Farmer Alice Tibbets of Fledgling Farm at Green Valley Farm + Mill near Sebastopol March 25, 2024. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)
When Alice Tibbetts dreamed up the idea of Fledgling Farm, she was thinking about her own self-confidence as much as the farmstead.
“At first, it started with the idea of ‘full-fledged farm,’ because people don’t always believe that a small-scale, one-person operation can be a farm,” she says. “People want to call it a garden.”
But farm or garden, she took the leap.
“This idea of jumping from the nest is what Fledgling Farm means—the concept of coming to the edge of something kind of scary, and you know you have to do it and you know you can do it.”
It’s the perfect metaphor for a devoted no-till farmer, who at just 21 years old is building a farm and CSA from the ground up on 1.5 acres of shared land at Green Valley Farm + Mill outside Sebastopol.
As a pair of red-tailed hawks circle above and a knee-high cover crop blows in the breeze, Tibbetts is already envisioning what it will look like in June when her first CSA distribution arrives, with lettuce, radishes, turnips, scallions, kale, chard, peas and more.
Farmer Alice Tibbetts of Fledgling Farm at Green Valley Farm + Mill near Sebastopol March 25, 2024. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)
As a young farmer of color, Tibbetts knows the struggle many go through trying to find land to farm. And she knows how lucky she is to have landed at Green Valley, where she can farm more than an acre and share the greenhouse and barn, while paying less than many people shell out for their monthly PG& E bill. It’s exactly what she had in mind when, as part of the National Young Farmers Coalition, she helped brainstorm ideas for the 2023 Farm Bill.
“We were trying to add legislation about land access,” she says. “I’m very aware how difficult it is for young, especially BIPOC, farmers to access land. So, the idea that I could land in this amazing community, with lots of resources and community recognition, and have it be so affordable, was an automatic yes for me.”
Growing up in a small town in western Massachusetts, Tibbetts helped out at a horse-plowed farm. At Bard College at Simon’s Rock, where she enrolled at age 16, she started
a campus farm club and founded a “farm house” where like-minded students lived together. After two years of college, she left to apprentice full-time, immersing herself in no-till farming, a practice that includes disturbing the soil as little as possible, keeping living roots in the ground and sequestering carbon. It’s how people grew food centuries ago.
“The whole philosophy behind no-till is that the soil and compost are sort of the plant’s stomach outside of its body,” she says. “It needs those other forms of life to process carbon and plant material and waste into nutrients. It can’t do that on its own.”
At a passion fruit vineyard in Hawaii, she discovered Korean natural farming, utilizing micro-organisms to enrich the soil. In Thailand, where her mother has roots, she learned about seed saving.
Along the way, she also learned about the sustainability of the farmer. In an age when farmer suicide rates are nearly four times the national average, she sees the evolution of farming in America coming around to the needs of the farmer.
“My parents’ generation, the back-to-the-land generation of new organic farmers, took the homesteading philosophies and found it was financially possible to do small-scale farming…Now, my generation is trying to make farming sustainable for the farmer. The goal is to hold everything that’s been done, learn from it, and choose to make it more sustainable for me in the long term.”
Fledgling Farm, 13024E Green Valley Road, Sebastopol. 413-270-5321, fledglingfarm.com
A macro head shot of a 17-year cicada. They live underground in a nymph stage and emerge only after 17 years. This image highlights the cicada’s large, orange, compound eyes. Often called a locust. (Georgi Bandi/Shutterstock)
This summer in the Midwestern and Eastern U.S., two broods of periodic cicadas—one that emerges every 13 years, the other every 17–will overlap for the first time in 221 years. It should be quite a raucous scene (trillions of cicadas are expected to emerge), and Sonoma State University entomologist Elliott Smeds will be there.
But Smeds spends most of his time studying the periodic cicadas’ lesser-known counterparts closer to home. Sonoma County has at least a dozen native species of cicadas, from the coast to the interior mountains: smaller, quieter and less numerous than their cousins, they emerge every year to herald the arrival of summer with their evocative calls.
Local cicadas are classified into two groups: “wing-tapping cicadas,” which strike their wings against tree branches to produce sound, and “whip cicadas,” which produce a high-pitched whine using a pair of organs on their abdomen called tymbals.
Two broods of periodic cicadas will be overlapping in the Midwestern and Eastern United States this summer. Learn about the lesser-known species closer to home. (Elliot Smeds)
“The tymbals flex inward and outward via muscle contraction, producing a click in much the same way as those clickers you can use for training dogs—except that the tymbals click dozens or even hundreds of times a second,” Smed says.
Cicadas don’t do this simply to serenade the rest of us on sunny days. Rather, what we hear—predictably enough, for anyone who likes to watch nature documentaries—is the sound of males calling for a mate.
Cicadas can be heard as early as March and as late as August, but tend to peak around early June. Rising summer temperatures not only spur cicadas from the soil, where they spend most of their lives as nymphs feeding on plant roots, but also support their noisemaking.
“The act of singing requires a fair amount of metabolic energy,” Smeds says. “They’re using warm temperatures to heat themselves up so that their muscles can move fast enough to generate the sound.”
After mating, males will try again, while females will lay eggs in trees or shrubs. Then both will die. The babies will hatch, crawl back underground, and start the cycle over.
Sonoma’s cicadas occupy a range of habitats, says Smeds. He’s found them at Fort Ross in view of the ocean and in the chaparral at the top of the Mayacamas. Quiet, less disturbed parks, including Trione-Annadel State Park and Hood Mountain Regional Park, are ideal for hearing their song.
The Gallery Burger with fresh thyme, gruyère, caramelized onions and bordelaise sauce from Studio Barndiva Friday, February 23, 2024 in Healdsburg. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Dining editor Heather Irwin picks four top spots for dining out in Sonoma County as summer approaches. Click through the above gallery for a peek at a few favorite dishes at each restaurant.
Tisza Bistro
No one can say no to schnitzel, it seems. In early spring, chef Krisztian Karkus’ eastern European-inspired Tisza Bistro, formerly in the basement of a Holiday Inn in Windsor, rose from the ashes at a new location in Healdsburg—and the restuarant is even better than before.
Charming and homey, it has a welcoming dining room and open kitchen accented by glittering copper pans and oversize picture windows. Much of the furniture is secondhand (yes, those are the chairs from Cattlemens in Santa Rosa), and Karkus and his family and friends did most of the build-out themselves.
“Everyone just stepped up for us, and no one asked for anything in return,” says Karkus.
The menu from the Hungarian-born chef is classic Czech and Hungarian rib-sticking fare that doesn’t require a laundry list of rare ingredients to impress. It’s a relief to eat yummy food without overthinking every bite. Tisza is a restaurant that took a village — or maybe a county — to rise again, and its fans are happier than ever to see Karkus and his magic schnitzel back in the kitchen.
Holstein Schnitzel with fried farm egg, fresh anchovies, crispy capers and watercress from Tisza Bistro chef/owner Krisztian Karkus Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, in Healdsburg. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Best Bets
Potato Latkes It’s a bit of a weird presentation, served on two separate plates, but a knockout nonetheless. The first is a colorful plate of thinly sliced smoked salmon dotted with crème fraiche, dill sprigs, pickled mustard seeds, and a soft-boiled egg. Two crispy latkes are served separately so you can compose the dish yourself.
Potato Dumplings Hand-rolled potato balls are filled with smoked brisket and rolled in duck fat. Served on a bed of creamed spinach to make it, you know, healthier.
Jägerschnitzel The classic pan-fried pork wiener schnitzel, leveled up with creamy wild mushroom and porcini sauce. Buttered spaetzle soaks up every last drop of the gravy—the absolute best thing on the menu.
Rabbit Ragout Is it beautiful? It is not. But is it delicious? Yes, it is. Steamed yeast dumplings and rabbit saddle are bathed in an earthy root-vegetable sauce and a dab of sour cream.
Strudel This seemingly simple dessert is made in-house by stretching the dough into thin, buttery layers and layering with seasonal cherries and poppy seeds.
Studio Barndiva
Earlier this spring, in a bold and unexpected U-turn, Barndiva recast its elaborate Michelin star-winning menu as an à la carte lineup riffing on fancy burgers, creamy tikka masala, and steak frites. The restaurant also moved its dining room to the more expansive art gallery next door, while the original restaurant is reserved for private events.
“We’ve been proud of everything we’ve done over the 20 years we’ve been here, but we’re trying to get back to what makes us happy. We have always put an emphasis on sourcing locally. By expanding our menus in new directions, this will allow us to reach even more local farmers growing unusual things,” says co-owner Lukka Feldman.
One of the big draws at the new Studio Barndiva is the crafted cocktail menu from Scott Beattie. Where his mind-bending craft cocktails were a nice add-on to the wine program at the former Barndiva, here, they shine brightly as a main event.
The standout of a recent visit was the Philmaitai, $24, with three types of rum, lime, Orgeat, and a coconut fat “wash.” Beattie can explain the science, but it starts with a reserved hit of rum and barely-there lime, quickly blooming into a familiar tropical mai tai flavor that’s sweet but not too syrupy and finishing with a light flavor of almond and coconut milk.
237 Center St., Healdsburg, 707-431-7404, barndiva.com
The Gallery Burger with fresh thyme, gruyère, caramelized onions and bordelaise sauce from Studio Barndiva Friday, February 23, 2024 in Healdsburg. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Best Bets
Goat Cheese Croquettes Crispy bites that ooze with warm goat cheese and tomato jam. A drizzle of sweet, floral honey. Perfection.
Mt. Lassen Trout Tartare This is where chef Erik Anderson’s talent shines. A petite ramekin of shredded trout lightly capped with fat and dotted with egg yolk jam and chives. Rectangles of toasted brioche, buttery and warm, are perfect utensils for getting the rich, silky spread into your face.
Crispy Chicken Hyper-crispy breading, a tingly green chermoula and garlicky drizzles of tahini. The pounded chicken is supple and delicious.
