Explore San Francisco Bay Area’s hot spots for organic and sustainable living

 I spent last Saturday shopping for food. Started at the Redwood City Farmer’s Market, then Sigona’s, a local market in Redwood City and then Trader Joe’s. I later went to Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco.

The verdict? Sigona’s is one of the best markets on the Peninsula if you are looking for great value on local, organic produce. For less than $60, we got over 15 vegetables and fruits, mostly organic, mostly local, plus organic Rocky chicken (much better quality than the Trader Joe’s organic chicken) plus Strauss nonfat milk. Organic bell peppers at less than $2/lb. This was way cheaper than even conventional prices at the Redwood City farmer’s market. No crowds in the store. Friendly staff. I think the prices at Sigona’s Redwood City location is way cheaper than the one at Stanford Shopping Center. Checkout Sigona’s sometime if you’re looking for a good market on the Penisula.

I spent a sunny afternoon at Alice Waters’ famous Edible Schoolyard garden at the Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in North Berkeley. After going to a friend’s BBQ in the neighborhood, my sister in law brought me to the school with the beautiful garden. I was so excited to see it. I saw one acre of organic veggies of all types, from kale to corn to beautiful flowers. Even a pen of free range chicken in the back and a outdoor oven. I was so impressed by Alice Waters’ work. The food feeds the students, while teaching them how to garden and cook. This is the kind of school that I would like to go to!

My sister hosted a fabulous weekend long bachelorette trip at Costanoa. We rented three canvas family cabins with bonfires for each one. We hiked to the ocean along the sandy bluffs, ate at their restaurant, and had a bbq on their lawn. Costanoa is a beautiful retreat located on the coast near Highway One in Pescadero, right between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. Think of this place as luxury camping, with a warming hut and nice bathrooms with saunas. We also hung out in the hot tub area and then karaoked through the rest of the night.

The quaint seaside Peninsula town of Half Moon Bay has a brand new organic and natural food supermarket called New Leaf Community Market near the intersection of 92 and highway 1. It’s a local version of a large scale natural food market, like a Whole Foods for Half Moon Bay. This recently opened a couple months ago.

My fiance and I took a nice tour of the store-sparking new floors, clean and brightly lit, with tons of fresh organic produce. The ready made food in the deli and hot foods, soup and salad bar were a lot better than I expected for a local market. We picked up some organic raspberries, an organic fennel and pinenut salad as well as a tofu salad to go. I would definitely come back here!

Our real stop was for dinner at a restaurant in Half Moon Bay called Chez Shea. This was my second time eating at this downtown restaurant on Main Street. Almost all of the food is sourced locally and organically. The taste is extremely fresh and clean with global flavors. The first time I ate here, I tried their Indian curry and rice. In my most recent visit, I tried their chile renno with an organic beet salad to start. All of the food was fantastic! My fiance Vivek and I feel that this restaurant is a total find in the area–rated up there with some of the best organic restaurants in San Francisco. Come check it out!

Over the last week, I had frozen yogurt cravings. I went to Harmony Frozen Yogurt located in San Carlos last Thursday, and Fraiche in Palo Alto on Saturday night. They are both great local organic frozen yogurt shops; I would go here over Pinkberry or Red Mango any day.

Here’s my head to head comparison:

Flavor: Harmony frozen yogurt wins. They offer Straus organic yogurt, with flavors like plain, mango and raspberry. Fraiche is good too, but Harmony wins by a slight edge with more unique flavors of yogurt.

Variety: Fraiche wins. They offer fresh real yogurt as well as frozen frozen yogurt. Their sauces include creative options like ollalieberry and varieties of granola and even handmade mochi.

Organic: both win! Both are organic and believe in investing in green and healthy food.

I love Ubuntu. After being vegetarian for 20 years, this is one of the superstar vegetarian restaurants to have launched in a long time. Located in Napa, this is an upscale, Zen like environment without a lot of pretense. Food is prepared with the best local ingredients.

This is my favorite salad. Beets with avocado and grapefruit. Recently its recipe was featured in this month’s Sunset Magazine.

Zen like, relaxing atmosphere. Upstairs is a yoga studio.

