Patio dining at the Fork Roadhouse on Bodega Ave. east of Sebastopol. (JOHN BURGESS/The Press Democrat)
Sonoma County residents are a passionate breed when it comes to breaking bread with their dogs in tow and local restaurateurs roll out the red carpet for furry canine companions. We’ve got a plethora of patios where you can bring a pup when you dine out. Keep in mind that we’re talking about well-mannered pets that won’t take a bite out of anyone or anything else. If you don’t abide, Dude won’t be welcome. Click through the gallery for details. Please note that most photos were taken before the pandemic.
Did we miss one of your (and your dog’s) favorites? Let us know in the comments!
The pandemic and shelter-in-place orders have led to a long list of changes to everyday life — including how we eat. With outdoor dining available once again, some are now donning layers to eat al fresco. Others have upped their takeout budget in an effort to support local restaurants and get a break from the stove. Whatever your approach, you’ve likely become better acquainted with your kitchen during the past year.
Local chefs have been forced to develop their own set of Covid-19 kitchen survival skills. Committed to rolling with the pandemic punches, Executive Chef Shane McAnelly and his culinary team at Bricoleur Vineyards in Windsor have launched a Wine & Food To Go program to put delicious dishes on our home tables.
“We wanted to find a way to cook for our friends and neighbors and still entertain to a certain extent, even when we couldn’t host them at the winery,” said McAnelly.
With a half-dozen Bib Gourmand distinctions from the Michelin Guide, McAnelly is well known from his days as Executive Chef at Healdsburg restaurants Chalkboard and The Brass Rabbit. Now at the helm of the culinary program at Bricoleur Vineyards, he continues to hone his skills and evolve his dishes. This includes adapting to pandemic-era restrictions.
Although chefs and restaurant staff have been working overtime to make up for the absence of in-restaurant dining, some foods just don’t translate well to takeout. So when McAnelly set out to design a cook-at-home meal kit, quality control was a top concern.
Two frozen pizzas and salad are paired with a bottle of Bricoleur Vineyards 2018 Zinfandel. $82.00, serves two to four. (Courtesy of Bricoleur Vineyards)
Throughout McAnelly’s years in the kitchen, pasta and pizza have remained favorite dishes to prepare. This is reflected in Bricoleur’s menus as well as its cook-at-home meals. The burrata agnolotti arrabbiata paired with a rosé of pinot noir and the gnocchi bolognese paired with a pinot noir have been the most popular kits so far. There’s also flash-frozen, wood-fired pizzas paired with zinfandel (McAnnelly’s favorite), and mushroom and spinach lasagna or pork and cabbage tortellini in brodo, both paired with chardonnay. (The kits require very simple prep: boiling pasta, heating up lasagna, putting garlic bread in the oven, and tossing dressing on salad).
“He gained a reputation for his true passion — creative pasta dishes — and they’re at the heart of all of our menus, whether folks order Wine & Food To Go, or join us here at the winery for dinner, or a Sip & Savor tasting,” said Mark Hanson, CEO and co-founder of Bricoleur Vineyards.
Located in the Russian River AVA, Bricoleur Vineyards released its first vintage in 2017. The tasting room opened to the public last June, amid pandemic and ever-changing Covid-19 safety requirements and precautions.
There’s more to the newly-opened 40-acre wine estate than just grapes. Dozens of fruit trees, an olive grove and a vegetable garden, close to an acre in size, add to the scenery and help shape McAnelly’s menus. As spring produce starts to become abundant, he expects pasta dishes will take advantage, giving diners fresh dishes to look forward to.
“The thing I like most about our Wine & Food To Go program is the simplicity and the quality,” said McAnelly. “I am proud that the final product at home is easy to make and tastes as good as if I were cooking it for the guests here at the winery.”
Wine and food packages range from $62 to $88 dollars and serve two. All options include salad; pasta dishes also come with garlic bread. Meals are available Thursday through Monday and can be ordered online or by phone. Placing orders 24 hours in advance is recommended, but same-day pickup can often be accommodated. Along with curbside pick-up at the winery, delivery is available to Sonoma County addresses within a 20-mile radius for $20. The menu is expected to be available through March.
Pandemic Wine and Food Offerings
Bricoleur isn’t the only winery that’s getting creative with food offerings during the pandemic.
