At Fallon Hills Ranch, a lesson on where food comes from

Fallon Hills Ranch is a small, family-run ranch that straddles to boarder of Sonoma and Marin Counties west of Petaluma.|

Fallon Hills Ranch is a small, family-run ranch that straddles to boarder of Sonoma and Marin Counties west of Petaluma. With two young children, Kevin and Erika Maloney have introduced the sixth generation to family’s ranch, which dates back into the 1800’s.

Offering naturally raised beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and rabbit, to conscientious consumers throughout the Bay Area, the Maloney’s approach to food production harkens back to a bygone era, where neighbors helped each other through good times and bad. They were not looked to get rich, but simply want to provide for their family, selling their surplus in town, and shipping any excess to the greater Bay Area.

Following this same model, Fallon Hills Ranch offers both standard and custom order cuts for pick-up at the ranch, at pre-planned delivery locations in Petaluma, and at Bay Area farmers’ markets. “We try to offer standard cuts week in and week out,” says Maloney. “But we also do some seasonal stuff, like London Broil in the summer for grilling, and Top Round in the winter for roasting.”

I attended Petaluma High, which being on the west side of town, meant we were the more rural of Petaluma’s High Schools. Along with the regular reading, writing, and arithmetic, we took hands-on classes, like wood, auto, and metal shop, along with other ag related classes. A good portion of the student body was either in 4-H or belonged to the Future Farmers of America, or both. Our school parking lot was filled with dirty pick-up trucks, driven in by boys and girls who often started their day well ahead of the rest of us, having already completed a day’s worth of work long before taking their seat for first period English or Math.

With last names like Dolcini, Gambonini, Flocchini, Pelfini, Thomasini, Bradanini, Camozzi, Figone, Grossi, Moretti, Volpi, and Benedetti, just to name a few, I coined the term “Farmini” as an affectionate alternative to the more commonly used “Farmers” when we referred to that subsect of our friends who dawned dusty boots and callused hands.

The Maloney’s are a perfect example of the Petaluma “Farmini” of my youth. Alongside his five siblings, Maloney was raised on the family’s ranch, which was started in 1875. Maloney descends from the original Fallon’s, who manned the Fallon Station, an important stop along the now defunct coastal railroad, in the enclave of Fallon, which was located between present day Valley Ford and Tomales. Maloney’s great great grandfather is responsible for the name “Haystack” Landing, which still appears on Google Maps on the south end of Petaluma. While awaiting shipment to San Francisco, Mahoney’s extremely large cache of hay was ruined by an unexpected rain. The new landmark became known as Haystack Landing. Erika, Maloney’s wife, also traces her farm roots back to her grandmother’s dairy, which was located at the corner of Middle Two Rock and Purvine Roads, just west of Petaluma.

Maloney’s mother started a crop insurance company in order to help local vineyards withstand natural disasters, later selling it to American Ag Credit, where two of Maloney’s sisters still work. Another sister is a nurse, and sister Courtney supplies FHR with its chickens and eggs. And for those wine drinkers that think the Mahoney name sounds familiar, brother Brian Mahoney is the winemaker at both DeLoach and Buena Vista wineries.

Maloney attend SRJC to studying Ag, before moving on to CalPoly where he majored in animal husbandry. Wanting to get back into the farm life, Maloney left school early to pursue a career with a dairy equipment company and later a dairy feed ingredient company. But in 2010, he returned to his ancestral home and started Fallon Hills Ranch, hoping to make a business of his hobby of raising animals. Initially the business supplied many local restaurants with high quality meat, but has since turned its attention to direct sales to the more discerning home chefs around the bay area through local farmers’ markets and direct sales.

I spent much of my childhood among the ranches that dot the Petaluma countryside, sometimes helping my Farmini friends with chores, sometimes fishing their stock ponds, and sometimes just enjoying a good home-cooked Italian dinner. No stranger to ranch life, one might think that I would balk at attending a local ranch tour. But I jumped at the rare opportunity to attend a Fallon Hills Ranch tour a few weeks ago on one of the last warm afternoons of Indian Summer.

The crowd was an equal mix of Maloney’s fellow farmers, like childhood friends Rob and Debbie Royer, who supply Maloney with his pork, and regular farmers’ market customers from throughout the Bay Area. Compared to the Maloney’s, growing up in Penngrove on a quarter acre with a few chickens and a pig makes me a city slicker, but flanked by these city folks, costumed up in their best country wester boots, hats, and plaid shirts, I actually felt like a bonafide local yokel.

