Found Treasure: Bonus Outtakes from New Fall 2025 Issue

Sept. 12, 2025—Smother your babies. It’s likely the most graphic journalism industry idiom that still circulates.

It’s also helpful.

Particularly with Edible Monterey Bay‘s fresh-off-the-press fall issue.

The embedded lesson with the baby saying: Be willing to remove something you love.

For a writer, maybe that element is a poetic turn of phrase, a galaxy-brain metaphor or a quote from an impossible-to-reach source that shows you were able to get them.

If you hold it too precious, your decisions about what serves the story and the reader will be blurred.

Idioms—aka helpful phrases disguised in word play—are on my mind because our first ever bilingual story, “Beans of Truth: Legume lessons from grandma, simmered with intention,” comes built around them.

In this case, they represent wisdom inherited by chef, cookbook author and EMB contributor Analuisa Béjar from her abuelita.

Like: Buen recaudo hace cocina.

In English: Good ingredients make good cooking.

The takeaway: It’s helpful to start a project with great people, materials and ideas.

Another way of considering the smothered axiom would be: The hardest thing about composing a quality story isn’t so much what to include, but what to leave out. 

So here, as part of my quarterly tradition of celebrating new issues with peeks at what’s on the page and what’s behind the wheel, I’m going to riff on a number of things that were eliminated, even if they were beautiful, with sayings that honor good storytelling.

Take 20 to get one.

This idea, aka “The 5% Rule,” emanates from the photography part of the process.

The point: Capture 20 images to make sure you have a single frame worth publishing.

That gains dramatic emphasis with a piece like “Beans of Truth,” wherein ninja photographer Patrick Tregenza filed scores of striking pics, but only three—not counting the cover—accompany the piece.

It also rings loudly with travel author Stuart Thornton‘s debut contribution to EMB, “Appetite for Travel: Amador City (Small Wonder: California’s tiniest town delivers big on flavor and history).”

On that mission I had several hundred photos to choose from, but had to gently reject many of the most adorable, right there in the crib.

Write for the readers. (And even throw them a party.)

The Elements of Journalism, an industry classic, notes the “first loyalty is to citizens…the audience (public) should be the primary consideration, not advertisers, political allegiance, or other pressures.”

It can be tempting to stuff a story with insider jargon to impress a source, or to err favorably on the side of an advertiser.

I feel that every issue, and the last one in particular, which included “Grounded Solutions: Finding Fairness, Avoiding Pesticides and Advocating Sense in the Pajaro Valley,” with full disclosure on why one of our big supporters would be called out.

But crowd service comes first. And a party kicks in audience appreciation.

This fall issue’s release party drops at a Found Treasure on the top of the former Fort Ord 5-7pm Wednesday, Sept. 17, at Bayonet & Black Horse’s Bayview Grille, with complimentary small bites from chef Sean Cooper, no-host bar featuring seasonal cocktails like ginger-japapeño Margaritas, plus Thom Cuneo Jazz Band tunes and fun giveaways.

Admission is free but RSVPs are required, and evaporate quick-like.

It’s never over.

That’s one of my personal and professional mantras.

Put differently: You can always do more. Goddess willing, you’ll have another chance to redeem yourself. Don’t let the infinite tasks ahead distract from the one in front of you.

Or, more succinctly, Let go, and let’s go.

As a family friend told me the other day, after I asked how she’s lived happily into her mid-90s, she said, “Keep going.”

Maybe we’re all channeling John Steinbeck, as Laura M. Holson does with “Eats of Eden: Traversing the lands, characters and foods that fed Steinbeck’s soul.”

In a letter to the actor and writer Robert Wallsten, later published in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, the Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate shared this nugget: “Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps.”

Stay open.

Perhaps you go into reporting a story with a clear idea of the way it will go.

Great. Having a plan helps.

But an unwillingness to adjust your imagined narrative hurts.

So does opposition to input from your team.

Katie Reicher emphasizes that organically (pun accidental) as part of Deborah Luhrman’s Cookbook Confidential installment, “Fresh Greens: Greens’ new vegetable queen now has her own cookbook.”

“Greens is a wonderful environment to work in. It’s not cutthroat; it’s, like, ‘Let’s help each other and get this done as a team,’” Reicher says. “I’m not sure if that’s because we’ve been woman-led all these years or because of the Zen connection or both.”

Context is key.

Some guy named Walter Cronkite once said, “Good journalism is good because of the quality of its information and the depth of its reporting.”

I agree with the legendary CBS news anchor. Enthusiastically so.

And I’m willing to add some additional circumstances.

Each of these print issues, and every one of EMB‘s semi-weekly digital newsletters, is good for other reasons, namely our loyal readers, great area producers/purveyors/chefs etc., graphic designers AND the underwriters who collaborate with our MVP ad execs on everything from messaging to artwork.

Every time we publish, I renew my gratitude for that team sport, and learn quite a bit about what’s flavorful and upcoming.

A tiny sample of what I either forgot or overlooked before I learned about it in the fall issue:

• Esperanza Community Farms’ Dia de Esperanza Organic Ag Festival happens Oct. 18-19 in Watsonville with a bushel of interactive experiences.

• Pisoni Vineyards is now embarking on its fourth generation of family contributions, to buzzy effect.

• Mentone of Aptos‘ lunch service now sizzles noon-2:30pm Saturday and Sunday.

• Gizdich Ranch does “Pik-Yor-Self” apples starting as this publishes (but check GR’s site for official opening).

• Jeju Kitchen, despite its relative youth, is already a NY Times‘ celebrated destination.

Do it for the love.

Breaking news: Journalism is no way to get rich. But with a little luck and a lot of hard work, the returns prove nourishing.

The same could be said for work in restaurants, farming and winemaking.

This last note surfaces alongside a story that has plenty of dramatic scenery and revelations, Biggy Smalls costumes and parties on aircraft carriers included.

“Natural Attractions: Monterey Bay Aquarium and SSA Group make a monumental impact through food” was inspired by Monterey-based Matt Beaudin’s duties helping steer food operations at cultural destinations across the continent (and beyond).

That led me to Oakland Zoo, where chef Peter Gregorio toils at intense intervals and pace to feed masses thoughtful dishes that tread lightly on the planet and the belly.

Over a long lunch we discussed everything from lessons learned taking his break next to camels to what he called “the thrill of organized chaos” that hits with peak lunch traffic at The Landing Cafe, overlooking S.F. Bay.

Conversation ultimately settled on what he was wearing over his chef whites: a tiny, simple and uncommon pair of salt-and-pepper shakers, hung on a chain.

He wears them in honor of his late father, who first pushed him into more lucrative career paths, but ultimately made peace with the fact his son was happiest serving others, evolving skills he first encountered in the family kitchen with his folks.

“I think work like this becomes more meaningful when you take a deeper dive,” Gregorio said. “Food really does transcend all boundaries. It brings people together, it gives us something to share, it encourages conversation, and reminds us that, [across] in diversity and variety, we all have much in common.”

I wanted to find a way to squeeze that in the story.

Ultimately there wasn’t room.