Gary Farrell Vineyards & Winery is offering Taste at Home Self-Guided Wine Experiences. Along with wine, vineyard and tasting notes, the winery recommends cheese pairings available for purchase from local favorite, Cowgirl Creamery.
Clif Family offers a number of curated gift boxes that include wine and bites. The Napa Valley Happy Hour box includes a bottle of both red and white wine, and a number of cheese-plate-friendly munchies like nuts, jam and crackers. You just add the cheese.
Guerneville’s Big Bottom Market is delivering picnic lunches to nearby AutoCamp Russian River and a number of wineries including Iron Horse Vineyards in Sebastopol and Paul Mathew Vineyards in Graton.
Banh mi sandwiches prepared by Jamilah Nixon-Mathis, chef and founder of Jam’s Joy Bungalow. (Alvin Jornada/The Press Democrat)
New eateries are coming to Sonoma County, including Jam’s Joy Bungalow, and two secret gems are already here.
Coming soon
Jam’s Joy Bungalow is expanding to downtown Santa Rosa. The pocket-size Sebastopol eatery and food truck is planning a take-away cafe in the former Crossing the Jordan space at the corner of Fourth and B streets across from the Santa Rosa Plaza. The focus will be on sandwiches like the pho dip and Charlie Hustle fried chicken, rice bowls with curry or braised pork belly, salads and sides. Owner Jamilah Nixon-Mathis said she’s also planning to expand their all-day breakfast menu that includes bao buns, jok (rice porridge I’m obsessed with), crispy rice waffles and Spam musubi. The space also will sell snacks, drinks and sundries from around the world. More coming on this as the opening approaches this spring.
Jamilah Nixon at the Jam’s Joy Bungalow food truck at BottleRock 2019. (Heather Irwin/Sonoma Magazine)
Now open
Eagle-eyed fried chicken fans are raving over a hole-in-the-wall cafe called Peak Wings, hidden behind Starbucks in the Southpoint shopping center in Sebastopol. Its saucy sweet chili and Korean hot sauce are its most popular flavor enhancers. The menu also includes multi-pack fried chicken dinners and a small selection of Chinese favorites like spring rolls, dumplings and chow mein. Available for takeout or delivery. 799 Gravenstein Highway S., Sebastopol, 707-827-6086, peakwingssebastopol.com
Freshly made tortillas are a high point of Tortilla Real, a new Jalisco-style taqueria in Petaluma. Chicken tinga, carnitas tostadas and the five-napkin torta ahogada with chile sauce, tomato sauce and shredded pork are best bets. 5 Petaluma Ave., Petaluma, 707-658-1415, tortillareal.com
For those in search of some exercise, time in nature and the perfect shot for their Instagram feed, Sonoma County trails have a lot to offer. From coastal hikes in the west to eastern mountain summits, there’s something for every nature-lover and aspiring photographer. As a reward for the time and effort spent on the trail, we’ve found a few options with a special treat at the end. So lace up those hiking boots, pack your camera (or smartphone) and click through the gallery for eight Sonoma County hikes with spectacular views.
Crab mac and cheese at the Holly and Tali Show at The Casino Bar & Grill in Bodega. (Heather Irwin/Sonoma Magazine)
As tourists crane their necks to see the steeple of Saint Teresa of Avila, made famous by Ansel Adams and the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” they tend to overlook a nondescript old wooden building that leans into the road at the center of Bodega.
Below a faded 7-Up sign, red neon letters label the building “Casino,” leaving most passersby to wonder why a casino sits at the heart of this quiet hamlet just four miles from the coast. Let them wonder.
For more than 100 years, the building — which never has been an actual casino — has stood as a gathering place, a watering hole and a simple roadhouse. Inside, the space is remarkably dark and woody, with creaking floors and an old jukebox in the corner. Glass-eyed deer look down from the walls, silently observing as the decades roll by. It’s not a place begging for attention from hipsters to judge its lineup of craft brews.
The Casino Bar & Grill is a place to discover accidentally and then love unconditionally. And the best time to stop by is for the Holly + Tali Show each Monday through Thursday when local chefs and caterers Holly Carter and Tali Aiona prepare dinner menus reflecting the fields, farms and fish that surround them and exotic flavors that inspire them.
