It’s a rainy Wednesday, and Chef Michael Warring is mulling over the night’s menu in his eponymous restaurant, enjoying a moment of calm before seating begins in an elegantly appointed dining room that gives nary a hint of its former life as an ice cream parlor.

Today there are two generations of Americans who don’t know how to cook. Processed food diets are a leading cause of rampant childhood obesity. There is a clear need for increased cooking and nutrition education, or food literacy, in schools.

The menu you get at the onset of your dining experience is much more than a laundry list of food and prices; it’s the opening volley in a courtship dance between your taste buds and the kitchen.

Sacramento chefs like to think backwards. When it comes to menus, they let the ingredients dictate the dish — not the other way around. The result: An ever-changing seasonal menu that is as brief as the kale is healthy.

In the Capital Region, we’re lucky to be surrounded by an abundance of farm-to-fork fresh food, plus chefs who know how to showcase the flavors of our region. So you tell us: Who has the best menu around? 

Jeremy Shepherd has been tending to his growing flock since 2009. He sells mutton to local markets but also works his herds as mobile mowers with local farmers in Yolo County. 

A global cocoa shortage threatens to put a damper on the good tidings and cheer, as worldwide demand for chocolate outstrips the waning production in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which produce more than 70 percent of the world’s mass-market cocoa.

Chris Jarosz is the founder of Broderick Restaurant & Bar and co-owner of the Wicked ‘Wich food truck. This year, he also took on the overhaul of midtown’s Capital Dime restaurant and its sister eatery, Trick Pony, which have been folded into the Broderick Roadhouse family of restaurants. It’s not all glamorous, but it is pretty tasty.

In a county where 218,510 residents are food insecure (meaning they don’t know where their next meal will come from), and where a local food bank will distribute groceries to 40,000 individuals each month, food activists are continually innovating ways to break the cycle of poverty—for good. The solution is actually under our feet: the soil.

Zinfandel from Lodi’s Mokelumne River American Viticultural Area comes in two main styles: west side and east side. West-side vineyards, with their shallower soil, have lusher growth and tend to be earthier or loamier, sometimes pungently compost-like. East-side vineyards have a lower water table, producing smaller clusters and smaller fruit, which generally have more color, tannin and acidity.