Carbonara pizza with crispy guanciale, Yukon gold potatoes, poached farm egg, Pecorino Romano at Wit & Wisdom in Sonoma. (Heather Irwin/Sonoma Magazine)
I blame the agnolotti. Those delicious little pillows of al dente pasta filled with caponatina — a Sicilian mix of eggplant, caper and olives — sitting in a pond of tomato water and creamy, melty Parmesan have tongue-tied me so thoroughly I’m afraid Chef Michael Mina thinks me a silly hayseed.
Hey, you try to say “agnolotti” or “caponatina” with any authority when a multi-Michelin starred celebrity chef with some 30 restaurants worldwide casually stops by your table on a steamy Tuesday night at his new Sonoma restaurant, Wit & Wisdom.
“Oh, ah, oh! Chef! I love the anlotti. Angliota. Angolia. The cappynota. Capota…ca…,” I mumble with my mouth full.
He looks confused, like maybe I need some medical help. Someone please save me. General Manager Seth Johnson comes to my rescue. “The agnolotti, chef,” he says. Mina’s eyes crinkle like he’s smiling, but it’s hard to tell under the mask. It might be a grimace. I consider climbing under the table.
Tomato, tomahto. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. And he knows it.
Caponatina Angolotti with tomato water glaze, capers and Parmesan fonduta at Wit & Wisdom in Sonoma. (Heather Irwin / The Press Democrat)
The agnolotti is not the only near-perfect dish on the table that night. Every single bite is better than the next, be it Liberty Farms black pepper duck wings or Carbonara Pizza with a soft-boiled egg, black pepper and a Pecorino cheese sauce mixed tableside and poured over the hot pizza.
Mina’s first Wine Country restaurant, recently opened at the Lodge at Sonoma, is so top-to-bottom exceptional, it’s easy to feel a little provincial. Mina and his team are professionals in a Big Fish, Big Pond kind of way, with critically-acclaimed restaurants in Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, Dubai, Seattle and Mina’s home stomping grounds of San Francisco (where he has nine restaurants).
Suffice it to say the MINA group has the immense financial backing, top tier talent and the ability to get everything dialed in right out of the gate because they’ve done it 30-plus times and counting.
Trust me, I didn’t want to totally love it as much as I did, because it’s easy to discount someone like Mina as an outsider who doesn’t understand Wine Country cuisine.
Wrong. He does.
With a legit menu that sources (mostly) locally, there’s not much to poo-poo — except the Olympia Provisions charcuterie plate. Which, while amazing, doesn’t use local charcuterie. That’s honestly my biggest gripe.
“We couldn’t open some of our other restaurants,” Mina says of the pandemic restrictions. “But we wanted to open here.”
Roasted heirloom carrots with vadouvan yogurt, piquillo pepper, walnuts and tangerine vinaigrette at Wit & Wisdom in Sonoma. (Heather Irwin / The Press Democrat)Duck fat fried potato wedges with whipped ranch dip at Wit & Wisdom in Sonoma. (Heather Irwin / The Press Democrat)
Truly it has been a winding road to get the restaurant open at the former Carneros Bistro. More than a year ago, rumors started buzzing about a possible Mina concept. It wasn’t until June that the restaurant seemed to be a sure thing, finally opening in mid-September.
With a large, enclosed outdoor dining area, Wit & Wisdom has plenty of socially-distanced tables. Diners are encouraged to use digital menus accessed by a QR code (though paper menus are available).
A pleasant surprise are the prices, with many dishes under $15 and solid entrees like the pastas under $20. You can gild the lily with higher-end dishes like the Lobster and Black Truffle pot pie ($84), but in general, we were pleasantly surprised by the affordability.
There’s a robust spirit program, with creative cocktails like the Hummingbird ($13) made with mezcal, elderflower liqueur, lemon and passion fruit. The wine list is spectacular and runs 20 pages, as one might expect, with both trophy wines and more approachable sippers. By-the-glass selections don’t disappoint, and we loved a recommendation for a German pinot noir (Enderle & Moll Liaison, Baden, DEU 2016) with soft fruit notes that worked perfectly with the, uh, pasta pillows. Yeah, let’s call them that.
Best Bets
The menu runs two pages for dinner, and recently brunch was added. This is only a small sampling of the dishes.
Savory Pop Tart, $12: You’ll get the joke. A rectangle of crisp puff pastry hides a filling of savory pulled short rib. Accessorized with crispy onions, horseradish cream and flecks of red peppercorn. No toaster needed.
Liberty Farms Duck Wings, $14: Orange peel scented, caramelized duck “wings” are more like duck drumettes. Moist confit-style meat with a crispy Grand Marnier glazed. “Made my knees buckle a little,” said my husband, eating the leftovers.
Roasted Heirloom Carrots, $11: The prettiest dish on the menu. Multicolored carrots are roasted to a sweet softness, piled high with Vadouvan-spiced yogurt, pomegranate seeds, a pool of piquillo pepper sauce and tangerine vinaigrette. Flavor-boosted!
Caponatina Agnolotti, $17: This dish is so good it’s going to land somewhere near the top of my Best of 2020 dishes. It’s not about a single note, but a harmony of light tomato water, carby al dente pasta, restrained caponatina and salty cheese. Just amazing.
Liberty Farms Duck Breast, $32: Not your usual cherry-glaze sweet on sweet take. We like the more savory presentation of medium rare duck atop mustard creamed cabbage. Sadly the poached pears didn’t add a lot, but the pomegranate jus brought the whole thing together.
Carbonara Pizza, $18: A perfectly-blistered wood-fired pizza with crispy guanciale, thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes and a light dusting of cheese. What made it special was the tableside mix of a soft-boiled egg, a tablespoon (at least) of cracked black pepper and fresh Pecorino romano. The sauce is poured over the pizza, imparting a spicy, sharp flavor that’s a foil to the creaminess of the cheese.
The Chocolate Bar, $12: Like the best Snickers you’ve ever had. Mirror-glaze dark chocolate, milk chocolate and dried peanut butter crumble. So sexy.
