The natural world has work to do in January and February. But it can go unheralded by those of us who take the black bear’s view of winter: a time to hunker down in stasis. In any case these months represent — and hopefully deliver — the depths of winter, when creeks and aquifers fill, and plants and animals recharge for spring’s explosion. Click through the above gallery for details.
We do it in the wine world, why not spirits, too? Nearly all of Sonoma County’s distilleries offer club memberships that come with a variety of perks, such as discounts and first access to limited production bottles. And, with the pandemic making in-store shopping a little more difficult, home delivery seems like a compelling way to keep you in good spirits while supporting local, family-owned businesses. From mystery boxes and cocktail kits to seasonal spirits and drinks that make you feel like you’re on the beach, local distilleries are delivering their very best right to your doorstep. Click through the gallery above for some of the best distillery clubs in Wine Country.
Art exhibits are one of the many things that have been put on hold during the pandemic. But Napa Valley artist William Callnan III is determined to cheer up the public by exhibiting his quirky and colorful mixed media pieces. This Saturday, a “Covid-safe” solo show of his works opens at CAMi Art + Wine in downtown Calistoga. (To keep visitors safe and maintain proper social distancing, reservations are required via the CAMi website.)
Callnan’s upcoming exhibit will introduce art lovers to an inimitable style, which utilizes everyday objects, like toys, in the artist’s creations of fantastical three dimensional oil paintings. The Napa Valley artist wants art viewers to not only “feel like a kid again” but also get a “sense of wow”. He envisions that patrons of the exhibit will become “moving viewers” as they discover his three dimensional pieces from constantly changing, multiple perspectives.
The show at CAMi Art + Wine will comprise 12 pieces, including two of Callnan’s most recent works. “Social Distance,” depicts a forest scene with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse-style furniture; “Keep Swimming,” depicts a phantasmagoric sundial: giant rubber duck in center; soft baby toys forming its circumference.
Callnan likes the idea of viewers interacting with his art.
“One of the things that always struck me with painting is that you create this portal, but I think (the viewers) are always going to be able to make better portals,” he said. “How amazing would it be if you could go up to the Mona Lisa and change her smile?”
CAMi owner Laurie Shelton, also an artist, likewise enjoys the interactive element of Callnan’s art.
“Will’s work is colorful and different and explosive and exciting — the show will be the perfect way to kick off the new year and let go of 2020,” she said. “People need art right now, they need food for their souls.”
Callnan, a native of Vermont, does all his 3-D painting in his garage—what could be a more fitting place to paint for an artist who utilizes discarded objects for artistic repurpose. In addition to creating mixed-media paintings, he operates NBC pottery with his wife Nikki Ballere Callnan.
Working out of an expansive studio on their back lot, the Callnans create custom ceramics for luxury restaurants and resorts in Wine Country and beyond. These projects have included plates and bowls for chefs Christopher Kostow and Thomas Keller and ceramic products for the new Montage luxury resort in Healdsburg. Before the pandemic, the couple also taught ceramic classes at Nimbus Arts in St. Helena.
Incessantly hard at his artistic work, Callnan was particularly prolific during last year’s LNU Complex Fire. With his family safely evacuated, he opted to stay behind with local artist friends to paint in their barn studio. When Callnan returned to his garage from his friend’s barn over a week later, he carried with him half a dozen haunting paintings depicting the lightning and the flames. (None of Callnan’s fire paintings will be featured in the CAMi show — Shelton had requested that the pieces exhibited this time be “happy” and steer away from the traumas of 2020.)
Shelton notes that she has taken every precaution to make the CAMi art show as Covid-safe as possible. Guests must register in advance via Tock, a ticketing system platform, for a 30-minute window. No more than seven guests are allowed inside the tasting room at any given time. Face masks are required and, to allow proper air circulation, the windows to the tasting room will be open and an air purifier installed.
Under the conditions of the current public health order in Napa County, CAMi is not allowed to pour wine to guests. But visitors to the art show will be able to purchase wine in the tasting room, as well as snacks, to bring home with them.
As of now, the exhibit is scheduled to end Tuesday, February 9, but Shelton said she may keep Callnan’s work on the walls through Valentine’s Day. Callnan and Shelton will be available most days to engage with visitors and answer questions, and Callnan says he is open to extending the exhibition.
“I’m just happy people get to see my art,” he said. “It’s certainly something you remember.”
“Even once we get past this, how long will it take for those of us who like to hug people hello or goodbye to feel comfortable hugging?” asks Trebuchet guitarist Eliott Whitehurst.
