Santa Rosa Attorney Takes On Racial Disparities Within Sonoma County Government

By Austin Murphy
Alegria De La Cruz, the director of the new Sonoma County Office of Equity in the hallway of the County of Sonoma Administration building on Friday, December 4, 2020. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)

Alegria De La Cruz and her family were walking home from a Santa Rosa park when they saw the Black Lives Matter demonstrators coming up Sonoma Avenue.

It was a balmy Saturday evening in June 2020. De La Cruz, the daughter and granddaughter of labor activists, felt right at home among the marchers. But her 13-year-old son, Ome, was less at ease. Picking up on tension between the police and protesters, he turned to his mother. “We gotta go,” he said. “This isn’t going to be safe.”

There were families and children among the protesters. “Do they look dangerous?” she asked him. They did not, Ome answered.

She told him about the strikes and protests her parents and grandparents had been a part of. “Imagine that’s your grandma,” she told her son, motioning to a couple. “That’s your grandpa. That little girl in the Snugli — that’s me.

“Those are our people.”

Alegria de la Cruz, the director of the new Sonoma County Office of Equity photographed on Friday, December 4, 2020. (Photo by John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Alegria De La Cruz, the director of the new Sonoma County Office of Equity photographed. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)

It was an apt cue for the newest generation in a line of family members who stepped from the farm fields of California a halfcentury ago and for decades have battled injustice and inequality, nearly always from outside the system. Now De La Cruz, a 44-year-old Sonoma County attorney who as a young girl held hands with Cesar Chavez at the height of his power, is waging her own campaign to right wrongs from within the
halls of local government.

She was chosen by the county Board of Supervisors last year to lead the new Office of Equity, established amid the large antiracism street protests last summer and in response to longstanding calls for action. Its mission is to root out racial inequality in county government — recommending new laws for the Board of Supervisors, crafting internal policy to build equity, and adjusting how services are delivered to prevent disparate racial outcomes.

It’s a crucible even for De La Cruz, a rising star in the County Counsel’s Office who earned acclaim in the chaos of the 2017 firestorm, when she was the lone conduit of public information for the region’s Spanish-speaking residents, translating emergency dispatches from the county and taking round-the-clock calls from those needing more immediate help.

One of her aims at this new job is to call out and fill those kinds of gaps. The county has since made strides addressing “language equity,” making sure it communicates to residents in English and Spanish. But De La Cruz said it will take more than just her small team—two people with no actual office space as of November
— to make meaningful change in the largest local government and public employer.

“There’s no way in hell we, alone, are going to be responsible for a culture shift in an organization of 4,000-plus people,” she said.

But change is coming, thanks to her allies in many of the county’s 26 departments — “champions” of equity, she calls them, “people who’ve been doing this work for a long time.”

Few have been doing it as long as De La Cruz.

Her story is, in a way, the tale of two grandmothers. Her father’s mother, Jesusita “Jessie” Lopez De La Cruz, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, worked in the fields of California’s San Joaquin and San Gabriel valleys with her parents starting at the age of 5. Jessie went on to become the first female organizer for the pioneering union, the United Farm Workers.

A confidant of Cesar Chavez, Jessie Lopez De La Cruz participated in strikes, served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, met with the Pope, and testified before the U.S. Senate, inviting the politicians to come to Fresno, where they might hear the needs of impoverished farmworkers firsthand.

De La Cruz recalls her maternal grandmother as another pivotal figure in her life, a “lovely” white woman from Long Beach who meant no harm when she told her, “Well, Alegria, if you’re going to be a short Mexican, at least stand up straight.”

As the daughter of organizers for the United Farm Workers, De La Cruz moved 15 times in the Central Valley by the age of 11. After graduating from high school in Boston, she went to Yale, where her extracurriculars included organizing local labor unions and leading the university’s chapter of MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, which succeeded, among other things, in getting table grapes banned from Yale’s dining halls — part of a wider movement in universities at the time meant to honor a UFW boycott that began in the mid-1980s.

She also majored in history, played varsity lacrosse – she was a twotime high school All-American in the sport — and fit in comfortably with her fellow classmates. “When I went to Yale,” she recalls, “I knew which fork to use, because my grandmother drilled that into me when I was little. Not my brown grandma, my white grandma.

“I feel like I’ve always lived with a foot in two worlds,” she says — at ease on the fields of the Ivy League and in the crop rows of the Central Valley. The duality has made her keenly aware of white privilege, “of knowing what that looks like, and knowing what that feels like.”

It also helped prepare De La Cruz for the job now facing her. She took the reins of her new office at a uniquely charged moment: amid a global pandemic that has ravaged, in particular, the region’s communities of color. The county — and country — like few times before, has also been in the throes of a protest movement demanding greater accountability for police, more diverse leadership, and an end to systemic racism.

Her immediate priority: to focus on the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on the region’s Latino and Indigenous communities. At its peak, the county’s Latino residents made up nearly 80 percent of area coronavirus cases – including 98% of infections among children 17 and under. Latinos comprise 27% of the county population.

The virus “feeds on, and exacerbates, inequity,” says Supervisor James Gore, who helped spearhead the establishment of the equity office. So glaring was the need for such an agency that the supervisors
earmarked $800,000 to quickly get it up and running, despite a projected $50 million budget deficit.

The supervisors plucked De La Cruz from the County Counsel’s Office, where she’d served since 2017 as chief deputy county counsel. After earning her law degree at UC Berkeley in 2003, De La Cruz leapt into work geared toward improving the lives of underserved, invisible Californians, crisscrossing the state to litigate cases ranging from fair pay to housing, civil rights to environmental justice.

“A complete rock star,” is how Gore describes her. Supervisor Lynda Hopkins calls De La Cruz “a powerful leader,” and, in a less guarded moment, “a badass.”

The two got to know each other during the North Bay wildfires of 2017, when “Alegria and (deputy public defender) Bernice Espinoza “were the only people in county government trying to help Spanish speakers through the disaster,” says Hopkins.

De La Cruz recalls the awe she felt, working in the Emergency Operations Center with people “from all walks of the county in one room, solving critical problems in real time.”

She also remembers thinking: “I don’t hear Spanish. Why don’t I hear Spanish?”

She raised that concern with officials. Their response: “Can you help with that?”

She could, and did.

“For a while,” says Hopkins, “anyone calling 211, seeking information in Spanish was literally routed to Alegria’s cell phone.”

De La Cruz filled another yawning gap this past spring by helping to form a working group that directed the county’s resources as Covid-19 took its disproportionate toll on the region’s minorities. The resulting outreach has sought to ease access to medical care and quarantine space for affected residents and help with lost wages for those convalescing or tending to a loved one.

“The existence of this racialized spike tells us that we have failed,” says De La Cruz. The spike exists for a variety of reasons, she added, “because these folks don’t have a medical home, because they’re not connected to county messaging, or access to masks, or because they work for employers who maybe don’t know these things either.”

Long before the Office of Equity was founded, De La Cruz, Espinoza, and countless others were working to root out racial inequities and unjust policies in county government. But much of that work was extra — “on top of their normal jobs,” says Gore, resulting in frustration, demoralization and exhaustion.

Gore recalls being challenged at an “equity summit” last spring. Herman J. Hernandez, founder of the Latino leadership group Los Cien, told him that all the talk of diversity, inclusion and equity, without more meaningful action from the county, was “starting to taste like burnt coffee.”

By forming the equity office — one modeled off similar entities in Marin,
San Francisco and Santa Clara counties — and putting De La Cruz in charge, Sonoma County was “walking the walk,” Gore said.

De La Cruz has been on that path most of her life.

Eleven years before Alegria was born, her grandmother, Jessie Lopez De La Cruz, was making coffee for the men.