Bohemian Creamery Cheese Plate, $20: A proud collection of soft and hard goat, cow, sheep and buffalo milk cheeses from this small, women-owned West County creamery with Della Fattoria bread and Napa Valley olives.
Worth A Look
Hot and cold shellfish towers ($79 to $109) include fresh oysters, lobster, crab and shrimp.
Maryland striped seabass with shrimp arancini, early spring vegetables, Meyer lemon olive oil emulsion and spinach pudding at Farmhouse Inn in Forestville. (Charlie Gesell / Sonoma Magazine)
The Michelin Guide has postponed naming its 2020 restaurant selections for California. No stars and no Bib Gourmands will be announced for this year due to the ongoing pandemic and — most notably for California — the wildfires. With most of the state’s restaurants still limited to outdoor dining and takeout due to COVID-19 restrictions, Michelin representatives said the decision was made after talking to chefs and considering their feedback.
Michelin stars are among the most influential awards a restaurant can receive. Healdsburg’s Single Thread Restaurant and Farm is one of just a handful of California restaurants to win the coveted three-star award, the highest award given. Madrona Manor, also in Healdsburg, has one star. Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant in Forestville also got one Michelin star. The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, another three-star winner, was destroyed in the recent Glass fire.
Insiders are saying that “postponing” doesn’t necessarily mean the awards will be shelved altogether for this year. Although the usual October announcement won’t be made, the guide may be released sometime in early 2021 as many reviews already had been completed for this year before restaurants were forced to shutter and then limit services.
Guide organizers will host a virtual Family Meal event to support California restaurants at 4 p.m. Oct. 27. Both diners and chefs are invited to attend. (Details at guide.michelinman.com).
Jim and Susan Simmons practice green living with solar panels on their barn providing electricity to their Kenwood home. The sloping roofs of their home and barn are also designed to collect rainwater. (Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat)
Every year, as fire season approaches and winds pick up, Sonoma County residents face renewed worries over the threat of power shut-offs. Meet three families who have taken matters into their own hands with battery storage and solar power, gaining a sense of security that money can’t buy. Plus — What batteries really cost and the smart questions you need to be asking.
Going off the grid has been a fantasy for nearly as long as there’s been a power grid. In the 1970s, just a few hard-core survivalists and rural hermits actually made it happen, riding the wave of the back-tothe- land movement with companies like Ukiah’s Real Goods. Later, green celebs like Daryl Hannah and Ed Begley Jr., made it all sound easy and turned off-grid living into a lifestyle.
Solar power became popular in the late 1990s, and companies such as Tesla, Enphase Energy, and Sonnen started rolling out battery storage units around 2015, allowing homeowners to disconnect from the grid during power outages and create their own temporary microgrid to generate and store their own power, a process known as islanding. But true energy resiliency was still a pipe dream for most.
That all changed here after the fires of 2017.
The local demand for batteries has been so strong since then that Dana Smith, the director of sales at Novato’s SolarCraft, jokes, “We could change our name from SolarCraft to BatteryCraft.”
And Rody Jonas, owner of Healdsburg’s Pure Power Solutions, who has been installing off-grid battery systems for the past 27 years, estimates that so far this year, he’s installed 20 times as many systems as he did in 2017.
According to PG&E, 18 battery storage systems were installed in Sonoma County homes in 2017, increasing to 113 in 2018 and 225 in 2019, says spokesperson Deanna Contreras. And in the unincorporated areas of Sonoma County, 174 battery permits were issued in the first half of 2020, says Domenica Giovannini of the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department.
New solar and battery systems may not live up to the “off-grid” fantasy of the 1970s, but grid-connected homeowners can earn back some costs by selling back excess power. And these systems allow homeowners to go off grid temporarily when they need it most, easing the burden of power shutoff events. In a sense, going off the grid has been replaced by the concept of energy resilience — the ability to withstand natural disaster; the means to harness technology and take matters into your own hands, no longer at the mercy of a utility company.
If the learning curve seems daunting, 26% federal tax credits make it much more enticing. And a new state program, the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) can offer additional discounts to qualified residents who live in high-fire zones or have been affected by multiple power shut-off events. For those who have questions, Sonoma County’s Energy and Sustainability Division offers free advice and dedicated financing for green energy projects.
The three Sonoma families you’ll meet next all took the plunge into the world of solar and batteries for different reasons, from fire safety, to the cost of connecting a new home to the grid, to a desire for greater resilience. But all say they hope their experiences can convince others to adopt the new technology. As one homeowner puts it: “When you do the math, it’s a no-brainer.”
Jim and Susan Simmons practice green living with solar panels on their barn providing electricity to their Kenwood home. The sloping roofs of their home and barn are also designed to collect rainwater. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)
Jim & Susan Simmons: Off-grid pioneers with a DIY approach
To look at the Kenwood home of Jim and Susan Simmons and then discover their power is fueled by lead-acid batteries is more than just a study in contrasts — it’s a shocking surprise. On the one hand, you have a modern glass-walled dwelling that never needs air-conditioning topped by a wide-hanging, angular steel roof (picture the brim of a Spanish conquistador’s helmet) that also doubles as a cistern to capture water. And yet when Jim Simmons walks out to his barn and lifts the lid on his power storage, all you see are 24 forklift batteries.
“It wasn’t our original plan,” he says with a laugh.
Back in 2011, when they bought the 2-acre property, they intended to hook up to the grid, just as Jim, an architect, did for most of his clients. “I’m not a Birkenstock guy; I like my power,” he says. But when they called PG&E, the power utility quoted them $40,000 just to hook up to the grid.
Keep in mind, this was several years before grid-tied batteries such as the Tesla Powerwall were on anyone’s radar. If not the Jurassic, it was at least the Cretaceous age of battery storage. But at the urging of their two college-age sons, the Simmonses mapped out an off-the-grid system with the help of Mill Valley company Beyond Oil Solar. “The owner allowed us to buy the materials through him and then he recommended the installers. These guys were out of Mendocino and of course their background was pot; they needed the power to grow it.”