Above is their signature dish, a rich cauliflower dish in a cast iron pot. Very creative and rich. However it was a little too creamy for my taste.

Although this doesn’t look the prettiest, this fresh farm egg was to die for. Similar to the type of egg yolk described by Michael Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma, this yolk was a bright orange yellow and very rich.

All in all, this is an excellent find in downtown Napa. Creative vegetarian food, with great service and a relaxing feel. I’m definitely coming again.

Ubuntu is located on 1140 Main Street in downtown Napa.

California State and federal government officials plan to spray across the San Francisco Bay Area in order to eradicate the apple moth. According to a recent Chronicle article, “Hundreds of residents in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, where pheromone pesticides were aerially applied late last year, have reported health symptoms, including shortness of breath, muscle aches and sore throats.”

Read more about these issues through a local non profit dedicated against the spraying called Stop The Spray. I signed the petition to stop the spray on Care2 which already contains over 14,000 signatures.

In the midst of my own wedding planning, I checked out some interesting organic and green wedding ideas in the Bay Area. One place that I really liked was a restaurant called Barndiva in the beautiful town of Healdsburg.

The owner, Lukka Feldman, gave us a nice tour of the city and offered to host an all inclusive wedding with organic, local food and drinks. The restaurant is a beautiful restored barn with an outdoor garden. It is one of the few restaurants featured in Michelin from the Bay Area. Don’t miss this place for drinks at night if you are in Sonoma wine country.

Many of my friends have started to use Sigg bottles. From Switzerland and made to last, these bottles exceed FDA requirements on preventing harmful chemicals from getting through and have been thoroughly tested to ensure 0.0% leaching.

They are also recyclable, made of alunimum, and trendy, a great combination. But most importantly, Sigg alunimum bottles provide an alternative to the toxic Lexan plastics that Nalgene is made out of. A Canadian outdoor gear company, Mountain Equipment Co-op has pulled all of its Nalgene bottles off its shelves for that reason. The claim is that Nalgene bottles have the chemical, Bisphenol A in the plastic behind it is made out of. I think I’ll start putting my Nalgene bottles away.

Recently Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 1 out of 5 California state parks due to a looming deficit. Unfortunately, many of these parks are true gems, nine of them in the San Francisco Bay Area including Henry Coe State Park, Tomales Bay State Park and Portola Redwoods. Under his proposal, the cutting of parks would only save 1% of his deficit, but would close 43 state parks.

 Save the California state parks by joining the California State Parks Foundation, the only nonprofit dedicated to protecting California state parks. I decided to sign up today and become part of the the California States Parks Foundation. Please fight the Governor’s proposal to shut down the parks.

Welcome readers. You may have noticed a few changes. I decided to update the design of the page and update the URL to http://www.myorganicday.com. Please update your bookmarks. My new email address is christine@myorganicday.com.

Ono Gelato Company in Paia. Fresh, local organic gelato. I had a Kula country strawberry gelato. Choose from local fruits like coconut, persimmons, mango, kiwi and more.

Dear Organic Day readers,

I’ve really enjoyed receiving your many emails and comments. (I also apologize that I have not written back to many of you–I recently got engaged, took a new position as the first product manager at Navigenics, an early stage startup.)

After attending the BlogExpo (one of the largest blogging conferences of the year), I’ve decided to remove all advertising and not accept any form of sponsorship. This insures that none of my content will be influenced by anyway through sponsors to give you the most unbiased information. Of course, everything on this blog will remain free.

All the best,
Christine

So the highly anticipated reopening of the Whole Foods in Cupertino finally happened. I know my family who lives nearby, has been anticipating for months. The verdict?

It’s the largest Whole Foods on the West Coast. I was impressed by the sheer size and selection of produce, to toiletries to wine to olive oil and even clothing and gardening. It almost feels like a Target for the green, organic crowd being so big.

My favorite is their very large food to go selection. Choose from Indian, Chinese, Mexican, American, Japanese, pizza, and more. Plus an extra bistro on the other side of the store, and fresh Ciao Bella gelato.

This place is really great for the Cupertino area that lacks a place to meet like this. I’ve already gone back three times since the opening although I live 30 minutes away. Check it out! Whole Foods is located on 20955 Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, near the corner of Stevens Creek and Stelling.