The Gallery Burger Juicy ground beef studded with fresh thyme and Gruyère is just brain-explodingly good. Order a side of thin frites to sop up the gooey cheese and Bordelaise sauce you’ve dripped everywhere.
Turkish Bazlama & Hummus Whoever makes this Turkish flatbread (similar to pita or naan) is a genius. It’s served steaming, tender and warm, perfectly paired with a simple hummus and quality olive oil.
Brigitte Bistro
Chef Nick Ronan of Brigitte Bistro has fallen in love with Petaluma. The longtime San Francisco restaurateur opened his airy new French café in late March inside the former Wishbone and 3 Cooks Café space.
Named for his late mother, Brigitte Bistro shares dishes inspired by Ronan’s boyhood vacations in southern France, including steak tartare, boeuf Bourguignon, steak frites, onion soup, and cherry clafoutis.
Ronan is a bear of a guy who headed the kitchen at several well-known restaurants in San Francisco and is known for greeting customers with a hug. But his passion for cooking was challenged during the pandemic, and the chef took a bit of time off.
Nick Ronan, chef and owner of Brigitte Bistro in Petaluma, on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (CRISSY PASCUAL/ARGUS-COURIER STAFF)
He reconnected with his culinary community after finding the space in Petaluma. “I fell in love with nature, fish, vegetables, and meat. I started to cook again,” he explains.
Losing his mother in March of last year crystallized Ronan’s concept for the new restaurant. “I want to keep her soul alive. She was wonderful, and there’s a lot of emotion for me,” he says. Brigitte Bistro isn’t a Michelin quest, but a neighborhood spot to eat a nice dinner, grab brunch, or have a glass of wine and some appetizers. More than 60 wines from Sonoma, Napa, and France are featured on the list.
“This is such a joy. I have found a life here that really connects me here. I’ve found love again,” says Ronan.
A customer orders at the deli counter inside Canevari’s Deli in Santa Rosa. (Heather Irwin)
Canevari’s/Guiso Collaboration
What do custom $200,000 sneakers, Latin fusion cuisine, and cult-favorite housemade ravioli have in common? They’re all circling the orbit of a small corner deli, Canevari’s, in Santa Rosa.
Earlier this year, chef Carlos Mojica of Healdsburg’s Guiso Latin Fusion and Dominic Ciambrone, son of Lou Ciambrone, the longtime owner of Canevari’s Deli, put their creative heads together to create something truly unique and delicious—a rotating Italian-Latin fusion dish to appear seasonally on the menu at both spots.
This spring, it was a Cubano Cannelloni, a porkfilled crepe with a Peruvian aji amarillo sauce, developed by Mojica.
Though the collaboration is new, Ciambrone and Mojica go way back. As a kid, Mojica tagged along to his cousin’s soccer games with Ciambrone, a Santa Rosa native and celebrity shoe designer whose up-styled kicks now command upward of $200,000 a pair (Usher wore a custom design during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show).
Ciambrone and Mojica reconnected earlier this year at Mojica’s restaurant, and Mojica pitched the idea of a collaboration. “I saw this as a perfect opportunity,” he says. “We’ve sold out almost every day.”
Guiso Latin Fusion, 117 North St., Healdsburg. 707-431-1302, guisolatinfusion.com. Canevari’s Deli, 695 Lewis Rd., Santa Rosa. 707-545-6941, canevarisdeli.com
Battered Cod Sandwich from opening day at the Valley Swim Club restaurant in Sonoma, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)
Let’s have at it, Sonoma County. Who’s excited to meet up with friends and lounge around on a warm summer night? Who’s down for brunch with a view or staying up late with some good bubbly and salty fries? That would be all of us ‘round here.
Here’s our take on a comprehensive list of Sonoma County favorites. Inside you’ll find both a corner deli with unapologetically huge meatball sandwiches and a fashionable rooftop spot with an exquisite plant-based tasting menu. Tiki-tastic Polynesian fare and a mom-and-pop with super authentic, difficult-to-find Himalayan dosa. There’s a time and a place for all of it, and we can’t wait.
Check out the gallery above for a sneak peek at some of Sonoma County’s best restaurants.
A meaty sandwich from Stellina Alimentari in Petaluma. (Emma K Morris)
People Who Lunch
Canevari’s Deli
“We’re the oldest deli and ravioli factory north of SF in the state of California,” say owners Lou and Kim Chambrone. One bite of the mile-high meatball lasagna, tangy pesto ravioli, or spinach-bacon risotto and you’ll understand why this spot is beloved by all. Show up on Saturday for the gabagool special, a mix of capicola, melted provolone, marinara sauce, and roasted peppers on a toasted soft roll.
A cheerful blue storefront belies the delectable bellybusters within. Consider the Double Creature, a twopatty smash burger towering with American cheddar and housemade fancy sauce, or the intensely layered, two-handed hoagie with real Italian water buffalo mozzarella and olive tapenade. For a surprise with some kick, hit up the gooey, spicy grilled cheese with housemade kimchi and black garlic miso aioli.
Working at Chez Panisse helped pave the way for Joel Baecker and Naomi Crawford’s darling café, where a mostly vegetarian/ vegan menu sparkles with pizzas, salads, and grain bowls, plus specials like creamy heirloom polenta dotted with garlicky mushrooms and roasted delicata squash. Absolutely get dessert—you deserve the goodness of crunchy chocolate-walnut cookies with coconut flakes and dates.
When a chef wistfully describes porchetta grease running down his hand with the kind of passion reserved for those newly in love, you listen. This tiny trattoria from the owners of Stellina Pronto focuses on bold sandwiches and salads, like Il Michelangelo, a meaty handful of the aforementioned porchetta served on Della Fattoria lemon rosemary bread.
Customers dine at The Second Story, upstairs at Little Saint in Healdsburg, a temple to the union of plant-based food, wine and live music. (Kim Carroll)
Eat Food, Mostly Plants.
CLOSED
The Second Story
Chef Stu Stalker pushes the boundaries of haute plant-based cuisine upstairs at Little Saint, a temple to the union of food, wine, and live music that hosts free concerts most Thursday nights. Hyper-seasonal produce comes from Little Saint’s own nearby farm, and the wine program is led by a rising star sommelier who isn’t afraid to have a little fun. The multicourse, prix fixe experience is modestly priced by Healdsburg standards, at $125 per person.
The entire Mediterranean-Middle Eastern menu is vegetarian and vegan—and you likely would never even realize it. Owners Meekk Shelef and Bryan Cooper and chef Rick Vargas craft recipes so deeply layered you won’t miss the meat. The green lentil soup involves 10 items for the base and eight more to deepen the stock. Tally 15 more for the soup body, three for a finishing drizzle, and three more for garnish. That’s a ton of complexity.
The outdoor dining patio at Handline in Sebastopol. (Courtesy of Handline)
Having an Absolute Blast
The Goose & Fern
With a room full of folks cheering Premier League football on the telly, plus trivia contests and movie nights with free popcorn, this dark, divey-cool British pub is your FOMO place. You’ll dine on local rock cod fish and chips, Guinness beef pie, and rich oxtail soup topped with a cheddar toastie. A few beers in, and you’ll be bellowing for the secret scraps: salted batter bits hot from the fryer, served for free.
This tiki-tastic adult playground isn’t just fun; it’s an island adventure complete with bamboo huts, pirate booty, and terrific mai tais. The menu focuses on Hawaiian fare, including plate lunch faves like Spam musubi, sticky garlic chicken, and mac salad. Fried noodles are perfect for soaking up deceptively delicious tropical cocktails that—if you’re not careful—will take you down like a vengeful god.
Pizzaiolo Leah Scurto makes some of the best pizza anywhere, including as a member of the official U.S. Pizza Team (yes, there is such a thing). But she takes a laid-back approach to the laborious art of crafting her restaurant pies, publicly telling her fans to just have fun cooking. So let Scurto focus on 72-hour-long dough fermentations and pristine toppings like hot honey and teasingly spicy Calabrian peppers. You just savor the result.
9240 Old Redwood Hwy., Windsor. 707-6200551, pizzaleah.com
Handline
Sebastopol’s cheery Handline boasts an authentic stone mill to grind its own masa for thick, rustic tortillas that feed into outstanding fish tacos. Plus rockfish ceviche, fisherman’s stew—and Straus soft serve. With ping-pong and picnic tables, there’s no better place to dine out with kids.
Thai cuisine at Khom Loi in Sebastopol. (Sonoma County Tourism)
Transported to Thailand
Khom Loi
Un-Americanized Thai cuisine is a rare find, and chef Moishe Hahn-Schuman’s menu leans heavily on uniquely Thai ingredients, some ordered directly from Asia and delivered by the pallet. The flavors are so unabashedly robust that certain Thai-American standbys—pad Thai, green curry—take on an entirely new and different appeal.
Chef Joshua Smookler tested nearly 100 pizza doughs for his new restaurant, and he’s still tweaking the recipe. Smookler, known for Sonoma favorite Animo, has created a charming candlelit dining experience with handcrafted pasta and elevated woodfired pizzas. Larger format dishes (a whole lamb saddle or pork chop in dashi broth) are standouts, as is the burger. A handful of Animo favorites have hung around, like the Lobster XO with lemongrass tea over sushi rice, and the couple also plan to relaunch Animo later this year.
Owner and chef Joshua Smookler finishes and checks each plate before delivering to the tables at the Golden Bear Station Thursday, Jan. 11, 2023, on Highway 12 in Kenwood. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Street Social
When a chef promises you “damn good food” and the mixologist tells you her drinks will “expand your experience of the spirit,” you know they’re aiming high. Jevon Martin and Marjorie Pier think big and deliver even bigger on stunners like seared pink grouper dipped in jeow som, a spicy-sour sauce from Laos. With just six tables, the space has become an intimate community hub, as diners discuss unusual ingredients like Japanese ashitaba powder and Yemenian red zhoug puree.
