Laurie Figone, featuring Nicasio Valley Cheese Company
Saturday, February 23, 2019, 10:30 am - 11:15 am
Stop by the CUESA Classroom for a cooking demo featuring the seasonal bounty of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and highlighting one of our market sellers.
Laurie Figone is an award-winning chef, TV personality, and cookbook author. Not only is she the 2014 Dessert World Food Champion, she has also won top honors in numerous other cooking competitions. For three years Laurie hosted her own cooking show on Petaluma Community Access TV. Laurie has been featured on the TODAY Show, TNT’s “On The Menu” with Ty Pennington and Emeril Lagasse, and hosted cooking segments on KTVU Fox2 in Oakland. Laurie has been the featured chef for four years at the Sonoma County Fair performing three daily cooking demonstrations, has been a guest speaker at the California Women for Agriculture Annual Convention, and has been a food columnist for the Sonoma County Farm Bureau for three years.
Rick Lafranchi grew up on the Nicasio Valley ranch his grandfather purchased in 1919. Rick and his five siblings inherited the dairy, and in 2010 they launched Nicasio Valley Cheese Company to showcase the exceptional dairy produced on their land. Nicasio Valley’s award-winning cheese varieties range from the fromage blanc–style Foggy Morning to the soft-ripened Loma Alta to the washed-rind Nicasio Square.
The Lafranchi family’s pastures are fertilized with recycled manure, and the herd is regularly rotated from pasture to pasture to avoid overgrazing. The Lafranchis are one of a number of farming families that have sold their land development rights to Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), which helps support farming as a way of life in Marin and ensuring that their land remains agricultural. Rick serves as board president on MALT.
All demos take place in the CUESA Classroom (under the tents in front of the Ferry Building) and are free to the public, with recipes and samples for all.