Debbie Cunningham of DL Cunningham Photography is a freelance photographer who specializes in food, editorial and event photography, but sees pictures everywhere and in everything. She is a contributing photographer for Comstock’s magazine, Sacramento Magazine and Edible Sacramento, among other publications, and has been published nationwide. When she comes out from behind the lens, you can find her loving on her pets, making messes in her kitchen and eating her way through the Capital Region. Her work can be viewed and purchased at www.dlcunninghamphotography.com.
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Taste of Normalcy
Placer County’s mandarin orange growers are having another bountiful season
As farmers and event organizers adapt to climate change and the
ongoing spread of the pandemic, mandarin oranges have offered a
bright taste of normalcy during grim times.

Change in the Grapevine
Capital Region vineyards and wineries are cultivating an environmentally friendly way of life
In the Capital Region, there’s an emerging market among boutique vineyards and wineries focused on low-intervention farming and production methods.

Finding a New Vegan Vision
Food entrepreneurs on the verge of opening brick-and-mortar locations retool their businesses — and find silver linings
Many Sacramento entrepreneurs, when forced to consider what it
means to launch a business during a time of crisis, realized
there could be plant-based opportunities.

Cooking Up a Neighborhood
Food options abound in the up-and-coming Washington District in West Sacramento
West Sacramento’s Washington District has transformed in the past decade, due to efforts by the City of West Sacramento, developers and food entrepreneurs.

Resetting in Historic Folsom
The return of dining is important to the vitality of Sutter Street — but challenges exist
Folsom’s Sutter Street banks on its dining options to draw foot traffic. Now, the community is working to lift restaurants out of record-breaking lows.

More Out the Door
Small breweries that once thrived on beer sales from on-site consumption pivot their business model
While the shelter-in-place measures have helped slow the spread of COVID-19, they have taken a huge economic toll and have been devastating for breweries, especially small breweries that once relied on sales for consumption in their taprooms.

Prepping for Success
Meal prep delivery services thrive in the Capital Region
In the Capital Region, a homegrown meal prep market has been thriving for years. There are more than a dozen meal prep services in the region, ranging from the home-based and dubiously legal to nationally distributed brands.

All in the Family
Capital Region restaurants initiate meal delivery programs to help vulnerable populations
Though restaurants are among the businesses hit hardest by the coronavirus, local restaurateurs have pooled their resources to help seniors, low-income families and others access food.

In the Making: A Daring Brew
Based in Auburn, the Common Cider Company produces around 75,000 gallons of hard cider monthly. Owner Fran Toves began brewing cider on a dare in 2012.

Spreading Out the Flavor
More restaurateurs are running businesses with a variety of culinary concepts
The Sacramento food scene is often defined more by its restaurateurs than its restaurants. Some culinary titans roll out an array of unique concepts throughout their careers. However, microcelebrity status doesn’t come without challenges.

Growing Pains
Local farmers work hard to respond and adapt to the coronavirus pandemic
Comstock’s spoke with Paul Towers, executive director of Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a Davis-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting family farmers and community-based agriculture, to find out how small farmers in the Capital Region are faring during the coronavirus pandemic.

How Are Sacramento Restaurants Handling the Coronavirus?
The coronavirus quarantine has devastated the Sacramento restaurant scene. We talked to several prominent local restaurateurs to see how they are handling the situation.

In the Making: Bringing Colors Alive
Tonja Wilcox has created a lot of watercolor paintings of trees, mainly birch and aspen, but the exact number is unknown. “I stopped counting after 600,” says the Sacramento-based artist.

Repackaging Food Ideas
Davis sets ambitious goals for the future of its food system
In May 2019, the Davis City Council approved the “Food and Economic Development (FED) in Davis” report that urges the city to rethink its relationship with food.
Sponsored

Liquid Gold
Placer Valley is home to awarding-winning craft beer breweries — and goat yoga
Placer Valley is classic Gold Country, named for the gold-bearing deposits that run beneath its rivers. Today, there’s another kind of gold flowing through the Valley: craft beer.

Loving the Lager
The lighter beer is making a comeback in the Capital Region
While the general American drinking public prefers lagers over ales, craft breweries often give these cold-fermented brews the cold shoulder. Yet some area brewers believe the balance is starting to shift.

Dinner Time: Winters’ Buckhorn Steakhouse Serves a Cut Above
The family-owned restaurant chain celebrates 40 years of tri-tip
The famed Buckhorn empire stretches across the country, with 12 restaurants from the Bay Area and Capital Region to New York City.

In the Making: A Fresh Crush at Coldani Olive Ranch
Unlike a typical orchard with rows of olive trees, Coldani Olive Ranch’s olives are grown on trellises, resulting in dense, long walls of olives for its oil label, Calivirgin.
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Still Competitive
Seniors in the Capital Region don’t let age and injury keep them away from sports
It took a protruding tree branch this summer to finally sideline Potato Richardson, the legendary 76-year-old endurance horse rider.

Incubating Ideas, Hatching Success
Alchemist Microenterprise Academy graduates its first cohort of food entrepreneurs
Operated by a local nonprofit, the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy is a business training course geared toward food entrepreneurs from underserved communities.