It’s a fair question. Last year was a challenging one on many fronts, including big life changes for the members of the Petaluma band. Drummer Paul Haile and keyboardist Lauren Haile, the married couple in the group, became parents. Lauren Haile experienced unexplained hearing loss, which has caused her to adapt to different ways of performing. And live music came to a halt across Sonoma County as the coronavirus closed venues. All of this meant a longer- than-expected break before the recent release of the band’s third album, “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
Distance is a tough adjustment for a group so driven by their community. Over the years, Trebuchet has performed at countless local gigs and recorded with well-known North Bay musicians, including the Santa Rosa Young People’s Chamber Orchestra. They’ve played at notable festivals like BottleRock in Napa and Noise Pop Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco, and in 2019 they won Creative Sonoma’s “Next Level Grant,’ partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and intended to help local musicians advance in their careers.
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” is a perfect example of the community spirit that powers the band. A look at the album credits shows at least a dozen names of other Sonoma creatives who contributed to the project. “We had friends that recorded strings, friends that recorded brass—even with the artwork, it was all friends who contributed,” Whitehurst says.
“It was really cool, almost a community effort to get it done,” guitarist Navid Manoochehri adds.
The four bandmates met while studying music at Sonoma State University in the early 2000s. Playing together as students was a way to create a type of music their instructors could not teach. Thoughtful lyrics laced with graceful piano notes, power-packed drums, and intricate guitar riffs are hallmarks. At times a little melancholy, the music is always heartfelt and cathartic. “Sometimes I look back and think, this is so much emotion-wise, how dense the music is,” says Paul Haile. “It has a lot of weight.”
True to form, the record has a contemplative feel. This includes the title track, in which Whitehurst reflects on his dismay over the direction of the world and his decision not to have a child. “Anyone who’s at childbearing age or over a certain age has thought of all of the things in that song,” Lauren Haile says.
“SFCA” tackles the rising cost of living and the difficulty of making ends meet in the Bay Area. And “23” addresses the 2017 wildfires. Whitehurst explains he needed to take time to mentally process the devastation of the fires before he sat down to write. “It wasn’t super on-thenose about how horrific the fires were, but this was a huge thing that affected everyone around us,” he says.
Lauren Haile explains that while the music was recorded before the coronavirus pandemic, it resonates with this moment: “I know very few people who are navigating the world right now without an additional personal tragedy, whether it’s someone in your family or you yourself. Everyone’s feeling extraordinary stress on top of the global stress. We just need each other.”
Trebuchet recorded the album at a studio in Petaluma founded by two members of the band. They waited a while to release it but eventually realized there might never be an ideal time. “It was just like, ‘let’s just get this record out there,’ ” says Lauren Haile. “The album is called ‘It’s fine, I’m fine,’ and it feels more appropriate now than ever.”
Lindsay Wallstrum isn’t your typical plant enthusiast. As the owner of a small company that focuses on designing with houseplants, she is on a mission to bring more life into people’s homes in the form of thoughtfully chosen interior greenery. That mission is brought to life in the verdant Petaluma cottage she shares with her husband, Kyle, and their two dogs, Zeus and Lolo. With smart DIY projects and an impressive posse of plants, the couple has transformed the home into a cozy space that offers the couple a literal breath of fresh air.
Lindsay initially began collecting plants when she wanted to beautify her space and was having trouble finding art she liked. “I have an extremely hard time choosing art and found that plants served as art pieces on many a blank wall,” she says. When friends and family visited — oohing and aahing over her plants, telling her how much of a green thumb they didn’t have — she realized that what came naturally to her didn’t come as easily to others. In 2018, Lindsay started her plant design company, Leaf + Lolo, while keeping a day job in merchandising and marketing for a sportswear company. Just last year, as requests rolled in, she made the leap to working with plants full time.
Lindsay finds tending plants rewarding and therapeutic. The proof is found in every nook and cranny now inhabited by her colossal plant collection, 125 strong and counting. “I love the beauty, peace, and serenity they bring to a space. Caring for plants has taught me patience and how to slow down. It’s allowed me to truly be in the moment and witness another form of life and growth.”
Lindsay and her husband have made a number of upgrades to their home, including new floors and paint, stenciling the risers of her stairs, remodeling the bathroom, and stripping the beams in the dining area, all accomplished on their own as their time and energy allowed. “Before we moved in, the first thing to go was the carpet,” laughs Lindsay.
