Page 575 – Sonoma Magazine

Best Wine Country Coffee Houses

May 2011

By biteclub

The best place to get work done while simultaneously jolting your brain into alertness. Comfy seats, the smell of roasting beans, that funky guy in the corner playing guitar — resistance is futile.

Aqus Cafe: Foundry Wharf’s coffee and croissant clatch goes way beyond simple morning fuel. The Petaluma arts community calls this packed little cafe its home away from home, with live music, art, film and a passionate community folk gathered round its tables. Open for dinner until 9pm Thursday and Friday, until 10pm Saturday. Board games for kids and adults each Wednesday from 2:30 to 4:30pm. 189 H Street, Petaluma CA (707) 778-6060.

Coffee Catz: Kitschy faux-Victorian boudoir style only adds to the Sebastopolian groove of this long-time coffeehouse/open mike
night/acoustic jam spot. WiFi-enabled. Hours vary depending on the day, but they’re usually open until 6pm or so. 6761 Sebastopol Ave, Sebastopol. (707) 829-6600

Flying Goat Coffee: “The Goat” on the square (324 Center St., (707) 433-3599) is Healdsburg’s defacto meet-up spot, where you’re almost guaranteed to spot neighbors and co-workers sipping lattes over the latest gossip. Open Monday through Sunday until 7pm. The Santa Rosa location in the old Western Hotel (10 Fourth St., 575-1202) is also a local haunt, and according to Jeff Dwyer of the Ghost Hunter’s Guide to California’s Wine Country, home to a resident spirit.

Blue Label at the Belvedere: After several months of success as a dinner-only spot, Blue Label at the Belvedere’s funky kitchen crew have opened for breakfast. Utilizing the old bar as cafe central, there’s both grab and go counter service with made-to-order espresso drinks (the Stuffed Buffalo is a winner with ginger syrup, milk and espresso), house made pastries (fresh donuts on Mondays only, muffins, breakfast burritos, rolls and daily coffee cakes the rest of the week) but you’re also welcome to grab a seat and savor Stuffed French Toast, quiche, egg strata, oatmeal or a plate of the best Biscuits and Gravy you’ll ever taste. And I made sure to try it twice just to make sure. The crew mix things up from day to day to keep it interesting, kind of like your mama would. So just eat what they’re serving and say thank you. The sunny side porch is as inviting a spot as you’ll find in Sonoma County to fill your tummy with scratch-baked comfort cuisine. Good food makes for a good morning. Open 8am to 2:30pm (they’re doing lunch now, too!) 727 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa, 542-8705.

A’roma Roasters: It’s often a challenge to find an open seat at this eclectic Railroad Square roastery/ice cream shop. Writers, artists, students and the bohemian-set commingle happily, sating munchies, catching rays outside and regulating caffeine deficiencies. Wifi, open mic and live music. Open late. 95 5th Street, Santa Rosa, 707-576-7765.

Holy Roast: Though the spot seemed to be a longshot when it opened, Holy Roast has become my living room away from, well, my living room. Opened in 2007 by Wayne Conley, this cozy java joint has a daily lineup of regulars ranging from Highway Patrol officers to bleary-eyed Press Democrat reporters, orange-vested city employees and, well, pretty much anyone who works north of Fifth Street in downtown Santa Rosa. Friendly and competent baristas, fresh morning pastries and solid noon-time salads and sandwiches from Pearson & Co. make for repeat biz. Clearly someone upstairs is looking out for Holy Roast because the coffee and the company is divine. 490 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, 707.523.3137

My Friend Joe: One of the friendliest and most fun coffeehouses in Sonoma County, My Friend Joe is a SRJC hangout, open mic performance space, breakfast mecca (try the Nutella and bacon panning) and jumping java joint. It’s easy to cruise past the strip mall space, but seek and ye shall be rewarded. 1810 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa.

Coffee Bazaar: A cozy local java joint with an attached used book shop? Pinch me, I’m dreamin. Wifi & open mic nights. 14045 Armstrong Woods, Guerneville, (707) 869-9706. Northlight Books & Cafe, 550 E. Cotati Ave., Cotati, 792-4300.

A’roma Roasters

May 2011

By biteclub

It’s often a challenge to find an open seat at A’roma Roasters, an eclectic Railroad Square roastery/ice cream shop. Writers, artists, students and the bohemian-set commingle happily, sating munchies, catching rays outside and regulating caffeine deficiencies.