After installing an OutBack system with a 24-panel solar array on his barn roof and a storage array of 24 2-volt lead-acid batteries, the total was just over $23,000 after tax credits, and, says Jim, “the best thing is, we’ve never had a PG& E bill.”
For peace of mind, Jim can look at an app on his phone to see how much solar energy is being generated, check battery levels, and make adjustments, like turning on a back-up generator. The downside to the forklift batteries is that every couple of months, they need to be maintained by opening the tops and adding a cup of water. “You have to be fastidious about it, because if they go dry, that kills that cell,” he says.
In October of 2017, as the Nuns fire scorched Kenwood, the Simmonses’ home became a refuge. “My wife started cooking for people, many who stayed behind to take care of their vineyards because it was right in the middle of harvest. It was a little surreal because you could see fires come over up the mountains. You’d be eating dinner, trying not to choke on the food while watching these poor people’s homes go up in flames.”
These days, a backup propane generator kicks in if the battery drains below 50 percent, but it’s rarely used. Their biggest pull on power are the well pumps, which were installed before they decided on solar and are not as efficient as they could be— something they would fix in retrospect. At this point, they know their improvised system will likely only last about three more years, so they’re already thinking about an upgrade to more modern lithium battery like a Tesla Powerwall.
“Looking back, it was the right thing to do,” Jim says. “If it didn’t work out, we’d be out of some money. But we were looking at such a huge cost otherwise. We decided, ‘Let’s take the risk, let’s take the gamble.”
Bottom Line
Jim and Susan Simmons had a 20-panel, 7.3-kilowatt solar system installed in 2013 and added four more panels in 2015. Their battery is an array of 24 2-volt forklift batteries.
Tony DeYoung, left, and Joe Metro installed solar panels and added a solar storage battery at their property near Occidental. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)
Tony DeYoung & Joe Metro: Going solar first, then adding a top-of-the-line battery
Eight years ago, after more than two decades in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, Tony DeYoung and Joe Metro decided they wanted a weekend retreat in the country, one with enough space for their Malinois puppy, Zara, to run around. But after looking at a dozen west county offerings, they still couldn’t find the right spot. On a whim, they asked their real estate agent if they could revisit an Occidental property at nighttime.
It didn’t matter that it was a run-down former pot farm. “We looked up and saw all these stars like you’d never seen,” says Metro, a CFO. “They were so intense.” A half hour later they made an offer. “We were totally clueless,” says DeYoung, a digital marketer turned teacher. “Remember ‘Green Acres’? That was us. We didn’t really know about water and power failures and electric.” But as they started learning more about organic farming, planting blueberries, passion fruit, pluots, and avocados, they knew they also wanted to be green when it came to their remote power supply.
Their 11-acre spread is sandwiched between redwood forest on one side and pastureland on the other. As part of a massive 2015 renovation, the couple installed solar panels on a detached garage. In 2018, when they moved to Occidental full time, they added a German-engineered, American-made Sonnen battery from Sebastopol’s Synergy Solar.
Last year, the house was a beacon of light during the Kincade fire’s power outages. “We were like the local Starbucks,” DeYoung says. “Neighbors would drop by and get a cappuccino, connect to the internet, and we threw in hot showers as a bonus.”
Their 3.36-kilowatt grid-tied system includes a 12-panel array that generates around 20 kilowatt hours of energy during the summer and around 8 kilowatt hours in the winter, Metro says. When they need to cut back on their usage, they shut off their second freezer, switch from desktop to laptop computers, turn off the hot tub, and, when possible, hang their clothes outside to dry.
As early adopters (theirs was only the fifth Sonnen battery installed in the county), DeYoung and Metro weighed all their options, even getting a quote for a new propane generator, which was nearly $25,000 with the cost of a new pipeline and $2,000 a year in maintenance. “Solar was cheaper than that, and there’s zero maintenance and zero noise,” Metro says.
Before going solar, they made sure their home appliances were lean. “The first thing we learned is you have to make your house energy efficient, so now all the lights are LED, we have a superefficient refrigerator, and we added efficient well pumps— so you’re dropping your power footprint,” DeYoung says.
Now, as another fire season is here, DeYoung and Metro prepare for the return of what has become another harbinger of fall: their neighbors’ gas generators buzzing and humming along at all hours during power outages.
Standing in the middle of a ripening fruit farm, surrounded by exotic apple varieties he’s learned to graft, DeYoung says, “What you buy here is you buy quiet. That’s really what you’re buying. I don’t know if you’ve gone into San Francisco lately, but there’s that constant noise, and I think that noise is what’s making people so freaking neurotic.”
“Listen to how quiet it is,” he says, pausing. “That’s why solar and battery makes so much sense. Why ruin that?”
Bottom Line
Joe Metro and Tony DeYoung had a 12-panel, 3.36 kilowatt, grid-tied solar system installed in 2015. They added a 12 kilowatt-hour Sonnen Eco 12 Battery in 2018.
System and installation: $16,000 Battery: $23,000 Total: $39,000 After $3,500 SGIP rebate and 30% tax credit: $24,850
Joshua Weil, right, and his wife Claire Mollard, with their children Caleb and Sydney Weil have installed two Tesla Powerwalls along with solar panels into their rebuilt home, in Santa Rosa. (Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat)
The Weil-Mollard family: A Tubbs rebuild with a solar-powered fire suppression system
“That’s where the fire came over the hill,” says Josh Weil, standing in his front-yard vineyard, looking northwest from his nearly rebuilt Larkfield home.
He’ll never forget that surreal night, nearly three years ago. Working past midnight at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, the ER doctor called home to warn his wife Claire Mollard of the fast-approaching Tubbs fire. The sky was glowing bright red and flames were only a hundred yards away as she rounded up their 15-yearold daughter, Sophie, and their two dogs and fled the house in less than 15 minutes. Not long after, their house burned down to the chimney.