“This might sound crazy, but when choosing our floors, we brought along a tuft of dog fur, hoping to find one that helped camouflage the fur.” And they did indeed find a hardwood laminate design they could install themselves that hides the black and white fur explosions from their two dogs.
Choosing paint wasn’t quite as easy. While they appreciate vivid colors, Lindsay and Kyle both felt that brighter shades would be too energizing for their space. “I find that the serenity of neutrals and texture calms me,” explains Lindsay. So they went neutral, with a soft, light gray throughout the entire 2,100-square-foot space. “I thought I was being so strategic by painting before we laid our new floor,” she says. “But the joke was on me, because fast-forward a few years, and I craved bright, white walls.” They ended up repainting the entire house a crisp white and, despite the extra work, they loved the results.
The dining and living spaces reveal the couple’s flair for a beachy, eclectic California style — a style mixed with plenty of indoor-jungle vibes. Against the white walls, the furniture and accessories incorporate plenty of greens, of course, but also neutral tones and textures accented with soft blush colors. It’s a mix that Lindsay says directly reflects the couple’s love of the beach and its laid-back lifestyle.
Lindsay and Kyle’s most recent home project involved stripping a large beam in their dining room from painted white back to its natural wood tones.
They thought the project would take only a weekend, but as with so many things in these pandemic times, it took much longer. “We spent every free moment up on the ladder. It ended up taking a week to complete and what felt like a week to clean up all the dust. But now the wood beam really adds warmth and character to the space and draws your eye upwards.”
It’s just one more example of Lindsay’s balanced, centered approach, both to design and to life in general. If there’s a part of your home you don’t love, take small steps toward changing it.
Even though she’s a professional, Lindsay admits that keeping plants thriving can sometimes be a finicky proposition. Everyone loses plants sometimes, she says. “I try to use it as a learning experience.” For more information on Lindsay Wallstrom’s inteior plant business, visit leafandlolo.com.
• Avoid over-watering.This is one of the most common ways to kill a plant.
• Give your plants (and you) a self-care day. Wipe down leaves, check for pests, and spend time taking in their beauty.
• Go for trailing plants, such as philodendron and lemon-lime pothos. They look amazing on shelves or trailing along a wall.
• Adjust water and placement based on the season. Plants will likely need less water in winter months. And they might need to be shifted to a slightly different spot based on where the sun hits during different times of year.
• Try hanging plants for a different look. Rustic, textured macrame hangers are a popular look right now and convey a beachy California feel.
One of the most exciting new restaurants in Sonoma County launched with a dream and two well-invested stimulus checks.
Chef Stéphane Saint Louis, who has worked in some of the world’s top kitchens, said he and business partner Chef Steven Vargas invested their pandemic stimulus checks into electric car company Tesla as a last resort when they realized their SBA loans simply weren’t going to be available to them during difficult restaurant times.
A $2,400 investment turned into a $17,000 windfall that’s launched not only a forthcoming mobile kitchen but a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Petaluma. You might say Tesla put them on the road to success.
Table Culture Provisions started quietly, popping up a night or two a week at Petaluma’s Wishbone restaurant and serving fried chicken. It caught my attention in early September as a word-of-mouth recommendation from a few locals. Then the menus and the hours expanded and started getting really interesting — a Haitian feast, classic French dishes like cassoulet, dry-aged steaks, trout en croute and upscale brunch dishes including an insane Monte Cristo. Mentions of brioche, homemade pomegranate raspberry jam and delicate crosscut potato chips with onion dip made it even more impossible to resist.
And so it went, gaining steam as Saint Louis and Vargas tempted fans with their seductive Instagram feed, @tcprovisions. Fair warning, it’s not recommended on an empty stomach.
In early January, the duo purchased Wishbone, which owners Miriam Donaldson and Josh Norwitt put up for sale in 2019. What’s so special about the sale is the through-line of unfettered creativity, obsessive locality and a passion for of-the-moment ingredients that will continue at the Petaluma space Donaldson and Norwitt so carefully cultivated. Serendipity? Maybe.
Saint Louis, 34, and Vargas, 28, met at Della Fattoria, a launchpad for many restaurant careers, then later worked together as executive and sous chefs for a few years at the Shuckery, my favorite Petaluma seafood spot. Donaldson knew Saint Louis from Della, they reconnected late last summer and, voilà, the Table Culture Provisions pop-up was born as a way to make a little extra money for the long-term goal of buying a mobile kitchen.
