Saturday, August 18
Aqus Foundry Festival is live music, food, Lagunitas beer, wine and family fun on the river. Check out Djin, The Easy Leaves from noon to 7pm at 189 H St., Petaluma. The event is a benefit for Petaluma Bounty. Aquscafe.com.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Beer, wine and stars gather at the Laguna Environmental Center as astronomical guides from Wine Country Star Party guide you through an observation of the night sky. Watch the sunset unfold over the Laguna and observe the resident barn owls and other crepuscular critters become active at dusk. Observe planets, stars, constellations, galaxies, star clusters, and nebula with powerful 10 and 12 inch reflector telescopes.
Cozy up with a cup of cocoa to share questions, stories, and awe at the mystery and beauty of the amazing universe! Ages 18 and up, maximum 20 participants.
Advanced registration required, $75.
Calling all home cooks! Fave food personality Clark Wolf will is casting for his new reality cooking competition show on KOFY TV. They’re looking for Bay Area cooks who want to share a family recipe and have it featured on KOFY TV as well as the possibility of being featured in top restaurant. Enter online here: kofytv.com/the-big-dish
Happy 100th Birthday Week, Julia Childs. She inspired generations to get out their whisks and dive into cooking. And continues to do so…
Since every food writer is paying homage to what she taught them this week, I figured I’d joing the fray. For me, Julia was so much more than a television chef. She was an iconic woman who used her wit, intelligence and humor to entertain, rather than relying on surface beauty to get her point across. Something that often seems missing on television. Julia never shied away from speaking plainly, making a faux pas or expressing herself as well, herself. Instead, she embraced all that life had to offer without reservation or fear of being different.
What a lady.
So enjoy Julia Remixed: Give it a sec…it gets even more spectacular as you go.
What’s your Julia memory?
PS: This is pretty great, too. Happy little trees.
Somewhere on the banks of the Russian River is a wild, abandoned apple orchard with a treasure-trove of heirloom apples.Not that the casual passer-by would be much interested, since most of these ancient varietals — Roxbury Russet, Muscat de Bernay — aren’t all that tasty for eating. But to Scott Heath and Ellen Cavalli, they’re priceless.
The owners of Forestville’s Tilted Shed Ciderworks, a hard cider brewery, spent months searching out bittersweet cider apples planted by long-ago orchardists. Mostly forgotten in favor of sweeter Gravensteins or plowed under for vineyards, they’re part of West County’s past, brought to life again in a handful of cases of Lost Orchard Dry Cider released this fall. Without much residual sugar and a lightly tannic finish, it has more in common with sparkling wine than the treacly booze juice that passes as cider in many bar taps.
Gently carbonated and aged for six to eight months, the couple’s other hard ciders are equally intriguing: A semi-dry Gravenstein-based cider called Graviva and a forthcoming release called Smoked Cider that uses smoked apples as its base.
Still in the micro-production stage, with just 700 or so bottles in their first release, Heath and Cavalli operate their business mostly out of a neighbor’s cider press and their Forestville farm, which sits on 5.4 acres. Committed to using only heirloom cider varietals from Sonoma County, they spent this spring and summer planting their own cider orchard, expected to be in production by 2014. Until then, they seek out the few and far-between West County orchards that have a few of the heirloom cider varietals tucked away in forgotten corners. “It’s a bit of a scavenger hunt to find these scarce apples in Sonoma County,” said Cavalli.
With growing interest in craft ciders, akin to the boom of craft beers in the 1980s says Cavalli, they hope to increase interest in grafting cider apples to existing apple trees in West County and strengthening the region’s historic connection as an apple-growing region.
And the name? Well, it turns out there actually is a tilted shed on the couple’s property that inspired the moniker. The old wooden barn withstood decades of abuse, but the introduction of several sheep in a nearby pen may spell its ultimate destruction as tilt becomes something more akin to askew. It’s legacy, however, is assured on each year’s labels.