Wine Country diners took notice of uber-talented, ultra-charismatic chef Fiorella Butron when she ran Sonoma’s upscale Edge restaurant. Now, she pours her biggerthan-life personality into bold dishes for her small Peruvian deli. Meals are grab-n-go but magical, like boudin blanc sausage with Mendocino black trumpet mushrooms, tucked in a ciabatta roll with arugula and fermented yacón root.
For nearly 13 years, Mark Malicki spent his Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights spinning magic out of a closetsized kitchen at The Casino Bar & Grill in Bodega. Now, he’s created something a little more expansive—but no less inspiring—at a morning café he borrows several nights each week. The menu doesn’t follow any set pattern; it’s more of a watercolor portrait of what’s in season and what Malicki is currently obsessed with. Go without expectations and with your sense of whimsy.
Healdsburg’s The Madrona is a swanky, design-forward destination hotel (on Travel + Leisure’s 2023 It List) with a spectacular dining terrace and flamboyant bar scene—plus elegant dishes like grilled peaches with burrata and prosciutto from chef Patrick Tafoya.
Louisiana Hash with onions, bell peppers, bacon, potatoes, cheddar, eggs, herbs, mushrooms and spicy seasoning from J&M’s Midtown Cafe, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024, in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Breakfast is the Most Important Meal
J&M’s Midtown Café
This corner diner has the soul of a great greasy spoon but the heart of a chef who truly elevates breakfast and brunch. It’s a passion project for Joel Shaw, formerly of Ramen Gaijin, who has kept a few old favorites from the Dierk’s Midtown era while offering new twists on standbys like ciabatta French toast and smoked salmon hash. Plus a NY pastrami sandwich with a permanent place on my Top 10 list.
Since 1995, this charming spot has welcomed west county neighbors, farmers, and winery folk for excellent French folded eggs mantled in fontina and basil leaves or golden polenta crowned with perfect poached eggs, crispy prosciutto, basil oil, and a sprinkle of parmesan.
The husband-and-wife owners have created a cafe that’s as warm and sweet as their signature crebble (a croissant-meets-muffin dusted with cinnamon sugar). The pastry cases are full of decadent treats with cartoonish proportions: You couldn’t possibly eat that whole croissant until, oops, you did. The team recently added popular twice-monthly Friday night fried chicken pop-ups as well as Sunday brunch.
A tray full of ribs and brisket and all the fixings of Austin’s Southern Smoke BBQ at Old Possum Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa, Friday, May 6, 2022. (Erik Castro/ For Sonoma Magazine)
Epic BBQ Collab
A&M BBQ
Local barbecue powerhouses Austin’s Southern Smoke BBQ and Marvin’s BBQ have joined forces for the ultimate Texas ‘cue. Owners Kris Austin and Marvin Mckinzy both grew up in barbecue-loving households, Austin in Kansas City, Memphis, and Texas, and Mckinzy in Kentucky. “We let the smoke do the work, and we don’t try to cover up the meat with sauce, so you can taste the time we put into it,” says Austin.
495 S. Main St., Sebastopol. 707-861-9623
Summer Nights
Iggy’s Organic Burger
The Iggy Biggy isn’t a Big Mac, but it’s adjacent. With two beef patties, cheddar, caramelized onions, pickles, and not two but three buttery brioche buns, it’s what overpromising fast food burgers wish they were— but never are. Did we mention the spot shares space with an ice cream parlor?
109 Plaza St., Healdsburg.
Molti Amici
Summer sunsets were made for convivial Italian aperitifs, gourmet woodfired pizza and bocce ball at this neighborhood trattoria, which opened in 2023. The name translates to “many friends,” which you’ll undoubtedly make while lazing away with a cocktail under fringed umbrellas or leaning back into summery lime-striped cushions. 330 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. 707-756-3169, moltiamici.com
Lavender Angela’s Organic ice cream is served in a sugar cone at Iggy’s Organic Burgers on the plaza in Downtown Healdsburg. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)Battered Cod Sandwich from opening day at the Valley Swim Club restaurant in Sonoma, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)
Valley Swim Club
The only diving at this popular roadhouse is straight into a bowl of clams in buttery garlic noodles. VSC is a casual, walkin- only sibling to downtown’s Valley Bar + Bottle, with a focus on coastal seafood, plus salads, milkshakes, smash burgers, and plant-based options. On the drinks menu, tasty porch pounders and standout natural wines are de rigueur , including the Valley team’s own Le Lube.
A half-acre, historic garden flanks a newly designed, elegant alfresco lounge with couches, fire pits, and an artsy-rustic wine bar. Feed all your senses with chef Jennifer McMurry’s portrait-worthy dinners of locally sourced, seasonal dishes like housemade pappardelle tossed with tangy organic apricots and a spring-onion fondue, showered in edible blossoms.
From the retro-cool experts behind Lou’s Luncheonette and Jack’s Filling Station, the new-ish Buck’s Place is a neon-heavy neighborhood joint in El Verano with live music, dancing and some of the best thick-crust pizza anywhere.
The key word here is dosa. These thin Indian crepes filled with potatoes, paneer, or other goodies are nearly impossible to find in Sonoma County. Though the owners of this Petaluma eatery are from Nepal, they’ve nailed this fermented rice and lentil south Indian street food, as well as thick momo and incredible apricot curry.
Chef/co-owner Julio Ortiz is a Petaluma native—but his parents, Jorge and Gloria, came from Jalisco, Mexico, and the restaurant celebrates regional dishes from that western state, plus Mexico City, Oaxaca, and more. The whole family pulls together to create mouthwateringly different cuisine, like sincronizadas, chiltomate, salsa de aguacate, raspadas and ayocote.
Mole verde Pipián, chicken with green pumpkin seed mole sauce, is served at El Milagro in Cloverdale, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
El Milagro
Bask in the beauty that is Oaxacan mole verde pipián, a sumptuous chicken guisado alongside creamy mayocoba beans. Chef-owners Alan Valverde, Julio Velazquez, and Marco Zamora opened this inventive regional Mexican showpiece just three months before the pandemic. The three met 20 years ago at entry-level kitchen jobs and say shepherding El Milagro through the roller coaster of the past few years has made them like brothers.
Some dainty tasting menus leave you feeling peckish. Not this seven-course, freewheeling fantasia of French, Japanese, Chinese, Italian and Californian cuisine, fed by the property’s orchards and gardens. It’s a most memorable, $275 tasting menu, enhanced with splendid amuse-bouches (yes, please, to a magical confit of green almond marinated shell-on in olive oil until velvety and served with a salty anchovy caught that morning in the San Francisco Bay).
Chefs Stéphane Saint Louis and Steven Vargas somehow manage to make haute cuisine approachable—maybe because they spent most of the pandemic serving luxe fried chicken and onion dip to fund their dream restaurant. The young bootstrappers create magic in the tiny galley kitchen of a former chilidog diner with a seven-course, $135 menu that includes braised beef cheek ravioli with Taleggio foam and a tartare tartlet with sunchoke cappuccino.
Chef Dustin Valette’s tongue-incheek “trust me” tasting menu is a romp through classic restaurant dishes (including the signature scallops en croute) plus off-menu surprises. You can even do a side-by-side tasting menu with a friend and compare different dishes—a rarity with tasting menus. Desserts shine, especially the ItsNotA ‘Snickers Bar’ made with dark chocolate and peanut powder. $20 per course, 5-course minimum.
Next-level bar food at Geyserville Gun Club in Geyserville. (Emma K Creative/Geyserville Gun Club)
Champions of their Neighborhood
Geyserville Gun Club
This former Masonic lodge masquerading as a neighborhood dive is the most next-level bar in Sonoma County. Though their craft cocktails would spit in your eye if you actually called them that, the She Devil (mezcal, cherry liqueur, a squeeze of citrus, and a dusting of ghost pepper) is certainly crafty in my book. The bar menu reads like a line cook’s munchie fantasy—fat Korean tacos, calamari with Kewpie mayo and bonito flakes, and one of the tastiest burgers known to humanity.
This hip, always hopping Jewish-Mediterranean deli fills the bill for neighborhood goodness. Vintage wood bar? Check. Black-and-white checker floor? Check. A rock fireplace lit with a “shalom” neon sign? Sure. The upscale deli food rocks Sonoma County—you know you want to kick back and kvetch with your buddies over juicy, overnight braised brisket plopped atop golden latkes and horseradish cream.
Despite our proximity to the ocean, finding a local restaurant dedicated to seafood is surprisingly tough. Saluting the humble oyster (though there’s plenty more on the menu), Petaluma’s bustling The Shuckery is a seafood lover’s dream.
The joy begins with thick, crispy, pillowy housemade sourdough multigrain crust, then builds to toppings like whipped Double 8 Dairy ricotta from Italian water buffalos, garlic roasted potatoes, chile oil, crème fraîche, and showers of fresh herbs. Purchase by the (square) slice, then happily argue with your friends over whose pie is the best. (You’ll all be correct, BTW.)
(Clockwise from center) The Boho Bowl, gluten-free summer squash tartlets, Mochi donuts, Earl Grey polenta olive oil cakes, at The Altamont General Store. Photo taken in Occidental on Thursday, May 13, 2021. (Beth Schlanker/Sonoma Magazine)
Altamont General Store
Renovate an 1876 clapboard hotel into a chic café and gourmet marketplace, and the community will come—in droves. Linger over a yolky egg, havarti and kimchi banh mi; the Boho bowl with French lentils, rice, and pickled veggies; or kalua pork tacos stuffed with pickled pineapple and Hawaiian chile slaw.
Hidden between tented rice chicharrones, two curled octopus tentacles peep out from a bed of quinoa atop a rough granite slab dotted by lime foam. This edible seascape is almost too beautiful to eat. Almost. At this cozy Healdsburg hideaway, chef Carlos Mojica does gastro-magic in a way that isn’t precious just for the sake of being impressive, from his grandmother’s secret recipe for Latin-style tomato sauce to his mother’s daily preparation of Salvadoran pupusas stuffed with flower buds and cheese. This local favorite still floats under the radar of most dining guides—a hidden gem in a town dominated by showy Michelin stars.