A New York-born world traveler, Saint Louis speaks with a hint of a French accent after having lived in Haiti for 17 years. He moved to Northern California in his late teens, attended the California Culinary Academy, then worked at restaurants in Palm Springs, Miami, Petaluma and Sonoma. He moved to France to study at the Paul Bocuse Institute, parlaying that into stints in Shanghai and Copenhagen. Vargas is a Santa Rosa Junior College culinary graduate who Saint Louis recruited to work with him at Della Fattoria.
Table Culture Provisions is open Thursday through Sunday. The menu can change daily, depending on what’s in season and available locally. Visit the restaurant’s website to see what’s offered currently.
On a recent Sunday, Saint Louis sat down to talk about fried chicken, their vision for the future and a shared passion for world cuisine.
Saint Louis: Fried chicken for us was strategic. We believe in our product and in the care and thought of how we source things. In the pandemic, we were asking, ‘What do people really like and can do at home but don’t want to because it’s too messy?’ Really, it was us playing it safe and getting our feet wet. We knew how to put that together.
Saint Louis: We literally come up with the menu the day of, once I call and see what Green String Farms or our fish seller has in the inventory. Then we really go at it and put the menus together.
Saint Louis: Happy belly, happy mind. We know how crazy the world is and how fast it changes, and we always had this mentality that we didn’t want to settle or be part of the chaos of the world. So while everything was happening (during the pandemic), we still had to feed people and Petaluma has a refined palate. We wanted to be here and do comfort food, things we like to cook and eat with (the) best ingredients in a 25- to 50-mile radius from us.
It’s just about cooking for people, having fun and having visions and dreams of where our career can take us.
Saint Louis: I have all this experience living in other countries, from Haiti to California to France and even in Shanghai. I went to Shanghai as a manager, overseeing 40 Chinese students and teaching them to cook the fundamentals of French cuisine. The trade-in there was learning about Asian cuisine. In Copenhagen, there was a lot happening with Noma and Geranium (restaurants). I was at a small one-Michelin star restaurant, but they did fundamental Danish cuisine. Also, my wife is Polish and my partner is Mexican, so we’re navigating through so many different cultures.
Saint Louis: My mom and auntie live here, but they have a school in Haiti. It was in shambles after (the) earthquake (in 2010). They are making their dollars here and funding the school. For the longest time I wasn’t able to financially invest and help out, but as soon as I had this platform, I thought about showing appreciation for them having my back. In December we did a Haitian dinner with all proceeds going to the school.
Overall: This tiny pop-up punches far outside its weight class with passion, creativity and classic techniques, making it one of the best and brightest openings in Sonoma County.
841 Petaluma Blvd. S., Petaluma, 707-796-3375, tcprovision.com. Currently open for takeout only, Thursday through Sunday. Brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., marketplace 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., dinner from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“Shane who?” I said, when invited to taste “Shane’s wines” a few years ago.
“You know, Shane Finley. Former winemaker for Kosta Browne, Lynmar Estate, Paul Hobbs. He now has his own brand.”
I didn’t know then, but quickly learned, that Finley is one of Sonoma County’s most talented winemakers. His track record at some of the region’s most acclaimed wineries might suggest his name would be widely recognized, yet he’s worked largely under wraps, and humbly, for proprietors smart enough to put their wines in his hands while collecting the kudos themselves.
Finley has emerged from relative obscurity with his own Shane Wines brand, for which he produces luscious, energetic pinot noirs from Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast vineyards ($42) and a mouthwatering pinot noir rosé from the Sonoma Coast ($17). A second label, Constant Disruptions, allows Finley to fiddle with zinfandel, syrah and other varietals that satisfy his urge to experiment. He continues to enjoy the process of producing wines for others: Al and Lisa Brayton’s Thirty-Seven Wines in southern Sonoma and AldenAlli, a collaboration of Kosta Browe co-founder Dan Kosta and star chef Emeril Lagasse’s wife, Alden.
“I’ve always had the desire to be my own boss. It’s exciting to conceptualize a wine from vineyard to bottle to the consumer and execute the plan on your own,” Finley said of establishing his own brand. “My own wines are part of my identity. They’re an extension of who I am and a catalog of my winemaking progression.”
Finley, who lives with his family in Sebastopol and makes his wines at custom-crush facilities, is one of many under-the-radar Sonoma winemakers worth knowing. Without their own winemaking facilities, tasting rooms and marketing budgets, they rely on word-of-mouth, wine clubs, virtual tastings and grit to remain in business as pandemic restrictions enter an 11th month and selling wine continues to be difficult for the little guys. Large producers still have supermarket and big-box stores as distribution channels. Finley, with a typical annual production of 1,500 cases of Shane Wines, and his small-volume colleagues are on their own.
