Fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill has announced a partnership with Slow Food USA to support or maintain 100 school gardens across the country.

At first blush, it may seem a bit confusing — fast food and slow food in the same breath? But Chipotle, with some 1,700 locations nationwide, has made its mission to use local and sustainably sourced products and “classic cooking methods” (ie: not relying entirely on microwaves). Call it fast food with a conscience.

The new partnership gives Slow Foods USA’s National School Garden Program a $500,000 boost, launching new educational gardens in ten metro areas around the country (none in the Bay Area, however). Slow Foods USA is part of an international grassroots network that promotes healthy dining, sustainable farming, rescuing “endangered” local fruits and veggies and “linking the pleasures of the table with a commitment to community and the environment.”

It’s also a brilliant PR move for both the parties.

Slow Food USA has historically struggled to reach a mass audience, focusing instead on local organizers and bootstrap ideals. Chipotle (which has been criticized in the past by Slow Food USA) has worked hard to get its message of slow-fast food to a nation of McDonald’s eaters.

Whatever the motives, the end result is hopefully better nutrition, engagement with food systems and support for struggling school gardens. Win-win.

We’re also loving the new “hotel style” room-service menus at soon-to-open Sutter Hospital in Santa Rosa.

Executive Chef Tood McNeive, formerly of Oliver’s Markets, has created an extensive menu that includes plenty of heart-healthy foods for, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as comfort foods like a cheeseburger, macaroni and cheese, pot roast, pot pie and pizzas. There are also doctor-approved liquid diet selections for patients (popiscles, ice cream, soup) and plenty of desserts including apple crisp, brownies and of course, tapioca pudding. Cause it is a hospital after all. A welcome change from the industrial foods we’ve come to expect in hospitals.

We’d be remiss, however, not to mention the incredible food choices at Kaiser, as well, that include locally sourced produce, organic meats and breads. There are daily specials that include soups and curries at a ridiculously affordable price (stay tuned for more on that).

Seems like being a patient doesn’t have to be a gastronomic punishment anymore.

First off, the food world lost a gourmet pioneer last week. Bonnie Lynn Tempesta, credited with introducing the biscotti to the American food scene in the 1980s,  died on Sept. 25 in her Sonoma home. After founding La Tempesta Bakery Confections in the Bay Area in 1982,, she became the largest biscotti producer in America, selling to Neiman Marchus, Starbucks, Macy’s and Dean and Deluca. The entrepreneur sold her business in 1997, devoting her life to art, animals and a program for disadvantaged youth. In 2012, she started a small, philanthropic baking company in Kenwood named Boncora, donating a portion of every sale to her favorite cause, Pets Lifeline of Sonoma Valley.

Moving on from Woodfour Brewing is Jamil Peden. The creative chef, whose resume includes Petite Syrah and Healdsburg’s Campo Fina, says he doesn’t yet have any plans, but welcomes the change. You’ll still find him at Woodfour’s Monday Ramen pop-up, Ramen Gaijin. There are some whispers about the new chef, who we hear is coming from a highly-respected Marin restaurant, but no official word yet.

A hearty hellooooo to the forthcoming Yeti Restaurant, slated to open in the former Lyon’s near the intersection of Farmer’s Lane and Hwy. 12 in Santa Rosa. Yeti has been a popular Himalyan/Indian restaurant in Kenwood for several years, with some of the best naan BiteClub’s ever had. More details on when they’ll arrive soon.

Williams-Sonoma has finally come home to Sonoma.

“We’re celebrating our roots an coming back home,” said Janet Hayes, president of the Williams-Sonoma brand. On Oct. 4, Chuck Williams’ original store will reopen just off the Sonoma town square, nearly sixty years after its founding. Just in time for Williams’ 99th birthday.

And although the new store is more of the crisp, luxe lifestyle brand most of use are familiar with,

there are plenty of historic influences — from the original sign hanging out front and black and white tile flooring, to Williams’ own collection of copper pans and French cooking molds — serve as a reminder of its past.

First opened in 1956 at 605 Broadway St., the kitchenwares store was among the first to bring French copper pots, La Crueset bakeware and high-end culinary tools to American home cooks. In fact,  if you’ve ever used a KitchenAid stand mixer, Wustof knife, or poured cream from a little porcelain cow, you have Chuck to thank.

But since the store’s move to San Francisco just a few years after opening, there’s been no Williams-Sonoma in its namesake town.

In a stroke of luck, the original storefront (which had served as catering kitchen and frame shop among other things) came up for sale recently, and company officials knew they had to snap it up. Included in the sale was Williams’ home which he shared with his mother for many years.

The home has been renovated to serve as a stage for many of the Williams-Sonoma brands, and includes a backyard garden, grill and patio.

Food Network chef and Marin-resident Tyler Florence was at the opening, and reminisced about his first meeting with Chuck in 2006. “I had a real connection when meeting Chuck at my own kitchen store. He brought the first copper and paella pans to home chefs. He brought all these new vehicles of expression,” said Florence. “What Steve jobs did for computers, Williams did for cooking,” he added.

We couldn’t have said it better.

