Good food, good wood

Homespun fun
I was out at the Patrick Ranch Country Faire & Annual Threshing Bee on June 12, playing my bass with Fools Rush In on the back of a flat-bed pickup. Before we played, I checked out the sheep-dog demonstration (those dogs are amazing!) and the artisan-booth area, which was notable for an abundance of homemade foodstuffs such as jams, jellies and various baked goods. (I also saw an abundance of Mennonites at the Patrick Ranch event—they seem to know where the wholesome food and haps are.)

I picked up a jar of delicious mulberry jam from a local outfit called Cathy & Lee’s Jellies and More (588-2489 or katrinkaw@sbcglobal.net) and a jar of apple butter (yum!) from Sandrock’s Jams & Jellies (9338 Stanford Lane, Durham, 342-4871), which also offers homemade apricot and cherry jams; jalapeño jelly in mild, medium and hot varieties; grapefruit and lime marmalades; rhubarb conserve; low-sugar pomegranate jelly; and bread-and-butter pickles, among other things.

I also stopped by the booth of local, family-owned, custom-lumber supplier and furniture maker White Barn Millworks. White Barn offers eco-friendly (and uniquely beautiful) lumber from down, dead and dying trees and old-growth salvage, as well as custom-milled incense cedar, sugar and yellow pine, Douglas fir and white fir from wood harvested from a sustainably managed timber stand near Mount Lassen (WBM is in a conservation agreement with The Nature Conservancy). White Barn also sells historical, reclaimed timbers from the famous, fallen Hooker Oak tree, the Downtown Plaza elms and a fallen Patrick Ranch redwood, which they will either fashion into a piece of furniture for you or sell to you for your own DIY project. Call Pete at 343-0695 or see www.whitebarnmillworks.com for more info.

Attention, foodie photogs!
1078 Gallery (820 Broadway) is putting out a call for food-related photographic submissions for its upcoming Lentamente: The Art of Slow Food show to be held July 15-17. Local photographers from novice to professional are invited to submit one or more framed photos, no larger than 16-by-20 inches including the frame, focusing on the fruits and vegetables of Butte County.

Photographs will be sold during the Lentamente event—a combination fundraiser for 1078 Gallery and awareness-raising/food-tasting event for the local Slow Food chapter—for $78 each. Half the proceeds will go to the artist and half to the gallery, which recently lost a chunk of its annual funding from the city, according to event coordinator Giety Epting.

Epting conceived of the idea for the show after seeing photos taken by an artist friend of hers in San Francisco who built “a sculptural piece from berries” and then photographed it in its various stages, from freshly assembled to late decay.

“After a few days, the berries obviously got old and the juice started to ‘run around,’” offered Epting. Her friend then “took photos of what the berries created by themselves.”

While a similarly creative approach is highly encouraged, submissions can be more conventional—a produce still-life, farmers’ market shot, or any other creative idea will do nicely. And as for framing, “any way [is fine], as long as it’s ready to be hung and not larger than 16-by-20,” said Epting.

“We want to make people aware that there is great food being raised here,” added Epting. “[And] photography is the ‘in’ art right now.”

Photo drop-off dates are July 10-11. Call 1078 Gallery at 343-1973 or e-mail Thomasin Saxe at thomasinsaxe@gmail.com for more info.

Not too late
Chico Unified School District after-school gardening teacher Debra Abbott informs me that she has “a few spaces left” in her upcoming week-long Let’s Get Growing garden camps for kids ages 6-10. Camp dates are July 12-16, 19-23 and 26-30. Call CARD at 895-4711 or go to www.chicorec.com for more info.