“I’m a one-person operation; I have to be able to pivot from the cellar to the vineyard to sales to marketing to shipping to admin, etc.,” he explained. “I make the wine, but I also have to sell it, market it, pay for it and keep the operation running. You have to be more than proficient in all these areas to operate a small brand.”
Shane Wines, 415-342-7926, shanewines.com
Finley is not alone. These winemakers are in similar boats, though rowing with varying techniques:
Married couple Cecilia Enriquez and Dana von Sternberg share a Forestville home and vineyard estate, yet they don’t collaborate on wine brands, at least not officially. Enriquez is proprietor/president/winemaker at Enriquez Estate Wines, which her New Jersey-based family established in 2011, first with a vineyard purchase in the Petaluma Gap and later by acquiring Mac McDonald’s Vision Cellars vineyard on Eastside Road in the Russian River Valley.
At her Petaluma Gap vineyard, Enriquez embraced tempranillo, which grows remarkably well in the cool, windy conditions there. Her family sold the vineyard yet continues to purchase tempranillo from there. The former Vision Cellars site gives her vibrant pinot noir grapes, and nearby growers supply fruit for her crisp, dry muscat and Brisa white blend, each given two years or so of bottle age.
Von Sternberg, a co-owner of Vokel Cellars, focuses on cool-climate chardonnays and pinot noirs — most of them vineyard-designated — and a robust yet chiseled Dry Creek Valley merlot. The couple’s individual-brand annual case production is in the hundreds, not thousands, and online and wine-club sales drive both businesses. Private tastings at the Eastside Road barn were successful before the pandemic and will resume when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
“We pivoted to virtual-tasting packages that we ship nationwide, and we’ve also been getting creative with virtual wine and food experiences for locals,” Enriquez said. “We’ve partnered with chefs on brunches, with one for Valentine’s Day that includes flowers, paella and a bottle of wine. For those not local, Dana and I do a husband-and-wife virtual tasting package that includes a bottle each of our wines as well as a dessert box.”
All in the drive to stay relevant, and in business.
5960 Eastside Road, Forestville, 707-347-9719, enriquezwines.com, vokelcellars.com
Martha Stoumen makes her wines at Pax Mahle Winery at The Barlow in Sebastopol and has won an avid following for what she doesn’t do to the juice.
Stoumen is a local face for natural wines, those produced with as little human intervention as possible. That typically means organically grown grapes, no commercial yeasts for fermentation and little, if any, post-fermentation stabilizers or enzymes. The Sebastopol native does add small amounts of sulfur to her wines as a preservative — otherwise, they’d turn to vinegar — but the goal is for her wines to reflect the place they were grown, without masking the character of the grapes.
Stoumen’s Nero d’Avola red wine comes from the warm interior of Mendocino County. There is also a sparkling zinfandel, unusual blends and a more traditionally styled petite sirah. Like many “natural” wines (there is no official definition for the term), a Stoumen wine occasionally has a funky note, and she’s OK with that. It’s what a vineyard gives her.
With myriad grape varieties in her repertoire, all viticultural regions considered and a devoted following of younger wine drinkers eager to embrace the unconventional, Stoumen is a rising star, though like other small producers, she needs to stay on her game. That takes patience.
“Patience in the vineyard means composting rather than adding synthetic fertilizers, allowing predatory insects the ability to outcompete pests rather than spraying insecticides and doing proper handwork, such as pruning for vine longevity rather than high yields,” she said.
“Patience in the cellar means letting the natural yeast and bacteria present on the grape skins perform fermentation and allowing longer macerations and aging to provide stability rather than using added tannin, acid or stabilizing agents in my wines.”
The formula works for Stoumen and for those intrigued by the so-called natural-wine movement in Sonoma.
6780 McKinley St., Sebastopol, 707-331-1393, marthastoumen.com
Tom Mackey couldn’t help himself. Following his retirement in 2011, after 40 years as founding/chief winemaker at Sonoma Valley’s St. Francis Winery & Vineyards, he realized he needed to keep his hands dirty — with vineyard soil, grape-acid etchings and inky black juice.
Not one to spend hours on a golf course, Mackey partnered with zinfandel fanatic and geologist Clyde Galantine to create Tom Mackey Cellars (Graham Parnell would later become a partner), with the purpose of producing cabernet sauvignon, merlot and zinfandel from the Sonoma Valley vineyards Mackey knew best. So much for his retirement.
