Petaluma continues to blossom into a must try food destination. It seems like every other week there’s new news in the emerging culinary hot-spot. Click through the gallery for a few of the recently opened and soon to open eateries.
The Point Reyes National Seashore has all the makings for a great weekend escape. Just an hour’s drive from Sonoma County, beaches, wildlife, and a tasty list of things to eat and drink are waiting here. A day trip will leave you craving more so if you can give yourself a weekend to explore, you won’t regret it. Click through the gallery to discover how to spend a weekend in and around Point Reyes.
It’s rare to find a restaurant in sunny Sonoma County that doesn’t have an umbrella or two for alfresco dining, but not all patios are created equal. Click through the gallery for a list of favorite options with shaded patios, prime sidewalk people-watching and sun-dappled gardens worth seeking out. Just remember the sunscreen.
Maci Martell contributed to this article.
Dry Creek Valley is one of Sonoma County’s most beautiful wine tasting areas. From creekside valley tasting rooms to sweeping hillside estates, the tasting landscape is unusually varied for such a small region. The scenery alone would make any local springtime event enjoyable, but the annual Passport to Dry Creek Valley pulls out all the stops: more than 40 wineries serve up gourmet food, live entertainment, and themed celebrations. This weekend, the event turns “flirty thirty.” We are excited to point event-goers toward 10 of our favorite stops.
A ticket to the festivities includes admission to all participating wineries on Saturday, April 27-Sunday, April 28. For folks who want more immersive small-group experiences, there are lots of add-on options on Friday, April 26 and in the mornings before the main event.
Remaining Passport tickets are available on Eventbrite. For more information about Passport to Dry Creek Valley and to use an interactive itinerary planner, click here.
In 1993, one of Sweden’s most famous artists, Magnus Uggla, released a single titled “I Never Dance Sober.” The catchy pop tune, which took inspiration from the Cicero adage “nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit (no one dances sober, unless he is insane), struck just the right note with the Swedish audience—it soon became the soundtrack for debauched dance moves in suburban living rooms and city clubs.
When I, a Swedish transplant in Sonoma County, heard about an upcoming alcohol-free “yoga dance party” taking place on April 27 at the Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa, I could only imagine my fellow countrymen’s reaction. “A room full of sober people shaking their lycra-clad bottoms? No, thanks.”
Thankfully, living in the United States has broadened my horizons and I found myself getting curious about the event. By the time I learned it would be headlined by someone called “MC Yogi,” I was intrigued. I envisioned a grey-bearded, longhaired man from India, spinning records crosslegged.
As I dug deeper into this yoga dance phenomenon, I realized that my absence from dance clubs, Sweden and, until recently, yoga studios had left me a little out of touch. MC Yogi seemed to have no resemblance to my idea of a yogi—at all—and there is now a growing number of people, Swedes included, who enjoy dancing sans alcohol.
According to those in the know—The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post—sober dancing has been “trending” on the international club scene for the past five years. The trend even includes an early-morning rave called “Daybreaker” that begins with an hour of yoga at 6 a.m. followed by two hours of dancing. In Stockholm, there’s now a nightclub called Sober.
In contrast to my antiquated vision of a yogi, MC Yogi is a yoga teacher who is also hip-hop artist and music producer from West Marin with 115,000 Instagram followers. His signature look includes dark-rimmed glasses, a fedora, hoodie, and jeans (he does have a beard, but it’s neatly trimmed). Off stage, he goes by the name Nicholas Giacomini. Friends call him Nick.
Giacomini has been practicing hip-hop beats and yoga poses for more than twenty years. Today, he divides his time between his Point Reyes yoga studio, which he runs with his wife Amanda, the recording studio, and wellness-focused festivals like Squaw Valley’s Wanderlust. He is passionate about a variety of things—his dedication to yoga and music combine with a love of art. At 39, he has achieved the meaningful existence and calm equilibrium that you might expect of a yogi. But life for Giacomini was not always lived in harmony.
As a teenager growing up in a prominent West Marin ranching family, Giacomini got caught up in “a world of drugs and chaos.” Arrested for vandalism and kicked out of three schools, he ended up in a home for at-risk youth. When he discovered yoga at the age of 18, the practice became his pathway toward a different destiny.
“It was the best feeling I had ever experienced,” says Giacomini, when thinking back on his first encounter with the centuries-old Eastern practice. “No drugs, no intoxication…I just felt so good.”
Yoga then became a major influence in Giacomini’s life: he travelled to India where he stayed in ashrams and collaborated with local musicians; then he journeyed across the United States and studied yoga with masters like Larry Schultz, the Grateful Dead’s personal yoga teacher until the mid 90s.