In the Making: Fancy Fabrications
Merle Axelrad says she fell into the medium of fabric collage 27 years ago when she was nine months pregnant, on maternity leave from her job as an architect, and made a baby quilt. Now, most of her works are public art, corporate and private commissions.

Tricky Eating
Local experts and retailers work to prevent food fraud
With as much as 10 percent of all food products sold around the world mislabeled, experts at UC Davis and elsewhere are working hard to ensure what’s on the label accurately represents what’s in the food.

In the Making: Where Flowers Bloom
“We are flower nerds to the max here,” Melissa Cowan, owner of Placerville Flowers on Main says. “We squeal on the daily when new products come in or when seasons change.”

Hopping Again
Fair Oaks Village is experiencing a renaissance fueled by new drink and dining options
Colonized in the late 1800s, Fair Oaks Village is the quaint, charming center of town. It is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely driven by a burgeoning dining scene.

Designing the Future
Sacramento designers transform architectural materials into future-forward fashion at the International Interior Design Association Northern California Chapter Merge Fashion Show
Outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento, tower cranes rise above the skyline, harbingers of the city’s burgeoning building boom. Inside, the designers who are determining the new face of our city took to the runway to envision our future through fashion.

Riding Their Rye
How four women are turning the Legado Whiskey passion project into an international brand
Though Legado Whiskey is a dark American rye, the company is as unaged as moonshine. The owners have leveraged their story — homegrown, women-owned — to reach consumers around the Capital Region, a key strategy in the crowded craft beverage market.

For Food Trucks, a Road to Success
Sacramento food truck owners graduate from nomadic life to traditional brick-and-mortar dwellings
Across the Sacramento region, food truck owners are riding their mobile success into more stationary ventures, from sit-down restaurants like Culinerdy Kitchen to food-court outposts and drive-through kiosks.

New Recipe for Success
After a change in ownership, contract manufacturer Mad Will’s is cooking again
Amid the clatter of machinery and the beeping of forklifts, workers wearing white hair nets tend their stations around the assembly line in the warehouse-like production kitchen of Mad Will’s Food Company on the outskirts of Auburn.

Outside’s In
Outsider art continues to captivate collectors in Sacramento and beyond
Defining “outsider art” isn’t easy — the term encompasses work by self-taught artists and the artwork of the developmentally disabled — but its popularity is soaring. In Sacramento, Short Center North’s art program is one example.

Hungry for More
How Sonny Mayugba went from struggling musician to restaurant entrepreneur
It’s around 1992, and a long-haired dude in his early 20s is sitting with his friend at Taco Loco, a popular Mexican eatery on J Street in Sacramento. They’re eyeballing the customers, waiting to pounce.

Star Search
Can a California guide boost Sacramento’s chances of nabbing a Michelin star?
After several weeks of rumors, two years of lobbying from Visit Sacramento and over a decade of fruitless attempts by local chefs to capture the attention of the most influential food guide in the world, Michelin finally rolled into town in March.

Women’s Health is Long Overdue for Fresh Eyes — And Needed Funding
Throughout the region, public and private-sector players are rethinking women’s health, expanding and diversifying their approach to maternal and infant health.

The Best of Both Worlds
Sacramento restaurants look to capture meat-loving and vegan diners with one menu
How are Sacramento’s restaurateurs appealing to new diet preferences?

Mr. Fixer
Corti Brothers’ Rick Mindermann brings new ideas to the time-honored market
Corti Brothers’ Rick Mindermann is bringing a new-school mentality to the old-school market.

Barriers to Baked Goods
Supply of edible cannabis dwindles during regulatory waiting game
Mike Appezzato has only been in business for a year, but he’s already uprooting his company to move it to Sacramento.

Realty One Sacramento HQ Grand Opening
Realty One celebrated the grand opening of their second office in the Capital Region with the new Sacramento headquarters at 2335 American River Drive. More than 150 guests enjoyed the festivities including a ribbon cutting, photo booth, red carpet entrance, live DJ, prizes and more.

The Family Fund
Immigrant entrepreneurs are twice as likely to launch new businesses, and their startup success often hinges on family
There are good reasons to focus on the special challenges posed by family businesses, like how to keep family resentments from turning to business rivalries and avoid nepotism that results in the wrong people working in key positions. But for some Sacramento immigrant family businesses, blood ties have been the key to survival.

Park Winters a Gem in Yolo County
The Restaurant at Park Winters offers true foodie experience
Out on County Road 26, just west of Interstate 505 in Yolo County, Park Winters sits holding court against a backdrop of the Vaca Mountains as it has since George Washington Scott built the mansion in 1865. Now under the ownership of partners John Martin and Rafael Galiano, this 151-year-old 10-acre property is thriving with new life.

Game Face
For Kevin Nagle, Capital Region sport connoisseur, failure has never been an option
How did Nagle, now 62, go from weed-puller to angel investor? He shares his maxims of leadership, including how he somehow reads 300 emails a day, makes work an obsession and why he feels soccer is the future of America.

The War Back Home
Local service providers work to keep military families together — during and after deployment
A veteran’s inability to find and keep employment is a main cause of homelessness, according to Bettis. A stable income and stable housing go hand-in-hand. That’s where the VOA of Northern California and Northern Nevada comes into play.