Want to get a taste? Watch for Tilted Shed to show up at some local grocers later this fall. Until then, you can order online at tiltedshed.com
August 11/12: This sweet little festival sometimes gets overlooked, but its worth checking out. Held in a cool grove at Ragle Ranch, they’ll have a tug of war competition, a singing competition to send a local to American Idol, and plenty of apple pie eating. One thing I’m especially excited about is a new micro-crafted hard cider called Tilted Shed. Made from locally sourced apples — some of which were gleaned from an ancient “Lost Orchard” owners Scott Heath and his wife, Ellen Cavalli found — they’re ripe, tart, crisp and very different from many of the commercial brands.
More details online: http://www.gravensteinapplefair.com/
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The Thai Style Crunchy Peanuts and Cashews weren’t very crunchy. That’s the extent of the criticism I can come up with for the recently-opened Spinster Sisters restaurant in Santa Rosa. Uncrunchy nuts.
Spinster Sisters, in the SOFA (South of A) District opened in mid-August with former Santi Chef Liza Hinman in the kitchen and wine master Giovanni Cerrone heading the wine program. Behind the scenes is Eric Anderson (a local who’s involved with Prune NYC). Suffice to say it’s a solid cast of characters who’ve been to the rodeo a time or two.
The interior of the rehabbed space is sparse and clean, with a wraparound bar taking up three-quarters of the room. It’s the perfect height and width to feel like an extension of the dining tables rather than simply a drinking space. A concrete floor and smooth wood tables feel a bit industrial, but owners are working to warm up the space and deaden the sound a bit.
The menu is broken into a series of sections: Bites ($2-$4) are exactly that; Charcuterie and Cheese Plates ($6-$16); Veggies ($5-$7); Small Plates ($7-$14) and Large Plates ($14-16). Each works beautifully as a single sonnet, or together as an epic poem. Here, Hinman is able to gently tie flavors together with spice, texture or theme in a loose bow, rather than an unmanageable knot of confused ideas.
Here’s a stroll through the opening dishes:
– Thai-style crunchy peanuts and cashews ($3): Torn basil, lemongrass and Thai peppers infuse the nuts with flavor. And maybe a bit too much moisture.
– The Sister’s Pickle Plate ($6): Seasonal veggies with daikon carrots and beets have a light, dilly pickling. Kimchee packs a garlic punch, breath-rescuing ginger foils the funk.
– Kimchee & Bacon Egg ($2): A bold, edgy flavor if you like kimchee and eggs. Which I do.
– House Made Duck Terrine ($9): Foie gras is nice, but frankly, a good terrine is every bit as satisfying. This rustic duck liver pate comes wrapped in pork fat with toasted bread, cornichon and stone ground mustard. Soul-satisfying.
– Wilted Kale Salad ($9) A toothier version of the familiar wilted spinach salad, it comes with generous pinches of soft Pt. Reyes blue cheese, bacon, pearl-sized cherry tomatoes, croutons and mustard vinaigrette. A theme throughout is seeing so much of the produce torn, rather than chopped. It’s a small thing, really, but shows the kind of extra hand-work being done in the kitchen.
– Sweet Corn Coconut Fritters with Sriracha Aioli ($8): Oh. My. God.
– Crispy Berkshire Pork Belly with Watermelon, Feta, Ginger and Mint ($10): Fatty, sultry pork; crisp, clean watermelon and mint.
– Grilled Local Calamari ($9): Lip-tingling spice, Thai flavors, gently cooked.
– Crispy Chicken Thighs ($14): Thighs are the new breast. Packed with flavor, and gently pan-fried with plenty of salt and pepper, they sit atop creamy, yielding white beans and arugula. A grilled nectarine makes it weep-worthy with perfect, of-the-moment summer flavors.
– Kennebec Fries with SOFA sauce ($5): Fries need aioli. Period. Honey mustard informs this version.
– Earl Grey Pot de Creme: Proof that someone up there loves us. Orange and bergamot and chocolate.
– Wines: Around the bar are eight wines on tap, delivered to the table in a 500ml beaker. Plus, more than 20 by the glass or bottle, few of which the casual drinker will have heard of. And that’s a good thing. Finger Lakes Riesling, Hondarrabi Suria from Spain, Coastal pinots and Syrahs, Italian Primitivo, FrenchGamay. The menu begs for exploration. Plus several beers on tap, cider, cock-n-bull ginger beer.