Fair trade coffee, onsite roastery, tea and breakfast and lunch nibbles, including salads.

Wifi, open mic and live music. Open late. 95 5th Street, Santa Rosa, 707-576-7765.

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Aqus Cafe | Petaluma

May 2011

By biteclub

Nestled along the Petaluma River, Aqus Cafe is a kaffeeklatsch that goes way beyond simple morning fuel. The Petaluma arts community calls this packed Foundry Wharf’s cafe its home away from home, with live music, art, film and a passionate community folk gathered round its tables from morning to night.

Owner John Crowley is an Irishman who never forgets a name and always has a hearty handshake or hug for friends old and new. Having “grown up in a pub”, Crowley wanted to create a stateside watering hole where adults could have a glass of wine or coffee comfortably with kids, friends could meet and the community could connect. Mission accomplished.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner menu until 9pm Thursday and Friday, until 10pm Saturday. A jam-packed monthly schedule is available at the website and includes everything from Men’s Groups to open mic nights, family trivia, live jazz, county and Celtic music, speed networking and town hall meetings with the Petaluma mayor.

Aqus Cafe: 189 H Street, Petaluma CA (707) 778-6060.

Put Your Roots Down

May 2011

By biteclub

Soda Rock Farms Heirloom Tomatoes — Soda Rock Farms, Late Summer Edition

I’m calling it: tomato season is on. Not for eating, mind you – that’s still a solid month or two out, persnickety kiss of the summer sun dependent – but for planting. I’m touchy about this because my tomato-growing career has been about as inspiring as David Hasselhoff’s empty-pool swan dive into the music business.

It might be that I’m a slow learner. I’d like to think that slow learners would also be gradual learners, that the rate at which we assimilate knowledge might be in some sense proportional to the time it takes for the process to complete, and that I’d figure it out as I went along. You might think that too, but unfortunately, we’d both be wrong. No, by far the more common experience consists of long, futile periods of floundering, punctuated by the occasional, if profound, moment of clarity, in which the spurious drone dies down, cause and effect delineate, and logical patterns finally emerge.

Certainly, that has been my experience, as applicable to high school calculus or professional management as tomatoes, and watching my youngest daughter learn to ride a bicycle, I wonder if that isn’t the same pattern, too: when you learn to ride a bike, Isaac Newton’s in charge, and he says that you are either riding the thing, or you are falling down. Whether my daughter’s scrapes and bruises represent an inherited flaw or an immutable law of human nature remains an open question, but ultimately makes no difference: the important thing, the only thing – and this, I have learned, is at least as true of growing tomatoes as it is of basic physics – is simply to get it.

I know, I’m meandering, and I’m sorry; I promised a post on growing tomatoes, and said post you shall have. The climate zone (14) in which I live should, by all rights, be tomato mecca: cool nights and mornings, lots of sunshine during the day, great soils, all in all a welcoming home to most Mediterranean plants. So, each May for several years, I dutifully plant a few tomato seedlings – classic beefsteaks for burgers, Romas for sauce, yadda yadda yadda. And in each of those years, I’ve grown mediocre tomatoes. Like, really mediocre, as in, often not worth eating.

To add insult to injury, the best tomatoes I have ever in my life eaten grow just across the valley from me, by Dan Magnuson of Soda Rock Farms, so you’d think the odds were stacked my way. But the years go by; each successive crop as fundamentally disappointing as its predecessor; I run downtown to buy tomatoes from Dan; I learn nothing.

So last year, finally, I tried something different: I spent a little more money and bought the best rootstock I could, from the guy that I know, with absolute certainty, grows great tomatoes – I bought big, beautiful, heirloom tomato seedlings from Dan the Man. You might think that that was an obvious solution and you may well be right; but you’d be forgetting that I’m a slow and episodic learner. And last year, as any resident of the (707) will recall, was awful for growing fruit, as bad as it has ever been; unusually cool and excessively foggy, Sonoma County in 2010 was like Mark Twain’s summer in San Francisco. But despite all of that, lo and behold, miracle of miracles, my tomatoes rocked. They weren’t just good, they are frigging awesome. I still get excited when I think about the first crop to ripen – a gorgeous Purple Cherokee, followed by Lemon Boys, and finally a chartreuse avalanche of little Green Zebras – and the way our whole garden bed just smelled like ripe tomato.