Somehow their goats, Lucy and Ethel, survived the fire, becoming one of many symbolic stories of resilience in a broken community. But “we lost our cat, Rainbow Bear, which I’m still kind of heartbroken over,” Weil says. “The power was off, and my wife couldn’t see when she ran back into the house to look for the cat. If we had electricity, maybe our cat would still be here. Those things matter.”
Now, three years later, their new home’s fire suppression system, fueled by well booster pumps, will be powered by solar panels and two Tesla Powerwall batteries installed in the garage.
“It’s been a long road getting here,” says Weil, walking past workers as they prep the new driveway before concrete is poured. The T-shirt he’s wearing with a medical cross and the baseball meme “Rub Dirt On It” is an understatement.
The family had solar panels from Pure Power Solutions in Healdsburg installed on their previous 1970s house. They turned to the company again to install a new system, this time with a battery. Weil’s colleague had recently installed Tesla Powerwall batteries in his Skyhawk home and highly recommended them. “I’m a big fan of Tesla and have a Tesla car so it just made sense,” Weil says.
The 27 kilowatt-hour pair of Powerwall batteries cost a little over $24,000 before tax credits. Weil is appealing a decision that rejected his SGIP rebate because his well is also shared by two other neighbors. The 18-panel solar array installed on his garage roof was around $23,000 before tax credits.
Living in a house perched on a hill overlooking Santa Rosa to the southwest, Weil knows it’s not if, but when, another fire breaks out in the region. So having a battery that can disconnect from the grid and keep power running will make “a huge difference,” he says. “Having continuous access to power during a power shut-off is nice. But having it during a fire event when lighting and booster pumps for our fire suppression systems might be the difference between whether or not my family gets out safely.”
The family has lived most of the past three years in a Santa Rosa home offered up by a generous retired surgical colleague. Now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Sophie and her two siblings, all now in college, are back with the family. Having all three kids around isn’t something Weil and Mollard expected, but the whole family is looking forward to moving back into the new house together. “That will be special,” Weil says.
This time they’re starting out with a clean slate. Everything in the new house is built around efficiency — radiant heating, solar, LED lighting, and state-of-the-art appliances. These features are more expensive at the outset, but Weil chose these them for same reason he bought an electric car soon after they became available. “I do it because I can. But I feel like if I do my part, it helps drive the system and sustain it, and eventually it becomes more available
to other people. So being in the position to lead the way on that, we feel like we’re doing our small part for the world, and we’re hoping to make it more possible for other people down the road.”
And as a doctor, he says, “I’m also thinking about what climate change means for the health of people going forward. Here’s my ability to make a more efficient home and use the power from the sun. It’s just the right thing to do.”
Bottom Line
The Weil-Mollard family has a new 18-panel, 5.9 kilowatt, grid-tied solar system and two Tesla Powerwall batteries that store 27 kilowatt-hours.
System and installation: $23,206 Battery: $24,309 Total: $47,515 After 26% tax credit: $35,160
The family is also applying for SGIP rebates, which should further lower the cost of their system.
How Batteries Work
Sunlight falls on rooftop solar panels made of photovoltaic cells that convert the sun’s energy into DC (direct current) electricity. A line from the solar panel array goes to an inverter, which converts DC to AC (alternating current) electricity for use inside the home. The type of inverter can vary from system to system.
There are also many types of batteries. These days, most large-system batteries are lithium batteries.
The battery connects to the home’s main electrical distribution panel, which supplies power to the house, and to the home’s electrical meter, which both connect to the utility’s power grid.
The inverter and battery also connect to a second electrical panel, commonly called a protected loads panel, which powers crucial appliances during a grid power outage as the system disconnects from the grid and creates its own microgrid. This is called islanding. Within the home’s self-powered microgrid, homeowners can designate power to a well pump, septic pump, lights, Wi-Fi, the garage door opener, and a refrigerator, for example, while switching off power to less critical items such as a pool pump or an air conditioner.
An electric car charger is usually connected the main electrical panel and not to the protected loads panel. That’s because during a power outage, the car could drain battery storage too quickly, leaving other critical electrical needs unmet.
A safety switch automatically prevents solar-generated power from being sent to back to the grid when the grid is down.
And a monitoring system, either hardwired or wireless, allows users to gauge the system’s energy production and battery storage at any time, day or night.
Jeff Mathias of Synergy Solar.
What you need to know about solar power
As the co-owner of Synergy Solar in Sebastopol, Jeff Mathias started out in 2006 building off-grid battery systems in remote areas like Cazadero and the Healdsburg hills. He even installed celebrity chef Guy Fieri’s solar system — the batteries survived the Kincade fire, but the 100-panel solar array didn’t.
While Mathias is currently backlogged at least three months on solar battery-storage installations, he took time out to talk about SGIP rebates, islanding, and how to get educated about solar.
Q: If I’m interested in solar with a battery and I call you and you come out to my house- what happens from there?
A: What I typically do is talk about how solar is really a justification based on a bill. We get a customer’s 12-month PG& E history and we size the system based on that. With that 12-month history we can come to an equation where we say, ‘We’re going to leave you with a $10 minimum charge, but we’re going to eliminate your electric bill basically.’ Most often it’s a dollar-and-cents decision. My main goal with that customer is to set expectations. We sell our systems almost exclusively under what we call protected load panels. Our systems aren’t designed to run the whole house. We don’t want to run the hot tub, we don’t want to run the pool pumps or the air conditioner or even the electric car charger, because if the power goes out at midnight, the whole battery will be transferred to the car. We set the expectation — what do we want?
Q: In addition to tax incentiues, how do people qualify for the equity of resiliency portion of SGIP rebates?
A: It comes down to basic ‘and/or11 logic. If you are in fire zone 2 or 3 OR have had two or more power shut-off events AND you have an electric well that will be on the battery OR you’re on the medical baseline OR you’re low income, then you can qualify for the equity resiliency portion of the SGIP. That’s a rebate of a dollar a watt. So on a Sonnen Eco 20, that’s a $16,650 rebate.
Q: What is “islanding” and what physically happens when there’s a power outage?
