My great-great grandparents, Lamerlis Caldonia Doak, and Christopher Columbus Chandler. These are my great-grandmother's parents.

My great-grandmother, Ora Goodman, and her garden, were the impetus for me to start writing this blog.  She was a major influence all through my childhood.  She lived a ‘local’ life without realizing she was doing so.  She simply lived her life.  This series is part of a longer piece I am working on about her, and her life.  Herewith, Part 2…

Heritage, A Very Rich One

My maternal great-great grandparents, Christopher Columbus Chandler (1852-1925) and his wife, Lamerlis Caledonia Doak (1861-1934), had eleven children.  Two of the eleven children were truly great women in my life:  my great-grandmother, Ora Esther Goodman (1884-1978) and her sister, my great-aunt, Ona Dana (1893-1991).  Both women had a true pioneer spirit, and were a big influence on me growing up on the Central California coast.

Gramma Ora married Rolla Charles Goodman in 1907 in Modoc, California, a small town on the Oregon-California border.  After my great-great grandfather Chandler moved his large brood to the Central Coast town of Nipomo, my great-grandparents followed with their two boys, Donald, my grandfather, and Herman, my great-uncle.  The family eventually settled in Orcutt, California, another Central Coast town.  At that point the entire extended family was settled in the Central Coast area and would remain there through present day.

My grandfather tells the following story about his arrival in the area in 1918 and his first sight of Grandpa Chandler’s farm:

Grandpa had established quite a one-man operation on his little farm.  He raised pigs for their bacon, headcheese, smoked ham, and fresh meat.  I remember how good the pork chops were with gravy, mashed potatoes and fresh peas and Grandma’s freshly baked bread.  He raised bees for their honey and honey sugar.  He raised all kinds of vegetables, which he stored in the root cellar along with fruit and berry jams and jellies.  He had apricot and peach trees whose fruit he dried over sulphur fires.  He made apple cider and applesauce.  He had his own chickens for their eggs and meat.  And a few cows and steers for milk and meat.  He even raised a turkey or two for the holidays.

From this story about my great-grandmother’s father I can see very clearly the origins of her do-it-yourself ways as well as of her talents in the garden and the kitchen.

My great-grandparents, Rolla and Ora Goodman, barbecuing in a local park.

The Nipomo Rancho, the Dana Family, and the Dana Adobe

My great-aunt Ona Chandler married Goodwin Dana – the Danas were a Spanish Land Grant family in the Nipomo area — thus bringing the Spanish-Mexican influence into the family.  The Danas had quite an influence on the development of the area over the years.  They originally settled on the 37,000 Nipomo Rancho when Captain William Dana, a Boston sea captain married Maria Josefa Carillo, the daughter of a Mexican provincial governor and a Spanish Land Grant owner.

The rancho was given to Captain Dana in 1828 when the couple married, and the adobe ranch house that Captain Dana built for his new bride still stands, and is now a registered California State Historical Landmark.  The Captain and his wife went on to have twenty-one children.  Their adobe was the hub of a very active rancho; not only did it support the Captain and his large family but it also employed many workers and ranch hands including Mexicans, local Indians and a Chinese cook.

The rancho served as a social and business center for the local area, and at various times offered ad hoc assistance to the developing state.  It became the first mail stop between San Francisco and Los Angeles when mail services first started in California.  And when the railroad was put in, the Captain allowed tracks to be laid across the rancho.

The self-sufficient, hardworking ethos of the early Danas continued with the later Dana generations; Aunt “Onie” and her husband Goodwin Dana, a great-grandson to Captain Dana, continued the family legacy of living and working off the land.  Aunt Onie, my favorite great-aunt, was also a good cook; whenever we went to visit, she always had freshly baked cookies in which she put walnuts from her backyard tree.  It was the Danas who held the frequent family reunions where we ate Santa Maria-style barbecue, a local delicacy.

This style of barbecue is unique to the Central California Coast, the beef having been raised in the Santa Maria area.  The dish hearkens back to the rancho days when the rancheros gathered in the spring to help each other brand their calves.  In thanks, the host prepared a Spanish-style barbecue for his vaqueros, family and friends.

Tri-tip roast, the cut of beef used in Santa Maria-style barbecue, is a boneless cut from the bottom sirloin; it’s also called a “triangle” roast because of its shape.  Red oak, a local tree to the area, is the preferred wood for the fire as it gives the meat the unique, smoky flavor now associated with this dish.