Like I said, I’m a slow learner, but I occasionally get there in the end – I’m pretty sure the moral of the story is, the quality of your rootstock matters. This may not, exactly, be news; it certainly doesn’t strike me as particularly insightful. And yet, for years, despite all the accumulating evidence, I persisted in my belief that all this sunshine, all this great soil, would inevitably produce great tomatoes, and I went on planting mediocre seedlings, with predictably mediocre results. So my suggestion is, do what I finally did: go see Dan, and don’t think too hard.

This year, when I paint my masterpiece, surely things will be different. Right?

Torta Patatas (Tater’s Pancake) | Recipe

May 2011

By biteclub

torta potata recipe — Torta potata recipe from Yayo

Loaded with eggs, these are a cross between a potato pancake and an omelet, and are great warm or cold. We stacked them up for serving, and the kids couldn’t get enough. Make sure to do a small dice on the potatoes so they cook quickly. Slightly caramelized onions and garlic make for a sweet, savory dish you’ll be hard-pressed to pass up.

To spice them up, add fresh produce (or leftover vegetables from dinner) in a fine dice along with chopped bacon for extra flavor.

“Torta Patatas” (Tater’s Pancake)

From yayo

1 large sized baking potato
5 large size or 6 medium size farm fresh eggs
1 medium onions, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper
1 stalk green onions, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil for sauteeing, and 3 or more tbsp oil for the torta
ketchup or tabasco, sriracha for dipping
bread from local bakery – Full Circle, Costeaux, Village to name a few
Spring Hill butter (the best in the universe)

Variation for meat lovers: Add some chopped bacon, cooked, or your favorite chopped sausages, or ham (Then the recipe is called Torta Patatas w/ Meat)

Peel and slice potato into a small dice. Separate egg yolks and whites in two bowls.

Using a non-stick pan, eat olive oil medium heat. Add the onion and stir fry until they are almost clear or slightly caramelized, then add garlic and the prepared potatoes. Stir until the potatoes are done (they are done when easily poke with fork or I add a tbsp water and cover to cook it fast- that’s the trick) and light brown in color. Remove from heat and set aside.

To prepare eggs: Beat the whites until foamy and then add the yolks, beat for a minute. Add the prepared potatoes and green onion on the bowl and mix together.

Wipe the non stick saucepan with paper towel. Then drop some oil and cook the mixture pancake style, 1/2 to 3/4 cup batch at a time with equal amount of egg and potatoes. Turn on the other side until done. Do not overcook. Drop an oil each time you cook a batch. Drain in paper towel and dish in a small plate.

Serve with catsup or for some heat dash tabasco, sriracha for dipping. Side with local toasted bread and the delish Spring Hill butter of course, I get mine from the farmers market. Yum!

Pecan Caramel French Toast Recipe

May 2011

By biteclub

To say this French Toast sealed the deal with my longtime sweetie might be overstating things a bit. But not by much. His mom, Pam Stanbrough, is an innkeeper at The Gables Wine Country Inn and makes some of the most insanely decadent breakfasts in all of Wine Country. Out of all of them, this is by far my favorite. The mix of butter caramel, custardy bread and crispy crusts just can’t be beat on a lazy Sunday morning.

(On the West Coast, pecans can be a little hard to come by, not to mention expensive. You can use walnuts in a pinch, though pecans are definitely better/)

Pam’s Pecan Caramel French Toast Recipe

Everyone has a favorite oven baked french toast – we added the pecans as a twist and also swirl some heavy whipping cream over the top to serve! By Pam Stanbrough

8 slices of local Artisan french bread, at least 1″ thick
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Generous amount of coarsely chopped pecans
6 local free ranch eggs
1 1/2 cups half & half
1 teaspoon vanilla
small amount of heavy cream for garnish

Grease 9×13 pan. Melt brown sugar, butter, and syrup over low flame until bubbly, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Pour evening into prepared pan. Top with pecans. Place bread slices on top of caramel mixture. In blender, whip eggs, half & half, and vanilla thoroughly and pour evenly over the bread. Cover with foil and let stand at least one hour, or make the night before and refrigerate. Bake room temperature pan at 375 for 40 – 45 minutes. Very carefully, invert onto baking sheet and gently separate into pieces. Serve with drizzle of heavy cream. Yum!!!

Puff Pastry and Prosciutto Egg Cups Recipe

May 2011

By biteclub

There’s just something about the anisey bite of tarragon that makes them so perfect with eggs. Add a salty strip of prosciutto and fresh mushrooms in a portable puff pastry cup and you’ve got a Wine Country breakfast worthy of the fanciest bed and breakfast.

