Sign up to get Matt Kettmann’s Full Belly Files, which serves up multiple courses of food & drink coverage every Friday, going off-menu from our regularly published content to deliver tasty nuggets of restaurant, recipe, and refreshment wisdom to your inbox
Raising money for regenerative farming. Toasting our region’s preponderance of women winemakers. Celebrating locally raised meat and produce, including native plants.
These were the reasons for three recent events that I attended, which all served the anticipated onslaught of food and drink. But the mission of these menus went far beyond what we consumed, serving more to inspire attendees to support, promote, and even just appreciate the wealth of positive progress Santa Barbara County is making in these endeavors.
Here’s a recap.
White Buffalo Land Trust’s Bounty Benefit @ Rosewood Miramar: The Miramar’s wine director Rob Smits started a winemaker dinner series called Bounty in the spring of 2025, and it quickly became a coveted ticket. That’s thanks in part to his insightful curation of Central Coast winemakers — to put it another way, he’s picking the people I would pick for al fresco dinners like this — although the seaside setting and reliably stunning cuisine cranked out of the Rosewood kitchens certainly doesn’t hurt.
Smits had already selected the White Buffalo Land Trust and its Sandhi-made pinot noir from the regenerative farming nonprofit’s estate vineyard as the September 20 showcase. But then he and the WBLT team realized they could go a little farther, and shifted the event into a proper fundraiser, complete with a live auction. I actually thought I’d just been invited to attend the typical Bounty dinner, only realizing on Sunday morning that I was headed to a more detailed affair that night.
The event began on the lawn with cocktails and passed apps of rock crab and caviar toasts and merguez sausages from goat raised on WBLT’s Jalama Canyon Ranch. Then the 80 guests sat down at two long tables, where 13 different dishes — mostly shared family style — were served by Chef Edgar Beas and his team. The first course’s albacore crudo, Miramar-grown crudites, Paso Robles melons, and Santa Ynez bay gems with bonito dressing flowed into the second course of Hope Ranch mussels, Tehachapi sourdough, poached pinquitos, roasted delicata, Channel Islands vermillion, oak-fired lasagnetta, and regeneratively raised strip loin with koji jus.
Sandhi Wines were paired throughout, including the electric Romance Sta. Rita Hills chardonnay and then two vintages of the WBLT pinot noir, both of which I scored highly for Wine Enthusiast. I happened to sit next to Sandhi vintner Sashi Moorman and brand manager Brenna Ritchey, though our conversation was more about AI than anything to do with wine.
The evening’s speeches by Smits, Moorman, and WBLT’s Jesse and Ana Smith drove home the importance of using agriculture in ways that enhance the soil and surrounding ecosystems, rather than merely farming as an extractive tool. Their words certainly rang home during the live auction, where bids started exceeding $10,000.
By the time Sashi gave me a ride home, the event had, according to WBLT development director Sam Franz, “exceeded our fundraising goal by a significant amount!”
Women Winemakers & Culinarians Indy Dinner @ Karen’s House: More than a decade ago, Karen Steinwachs took note of how many female vintners worked in Santa Barbara County, which likely still boasts the highest percentage of women in the wine industry compared to other regions. Steinwachs, who worked for years at Buttonwood Winery but is not focused on her own brand Seagrape Wine Company, decided to honor that reality by gathering a group of women together at Sonja Magdevki’s place in Los Alamos, and the ball was rolling.
Today, the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation hosts a major annual tasting and a number of auxiliary events to promote and support women in both the wine and food industries. I’ve been covering these events since they started, though I’ve known Karen much longer than that.
A few weeks ago, Karen offered to host the Independent’s food and drink writers up to her house in Los Olivos for a casual dinner. She is the current owner of the historic William and Lydia Davis House, though it’s better known as Slim’s Place, after the previous occupant Slim Columbo, a well known Santa Ynez Valley character.
So I put on my party planning hat, and emailed our team to see who was available. We couldn’t get everyone — sorry, George and Rebecca! — but we managed to wrangle most of us, namely Leslie Dinaberg, Tiana Molony, Ingrid Bostrom, Meghan Clark Tiernan, and Nancy Ransohoff.
