The crab season began today, once crabbers and processors agreed to a market price of $1.85/lb, reports the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The Sentinel is also reporting that more fishermen are turning to crab to offset their losses in the salmon business.

Crab fisherman are deciding whether to hold out for more money from processors, reports the Chronicle.

Local crab fisherman this morning are deciding whether to accept the $1.75 per pound price being offered by processors. Dungeness crab season legally begins Wednesday, but fishermen are allowed to start throwing out their pots today.

The groups that represent crab fisherman in San Francisco, Bodega Bay and Half Moon Bay were weighing the offer, which is 40 cents less than they originally asked for and 15 cents less than what they say they now want.

Last year’s negotiations delayed the start of the season by two weeks.

Don’t like artichokes as much as you used to?  Maybe it’s because the ones you’re likely to get at the store are the new, cheaper, tasteless variety, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.

The board introduced the first annual seeded artichokes, the most popular of which is known as the imperial star, to farmers in the early 1980s. The new plant had a lot of obvious benefits. The annuals could be planted closer together than the globes, producing double the amount of the globes at 900 cartons per acre. Whereas globes took a year to reach maximum yield, the seeded chokes could be harvested in six months, leaving space to grow lettuce and other cash crops on the same land for double the profits. They weren’t dependent on the cooler, Mediterranean climate globes need to thrive.

The only difference was quality. The seeded chokes were cheaper, but far less tasty. Their leaves were thinner than the pulpy globe’s. But over the years, geneticists have worked hard to change that and to replicate every other aspect of the globe artichoke, down to the thorns that crown each leaf.

The article includes interviews with Coastside farmers John Giusti and Joe Muzzi.  Muzzi spoke on this topic at the Committee for Green Foothills event a couple of months ago.  It was one of many eye-opening things we learned that day.

The Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay increased its revenues 11% for the third quarter of 2006, relative to the same quarter last year.  Not bad, considering that for two-thirds of the quarter, Devil’s Slide was out.  The hotel’s occupancy rate and revenue per room have also increased and exceeded the US average for its owner Strategic Hotels & Resorts [Yahoo Finance].

A Napa beekeeper is gathering scarce and distinctive pumpkin honey from bees that have been pollinating pumpkins in Half Moon Bay, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.

But pumpkin blossoms produce so little nectar that finding a good pumpkin patch can make all the difference.

“It’s a lot of work and we get very little,” said Marshall. “If you get 10 pounds a hive for pumpkins, you’re lucky.” Other types of honey average 100 pounds per hive, he added.

The stuff sells for $20 a pound

Some farmers, including G. Berta Produce of Half Moon Bay, are continuing to grow and sell spinach, reports the County Times.

“We don’t use fertilizer. We use the old traditional way of cover-cropping, rotating and tilling,” said Kim Ramos, who runs the farm with her husband, explaining a millennium-old practice for fertilizing soil naturally. Some fertilizer contains manure, which potentially could be contaminated with E. coli.

“We don’t have a packing plant,” Ramos continued, “My husband and I pick the vegetables, we pack them, and within a day or two you are eating them. So they’re not going through a bunch of peoples’ hands.”

The real problem may be industrial farming and distribution techniques, which can not only contaminate large quantities of food, but spread it nationwide overnight.

Dow Jones is exploring the sale of the Santa Cruz Sentinel and some of the other newspapers owned by its Ottaway subsidiary. It may be the only significant (paid) daily newspaper between San Mateo/Contra Costa Counties and Monterey that is not owned by Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group. MediaNews owns the Mercury News, San Mateo County Times, Oakland Tribune, Pacifica Tribune, Marin Independent Journal, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, and a bunch of other papers in the Bay Area and Mendocino County..

As you are aware there are two business farms on Highway 92 across the road from each other, Lemos and Pastorinos,  that slow traffic to a crawl during the holidays.
 
While these businesses are a great deal of fun, the extent to which they negatively impact traffic is a looming safety issue.
 
Their permits are up for renewal this week and it seems fitting that you weigh in on your feelings about the traffic impact.  In a conversation with the project planner, Ms. Leung,  she was unaware that traffic was effected outside of the two weeks prior to Halloween.  As a result it appears that the staff recommendation for the permit calls for no changes in traffic control.
 
Nobody wants to curtail the two establishments in question but it is the important to examine alternatives so that these two businesses do not cause traffic delays.  That corrections should be made so that they do not reduce the normal flow into town delaying  both residents and clients of other coastside businesses.
 
Perhaps the solution is as simple as to have them hire security guards to keep pedestrians from crossing the road, and thereby keeping traffic flowing and reducing the risk of a pedestrian fatality.  A second idea is to direct autos leaving their establishments make only right turns  back onto Highway 92, thus reducing the danger of traffic crossing the road.
 
Whatever you feel, now is the time to act. If you send a letter by email to the Project Planner it will be put into the file and read into the record.  Better yet you can attend the meeting.  Below is the information on the planner and the meeting:
 
The File on Lemos is PLN2000-00711 and Pastorino is PLN2000-00730
 
Camille M. Leung
Planning and Building Division
455 County Center, Second Floor
Redwood City, CA  94063
(650) 363-1826

 
Meeting of San Mateo Planning Commission
Wednesday August 23, 2006
9:00AM
Board of Supervisor Chambers
400 County Center
Redwood City

Brian McNamara 

Chez Shea, a new restaurant at the site of the old Two Fools Cafe, opened this week with lines out the door.  The restaurant is owned by Jose Ugalde and Liam Durkee, who own one of our favorites—Cafe Gibraltar in El Granada.  It’s named for their daughter, Shea. This week also saw the closing of Ono Hawaiian Grill on Highway 1.

Cheri Parr

Chez Shea’s owner Jose Ugalde in the kitchen of the new restaurant.

Cheri Parr

Shea Ugalde enjoys a sandwich in the restaurant named after her.

Cheri Parr

Ono Hawaiian Grill was not only closed, but the tables were gone this weekend.