Just off the press, Chef Dustin Valette’s new Healdsburg restaurant project officially has a name: Valette. This ain’t about ego, however. We’re wiping a tiny tear from our eyes after Dustin explained that the building (which has housed local institution Zin Restaurant & Wine Bar for years was once owned by his grandfather Honore Valette in the 1940’s.

“We spent some serious time thinking about what to call our new little ‘baby’ and we couldn’t get away from Valette.  It pays homage to our family’s history with the building,” said Valette.

So. Sweet.

Adding to the charm factor is the all-in-the-family vibe: Brother Les Garzini of Garzini Welding is making the restaurant’s charcuterie box and bro Aaron is co-owner of the forthcoming restaurant. Look for a spring opening.

Yes, Virginia, you can actually feed eight adults a locally-sourced, sustainable healthy holiday dinner for under $75? You just have to believe.

BiteClub and Angela Wooton of FoodiesProject.com teamed up with Chef Christopher Hanson (my partner in cooking crime) to create the ultimate holiday meals on a budget this year.

Here’s the Menu:

– Sonoma County Meat Company’s Hamlette (a petite smoked ham around $24)
– Creamed Kale with bacon (bacon can be eliminated for a vegetarian version)
– Glazed roasted cabbage steaks
– Mashed potatoes
– Fresh Cranberry Sauce
– Citrus Salad with Orange Blossom sauce
– Cheese straws
– Ginger spice cookies

It took less than two hours to create the dinner (okay we had a couple people, but several items could be made ahead) at G + G Market’s Ginger Grill Kitchen. Our appreciative audience gave rave reviews. We think you will too.

(Most produce was purchased at G+G Market, pantry staples like flour, sugar and spices weren’t figured in).

You can download a PDF packet (DemoRecipes PDF) with most of the recipes and great tips on shopping for sustainable food when you’re pinching pennies. We ad-libbed the citrus salad (which was just a variety of oranges and grapefruit sliced into circles and dressed with orange blossom water, sugar and vanilla), and reached into the archive for Amy Meier’s Sugar and Spice Cookies cookies from the BiteClub Cookie contest.

Check out the Foodies Project, a great local Meetup group that brings people and producers together in really fun ways.

Just when it seems like there couldn’t possibly be room for another cookbook on our shelves, a flood of irresistible new tomes lands in bookstores. This fall, local chefs and food writers are at the top of our holiday wish lists with delicious coffee-table inspirations, master classes on bread, pizza and pasta making, spicy ethnic cooking and thought-provoking literature that we’ll be cuddled up with all winter. So clear out some space in your culinary library and get ready to get cooking.

“Della Fattoria Bread: 63 Foolproof Recipes for Yeasted, Enriched & Naturally Leavened Breads” by Kathleen Weber ($29.95, Artisan): Bread-baking isn’t for the faint of heart, despite being one of the simplest foods we eat. Water, flour, yeast and time are about all that’s required of the baker, but it can take a lifetime to perfect the perfect loaf. Petaluman Kathleen Weber of the legendary Della Fattoria bakery and cafe has the art of wood-fired breads down to a science, with many top chefs throughout the Bay Area (including Thomas Keller) clamoring for her rustic Pugliese Boule and sweet baguettes, while locals snap up her homey Pullman loaves by the armful. Her cookbook includes “foolproof” recipes for 63 types of bread — from dinner rolls and sticky buns to naturally leavened rustic loaves, crackers, flatbreads and the dressy Pain d’Epi loaf (a loaf that looks like a stalk of wheat). Interspersed are spreads and accompaniments (olive tapenade, panzanella salad) and slice-of-life stories about Weber’s life and love of Sonoma County. Don’t miss the story about their visit from Martha Stewart, who helicoptered into their farm.

