Harvest is a great time to visit wineries. Whether you’re trying to get away for an afternoon, show some out of town guests around, or observe some of the action of the crush season, here are some picks to enhance your wine tasting ensemble. Click through the gallery above for more information.
Visitors to Lonesome Cowboy Ranch in Boyes Hot Springs won’t find cowhands or cattle rustling. This “ranch” is a quirky shop that’s part museum, part cowboy outpost and part paradise for those who fancy the Old West.
Located along a busy corridor of Highway 12 in Boyes Hot Springs — not down some dusty dirt road as its name implies — Lonesome Cowboy Ranch nearly defies description. Where else do hundreds of vintage cowboy boots occupy space next to Converse sneakers with marijuana leaf designs or Goth-inspired platform spikes?
It all makes sense after meeting owner Sandi Miller, 65, whose anything-but-mundane background and numerous interests converge in her unique shop.
Miller practically grew up in Frontierland in Disneyland, where her mother played violin with a band on Main Street and her father was a Disney animator nearby, working on films like “101 Dalmatians.”
Miller still harbors a love for gunslinging cowboys, like the Disney stuntmen she spent her childhood summers with while her parents were at work. Her store is a tribute to cowboys, from their bootstraps to the tips of their hats.
But, she’s quick to note, it’s not just about cowboys. Fans of Native American arts and Hawaiian aloha attire won’t be disappointed, either.
“People think it’s just Western, but we’re really about fun fashion. Mostly it’s about humor and having fun stuff in the store,” Miller says.
Miller’s life partner, Robert Barnhart, 73, manages the store and greets customers. Most, he says, enjoy the step back in time.
“We get people who come in for the leather smell,” he says. “Everybody’s got some cowpoke in their hearts.”
Lonesome Cowboy Ranch got its start in an antiques collective on the Monterey peninsula, moving locations several times before settling into a small space on Broadway, a few miles south of the Sonoma Plaza, in 2008. They moved to their current location seven years ago, gaining square footage and a large display window at a busy intersection.
Top-selling items include cowboy boots, cowboy hats (many custom made) and Western and Hawaiian shirts. The couple orders from just three manufacturers, striving to keep prices reasonable and quality high.
And just where does Miller find classic old cowboy boots, handloomed rugs, handsome bomber jackets, vintage ethnic jewelry or silver-studded belts?
“That’s my secret. Everywhere,” she says. “I’m kind of like a foraging animal. I’m always on the lookout.”
Open 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday to Monday and by appointment. 18135 Highway 12, Boyes Hot Springs, 831-262-6976, lonesomecowboyranch.com
The stores are now awash in fall items, which means it’s time to start making decisions about how to deck the Halloween halls. If the thought of adorning your home for a month in rubber eyeballs and plastic rats, leave you feeling a bit uninspired, consider bringing in some ornamental pieces. Many of the finds here are perfect for year-round use, but in the context of a few ghoulish items, they can give your Halloween decor a bewitchingly stylish vibe. Click through the gallery above for ideas.
At one time of year, for one small segment of winemaking, the human touch makes all the difference. Erik Castro’s evocative photo essay features winery workers and the fruit of their harvest season labor. Click through the gallery above for photos, and read the article below.
Hands, feet, calves, arms up to the elbow, entire limbs even, disappear into tanks filled with fermenting grapes that were only just days ago picked and crushed. The task at hand is breaking down the grape solids that have formed a cap toward the top of the tank. It’s called punching down, and among other benefits it ensures the optimal extraction of color and flavor from the grape skins.
Punch-down happens once a year, at harvest, and in many places it’s now handled by an automated punch-down tank that breaks up the skins using a built-in pneumatic punch or paddle. But at the Sonoma wineries shown on these pages — Wind Gap Wines, Idlewild Wines, Bedrock Wine Co., and Acorn Winery — the job still belongs to human beings.
By using their bodies as punch-down tools, these intrepid winery workers can sense important changes in temperature and texture that inform the next steps in the winemaking process. And in the course of a year spent immersed in the scientific — and, increasingly, commercial — aspects of winemaking, it’s a singular opportunity to interact in a primal way with the fruit of their labor.
“The touch of the person really informs the quality of the punch-down,” says Wind Gap Wines owner Pax Mahle. “We choose to do it that way regardless of the size of our vessel. Whether it’s a small bin or one of the large tanks in the winery, we do it all the same way, and it is for that human touch.”