Eastern philosophy, mysticism and sounds soon made their way into Giacomini’s music. Songs like “Be the Change (The Story of Mahatma Gandhi),” “In Love We Trust,” “Breath Control,” “Rock on Hanuman,” and “Road Home” became “a reflection and expression” of the insights he gained by practicing yoga and meditation, as seen through the lens of his personal experience.
Now, back where “it all started” in Point Reyes, Giacomini says he had to “travel across the Earth” to really appreciate the area in which he grew up and to realize that “home is always inside of you.” On April 27, he will bring his brand of spiritual beats to Sonoma County.
This will be the second time MC Yogi has performed at the Finley Community Center—in 2017, some 150 people attended the event. This year’s event, organized by Santa Rosa’s Yoga One, will feature a two-hour masterclass with MC Yogi—a vinyasa, flow-style yoga session suitable for all skill levels.
The end of the class will be accompanied by live classical music—Shane Davis, a local yoga teacher and classically trained pianist, and cellist Diego Mendiola will perform a “Savasana sound bath.”
Then, just as you’ve found your inner zen, it’s time to roll up the yoga mat and cut the rug. MC Yogi and DJ Crisanto from Southern California will rock the audience with tracks like “Road Home” and “Dancing in the Sun” from the album “Only Love is Real,” and newly released single “Triumphant.”
In addition to the yoga and the dancing, event-goers will also be able to check out yoga outfits from Twisst Healdsburg and mats from OMGI, meet with practitioners from Well Sonoma, an integrated holistic collective, and get the right “yoga hair” (this is apparently an established expression) with the help of Aveda representatives.
And, while there won’t be any alcohol, there will be probiotic drinks. See you there. Namaste!
What: MC Yogi’s Yoga Jam
When: Saturday, April 27, 2019, Masterclass 3:30pm-5:30pm; Concert/Jam 6pm.
Where: Finley Community Center, 2060 West College Avenue, Santa Rosa
Tickets: Masterclass $65; Concert/Jam $35; All Access $90. Tickets available at eventbrite.com.
Not to be outdone by the star-studded lineup at this year’s BottleRock (May 24-26), longtime Top Chef Hosts Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons will headline this year’s Culinary Stage. Other notables appearing during the 3-day music festival include Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern, musician Trisha Yearwood, Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto.
The tiny-but-mighty second stage has been a huge draw at recent festivals, featuring often hilarious mash-ups of celebrity chefs with festival musicians and personalities like Tommy Chong, Macklemore, Snoop Dog and Ayesha Curry (with a guest appearance by her husband, Steph Curry). Part of the fun is the unscripted mayhem instigated by host and emcee Liam Mayclem of the Foodie Chap radio show. He’s hilarious.
Other celebrities scheduled for the 2019 Williams-Sonoma Culinary Stage include rocker Alice Cooper, Questlove, Jeff Goldblum, Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Ken Griffey, Jr., Marshawn Lynch and WWE’s Bella Twins.
Cheflebrities appearing are Top Chef host Graham Elliot, Top Chef’s Voltaggio Brothers of Estuary restaurant, Aarón Sánchez of Fox’s Masterchef, Food Network star Duff Goldman, Vice Network star Matty Matheson (marking that one for the calendar), Top Chef Masters Ludo LeFebvre, Top Chef Richard Blais, Top Chef Masters Hubert Keller, Travel Channel star Adam Richman, Flour Shop bakery founder Amirah Kassem and Nic Jones from Goose & Gander in St. Helena Napa Valley. As part of winning Top Chef Season 16, chef Kelsey Barnard Clark will also be making her debut appearance on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage.
There’s also all the gourmet food to eat, wine to drink, brews to guzzle and silent discos to dance.
The seventh annual BottleRock Napa Valley (May 24-26) headlines with musicians Neil Young & Promise Of The Real, Santana, Mumford & Sons, Imagine Dragons, Pharrell Williams and Logic. Dozens of wineries, restaurants and breweries take part in this unique Wine Country festival. Details here.
Red Bird Bakery has moved to Cotati. And they still have the best sticky buns. Ever.
After several years in a small Santa Rosa industrial space, former Della Fattoria bakers Linda and Isaac Cermak have moved to a more retail-friendly bakery and have expanded their menu to include pizzas, grab and go sandwiches, soup and toasts of every stripe.
Having tasted through literally everything in their shop — from the aforementioned sticky buns to yeasty cinnamon rolls, crackling croissants, patisserie items like eclairs, croissant butter horns and savory pies; cheesecake, muffins and of course, their winning baguettes and round boule — there’s no doubt that there’s something extra special happening here. It’s called French butter.