Sit at the big, loud, nickel-topped bar to rub shoulders with west county winemakers, farmers, and other cool kids. All around, folks indulge in French onion soup molten with Gruyère, lavish duck confit with lentils, and goat cheese toast, or–interestingly–mighty fine Thai dishes.
Hidden in the mixed-use clamshell of Petaluma’s southwest waterfront district, Pearl’s Mediterranean flavors are well-known to locals but often overlooked by tourists. Chef/ owners Brian Leitner and Annette Yang’s menu features tried-and-true dishes—fiery red shakshuka, Persian meatball tagine, and Levantine-spiced brisket. Don’t miss the Moroccan rice pudding: a warm, perfumed embrace of a dessert.
Server Mia Cormier with a tray of Rocker Oysterfeller’s oysters on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Valley Ford. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Absolute Classic Sonoma
Willi’s Wine Bar
This Santa Rosa institution is a not-so-secret clubhouse for the county’s movers and shakers. It’s classy without being fussy, offering a suitably adult wine list and something-for-everyone mixandmatch small plates. We like to consider it our office away from home for roséand- crab-taco meetings you can semi-conscientiously put on the company card.
Owner Ari Weiswasser is all about saluting perfect ingredients at this wood-fired oven driven neighborhood hotspot. Think roast chicken, flattened under a heavy piece of tile, then set atop fregola alla primavera and black trumpet mushrooms or Brussels sprouts roasted in an iron skilled with an earthy-sweet brown sugarbacon marmalade.
Is there any more perfect place to soak up the Sonoma Coast? The heavens part for marina views, wine flight boards shaped like surfboards, and visits from seagulls (hold onto that smoked clam pizza, those birdies will dive in and snag it from you). You are steps from boats bringing in the fresh catch, so load up on petrale sole, crab, and an excellent paella studded with calamari, shrimp and salmon.
The town of Valley Ford has a population of 148, and a half-mile downtown along Highway 1. But this 1846 saloon draws folks from all over for briny fresh Tomales Bay oysters fried crisp in cornmeal with bacon and cream cheese and local rock cod tacos jazzed with spicy rémoulade, sweet apple-fennel slaw, radishes, and jalapeños on housemade tortillas.
Grilled Russian River Organic’s Gem Lettuce with miso “Caesar” dressing, radish and shallot bread crumbs from the Dry Creek Kitchen Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, in Healdsburg. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Wine Bars that Center Great Food
The Redwood
If you’re a natural wine geek, you’ve found your tribe at this friendly wine bar. But you won’t be limited by simple nibbles of tinned fish and charcuterie—the accompanying menu punches way above its weight class, like grilled maitake mushrooms with za’atar, braised lamb shank, steelhead trout dip with crème fraîche, and the world’s best hummus served alongside warm, fluffy pita.
Grab a seat at the intimate bar or spread out at a courtyard table in back and pop the cork on a bottle of small-production, low-intervention wine. Then let loose on small plates of oustanding Cal-Mediterranean fare. What wine goes best with a velvety, slow-boiled egg crowned with its custardy yolk and dollops of briny XO sauce? Or a slab of succulent braised pork nested on leeks and prunes? Sample and discuss.
Just when you thought Healdsburg couldn’t get more swanky, here comes an oh-so-posh salute to global wines from a trio of SingleThread alums, with vintage and rare California treasures, small production French bottles—and sake, just because. Guest chef pop-ups with full menus are what make this spot notable on the dining front, but there are also sublime snacks like smoked oysters or caviar with potato crisps and crème fraîche. Gasp—they’re open until 2 a.m., too!
Executive chef Shane McAnelly (formerly of Chalkboard and The Brass Rabbit) has recently taken over the day-to-day at Charlie Palmer’s clubby Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg, adding his own twists while remaining true to Palmer’s “Progressive American” cuisine.
Escargots, from left, Boursin butter, lemon & pepper / black truffle butter / buffalo / garlic butter, parsley, Pernod from Augie’s French Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023, on Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
So French
Augie’s French
Augie’s is all about hearty Gallic dishes like French onion soup, braised boeuf bourguignon with duck-fat roasted potatoes, and bowls of steaming mussels swimming in creamy Dijon sauce that’s begging to be soaked up with a crusty housemade baguette. Champagne starts flowing at 3 p.m., and happy hour bites like croque madames, buckwheat crepes, and the Prime Burger Royale transport to a timeless Parisian moodscape.
Marc-Henri and Maud Jean-Baptiste specialize in tiny batch, artisanal pâtés, glistening rillettes, liver mousses, chunky terrines, and andouillette, a coarse-grained sausage made from pork intestine, wine, onions and seasonings. Each takes days to create. Entrées are just as elegant, in Slow Food sensations like cassoulet rich with Toulouse sausage, duck confit, and pork belly.
The nightly tasting menu trips the light fantastic through a haute French lineup of dishes such as trout doused in red wine reduction with five spice and black trumpets, or tender pork dressed in persimmons, nasturtiums, and hazelnuts.
Interior of Sebastopol’s Fern Bar, a vibe-y lounge and restaurant with astounding craft cocktails and super shareable plates for the table. (Sonoma County Tourism)
Cocktails Make the Meal
Fern Bar
A vibe-y lounge and restaurant with astounding craft cocktails and super shareable plates for the table. The menu switches with the season, but favorites like the Umami Bomb, a vegan dish with greens and mushrooms, are always winners. The patio is a favorite summer spot to people-watch.
Come for the cocktails, stay for the food. The founders of Duke’s Spirited Cocktails created a high-low menu that brings in locals, industry folks, and out-of-towners. Adult chicken tenders are the juiciest strips of crunchy, salty, fried chicken bits I’ve ever had. Dipped in housemade ranch with a side of pickles, they’re worthy of a standing ovation. Perhaps that’s my fourth cocktail talking, but dang, they’re tasty. Open late.
Daily fish specials impress with seasonal rarities, but even the everyday menu celebrates premium, rare catch like joyously fatty sashimi of bluefin tuna belly. Chef Keita Tominaga woos with more contemporary takes, too, like a sweet-briny oyster crowned in uni, ikura, tobiko, and ponzu crème fraîche, or an elegant sushi roll of toro with uni, golden Osetra caviar, and freshly pounded wasabi.
What a delight it is to watch chef-owner Jake Rand behind his sushi counter, slicing and arranging pristine fish from Japanese markets or gracefully adorning nigiri with delicate flakes of edible gold. Regulars pounce on the chirashi, looking like a jewel box of a half-dozen different types of sashimi fanned over ginger-flecked rice, pickled vegetables, and shimmering salmon roe.
Airy Swedish understatement at Stockhome in downtown Petaluma. (Emma K Creative/Stockhome)
Swedish Comfort
Stockhome
Husband-and-wife team Roberth and Andrea Sundell are as much of a draw as their cuisine, matching their warm, welcoming personalities with top-notch Swedish-Mediterranean comfort food like wildly-delicious roasted cauliflower with pepitas and tahini sauce or crispy wienerschnitzel with buttery marble potatoes and peas. Be sure to stock up on the rainbow array of bulk licorice and other candy—the charming Swedish tradition of lördagsgodis, or Saturday sweets.
Fun fact: California has more two- and three-Michelin star restaurants than any other state, including this three-star landmark that offers the third most expensive tasting menu in the country. The $475 kaiseki journey spans 10 courses of dazzling Japanese finery, each ingredient sourced with great purpose and presented with a healthy dose of storytelling.
Here is a fantasy feast, flowing over a 20-course, $295 tasting menu of seasonal, exquisitely imagined California fare. The Michelin-star meal transports— literally—as guests move from room to room during the course of an evening, from Champagne and canapés in the Bubble Lounge, hors d’oeuvres at an interactive chef’s table in the kitchen, entrées overlooking Alexander Valley vineyards, and intricate sweet truffles in the Chocolate Room.
Sonoma’s dining editor Heather Irwin and food writer Carey Sweet sorted through recommendations from staff and colleagues, then put their heads together in an hours-long meetup to land at this cohort of favorites. Irwin and Sweet each dine out several nights a week over the course of the year to cover the breadth of Sonoma’s restaurant scene, and they pay their own way for reviews. To reach them, email editors@sonomamag.com.
Cherries, Wednesday, May 2, 2018 as the Wednesday Night Market returns to downtown Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2018
Biting into the first of the season’s cherries can be transcendent—the taut skin snaps, releasing a burst of tangy juice and sweet flesh. Go ahead—have another. And another.
Locally grown cherries generally first become available in Sonoma in late May or early June—first the rich, dark Bing, followed in a few weeks by the sweet Rainier cherry and the beautiful Queen Anne. Both have pale yellow skin with a red blush and carry through until mid-summer.
Bings are lovely in classic dishes like cherry pie or clafoutis. But a savory pairing is delightful and refreshing. Paired with two other crops also just coming to the markets, sweet corn and Genovese basil, Bing cherries star in a surprising— and easy—early summer pasta salad.
If you prefer a bit more sweetness, use orange zest and orange juice instead of lemon. Don’t care for chèvre? Use feta. The salad is all about the cherries, with the other ingredients playing a supporting role.
As cherries come into season in Sonoma County, Sonoma magazine recommends a delicious way to incorporate the fruit in a bright summer pasta salad. (Shutterstock)
Early Summer Bing Cherry Pasta Salad
Makes 6 to 8 Servings
Kosher salt
8 ounces orecchiette pasta
Kernels from one ear of fresh corn
1 small red onion, trimmed and diced
1 small-medium fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced thinly
Handful of fresh basil leaves, cut into thin ribbons
8 to 10 spearmint leaves, cut into thin ribbons
5 or 6 tarragon leaves, minced (optional)
1 shallot, minced
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
6 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces fresh chèvre
Freshly ground black pepper
Fill a medium saucepan half full with water, add a generous tablespoon or so of salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente.