Crab mac and cheese at the Holly and Tali Show at The Casino Bar & Grill. (Heather Irwin / Sonoma Magazine)
To call it a pop-up isn’t quite fair, because the duo have been creating destination-worthy food for nearly six years in a kitchen barely larger than its two-burner stove. Guests are usually locals who — pre-pandemic — popped in to see what was on the menu and sit family-style at candlelit wooden tables with mismatched dishes and silverware. For now, it’s a pre-order and pickup situation that’s less charming but just as delicious. If you’re lucky you’ll catch a glimpse of 94-year-old Evelyn Casini standing behind the bar she’s owned for 71 years.
Carter and Aiona are friends who’ve cooked together for more than 12 years after meeting at the nearby Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where they cooked vegetarian meals for permaculture students and teachers.
“We worked in the most idyllic of settings in a wooden, weathered farmhouse kitchen, dancing to ’90s rap and R&B music at full volume,” Carter said. “We were a show indeed. I know it sounds like we are a television act or something, which believe me, we joke about. But we’re not. Just two gals cooking their hearts out.”
Menus change almost daily, depending on what they’ve secured from nearby producers.
Frequent wedding caterers, they’ve expanded their repertoire during the pandemic by hosting an additional pop-up per month at Americana in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square.
“It keeps us busy and fresh,” Carter said.
Recent menus included such varying dishes as Panizzera sausage and brisket lasagna, orange-olive oil upside-down cake (their baked goods are incredible), Dungeness crab mac and cheese that beats every version I’ve ever had, kale and Brussels sprout salad with prawns, tikka masala, cider-brined pork chops with red lentils and wild salmon with asparagus. Don’t go in with any preconceived ideas. Just let them cook for you.
Like at any good pop-up, you have to work a little to get such amazing food. Menus are posted daily on their Instagram site, @thehollyandtalishow, and you’ll have to call or text your order that morning. Entrees are a la carte, ranging from about $16 to $25 each for generous portions for two. Salads and desserts run about $7 to $12 each.
Carter and Aiona’s pop-ups at Americana, which recently featured a Burmese-inspired meal of tea leaf salad and tom kha soup (so creamy and luxurious), kimchi-braised pot roast and Kaffir lime panna cotta ($75 prix fixe), are also announced on their Instagram site.
Now you know the secret behind that curious place nestled in the one-stoplight town where few take the time to explore.
More details at thehollyandtalishow.com. The Casino Bar & Grill is located at 17000 Bodega Highway, Bodega.
Miracle Plum pickup
This charming neighborhood market near Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square is a treasure trove of exotic ingredients you didn’t know you totally need, immediately. From artisan tahini and umami bullion to organic yuzu furikake dried black trumpet mushrooms, it’s a food fanatic’s playground.
What we love is their new grab-and-go kitchen just down the street. Open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, it includes top noshes such as a smoked chicken and beet salad with farro, toasted walnuts, Pt. Reyes blue cheese and pickled celery ($13.50) and the delicate squash and black lentil salad with pickled mushrooms, beets, farmers cheese and a miso vinaigrette ($12.50). Both salads are plenty big for sharing or nibbling on all afternoon.
My hands-down favorite is the homemade egg salad sandwich on Red Bird Bakery Pullman Bread (my bread happened to be a focaccia that day, $8.50). It was gone before I got home. Also worth trying is Bonnie’s Mom’s Noodle Salad with buckwheat noodles and sesame oil or the Friday special of lemony smashed chickpeas on fresh focaccia ($10).
Owners Sallie Miller and Gwen Gunheim also curate wine and foods made by women for some extra lady-powered goodness. Lunch orders at miracleplum.com, with pickup at 600 Wilson St., Santa Rosa (the former A La Heart Catering). The store is located at 208 Davis St., Santa Rosa.
Belfare Sonoma
There has been a lot of buzz about this Petaluma Farmers Market pop-up featuring ridiculously good (and spicy) fried chicken sandwiches with dill pickles, Cajun cabbage, spicy sesame mayo and Belfare Sonoma’s signature “Belfire” hot sauce. Eastside Petaluma market-goers also can pick up the jalapeño and bacon fried chicken sando with roasted jalapeños, applewood-smoked bacon, barbecue sauce, mayo and American cheese. On the side, add fingerling fries with nori and sesame mayo and Brussels sprouts with ponzu, Asian pear and Cajun spice.