It was December 1965, and Cesar Chavez was going from house to house in Parlier, 20 miles southeast of Fresno, talking to laborers about joining his movement.

After answering the door, Jessie’s husband, Arnold, invited Chavez in, then sent his wife to the kitchen.

Jessie stood at the door, eavesdropping. She heard Chavez ask Arnold, “Does your wife work in the fields?”

“When grandpa told him yes, he said ‘She should probably join us for this conversation.’” It’s been a source of mirth – alegría – in the family ever since: When Arnold opened the door, his wife nearly fell into the living room. “She always said, ‘I was ready for my life to change,’” recalls her granddaughter.

Jessie was one of the first women to go into the fields and recruit for the UFW, a job at which she excelled. In 1968, she and Arnold ran the UFW’s first hiring hall out of their garage. After her death — on Labor Day, 2013, at the age of 93 — she was recognized by then-UFW president Arturo Rodriguez as “one of the best organizers the UFW ever had.”

De La Cruz’s mother, Jan Peterson, was a fearless organizer who once won 33 straight union elections, mostly in the tomato fields of the Stockton and Patterson area in 1975, while she was pregnant with Alegria.

“’She spoke Spanish like a farm worker,’” De La Cruz recounted Chavez telling her once about her mother, a tribute included in Peterson’s 2018 obituary. ‘She would stand up on an empty box in the middle of a field to be heard and all these workers would follow her out on strike. I never saw anything like it. I want you to know that is your mom — and what a really great organizer she is.’”

So committed to the cause was Alegria’s father, Roberto De La Cruz, that he returned on leave from his Navy tour of duty in Vietnam to join Chavez and other striking farmworkers in 1966 for part of their historic, 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento.

“My dad talks about what it means to never have your own land,” says De La Cruz, “to always be working someone else’s, and to know that land better than its owner, because you’ve worked it so hard, yet to be treated with such disrespect, so little value.”

She was 11 when the family moved to Boston. The real estate agent helping them find a home looked at her white mother and Mexican-American father, and suggested that he not join them when it came time to look for homes.

As “a little Chicana” from California, De La Cruz was “a fish out of water” at her public school in Milton, Mass. But she hit her stride, as a student and athlete, at Thayer Academy. When financial aid officers at the private school south of Boston reviewed her application for assistance, they ‘wondered if there was a zero missing from our tax docs, because my parents made so little from the UFW,’ she recalls with a smile. ‘I was a scholarship kid all the way.’

De La Cruz relished “the release” that lacrosse gave her at Thayer and noticed that those playing fields “felt more level than the rest of my life.”

De La Cruz emerged one day from the counselor’s office at Thayer with
a list of colleges to which she intended to apply. On it were lacrosse powerhouses like Maryland and Delaware. “I was fired up,” she recalls.

Reading that list, her coach — a short Italian woman — became angry, then marched with De La Cruz back to the counselor’s office. “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” her coach told the counselor, “but this kid’s frikkin’ smaht,” recalls De La Cruz, breaking out her Boston accent.

“I want some Ivies on her list.”

The counselor obliged. De La Cruz was scouted by Dartmouth, Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, where she majored in history, with a focus on the labor movement. Her final project was an oral history of her grandmother.

The lacrosse team was another proving ground. After two years “riding the bench,” she was named most improved player in 1997, and got plenty of playing time in her final two years. But what she remembers most vividly — and painfully — about her time with the squad was something that happened off the field.

In the spring of her junior year, a group of first-year players dressed up as the Ten Little Indians as part of an initiation ritual. Furious and hurt, De La Cruz “marched them home and scrubbed off their faces,” she recalls, letting them know how disrespectful she found their costumes. “This is a Native American sport,” she recalled telling teammates, her voice still quavering with outrage decades later. “You can’t do this to people.”

After returning to California, she enrolled at the UC Berkeley School of Law a few years after the passage of Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action in California, resulting in, as she remembers, “the whitest classes” at the university since before the Civil Rights Act. “We stood out,” she says of her fellow students of color. With allies in the law school’s Coalition for Diversity, she wrote amicus briefs and organized with other groups to fight Prop. 209–like efforts in other states.

Her first job out of law school was back in the San Joaquin Valley, with the California Rural Legal Assistance, fighting environmental injustice, including water pollution and pesticide exposure that disproportionately affect low-income farmworkers in the region. Those six years were also formative: She came to see, more clearly than ever, huge gaps in systems that were supposed to be airtight. “My clients were the ones who fell through the cracks,” she says. Because they were poor and dark-skinned and often spoke little English, “they were invisible.”

“The thing I remember about her,” said Martha Guzman, who worked with De La Cruz at the CRLA, “is that she’d go anywhere and everywhere there was a case.” Guzman, who is now an appointed member of the state’s Public Utilities Commission, remembers in particular a case in Del Norte County involving a large group of Indigenous Mexican farmworkers who were being housed at the fairgrounds, and given inadequate food.

De La Cruz was on it, working cases from one end of the state to the other.

“Del Norte, the Imperial Valley — she was always willing to get up and go,” Guzman said.

It was Guzman in 2011 who suggested to De La Cruz — by that time the legal director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment in San Francisco — that she might do even more good working inside government.

“What are you talking about?” she replied. “I sue the government.”

But she changed her thinking, and, after an interview with then-Gov. Jerry Brown, joined the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board as a supervising attorney, based out of Salinas, the urban engine of California’s other famed agricultural valley. The work was rewarding, but grueling — and stressful.

At her direction, that board was filing more litigation than it had “in 30 years,” says De La Cruz. “So there was a lot of controversy, a lot of personal attacks, a lot of big white trucks sitting outside my house at all hours of the night.

“My office got broken into, my car got broken into. I’m like, ‘It’s 2012. How am I living the movie “Silkwood” practicing labor law in Salinas?’ But it was still that frightening for some people to think about farmworkers having their rights respected.”

After three years in Salinas, De La Cruz and her husband, the artist Martin Zuniga, looked north. During their time in the Central Valley, Ome had been diagnosed with asthma. She had an aunt in Cotati. In 2015, the family of four relocated to Santa Rosa, opting for a new part of California with cleaner air.

The timing of that move exposed the family and De La Cruz to the brunt of three historic fire seasons in Sonoma County, including the 2017 infernos that earned her a spotlight for service to Spanish-speaking residents.

Fast-forward to the wildfires that ravaged the West Coast this past summer and fall, and the threads of De La Cruz’s career have come full circle: environmental pollution layered on the deep deprivation imposed by the pandemic.

“I was like, damn, we came here so we could breathe, and now we’ve got air filters in the house, and nobody can go outside,” says De La Cruz, with a laugh.

Upon joining the county counsel’s office, she found a mentor in Bruce Goldstein, who has “a justice warrior’s heart,” says De La Cruz. Goldstein retired in September 2020, after running that department for a decade.

Over a beer in November, he and De La Cruz had a laugh recalling her disastrous job interview in 2015. Inspired by what she knew of the Santa Clara county counsel, which went after bad actors like polluters and opiate manufacturers, De La Cruz spoke passionately about how she could do the same thing in Sonoma County.

Around the table, people looked down at their hands. Sonoma County wasn’t interested in that kind of aggressive, plaintiff-side practice. “And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Ooooh, this is not going well,’” she recalls. “I remember walking out and saying to myself, ‘OK — didn’t get that job.’” She was wrong about that. Goldstein and Sheryl Bratton, now the county’s administrative officer, reached out to De La Cruz, asking “What would make you happy here?”

She started off working on land-use policy, advising Permit Sonoma, the county’s planning agency, and the Community Development Commission, which focuses on, among other things, affordable housing and homelessness. De La Cruz also helped create the Secure Families Collaborative, a legal aid initiative aimed at helping immigrant families following the election of President Donald Trump.