While the pasta cooks, put the corn kernels into a wide, shallow bowl. Add the onion, fennel, radishes, cherries, basil, mint, and tarragon. Toss gently and set aside.
Put the shallot into a small bowl, add a generous pinch of salt and the vinegar, and set aside.
When the pasta is done, drain it, rinse it briefly in cool water, and drain again thoroughly. Add the pasta to the bowl with the vegetables and cherries and gently toss everything together.
To make the dressing, add the lemon zest and lemon juice to the shallot and vinegar mixture and stir in the olive oil. Taste for salt and acid balance, adding a bit more vinegar or lemon juice if necessary.
To serve, pour the dressing over the pasta. Break the chèvre into small pieces and scatter on top, add several turns of black pepper, and enjoy right away at room temperature.
Table Culture Provisions chef Stéphane Saint Louis serves a collage of late spring bites for two, including squid-ink madeleines, asparagus cappuccino, and golden orbs of Indian pani puri filled with Dungeness crab salad. (Kim Carroll)
On a recent night in Petaluma, inside a tiny restaurant on the outskirts of downtown, the first bites of a tasting menu arrive, each an elegant, flavorful surprise: Jet-black squid-ink madeleines topped with caviar and gold leaf, a delicate taste of the sea. Silky beef tartare in a crisply fried wonton shell. A frothy cup of asparagus cappuccino.
Here at Table Culture Provisions, the menu channels its owners’ talent and skill—but also their fundamental optimism. It’s a rough time to have a high-end restaurant. Rising costs and staff burnout plague the industry, and profit margins for fine dining are slim.
But Table Culture Provisions holds its own as part of a growing movement to pivot away from toxic perfectionism, 16-hour workdays, and costs soaring out of control. Chefs and business partners Stéphane Saint Louis and Steven Vargas have learned how to serve fine dining’s most rarified form—the tasting menu—while keeping their sanity intact, their budgets lean, and their hearts warm and generous.
Chefs Steven Vargas, left, and Stéphane Saint Louis at Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma. (Kim Carroll)
The Launch of a Dream
Vargas and Saint Louis have been scrappy from the start. Stéphane Saint Louis, a tall, confident man with a kind yet intense gaze, grew up in Haiti, where food and family set the weekend rhythm.
“On Saturday mornings, the puff pastry vendor would drop half a dozen at our door,” he remembers. “Sunday was all about church and stopping at friends’ houses for dinner.”
Saint Louis moved to Marin County at 17. When he got interested in cooking, one of his aunts cosigned the loan for culinary school at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Later, another aunt paid his way at the renowned Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France. (“Aunties are clutch,” he says.) After internships, Saint Louis returned to California in 2017 to lead a new dinner program at Petaluma’s Della Fattoria, where he met his future business partner.
Steven Vargas, born and raised in Petaluma, was a chubby-cheeked, soft-spoken apprentice fresh out of culinary school at Santa Rosa Junior College. As a kid, he’d spent summers with his grandmother in Acapulco.
“I’d catch the chickens in her backyard and she’d slingshot iguanas for tacos, my favorite,” says Vargas. “She’d have the entire family, 20-plus people, for dinner on the weekends.”
At Della Fattoria, Vargas was on fire, Saint Louis says. “Apprentice? There was no apprentice. He was picking up most of the work, and he excelled at it. For any task, you knew you could depend on him.” Plus, Vargas had an excellent, semi-ironic tattoo on his right arm: the Grim Reaper clutching a cup of coffee above the words “No Days Off.”
Vargas, for his part, was inspired by Saint Louis. “The furthest east I’d been was Texas. I was captivated by his experience.”
Saint Louis had a tattoo of his own, a Michelin star, reminding him always of the standards he held high. In March 2020, as the world turned upside down, the friends found themselves at a turning point.
“Pandemic or no pandemic, as long as people exist, they gotta eat,” says Saint Louis. “We said, we can go home and collect unemployment, or we can take advantage of the situation and make people feel better in these hard times by offering a good meal.”
Chefs Steven Vargas, front, and Stéphane Saint Louis expedite plates in the tiny kitchen at Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma. (Kim Carroll)
They started a fried-chicken takeout pop-up at The Shuckery. Then, in a now-legendary move, the two invested their pandemic-era federal stimulus checks, totaling $2,700, in Tesla stock. Within a few months, the investment was worth $17,000—enough for a down payment on a catering truck.
They used the revenue from selling fried chicken to stay afloat, later moving to a semipermanent home in Petaluma at Wishbone restaurant. Along with the move came a new name: Table Culture Provisions—a nod to their diverse backgrounds, and one that seemed broad enough to hold space for all their ideas, including, someday they hoped, their own restaurant.
Table Culture Provisions took off, going from one night a week to two, with brunch on the weekends. Saint Louis and Vargas served global comfort food like cassoulet, trout en croute, even a multicourse Haitian feast featuring braised oxtail and rum cake with proceeds going to help fund a school in Haiti.
After securing additional financing from a local supporter, they were ready to look for a permanent home. The spot they settled on seemed improbable at first—a former chili joint with only seven tables— but the kitchen was functional, and the price was right: $150,000.
“We were so desperate, and we were so into it,” remembers Saint Louis. “We decided to make it work.”
Down to their last $1,000, they needed to open the restaurant as soon as possible. They had the walls painted a deep slate blue, enclosed the kitchen, and added a long window into the dining room. Two weeks later, in December 2021, they launched.
Right away, they were doing 40 to 50 covers a night, with an à la carte menu and brunch on Sundays—and almost right away, they realized their concept was losing money. With checks topping out at about $60 a person and room for so few customers, they couldn’t cover costs.
“Our bookkeeper told us we wouldn’t last another couple of months,” says Saint Louis. “But in a way, we’re richer when we’re more broke. It forces us to innovate.”
So he and Vargas and their newly hired team, working “like a bunch of madmen,” introduced a higher-priced tasting menu alongside the à la carte one, and found that customers preferred it. They tinkered with various tasting menu lengths and prices to find out which would resonate most, sometimes cranking out three or four menus at once—which made service “complicated,” to put it mildly.
Two and a half years later, they’ve dialed in the options. The à la carte menu has morphed into a “Social Hour” twice a week. They’ve got a side hustle supplying breakfast pastries and sandwiches for a nearby coffee shop. They’re offering four-course and seven-course tasting menus four nights a week, trimming a crew of 11 cooks and servers to seven. And they have a sommelier, Robert London, a wine importer, early customer, and immediate fan.
“We’ve been like starving artists,” says Saint Louis, laughing. “We’re by no means in a comfortable spot, but at the same time, we’re always aiming for more.”
Table Culture Provisions chef Stéphane Saint Louis serves a collage of late spring bites for two, including squid-ink madeleines, asparagus cappuccino, and golden orbs of Indian pani puri filled with Dungeness crab salad. (Kim Carroll)
What It Takes
Table Culture Provisions is a story of ambitious food on the leanest of budgets, and of building camaraderie and community. While shows and movies like “The Bear” and “Boiling Point” give the picture of fine-dining kitchens as near-intolerable pressure cookers, with chefs melting down under the strain, the mood in the tiny kitchen remains measured and respectful.
The workspace is just 400 square feet, packed neatly with countertops, sinks, a stovetop, and ovens. To pass someone in the narrow central walkway, you have to turn sideways. There are only three chefs for dinner service—Saint Louis on the hot station, Vargas expediting tickets and assembling plates, and French pastry chef Sylvain Parsy.
Although each chef has a focus for the night, everyone helps out with everything—and Saint Louis and Vargas will sometimes swap places for the night, just for fun. Each does all his own prep, saving the cost of a traditional kitchen brigade with its specialized roles. They wash their own prep dishes and scrub down the kitchen at the end of service as a team.
“We never have a problem with that,” says Saint Louis, swiftly cutting steak into tiny dice for the beef tartare. “That mentality helps us keep a healthy workplace. We don’t expect the lowest guy to do it. We’ll get down and get things done, together.”
All the cooking is driven by what’s in season locally. Much of their produce comes from Asombrosa, a farm on 63 lush, hilly acres outside town.
“We change the menu every six to eight weeks,” says Saint Louis. “Our farmer sends us updates, and we plan around availability. How many pounds of peas are there, and how long will we have them? Then: How do we treat the peas—do we blanch and pair them with halibut, or do a cold pea shooter with mint oil? Are there pea flowers, for garnish?”
Together, the three chefs start charting the new menu, bouncing ideas around as they’re cooking. “We set our hearts on the techniques, and then we go for it,” says Saint Louis. “Then, once the menu starts, the ideas become more clear. By the second week, we’re mastering it, finding ways to streamline or amplify, hitting the sweet spot.”
Pastry chef Sylvain Parsy at Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma. (Kim Carroll)
Every bit of food gets used. Spring asparagus, for example: Saint Louis sears the dark-green tips to pair with black cod. The ends go into the asparagus cappuccino and the arancini, or fried rice balls. Beef trim, left from braising beef cheeks for ravioli, becomes the base of the velvety sauce on that pasta.
These chefs prep their food as if they were jewelers, crafting each exquisite component with care. Saint Louis drapes a gougère with a wafer-thin circlet of buttery, salty-sweet nori seaweed dough, then slides a panful of the savory puffs into the oven.
“The weight of the flour and butter keeps the gougère’s shape intact,” he explains. “It also gives the pastry a crackly, crisp texture.”
Creating a leek garnish takes no less than seven steps. Vargas slivers fresh leeks, blanches them in boiling water, plunges them in ice water to set the color, and dries them out in a dehydrator. “No coating. We want them to stay very green.”