While punching down manually is seen as a gentler and more precise method of extracting color and tannins, it’s still backbreaking work — further evidence that in winemaking as in life, you get out what you put in.
Downtown Santa Rosa has upped its craft beer, cocktail and duck fat fries quota with the opening of the long-awaited Beer Baron. With a stunning remodel, the former Rendez Vous Bistro has become the European-plaza style eatery it has long deserved to be—complete with front-row Fourth St. people-watching.
With breezy open design and an outdoor patio just steps from Courthouse Square, Beer Baron has some of the most coveted seats in town.
We stopped in during their first lunch service (the lunch and dinner menus are the same) to see how the Chandi Hospitalilty Group were getting along in their collaboration with their Beer Baron collaborators (there are Beer Baron pubs in Pleasanton and Livermore). So far all signs are good for this simple pub and kitchen concept, which has been packed since opening.
On tap are about 25 beers, ranging from Fieldwork Island Time sour ale and HenHouse Brewing’s Big Country Pale Wheat to Racer 5 IPA from Bear Republic, Green Zebra Gose from Founders Brewing, and a nitro Chocolate porter from New Bohemia. The whiskey selection really impresses, with plenty of local spirits including offerings from Charbay, Spiritworks, Ukiah’s Low Gap, and Sonoma County Distilling. There are a handful of whiskey cocktails, including a fig shrub julep that was refreshing, if a little heavy on ice and light on julep.
Beer Baron’s soft-opening menu is simple and approachable, made for sharing with bar snacks, small plates and entrees all under $20 (most between $7-$10). The menu is almost identical to that of the Pleasanton restaurant, so they’ve had time to work out the kinks and find out what dishes resonate.
Don’t Miss:
– Duck Fat Fries ($7): These thick Belgian-style fries are fried in duck fat, giving them a uniquely light, crispy texture that’s so craveable you’ll be smart to snag a couple orders. Served with sides of aioli, chipotle ketchup and curried mayo, they’re one of my favorite dishes of the month.
– Baron Burger ($16): A meaty 7oz. patty made with angus, short rib, tri tip and brisket, cooked medium rare is one of the better burgers downtown (we also love Bibi’s Burger Bar’s Cabernet Burger and the Drive-In burger at Third St. Aleworks). The Baron Burger comes with duck fat fries, cheese, ale mustard and aioli.
– Fried chicken and waffles, $15: Marinated in Frank’s Red Hot sauce and buttermilk, the fried chicken is solid, served with a fluffy waffle, sliced chilis, maple bacon butter, and syrup. Solid, and better than fancier versions I’ve had.
Needs Work:
– Hoisin Chili Lamb Riblet, $12: Though plenty of these seemed to be going out to happy customers, ours were drenched with sticky sweet hoisin sauce and the lamb was a little gamey for our palate.
We Also Tried:
– Beer braised carnitas tacos, $10: Nothing spectacular, but nothing off. Great happy hour noshing, but the flour tortillas were a little too gringo to wow us.
– Smoked Olive Oil Guacamole, $8: Avocados with red peppers and smoked olive oil. Interesting. Our friends loved it.
– Pulled Pork Nuggets, $10: Pulled pork hits the deep fat fryer, resulting in crispy little squares of, well, pulled pork. With bbq sauce. Strange, but a great base for a couple ‘o pints.
Overall: The best restaurant real estate in downtown Santa Rosa is open for business again. With great drinks, a shareable, approachable menu and friendly staff, Beer Baron is a perfect after work meeting place and lunch spot. Open until 1a.m., its also a great late night hangout.
Brunch and happy hour menus coming soon.
614 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, 707-757-9294, beerbaronbar.com.
Relish Sonoma County’s bounty and visit the farmer’s market often this fall. Or dive into that CSA box, and let its contents inspire some clean culinary masterpieces. These local shopping finds will help you enjoy the food and drink extravaganza that Sonoma harvests deliver. Click through the gallery above for details.
Anamaria Morales is on a mission to bake her way through college, “one cheesecake at a time.”
Tangy lemon, silky espresso, creamy peanut butter, sweet strawberries, red velvet. Each month brings a menu of new flavors to whip into cream cheese — and melt the willpower of fans.
A year after launching “The College Confectionista” during her senior year at El Molino High, the spirited 19-year-old has banked more than $9,000 through baking. She hopes to more than double that amount by the time she’s ready to transfer from Santa Rosa Junior College, where she takes online classes. Her goal is to be accepted into the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
For now, Morales is developing her entrepreneurial chops in the kitchen, experimenting with new flavor combinations, baking everything from scratch with fresh and local ingredients. She uses Clover cream cheese, marketing through social media and in some cases, hand-delivering each $40 handcrafted masterpiece of velvety goodness.