To further knit herself into the community, she sought and secured appointment to an open board seat with Santa Rosa City Schools, where she has served as a trustee since 2019. De La Cruz also serves on the board of Los Cien, the Latino leadership organization, which had long pleaded with the county to more proactively address its structural biases.

As she stood in mid-June on Sonoma Avenue with her son, watching Black Lives Matter protesters file past, De La Cruz recalls Ome asking: “Why do the police have so much armor on?”

She smiled, and replied, “Those are the questions I want you to be asking.”

In her new role, De La Cruz faces plenty of key questions herself, including from the Board of Supervisors and a public pushing for change at a moment of “national awakening,” says Chair Susan Gorin. Foremost among them: How will we know the Office of Equity is succeeding?

In the long term, De La Cruz replies, it will it result in changed outcomes — in life expectancy, health, wealth, educational attainment.

In an equitable society, she points out, those outcomes won’t vary between racial and ethnic groups. Latinos in Sonoma County, for example, will be no more likely than other groups to contract the coronavirus.

It’s a daunting assignment, but De La Cruz’s work begins with the task of helping her colleagues in the county understand that the roots of inequity are located “in government inaction,” she says.

“Government created redlining, fencelining, and other programs that exclude minorities,” she notes. “Now government can change those outcomes.” But first it has to acknowledge its role in the problem. “You have to see the gaps you created,” she says.

In that light, the work ahead of her is revealed as both a continuation of the campaigns her loved ones led for years and a manifestation of some of the very change they sought. Because she is doing it from the inside.

“I think about where I come from every day,” she says. “I do my best to honor that history.”

A Fish Shack in Bodega Bay Is Re-Envisioned As a Rustic Coastal Hideaway

By Abigail Peterson

Architect Olle Lundberg had to laugh when the real estate agent brought him to a 1930s fishing cabin on the shore of Bodega Bay.

“What happened to the rule about finding a house with good bones?” he joked. The house was undeniably in terrible condition: partially collapsed into the water, with a badly sagging floor 18 inches off square. But the site was like nothing else, a completely private cove on a shoulder of the bay with no other houses in sight — just a sweeping, uninterrupted water view. It wasn’t hard to imagine the promise of a setting like that.

But it was his black Lab puppy, Curly, who sealed the deal, running off to romp in the sand, getting incredibly mucky and loving every moment. So Lundberg and wife Mary Breuer bought the cabin, and they named it Curly’s Cove. As the couple likes to say, it’s hard to argue with a dog.

Curly the dog. (Rebecca Gosselin / Sonoma Magazine)
Curly the dog. (Rebecca Gosselin / Sonoma Magazine)

Lundberg leads a groundbreaking San Francisco architectural practice known for creatively reimagining structures with a strong sense of place (for a decade, he and Mary made their home in a one-of-a-kind decommissioned 7,000-square-foot car ferry docked in San Francisco Bay). He knew right away what kind of building the couple could create at Curly’s Cove, one that would keep the basic structure of the traditional fishing shack but add a modern feel with a massive wall of glass facing the bay. “That glass wall would be the big gesture. You’ll walk in and immediately see that view, and nothing else matters.”

Remodeling the cabin and making it structurally sound was a two-year process. Because the home’s existing wooden pier foundation sat at the edge of the bay, the California Coastal Commission had sway over what could be done on the site.

Respectful of the need to preserve the delicate ecosystem, Lundberg created a plan that removed the falling-down piers and moved the entire cabin back from the edge of the bay onto a shored-up concrete foundation. “We built the new foundation in line with the house, but 10 feet further back, and literally rolled the house onto the new foundation. It was a little bit scary when we did that, because you don’t know if the whole house is just going to fall apart, but we had plywood sheathing on the walls to make it stouter, and it worked just fine.”

On the exterior, a new deck cantilevers out over the edge of the wetland and surrounds the home on two sides, with metal grates that allow light to shine through and reach the plants that grow underneath. The old house came with a patchwork of green asphalt shingles on the exterior which, due to the sagging foundation, were all out of whack and looked a bit like the scales of a dragon, Lundberg says. He reimagined the siding with narrow strips of Ipe wood, which over time has faded to a silvery grey, reminiscent of the cabin’s original redwood siding. A fireproof slate roof, topped with solar panels, also hews to the original rustic character of the fishing cabin. “One of my goals as an architect is to do buildings that blend in with the landscape and become better, not worse, as they age. It’s about understanding the materials, how they weather and change.”

Inside, Lundberg says, the whole idea was to not lose the feel of the old building but open it up to the bay as much as possible. All of the rooms in the 1,100-square-foot space except the master bedroom connect through sliding doors out onto the deck. The great room has cathedral ceilings, a modern wood-burning fireplace, and those incredible views through the new glass wall. Two simple bedrooms and a single bath are connected by a hallway that runs front to back through the center of the home.

That hall is lined with photos Lundberg took of the construction process. And a chef’s kitchen, with rugged stainless-steel cabinets and a commercial-grade stove, is open to the main living room.

Lundberg saved the vintage redwood beadboard that came with the house and managed to accumulate enough to cover all of the interior walls. “It was a crazy zebra look with all the old colors, which was actually kind of cool, but we ended up painting it white,” he says. “It’s got splices everywhere, and you can see the drips from all the old paint. It’s by no means a perfect interior wall, which is kind of the point.” And because it’s the beach, Lundberg installed a new slate floor throughout, which stands up to muddy dogs and sandy feet. “The slate captures the colors around here, tans and grays and blues, a really nice mottled patina that does well with the palette of nature outside.”

Furnishings mainly came second-hand from a website called Chairish, except for the custom redwood slab dining table and a coffee table Lundberg made in his studio workshop from the root ball of an Indonesian teak tree, which weighs over a thousand pounds. “My idea was for it to look like a big piece of driftwood that might have floated up on the tide,” Lundberg explains.

It’s a comfortable, easy-living home that Lundberg uses as a getaway with friends and family and occasionally rents out to guests. Days there are relaxed: walking down the lane to Fishetarian for fresh fish to grill out on the deck, heading out on the bay for a paddle in the canoe, and settling by the fire to watch dramatic winter storms roll in. The comings and goings of birds on the bay, including sandpipers, herons, and all sorts of gulls, adds to the peacefulness in the rainy season.

“It’s a favorite spot for birds to come down and feed, particularly in the morning and at sunset. Sometimes you’ll have a hundred pelicans out there feeding on the herring. They don’t pay much attention to people, and especially if the tide is in, they’ll come almost to the edge of the building.”

Big winter storms also flush out the waters of the bay, washing up all sorts of flotsam and jetsam — old wooden buoys, telephone poles, even, once, a small wayward sailboat — on the edge of the shore.

That ever-changing line of shore has become one of the couple’s favorite places in the world, made special by the time they spend romping on the beach with Curly, now 9 years old but not slowing down much. “She likes you to sit there and throw a stick into the water or hours on end. That’s what she lives for. She’ll go out crashing into the water and get as muddy as possible, and then come in and sleep for eight hours. It’s the best.”

Resources

Architect: Lundberg Design, San Francisco / lundbergdesign.com

Structural Engineer: Strandberg Engineering, San Francisco / strandbergeng.com

Builder: Pat Clark Construction, Gualala, CA

Rental info: Bodega Bay Escapes, bodegabayescapes.com

7 Ways to Spruce Up Your Home Without Buying Anything

By Karen Kizer

More time spent at home means more time staring at the walls. For many of us, that easily evolves (or devolves) into contemplating the state of our of furniture, counters and bookshelves and the overall look and function of our living spaces.