401 South A St., Santa Rosa, 528-7100.
Celebrate community radio at KWTF Farm Fest on Saturday August 11th, 2012 from 2pm-10pm at Laguna Farm 1764 Cooper Rd, Sebastopol CA!
Live Music all day from local performers including Odd Bird, John Courage & the Great Plains, Those Unknown, Girls in Suede, NorBay award winners Hot Club Beelzebub, and more.
Festivities include radio production how tos, kids activities, community media skill building, local food & drink, community group and vendor booths, silent auction, giveaways and more.
KWTF Farm Fest is a fundraiser for KWTF Radio, a new Community Supported Radio project dedicated to local arts, culture and news. KWTF currently has an online community radio station at www.kwtf.net and is fundraising for a full power broadcast station, at 88.1 FM, to serve Santa Rosa and Western Sonoma County.
KWTF Radio relies on grassroots funding and is raising $80,000 to build, maintain, and operate their transmitter. The broadcast signal must be transmitting on air by March 2013. KWTF provides grassroots programs and serves an audience not currently served by other local radio stations.
“KWTF Farm Fest celebrates the connection between community supported agriculture and community supported media,” says Ben Saari, KWTF Radio’s interim Station Manager.
Community members can easily get involved with KWTF by signing up for email updates, becoming a volunteer, creating radio programs, spreading the word and/or donating to KWTF today! You can subscribe and support KWTF for as little as $5/month!
This event is sponsored by Laguna Farm, Ajalon Printing, Harmony Farm Supply, the Last Record Store, T-Shirt Underground, and the Sonoma County Peace & Justice Center.
Sometimes a great burger strikes where you least expect it. Like at a bar in the middle of the afternoon.
Doc Holliday’s, which took over as a nightclub/karaoke/music venue from the venerable Rita’s last year, is doing a really solid Angus burger cooked to order for $8.95. Unlikely? Maybe. But like the Sweet Spot (in downtown Santa Rosa), Sprenger’s Tap Room and O’Connors, bar kitchens sometimes sometimes have an instinct for simple, satisfying burgers and fried deliciousness. Served up on a hefty pretzel bun with fries or cole slaw, it’s a heck of a protein foundation for a long night of carousing. Or a long afternoon of spreadsheets. And unlike a lot of other burger spots that only believe in serving meat that’s been charred into submission, our “medium” order was exactly that. Medium. Pink in the middle and juicy. The one gripe: Don’t charge $1 extra for cheese. I hate that.
Also tasty: The Wedge, a steakhouse classic, is a quarter head of iceberg lettuce slathered with blue cheese dressing, bacon and diced tomatoes. You might be surprised at how refreshing the snap of ice cold ‘berg can actually be, and a bit more economical than all those fancy-pants greens ($5.95). Spicy chicken breast sandwich with chipotle spread, fried onion strings, Jack cheese on a French Roll ($10.95).
Open for lunch and dinner daily, plus a bar bites menu in the lounge. 138 Calistoga Road, Santa Rosa, 537-0308. The restaurant portion of Doc Holliday’s is child-friendly in the evening, and even has a family karaoke on Wednesday nights from 5-8pm.
It’s one of the biggest gatherings of chefs, winemakers and the folks who appreciate all they do. Taste of Sonoma 2012 happens on Saturday, Sept. 1 at MacMurray Ranch near Healdsburg as part of Sonoma Wine Country Weekend.
If you haven’t gone before, get ready to have your mind wobble: 170 wineries pouring thousands of wines (click here for a sample list of participating wineries), plus 60 local chefs from some of the area’s best restaurants doing small bites in a big way. Plus wine seminars, cooking demos, a Steel Chef cook off and walks around this historic ranch.
Tickets usually sell out, but you can still buy them online. $195 Grand Reserve, $150 General Admission. Details online.
Want to learn more about the chefs participating? Check out http://sonomachefs.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/
