- [Ambre] It's valley oak.

- Bloody oak?

- Valley oak.

- Valley oak.

(both laugh) I was like, "Bloody oak."

(both laugh) (bright upbeat music) Today, on "Geronimo Eats the Bay we are here at Cottage Creek Vineyards in Morgan Hill, and I am here with Ambre today.

- Hello.

- Professional forager, and my friend who has taught me so many things about foraging and eco-printing, which is a great way to forage plants in your backyard, leaves, different patterns to make beautiful prints just like her shirt.

Let's go forage.

(bright gentle music) (both laugh) So which of the shrubbage, or flowers, or plants are ideal for eco-printing?

- When you say ideal, you mean t So which plants have more tannins than others?

- [Geronimo] Tannins, that's the same stuff in wine, right?

- [Ambre] Yeah.

(laughs) So this is blackberries.

You can see the fruits... I can see one very further out t - Oh, down there?

- Yeah.

- Oh, I see it.

- Down there.

- I'm going to get it.

Oh, God, oh, God.

Oh, shoot, there's a couple.

(Ambre laughs) Ouch, it is spiky.

- If we were to print with this, the color that you see here is called anthocyanin.

- [Geronimo] (hums) Yeah, it's like the antioxidants.

- [Ambre] Yes, it's like a lot of good stuff for us.

- Can I eat it?

- Yeah, of course, yeah.

The birds like it too.

Honestly, I would wait a little longer for them because they're always a bit sour right now.

(laughs) They're not ready.

- Yeah.

- You would need them to be completely dark.

- As dark as possible.

And then, yeah, they do have... Ow, thorns.

(Ambre laughs) Hurts so good.

- Are you okay?

- Hurts so good.

(laughs) That's silver wattle, it's acaci In French, we call it mimosa.

- Mimosa?

- Mimosa.

This is a sycamore right here.

- Oh, they're fuzzy.

- Yeah, they are.

They're nice.

- So fuzzy.

- I think it's very nice to the Like the small one, you can see how fuzzy they are.

- [Geronimo] So not edible?

- No.

(Geronimo laughs) - [Geronimo] Oh, my God.

- [Ambre] So this has a lot of t - And I think that is going to do very nice prints.

- [Geronimo] What the, they look like little pine cones.

- Yeah, this is a white alder.

Right there, you can see them.

- Oh, just found some wild musta and you can tell from these yell But when you taste them, I don't taste mustard.

- [Ambre] You don't taste mustar Is it too small?

- Must be too small.

- [Ambre] Let me try.

- [Geronimo] These are invasive.

You can find them across the Bay - I also taste vegetable.

- Right, yeah.

(laughs) - We can play a little fun game 'cause we're arriving to the val Look on the floor and find some like O-A-K G-A-L-L.

And it grows on the branches.

- Yeah.

- And then it falls and you can and eco-print with them.

The first one that finds one, wi Are you ready?

- Okay.

- Let's go.

- Oh, you're good at spotting things on the ground.

Oh, she found one already.

- I found one.

(laughs) - Goodness.

Oh.

- You found one?

- No, that's a rock.

- Ah, I found another one.

- Goodness gracious.

(Geronimo laughs) - No, I'm not as sharp as... I'm looking hard.

- [Ambre] I have one right in front of my eyes.

- Oh, my gosh, it's right there.

- Yay.

- That one, good job.

- So this is a valley oak.

You can find it all over the Bay The whole tree has a lot of tann so you can print with the leaves you can use the oak gall.

- When you do the eco-printing, so you cut them into the shapes that you want?

- No, no, this one, you're going to make a powder out of it.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- So we just gathered some of our stuff here by the creek, and now, we're going to start steaming them to eco-print them, get those tannins onto... What fabric are we using today?

- We're going to use cotton.

Well, now, it's the time to be a So I'll let you choose the leave - Definitely the frondy one firs - Let's do that.

- It's my favorite.

- I really like that, that one t We've been using nature to embellish ourselves for a long time.

Decorating clothes, baskets, and things like that, like coloring things have been an ancestral... I don't know any community that hasn't used dyes to embellish their clothes.

- Yeah.

- And I think eco-printing is just a step further.

(bright upbeat music) So I'm just going to roll it and I'm going to try to stay as tight as I can.

So that's our first bundle.

- Cinnamon roll.

- Yeah, little cinnamon roll.

(bright upbeat music continues) (plastic crunches) - Ooh.

- Yep.

(laughs) - Oh, hold on.

(Ambre groans and laughs) - Hi.

- So we have Denise here, we are on her property.

We found lots of beautiful things that are edible and great for eco-printing.

Actually, this is called wild mu See how pretty they are?

- Yeah.

- They can be used as a garnish - This is a valley oak.

It's probably the one that has the most tannin.

That's perfect.

- [Geronimo] Have you done eco-printing before or anything like it?

- I didn't know any of this exis but I think it's super fun.

- What do we think?

Do we like it like that?

- Yeah.

- So now, we are steaming our bu which roughly takes about an hour to let the dyes and prints kind of sink into the fabric.

- I want to show you the chemist between the tannins and the iron That's the oak gall that we foun under the valley oak.

- When you shave it, it's like cutting through foam.

- So let's try it.

Do you see?

- There you go.

This is how they used to make in - [Ambre] Yep.

- How did you get into this nich of eco-printing specifically?

- So I used to forage with my grandpa when I was younger.

I tend to be very curious about a lot of different aspects, like how did we use it historica What can I do with it?

Even if it's not food, and I really enjoyed the fact that I could utilize what I foraged for to make art and nice clothes.

I really, really like clothes.

- Very cool.

- I think the component is not n like teaching people about the p it's just making them feel close (bright upbeat music) - So it's been an hour, now, it's ready to take off the They're still super tight, which is good to keep the form and patterns intact.

The reveal.

(bright upbeat music continues) - [Ambre] And it smells nice too - And ready, set, wooh, da, da, (bright upbeat music continues) - That's the sycamore, silver wa the valley oak, alder.

- I'm excited that we found all these different plants and leaves to use.

Thank you so much today, Ambre, for showing us what we can forag by Cottage Creek Vineyards in their backyard, making beautiful eco-prints.

- You can make it more beautiful than this.

This is a test.

You can do better.

(Geronimo laughs) This is a test, thank you.

- Where can viewers find you?

- You can follow me on @bap, B-A and babybel, like the cheese.

(l - I'm Geronimo Ramos for NorCal Public Media.

Thank you so much for watching "Geronimo Eats the Bay", and I'll see you in the next one.

(bright upbeat music) Hi, everyone, Geronimo here.

This show is supported by public media viewers like you.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and subscribe and consider donating to NorCal Public Media, so we can keep making quality co and I can continue eating the ba Visit norcalpublicmedia.org/dona and I'll see you out there.

(bright upbeat music continues) Okay, oh, God, hold on, there's There's flies everywhere.

- I'll punch them for you.

- Yeah.

(laughs)