A Day in the Country
Full Belly is very lucky to be surrounded by open space, riparian habitat and native grasslands. Our County is relatively rural and agricultural, producing processing tomatoes, rice, alfalfa hay, wine grapes, almonds and walnuts. But not just agricultural — the County is also home to a significant number of rare and threatened plants and animals.
The predominance of open space and agriculture in this region is really not an accident — it’s the result of the efforts over time of people who live here working together to build organizations that support habitat conservation and viable business opportunities for agriculture.
One of those organizations played a big role in our last weekend at Full Belly, the Yolo Land Trust — a group that has protected more than 11,000 acres of farmland — had their annual fundraising Day in the Country, which is sited every year at some different ranch or farm, or beautiful estate hidden away in some corner of the County that a lot of us have never seen before.
What makes the Day in the Country so unique is that restaurants, wineries and breweries from far and wide make their way to the event, volunteering their time and talents to showcase what can be produced from regionally grown produce. The results are astonishing. The photos show the cornucopia of Yolo County vegetables on display; Sam from Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa; roasted pepper soup from Full Belly Kitchen; and Durst Farm displaying cherry tomato varieties. Bull Valley offered tastes of Morell’s bread (made with Full Belly Iraqui Durum flour), with Kabocha squash butter, roasted Delicata squash, fig jam and bacon/maple walnuts.
Photos by Gorby Just and Judith Redmond
