When Maria and Rick Maze first saw the meadow, surrounded by redwoods in Santa Cruz County, their first thought was "Look at this! We have a little piece of sky!” This became their home and Little Sky Lavender Farm.
Maria had grown up with good cooks in a traditional Greek family. “To this day, my mother makes her own phyllo dough, and in spite of following her around the kitchen when she is making it, none of us kids has managed to exactly duplicate it.”
Maria and Rick wanted to create a family farm under their little piece of sky. Rick and his brother Dave brought the farming and botanical skills to the project; Maria brought her culinary skills; and Laurie, Dave’s wife, brought it all together with her creativity, computer savvy and web abilities.
“With 3 usable acres, herbs made sense. Perhaps because of my Greek heritage, I am interested in Old World cuisine, so I researched Greek and Roman spices and discovered that lavender has been used for cooking since ancient times. In some cuisines, it was as popular as pepper.”
The Mazes started with lavender seed (rather than cloned plants), so that the plants would be more diverse, like wild lavender. They purchased different seed stocks of Lavandula Angustifolia, some of which came from the Provence region of France. “I was told we would regret starting a crop from seed, but I later learned that actually a seed crop was more genetically hardy. Our plants have adapted to our climate. In the summer, it’s hotter than blazes in our sunny meadow – just like Greece.”
“We’re choosing the plants we like best for our ‘mother plants.’ One is a deep purple and one is very light. They are aromatic but don’t have as much camphor as lavenders that are primarily grown for use in scents.”
At the farmers market, Maria found that people were unsure how to use lavender, but they loved the lavender cookies she offered them to taste. Guided by her customers, she started making lavender sugar and lavender salt, as well as a lavender cookie mix. Lavender brownies and other mixes will follow.
“I know of no other spice that has the versatility and history of lavender. It’s famous for it's medicinal and aromatherapy benefits, and I would like to bring this much loved, lively herb, back to the kitchen table as well.”
“Lavender is a unique spice, a chameleon herb,” Maria explains. “It can mimic cinnamon, cloves and other spices, even vanilla. In my experiments I eliminate all other spices and use only lavender or lavender sugar. I used no other spice but lavender in my Auntie Olga’s pumpkin cake recipe, and my family said they loved it. In my ice cream, it tastes like a vanilla bean. In apple strudel or pie it tastes like cinnamon and then some…but it’s only the lavender.”
Little Sky lavender is grown on their own farm using organic farming practices, hung to dry in their drying shed, stripped and ground to different finenesses in a workshop on the farm. The blending of the baking mixes is done at a neighbor’s food facility. “We want to keep it close to home,” Maria says.
“We love to hear about people’s experiments with our lavender products. It’s a marvelous herb to use in either savory or sweet cooking.”
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