HERE'STHEBEEF

An interview with certied organic beef producer Doug Stonebreakerby Bay-Area locavore chef James Stolich

2 As I mentioned in my last eBook —Praise Te Lard, published on FoodTinkers.com — there hasnever been a better time in recent years in the United States to source your own local ingredients andadopt a Mediterranean approach and lifestyle for shopping, cooking, and eating. All over the country, farmers markets are popping up, and more people have access to small, localproducers and purveyors. Here in Northern California, we have a plethora of small farms doingamazing stu, all organic, free-range, and devoid of antibiotics.I caught up with Prather Ranch retail shop owner Doug Stonebreaker at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Mar-ket in San Francisco to ask him what makes Prather beef so special.I’m also sharing my recipe for Doug’s winter braise of beef.Enjoy, James StolichCookWithJames.com

Located under the shadow of themajestic Mt. Shasta in NorthernCalifornia, Prather Ranch is asustainable, 40,000-acre cattle,hay and farming operation.

James: What’s the story onPrather Ranch?

Doug: Prather Ranch proper startedout and was owned by Walter Ralphsand was purchased up on the north-east side of Mount Shasta. In oraround 1964, Walter was the originalowner of Ralph’s Grocery stores inSouthern California.He started them probably back inthe 1930s. He was really a pioneer,being one of the rst people to think about bringing together all of thesefoods under one roof. He sold thebusiness in 1964 and went outand bought Prather Ranch, whichhad been there since the 1800s.However, it was just a small workingranch, beautiful but not a lot goingon. It was very isolated. Walter was a forward thinking guy and started raising these cows. Soit kind of plugged along for a longtime. It just so happened that as time went on, this idea of organic, grass-fed beef started to get a foothold.Tere were some folks who camealong—including myself a bit later— who said, hey, let’s try and marketthese products here in San Francisco. Jim and Mary Rickert, who managedthe ranch for 30 years, also went outand did a few farmers markets. So insome sense, they were the rst folksout trying to sell meat in farmersmarkets.It was challenging, as the early organic movement in the States wasfocused more on vegetarian products,as opposed to Europe, where agri-biologica was always both a meat andvegetable type of thing. So we hada hard time at rst. A lot of marketsdidn’t want us in there. Everyone wasvery pro-vegetarian and so forth. Soit took a while to gain a foothold.Obviously this has changed now.

When did you frst open the retail operation and really begin tomarket the product here?

In 2003, after doing the farmersmarkets for some time (as well asraising my own pigs o on my own)I had the opportunity to come intothe Ferry Building. Tey asked us tocome inside and sell the product.