While scrambling to improvise a home office and creating a noise-free area for all things Zoom, many have “met the (home design) moment.” If you want to take your redecorating efforts a step further — without spending a lot of time and money — we asked a few local designers for tips and advice.

Reveal your best pieces by removing clutter

Interior designer and Olive and Rose proprietress Chelsea Miller knows how to create a sumptuous yet disciplined aesthetic. She encourages anyone who wants to upgrade a living space to identify the gems in their homes. She uses an ingenious technique for removing less-loved pieces:

“Remove all of your accessories from the space you are redesigning and place them all in one place together. Now “shop” your accessories as if you were purchasing them from a store and place them back in the space in a new and creative way. Only allow things back into the space that you truly love or would purchase again if they were in a shop.”

Once you’ve picked out your favorite pieces, Miller advises that you give away the things that didn’t make the cut. Even in a well-designed space, clutter has a tendency to accumulate over time and destroy the look.

Focus on pieces that give a sense of calm

Jewelry artisan, home stylist and boutique owner Robindira Unsworth has a signature style that is natural and subdued yet sparkles. She recommends figuring out what you love in your home and then replicating that where possible. She likes to focus on pieces that give a sense of calm.

“It can be as simple as cutting roses from your garden or a few sprigs of jasmine from your blooming vine and draping them over a small vessel next to your bed or on your kitchen counter,” she says.

Create a room outside

Utilizing outdoor space can expand square footage. Unsworth moves furniture around to create an outdoor living room. “I am looking at our garden as our summer vacation and plan the layout based on that idea,” she says.

She makes things cozy with pillows and adds pretty Turkish towels to protect surfaces from the sun and birds. “Turkish towels are chic and machine washable, my favorite combination.”

Switch around artwork and bedding

Unsworth says now is a great time to examine your artwork and move pieces and pictures around. Individual spaces can be redefined with a new or newly arranged focal point.

Unsworth also loves to change bedding and moves throw pillows and blankets around her home with the seasons. Now that we’re spending much more time at home, she recommends changing things up each month to keep spaces fresh and inspiring.

Throw around your throw pillows 

Tastemaker and Boho Bungalow-owner Faith Parker, known for the sunny spaces she designs, has these tips for arranging pillows:

Mix sizes. Small and large pillows offer visual interest and comfort.

Mix shapes. “Oftentimes, people will pick all square pillows and then the vignette just falls flat. For visual interest, youʼve got to have — at the very least — a square and a rectangle. Toss in a round one and you’re golden!”

Mix patterns. It’s important to mix different scales of patterns — small, medium and large. “This ensures that the patterns will complement each other instead of competing,” she says.

Use a color palette. Pick one and stay within it.

Add texture. “Toss in some chunky texture next to something smooth like velvet — it makes the design come alive,” she says.

Use odd numbers. Parkers says odd numbers of pillows are more visually stimulating than even.

Move furniture around and away from the wall

Moving furniture around can give a space a brand new feel.

In addition to changing the layout, Parker recommends moving your pieces away from the wall. Our tendency to have furniture pushed up against the wall is probably due to our desire to create more room. Parker recommends working against that inclination when possible.

Be hopeful about your ability to impact your space

With a little time, attention and creativity, we can take what we already own and use it to decorate our home and maximize comfort.

As Unsworth puts it, “There is so much one can do with a little inspiration and desire.”

Meet Mimo Ahmed, A Rising Star On the Sonoma County Dining Scene

By Carey Sweet

It’s nearly 9,000 miles across the ocean from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Santa Rosa. But for Mimo Ahmed, moving to Sonoma County from the east African country was much like following a trail of breadcrumbs.

Make that cake crumbs. Because the young woman discovered a love for cooking in her homeland, built it further by a chance friendship with a visiting American who enjoyed baking, and solidified it after arriving in the culinary mecca that is Sonoma. She is now the pastry chef at Ari Weiswasser’s acclaimed Glen Ellen Star, and on the side, she’s gaining plenty of attention for her website and passion project, The Empty Plate.

At 27, and 12 years after arriving in Santa Rosa, Ahmed has packed in so much experience — and so many cups of flour and sugar — that she seems a bit surprised herself as she recounts her journey.

It started when she was a toddler, as she followed her grandmother around their kitchen in the small, rural village of Naqamtee/Nekemte, in the Oromo people’s traditional rhomeland. She watched her grandmother grind fresh-grown coffee beans, milk their cows, and harvest honey from their bees. She played with the dough as her grandmother baked the daily bread.

“My grandmother was always like, ‘Here, make something,’” says Ahmed. “I was just a baby, but I loved it. Okay, I fell in a giant pot of stew once — I felt like I was helping, even though now that I think about it, I probably gave her more work.”

Music, memories, and lots of cookbooks at the home of pastry chef and food stylist Mimo Ahmed. (Katie Monroe)
Music, memories, and lots of cookbooks at the home of pastry chef and food stylist Mimo Ahmed. (Katie Monroe)
Music, memories, and lots of cookbooks at the home of pastry chef and food stylist Mimo Ahmed. (Katie Monroe)
Music, memories, and lots of cookbooks at the home of pastry chef and food stylist Mimo Ahmed. (Katie Monroe)

Her grandmother passed away when Ahmed was six, and she was adopted by her aunt and uncle, who moved her to their home in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, a city of 4.8 million people. Schools there were much better, but even at her very young age, she yearned for the kitchen and the farm-to-table life.

“My aunt and uncle were more focused on education,” she recalls. “They were always more about the books, studying.”

Yet when she was 12, life changed again. Ahmed’s uncle worked for a nonprofit organization, and a coworker named Kristen came to live at the family house as part of a missionary program. While there, Kristen received care packages from the United States — unfamiliar things to Ahmed, like cookie, cake, and pie mixes.

“We would always bake together, so we made chocolate chip cookies, and apple pie,” Ahmed says. “One time we made brownies, and I was so confused, because I was like, ‘Is this a cake or a cookie? It can only be one or the other.’ The first time I tried them, I thought they were so gross, with the texture and density.”

Still, she began dreaming of desserts. And of visiting this interesting place, America.

Within three years, Ahmed had received a scholarship for her dedicated schoolwork. Kristen connected her with her own parents in Santa Rosa, who helped her enroll at the former Santa Rosa Christian School, where Ahmed aced the English proficiency exams required for international students.

“My aunt and uncle had wanted me to go to America to be a lawyer, or doctor or engineer, just like any African parents,” Ahmed says. So once she graduated high school, she attended Santa Rosa Junior College, studying psychology for two years, and began planning to enroll at Sonoma State.

Except that her host parents opened their kitchen to her, and she couldn’t stop baking cookies, cakes, and pies. In between studying, she read recipe books, and explored the often unforgiving science of baking.

“Then I really thought about it, and I figured, ‘I think I’m adult now, I can make my own decisions,’” she says. “I really wanted to go to culinary school, except I was too scared to tell my aunt and uncle. So I secretly signed up for the culinary school at Santa Rosa Junior College.”

She completed the school’s program in baking and pastry arts, studying under chef Shelly Kaldunski, who became a mentor and close friend. Ahmed also began learning to style food professionally and connected with several Bay Area photographers to capture her work.

“I finally decided to call my aunt and I said, ‘Hey, um, I changed my major, I’m going to culinary school,’ and I was terrified, because I thought I was going to get in so much trouble,” Ahmed says. “And then she said, ‘You know what? I knew this day was going to come. Just work hard, and be the best chef you can be.’”

Today, at Glen Ellen Star, Ahmed crafts delicious treats like house-baked sourdough boule and brown-butter fig cake. On her website, she encourages viewers to use her recipes for such treats as hot milk cake and shares gorgeous photos of delights such as flourless chocolate cake cradled in flaky, shattered meringue. Another standout is a black-bottom lemon tart of buttery sable crust and a thin layer of dark chocolate ganache topped with billows of lemon-orange curd, for a beautiful interplay between dark and light, bitter and sweet.