You’ll often find changes and additions on the menu as well as seasonal pantry items (Meyer lemon marmalade!) to keep things interesting. Chef Eric Lowe is also well known for langoustine sandwiches and their beef Wellington, available by pre-order. belfaresonoma.com or @belfaresonoma on Instagram.
Flatbed Farm
Speaking of pop-ups, this Sonoma Valley farm and charming farmstand is a favorite weekend destination for Wine Country visitors and locals looking for fresh eggs, seasonal produce, oils and rustic flower arrangements. Over the next few months, Flatbed Farm also is hosting chef pop-ups including Belfare Sonoma, 25 Lusk in San Francisco and Living Essence, a health-conscious kitchen much loved for their bone broth. Open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays, 13450 Sonoma Hwy 12, Glen Ellen. Keep up to speed @flatbedfarmglenellen or flatbedfarm.com
Petaluma Can’t Seem To Get Enough Pizza: Petaluma has always had great pizzerias — with deep dish, New York-style, wood-fired and Cali-style — but it seems there’s always room for more. The Mad Sicilian recently opened at 203 N. McDowell Blvd. with “grandma-style” square Sicilian pizzas along with Chicago deep dish and thin-crust Napolitana style. They won’t even shame you if you’re a Hawaiian-style lover, because it’s right on the menu. Plus, Zimi, slated to open soon, will take up residence at The Block and serve wood-fired Napolitana-style pizzas with a crispy char and locally sourced ingredients. We’re looking forward to more details, so stay tuned.
Montage’s Hazel Hill Opens: The luxury resort hotel has finally opened to the public after months of shelter-in-place orders and with it the outdoor dining experience at the Hazel Hill. Views of the Alexander Valley are breathtaking from the large outdoor patio space, but the menu is evolving. Mixologist Scott Beattie prepared us a cocktail for the ages with Japanese whiskey and fresh yuzu from his backyard. Meanwhile, the resort wine and liquor list runs 25 pages, to please just about any price point. More to come on this one. 100 Montage Way, Healdsburg, montagehotels.com/healdsburg
Khom Loi Now Open: Ramen Gaijin owners have teamed with Lowell Sheldon (formerly of Peter Lowell’s) to open an authentic Thai restaurant inspired by Moishe Hahn-Schuman’s extensive travels in the southeast Asian country. The Plaa Thawt Lat Prik (whole crispy fried rock cod) is a favorite, with a lightly battered exterior studded by spicy tamarind and bird chili sauce. The outdoor dining experience is lit by bamboo lanterns for a romantic rendezvous. Dishes are finding their way quickly as the soft opening continues. Reservations highly suggested at khomloisonoma.com. 7385 Healdsburg Ave., Sebastopol.
A hospital worker poses for a quick picture with celebrity chef Guy Fieri at Memorial Hospital on Wednesday. Fieri brought family, friends and his 48-foot Guy’s Smokehouse Stagecoach mobile kitchen to feed first responders and hospital workers lunch. (photo by John Burgess/The Press Democrat).
A historic Ferndale meat business will live to cleave another steak, thanks to Guy Fieri.
According to the Ferndale Enterprise, the newspaper’s publisher alerted Fieri that the building was for sale for $299,299. The “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” host bought the building the next day.
Fieri noted that the business means more to locals than simply a spot to buy pork chops or a deli sandwich, citing its importance to 4-H and FFA students, along with hunters in the region. Ferndale Meat Company is one of only a handful of butchers in rural Northern California counties and is constantly busy.
Fieri said he doesn’t plan to change a thing, and will leave operations to the current owner, Butcher Curt Terribilini.
The North Sonoma Mountain Trail winds through North Sonoma Mountain Regional Park and Open Space Preserve, with a view of Bennett Valley, in Santa Rosa on Tuesday, April 25, 2017. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)
Award-winning wineries and restaurants might be what Sonoma County is best known for, but living in Wine Country has a long list of perks. One of them is the dozens of parks and open spaces that are scattered throughout the region. From strolling along quiet beaches to hiking in the shade of majestic redwoods, you can do it all here. And if you’re willing to venture a bit off the beaten path, you can avoid the crowds and have nature to yourself — even on a warm and sunny day. Click through the gallery above for four of our favorite Sonoma County parks off the beaten path.
