Friday is, without fail, pizza night at our house.
Ignoring a week of refrigerated left-overs threatening to spoil before sunrise, we glibly aim for the nearest pizzeria and stuff ourselves silly. Thin crust, New York style, wood-fired and deep dish hold equal esteem. Even better are the spoils of our feast on Saturday morning. Preferably cold.
A newcomer to our rotation is Giovanni’s Pizzeria which recently opened in Cotati. It’s everything a hole-in-the-wall ‘za spot should be — concrete floors covered in flour, a couple small tables with wobbly chairs and a kitchen full of 20-somethings throwing dough and racing out the door with delivery orders.
The menu is refreshingly simple: Ten pizzas that start with cheese and pepperoni, venture into meat-lover combos, throw a bone to the dorm-room munchie crowd with “Maui Wowie” (Hawaiian) and BBQ chicken with ranch and end up with a classic margherita.
The crust is somewhere between the crisp snap of thin and the doughiness of thick crust with the best of both. No big surprises on the do-it-yourself topping list. A handful of pasta dishes. Green salads. Breadsticks.
Prices range from $14.95 for a large cheese or pesto to just under $20 for a large Meat Madness — a worthwhile price for an evening’s entertainment in tough economic times. It’s a crying shame the restaurant is only open until 9pm, cause they’d do a brisk business after last call. We hear it has something to do with the landlord upstairs…
Giovanni’s isn’t transformative pizza, nor is it gourmet. It’s just good, straightforward Friday night grub served up hot, fast and friendly.
Giovanni’s Pizzeria, 8270 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati, 707.664.8460.
Check out some of our other favorite Pizza Spots from the Great Pizza Poll. What’s your favorite pizza spot?
Fancy Food Show 2009: Your edible future
Food nerds get a bit wiggly in the knees when you mention the Fancy Food Show — two gut-busting events held each year (in NY and SF) that have a major impact on what turns up on your local store shelves. Call it a crystal ball to your food future.
Hundreds of purveyors — small and large — from around the globe cram into the Moscone Center hawking the latest and greatest specialty products. At the West Coast show, there’s a dense concentration of artisan purveyors from Northern California and specifically Sonoma County.
It’s easy to see the obvious…lots of chocolate, tea and BBQ sauce. What’s not so obvious are subtle changes in what’s emerging–the little guys who are latching onto the next cultural zeitgeist.
Stay tuned for my interviews with some new faces on the SoCo scene, but meantime, here’s a peek at what’s on the rise, on the wane…and just plain weird.
Continue reading “Fancy Food Show 2009: Your edible future”
Upcoming openings
Lots of reasons to celebrate as a bevy of restaurants open (or prepare to open). Boathouse Sushi will open a second location in the former Porter Station BBQ restaurant (2360 Mendocino Ave.) in Santa Rosa. Word is that the restaurant will open sometime in March. Cafe Des Croissants will open a new outpost at the former Montgomery Village Wolf Coffee shop in Santa Rosa, bringing their number of locations to four.
Downtown’s bustling with the upcoming openings of two highly anticipated restaurnts. GG’S Earth and Surf Restaurant is set to open the first week of February. Trevor Anderson, most recently of Calistoga’s Solage Spa, has been named chef, though the restaurant is the brainchild of local foodie Suzan Fleissner. The restaurant will stay open from 10pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday, offering a late night menu — something Santa Rosa continues to need. The windows have been uncovered at downtown’s Rendez-Vous Cafe on Fourth Street, a promising sign that they’re about to open as well. Finally, Cafe Azul has opened in the former Sonoma Coffee Company location (521 Fourth St., Santa Rosa). The menu is currently limited to coffee, espresso drinks and pastries, but they hope to expand to more food service in the coming months.
Other restaurants on the horizon include Jackson’s, the much-anticipated second restaurant of Syrah chef Josh Silvers, Jack and Tony’s Restaurant, also in Railroad Square and The Restaurant at Bardessono in Yountville.
Finally, I’m still trying to suss out what’s going on at the former La Strada after a bevy of inquiries. Construction continues on the space, but so far no word on who’s building. I’ll keep tracking that one down.
Obama will eat like Lincoln for Inaugural luncheon
For his first official meal as President, it’s being reported that Barack Obama will be dining on some of the favorite foods of Abraham Lincoln.
Served in Congress’ Statuary Hall, the First Family, along with the Vice President, congressional leaders, Supreme Court justices and members of the new Cabinet will eat a multi-course meal including seafood stew, duck breast with cherry chutney, whipped molasses sweet potatoes, roast pheasant and cinnamon apple spongecake.