And she has fun with her Instagram posts. During the long months of the pandemic, Ahmed has spent much of her time honing her design skills, planning to delve even more deeply into food styling and recipe development in the future. Typical of these new explorations is an elegant chocolate cake filled with crunchy hazelnut flakes, smoothed in chocolate frosting, and then whimsically adorned with tiny figurines of a deer, rabbit, squirrel, fox, and fawn — animals she barely knew as a child in Ethiopia.

“This was really not a plan,” Ahmed reflects. “But now, I feel like I’m exactly where I should be.”

Mimo Ahmed’s Apple-Almond Tart

Pastry chef Mimo Ahmed’s stunning, intensely flavored tart makes for an exquisite finish to a holiday meal. It has a sweet crust that is assembled and par-baked in advance, and a flavorful almond filling that rises up to surround apple slices fanned out in pretty shapes.

For the best results at home, Ahmed prefers to use a food processor and weigh ingredients with a kitchen scale.

The tart is made in stages, starting with the crust, then preparing the almond filling and apple slices, and finally assembling and baking the tart. To finish the presentation, try a light dusting of powdered sugar. It’s best served warm from the oven.

Sweet-tart crust

Makes one 9-inch crust.

• 203g all-purpose flour

• 60g powdered sugar

• 1/4 tsp. kosher salt

• 128g cold unsalted butter, cubed

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 tsp. ice-cold water

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt for a few seconds until combined. Add the cold, cubed butter and pulse until the mixture becomes crumbly and resembles coarse meal, about 10 pulses. Beat the egg yolk with vanilla extract and water. Add to dry ingredients and keep pulsing until the dough is no longer dry and starts to clump together, about 10-15 seconds. Do not process to the point that a large ball of dough is formed; the dough should be quite crumbly with large clumps.

Another way to check if it’s done is to take a piece of dough and press it between your thumbs — the dough should stick without feeling dry or crumbly. Gather the dough into ball; flatten into disc. Wrap in plastic; chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

Take dough out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes to soften slightly for easy rolling. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into an 11-inch circle, then place gently into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place in the freezer until firm, about 30 minutes. Frozen dough is less prone to shrinking while baking.

To bake the crust: Preheat oven to 375 degrees and place a rack in the center. Press parchment paper or aluminum foil tightly against the crust, covering the edges to prevent them from burning. Fill with pie weights, dried beans, or uncooked rice, making sure the weights are fully distributed over the entire surface of the crust. Bake the crust for 20 minutes at 375 degrees. To cool, transfer the crust to a wire rack and remove the weights and foil.

Almond filling and apple slices

Makes 2 cups, enough for one 9-inch tart.

• 4 ounces raw whole almonds

• 4 ounces butter, unsalted, room temperature

• 3 ½ ounces sugar

• 2 eggs • 1 tsp. lemon zest

• 1/2 tsp. almond extract

• 3 medium-size Golden Delicious apples

• 1/2 ounce sliced almonds

In a food processor, pulse the raw whole almonds and the sugar until the almonds are finely ground, then add the butter and process again until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the lemon zest and almond extract and process once more until the filling is thoroughly mixed.

Just before assembling the tart, peel, core, and thinly slice the apples and set aside.

Assembling and baking the tart: When the tart crust is done par-baking, remove it from the oven and allow to cool. Then, whisk an egg and use a pastry brush to coat a thin layer of whisked egg all over the crust. Spread the prepared almond filling into the crust and then arrange the apple slices and sliced almonds on top. I like to take small sections of apples, fan them while in my hand, and then place them gently where I like, covering about half of the top of the tart. The almond filling will puff while baking, so there is no need to press the apples in deeply. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 30-45 minutes, or until the crust and filling have bronzed. Allow to cool slightly before dusting with powdered sugar, if desired.

Video: How to Plant a Victory Garden in Your Own Backyard

By Sonoma Magazine Staff

Last spring, as the pandemic closed down much of society and caused disruptions to the food supply chain, people across the United States turned back to the land. They grew their own produce and, as an added bonus, experienced much-needed stress relief. Nursery vegetable starts and gardening essentials were soon sold out, seed company sales increased by a thousand percent, newspapers and media outlets talked about “a comeback for victory gardens.”

Sonoma Magazine’s digital editor, Sofia Englund, also found added peace and calm by indulging her new passion for vegetable gardening in her backyard. She got to talk to local experts Tony Passantino, education program manager at the Sonoma Ecology Center, and Astrid and Matthew Hoffman, founders of The Living Seed Company.

In a television segment produced by Northern California Public Media PBS station KRCB in 2020, Tony, Astrid and Matthew help Sofia troubleshoot some problems she is experiencing in her fledgling garden and Tony talks about the history of the victory garden and its modern-day version. Watch the video here:

Aged Wines Highlighted at Local Wineries’ Upcoming Event

By Linda Murphy

Sonoma’s Wine Road Barrel Tasting Weekend was reveling in its 43rd year of success in 2020 when the state ordered wineries to close because of the pandemic. COVID-19 also put a bung in Barrel Tasting Weekend 2021, depriving event guests of the opportunity to sample infant wines a year or so before they are released and buy tomorrow’s wines at today’s prices.

Undeterred, Wine Road, an organization that represents wineries and lodgings in the Dry Creek, Alexander and Russian River valleys, flipped the script this year, urging member wineries to dig into their wine libraries and pour older wines March 6 and 7, along with their current releases. Some 20 producers will participate, each offering yesterday’s wines to try and buy today.

Healdsburg is home to the Sonoma County Wine Library, a treasure trove of books, magazines, research papers, photos, videos and ephemera on the world of wine. At wineries, “libraries” are cellar spaces filled with bottles stored under ideal temperature and humidity conditions, so that the wines — mostly reds — mature slowly over time, develop secondary complex characteristics and show more evolved, smoother tannins.

Aging wine is a topic addressed in myriad Ph.D. dissertations and involves much debate: Are older wines better than younger wines? Or vice versa? It depends on personal taste. In the simplest of comparisons, some love young red wine’s rich, primary aromas and flavors, such as cherry, blackberry and plum, and its palate freshness. Others appreciate the secondary notes of spice, tea, leather and earthiness that can show themselves in wines five to 10 (or more) years old, thanks to the slow ingress of oxygen through the cork.

The beauty of trying older wines at Wine Road wineries is in meeting the winemakers, hearing their often vivid stories of the challenges and rewards of each vintage and tasting the impact that time can have on wine. It’s a rare opportunity to compare older Sonoma wines with newer ones, to gauge when wines in a home cellar will be at the optimum drinking point for one’s personal taste or to buy wines that have already improved with cellaring so buyers don’t have to do the work themselves.

Some producers will pour their library wines from magnum bottles. Magnums hold twice as much wine as 750-mL bottles, but the wine is exposed to the same amount of oxygen as a standard bottle. As a result, the wine ages more slowly and likely will last longer.

The library-wine weekend is not a formal event; no tickets are sold, though guests must, in adherence with COVID-19 safety protocols, make reservations, just as they would any other visit. All tastings are conducted outdoors, with physical distancing and small groups only, and masks must be worn before and after guests are seated. Wineries’ regular tasting fees will be in place and vary by options chosen.