Print Recipe

My Status: a few warm, 80 degree days last weekend made it feel summery again.  That didn’t last.  My mind has been on winter dishes; fun, interesting things like fondue bourguignonne, pieces of raw beef cooked in a fondue pot of hot oil.  Or a cheese fondue, those are always fun.  Then there’s the Swiss dish of raclette, set a whole half of a raclette cheese next to a fireplace, as it slowly melts, scrape it off onto your plate, then eat it with boiled new potatoes, and cornichons.  Or a choucroute garnie, or a cassoulet. Dishes I learned to make in France.

I’m (still) published!! My recipe ‘Chef Wally’s Baked Papaya’ was selected to be in the cookbook: ‘Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices.’  You may order it here.  I am thrilled (still).

Upcoming Posts: a write up on Jennifer Piette and Erik Stenberg’s local, sustainable grocery delivery service Out of the Box Collective.  More on my great-grandmother’s garden, and my California childhood.  Cookbook Reviews: The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders, and Biscotti by Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti.

Food memories, and, or nostalgia, are important to me — as my regular readers know. My own personal food memories are as essential to this blog as are the concepts of 100 miles and ‘living life locally.’ I recently attended an event here in Los Angeles that was a whole-lotta fun. April is apparently a very cheesy month: it’s National Grilled Cheese Month and the Tillamook Cheese Company is on the road with their ‘The Loaf Love Tour.’ They’ve retrofitted three 1966 Standard VW Microbuses to resemble ‘Baby Loafs’ of Tillamook cheddar and are visiting one-hundred cities in nine states throughout the Western U.S., Texas and Illinois to teach consumers about their famous cheese. Tillamook is also the ‘exclusive cheese sponsor’ for the 2010 Grilled Cheese Invitational — ‘a grilled cheese sammich cooking competition’ taking place in Los Angeles on Saturday, April 24th that I will happily be attending.

My friend, Jo Stougaard (of My Last Bite) and I went to a gathering of foodies to taste Tillamook cheddar, to pose with the ‘Baby Loaf’ Microbuses, and to eat cheese-inspired dishes prepared by Chef Akasha Richmond at her Culver City restaurant Akasha Restaurant Bar & Bakery. It was a lighthearted, full-of-laughs evening. And delightfully, it involved a cheese from my childhood. Growing up in California, we took a lot of trips north to Oregon and Washington. Tillamook cheddar is made in Tillamook County, Oregon. That loaf of orange cheese was always around when I was a kid; at home, at relatives, in grocery stores, in advertising. It was a ‘thing.’ For me it was a bit like a favorite pair of slippers. Steady, loyal and comforting. It still is. It was nice to see it again, and to reconnect with it.

Tillamook is a farmer owned cooperative. After a cheese from the county won an award at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Tillamook County dairy farmers knew they had something special. In 1909 ten independent cheese producing plants in Tillamook County banded together and formed a cooperative ‘to control quality and to market the cheese from the county as a whole instead of from individual plants.’ The Tillamook County Creamery Association was born. Today the association consists of 110 dairy families. The cheese can now be found in grocery stores across the country and is used in restaurants from national chains to high-end eateries. The cheddar product line includes Medium Sharp, Special Reserve Extra Sharp, Vintage White, Smoked Cheddar, Mozzarella, Colby and three Jacks — Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack and Colby Jack. They also make ice cream, yogurt, butter and sour cream. Tillamook products are all-natural, and are made from the highest-quality milk from cows not treated with artificial bovine growth hormone –in other words they are both good and safe to eat. This is a company I can get behind; from its humble beginnings to its now nationally recognized status it is still true to its original values. It’s still a cooperative, its products continue to be all-natural, and they make their cheese the way they did when it all began in 1909. Despite their success they are still an old-fashioned company. That’s something to celebrate.

Chef Akasha Richmond’s Tillamook cheese-inspired food was a perfect compliment to the cheese tasting. Photos by Jo Stougaard.

The Cheese

A Mushroom-Crouton Bite

Fried Chicken with Caesar Salad

Fried Chicken & Mac N Cheese

Macaroni & Cheese!

Upcoming Posts: Interview with Chefs John Stewart & Duskie Estes, owners of Zazu & Bovolo restaurants in Sonoma County. Cochon 555 Napa, a write up of the amazing pork festival that I went to in Napa. Reviews: The Spirit Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices by Sara Engram and Katie Luber and Kimberly Toqe.