The new California Cuisine

According to World Watch, most American food travels 1,500 miles or more to reach our plates. That’s the equivalent of driving from Sacramento to Des Moines, Iowa, for a burger and fries. While I-80 might be lovely in fall, to sustain this gastronomic commute you would consume a lot of fuel, emit gobs of greenhouse gasses and eventually lose all joy in eating. Welcome to our nation’s food supply.

But the truth is, we don’t have to go this far for good sustenance. In case you haven’t noticed, Sacramentans live in one of the world’s most bountiful food producing regions. Buying food directly from it, instead of Mexico, China or some other far-off place is better for our health, the environment and our local economy. In the words of one local chef, it just makes sense.

So unpack your bag and put away the Iowa guidebook. We’re staying put and visiting some area establishments where you can enjoy food that not only tastes good, but is keeping local farmers and Mother Earth in business.

The Playground: Mulvaney’s Building & Loan

Patrick Mulvaney gets simple, even childlike pleasure from cooking with local ingredients. To him, it’s a creative challenge, a game everyone can win. What happens when someone shows up with four cases of mushrooms? How many dishes can you create with the last of summer’s tomatoes? Mulvaney can’t wait to figure it out.

“It’s like being in this great toy store—like having your grandfather say ‘go ahead, use whatever you want,’” he says.

Mulvaney says anyone can play the same game at home by subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Through a CSA, farms deliver a box of produce to the subscriber’s home each week. Customers don’t know what’s coming until it arrives.

“People who are excited about shows like Top Chef can replicate it at home,” Mulvaney says. “Here’s a box of produce—now go feed your family.”

As fall thickens, Mulvaney’s menu will move from tomatoes and zucchini to winter squash, apples and chard—produce that is firmer and thicker to handle the colder weather.

He is looking forward to making the playfully named “Death to Butternut Squash Soup,” an annual specialty that eschews the most popular variety of winter squash for lesser-known varieties he procures from Del Rio Botanical in West Sacramento. 1215 19th Street; (916) 441-6022; www.culinaryspecialists.com

The Destination: New Moon Café

If you need an excuse to visit Nevada City, Peter Selaya is giving you one. The food at his New Moon Café is flavorful, fresh and served with a conscience. While he has myriad reasons for buying local, he said a big one is better quality.

“The commercial stuff is crap,” he says. “I have farmers who pick it in the morning and deliver it [to me] in the afternoon. If you go to Safeway you know that stuff is a week old.”

Like most chefs committed to this cause, Selaya says he wants to be 100 percent local but it’s hard to procure necessary ingredients year-round. Right now, he estimates he’s up to 75 percent local in summer and fall, and less in the winter. But Selaya says he buys local, and organic, whenever possible.

“If we don’t care about local farming, it’s over, you might as well cash in your chips,” he says. “You have to support local farmers. If we give everything up to the commercial farmers, there is no life left in what we are eating.”

For fall, expect to see lots of apples and pears on the New Moon menu, along with winter squash, wild mushrooms and braised meats. 203 York Street, Nevada City; (530) 265-6399; www.thenewmooncafe.com

The Movable Feast: A Healthy Kitchen

Local food is a throwback to a simpler time, and it even makes house calls—at least when A Healthy Kitchen is involved. The enterprise is run by husband and wife Terese Hollander and Dionisio Esperas, certified teaching instructors who provide in-home cooking classes for small groups.

Approximately 85 percent of the ingredients Esperas and Hollander bring to customers’ homes is local, much of it procured from the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Many customers have gardens, and the classes help them figure out how to use their bounty and appreciate seasonal cooking.

“It’s important to eat seasonally because the food is at its best, quality wise and nutrient wise,” Esperas says. For example, citrus fruits ripen in December and January—cold season, when we need our vitamin C.

Local food is fresher, he explains, because farmers typically deliver it the day it is picked. Industrial producers, meanwhile, knowing their produce might sit on a truck or in a warehouse for a week or more, often pick it before its quality peaks.

Although he appreciates good taste and freshness, Esperas’ rationale for buying local is hardly self-serving. Local farmers are “great people and compassionate about what they do,” he says. “It’s their love, their lifestyle and they really enjoy farming. Why not support them?” (916) 739-0659; www.ahealthykitchensac.com

The Throwback: Farmer’s Kitchen Café

For someone who wants to recapture the past, Rose Anne DeCristoforo, owner of the Farmer’s Kitchen Café in Davis, is decidedly forward thinking.

Rose Anne says we must return to the 1940s, when local farms provided better food and better nutrition. Roseanne suspects our genetically manipulated, factory-produced, antibiotic-laden food is responsible for the increase in obesity, diabetes, autism and other ills. So she gives her customers the opposite: fresh and unadulterated food, served within a day or two of being harvested.

The challenge is making “going local” feasible for people who are too busy to put down their Blackberries. “It’s not realistic to expect someone who hits the ground running, has kids and comes home exhausted to source local food, let alone cook it,” she said.

To solve this conundrum, the Farmer’s Kitchen offers a subscription meal program: customers pre-order meals from a discounted menu, the staff prepares them, then customers pick them up warm and ready to eat. In this way, they can enjoy delicious food, 95 percent of which originated locally (within a 100-mile radius).

While Rose Anne’s menu changes depending on what is in season, her “bio-regional salad” is a mainstay. Comprised of “whatever fruits and vegetables are growing right now, it’s a moving target that is always changing.” 624 4th Street, Davis; (530) 756-1862; www.naturalfoodworks.com

The Institution: The Waterboy

SN&R once placed The Waterboy on the “first string” of Sacramento dining establishments. The same could be said for its commitment to local food. Chef and Owner Rick Mahan has relied on local ingredients since day one. He’ll never have it any other way.

“I would like to be as far removed from big agriculture as possible,” Mahan says. “Personally, there is no other way. It just makes sense.”

The amount of local ingredients Mahan used varies by season, but he always uses “as much as possible.” Eggs come from a Vega farm in Davis; naturally raised beef comes from Five Dot Ranch in Susanville; and produce comes from Full Belly, Soil Born Farms, Del Rio Botanical, and River Dog Farms, just to name-drop a few.

Mahan’s advice for anyone who wants to buy local: Get used to spending more money for better food.

“People see the prices at the [Sacramento Natural Foods] Co-op and walk away without considering how beautiful the whole process is and what it is doing for the local economy,” he said. “People don’t bat an eye at spending five bucks at Starbucks, but if you skipped that, by the end of the week you would have made up the difference between buying local or not.”

The seasonal menu at the Waterboy changes monthly, and in fall diners can expect to see plenty of dishes with winter squash, turnips, potatoes and braised meats. 2000 Capitol Avenue; (916) 498-9891; www.waterboyrestaurant.com