If conditions allow, Wine Road organizers hope to conduct a scaled-down, full-week version of Barrel Tasting May 24‒30, 2021. Follow along at wineroad.com

Here are snapshots of some of the wineries serving library wines March 6 and 7:

Baldassari Family Wines: By day, Matt Michael is the winemaker for Robert Young Estate Wines in Alexander Valley. His nights and weekends go to his family’s Baldassari brand of chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot noir rosé, syrah and Malbec from vineyards on the Sonoma Coast and in the Russian River, Alexander and Bennett valleys. Matt’s father, Dom Michael, handles everything else in this two-person business, named for Matt’s grandfather, Vincenzo Baldassari, who came to the U.S. from Italy and made wine in his basement. For library weekend, father and son will pour from magnums of 2015 and 2016 syrah and pinot noir at their Windsor tasting lounge, in addition to current releases.

9058 Windsor Road, Windsor, 707-837-5327, bfwwine.com

Outdoor tasting by the fire pit at Balletto Vineyards. (Courtesy photo)

Balletto Vineyards: In addition to tastings of its broad array of Russian River Valley-grown, current-release wines, this Santa Rosa winery will offer a four-bottle library set, comprised of the 2013 Sparkling Brut Rosé, 2013 BCD Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, 2014 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir and 2018 Cider Ridge Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. Balletto, a longtime grape grower in the region, has renovated its covered patio tasting area in time for library-wine weekend and oncoming spring weather. Anthony Beckman is the winemaker, and a talented one at that. There are many excellent values to be found here.

5700 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa, 707-568-2455, ballettovineyards.com

Merriam Vineyards: Peter and Diana Merriam’s winery and vineyard are located at the eastern edge of Russian River Valley in a warm part of a cool-climate appellation. There, they can fully ripen red Bordeaux grape varieties such as merlot and cabernet franc, yet the conditions are also suited to growing chardonnay and pinot noir, which enjoy growing in cool, morning-fog conditions. Merriam’s library offerings are the 2014 Windacre Vineyard Merlot from the Merriam estate and 2013 Gloeckner-Turner Ranch Rockpile Cabernet Sauvignon from a subregion of Dry Creek Valley. Current releases include sauvignon blanc, semillon, pinot noir, petit verdot and a blanc de noirs sparkler.

11650 Los Amigos Road, Healdsburg 707-433-4032, merriamvineyards.com

Mill Creek Vineyards & Winery: For more than 40 years, the water wheel at Mill Creek has been a visual icon for those traveling from Healdsburg and turning south onto Westside Road or north onto West Dry Creek Road. The Kreck family planted their vineyards here in 1965 and established the winery in 1974; the location is within the Dry Creek Valley yet just a stone’s throw from Russian River Valley. Jeremy Kreck, son of founders Yvonne and Bill Kreck, produces excellent sauvignon blancs and zinfandels from the Dry Creek Valley vineyard and cabernet sauvignon from the family home ranch in Alexander Valley. For library weekend, Mill Creek will pour the 2000 Kreck Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon from Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley and 2007 Reflections Alexander Valley Meritage red blend. The winery has two picnic areas for visitors who want to bring their own lunches.

1401 Westside Road, Healdsburg, 707-431-2121, millcreekwinery.com

Library wine bottles from Moshin
Library wine bottles from Moshin Vineyards. (Courtesy photo)

Moshin Vineyards: Rick Moshin, who founded his winery in 1989, produces several varietals, yet pinot noir – which made Healdsburg’s Westside Road famous in the wine world – is the one that is closest to his heart. For library tasting weekend, he and his wife, Amber Moshin, will pour their 2013 Rosalina Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, from their estate, and a red Bordeaux-style blend, the 2012 Dry Creek Valley Perpetual Moshin. Instead of fermenting the cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, cabernet franc and malbec separately and then blending the wines, Moshin fermented the grapes together, giving them an early start on integrating seamlessly.

10295 Westside Road, Healdsburg, 707-433-5499, moshinvineyards.com

Pedroncelli Winery: This venerable Geyserville winery, established before Prohibition and still family-owned, is known for its honest, good-value wines across multiple varietals. Yet zinfandel is predominant in its DNA, and for library-wine weekend, Pedroncelli will pour its 2009 Mother Clone Zinfandel and 2009 Bench Vineyards Merlot side by side with the 2018 vintages of these wines. A splash of Pedroncelli port and a bite of chocolate is served to each guest.

1220 Canyon Road, Geyserville, 707-857-3531, pedroncelli.com

Portalupi Wine: Jane Portalupi and her winemaking husband, Tom Borges, not only fell in love with each other, they also shared a fondness for wines produced from Italian grape varieties and set out to make them in 2002. Barbera is their No. 1 wine, with vermentino, arneis, charbono and an unusual méthode champenoise sparkling barbera also among their California-Italian offerings. Pinot noir, zinfandel and petite sirah complete the lineup. Portalupi’s downtown Healdsburg parklet is the place to taste a barbera flight that includes current vintages and, from the library, a 2013 Sierra Foothills Barbera.

107 North St., Healdsburg, 707-395-0960, portalupiwine.com

Sunce Winery & Vineyard: Proprietor/winemaker Frane Franicevic has a long and colorful history, which, in Cliff Notes version, took him from Croatia to New Orleans, where he worked in restaurants and as a shrimper. He found his way to California and opened One World Winery in 1991 in Santa Rosa. Frane married Janae in 1994 and together they built the Sunce winery and vineyard after buying property on Olivet Road. The Franicevics will hit their wine cellar with gusto for library weekend, pouring from magnums their 2013 Meritage Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 2014 Estate Zora’s Vineyard Clone 667 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, 2014 Estate Zora’s Vineyard Clone 777 Russian River Valley, 2013 Cousins Ranch Reserve Merlot Russian River Valley and 2013 Trois Amis SuperT Russian River Valley Reserve. Kids and pets are welcome and tacos will be served.

1839 Olivet Road, Santa Rosa, 707-526-9463, suncewinery.com

Viszlay Vineyards: A producer of single-vineyard, small-lot wines, Viszlay grows 13 grape varieties on its 10 vineyard acres in the Russian River Valley, south of Healdsburg. Owner/winemaker John Viszlay and his team will pour from the library a 2012 Reserve Pinot Noir, 2010 Petite Sirah and 2011 Reserve Malbec, along with other estate wines. Typical annual production is just 2,200 cases, and reserve wines are usually available only to wine club members and those who stay at the vineyard guesthouse. Library weekend is an opportune time for those new to the winery to sample its finest bottlings.

851 Limerick Lane, Healdsburg, 707-481-1514, viszlayvineyards.com

West Wines: Winemaker/owner Katarina Bonde, with her husband, Bengt Akerlind, will pour their 2006 and 2008 West Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, along with the 2016 West Seafoam and Blanc de Blancs bubblies, made in traditional Champagne style. The 2014 Tuscan Cuvee, a cabernet and sangiovese blend, is also on the menu along with current releases. The sparkling wine will be paired with a Brie cheese, the Tuscan Cuvee with an aged Gouda and the library cabernet sauvignons with chocolate.

1000 Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg, 707-433-2066, westwines.com

Other participating wineries include:

Char Vale Winery, Sebastopol, charvalewinery.com

Dutton Estate Winery, Sebastopol, duttonestate.com

Ektimo Wines, Sebastopol, ektimowines.com

Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Geyserville, francisfordcoppolawinery.com

G&C Lurton‒Trinité Estate, Healdsburg, acaibo.com

Iron Horse Vineyards, Sebastopol, ironhorsevineyards.com

Locals Tasting Room, Geyserville, localstastingroom.com

Paradise Ridge Winery, Santa Rosa, prwinery.com

Russian River Vineyards, Forestville, russianrivervineyards.com

Super Sonoman/Taddei Wines, Windsor, supersonoman.com

 

Dive Into Inspired Thai Cuisine at Sebastopol’s Khom Loi

By Heather Irwin
Pad Thai at Khom Loi in Sebastopol. (Heather Irwin/Sonoma Magazine)

Dozens of woven bamboo lanterns float high above the outdoor-indoor dining patio flanked by two-story sliding glass shoji walls. Inside, water gently tinkles into a charming concrete pond filled with aquatic plants. The best tables are beside the aquascape that lulls diners into lingering just a little longer.