A: If we didn’t have islanding, when the power went out, your system would be exporting power to the grid and there would be absolutely no way for PG&E to shut it off and thus no safe way for them to work on the electrical lines that were down. So now, with battery systems, they all have an automated disconnect switch. When it senses the AC system is down, it literally disconnects the house’s system from the grid and then allows the microgrid behind the grid to charge the house.
Q: What’s your best advice for a total newbie?
A: I think the best resource for a customer is to basically look at three vendors, try to get three different technologies, and let the vendors educate. And try to keep it to local and experienced vendors.
You don’t want a salesman who’s only been in business for three months. With three vendors, you’ll get different opinions and different ideas, but you will get educated. To try to find things out on your own is not an easy process.
Yes, Sonoma is blessed — with extraordinarily fertile soils and countless microclimates. Our carefully tended gardens, nurseries, farms, vineyards, and orchards offer a year-round abundance that nourishes our bodies and delights our spirits.
Many of our best-known crops — grapes, of course, but also olives we press into oil, and our famous Gravenstein apple — were originally tended in distant lands. But a few local treasures have deeper roots that sink down into history right here, and only here.
Mesclun, that ubiquitous mix of baby greens now typically sold as bagged salad mix, got its start in Sonoma in the 1980s. The greens themselves were not born in our soil, but the idea of harvesting them young and combining many varieties and species, long a practice in France, came from a few passionate Sonoma farmers. And every Shasta daisy in the world is genetically connected to its roots in Sonoma County.
Our unique abundance engenders a passionate pride of place, which can in turn lead to some friendly competition among local farmers. The late Nancy Skall of Healdsburg’s Middleton Farm, for example, was fond of saying that growing garlic is a competitive sport. Among the hundreds of heirloom varieties that thrive here, several stand out as truly ours. The eight that follow are some of our favorites.
The Crane melon
Close your eyes, lean close, and breathe in the sweet floral aromas of Sonoma County’s signature melon, the Crane. Inside the greenish-white, lightly striped skin is juicy, succulent coral-colored flesh that, at its ripest, possesses hints of honey and rose petals. It is a Crenshawtype melon, a cross of several varieties including ones from Japan and Persia. Its unique taste is an expression of the place where it was born and continues to thrive.
Oliver Crane, the son of the original settler who established the farm on Petaluma Hill Road in Santa Rosa in 1852, developed the melon around 1900. It has been sold exclusively at the Crane Melon Barn for nearly 100 years. The landmark 1868 barn, built entirely of redwood, has withstood earthquakes, floods, and fires and is now a county historic site.
Harvest begins in September and wraps up around Halloween, when the last of the year’s crop vanishes like little ghosts. This year, there are 20 acres of melons, all of which will be sold at the barn. Many Crane melon lovers are so devoted they make a special trip to the barn each fall.
Farmer Rick Crane and his daughter Jennifer Crane now oversee the barn and farm. Although her parents prefer the melon at room temperature, Jennifer prefers hers chilled. If she wants to gild the lily, she might add some vanilla bean ice cream, but nothing more. The melon is a delight on its own.
The Petaluma Gold Rush pole bean
“I grow the Petaluma Gold Rush pole bean because it is local, because it is our bean,” says farmer Wayne James of Tierra Vegetables.
The bean was introduced to Petaluma in the mid 1800s by the Azevedo family, who farmed here for decades. It has a speckled appearance, a rich, meaty flavor, and a creamy texture. The pods are packed so tight – with about six beans per pod – that the beans end up with squared-off edges from growing so close together. To grow the plant well, it must be trellised, which means it’s more difficult to harvest than a bush bean. Trellised beans are harder to put through the thresher, explains James. Because of these challenges, James can’t grow enough of the bean to keep up with demand. The farm typically sells out soon after harvest in late summer and early fall.
Chef Eric Tucker of Oakland’s Millennium Restaurant is a customer and fan, especially of the flavorful pot liquor produced as the beans cook. A simmering pot of these beans needs nothing more than salt, pepper, and perhaps a bit of chile to be deeply satisfying.
The Nopal cactus
As the story goes, plant breeder Luther Burbank liked to talk to his plants. “Give up your thorns,” he told the Nopal cactus, which he grew in an effort to establish the tough little cactus as cattle fodder. “You have nothing to fear; I will protect you.”
But Burbank was wrong about that, as he was about many things. The cactus gave up its giant thorns, but cattle loved it so much they ate it down to the quick, and the cactus could not regenerate.
Despite being nearly wiped out in the 1920s, it now thrives in locations throughout the North Bay, including an original planting at Burbank’s garden in Santa Rosa and another at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, where the author grew it to feed to cattle on his sustainable farm. The cactus’s paddles, which have tiny thorns, are harvested for nopales.
The fruit, commonly called prickly pear or tunas, makes delicious juice and puree. The cactus also provides a home for the cochineal beetle, the source of the bright red dye used in everything from liqueur to lipstick.
Removing the tiny thorns is time-consuming and many Sonoma markets now offer nopales already de-thorned and diced. Nopales taste similar to green beans and okra. They are delicious in a soft taco with diced potatoes and chorizo. And chef Colleen McGlynn of DaVero Farms & Winery in Healdsburg enjoys nopales seared in a hot skillet with chiles, then folded into salsa.
The Chilean guava
To add a spark to fall salads, look no further than the Chilean guava, which is not a guava at all but an unusual and rare bush berry with a taste evocative of strawberries, black pepper, and, some say, tropical punch. It’s descended from a plant native to Chile and was hybridized by Luther Burbank.
The plant, which resembles a pyracantha bush, is about 3 to 4 feet tall, easy to grow, and makes a pretty addition to gardens. Tiny, bell-shaped flowers ripen into sweet little berries later than most berries, well into October. Because of its resemblance to pyracantha, which also produces red berries, the berries can be easy to miss, but that would be a mistake, as they are delicious. Be sure to get to the berries before hungry birds can devour them. They’re best enjoyed raw, straight from the bush; they don’t do well as jam.
Sebastopol’s Harmony Farm Supply and Nursery sells this unique local heirloom.