Made with a higher butterfat content and slightly fermented, or cultured, it makes all the difference in the flavor of their pastries. Though Linda says the buttery, caramel-topped sticky buns are a bit sweet for her taste, it’s well worth searching out the Cermaks in Cotati or finding them at the Saturday morning farmers market at the Veteran’s Building — all of which are at least 5,500 miles closer than Paris.
556 E. Cotati Ave., Cotati, 707-521-9838. Open daily from 7a.m. to 2p.m., facebook.com/redbirdbakerysantarosa
Designer and Boho Bungalow proprietress, Faith Parker, says the surroundings of a home should inform its interior design, “There should definitely be some flow to it.”
It’s no wonder then that her Cazadero ranch home is decorated in a richly layered, eclectic style, inspired by the West County ethos and landscape; the redwoods, the farmlands, the ranches and the coast. She achieves this particular take on the boho vibe by incorporating many different style-elements: vintage mid-century furniture pieces, with playful updates in “right-now” colors like orange and teal; woven textiles with traditional and modern patterns; and imports from her travels abroad.
Today, Parker, who is trained in architecture, extends her decorating skills beyond her home as she helps customers at her Occidental and Sebastopol stores identify their own look. She likes to encourage people to have fun with design, to “play with” decorating ideas and not take things too seriously.
In addition to looking at the surroundings of a home, Parker also subscribes to the idea that your wardrobe can serve as inspiration for your decor. For the stiletto-heel collector, for example, Parker suggests using elements of glamour, like a chandelier or shimmery textiles. For the shades of gray, simply-styled customer, she would suggest making ease and simplicity the through-lines, translated, for example, into slipcovers and casual elements.
The West County designer also suggests people choose a color palette and stick to it when decorating their home – a rug can become “the color story” for a room. While Parker rotates her own home decor piece by piece, so that it becomes completely different every couple of years, she always sticks with trusty shades of navy blue, and the new pieces and colors she incorporates revolve around this color scheme.
The latest trend within the vast universe of boho is one that incorporates lots of botanicals. Aptly named “jungalow,” Parker believes this is a style that will stick around for a while – she sites Justina Blakeney’s work and popular Instagram hashtags like #thecrazyplantlady as influences; her own ode to Jungalow is botanical, peelable wallpaper in her entryway.
“It would be too busy for another room,” she says, so she sets the tone of her decor in a brief and powerful way, right at the front door.
As part of constantly mixing and transitioning her home decor, Parker refinishes and reupholsters vintage pieces. A fan of juxtaposition, she couldn’t imagine sticking to one time period only – be it vintage, modern or traditional – instead she likes to have different styles “opposing each other.”
But, all the uninhibited intermingling aside, Parker insists there are still rules. For instance, if you’re mixing three patterns, you need one small, one medium and one large; drapes need to be hung well beyond the top and side edges of windows and chandeliers within 36 inches from the table, in order to engage the area.
Other than that, though, you’re pretty much free to play, explore and mix it up as much as you want.
Chef Perry Hoffman is getting back to his roots, returning to the kitchen at the Boonville Hotel in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley. The former SHED executive chef who also received a Michelin star for his work at Napa’s étoile at Domaine Chandon, grew up in a well-known restaurant family that includes Sally and Don Schmitt, the original owners of the French Laundry and the current owners of The Apple Farm in Philo as well as his uncle Johnny Schmitt’s Boonville Hotel.
Best known for his pristine sourcing and composed plates dishes that feature wildflowers, herbs, and other foraged food, it’s a, uh, boon to the Boonville Hotel’s restaurant program.
He’ll be tapping into hyperlocal foods like Steelhead tartar, with asparagus from Philo, celery, lovage, olive oil and preserved lemon; Mendocino purple sea urchin with asparagus, Koji and garden herbs; grilled local halibut with fermented green garlic and fingerling potatoes and, for dessert, Pennyroyal cheese tartine with herbs, bee pollen and local honey.
Dinner will be served Thursday through Saturday with a prix fixe menu or small plates ranging from $8 to $22. On Sunday, May 26, Paella dinners will return to the hotel courtyard on Sunday evenings.
“After cooking professionally for 20 years, it’s crazy to me that I didn’t see the writing on the wall, and return here sooner. Anderson Valley in its rural form couldn’t be a more beautiful place to cook,” said Hoffman. “I’m surrounded by artisans, farmers, family, and friends. I plan to cook for and with them, for the rest of my life.”
14050 CA-128, Boonville, 707-895-2210, boonvillehotel.com.
Venture outside the winery cellars and tasting rooms and sip away in the sun. Click through the gallery for details.
