Shef Brings Innovative Cookbook Lounge and More to Watsonville

May 11, 2021 – Enter the Lorax. If you’re picturing an orange fellow of modest height and immodest mustache, you might be surprised.

This particular Lorax favors bangs over bushy eyebrows, and wears aprons and overalls rather than, well, nothing at all. 

But they both are Earth-first and animated in their passion.

“I feel like the Lorax of farms,” Tabitha Stroup says. “I’m trying to preserve ours for our next generations.” (The Lorax speaks for the trees.) 

Stroup launched her love affair with the area’s organic growers as a pastry chef in the early 90s, at the Dream Inn and Theo’s, before eventually moving onto catering and her own Friend In Cheeses Jam Co., which has helped earn her multiple Edible Monterey Bay Local Hero Awards. 

In 2019 she created Terroir in a Jar as a way to support the farmers on whom she depends. The project takes leftover and/or uncomely produce heading for landfill—where it’s a major contributor to greenhouse emissions—and makes jams, jellies, vinegars, shrubs and more for local breweries, wineries, nonprofits and small organic farms. 

Would-be waste becomes popular home-spun products with helpful margins. Tasty results range from smoked citrus jellies for the Homeless Garden Project to jalapeño-raspberry jam for Prevedelli Farms. (For more, check out “Friend in Cheeses Launching Social Enterprise Serving Farmers.”)

“If we don’t address waste on any level we’re going to destroy this planet worse than we have,” she says. “Especially with food insecurity in this county, which is ridiculous because we’re in one of the richest growing regions in the country.” 

Now Stroup and her female-driven kitchen team—along with operations manager Seth Heitzenrater, formerly of Outstanding in the Field—are taking a major step toward expanding what they do. 

Her two businesses and related catering operation, which have been based in Soquel for seven years, are moving to a new kitchen next month, in the former Miramar Bar and Grill at 526 Main St. in downtown Watsonville. The property, built in 1915, is both iconic and historic, with the plaque to prove it.

“It’s such a groovy space,” Stroup says. 

With the new spot comes an ambitious—and big-hearted—new concept called Shef. 

Most promising among its outcomes-in-the-offing: The power to multiply the benefits of her existing businesses while expanding access to local produce to hungry populations who need it most. 

Friend in Cheeses, Terrior in a Jar and her catering business move in June. Shef’s tentative opening date follows fall 2021. Phase 2 with local produce is pegged for the following spring or summer.

With Shef will come a multifaceted mission that can be distilled into several synergistic elements, with one big qualifier, that all of this is very much a work-in-progress, with a lot of moving parts that are certainly subject to change: 

1. A local art venue, with Pajaro Valley Arts League leading the way on rotating exhibitions on the walls. “All to highlight our backyard,” Stroup says. 

2. A period furniture spot, with Stroup’s sister Jennifer Santillana and her Kool Haus company curating, though other artisan-leaning collaborators will rotate through quarterly. “I describe it as mid-century California modernism combined with color and texture from around the world, with a speciality in vintage home decor and statement furniture,” Santillana says.

3. A vintage kitchen tool shop, with “previously loved items keeping with our theme of ‘full circle, less waste,’” per Stroup. (The possibility of some Friends in Cheeses and Terroir in a Jar items is there for the future, spotlighting local growers in their respective ways, while keeping Stroup in sync with their needs. “For me to have a business I have to pay attention to what’s going on in our farm communities,” she says.)

4. A “cookbook lounge,” with hundreds of offerings available to consult with and learn from. “A dog-eared cookbook with notes in the margins and drops on the pages speaks volumes you don’t get on Pinterest,” Stroup says. 

5. The Phase 2 food pantry, with the capacity to receive and distribute surpluses and imperfect produce from farmers market vendors to locals in need, on a sliding price scale that includes free. “You’re hungry, you need it, we give it to you,” she says. “A simple system.”

In the process, Shef provides Watsonville a key new pillar, and gives her the connectivity she craved.

“I’ve wanted to be in Pajaro Valley for years, in the community I serve,” she says. “I live in Watsonville. Now I’m closer to my farms. Turnaround can be faster. And my tax dollars aren’t going elsewhere. It’s super important to me.” 

All told, the new hub will involve plenty of unpredictable plot twists and profound potential gains. An increasingly reenergized Watsonville downtown gets vital—and vibrant—infill, locals get greater joy and empowerment around home cooking, and those in need get affordable fruits and vegetables. 

Stroup is more succinct. “A place for the community,” she says.

And while The Lorax isn’t a cookbook, let’s hope it finds a place on the shelf.