The Bodega Red potato
“I love the potato-y flavor,” says chef and sausage maker Franco Dunn about the almost-famous Bodega Red potato. He cooks with it often, recently serving the potato in empanadas with homemade chorizo, zucchini, and corn. The potato’s pronounced flavor shines through it all, he says, even the sausage.
The Bodega Red is small and oblong with thin, deep-pink skin and pearly white flesh. When cooked, it is neither waxy nor starchy, but rich and creamy. It is said to have developed locally from a variety of potato that jumped ship with a Chilean soldier in the 1840s. It was grown commercially throughout our region until the 1970s before nearly going extinct due to a virus.
The Bodega Red was rescued from the compost heap of history in 2006 thanks to a few local farmers and a group of food enthusiasts, Slow Food Sonoma County North. That year, a few pounds of seed potatoes were grown for the first time in more than a century. Now, a company in Stockton provides certified virus-free seed to a growing number of backyard gardeners and small farmers, and not just in Sonoma. A pound of this seed yields about eight pounds of yummy spuds.
And the potato’s link to local history lives on in Bodega Bay’s Spud Point, named for a barge full of Bodega Reds that sank nearby.
The Winterstein apple
“I like to use a variety of apples to give a range of flavor to galettes and pies,” says Dominique Cortara of Dominique’s Sweets, a popular stop for pastries at the Santa Rosa and Sebastopol farmers markets. Those varieties include Sonoma’s own Winterstein apple, a cousin of the beloved Gravenstein, which comes from Europe.
Although some growers suggest the apple can be harvested late enough to provide fresh apples for Thanksgiving pies, most Wintersteins are harvested in September, extending the season of the Grav by just a few weeks, not months. The variety is a bit sweeter than the Gravenstein, as it hangs on the tree longer, during the typically hot weeks of late August. And like its cousin, the Winterstein is not a storage apple. It should be enjoyed soon after harvest or else it will soften quickly.
Luther Burbank selected the Winterstein from a group of Gravenstein crosses he was working with, eventually managing to extend the season a few precious weeks into fall.
The Trumpet Royale mushroom
Rich, meaty, and earthy, with a texture similar to a porcini, the Trumpet Royale was born in the heart of Sonoma County. A favorite of chefs, the creamy-white and tan mushroom blossoms when it is sautéed in butter over high heat or grilled over hot coals. Stirred into a creamy risotto, folded into a tart or pastry, or simply enjoyed neat with salt and pepper, the Trumpet Royale is irresistibly delicious.
This pretty ’shroom was developed at Mycopia Mushrooms in northeast Sebastopol. Malcolm Clark, a Canadian scientist, developed a technique for cultivating shiitake mushrooms and was looking for a location to establish his fledgling company. As luck would have it, the shiitake thrives in the same cool west county climate that supports favorites like the Gravenstein apple. Today, the company cultivates eight culinary mushrooms for sale across the country, including the Trumpet Royale, and maintains an active development program — which means we can look forward to more Sonoma-bred varieties in the future.
The Sebastopol tomato
For seventy years, a Sebastopol woman whose name is lost to history grew a unique cherry tomato, saving the seeds from one year to the next and passing them on to friends and neighbors. Today, that tomato is known as the Sebastopol tomato and its seeds are sold by several companies who specialize in distributing rare heirloom seeds, including the Living Seed Company in Point Reyes Station. The Sebastopol tomato joins a few other locally developed favorites, including the more well-known Burbank Slicing tomato.
The Sebastopol tomato is a vigorous bright-red variety is perfect for Sonoma’s cool coastal climates, as it can ripen without a lot of heat and produces very sweet ¾-inch fruits with a delightful burst of acid.
Local tomato expert Doug Gosling, garden and nursery program director at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, offers starts of the rare tomato at the center’s nursery each spring. He also happily eats quite a lot of them. “I like to cook them in a very hot oven with olive oil, garlic, and salt until they are melted but still intact,” he says. They are delicious spooned over pasta, polenta, or grilled bread.
Whether you’re a longtime Sonoma County resident our a first-time visitor, private tours can be a great way to explore all that this area has to offer. From food and wine tours to farm excursions, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite ways to explore Sonoma County in the above gallery. If you’re planning an outing during the pandemic, remember to wear a face mask and maintain at least six feet distance.
Kathleen Minor snacks on an apple as she picks them with a group of gleaners from Farm to Pantry at Chimney Orchard Acres in Healdsburg, California on Tuesday, October 18, 2011. (Beth Schlanker / The Press Democrat)
After months of sheltering in place, the pandemic fatigue is settling in and many of us are craving a remedy. For those who are considering venturing outside of their (literal) backyard for a change of scenery, a close-to-home staycation could be a good start.
Three hotel properties in Healdsburg are now tempting visitors with a unique experience that also offers an opportunity to give back to the community. Hotel Healdsburg, h2hotel, and Harmon Guest House have teamed up with celebrity chef Duskie Estes and Sonoma County nonprofit Farm to Pantry to offer guests the chance to dig in and work as a “gleaner,” harvesting extra or leftover produce for people in need.
Estes, who has starred on Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef and Guy’s Grocery Games, recently swapped her chef’s whites for mud boots as the new executive director of Farm to Pantry. The nonprofit works with volunteers to harvest excess produce from local farms, orchards and even backyards — up to 13,000 pounds of produce a week. After being picked, cleaned, sorted and boxed, the produce is delivered to more than 70 locations throughout Sonoma County that supply food to people in need.
“We pick in the first half of the day and deliver in the second,” said Estes. “It feels like being Robin Hood, but it (the produce) was given in the first place.”
If it grows in Sonoma County, Farm to Pantry has probably gleaned it. From kiwis, persimmons and squash to cabbage, figs, and walnuts, the non-profit has gleaned more than 300 tons of fruits, vegetables, and nuts since October 2008. That’s the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half million servings of healthy, local food.
“Farming is such a big part of Sonoma County life. Through our partnership with Farm to Pantry we can give our guests the opportunity to connect hands in and outdoors,” said Piazza Hospitality founder, Circe Sher.