“Inside the Test Kitchen, 120 New Recipes Perfected” by Tyler Florence ($35, Clarkson Potter): At a recent event, Marin’s Tyler Florence pulled an advance copy of his new cookbook, a faux journal (think Moleskine) filled with recipes that seemed too simple to need, well, a recipe. But that was just the point. Crowd-sourced from his Twitter followers (#tftestkitchen) and tested by friends and family in his Mill Valley test kitchen, it’s a compendium of perfected classics like meatloaf and grilled cheese (they “stretch-tested” cheeses); they gave an update to spaghetti and meatballs, tarted up tired old pork chops and created what’s destined to be the definitive cornbread recipe using corn meal fried in bacon fat. (We didn’t say these were healthy recipes.) It’s a tasty romp through Tyler’s frenetically creative world, complete with handwritten margin notes and plenty of pictures to make sure you’re on the right track.

“New Napa Cuisine” by Christopher Kostow ($50, Ten Speed Press): Three-Michelin-starred chefs don’t write cookbooks. They create aspirational works of food art that double-dog dare you to even attempt cooking them — that is, if you could actually find acorn flour, trimoline (a sugar syrup requiring a Ph.D. to prepare) and mallow leaves at your local supermarket. Kostow, who has been called “one of the greatest chefs of our generation” by his three-starred peers, is executive chef at St. Helena’s Meadowood Resort, earned his elite status before the age of 40 and is heir-apparent to fellow Napa chef, Thomas Keller. With 100 recipes (frog ravioli, grappa marshmallow, cockscomb spelt porridge), stories of Kostow’s charmed life and his favorite local purveyors, just paging through this epic coffee-table book, filled with moody tableaux of local preserves, foraged vegetables and wild game, is reward enough. Leave the recipes to the professionals.

“The Pizza Bible” by Tony Gemignani ($29.95, Ten Speed Press): Making pizza, according to a chef who’s dedicated more than half his life to the craft, isn’t as easy as throwing together some flour and water. For 11-time world Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani (with restaurants in San Francisco and Rohnert Park), every pizza is a quest for pie perfection. And while not everyone gets the subtleties between Neapolitan pizza versus Chicago-style, Roman, Sicilian or Californian, “The Pizza Bible” inspires cooks of any skill level to lean into the dough and knead. There’s a step-by-step dough-making master class, providing exhaustive detail on ingredients, tools and technique, including a guide to different types of flour. You’ll never look at a pizza the same way again.

“Fog Valley Crush” by Frances Rivetti ($20, Fog Valley Press): Everyone in Petaluma knows British-born writer and gal-about-town Frances Rivetti. For years, she’s written about the people, places and food purveyors of southern Sonoma County with a combination of wit, humor and passion in her popular blog, Southern Sonoma Country Life, and in the Argus-Courier. Including her larger-than-life band of friends, neighbors and family, the book documents her foraging for food at a “tribal dinner” on a friend’s ranch, tolerating her husband’s obsession for garage winemaking, traveling the back roads of west Sonoma County tasting regional cheeses, wine and olive oils, and celebrating the distinctly west county cast of characters with terroir under their nails, a wheel of Red Hawk in the fridge and a farm table set for 20. Self-published, Rivetti’s charming tome is truly a “love letter to a micro-region of farmers, food innovators, artists and dreamers.” Recipes complement the narrative.

“Spice to Plate” by Savory Spice Shop ($24.95, available at Savory Spice, 317 D, Santa Rosa or online at savoryspiceshop.com): Exotic herbs and spices can be intimidating, like the bottle of Vadouvan (a blend of French and Indian spices) that’s been sitting on a shelf for a year, taunting. Taking the fear out of kicking your dinner up a notch is this simple little cookbook that includes 30 recipes inspired by 10 Savory Spice signature blends. Ranging from creamed corn and chorizo-spiced flatbread to grilled chicken lettuce wraps and chicken biryani, it’s a primer to expanding your palate. The book comes with one free blend, but makes a great gift with four or even all 10 of the spice combos to boot.

“Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America” by Douglas Gayeton ($35, Harper Design): The co-founder of the Lexicon of Sustainability and force behind hundreds of photo/art pieces about food, farming and sustainability, Douglas Gayeton is hard to describe. He and his wife live on a goat farm in Petaluma (she is the force behind Laloo’s and his co-conspirator), making it their mission to help all of us understand the language of sustainability through photography, art, movies and discussion. Dive into Gayeton’s colorful world, and learn the words and ideals of a more perfect food system.