Her Facebook page is sprinkled with vintage advertising pictures of smiling housewives and winsome young lovers grabbed from midcentury magazines. The confectionista herself looks a bit like a 1950s time-traveler. A fan of all things retro, she loves to wear polka dots and sports handkerchiefs in her hair.
“Elvis Presley is my husband,” she jokes, “who died a long time before I was born.”
Morales grew up in Healdsburg, the daughter of Tomas and Laura Morales. She was prompted to start her own business after a stretch of late nights spent wondering whether — and where — she wanted to go to college.
“My parents, who both didn’t go to college, said maybe you don’t want to go to a four-year university right away. Maybe you want to do a gap year or travel,” Morales recalls. “That got me thinking. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I worry about college expenses. I don’t come from money, my parents had me at a young age and never started a college fund for me. I’m starting my college fund from scratch.”
And while Morales sees a future in business for herself, she sees a future in the nonprofit world for College Confectionista.
“I’m hoping to turn it into a nonprofit, where I could create scholarships for other low-income and first-generation women, especially Hispanics, girls who have the drive to go to college and don’t have the money. That would make me so happy.”
College Confectionista, 707-495-5324, facebook.com/CollegeConfectionista
Deacon Oakley-Carpenter, a Santa Rosa-based Ayurvedic medicine specialist, believes yoga and integrative medicine must evolve to meet the needs of modern life. “Yoga is 5,000 years old. We don’t move, we don’t sit, we don’t communicate, we don’t consume things the same way now as we did then.”
Oakley-Carpenter, a former New York advertising executive, is well-situated to lead this transition, having discovered Ayurvedic medicine in his teens. He moved to Healdsburg in 2010, leaving behind a career in advertising and marketing, and seeking a community with heart and a deep connection to the outdoors. “In New York, you chase life, but in Sonoma you really live life,” he explains.
This spring, Oakley-Carpenter’s airy downtown Santa Rosa yoga studio branched out and became WellSonoma at YogaONE, where in addition to yoga classes and Oakley-Carpenter’s Ayurvedic practice, clients can consult with other on-site integrative health professionals, including a Chinese medical doctor and acupuncturist, a massage therapist, a Reiki specialist, a nutritionist, a hypnotherapist, even a specialist in nonviolent communication.
A traditional MD is also on staff, and patients benefit from the atmosphere of collaboration and knowledge-sharing. A client with chronic back pain, for example, can combine yoga classes with cranial-sacral therapy and acupuncture. The clinic also offers a cancer wellness program — on a pay-what-you-can basis — that supports patients undergoing treatment elsewhere with gentle yoga movement and breath training.
Oakley-Carpenter feels WellSonoma’s approach aligns with the overall direction medicine is taking. “What’s not happening in Western medicine are the diet and lifestyle edits that can greatly reduce the use of pharmaceutical drugs,” he says. His Ayurvedic consultations help patients achieve balance and make more thoughtful choices about what they put into their bodies. Sonoma’s robust food culture certainly helps — because if you’re eating seasonally, he explains, you’re eating healthfully.
“There’s no magic bullet,” says Oakley-Carpenter. “The intention is always to bring people to a better place.”
416 B St., Santa Rosa, 707-542-9644, loveyogaone.com
Mole negro isn’t made in an afternoon.
One of the seven traditional moles of the Oaxaca region of Mexico, this sweet-savory sauce made with dried chiles, spices, seeds, tortillas and Mexican chocolate is a celebratory dish that once brought entire communities together in days long preparation.
“People make it in a day, but you really can’t if you do it right,” said Octavio Diaz, whose mother, Juana, has been making mole (pronounced MO-lay) at his restaurant, Agave Mexican in Healdsburg, for years. Her secret recipe also is used at the Diaz family’s Casa del Mole market where it’s served over burritos and freshly prepared for takeout.
With a laundry list of 30-plus ingredients — most of which require separate roasting or blanching or toasting — it’s a labor of love that’s been passed down from mother to daughter for generations.
“Mole connects people. There are so many spices, and you can break down walls through food,” said Octavio Diaz.
