Owner + Head Chef Caroline Radice has been passionate about local food since childhood, with summer berry-picking, pie-making, canning, cooking and gardening with her parents.
Caroline has been farming and cooking food in Mendocino County since 2003. Her first restaurant job was a very formative experience, when what was meant to be a college part-time job at the local cafe – Moosewood Restaurant, in Ithaca NY – within a few weeks turned into the beginning of a career with a deep love of food, fresh produce, and community. Caroline moved to San Francisco for a summer during an extended “leave of absence” from college (she sends her apologies to her parents for worrying them at the time). During that summer she worked at a fantastic French restaurant where she cooked huge platters of mussels and ate her first California-grown heirloom tomato (an experience worthy of writing about here), then worked as a private chef on a cannabis farm, and promptly decided to move to Mendocino forever. (Sitting as a 19-year old on a hill watching the sun set over Redwood Valley, she remembers feeling confused about knowing where she wanted to live and what she wanted to do at what seemed like such a young age).
Caroline is a co-founder of the Good Farm Fund and has been cooking farm-to-table community meals since 2015. The Good Farm Fund provides direct support to agricultural producers in Mendocino & Lake County, and helps provide funding for Market Match at Mendocino County Farmers Markets as part of the Good Farm Fund’s mission to improve food access for underserved members of our community.
Black Dog Farm grows fresh some of the best salad greens around, plus edible flowers, fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes, melons, sweet corn, cucumbers and so much more. Their produce is available at the Willits Farmers Markets, on the MendoLake Food Hub, and on every single Black Dog Catering menu.
BLACK DOG CATERING 