By Rachel Levin, Sunset associate travel editor
Our hearts had fallen along with our infested fruit—but thanks to Valencia Creek Farms, Team Olive lives on! Chris Banthien has offered to sell us 800 pounds of her Santa Cruz-grown Tuscan blend of olives, including Ascolano, Pendolino, Maurino, Taggiasca, Frantoio, and Leccino varietals.
If we can’t use our own olives, at least we’ve found the next best thing: fruit from just 30 miles south. A far cry from “one-block”—but what can you do? As we’re learning, eating locally has its challenges.
Once Chris gives us the heads-up on her harvest time—should be sometime in the next couple of weeks—we’ll head down to Valencia Creek Farms and start picking. “Bring as many folks as you like!” she says laughing. “We’ll take all the help we can get.”
It’s the least we can do.