Unique to each of its creators, mole negro shares many foundational ingredients including ancho, poblano and/or guajillos chiles, Mexican chocolate and cinnamon, stale bread, tomatillos, plantain, oregano, raisins, pumpkin and sesame seeds, garlic, onions and cloves, traditionally. But improvisation and secret ingredients, of course, give the mole life: Sweet bread or animal crackers instead of stale bread for thickening, a ripe banana instead of the plantain, the addition of corn tortillas (a secret to Diaz’ mole).
“I can’t tell you everything,” said Diaz. Because like any great recipe, there are infinite secrets and traditions surrounding mole, all of which seem to contradict each other. No one, in fact, is quite sure what region of Mexico it originated in or who came up with the dozens of ingredients necessary to create this celebration dish. What they can agree on, however, is its importance in Mexican culture.
But the tradition is dying out, and real mole is a rare find at local taquerias despite the preponderance of great Mexican cooks in Sonoma County. At least the freshly made kind. Why? This is labor-intensive celebration food that’s more easily served from a can than slaved over for days.
Oaxaca is home to no less than seven different types of mole — some now say eight — ranging from red and green to dark brown depending on the ingredients. But most popular in American restaurants is mole negro, an exotic sauce that captures the imagination with ancient flavors of chocolate, smoked chiles and cinnamon.
So what does it taste like? It’s exotic, rich, earthy and unmistakable. Poured over poultry, it puddles and spreads across the plate-like a chocolate mudslide, and the absence of a single ingredient will alter it entirely. Not surprisingly, its sensuous richness serves as a backdrop to one of the most tender moments of Laura Esquivel’s book, “Like Water for Chocolate.” In it, the oppressed Tita makes a turkey mole for her nephew’s baptism, gently browning seeds and grinding spices for an entire day, in the process making her love, Pedro, wild with anticipation. Like wild.
With the opening of Casa de Mole in 2013 and the recent addition of Agave Uptown in Oakland, mole is becoming a true signature of the Diaz family, and now being made on a slightly larger scale that includes commercial bottling of the family’s secret sauce. Agave Uptown will have a mole ice cream, and Diazes’ new Kitchen 335 in Healdsburg includes a pork chop with mole negro sauce.
“For us, every day is a celebration,” said Diaz, “and there’s a story in each dish.”
LIME Foundation founder and business owner, Letitia Hanke, was bullied in school, and she credits her love of and involvement in music for insulating her during those difficult years.
“There were not many black students in the entire (elementary) school, and for years kids called me names and physically and mentally abused me,” says Hanke who was taken aside by a teacher and encouraged and taught to play trumpet.
Hanke retreated from the cruelty of the playground and practiced her instrument in the music classroom, eventually earning herself a spot in the high school band. The teens with whom she played stood up for her, and “things turned around for me,” she says, “as I got older and made many friends.”
Today, Hanke owns a roofing company, a career path that began “by accident” during her college years as a Sonoma State performing arts student in need of a job. “I wanted to be rock star,” she says.
It could be argued that she did become a rockstar. While her music-making (songwriting, singing keyboards, and drumming) happens mostly in her home studio today, Hanke is a champion for youth and others in need of mentoring and career training through her programs at the LIME Foundation. The organization will be holding its 2nd Annual Believe in the Dream event on September 14 to raise funds for its programs.
Believe in the Dream will be presented at Vintners Inn in Santa Rosa and will feature entertainment by Lime Foundation-funded Turner Initiative scholarship recipients, 17-year-old vocalist, Natalie Moss, and the New World Ballet Center.
Hosting the event will be Sonoma County-based personal stylist and fashion writer, Malia Anderson, of Style By Malia, whose company tagline includes the charge to “envision your closet as an ally.” Clearly, empowerment is on the evening’s program.
Auction items will include massages, amusement park tickets, vacations to Tahoe and Vegas and more.
Hanke says the evening benefits programs designed to help young people who face challenges similar to what she’s experienced. Her NextGen Trades academy trains 16-24 year-olds in construction trades, with an emphasis on women. A graduate who earned a full time position for a construction firm will be speaking at the event.
Malia Anderson appears on a video on LIME’s website, describing Hanke’s leadership style as, “very hands-on and very compassionate.” Andersen says, “It’s not, ‘What do I get as the head of the company?’— It’s, ‘How do we all succeed?’”
Yes, definitely a rockstar.
To attend the September 14 fundraiser, go to 2017dream.eventbrite.com. For more information about the LIME Foundation and its programs, visit: thelimefoundation.org, 707-532-LIME.
