Grown in the USA

Paso Almonds: History, handpicked

The almond blossom festival was once one of the biggest annual events in Paso Robles. Before World War II, this little town midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles was considered the almond capital of the world. But after the war, the almond industry shifted farther inland, to the Central Valley, where vast irrigated orchards of densely planted trees produced more fruit and proved more profitable than those dry-farmed in Paso Robles. Soon, the almond-processing plants in Paso Robles closed, and the Almond Blossom Festival faded into history.

Not all the almonds have disappeared from town, though. Somewhat quixotically, farmer Rusty Hall still tends his ancient almond orchard here. He’s absolutely convinced that dry-farmed nuts, grown organically, taste better. “Central Valley growers get larger, moister almonds, and can get thirty times the crop per acre,” Hall says. “But the ones I grow have more intense flavor.”

This rolling hill country is part of Hall’s family history. His great-great-grandfather, who had come to California during the Gold Rush, owned a cattle ranch nearby. And in 1974, Hall, whose formal training is in architecture, took over the almond orchard that his family had been farming for four years. It hasn’t always been an easy road that he’s followed, but the amiable Hall, now 53, remains undeterred.

He is determined, for one thing, not to mechanize his harvesting, as farmers in the Central Valley have done. Instead, come the first week of September each year, Hall and a few workers gather the crop from his 93 acres by hand. A long, thin trailer laden with tarps is hooked up to an old Caterpillar tractor. Hall parks alongside each tree, and the workers spread the tarps and knock the tree with long poles that have rubber mallets affixed to them. The almond fruits, which resemble small, thin-fleshed, split-open apricots, hail down on the tarps. Later, the nuts are spread out in the sun to dry.

As if the work of caring for his own orchard weren’t enough, Hall also sharecrops almonds from up to a dozen local growers. This, he believes, encourages the renovation of once-derelict orchards. “I see it as the agricultural equivalent of architectural restoration, when you take an abandoned building and make it useful again,” he says.

Man cannot live by almond sales alone, however, so Hall has also created several almond products—brittle,biscotti, and butter—that he actually makes himself at a commercial kitchen in nearby San Luis Obispo. Those specialties also allow Hall to help support the community that has supported him for years. Ten percent of his sales are devoted to a literacy program, called—what else?—“Nuts About Reading.” —David Karp

Paso Almonds From October into the spring, Rusty Hall sells almonds and almond products at farmers markets in Santa Monica (Arizona Avenue and Third Street; Wednesday, 9a.m. to 2p.m.) and Santa Barbara (Cota and Santa Barbara streets; Saturday, 8:30a.m. to 12:30p.m.). Mail order is available year-round (888-549-9126; www.pasoalmonds.com).

Chino Farm: The most beautiful crop

In California, in the food world, just about everybody has a story about the Chinos, who grow what everyone agrees is the best-tasting and most eclectic selection of produce in the state. It might be about the way they lost the family farm when they were interned by our government during World War II. (They entrusted it to a family friend who sold it out from under them. But there’s a good end to that story: Their father, Junzo, became a sharecropper and bought land nearby.) Or perhaps it’s the story about how Junzo’s nine children went off to become doctors and scientists only to return to the farm when their parents needed help. It might be about the Chino tomato test, which involves growing dozens of different kinds of tomatoes every year in hopes of finding the best. It might be about the celebrities who park their fancy cars at the roadside stand, ogling the incredible variety as they try to decide between corn so sweet and tender that it tastes terrific raw, carrots in half a dozen colors, perfumed melons, and eggplants the size of marbles.

The conversation sometimes turns to the Chinos’ eccentric generosity—if they like you, there will be endless gifts. Or it might be about the long hours they work, or about the fact that they now occupy some of the world’s most expensive real estate, plunked down amid the mansions and golf courses just north of San Diego.

Many people talk about the few lucky chefs—Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Mark Peel—upon whom the Chinos bestow their bounty, and the fact that not one of them actually places an order. They simply take whatever the Chinos decide to send them. “It’s like a little surprise package,” says Waters of the box that arrives at Chez Panisse every week.

My own Chino story is from 20 years ago. I was taking a flat of their strawberries back to Berkeley, sitting on the plane with the fruit on my lap. The intense aroma wafted enticingly throughout the cabin. One by one, the other passengers filed past, begging for a taste.

The Chinos must know that they are a constant topic of conversation. And I suspect that they are secretly pleased about it, although Tom Chino once told me, “If people don’t like what we grow, it doesn’t bother us too much.” They know that they are the rock stars of the produce world—elusive, slightly arrogant artists in pursuit of perfection. They grow the best produce they possibly can because they simply don’t know any other way to work. “If you don’t have a beautiful crop,” says Tom, as if explaining everything, “you feel terrible about picking it.”—Ruth Reichl