The new store at 605 Broadway, Sonoma, will be open daily from 9am to 6pm. A professional kitchen will include hour-long cooking classes that include:

• Chef Jen Demerest of Harvest Moon – 10/7
• Executive Chef Billy Reid of Hopmunk Tavern – 10/13
• Chef/Owner Duskie Estes of Zazu Kitchen & Farm – 10/14
• Chef and Culinary Instructor Jason Kupper – 10/20
• Chef Dustin Valette of Dry Creek Kitchen – 10/21
• Executive Chef Todd Thompson of The Red Grape – 11/3
• St Francis Winery – Wine Pairing Dinner – 11/11
• Chef Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards – 12/12  
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It’s not often you get a decent cocktail at a bar anymore. ‘Tenders are too busy making Jack & Cokes and pouring cheap beer.

In fact, we’ve gotten a few sneers for merely asking for a gin and tonic.

But we’re loving the hand-crafted “original” sours at Whiskey Tip (1910 Sebastopol Rd, Santa Rosa) made with American bourbon, simple syrup, lime juice and egg whites.

They’re beautiful and delicious, and only $8 rather than, well, a whole lot more at other fancy drink spots.

I loved this article in the SHED newsletter, written by Gretchen Giles (editor of Made Local Magazine). She’s graciously let me reprint it here. Consider checking out the class.

It’s not a grain and it’s not a wheat, but buckwheat acts like a grain and cooks like a wheat. Best part? It’s extremely high in protein and entirely gluten-free.

In preparing for Sonoko Sakai‘s soba-making workshop, slated for Oct. 5 at SHED Modern Grange in Healdsburg, we have buckwheat on the brain.

It’s a pretty amazing plant. Interplanted, it acts as a natural weed suppressant. Featuring triangulated seeds similar to those of the Beech tree, it’s original name is Beech Wheat; knowing that the Dutch word for “Beech” is beuc helps to understand today’s moniker. And before the advent of petrochemical fertilizers, we used to grow literally tons of it in the U.S. — one million acres were harvested in 1918 — as a green compost that rejuvenates soils.

The French love it for crepes; the Italians, for pasta; and the Japanese, for their slurping noodles. They even have a word, nodogoshi, to describe the sensation one feels when whole soba buckwheat noodles slide down the throat.

Anson Mills, one of the country’s only artisanal outfits able to properly process this notoriously difficult seed, has offered to custom mill two types of buckwheat flour just for SHED. For soba making, they are producing Ni-Hachi Sobakoh, a high grade flour made from buckwheat “just cut from the field a few days ago”, according to Glen Roberts, the visionary founder of Anson Mills. For pasta, crepes and other pastries (such as the buckwheat seeded cookie made by our talented pasty chefs), they’re milling a refined taragna buckwheat flour. Discussing buckwheat on their website, they rather poetically declare, “the aroma and flavor nuances of freshly milled buckwheat are fleeting.” Look for these custom milled flours in our cooler, expected sometime next week.

The best soba houses in Japan still mill their own buckwheat flour in order to best capture its transience. Sonoko has been known to leave her clothes behind in order to pack her luggage full of this flour when she travels to places where it is freshly milled.

Join us on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2014 to learn more about this ancient staple and the soba noodle tradition that surrounds it. Sonoko has graciously allowed us to reprint one of her stories about buckwheat soba noodles and their importance to her personally on our blog this week.

On a recent tour of the Barlow’s SpirtWorks Distillery (6790 McKinley St #100, Sebastopol) BiteClub fell a little in love.

Partly with owners Timo and Ashby Marshall’s Boston Terrier, Bandit, and mostly with their newly-released barrel aged gin.

Made from their Red Winter Wheat gin, it’s aged in new White oak (giving it a more intense, toasty flavor), imparting a rich amber hue, with lots of vanilla, butterscotch, cardamom and orange and a perfect winter sipper. Try it mixed with a little eggnog or straight up by the fire.

Want to see the distillery for yourself? Guided tours are available Friday through Sunday for $15 per person, with reservations required. And while you’re at it, pick up a bottle of their vodka, rye whisky and sloe gin (a specialty of Timo’s family for generations).

Available at Oliver’s Markets, Bottle Barn and Bevmo, around $50.

Guerneville’s food and drink renaissance continues with the soon-to-open El Barrio cocktail lounge on September 27, 2014.  It’s the next in a series of food and drink projects by Crista Luedtke, who also owns big bottom market, boon eat+drink and boon hotel+spa.

The “Mexican modern cocktail lounge” will focus on spirits–bourbon, tequila and mezcal–rather than food, with a robust drink program developed by SF bartender and consultant Christina Cabrera (Novela, Range, Marlow, Michael Mina). Luedtke says the name, which translates as ‘the neighborhood’ is also a play on words “bar” and “rio”, or river bar.

The lounge replaces  Whitetail Winebar, and the revamped interior includes custom made Talavera tile and a graffiti wall installation by ‘the Apexer’, a SF based artists.

More details in the next couple weeks.

El Barrio, 16230 Main St., Guerneville, www.elbarriobar.com