Their Montecillo Vineyard zinfandels and cabernet sauvignons come from old vines ($30-$40), and the Sirius Sonoma Valley Red Blend ($46) won the best of class award at the 2020 Sonoma County Harvest Fair. The wines are not flashy nor exotic. They are honest drinks that are varietally correct, fairly priced and made in a style Mackey wants to enjoy.
“I (was energized) to make wines I wanted to make, with no one bearing down on me to meet a particular criteria,” he said of founding Tom Mackey Cellars.
At 450 cases or so of wine production a year, Mackey is just fine with his new business model, though it doesn’t come without challenges.
“2020 was the first time in 43 years I didn’t have a vintage,” he said of the season in which wildfire smoke tainted grapes to the point they weren’t harvested. He produced no wine from 2020, and the loss in sales cut deeply into the bottom line for this small producer with no tasting room and no avenue to restaurant sales while eateries remain open for takeout only.
Still, Galantine said, Tom Mackey Cellars has found some success selling to local retailers, among them Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa and Oliver’s Market stores in Cotati, Santa Rosa and Windsor.
“COVID (canceled) tasting events, at which we won new customers,” Galantine said. “Tom was known as the ‘merlot master’ at St. Francis. He was at the back end of the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers organization for years. To have him at the table at tasting events, pouring the wines, helped get us recognized.”
Without that exposure — at least for the time being — Tom Mackey Cellars and other micro-winery brands in Sonoma have to work hard to sell their wines in extraordinarily unusual times. Yet it’s an opportunity for consumers to spend their money where their hearts are.
707-548-5032, tommackeycellars.com
Order takeout from an international slate of chefs, enjoy wild yeast sourdough bread from at Quail and Condor and more news from the local dining scene.
A quick update from Rob Lippincott, chef/owner of The Parish Cafe. While the downtown Santa Rosa location has sold and will reopen under a new concept, the Healdsburg flagship will return from a hiatus when stay-home restrictions are lifted. We’re glad for the news, as our beignet cravings are getting serious! Stay tuned for more details.
Bakery superstars Melissa Yanc and Sean McGaughey have quietly opened a small storefront at 149 Healdsburg Ave. in Healdsburg. The couple are known for their wild yeast sourdough and hearty dark loaves (walnut persimmon is our fave), but their sweet pastries — croissants and filled Danish, also made with sourdough — are worth the trip alone. Yanc, a former chef at Single Thread, won $25,000 on the 2019 Food Network Holiday Baking Championship, and the couple raised more than $20,000 from crowdsourcing for their bakery build-out last year. The bakery, currently open on Saturday and Sunday, also features Black Oak coffee and espresso. Follow their delicious Instagram @quailandcondor.
Speaking of Single Thread, an international group of chefs working at the Michelin-starred restaurant is offering a series of takeout meals inspired by their backgrounds in Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Cuba and Oaxaca, along with regional American dishes from Maryland and New Orleans. We tried the Colombian dinner from Chef Camila Salazar Gomez that included caramelized plantains, seafood stew, chicken and rice and passion-fruit palomas. It was one of the best takeout meals we’ve had. The Single Thread team plans to continue the dinners through the end of the stay-home order. You can find more details about the meals at singlethreadfarms.com.
Epicurean Connection in Sonoma has brought back their butter bar, perfect for pairing with some Quail and Condor bread. You can order Meyer lemon butter, curry mango and zaatar Meyer lemon butter or maple butter, along with plenty of tasty pantry items and dishes prepared weekly, like miso green garlic and tatsoi soup, arugula pesto cheese tortellini and Creme de Fromage crepes with honey-orange blossom marmalade at the epicureanconnection.com or by calling 707-235-9530.
A new year, and so many delicious new restaurants — and restaurants slated for later in the year — on our radar. Here are a few that we’ll be checking out soon, or as soon as outdoor dining returns. Some of these restaurants are still in the works. Much depends on the lifting of the stay-home order, so it’s unclear exactly when these restaurants will open — hopefully in the coming months. Click through the above gallery for details.
Gardening is always in season in Sonoma, thanks to ideal growing conditions and inspiration from the bustling agricultural scene. Now that the stay-at-home-blues is upon us again, and spring is nearing, it’s time to get those hands back in the dirt.
Last year, 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. Soil, seeds and plant starts quickly sold out. So whether you’re looking to refresh the victory garden you started last spring or are a first-time gardener, get started early before supplies run out. Click through the above gallery for a few Sonoma County stores with the buys to inspire your efforts.
