In the Capital Region, a homegrown meal prep market has been thriving for years. There are more than a dozen meal prep services in the region, ranging from the home-based and dubiously legal to nationally distributed brands. 

Almond trees and grapevines will die if deprived of irrigation for a year or less in a dry place like the San Joaquin Valley, but pistachios can survive for years with almost no water. That means, in crisis-level droughts, the trees might persist where virtually all other crops die.

Though restaurants are among the businesses hit hardest by the coronavirus, local restaurateurs have pooled their resources to help seniors, low-income families and others access food. 

Based in Auburn, the Common Cider Company produces around 75,000 gallons of hard cider monthly. Owner Fran Toves began brewing cider on a dare in 2012.

Comstock’s has been following four businesses that have been helping to drive the resurgence of Sacramento’s central city in recent years. Here’s how they’re faring a month into the shutdown.

Thanks to a temporary relaxation of Alcoholic Beverage Control laws, most California breweries have pivoted to curbside and delivery business. But how much longer local breweries will survive — and what the long-term effects of the pandemic on the Sacramento-area beer scene will be — remain unknown.

In this time of enforced boredom laced with extraordinary stress, many people in the Capital Region are turning to cannabis for relief from both. 

Solar Cookers International, the world’s leading organization on solar cooking, has been based in Sacramento since 1987. SCI’s work to reduce dependency on fuelwood could have far-reaching global economic impacts.

The Sacramento food scene is often defined more by its restaurateurs than its restaurants. Some culinary titans roll out an array of unique concepts throughout their careers. However, microcelebrity status doesn’t come without challenges.

Comstock’s spoke with Paul Towers, executive director of Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a Davis-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting family farmers and community-based agriculture, to find out how small farmers in the Capital Region are faring during the coronavirus pandemic.