Sonoma County women talk sustainable living during Press Democrat’s virtual Women in Conversation event

Three Sonoma County women spoke about the leaps they took to pursue their passions and the role of sustainability in their lives Thursday night during a virtual event hosted by Petaluma native Amy Gutierrez, a reporter who covers the San Francisco Giants for NBC Sports Bay Area.

The event, titled “Be Your Own Sustainable Self,” was organized by The Press Democrat and was the first at-home version of its Women in Conversation speakers series, which debuted in 2016.

Nearly 1,400 people registered for the free event, which was broadcast on pressdemocrat.com and was also available on the newspaper’s Facebook and YouTube accounts, said Ginger Hopkins, the director of events and sponsorship for Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat.

A previous Women in Conversation event scheduled for late March was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions on large public gatherings.

Among the speakers during Thursday’s virtual event was Deb Rock, founder of Sonoma Hot Sauce, a Sonoma-sourced and organic hot sauce business she started six years ago.

The company works with veterans and local farmers and holds off on harvesting their chiles until after the local Cabernet grape crush, which helps the peppers develop more flavor and extends the harvest season for migrant workers.

She’s the first Latina to create a seed-to-shelf hot sauce company in Sonoma County, and possibly the country, she said.

“For me sustainability is inclusive, so I have to include my community,” Rock said. “I have to have a dream and a vision bigger than just myself.”

Duskie Estes, a local chef and co-owner of Black Pig Meat Co., which specializes in ethically raised meat sourced from small farms, talked about the silver linings she found during the pandemic.

Among them was volunteering with the nonprofit Farm to Pantry, a Healdsburg organization that sends volunteers into farms to pick excess produce, known as gleaning, and delivers the surplus food to needy families and community organizations.

“I went out on a glean and it sung to me,” Estes said about the volunteer experience.

She later found out about a vacant executive director position within the nonprofit, which she applied for and was selected for.

Sonoma County farms that relied on event centers, restaurants and catering businesses to keep their businesses flourishing were hit hard by the pandemic, which forced the closure of many of their partner businesses, she added.

“(Farmers) had to very quickly come up with a different venue to sell and it became not worth the money to harvest,” Estes said. “What Farm to Pantry does is ... get that food off the earth because it’s not worth it to harvest and get it to people in need.”

For Tania Soderman, her transition to a more sustainable lifestyle came after she decided to leave her career as a photographer in San Francisco in exchange for a slower-paced life managing her 3-acre ranch in Sonoma called Sonoma Chicks.

“I decided that I was burned out,” Soderman said. “I was tired and I had this opportunity to move to a less expensive place and that gave me a little bit of down time to rethink and focus on what I wanted to do.”

The farm helped her pursue her passion of caring for animals, and Soderman soon amassed a growing number of chickens, some of which were adopted or rescued, she said.

Eventually, she picked up her camera after years of turning away from photography and found new muses in her chickens, she said.

“They became my models for my photography and it just kept growing,” Soderman said.

Sofia Englund, the digital editor for Sonoma Magazine, which is also owned by Sonoma Media Investments, spoke during the event about the Swedish lifestyle concept known as “lagom,” which translates to “just the right amount.”

“It’s a way to achieve balance,” Englund said.

Local pastry chef Mimo Ahmed and Heather Irwin, the dining editor for Sonoma Magazine and a food writer for The Press Democrat, spoke about cooking with apples, including the Gravenstein variety, a Sonoma County staple.

Thursday’s virtual gathering was one of a three-part series hosted by the company. The next two virtual events are Oct. 15 and Nov. 19.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.