“Tacolicious” by Sara Deseran ($22, Ten Speed Press): Food writer and co-owner of SF’s Tacolicious restaurants, Sara Deseran has modern Cal-Mexican antojitos (street food) dialed in. Not to mention infused tequilas, margaritas, horchatas and other libations perfect for pairing. Recipes aren’t especially challenging (and even include the legendary chile con queso with Velveeta), but you’ll need to get familiar with a variety of dried chilies and ingredients like achiote paste, banana leaves and really good corn tortillas to make the recipes properly.

“Flour + Water: Pasta” by Thomas McNaughton ($35, Ten Speed Press): It’s hard to explain the kind of passion Italians — and specifically the Bolognese — have for pasta. With hundreds of shapes, sizes and colors, each with a unique purpose or geographic heritage, included, this cookbook, by the chef of SF’s popular Italian eatery, Flour + Water, is an education in craft, seasonality and tradition. Starting with creating a perfect dough, through complicated pasta folding (tortellini, or the unusual scarpinocc) and rich sauces, “Flour + Water: Pasta” is an education for even the most savvy of Italian gourmets.

“French Roots” by Jean-Pierre Moulle and Denise Lurton Moulle ($35, Ten Speed Press): The story of two cooks, who eventually married, through food. Jean-Pierre is a former executive chef at Chez Panisse and Denise imported French wine in the Bay Area throughout the 1970s and ’80s.

Lotto tickets + French Laundry = A magical friendship?

So okay, let’s just come right out and say it. When did “foodies” become a new lotto demographic? (Okay, there was this guy with the “sweet tooth”.)

Not to say that I’m not giving an Emerald Scratcher some serious consideration. Because I mean…it is the French Laundry and that’s some serious cheddar. But…oh man. Thomas must be cringing.

If you can’t handle all the exclamation points, the gist is that you buy an Emerald 10 scratcher lotto ticket and take a picture of yourself with it. Then write in 500 characters (roughly 100 words) the who and why of the person you want to share it with.

Lotto mania ensues.

++++++++++++++

Calling out all Foodies! The California Lottery is proud to offer a promotion unlike anything we’ve ever offered before.

Beginning January 5, 2015 the Lottery will begin its Ultimate Foodie Experience promotion that can only whet your appetite. The lucky winner will receive an 18-course tasting menu at the world renowned THE FRENCH LAUNDRY restaurant in the Napa Valley! This dining event for two starts off with a bottle of champagne. Then enjoy Chef/Owner Thomas Keller’s amazing meal paired with wines selected by THE FRENCH LAUNDRY Sommeliers.

Food aficionados are well aware that THE FRENCH LAUNDRY is a three-star Michelin Guide restaurant and it is considered one of the top 50 gourmet restaurants in the world.

“We’re pleased to give California Lottery players a chance to taste what it’s all about. Throughout our history, the California Lottery has offered our players a variety of prizes that gives them additional opportunities to win big,” said Russ Lopez, Deputy Director of Corporate Communications. “What better way to celebrate California, our farm-to-fork movement and one of the world’s best restaurants than to offer them the ultimate THE FRENCH LAUNDRY experience. If you love food, then buy a ticket, take a chance and join the ultimate ‘foodie’ club!’”

Starting January 5, participants must purchase the Lottery’s Emerald 10’s Scratchers® ticket (image below). Our (hopefully) hungry customers will then have to take a photo of themselves clearly showing off the Emerald 10’s Scratchers ticket. They must send us that photo with the best caption they’ve even written telling us who they’d share this exceptional dinner with and why. The caption must not exceed 500 characters (not words). Don’t worry, our submission form will not let you go over 500 characters! It’s that easy! Sorry creative people, the photo cannot be Photoshopped! All the final details of this exciting promotion will be unveiled at or around Jan. 1.

Hold on! If that isn’t enough to make you run out and buy an Emerald 10’s Scratchers ticket, consider that we’re throwing in a two-night stay at a Napa Valley spa and resort! You’ll be picked up from the hotel by one of THE FRENCH LAUNDRY’S custom BMW cars, and Chef Keller will wind up your night with a special personal gift!