After playing with piglets, snacking on charcuterie, cheese, and smoked salmon, and topping off our wine and beer glasses, we followed Mahoney down the driveway for the start of the tour. Mahoney is completely at ease explaining the intricacies of land and livestock management. He speaks with an expertise that one would expect from a nuclear physicist or rocket scientist, not a rancher, but that is because most people do not understand what is involved in raising livestock for food, especially when dealing with naturally raised livestock. Even growing up around animals, I was just as intrigued as the city slickers. We learned how different animals and even different breeds within a species process feed differently and how Fallon Hills Ranch can take advantage of natural distinctions in mating patterns. Maloney explained that by choosing breeds that grow slower than those chosen by factory farms, by feeding them grass, instead of filler, and by raising them on open fields, instead of feed lots, he not only offers his livestock a better life, but can offer consumers more flavorful and nutritious meats.

“This is a complicated business,” remarked one of the guests, after listening to Mahoney explain livestock and field rotations. “Really, at the end of the day, we farm grass,” chuckles Kevin Mahoney. “Protein is just a byproduct.” And a tasty, tasty byproduct at that. Mahoney goes on to explain that the flavor is more influenced by what his animals eat, than what breed they are.

Maloney stays local for processing, not wanting to stress his livestock with the long-haul travel that many market animals suffer when transported out to the valley, or even out of state for processing. Golden Gate Meats handles all the final meat prep, after Sun Marin Farms processes Maloney’s pork and beef, and Panizzera of Occidental handles all the lambs. Panizzera also produces Fallon Hills Ranch’s extensive line of delicious sausages.

Currently, FHR offers a dozen different types of sausages, but they are constantly working on new recipes. The selection is ever rotating, but during our ranch tour, we were able to taste a few, as well as lamb, beef, and pork burgers, all prepared by Jamie Lloyd of Graze Local Catering, alongside other homemade products, like bacon jam, mustards, pickles, and locally caught and smoked salmon.

All Fallon Hills Ranch’s sausages are a fresh style, with coarsely minced meat, unlike the more processed emulsified hotdog type textured sausages. They offer several German styles, like Bratwurst (pork), and Knockwurst (pork and beef), Italian styles, like Linguica, Spicy and Mild Italian, and other traditional sausages like English Bangers, Turkey Apple, and Lamb Merguez.

FHR also offers some less common sausages, like their Boerewors, which is a traditional South African sausage made of 90% meat and 10% spices, such as coriander, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg. We found ourselves returning to the Boerewors over and over because it has such a uniquely delicious flavor.

They also pay homage to the Swiss Italians in the area by producing their version of a Northern Italian sausage that used to be made locally with pork and venison during deer hunting season, but in this case using pork and younger cuts of beef. Although many New World chorizos are too spicy for me, I rarely shy away from Spanish chorizo because I find the flavor to be much more complex than its spicy new world relative.

Spicy heat is often used to cover up junk meat. But FHR grows some of the best meat around, so they keep their sausages as natural tasting as possible. “We added very little heat when creating our Spanish chorizo, because we didn’t want to cover up all the great natural flavors,” confirms Maloney. Fallon Hills is currently working on a line of smoked sausages, but the USDA’s regulations and guidelines are a major hurdle to small-time producers.

Those that normally avoid veal for conscientious reasons can take solace in the fact that when Fallon Hills offers veal, it is harvested from animals that are raised alongside the rest of the herd and is only offer when and animal has either become unmanageable or injured.

Fallon Hills Ranch offers everything from beef jerky, to sausages, to eggs, to bacon jam, to quarters, halves, and whole animals, along with your regular everyday cuts of meat. Currently customers can pick up a selection of sausages from the FHR cooler at Charley’s Deli in Petaluma. Although offering a broader selection at Bay Area farmers’ markets (Marin Country, Grand Lakes, Clement Street, and Stones Town Farmers’ Markets), locals are advised to contact Mahoney directly at Kevin@fallonhills.com to place a direct order, which can either be picked up or arrangements can be made for in-town delivery.

Although naturally pricier, Fallon Hills Ranch is in a completely different class of protein than what one finds in the grocery store. Home chefs will want to tone down their herbs and spices in order to allow the naturally delicious flavors of Fallon Hills meats to come through load and clear. Raised naturally, on an historic local ranch, by fifth and sixth generation natives, Fallon Hills Ranch offers a product that is far superior in every way to what we normally consume, and is yet another example of how Petaluma is helping to set the standard when it comes to culinary delights.

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