Rain or shine, Farm to Pantry volunteers work year-round in local farm fields. Gleaning sessions typically run from 9 a.m. to around noon, with the possibility of spending a little extra time to see where the rescued produce ends up by taking part in a community drop-off.
There’s no cost for hotel guests to glean with Farm to Pantry, but visitors can turn their volunteer experience into a full day event with an exclusive cooking class and lunch prepared by Estes on her farm. It costs $2,000 for up to 10 guests, with 75 percent of proceeds going to support Farm to Pantry.
If you’re not ready to plan a Healdsburg staycation, you can still volunteer to glean with Farm to Pantry. Sign up on the nonprofit’s website to get emails with weekly gleaning schedules and needs.
“Nothing feels better than working together outside and giving back. It’s win wins all the way around,” said Estes.
The coronavirus has changed all aspects of our lives, including how we travel. Staycations — or vacationing close to home, sometimes literally in your own backyard — have grown in popularity over the past few months, so have outdoor vacations and RVs.
Wildhaven Sonoma, a new “glampground” in the heart of Wine Country, combines several of these travel trends. The Russian River flows just steps from its safari-style canvas tents and visitors can enjoy easy access to hiking trails, patio dining, al fresco wine tasting, and other outdoor activities. Alexander Valley wineries, such as Medlock Ames, are just a stone’s throw away. If you’d like to take a break from driving, you may want to consider bringing bikes. (Wildhaven plans to offer bike rentals in the future).
Upon our arrival at Wildhaven Sonoma, my husband and I immediately grabbed our floats and a cooler filled with beverages, and then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the river. While the water may be too cold for a dip or float later this fall, you can still enjoy a picnic on the semi-private beach, or go fishing and kayaking.
An affordable glamping option
With 30 tents, Wildhaven isn’t as luxurious or intimate as other Northern California glamping spots, such as Guerneville’s AutoCamp or Mendocino Grove, but it’s not trying to be. Instead, Wildhaven offers something that the others do not: an affordable, low key, and family-friendly getaway (dogs are welcome, too). Mid-week rates start as low as $109 a night—kids and dogs are $25 extra each—and while cots are available for children, the campsite recently upgraded some of the family tents to double queens, so sleeping bags aren’t necessary.
If you’re traveling sans kids, don’t let Wildhaven’s family appeal deter you. My husband and I enjoyed a very relaxing evening at the campsite, despite having a group of 20-somethings as our neighbors (in fact, I really enjoyed the people watching). The strictly-enforced quiet hours, starting at 10 p.m., went into effect without incident, just as we were settling in for some truly incredible stargazing. And with the tent zipped up at night, we felt far, far away from any crowds. (For a quieter and more secluded experience, you can book the riverside tents, which come with larger decks, a double hammock and string lights for added ambiance).
All the necessary amenities
Wildhaven’s tents are minimalist yet cozy and outfitted with all of the necessary amenities—outlets for standard plugs and USBs, end tables with bedside lights, a queen bed, rug, fan, mirror, clothing rack, and two chairs on the deck complete with an awning for shade.
There are clean, communal bathrooms and showers (including outdoor showers if you do take a dip in the river) and each site has a picnic table and either a private or communal barbecue for cooking—but remember that downtown Healdsburg is just a few minutes away, offering an array of top-notch outdoor dining and takeout options. If you do decide to cook, an outdoor kitchen is available for cleaning cookware and dishes.
Wildhaven has basic WiFi, but I recommend using this as a good excuse to unplug for a while.
The campsite will operate throughout the winter months; all tents are heated and the campsite will provide heavy duvets and extra blankets. By November, Wildhaven will open its own store with wine, beer, and picnic provisions like charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, and nuts.
It can be hard to venture off our usual retail route, which, lately has been dotted with a lot of online shopping. But the experience and the style rewards make the effort worth while. This is especially true in scenic Sonoma County, where socially-distanced shopping experiences can be combined with time outdoors.
Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Glen Ellen offers the best of both worlds: a gift shop with items for the home and body and a world-renowned wild Asian woodland garden — both unique in their own way. The gift shop stays away from the usual information books and swag and instead focuses on mindful living, sustainability and global style — think spiral citronella candles, linen trays, Indian desert bells, and natural clothing dyes. The garden is home to one of the largest collections of wild-sourced Asian plants in North America and Europe.
For a nominal ticket fee, or a yearly membership, guests can stroll the gardens and take in the beauty of its Asian plants, many of which are threatened or endangered.
Quarryhill Botanical Garden was founded in 1987 by Jane Davenport Jansen and, in the same year, representatives from the garden made what would be the first of many seed-gathering missions to East Asia. The garden—named for the abandoned quarries on the path of the Mayacama foothills where it is located—has committed to preserving biodiversity through plant conservation; to be “an ark of rare and endangered species.” According to the garden’s website, botanists estimate that in 2050, 100,000 plant species will be in danger of extinction.
There is a lot of hill at Quarryhill. With a few miles of gravel paths, it’s more of a hike than a garden stroll, so bring hiking shoes, shade and hydration. There are level paths, too, including one that is ADA accessible and can be reached by golf cart.
Amidst the Asian plants and trees, you will find a giant lily pond, waterfalls, footbridges, and a structure of Tibetan prayer flags perched high on a hill overlooking the Sonoma Valley. There are plenty of benches throughout the property, many at optimal spots for resting and taking in the beauty. There’s a rose garden, too, and picnic tables flanked by the vineyards at the property’s entrance.
To fill your picnic basket, head over to Glen Ellen Village Market before your visit to Quarryhill to find a fantastic array of grab-and-go sandwiches, a floor to ceiling wine aisle stocked with hyper-local offerings, plus cheeses and spreads galore. There’s also Les Pascals bakery, the yellow building with the perpetual line out the door, for great sandwiches or something sweet.
If you’d like to bring some of the botanical beauty home, you’ll need to rely on your smartphone. Make sure to snap plenty of photos — you won’t find a key chain or comprehensive book on botanicals in the gift shop. Remember: your purchases at the store will help support the mission of Quarryhill.