Located inside the former Peter Lowell’s, the newly opened Khom Loi has been an ambition for chefs Matthew Williams and Moishe Hahn-Schuman for years, after travels to Thailand inspired them to host several pop-up dinners featuring many of the dishes that have now made their way onto the menu. Like Gaijin, the food is their own take on the cuisine, inspired by the flavors of their travels.

Khom Loi, which means floating lantern in Thai, is an homage to the cuisine of Chiang Mai and nearby Laos, with nods to central and southern Thailand. There’s nothing shy or demure about the spicy, sweet, sour and bitter flavors of East Asia in every one of the dishes. There is nothing American-ized or even explained on the menu. Instead, it’s an immersion — sometimes a little awkwardly immersive.

“It’s about having fun,” Williams said. That means using hands, rolling rice and wrapping lettuce around tidbits of food. “Our dishes are like what you would find in Thailand.”

Het Paa Naam Tok from Khom Loi. (Heather Irwin / The Press Democrat)
Outdoor dining area at Khom Loi. (Heather Irwin / The Press Democrat)

That sometimes means having no real idea what you’re eating (unless you have a cellphone handy to look up words like rau ram and naam prik noom). It’s more fun, however, when you start asking questions, such as, what do you actually do with sticky rice?

“I roll it up in a ball in my hands,” Williams said. “You dip it; you don’t pour curry on it. You have fun with it.

What do you do with the piles of lettuce, basil and mint that come with several dishes? You wrap up morsels in them, or take a bite of one thing, then a bite of another. Even for an experienced diner, it’s an adventure that takes some understanding if you really want to appreciate it more deeply than at a surface level.

But being an outsider is what’s so enjoyable, especially when we can’t travel to a far-flung place for the original experience. It’s about making that effort to engage, learn something new and make a few awkward mistakes along the way.

Or just go to Khom Loi to eat really good Pad Thai. Your call.

Best Bets: Must-order dishes

Gai Tod (lemongrass fried chicken), $10: The smell of lemongrass and fried lime leaves are enough to send you into orbit. Sharp black pepper and chile sauce (nam jim) with two-bite fried chicken pieces make this almost impossible to put down, or share.

Som Tam Pu (green papaya salad), $12: Dried shrimp and fish sauce are two of my favorite things about Thai food, but sometimes it’s difficult to find either of these salty, fishy flavors that pump up the volume of green papaya salad. Here, unripe papaya are crunchy carriers for the tart-sweet lime fish sauce I could literally drink with a straw.

Yum Som-O (winter citrus salad), $14: This is where the team’s varied culinary backgrounds shine through with a Cali-Thai flair. Bitter pomelo and grapefruit are tossed in fish sauce with green apple, toasted coconut, dried shrimp and fried peanuts. It’s a perfect winter dish that somehow tastes like summer.

Pad Thai, $18: The true measure of any Thai restaurant is this simple noodle dish. 1. It should never be red. 2. It shouldn’t be too sweet. 3. It should have the “wok hay” or breath of the wok. 4. Palm sugar and tamarind should be included. Ketchup shouldn’t. Khom Loi gets it right on all fronts and includes tofu, chicken thighs and prawns for extra, extra credit.

Bpet Yang (charcoal-grilled Liberty Duck breast), $18 (half) or $35 (whole): Another local-meets-Thai dish with a crispy charred exterior and buttery soft, rare interior. Just like it should be. The fun is in mixing and matching the duck with bites of lettuce, pumpkin, long beans and a green chile sauce.

Khao Niaw (sticky rice in a basket), $3: Sticky, glutenous rice has a special place in Thai cuisine; it’s used mostly to soak up sauces as you might with bread. Don’t try to use a fork or you’ll end up with a mess. Instead, pinch off a handful, roll it into a ball and dip it into soup or the sour dressing of green papaya salad. Fragrant jasmine rice is better for soaking up curry, however.

Sundae, $10: Save room for soft-serve ice cream flavored with lemongrass and other “flavors of Thailand” (they change). Topped with fresh mango (we got brûléed bananas, which were even better), crunchy coconut peanut crumble and condensed milk, this refreshing meal-ender is studded with sticky mochi for an extra surprise.

Great Picks: seriously delish

Plaa Thawt Lat Prik (crispy whole rock cod), $32: The only reason this isn’t a Best Bet is because I know how people are about a whole fish staring back at you, studded with millions of little bones inside. I feel you. However, this fried rock cod is scored before frying for maximum crispiness. Tamarind and chile stick to the skin, and the small bites are perfect for eating with chopsticks or a fork. Don’t forget the juicy and delicious head — the cheeks are one of the best parts. Sadly we made a mess of the poor cod and ended up eating a few bones. Ask for a little help if you’re new to eating whole fish. We should have.

Het Paa Naam Tok (charcoal-grilled mushroom salad), $15: If you’re a Ramen Gaijin devotee, you’ll recognize these (or something very similar) from their menu. Sweet and earthy mixed mushrooms get kissed by charcoal, adding bitterness and depth. Toasted rice powder binds everything together, and Thai coriander, basil and mint give the dish a pop of fresh, light greenery.

Going back for

Kaeng Khei Whwan Hoy (green curry with clams), $20: The massman curry with wagyu short ribs was very good, but seeing this dish with fresh clams and a light green curry in coconut milk made me wish I’d ordered this instead.

Not my jam

Tom Yung Goong Nam Khon (spicy sour shrimp soup), $16: There’s a lot to love about this showstopper, with huge head-on gulf prawns, coconut milk, galangal and mushrooms, but a float of sliced limes add bitterness rather than depth. Fishing out huge unshelled prawns with finger-poking antenna, then pulling off shells and legs at the table is more of a messy task than a pleasure. Large chunks of inedible herbs also make it a minefield.

Needs a warning

Tua Tod Samu Prai, $5: “Thai peanut crack” had us at “crack,” but these little nuts are only for experienced heat-seekers. They’re tossed into several dishes where they’re less atomically hot, but the combination of lemongrass, lime leaf and skin-on peanuts are hard to resist — even when you know you should.

Drinks

A lovely by-the-glass wine list highlights lighter wines that pair well with Thai flavors, offered in 150-mL, 350-mL and 750-mL sizes. A longer, brilliantly curated bottle list includes offbeat picks from the Basque Country, Portugal and Hungary along with rieslings, pinot gris and a whole lot of bottles of fermented grapes we wouldn’t even try to spell. I wish I had delved a little deeper into these wines. There’s Thai beer, naturally, along with local ciders and brews. Don’t miss the Thai iced tea with a float of coconut cream and a hint of cardamom.

A few notes

Allergens: Shellfish, fish sauce and peanuts are a huge part of the flavor of Thailand and are in many of the dishes. If you’re deathly allergic to any of these, Khom Loi might not be a good fit. Gluten-free and a few vegan dishes are available.

Despite the frequent use of lime leaves on the menu, you won’t find them referred to as “kaffir” — a term often used to differentiate them from American or European limes. Instead these richly perfumed leaves are called “makrut” because the k-word is actually a highly offensive slur in South Africa and other regions.

Khom Loi is at 7385 Healdsburg Ave., Sebastopol, 707-329-6917, khomloisonoma.com. Open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner. Reservations strongly recommended. Parking is very limited and on the street only. Until indoor dining returns, the restaurant is serving outdoors in a tent and for takeout.