 THE FRENCH LAUNDRY is considered one of the top 50 restaurants in the world and has earned top honors in the prestigious Michelin Guide book. Michelin has been awarding 0-3 stars to restaurants around the world since the early 1900s, with a three-star rating considered the ultimate international recognition in the culinary world.

Adam Parks and his family have worked so hard to create a local, sustainable meat company in Sonoma County. He’s fought many battles with permitting, slaughterhouses, pricing and the inherent difficulties of being at the forefront of this movement. And now, he’s asking the food community to give him a hand.

He’s making a big ask, but unlike many Kickstarter campaigns, has a proven record of selling a great product. Adam has always been super helpful to me, a great supporter of the food community and a hardworking local guy.

I’ll let you make the decision whether you can afford to help out. He’s asking for folks to donate $50, buy meat from his stand, or even just buy a tree at his Christmas tree farm.

If you’re thinking about donating this holiday, maybe this is the place to start.

Recently, Madrona Manor chef Jesse Mallgren (@madronachef on Twitter) hosted a dinner with Chef Scott Anderson of Elements Restaurant in New Jersey. It’s not often that you get two amazing chefs cooking at the height of Dungeness season, pairing 9-plus courses with incredible wines, sake and a pear cider than nearly made me weep.

If you haven’t been to the Manor, you’re missing out. Mallgren is one of my very favorite chefs in Wine Country, and has quietly been turning out some of the most creative, forward-thinking food for several years.

Just to torture you, the following food porn…

Q&A
how did you arrange the dinner?
it started on twitter and moved to email. I have followed Scott of a couple of years on twitter and have read a few blog posts about Elements. I think most chefs are introverts so social media is a good platform for us

I sent Scott a list of all the available produce from our garden and the farmer’s market as well as a list of local fish and meats. He then wrote a menu utilizing things he thought would be nice to work with. I wrote a menu with the remaining ingredients. We both like food that becomes bolder as the night goes along so it was easy to fit them together.

were there any special techniques you used in any of the dishes?
Scott crusted the duck breasts in a mixture of salt and citrus leaves. He the cooked them sous vide for an hour to impart the flavor. After the duck was cooled he took the meat off the bone and grilled it over apple wood. When Scott and his sous chef showed up we walked thru the garden and changed the menu. When you are working with products you are unfamiliar with you have to adjust. Scott and his sous chef did an amazing job taking what I gave them and making beautiful dishes.

The Producers?
The smoked black cod was trap caught just off of the Golden Gate, The duck was Liberty Farms, most of the produce came from the Madrona Garden, Mix Gardens in Healdsburg and various people form the Santa Rosa farmer’s market.  I love Liberty Farms duck. Jim is a great guy who delivers an amazing product. He is a local treasure. His ducks are shipped all over the county to some of the best restaurants

News has just broken that Charlie Palmer (Dry Creek Kitchen), will be rehabbing the St. Helena’s Harvest Inn (which he purchased last winter) to make way for a new restaurant in his ever-growing stable: Harvest Table.

The 110-seat restaurant will focus on (you guessed it) using ingredients sauced from the surrounding areas and the property’s own culinary gardens with a Napa-centric wine list, house made tincture and syrups for seasonal cocktails and Northern California brews and ales. We’re digging the inn’s new Culinary Horticulturist, Laura McNiff, who will be the green thumb shepherding various herbs, berries, greens and fruit from garden to table.

Look for a 2015 opening.

Wine Country Winter restaurant closures are starting to be announced:

Solage’s Solbar in Calistoga will shutter for a revamp in January.

The French Laundry in Yountville will also be undergoing a renovation in the last weeks of December into January, according to sources.

There’s buzz about another high-profile Napa restaurant undergoing some major changes in early 2015, but so far no confirmations.

Zin Restaurant, as reported earlier, will shutter in Healdsburg at the end of December with renovations starting up in early 2015.

Fish Story in downtown Napa has closed. Part of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group, word is that there may be a new concept in the space come spring, but for now, it’s lights out.