Using store-bought puff pastry makes this dish pretty straight-forward to make. Feel free to mix up the mix of veggies to include seasonal greens and produce.

Puff Pastry and Prosciutto Egg Cups with Spinach, Shiitakes and Sriracha

by Jamie Miller

1 sheet frozen puff pastry dough, thawed
¼ cup olive oil (from any Sonoma County producer)
4 tablespoons butter (Clover Organic)
1 ½ cups shiitake mushrooms (from Sonoma County Organic Mushrooms)
1 cup loosely packed baby spinach leaves (from any Sonoma County farm)
6 eggs, lightly beaten (from Clover Stornetta)
2 tablespoons sriracha
½ cup goat cheese (from Bellwether Farms)
4 slices prosciutto (from Sonoma County Butchery & Charcuterie)
1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped (from any Sonoma County farm)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place four large ramekins or small soufflé dishes upside-down on a large baking sheet. Rub each dish with a paper towel dipped in olive oil. Drape each dish with a square of puff pastry dough. Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden brown.

While pastry cooks, melt the butter on high heat in a large skillet. Add the shiitakes and cook for 3 minutes or until edges have browned. Add the spinach, and stir until it is wilted. Add the eggs and sriracha, then turn heat to low. Let mixture stand for 5 minutes, then fold in the cheese. Remove from heat.

When puff pastry is done, carefully remove pastry from dishes and set right-side up so they are similar to cups. Place cups individual plates and place a slice of prosciutto in each, pushing the prosciutto against the walls of the cups (to act as a barrier so the egg does not make the pastry soggy). Fill each with an equal amount of the egg mixture. Sprinkle with tarragon and serve. Serves four.

Go(a)t Milk?

May 2011

By biteclub

Growing up as a hippie kid has all sorts of pluses and minuses, mainly related to the uneasy balance between freedom and hygiene. While I can’t speak to the suburban, military or other stereotypical child-rearing formats – for better or worse, parents only get to lay that particular bet the one time – I do suspect they all have their share of credits and debits as well, although I’d also wager that the specific journal entries look a bit different.

Case in point: warm, full udders. Whatever personal history colors the Cleaver kids nostalgic, I seriously doubt that it includes Milk Duty. But anyone who spent a significant slice of the 1970s on a commune deep in Mendocino County will, in addition to the communal barn, the steady diet of sprouts, and the hot tub full of hairy, naked people, have come across a communal source of milk.

For me and my fellow hippies-in-training, milking the goat or cow was simply one of our many community chores; and, quite frankly, one of the better ones – certainly, it beats dishes and anything to do with the words “out” and “house”. Not only is milking kind of fun, but you get to taste the milk itself, warm, sweet, and richly laden with the cream not yet skimmed for butter, straight from the source. It’s not something most of us get to experience very often, and that’s a shame, because fresh milk – really fresh – is as distinct from the homogenized, store-bought variety as a late summer tomato-on-the-vine is from its pale, mealy supermarket phantasm.

The point of this particular trip down flashback lane is that I’ve recently been buying goat’s milk from that little lady up pictured above-right, milk so fresh that the jar is warm to the touch whenever I stop by the farm – Wyeth Acres, about a mile off the Healdsburg Plaza – on my way home from school drop-off. (I should probably mention that the Wyeth website offers the admonition, no doubt to the thrill of grumpy food regulators everywhere, that their milk is “for pet food only”, but that hasn’t stopped me from cooking it into my panna cotta or pouring it over my kids’ breakfast cereal, our federal overseers be damned. So sue me.)

Goats often get a bad rap, but I’m convinced that that has more to do with our lack of familiarity and far less with the actual taste of the stuff, because the American diet simply doesn’t include much goat, either in meat or dairy form. We’re conditioned to think of goat as a pungent, wild sort of flavor, but the milk we’ve been getting is anything but: it’s mild, sweet, and as white as the snow you wake up to. My one caveat is that it spoils quickly – my middle child learned this the hard way – so my suggestion is to buy it the day it was milked, and use it up over the next few days.

May: Casseroles and Sides Recipe Challenge

May 2011

By biteclub

Top Recipes from Last Month
LAST MONTH’S WINNER: HUEVOS BENEDICTOS

ON THE MENU AT JEFFREY’S HILLSIDE CAFE MAY 23/24. Please come join us!