Chef Dustin Valette’s New Healdsburg Restaurant Coming Into View

By Heather Irwin

It takes some imagination (and an architect’s drawing) to fully appreciate the vision Chef Dustin Valette has for his soon-to-be-completed new restaurant concept, The Matheson, but it is certainly coming together in a spectacular way.

From the soaring ceilings that invoke wine-barrel staves to the still-wrapped Mugniani pizza oven and still-under-construction open kitchen where Valette and Ken Tominaga (of Hana Japanese Restaurant) will cook, it is the Healdsburg native’s dream project come to life.

The three-story space on the Healdsburg Plaza will include an upscale dining room, a bar and an 88-bottle self-serve wine wall on the first floor (similar to the Barlow’s Region). A small mezzanine is prime real estate for its view of the dining room. The upper level, Roof 106, is a casual, lounge-y indoor-outdoor area with a second bar, pizza oven and patio.

Though there was some initial push back over the size of The Matheson when it was first proposed, capacity is spread throughout the building, with about 85 seats in the dining room (at 100% capacity) and 42 on the rooftop patio.

But it is the almost childlike glee that Valette expresses about each tiny detail — the Hestan range in Matador red, the hexagonal tiles that match the bee theme upstairs — that makes even a hard-hat tour fun.

Like Valette’s namesake Healdsburg restaurant, The Matheson has a family history as one of the bakery spaces once used by his immigrant great-grandfather.

“We wanted to keep this place and make it live on. This is so much bigger than me. The Matheson is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something bigger than yourself,” Valette said.

With plans to use small artisan producers like Lou Preston, Valette said the space will tell a story.

“This is the evolution of Healdsburg. It’s something we need right now. I hope people will come and get excited about Wine Country again,” he said.

The Matheson, at 106 Matheson St., in Healdsburg, is slated to open in late spring. thematheson.com

Hot Chix Coming to Santa Rosa: The Union Hotel on Mission in Santa Rosa is launching a Nashville-style fried chicken pop-up starting March 1, available for pickup and delivery only.

Owner Daniel Gonnella was inspired to create a California-meets-Tennessee fried chicken sandwich with five levels of heat — mild, medium, hot and Call Yo’ Mama, considered “too hot for the sober gentleman,” according to Gonnella.

They’ll also have chicken tenders, a whole fried chicken, mac and cheese, crinkle-cut fries, coleslaw, baked beans and cornbread, along with waffle strips with maple-Bourbon dipping sauce (now there’s a breakfast of champions).

How’s the sandwich? You’ll never eat at Chick-fil-A again. Franco American bun, coleslaw, fresh pickles and crispy fried chicken with just a little burn (medium) and a whole lot of sass — mine didn’t make it home. Details at hotchixsantarosa.com

Santa Rosa Designer Shares Tips On How To Transform Your Home

By Karen Kizer

Neoclassical busts, modern crystal sconces and abstract paintings are just a few components that come together in a renovated home just off the Sonoma plaza. The interior design scheme is the work of Íreko Interior Design & Fine Furniture in Santa Rosa. The home — framed by olive trees and with timeless details throughout — exemplifies the magic that comes from skillfully mixing contrasting elements.

Íreko co-founders Jim Rascoe and Michael Webb started out in 1985 with a small flower shop in downtown Santa Rosa. Soon, their services expanded into floral home design and, finally, interior design. 35 years later, the two now have a team, an expanded retail home store and design projects that range from condominiums to wineries to heritage homes.

Here, Rascoe shares some advice for home decorating, whether that’s with new furniture, old cherished pieces or a mix of both. He has several tips for creating a well-designed interior. But one of his best tips centers on what not to do.

Design for your unique space and tastes

“The ultimate mistake is to invite your neighbor to give the final call on what you want to do with your own house,” says Rascoe. “Getting advice is great, but it’s your space. If you love it, it’s probably okay.”

This advice encapsulates a central tenet of Rascoe’s interior design philosophy: homes should be functional and comfortable, and also suit individual tastes and preferences rather than trends. This means avoiding replicating rooms featured in catalogs and stores. What might look great in marketing photos won’t work in every home.

“Your house doesn’t have 20-foot ceilings, French doors, steel case windows (like the rooms in magazines). There’s no one way to treat all rooms,” he says.

As people want to make “safe” choices, they copy interiors from magazines and online and pick pieces that will coordinate easily. Rascoe works against this pervasive uniformity in home design.

“It’s all going to work great, but it’s all boring and unexciting,” he says. Instead, he prefers to mix old with new, ornate with modern. “Accessories show your character,” he adds. “This is your opportunity to “transform something from ho-hum to ‘oh wow.'”

Start with large pieces

Rascoe employs a particular foundational tactic to achieve a great look. “I’ve come to the conclusion that everything about interiors hinges on scale,” he says.

He suggests starting with the biggest most functional pieces (like sofas, tables and TV furniture) and, once the larger pieces are in place, smaller objects, accents and decorative pieces can fill the spaces that call for them. Feel free to move large pieces around to find a sense of balance that’s both functional and pleasing to the eye: A TV might sit across from a sofa. A reading nook might fill in a corner.

Rascoe encourages investing in a few good pieces like upholstery, tables, lamps or art. “Those can be reinvented a million and one ways,” he says. “You will always find a home for great things. Great pieces last forever.”

The Santa Rosa designer also believes in using what you already own.

While some might hesitate to put an ornate piece in an otherwise modern room, Rascoe says, “It is that touch of something with a history that will create the most exciting contemporary look.” Add pieces that are unique and personal and “see them in a way you’ve never seen them before.”

But don’t add too many small things to a room. Collections tend to make a room feel cluttered, while large objects don’t usually have that effect on a space, says Rascoe.

Use light as an accessory

In addition to creating visibility for performing tasks and moving around the house, pools of light can be interesting focal points. Rascoe likes to use light as an accessory — it can be atmospheric, exciting and dramatic. He enjoys viewing spaces with lighting done well — (they) are so exciting to visit at night,” he says.

There’s no need to do a massive rewiring project to add more interesting light sources to your home.

“Most builders want to punch can lights (in ceilings),” says Rascoe and adds, “The fewer of those kind of lights, the better off you are. You’re not living in a grocery store. You’re living in a residence.”

Instead, add a well-designed reading light, floor lamp or table lamp, which will also serve as accents. Rascoe also suggests adding dimmers to lights so that the mood of the room can be controlled with a simple slide on the switch.

Look for new ways to use familiar pieces

Rascoe has made lamps out of china and fashioned side tables from antique Japanese screens. These pieces can become focal points in any room by highlighting the beauty of antique or vintage materials. Visits to antique stores, salvage yards and estate sales can be the inspiration for accents that are truly unique.

The Santa Rosa designer always moves around furniture and decor in his own home. A living room chair might get moved to the bedroom to go with an ottoman. Such movements can reinvent pieces and give the owner renewed appreciation for them.

Among Rascoe’s most treasured pieces is a table made by award-winning designer Paul Maitland-Smith. The top of the rustic table is woven copper and the base is bronze. Every day, Rasco thinks to himself, “My God. It’s a totally singular piece of furniture. It doesn’t get better than that.”

It’s a crown jewel in a space that epitomizes Rascoe’ design philosophy, “The same room has never been done twice and never will be done again.”

Sonoma Designers Share 10 Tips for Creating a Serene Bedroom

By Karen Kizer

We’ve been asking a lot of our bedrooms lately. All that time spent within the same four walls has most of us in need of an in-home refuge — a peaceful spot to get away from it all. But with kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms becoming pop-up offices or schoolrooms, serenity is hard to come by these days. We turned to Sonoma County designers and stylists for some bedroom decorating inspiration. Here are some sweet spots with ideas for making our bedrooms offer more of what we need — click through the above gallery for details.