Interior design trend predictions for 2021 have one thing in common: they highlight the mixing of old and new as a way to achieve a fresh look as we continue to spend more time at home. Straight-from-the-showroom style is giving way to styling with vintage and antique items, blended with newer elements to create a collected and balanced look. Concerns about manufacturing’s impact on the planet are also driving this trend: fast fashion is out, while well-made artisan and sustainable style is in.
Petaluma ceramicist Forrest Lesch-Middelton of FLM Ceramics employs a creative process that checks many of the boxes of this new—yet old—design trend. He extrudes tiles and hand-throws tea pots, bowls and plates and covers these in intricate designs using his own screen-printing technique, called Volumetric Image Transfer. This technique allows him to transfer screen printed pattern and imagery onto the surface of each object while they are still wet. He shapes the vessels from the inside only on the wheel, in order to not disturb the pattern. The result is contemporary fine art decor that references Old World style.
Lesch-Middelton likes to work with clay for its sustainable qualities.
“Clay is unbeatable as a material,” he said. “It’s the most readily available material on earth. You play with it in its plastic state, decorate and fire it, and it turns to stone.”
The Petaluma ceramist is inspired by 12th-17th century Turkish and Persian patterns and designs and the syncretism in art and crafts brought about by trade along the Silk Road, a network of trade routes that connected Asia, Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Using modern techniques, he creates functional ceramics and tile that reference this period, as well as Islamic architecture and history and “modern themes of globalism.”
“It speaks to history,” said Lesch-Middelton about his particular style. The New York Times wrote in 2013 that his ceramics “look like the products of an ancient civilization whose people proudly insisted on being buried with their dishware.”
While drawing inspiration from the past, there’s also a futuristic strain in Lesch-Middelton’s work. For example, he uses a flat sheet of metal, or a Chladni plate, covered with sand to create patterns for his tiles from sound waves.
The Chladni plate or technique was invented in the late 18th century by German physicist and musician Ernst Chladni to visualize the effects of vibrations on mechanical surfaces. Lesch-Middelton adds an avant-garde element by using a signal generator that generates sine, square and triangle sound waves through a wave driver (a special type of speaker) to create geometric configurations in the sand.
Lesch-Middelton collaborates with his partner Beth Schaible and an apprentice to create the tiles. Schaible, a letterpress printer, lends her calligraphy to some of the pieces. The trio works out of their community studio, Petaluma Pottery, and collaborates with interior designers to get their tiles into people’s home. They also sell directly to customers via the FLM Ceramics website. Their tiles have been used by customers on floors, stairs and fireplaces and as backsplashes. Projects have ranged in size from a row of just 10 tiles over an antique sink at a Texas boutique hotel to covering the floors of eight rooms in a local home.
Filling large orders definitely requires discipline — as each tile is made by hand — but Lesch-Middelton knows it comes with the territory of being a dedicated artist in this particular line of work. And even the repetitive process of creating one tile after the next can yield new inspiration and a new way of looking at the creative process.
“Sometimes your best discoveries come on your 10,000th tile,” he said.
Lesch-Middelton’s sees “discovery” as an integral part of any creative endeavor. From the curiosity and wonder of the beginner through the process of learning by doing to the effort of constantly refining one’s craft, discovery is a process the artist needs to remain open to, he says.
“Eventually, if we are lucky, we make it through all of this to a place beyond trying, learning and doing— to a place of being. Soetsu Yanagi (a Japanese art critic and philosopher) refers to this place as a space where objects are ‘born, not made.’ It’s a place where sometimes, on your 10,000th tile, you may be open enough to see beyond what your hands made and be affected anew. Our best work comes from that place, and maybe every once in a while I am lucky enough to glimpse and create the product of that place.”
One of the many advantages to living in Sonoma County is having easy access to dozens of beautiful parks and thousands of miles of hiking trails. From taking in ocean views on coastal paths to hiking through Redwood forests and exploring botanical gardens, Sonoma County has something for every type of hiker. The Sonoma Valley corridor on Highway 12 in Kenwood and Glen Ellen includes several hiking destinations that each offer visitors something a little different. Click through the gallery above for four of our favorite hikes in Sonoma Valley.
