The creative entrepreneurs behind Edible Communities Inc., America’s largest publishing company dedicated to the local-foods movement, are writing a new chapter of their lives, in a rather unlikely place: the once-sleepy Santa Barbara County town of Los Alamos.
Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian co-founded the first Edible magazine 14 years ago while living in Ojai, initially intending it to be a newsletter for farmers.
“It started from a passion, more of a soulful place, from a little idea that Tracey said one morning, ‘What do you think of the name Edible Ojai,’” Topalian recalled as she sat next to Ryder, her wife and partner of 22 years, in their Los Alamos backyard, with their two congenial golden retrievers by their side.
“I love farmers! The whole premise of starting Edible was because we love farmers, that was it,” added Ryder, a multi-talented journalist, speaker, and marketing expert.
Their 18 million readers eat up the features and photography in their 90 Edible magazines across America and Canada, including two publications on the Central Coast, Edible Santa Barbara and Edible San Luis Obispo.
Their idea was groundbreaking and successful.
“That business model in publishing didn’t exist before we did it,” Ryder said. “We couldn’t find another company that had licensed magazines, locally owned and operated, and everybody working together very symbiotically.”
The two traveled the continent extensively for a decade and a half, meeting artisans, dining in top restaurants, and collecting stories.
Topalian, Edible’s acclaimed photographer, found herself on the road a lot, more than 200 days a year.
“What happened with Edible is we got really busy. We were really successful; all ‘first world’ problems, but we didn’t get to do every day the things we started out doing—going out to talk to farmers in the field, writing the stories,” Ryder said. “I didn’t stop cooking of course, but our hands weren’t in the dirt anymore, so to speak.”
So, two years ago, they brought in professional management to take over most of the company’s day-to-day decisions.
“We like to say we’ve gone from being Founding Mothers to Fairy Godmothers,” Ryder said.
After memorable visits with friends to Los Alamos, appreciating farm-to-table meals at Full of Life Flatbread and Bell Street Farm, they finally found what felt like the perfect place to put down roots.
“Los Alamos was quiet and had a wide open, ‘old California’ feeling. It’s not fussy,” Ryder said. “We thought, ‘We’re gonna be artists and semi-retire, and it’ll be so good!’”
“There’s a good mix of people here,” Topalian added. “When you walk down the streets in the morning, everybody stops and you have conversation and you get to the next block and you stop and have conversation. It’s wonderful!”
Clayworks farm
The couple sold their home in Santa Barbara and purchased several adjoining lots in Los Alamos, downsizing into a modest and beautifully restored home that dates back to 1915.
And they went to work, in the aforementioned dirt, on their acre of land. They brought in a dozen fruit trees, evergreens, and 55 olive trees, some are more than 100 years old, thick-trunked, wonderfully gnarled, rescued from a Northern California olive grove that would’ve been bulldozed. (Organic olive oil is forthcoming.)
Ryder and Topalian planted everything imaginable, and their harvests have been plentiful.
“Growing things in Los Alamos, you throw the seeds and run! Things grow so incredibly well,” a smiling Ryder said, while she gave me a tour past their raised beds, within sight (and scent) of their lavender hedge and Topalian’s rose garden.
They call this place Clayworks Farm because Topalian is not only a brilliant photographer, she is also a gifted ceramic artist.
Her ceramics studio is here where she can “throw pots” within reach of her back patio pottery kilns.
Their shared office, built just a few steps from their home, is a comfortable haven for creating; there is a traditional darkroom, layout tables for matting photographs, the first Edible is framed on a wall, next to their prestigious 2011 James Beard Publication of the Year award.
The idea behind Clayworks Farm was to take photographs, make videos, write, blog, harvest things, test recipes, serve farm-grown food in their handcrafted ceramic bowls, and welcome people to attend workshops.
“It’s a whole concept for us,” Ryder said. “We want to take the community building we’ve done for 14 years now in the pages of the magazines and see, ‘Can we do it in a real place?’”
And then, another idea was born.
Ring the bell
A few blocks from Clayworks Farm sat an empty biker bar, the former Ghostriders Tavern.
Visionaries Ryder and Topalian were able to see beyond the stripper pole.
They bought the building and invited their friends Krista Harris and Steve Brown, co-publishers of Edible Santa Barbara, to take a look inside.
“After they got the keys, we went in there and they showed us around. I think my feet stuck to the floor, to the linoleum, whatever it was—vinyl tile—and there was a stripper pole and there were these windows that had been boarded up. It was just like, ‘Really? You really want to do this, huh,’” Harris recalled. “Then we started to see the transformation. The windows were replaced and opened back up. They restored it; they didn’t just clean it up. They brought it back, better than its original architecture!”
Topalian and Ryder power-washed the inside of the building, painted every inch, and installed handsome wood floors, more windows, and a new modern kitchen.
They opened up the patio for outdoor dining, planted fruit trees, remodeled bathrooms, and built six raised beds that are already green with organic lettuce.
Topalian and Ryder have co-written five cookbooks, Ryder attended culinary school and worked in restaurants long ago, but they have never owned a restaurant, until now.
Plenty on Bell, located at 508 Bell St., is expected to open on Jan. 26.
The farm-to-table restaurant will serve breakfast and lunch every day except Monday. Jesper Johansson, formerly of Café Quackenbush, is the chef, one with a loyal local following.
“It’s not all fancy schmancy, but it’s very nice,” Ryder said. “It’s a community gathering place. The people here don’t want a town just of tasting rooms. Businesses really need to support locals as much as tourism. We want to make it feel really comfortable for the locals to hang out there and have good, down-to-earth food.”
For breakfast expect home fries, eggs and bacon, and pancakes.
Johansson will bring a lot of his old standbys to Plenty on Bell’s menu, in addition to new creations that showcase the fresh, locally sourced, seasonal food that this area so readily supplies.
And that’s not all, they are planning winemaker and visiting chef events, cooking and canning classes, family-style Sunday suppers a couple times a month, and a small retail area to sell their ceramics, cookbooks, and other specialty products.
Plenty on Bell will provide 12 jobs in this small community of 1,900.
“Los Alamos is a really interesting place for this. It’s on the verge of having a lot of things happen,” Ryder said. “It’s a very welcoming community, and it’s really food-focused, so it kind of made sense.”
Harris believes this is the right place at the right time.
“I think it’s incredible! I think it’s exactly what Los Alamos needs,” Harris said. “[Topalian and Ryder] moved to Los Alamos and they really paid attention to the town. They really soaked it up, they met people, they talked to people. I think Plenty is the perfect fit.”
A joyful journey
This perpetually inspired couple is compelled to share what they learn during their joyful journey through life. Over the years they’ve shone the spotlight on more than 15,000 people and small businesses that they admire.
“I always say Edible Communities is way more about community than it is about food. It just is; the community of publishers and all the communities they touch,” Ryder said. “Somehow, I don’t even know how yet, this restaurant is a symbol of all of that. It’s a community within a community for real, it’s tactile, it’s farming, it’s food, it’s local, seasonal, fresh. It’s all for the right reasons.”
“There’s a level of generosity that comes with doing business and if you have a generous heart as you do business, it always comes back. It just really does,” Ryder continued.
Even now after creating “community” in a real place, she believes that something greater will emerge.
“I just have a feeling about it, and I’m not sure exactly what it is. I just feel like there’s a whole chapter coming at a time that I thought I’d be slowing down. Now it feels like starting again … but it’s also coming full circle.”
Contributor Wendy Thies Sell can be contacted through Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 21-28, 2016.