Using chopsticks, he culls any thick, ungraceful strands. Then he fries the leek threads, agitating them constantly to prevent clumping or browning. He fries them a second time, to get them ultra-crisp. Finally, the leeks become glistening, crunchy tumbleweeds of flavor, ready for the fish course.
The chefs are always looking for ways to improve techniques, make them more efficient. Instead of individually baking the wonton pastry shells with pie weights in the classic manner, they just stack the raw wontons in their fluted metal tins and deep-fry the entire stack at once. The wontons emerge perfectly pleated, crisp and golden.
“Paul Bocuse is probably turning in his grave right now,” says Saint Louis. “But the point is the end result, and this works better.”
Pastry chef Sylvain Parsy’s pear and milk-chocolate tart at Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma. (Kim Carroll)
A Record Player in the Kitchen
At the pastry station, tucked into the far corner, Sylvain Parsy sets a pear and milk-chocolate tartlet on a turntable—an actual 45 rpm record player he bought for the purpose—and gets it spinning. Bending in close, hands steady, he pipes on Chantilly cream, wrapping the top of the tart in a perfect ivory spiral.
“I had to do 50 of these before I got the hang of it,” he admits. For the final touch, he dips a skewered hazelnut into molten sugar, and then suspends it from a shelf until the dripping caramel forms a delicate candy spear: “One of our waiters calls this the Hazelnut Meteor.”
Any of the restaurant’s tasting menus has dozens and dozens of these components, requiring fierce attention and skill. “Our small scale saves us,” Vargas says. “If we were larger, the labor and time would cost us too much.”
Despite the intensity of the work, the mood isn’t somber. There’s plenty of joking and teasing going on, especially around the fantasy basketball league they’ve started.
“I saw your trades last night, late,” Saint Louis says to Parsy. “Why weren’t you sleeping? You’re not panicking, are you?”
Family stops by, too. Marta, Saint Louis’s wife and the restaurant’s bookkeeper, often pops in with one of their two young children in tow. Not surprisingly for a chef’s kid, Saint Louis’s 6-year-old will taste anything—and deliver a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
Those visits help Saint Louis maintain balance in his life. Living close to work—he and Vargas both have houses just down the block—helps too, saving commuting time. They both take Sundays off, Saint Louis for family outings, Vargas to explore local restaurants and wineries.
“Sometimes I’ll sneak into the restaurant and just be here alone, to collect my thoughts,” says Vargas.
“For me, it’s a lifestyle,” says Saint Louis. “I enjoy this. I never wake up and think, ‘Oh, I have to go to work.’”
On the days the restaurant is open, the chefs arrive by 11, ready to crank. Well before service starts at 5 p.m., each chef has his components and garnishes finished and backup food stowed in undercounter fridges.
Yulia Quintas, a dishwasher so fast Saint Louis calls her “the little machine,” arrives and starts darting through the kitchen, restocking dishes, running to the back storeroom, doing whatever anyone needs. She’s a pure burst of joy, smiling and saying hello, even though she’s come straight from another restaurant job to make ends meet.
An elegant, candlelit scene as evening dinner service begins at Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma. (Kim Carroll)
Time for Service
So much of Table Culture’s food must be completed to order, or its appeal will fade. Pastry shells must be filled, tiny flowers tweezed on, sauces drizzled, and powders sprinkled, cleverly, from a tea ball. That makes time management even more crucial than in a typical restaurant.
Vargas works the tickets, noting when each course is set in motion, but the trio of chefs rely on the servers to track the pace of each table. “The kitchen window lets us see the tables for ourselves, too,” says Vargas.
There’s only one timer in the kitchen, and that’s for fresh pasta: two minutes exactly. The rest of the hot dishes—fried scallops, the steamed fish, and the sauces, finished with butter and cream—all rely on Saint Louis and his internal clock.
As the orders swell, everything starts to speed up, turning the kitchen into a river of motion. Miraculously, no one collides, and it’s almost totally silent.
“We don’t need to talk,” says Saint Louis. “We all know the stations, and we anticipate each other’s needs.”
Parsy whips down the line to help Vargas with the crab salad bites, stuffing the shreds into crisp Indian-style puris. Saint Louis whirls between counter and stove, flinging butter into pots of sauce, blanching turnips, searing asparagus on the flattop, swirling ravioli into its sauce. The hot steel doors of oven and dishwasher flap down, up, down, timed to the movements of the cooks. Meanwhile, the three servers whip in and out, dropping dirty dishes, picking up orders, drying freshly washed silverware. It’s hectic, but not crazy. No one yells.
What Saint Louis appreciates most is being part of this Sonoma community. “We send out respect and thoughtfulness, and they’ve supported us all along, bringing new customers to us, too,” he says.
Vargas agrees. “We’ve heard that our restaurant is a great first step for a lot of people who’ve never experienced fine dining before. They’ll say, ‘It’s so warm here. Now I can go other places and know it won’t be intimidating.’”
The two dream big, with future plans bubbling on the burners. If all goes well, they’ll be opening another restaurant this fall—and judging from how their food has been received so far, chances are good their fans will show up hungry.
Near the end of the night, a customer comes into the kitchen. She’s been celebrating her birthday tonight, and her face is glowing. “To be a Petaluman and have this food,” she says, putting her hand on her heart. “I’m so proud.”
A potluck holiday menu with all kinds of deliciousness: crispy fried chicken, bright salads, and mac and cheese, prepared by Smackin’ Soul Food, a Santa Rosa caterer and food pop-up run by Santa Rosa Junior College student Mahkaila McGowan-Gans and her mother Nancy Gans. (Eileen Roche)
In the 1950’s, on a 10-acre ranch in southwest Santa Rosa, Marteal “Mother” Perry hosted Sonoma County’s first Juneteenth celebration. The tradition continued for 70 years, carried on by her children and grandchildren, hosting a large picnic for extended family and friends.
A few miles away and a few years later, Harold Rogers was part of a group of college students who held a protest to prevent a proposed street from dividing what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Santa Rosa. The students prevailed, and their protest evolved into an annual gathering that became Sonoma County’s official Martin Luther King-Juneteenth festival, now in its 54th year.
Also known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth commemorates the day in June of 1865 when Union troops arrived in Texas to finally share the news that the enslaved people of Texas had been freed — some two years earlier — by the Emancipation Proclamation. The federal holiday is a day to learn and to center the Black experience — and it’s one that our entire community can gather around.
People gather around a picnic table full of classic Juneteenth fare, prepared by Santa Rosa caterer and food pop-up Smackin’ Soul Food, in Santa Rosa. (Eileen Roche)
“I would like for everyone to celebrate it, for people to come together at parks, and in backyards, or at an event or a parade,” says Nancy Rogers, Harold’s wife and longtime organizer of the official Sonoma County Juneteenth gathering.
Food, says Nancy Rogers, is a common thread in every Juneteenth celebration, and food is always a way to bring people from many cultures together. Nancy and Harold have run a catering business, Rohnert Park’s Red Rose Catering, for decades. “We as Black people, food is our thing. It’s part of who we are,” says Rogers.
Mahkaila McGowan-Gans has been attending Juneteenth celebrations her whole life. The 21-year-old Santa Rosa Junior College nursing student, along with her mother, Nancy Gans, runs Smackin’ Soul Food, a weekly pop-up at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building. Dishes like fried chicken, mac and cheese, and cornbread always make an appearance when they cater Juneteenth events.
Student and soul food chef Mahkaila McGowan-Gans with her family’s spicy mac and cheese. (Eileen Roche)
The color red is a symbol of joy and resilience that figures prominently in Juneteenth food traditions. From the mahogany sauce basted on ribs or tri-tip to ruby-fleshed watermelon, or summer’s first juicy tomatoes, there are many options to weave red throughout a Juneteenth meal. Red drinks are popular — including tea made with hibiscus flowers, which are indigenous to western Africa, red soda, and fruit punch. The nostalgia of Big Red, a soft drink similar to cream soda, speaks to Gans, who grew up in Texas where it originated.
For dessert, Nancy Rogers says the Juneteenth celebration at Martin Luther King Jr. Park features plenty of soul food classics made by members of a local church, including sweet potato pie, red velvet cake, and peach cobbler, a dish Nancy often makes for family gatherings when she’s not busy running the Juneteenth Festival. “The crust helps make the pie,” says Rogers, whose buttery crust envelops the peaches she cooks with brown sugar and spice.
From start to finish, the Juneteenth meal is made and enjoyed with the memories of those who came before never far from mind. Rogers begins each of her Juneteenth events with a moment to receive the blessings of ancestors, often bestowing the honor of leading the libations on one of the elder members of her community in attendance that day.
McGowan-Gans says she hopes for a day when every American has a fuller understanding of our newest national holiday. “I want it to be a moment we take to acknowledge how far we have come.”
And while it may be food that brings people to the table, Nancy Rogers points out that we’re called there to celebrate wrongs made right and recognize there is room for forward progress. “Everyone can get together and say this is something we should always know that happened…We can’t ever forget, and we don’t ever want to go back there.”
A potluck Juneteenth menu with all kinds of deliciousness: crispy fried chicken, bright salads, and mac and cheese, prepared by Santa Rosa caterer and food pop-up Smackin’ Soul Food. (Eileen Roche)
Memaw’s Mississippi Fried Chicken
Serves 4-6, easily doubled
This recipe was handed down to Nancy Gans via her grandmother’s cookbook. She recommends going all out with the spices, as it makes a big difference in flavor.
1 (3-pound) whole bone-in chicken, cut into 10 pieces
Place chicken pieces in a large bowl. Season liberally with salt, garlic, hot sauce and Creole seasoning. Pour the butter milk over, then transfer the entire mixture to a gallon-sized zipper lock freezer bag. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours and as much as overnight.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, paprika, salt, black and white pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, and dried herbs.
Remove the marinated chicken from the buttermilk brine and pour the buttermilk brine into a bowl.
