Jonah Raskin

Glorious Community, Delicious Food at The Naked Pig in Santa Rosa, CA I love deeply rooted, nurturing communities. And when communities and foods come together as in the Naked Pig I feel like I’m in an earthly paradise. If you share my sentiments, you might be inspired by an essay —…

Beyond the Bay Area’s Best 100 Restaurants: Take a Farmer Out for Dinner Where to eat? What to eat? And when to eat? Questions about food and eating proliferate endlessly. Each day brings new challenges, new desires and perhaps even new fears in an era of food insecurity.  To help...

I call them “beans” and mean Limas, Favas, Blacks, Pintos, Chickpeas, Lentils and more. They’re also known as “pulses” perhaps because of their concentrated power. Whatever name we use, they’re protein-rich and they have long been cultivated and enjoyed from Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas. In a...

My week often starts with an email from Rachel Kohn Obut, the mainstay at Flatbed Farm on Highway 12 in Glen Ellen. Just a few days ago, she wrote, “This week at the Farm Stand, we have Cilantro, Bok Choy, Fava Beans, French Breakfast Radishes, Rainbow Chard, Red Russian Kale,...

The Hindu guru and mystic, Neem Karoli Baba, was acclaimed for five words that he passed on to his followers and that they in turn added to posters and sermons that traveled around the world. Baba’s “sticky message,” as one might call it, was “Love People and Feed Them.” Food...

Book Review: Food & Freedom: How the Slow Food Movement Is Changing the World Through Gastronomy. By Carlo Petrini September 2015 192 pages Reviewed by Jonah Raskin          Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, the worldwide grass roots organization, and the author of Slow Food Nation, exudes so much…

Jonah Raskin with butcher, John Richter, at Thistle Meats in Petaluma (Photo Credit: Karen Preuss) Butchers come in all shapes and sizes. They’re not all big and beefy, though they have often been depicted that way in art. They are, however, mostly male and while some have a lot to…