The other memorial scholarship was
started by the Kozlowski family in honor of Tony Kozlowski who was
killed in a plane crash.
Farm Trails member Pat Peters chairs the scholarship committee
these days, taking over for longtime chair Phebe Sorensen. Earlier
this year, Farm Trails awarded four other scholarships to area high
school students. Recipients included Hannah Cooper and Kevin
Comalli, of Santa Rosa High School; Victoria Hamilton, from El
Molino; and Kasey Peterson, of Casa Grande High School.
“It’s wonderful to say that our scholarship program is alive and
well,” said Sorensen, now a retired farmer. “It’s always been a
modest program but we’ve been able to support many students through
the years and help keep agriculture alive here.”
The Gravenstein Fair has always been an all-volunteer affair.
Some of the original member volunteers still work at the Fair. Bob
Larsen drew the first Fair layout for Ragle Park in 1977 after the
Fair moved from its previous home at the Emanji Buddhist Temple
grounds. He still oversees the layout to this day, joined by some
new generations of helpers.
The Kozlowski, Hurst, Walker and Dutton apple-growing families
continue to sell boxes and boxes of fresh-picked Gravensteins and
other varieties to fairgoers.
Other old-timers include Fair manager Sue Loughlin, a
third-generation family member; Ettamarie Peterson, a former Farm
Trails president; Charlie and Charlotte Fisher; Rory Balzer; Jan
Nahmens; Terri Miller; and many others.
Local non-profit groups and church groups, like the Sebastopol
Community Church, bake and sell hundreds of pies and fritters.
All in all, the “sweetest little fair” is truly a “family
affair” as well.
Slow Food International, an organization dedicated to preserving
heritage foods, crops and farming techniques has been celebrating
the Gravenstein apple in recent weeks, having many local
restaraunts and chefs offering special menus featuring the
Gravenstein apple.
The Gravenstein is one of the earliest maturing crops and before
modern refrigeration and oceanic shipping it dominated the early
harvest markets.
Nowadays, the harvest and orchard acreage of the local
Gravenstein is greatly diminished from its post World War II
zenith.
Last year, 8,000 tons of Gravensteins were processed or sold in
Sonoma County, totalling $2 million. With other apple varieties,
the county’s apple crop totalled nearly $8 million last year.
Orchard acreage is now just 13,000 acres, well below the plantings
of 50,000 acres 60-plus years ago.
Sonoma County Farm Trails Gravenstein Apple
Fair
WHEN: Saturday, August 15, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
and Sunday, August 16, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
WHERE: Ragle Ranch Park, just west of
Sebastopol
WHAT: Apple specialties, fresh apples for sale,
art, crafts, farm animals, food booths, pie eating contest, live
music, beer and wine.
MUSIC: Shana Morrison, The Pulsators, Buzzy
Martin, The Love Choir, Joni Morris, Blusion, Mitch Woods, Mariachi
Tarasco, Ruby Moon, New Copasetics, St. Peterbilt and Solid
Air.
ADMISSION: General/$10, seniors/$8, children
6-12/$5, under age 6/Free. NO DOGS OR PETS. Free parking on site
and shuttle lots.
WHO: Sonoma County Farm Trails is an
all-volunteer organization of family farm members that supports
sustainable agricultural diversity in Sonoma County through the
promotion of its members’ products via on site sales and other
direct-marketing efforts.