Dredge each piece of chicken in the seasoned flour mixture, shaking off any excess, then dip in the remaining buttermilk brine. Dredge chicken again in the seasoned flour mixture, shaking off the excess. Let the battered chicken rest for 10-15 minutes while the oil heats.
Heat oil in a deep fryer or a cast-iron skillet to 375 degrees.
Using tongs, carefully lower the chicken into the hot oil, working in batches so the skillet doesn’t get overcrowded. Fry until golden brown, turning every few minutes. The chicken is done when it’s no longer pink inside and the juices run clear when pierced, about 10-12 minutes for wings, 12-16 minutes for legs and thighs, and 20-25 minutes for breasts, depending on their size.
Drain on a paper towel-lined platter, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Repeat with remaining chicken pieces and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Mahkaila McGowan-Gans’ rich and creamy macaroni and cheese for the Juneteenth table. (Eileen Roche)
Smackin’ Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 4-6
Mahkaila McGowan-Gans’ rich and creamy macaroni and cheese has a secret mix of seasonings she hopes someday to package and sell. We’ve included some alternate seasonings for a kicked-up version similar to hers—feel free to play around with flavors that suit your tastes.
12 oz. dry elbow macaroni
1 tsp. chicken base or bouillon (optional)
¼ cup butter
¼ cup flour
1 ½ cup half-and-half
1 cup heavy whipping cream
½ tsp. dry mustard powder
½ tsp. sweet paprika
½ tsp. chipotle powder
½ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. thyme
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
Pinch of cayenne
3 cups sharp cheddar cheese, divided
2 cups Colby Jack cheese
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add chicken base or bouillon, if using. Add macaroni and cook until al dente. Drain and run under cold water.
Melt butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Whisk in flour and let cook 2 minutes while stirring. Add mustard powder, paprika, chipotle powder, garlic powder, thyme, salt, pepper and cayenne, and whisk to combine. Add half-and-half and heavy whipping cream. Cook over medium heat while whisking until thickened, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in 2 cups of cheddar cheese, plus the Colby Jack and Parmesan. Stir until melted. Add macaroni and fold in gently to combine.
Pour mixture into a greased 9-inch-by-13-inch baking dish and sprinkle the top with remaining cup of cheddar cheese.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Fried chicken and southern green beans and potatoes, prepared by Santa Rosa caterer and food pop-up Smackin’ Soul Food for a Juneteenth celebration. (Eileen Roche)
Southern Green Beans and Potatoes
Serves 4-6
4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound green beans, trimmed
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 ½ cups chicken broth
½ pound red potatoes, quartered
salt and pepper to taste
Add bacon pieces in a large, heavy-bottom pot and sauté over medium heat until the bacon starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, and saute an additional minute.
Add the trimmed green beans, chicken broth, and butter to the pot and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the cut red potatoes to the pot. Cover and continue cooking for 15 minutes, until the red potatoes are cooked through.
Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper. May be served hot or cold.
This refreshing tomato-watermelon salad tastes great with fried chicken — and adds a necessary pop of red to the Juneteenth table. (Eileen Roche)
Tomato-Watermelon Salad with Quick-Pickled Onions
Serves 12
This refreshing salad tastes great with fried chicken—and adds a necessary pop of red to the Juneteenth table.
½ small red onion, julienned
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. sugar
½ cup vinegar (we used a mix of apple cider and red wine vinegar)
2 pints red cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small seedless watermelon, cut into 1-inch cubes
Fresh basil, torn, for garnish
First, make the pickled onions (this step can be done a day ahead, or 1-2 hours before serving). Julienne the onion and place into a widemouth, heatproof jar with a lid. Combine the salt, sugar, and vinegar in a small saucepan, add 1/4 cup water, and heat over medium, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. As soon as the mixture starts to boil, remove from heat.
Pour the liquid over the onions in the jar, pressing down with a spoon to immerse the onions in the brine. Allow the mixture to cool, then cover and place in the refrigerator for at least one hour, and up to one day.
To serve, combine the cherry tomatoes and watermelon in a large bowl. Add the pickled onions. Pour the brine from the jar onto the salad and toss to combine. Garnish with torn basil leaves and serve immediately.
Nancy Rogers serves her peach cobbler — made with a buttery crust that envelops the peaches she cooks with brown sugar and spice — at the 53rd annual Martin Luther King Jr.-Juneteenth Festival in Santa Rosa in June of 2023. (Eileen Roche)
Nancy Rogers’ Famous Peach Cobbler
Serves 12
Nancy’s advice for the filling? Sample and make sure it tastes good to you. Add a bit more lemon juice if you like it tart, or more cinnamon. Nancy’s husband Harold loves the sweetness.
For the dough
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
16 tbsp. chilled butter, plus 1 tbsp. melted butter for brushing crust
6-7 tbsp. ice water
1-2 tbsp. cinnamon sugar, for dusting (see note)
For the filling
1 #10 can peaches in heavy syrup (106 ounces), or three 29-ounce cans
2 tbsp. butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. cornstarch
3 tbsp. water lemon juice (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) of butter into small cubes, and using your fingers or a pastry blender, rub or cut the butter into the flour until it’s the size of small peas.
Sprinkle ice water, a tablespoon or so at a time, over the mixture, and toss the mixture with a fork. Using your hands, gently bring the mixture together in a ball.
It should hold together without being dry or crumbly.
If dry, add more water, a tablespoon at a time, until it holds together. Divide the dough into 2 equal balls and refrigerate.
In a large saucepan, combine peaches, butter, sugars, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla over medium heat.
In a small bowl, add cornstarch and water to make a slurry. Stir into the peach mixture and continue cooking until mixture thickens and cooks down some, about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more spice if desired or a squeeze of lemon juice.
Remove 1 ball of dough from the refrigerator and place on a lightly floured work surface. Shape into a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Using a rolling pin, roll out into a rectangle to cover just the bottom of a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking dish. Place dough in baking dish, prick with a fork a few times and bake for 5 minutes, just until the crust starts to crisp a bit.
Remove the second ball of dough from the refrigerator, form into a 1-inch-thick rectangle and roll out to 9 inches by 13 inches.
Using a slotted spoon, layer the peaches evenly over the pre-baked crust, leaving behind some of the thickened liquid, otherwise the cobbler will be too soupy (see note two). Top peaches with the top crust, and prick with a fork a few times to allow steam to escape while cooking.
Brush dough with 1 tablespoon of melted butter and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, until deep golden-brown and bubbly. If the crust starts to get too brown, cover with aluminum foil to finish baking.
Note: To make cinnamon sugar, combine ¼ cup of white sugar with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon.
Note two: After spooning the peaches into the cobbler, you should have about 2 cups of syrup left behind. If you like, refrigerate the syrup in an airtight container for up to a week to stir into yogurt or oatmeal, or spoon over ice cream.
Artist Hannah Day at her South of A Street studio in Santa Rosa where she paints portraits of fruits, vegetables and plants with watercolors March 21, 2024. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)
In a sunny painting studio in Santa Rosa’s SOFA District, artist Hannah Day is at work on a fictional landscape of purple cabbages, kale, radishes, and artichokes. Nasturtium leaves climb the edges of the page, their tendrils winding among the vegetables. It’s a gorgeous fantasy garden, an extravagant collage of treats Beatrix Potter might have dreamed up for Peter Rabbit to nibble on after hopping over Mr. McGregor’s fence.
Day grew up in rural Two Rock Valley outside Petaluma, and the natural elements have always been a part of her creativity. “My brothers and I weren’t allowed to be inside during the day. We were always outside, building forts in the eucalyptus or running around,” says Day.
Rural landscapes and plein air painting were early artistic inspirations, along with anything that allowed her to disappear into layers of meticulous, meditative process. One recent installation involved cutting 1,000 paper outlines of trees and pinning them across a gallery wall to create a delicate, black-and-white forest.
“It’s so satisfying to see something grow into what you wanted it to be,” she says.
Artist Hannah Day at her South of A Street studio in Santa Rosa, where she paints portraits of fruits, vegetables and plants with watercolors, on March 21, 2024. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)
Day, who spent three years in Hawaii while earning a master’s degree in printmaking, returned home to her Sonoma County roots in 2017. She’d always loved painting fruits and vegetables, and during the pandemic, she found herself playing around with produce again. Last year, she exhibited a collection of her fruit and vegetable watercolors at Café Frida Gallery, where she found the portraits unlocked deeper emotions around themes of nourishment and abundance.
“There’s a lot of the human experience that there aren’t words for,” she says. She’s currently working on a series that combines watercolor botanicals with self portraits in pencil.
Though she has worked in prints, etching, and large-scale murals, the accessibility—and challenges— of working in watercolor hold great appeal. Watercolor paints have a delicacy and luminosity that fit with botanical subjects like tomatoes or nasturtium flowers. She begins by laying down a subtle wash of translucent color, like a bright yellow for a lemon, and then adds details, like seeds or pith or kernels of juice, slowly building up the character of the subject in layers.
“With watercolor, you have to be so measured; you have to think 10 steps ahead,” she explains. Painting over a misstep isn’t an option, as it would be with more opaque materials. “You have to constantly slow down and think about what your next step is.”
For one so attuned to a deliberate, step-by-step process, it’s not a surprise that Day has become a teacher as well as a fine artist. In 2022, she partnered with artist Joseph Salinas to create a large mural celebrating Indigenous Pomo history and culture at Elsie Allen High School—in the process, coaching dozens of students in painting technique.
Day’s father is also a teacher, and she says his way of modeling a process has rubbed off on her to a large degree, allowing teaching to become almost second nature. She stresses to her students the importance of getting started, putting brush to paper without worrying too much about the final outcome, and just enjoying the moment.
“Art has been such an integral part of me just being a human—not everyone has that outlet for reflection and self-expression,” Day says. “Teaching that has become the most rewarding thing ever.”
Seeing others connect with the benefits of making art continues to drive Day. Simple subjects, like the ruffled edge of a leaf of kale or the red bulb of a radish, belie a deeper value held in the steps of creation, says Day. “It’s grounding—the joy of just observing something and trying to do it justice.”