– Pecan Caramel French Toast
– Puff Pastry and Proscuitto Egg Cups

Welcome to the SECOND month of a year-long Best Wine Country Recipe Challenge. From April through March 2012, BiteClub is on the hunt for great cooks from Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake and all of the Northbay to submit your Wine Country recipes each month.

How it works: Using the comments below, submit your recipe for this month’s category: Casseroles & Sides Recipes. Recipes must be original (no fair stealing from your favorite cookbook — family recipes, your grandma, your mom or best friend are great resources, though. Recipes for each month’s category must be received by the end of the month.

May: Casseroles & Sides
We’re looking for one-dish casseroles (yes, tuna noodle is okay) or spectacular sides.Make sure your recipe includes ONE local ingredient. That can be anything from local eggs, milk or butter to local fruits and vegetables.
Deadline for this month’s recipes: May 28

THIS MONTH’S WINNER WILL RECEIVE:
– A gift certificate to a local restaurant.
– Your recipe on the menu of a local restaurant
– Eligibility to compete in the Best Wine Country Recipe Cookoff

The Fine Print: I won’t exclude pros, but really, this is about everyday eats. I want folks to find great recipes from their aunts, grandmas, dads, friends…whatever. This is about SONOMA COUNTY! If I find out that your recipe is intentionally plagiarized, you will automatically be disqualified and I will ridicule you publicly. Full rules here

Think you’ve got what it takes?

Submit your recipe in the comments section below, or email me at heather@biteclubeats.com. Want to send it by snailmail?
Heather Irwin/BiteClub
427 Mendocino Ave
Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Huevos Benedictos Recipe

May 2011

By biteclub

This is the winning recipe for April’s Eggs & Breakfast Contest, submitted by Tyfanni Peters. This winning recipe will be served at Jeffrey’s Hillside Cafe on May 23 and 24, 2011.

This non-traditional take on Eggs Benedict uses polenta as the starch and a zesty lime Hollandaise, making it the perfect Sonoma County dish — incorporating local ingredients, Latin flavors and Italian influences, along with a healthy dose of French-inspired cuisine.

Note, Hollandaise can be especially tricky, and mine broke four times. Even though it may not look perfect, it still tastes just fine.

Huevos Benedictos

Created by Tyffani Peters

Serves 4

There are a lot of steps to this dish, but they are pretty easy, and the results are rich and delicious!

The night before, make polenta cakes so you can brown them in the morning.

Polenta Cakes

1 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup course-grain polenta, from Tierra Vegetable stand
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 egg, slightly beaten
¼ cup fresh or frozen corn
1 pasilla chile, roasted and diced, from Tierra Vegetable stand
½ cup Sierra Nevada Cheese Company’s Raw Milk Pepper Jack Cheese, grated

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the water and the salt to a boil. Reduce heat and slowly whisk in the polenta. Season with pepper and cumin. Continue to stir until the polenta thickens, then whisk in whisk in the egg and add the corn, diced chile and the cheese.

Butter and 8×8 square dish and pour polenta into it. Let cool, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, set the polenta out so it reaches room temperature while you’re cooking.

Lime Hollandaise

2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Dash of hot pepper sauce
2 teaspoons water
1 stick Sierra Nevada Cheese Company’s European Style Butter
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together yolks, lime juice, hot pepper sauce and water. Pour into a small saucepan and set it over very low heat. Add the stick of butter in one piece, press a whisk into the butter and begin moving the stick of butter around the pan to start melting it and incorporating it into a sauce. Do this continuously until it is melted. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Set Hollandaise sauce aside and keep warm so the sauce doesn’t break.

Final Components

8 thin slices of Zoe’s Black Forest Ham
4 eggs
2 Tablespoons olive oil (I like to used The Smoked Olive’s Sonoma Oil- adds a smoky flavor)
Garnish
Chopped cilantro
Smoked paprika
Chopped green onions

Heat a large sauté pan and lay slices of ham inside to heat and caramelize the meat on each side. This should just take a few minutes on each side. Keep warm.

Cut polenta into four squares and brush each one with olive oil. In the same hot sauté pan used to cook the ham, add the squares and brown, about 4-5 minutes each side. In the meantime, poach the four eggs.

Final Assembly

For each serving, put browned polenta cake on each plate, layer with two sautéed ham slices. Gently top with a poached egg, then generously drizzle the Lime Hollandaise on top. Garnish with a sprinkle of smoked paprika and chopped cilantro and onions.