Waiting for us at Karen’s home were a number of female winemakers — including Sonja — and chefs, with a focus on newer faces on the scene. They included chefs Joy Reinhardt and Emily Bennett of Ellie’s Catering; cookbook writer and natural food product developer Anna Vocino of Eat Happy Kitchen; and winemakers Caroline Sommers of Sommers Wine, Emily Myers of Eislynn Wines, Ange Day of J&K Vineyard and Winehounding, Brittney Stevenson of Pence Vineyards, and Jennifer Gray of Jennifer Gray Wine.
As we enjoyed a tomato salad with Ranchos Olivos olive oil — presented by proprietor Shannon Casey — and then a pile of grilled steak and veggies, each woman rose to tell their story in what became a rather moving night.
“I am proud of myself,” said winemaker Jennifer Gray in explaining her journey. More than that, though, she’s proud to see her daughters look at their mom in a new light, having overcome multiple challenges to develop her own business.
The only thing maybe more tear-jerky were the desserts by Shanté Norwood of Té’Stees of Lompoc. Shanté couldn’t make it, but the Biscoff and raspberry cupcakes were sweet and crunchy in all the right ways.
Next up for the WWCF is an ongoing raffle called “Pink Wines for the Pink Ribbon” to benefit the Breast Cancer Resource Center of Santa Barbara. They are also providing the food & drink for the Santa Ynez Valley Foundation’s Champions of the Valley ceremony on October 11, honoring, among others, former Indy art director Kros Andrade.
Then on October 29, WWCF, along with the S.B. Culinary Experience, is hosting the launch party for Anna Vocino’s next cookbook, Eat Happy Cocktail Hour. That party will be at Slim’s Place as well. Buy tickets here.
Third Window Harvest Gathering @ Fess Parker Winery: Barbecue has been on my mind recently, so when the invite came for Third Window’s “Harvest Gathering” showing new beers plus FP Ranch–grown beef and produce at Fess Parker Winery, I accepted after rallying my buddy Mark Dela Cruz, who co-owns Live Oak Cafe. (I did this 24-hour profile of his restaurant life back in 2018.)
The plan was to taste the lineup of beers, sip some of the latest wines, and then gorge on smoked meats and ranch-raised ingredients. The beer and wine and cheese pairing station was an added bonus.
I was especially excited to try Third Window’s latest release in the S.B. Botanic Garden series, in which the brewery uses native plants as components of the brew. (As a member of the Garden’s Beer Garden committee, I helped conceive of the series to coincide with Garden’s 100th birthday this year, though the brewery didn’t need much convincing.) The new one is called Saison Automne, using white and black sage plus Cuyama Valley wildflower honey. Biased I may be, but it was my favorite beer of the day.
Mark and I managed to wander off toward the army of smokers, where Third Window founder Kris Parker (who I called the “Dalai Lama of Haley Street” in this 2016 profile) and Chef John Parker (formerly of Bettina and Paloma) tended to the last moments of brisket, chicken, cauliflower, and whole hog that had been cooking all night. In fact, the big smoker required for the pork was only finished in the ranch’s workshop at 10 p.m. the night before, an hour before the pig went on. Perhaps seeing Mark salivate, Kris let us try the shatter-crisp chicharrón that was still sitting on the grate.
Before unleashing the crowd on the food, Kris gave a short and sweet speech, explaining, “Pretty much everything you ate and drank came from this ranch.”
Despite filling my plate to the breaking point — all the meats (brisket for the win!) plus mac ‘n’ cheese, green salad, coleslaw, spicy potato salad, pickled okra, pinquito beans, and the most luscious corn bread I’ve ever tasted — I finished it all. But rather than feeling overly stuffed, I felt satisfied and properly nourished.
The experience reminded me that there’s just something symbiotic about eating what grows around you. It’s demonstrably better for the earth, and feels like it’s better for your body. And no matter what the data says, I’d certainly say that it’s better for your soul.
You must be logged in to post a comment.