A watercolor painting by Santa Rosa artist Hannah Day. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)
Want to learn how?
Artist Hannah Day teaches art classes in addition to exhibiting her work and taking commissions. She has worked with students of all ages at the Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma, Chimera Art Space in Sebastopol, and Artstart in Santa Rosa. In May and June, she will hold a series of watercolor classes that focus on fruits and vegetables at Petaluma’s Slough City Studios.
Her classes are beginner-friendly and focus on technique and process, while connecting students to the benefits of mindfulness and creativity.
“I bring in a bunch of different produce, and as a class, we choose what we want to start with,” she says. Citrus fruits and Swiss chard are popular beginner subjects. “Chard is challenging, but it also has this really interesting movement to it,” she says.
Day narrates the method of creating a botanical portrait as students follow alongside, beginning with how to lay down an initial wash of color and then moving on to finer detail. The classes are generally three hours long, which is enough time to get into the flow of working with watercolors and complete at least one botanical portrait.
For more information on fruit and vegetable painting workshops, lessons in crafting with paper or pet portrait-painting classes, visit hannahdrawstrees.com/upcomingworkshops.
The Sandoval family’s busy main kitchen connects to a dining area with a custom walnut table. (Eileen Roche)
To longtime chef and culinary instructor Laci Sandoval, any great kitchen is built around a single overarching principle: Less is more.
It’s a lesson she’s applied to the two kitchens she has designed on her family’s rural Penngrove property. The first is a small demonstration and teaching kitchen located in an accessory dwelling unit Laci and her husband, Travis, built in 2017. The other is the open family kitchen they built three years later, which is suited for both weeknight meals and big holiday celebrations with their two young boys.
While the kitchens have different purposes—family life vs. teaching—they are united in their focus on streamlined, pared-back simplicity, with flexibility and efficiency as key traits. Sandoval, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena and worked for years as a pastry chef in top restaurants like Redd in Yountville and Camino in Oakland, applied lessons from restaurant design to her home and teaching spaces.
The Sandoval family’s busy main kitchen connects to a dining area with a custom walnut table. (Eileen Roche)
“I worked for so long on a line, where your whole station needs to be pivotable, and we definitely thought of that here,” she explains. “You should be able to stand on one foot and pivot to every single thing you need—find every tool, find every ingredient.”
The Sandoval family home is colorful and modern, decorated with pieces the couple made during their time as working artists. Laci and Travis met at California College of the Arts in the East Bay, where Laci studied metalsmithing and jewelry design and Travis was a glassblower and sculptor. Laci has a love of well-used things and the history those things hold, like the boys’ collection of wooden toys or the family’s everyday plates and bowls in a rainbow of colors, many of which Laci found secondhand.
The family has strong beliefs about the power of food and community—beliefs that are cemented both in the way they prepare meals together and in how they share food with others. For Laci, working with a team of chefs to help feed her community after the 2017 fires was a turning point.
“It was like watching my ethos come to life,” she explains. “No one knows what’s going on, lives are upside down, but we all know we have to eat. So let’s all get together and cook for people, let’s do this thing that feels normal, and hopefully it’ll get us through. The shared moments we have with people, the stories and connections that come about through food, are what this is about.”
Efficient design
“It’s funny, because the trend right now with kitchens is ‘more is more’—two dishwashers and two sinks and all this space. And for us, that wasn’t necessary. I was used to professional kitchens where you’d have just a small, efficient space. I didn’t want any of that extra stuff. Just simple. In a restaurant, pastry chefs in particular are always given the smallest amount of space possible—they’d put you in the coat closet if they could. And you can’t be in anyone’s way. You don’t leave your station during service because that’s wasted time, so everything you need has to fit in a tiny space—there can’t be extra bits and bobs. And that’s how we wanted this space to feel.”
Laci Sandoval cooks in her teaching kitchen in Penngrove. (Eileen Roche)
Living for now
“When we were starting to renovate the house, one thing that was interesting to me was that there was always this narrative about, like, ‘Well, that choice isn’t good for resale.’ When people are designing their home, we train them to think about not living there anymore, making choices that are about someone else in the space. And part of that is fine—it’s good to keep in mind living somewhere else at some point. But if you’re designing a home, you should design it for just you, right?
In the kitchen, for example, we were encouraged to think about more cabinetry space because of resale. And we didn’t necessarily want that. We already have a giant pump track for the boys and their bikes in our front yard, so we’ve already narrowed down the customer base, you know? Whoever might want this house someday has got other hurdles to get across before they nitpick about how many cabinets!”
Stocking the kitchen
“There’s a difference between an ingredient home and a snack home. We are an ingredient home. When the boys want a snack, it’s going to be something like salami and cucumbers. Our pantry is just one tall pullout, really simple. I don’t have to go searching for things. And I don’t have a lot of tools. I refuse to own a tool in my kitchen that doesn’t have more than one purpose, you know? Everything has to have multiple uses.”
Artists as chefs
“I feel like artistic people are innate givers. And food is also like that, right? The food world is so ephemeral. It’s like art that’s meant to be consumed immediately. No one cooks to surround themselves with food and eat it all themselves. Many cooks that I know don’t even eat their own food—they’ll prepare a meal for someone, and then have a bowl of cereal. So cooking is like this wonderful ability to bring something out of your soul that’s tangible to other people.”
Travis Sandoval cuts pizza in his Penngrove home kitchen that he designed with wife Laci. (Eileen Roche)
Cooking with kids
“The boys do their homework and projects at the kitchen counter, and everyone’s just hanging out. They always say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and you can really see that. Both of our boys do a lot of activities after school, so dinner is usually pretty fast, and we all eat the same thing, not something separate for the kids. It’s usually a protein—we get a full cow and a half hog every year for the freezer—plus a starch and a veg.
Every once in a while, I do a ‘refrigeration liquidation,’ where I just clean out whatever is in the fridge and put it all in a pot with some pasta, and then top it off with some herbs from the garden. My husband, whose dad was from Mexico, puts hot sauce on basically everything I cook! I try not to take that too personally.”
Summer produce
“I grew up on a farm in South Dakota, and my dad is an incredible gardener. When I was a kid, we would do hundreds of cans of salsa and green beans and pickled carrots, pickled everything. I do less of that now, but I still can our tomatoes. We’ll blanch them to get the skins off, and then I put them in a big, huge pot and I’ll use my hand mixer and chop them up. So they taste really fresh, not that cooked-down taste. And we freeze a lot of stuff. Whatever’s on the fruit trees, especially plums, we just juice and freeze. Everything else out of the garden, we eat right away or put out on the free produce shelf out in front for the neighbors.”
Laci Sandoval updates the schedule of classes in her teaching kitchen in Penngrove. (Eileen Roche)
Designed to teach
“When I have a bigger project, like baking bread or a bunch of hamburger buns, that usually happens in the teaching kitchen. Almost everything in the teaching kitchen is flexible—only the sink and the stove are set in place. That’s key. Things are on casters so we can move them around, and the front doors fold into a pocket at the side so the whole front opens up. That gives us the space we need to gather.
Our classes are less about learning techniques, although that’s definitely happening, and more about acknowledging the shared threads in our lives at that moment, and these cool relationships and conversations build off that—this ritual of cooking and eating that feeds so much more than just your stomach.”
Gather together
“There’s this honor in sharing a meal with someone that’s saying, ‘I value you enough to sit at this table with you. I see you as another human being, and in this moment right now, we’re just going to do the thing that we all have in common, which is eat. We all have foods that we love, and traditions we’ve created, and they might not be the same, but I’m going to honor you as a human by sitting across from you.’”
Crowds listen to performers at Blood Root Ramble. (Leah-Ann Beverley)
The founders of trendsetting wine labels BloodRoot and Reeve Wines, Noah and Kelly Dorrance, will gather with music fans this June for the second annual BloodRoot Ramble.
The two-day music festival in Healdsburg on June 7 and 8 will bring together LA-based indie rockers Lord Huron, along with Andrew Bird, Cautious Clay, and others.
And it’s for an important cause: since losing their niece, Evelyn Dieckhaus, last year in a school shooting in Nashville, the couple have rallied wine and music friends to raise more than $200,000 to advocate for sensible gun ownership legislation.
Proceeds from this year’s Ramble support Giffords, a nonprofit led by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Powered by passion
Kelly: “I grew up in a family of responsible gun owners. But having a right to own a weapon should come with—at a minimum—the same type of responsibility you must show to get keys to a car. Gun violence numbers are so rampant that the notion of ‘it will never happen to me,’ is not true. My family is proof. Action has been an antidote for grief, pain, and hopelessness.”
Community support
Kelly: “We feel like we won the lottery living in this beautiful, tight community that’s close to the city, ocean, redwoods, and mountains. Our kids are getting all sorts of amazing experiences.
They also have so many incredible humans around them who lead by example by showing perseverance, open-mindedness, and kindness. They’ve been through quite a lot in their young lives—fires, pandemic, loss of a beloved cousin—and they have felt loved and supported every step of the way.”
Musical genius
Noah: “We really went big for a small local festival by curating a lineup to draw a great crowd. These are the only Bay Area shows for Andrew Bird and Lord Huron this year. Plus, it’s pretty fun to bring Lord Huron back to Healdsburg, since we had them play for 500 people in Healdsburg in 2016 when they were an up-and-coming band. They’ve grown a lot since then. So have we.”
A homegrown festival
Kelly: “There is nothing big, corporate, or slick in anything we do. There are a million reasons why we shouldn’t be pulling off a music festival, but it boils down to the fact that we just want to do it. We are as passionate about music as we are about wine. Nothing makes us feel better than pulling people together for a good time and a good cause.”
The BloodRoot Ramble Festival is June 7 and 8 in Healdsburg. Tickets available online at bloodrootramble.com/tickets