$8-12 (self-guided garden tour, children under 12 are free), Quarryhill Botanical Garden, 12841 Sonoma Hwy, Glen Ellen, 707-996-3166, quarryhillbg.com
Petaluma scientist and jewelry designer Julia McNamara spends much of her time searching for something. As a wildlife biologist doing environmental compliance monitoring, she’s looking for critters in nature. As a maker of her own line of crystal-infused candles, jewelry, ritual oils and bath salts — Fading West Jewels — she goes “rock-hounding.” For a while, she was on the lookout for the right place to sell her small-batch products. When she couldn’t find it, she started the Clucktown Collective marketplace. And, when the pandemic hit, she pored over federal, state and local guidelines in search of a way to continue to operate the marketplace safely.
After much research and hard work, McNamara’s Clucktown Collective will host a Fall Gathering event on October 24—a pop-up market featuring over 50 local makers—in a First Street warehouse in industrial South Petaluma. Clucktown Collective has previously hosted events at the Bank Hub (formerly the Seed Bank) in Petaluma and at Hotel Petaluma. This is the first time the marketplace takes place at the spacious First Street warehouse, which boasts Petaluma River views from its windows.
Fading West Jewels and Clucktown Collective founder, Julia McNamara. (Courtesy of Clucktown Collective)
The Fall Gathering event will feature products ranging from jewelry to toys, as well grab-and-go food. McNamara has carefully curated the vendors to ensure the best products are on display and to minimize overlap and competition. She’s excited to be featuring many longtime sellers, as well as new-to-market makers like fantasy digital artist Mike Gaser, cannabis-meets-home-design Chronic Biophiliac, and pasta and bread maker SOMA Sourdough.
Covid-19 safety protocols will include temperature checks at the entrance, one-way traffic, vendors spaced at least 10-feet apart, mandatory mask-wearing and hand sanitizer at each booth.
The response to the upcoming event has been overwhelmingly positive, says McNamara. “We’re seeing how happy vendors are and how happy people are to come out and support local artisans.”
McNamara, who grew up in Truckee, is new to Petaluma since a few years. She’s enjoyed getting to know the local community through her work with other makers and interactions with customers. Shopping or selling locally, adds “a huge depth of connection to the community,” she says. “That’s what the Clucktown mission is.”
Prosciutto di Parma and housemade mozzarella on housemade focaccia served alongside Caesar salad at Citti Cafe in Kenwood. (Chris Hardy / Sonoma Magazine)
After 30 years at their iconic Kenwood roadhouse, the owners of Cafe Citti have officially closed their restaurant, but their roast chicken, lasagna and tuna egg sandwiches will live on at a new location in Santa Rosa later this fall.
“We knew this day was coming,” said Linda Citti, who announced the decision on social media Tuesday. Chef-owners Luca and Linda Citti cited a combination of reasons for the move including the need for extensive renovations to the building they leased for more than 30 years, coronavirus restrictions, power outages and the recent Glass fire that burned through parts of Kenwood.
The Cittis plan to open a takeout-only business on Fourth Street in east Santa Rosa in late November in the quirky, 900-square-foot former Whole Pie location next to Hank’s Creekside Restaurant.
“We wanted something that had the charm and funkiness of what we’ve always been. We’re not a strip mall kind of place and we’re not a fancy place. We both immediately got a good vibe (about the space),” Linda Citti said.
The family-friendly roadhouse is a longtime favorite of locals from Kenwood and Oakmont, winemakers, ranchers and Sonoma Valley tourists with its approachable Italian and American classics.
In 2010, the restaurant was featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with Fieri saying, “If you have never visited the Sonoma Valley, then this is the place to dine at.”
Since March, Cafe Citti has only offered takeout to their loyal following, with a slightly reduced menu. Like many restaurants, it was forced to cut staff from 25 employees to just six. With pandemic restrictions continuing, the usual brisk spring and summer business the couple expected to sustain them through a planned construction closure this winter didn’t pan out.
“Before the pandemic we were in talks about continuing at our location and riding out the seven to 10 months of construction. We were looking forward to having a new beautiful space and working there for another however many years. Then the pandemic hit, and this time that we were supposed to be socking away money and preparing for the shutdown,” Citti said.
The recent fires were the last straw, forcing the cafe to close once again for several days as the Glass fire raged nearby. A significant amount of food spoiled at the restaurant as power remained out in the area.
“We’ve been evacuated every time, impacted by power outages every time. It’s just always something and the way that the whole restaurant world will change post-pandemic, we just can’t go back,” Citti said.
The couple briefly contemplated leaving the restaurant business and moving back to Italy after a harrowing evacuation from their Skyhawk home at the start of the Glass fire.
“We thought, maybe we’re just done and we need to find something else, but everything we went back to involved food. This is what we love, what we are, and what we have been for 30 years,” she said.
Still weighing their options and without a signed lease on the new location, news of the restaurant’s potential fate leaked out on a neighborhood social media platform early this week, Citti said, forcing her hand to announce the news that the restaurant would remain closed permanently.
“We’ve been in our world of agony trying to figure out what we were going to do next, and we weren’t quite ready (for the announcement), but someone outed us on Nextdoor and the floodgates were open,” said Linda.
The response was a flood of emails, phone calls and messages from well-wishers.
“The incredible response gave me the strength to get through these last few days,” said Linda. “I read all these comments (on our social media) and I’m just in tears. It’s so affirming. You think, wow, working our asses off 14 hours a day, seven days a week made a difference for somebody. When you sit back and have this opportunity to see what Cafe Citti has meant to so many people, this is as good as it gets.
“People have been generous and supportive through this. The only reason we’re still here is all the support we’ve had. We’re sad we didn’t get to say goodbye to everyone in person,” she said.
As the new Cafe Citti takes shape over the next few months, Linda Citti hopes her regulars will understand that they’re mourning the loss of their old restaurant but excited to move forward.
“Just be patient with us,” she said, “we’re starting all over again and we’re not as young as we used to be.”