The luncheon is set to be served on replicas of the china used by the Lincolns, as well.
Want to cook up an inaugural meal of your own? The chefs have provided recipes for each course.
Toast the Inauguration
Ah, the end of an era. A very long era. And that’s all I have to say about that. BiteClub gives you the scoop on where to dig in and drink up for a brighter tomorrow.
TOP PICK: I can hardly wait for The Great West End & Railroad Square Inaugural Dinner. Local tastemakers will enjoy a reinterpretation of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural luncheon featuring mock turtle soup, corned beef & cabbage, parsley potatoes, blackberry pie and coffee. Bring your favorite wine or beer to share. 7 to 10pm; at the New Arts Project, 606 Wilson St., (707) 570-0128. Tickets, $20. Only a handful of tickets remain.
SANTA ROSA
Red Rose Cafe: Cajun buffet plus music by Reggae band Midnight Sun of Sonoma. Call for tickets. $20 for buffet and party, or $12 for only the party. 5pm; 1770 Piner Rd., Santa Rosa, 573-9741.
Russian River Brewing Company: 11 piece Motown Funk Band, Cloud 9. 8 – 11pm; 725 4th Street.., Santa Rosa, FREE, all-age.
SEBASTOPOL
French Garden Restaurant and Bistro hosts music and dancing at their inaugural festivities from 5pm on, 8050 Bodega Ave, Sebastopol.
Aubergine Cafe: Obama Inaugural video, music and dance celebration, food & drinks. 755 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol, 707.827.3460
SONOMA
Sonoma Community Center: Sonoma for Obama Inaugural Ball, including a buffet dinner, music, dancing, beer, wine and a big-screen broadcast. $30. 276 East Napa St., 933.9755.
NAPA
Elements Restaurant and Enoteca: Inauguration celebration and toast, 1400 Second Street. Napa.
Napa Valley Mariott Hotel/Grand Ballroom: Jazz, no-host bar, hors d’oeuvres. 3245 Solano Ave., Napa.
Brannan’s Grill: Come to Brannan’s and watch the historic Inauguration. Toast the end of the Bush era with a complimentary glass of Champagne. Brannan’s will be featuring live music with Herb Gibson and friends and a big screen TV to watch the festivities. We will be serving from our regular menu and the chef will have some great specials! 5-9pm, 1374 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga, (707) 942-2233
PETALUMA
Big Tent Inauguration Party and Potluck: The Petaluma Progressives will sponsor an inaugural celebration in honor of the new administration in Washington. Admission is free but donations encouraged to benefit the Phoenix Theater and the Petaluma Big Tent. Events include a potluck dinner with music by the Phoenix Jazz Band, short talks by Mayor Pam Torliatt and other city officials, an introduction to community groups in Petaluma, the Obama inauguration on the big screen, and dancing to the music of the Sofa Kings. Other entertainment will include a shoe-throwing booth, a decorated shoe contest, and a public wish list for the Obama administration. Bring: Your tastiest dish to share; a decorated shoe for the contest; your wish for the Obama administration. Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington St. at Keller from 6pm to 10pm.
SF
The Bubble Lounge: Big Screen television viewing and champagne, 5:30pm, 714 Montgomery Street, San Francisco.
HEALDSBURG/GEYSERVILLE
BarnDiva: After this Hburg restaurant was swamped on election night, the crew decided to make Obama’s inauguration really special. They’ll be serving specialty drinks (the Hope Floats, “O’ and “Lipstick Pitbull” and a menu inspired by local farms including the “Community Organizer Salad”, South Side Ribs, and DC Sundae. Dinner $35, cocktails $8. Reservations recommended: 231 Center Street, Healdsburg, 431.0100.
Santi: 50% off all wine bottles and a 3-course dinner for $44. A glass of sparkling wine included with each dinner. 21047 Geyserville Ave., Geyserville
Know of any other celebrations? How will you celebrate?
Search for Spatzle
Our family cookbook contains no less than three recipes for spatzle. They’re all pretty similar, but just different enough that the author’s names have been removed to prevent any sibling on sibling bloodshed over who’s recipe is closer to great grandma’s.
We take our dumplings very seriously.
Spatzles (pronounced spayt-zle or in my house, spechlies) are the rice and pasta of the Austro-Germanic culinary repertoire — a relatively bland, boiled carbohydrate that soaks up the flavor of whatever it’s paired with. Made with a batter of milk, eggs and flour, they’re the richest of the three, built to stand up to the hearty flavors of everything from spicy paprikash to schnitzel. Not to mention sauerkraut.
Come winter, I start craving them, but they’re usually hard to find outside of Oktoberfest menus and German restaurants.
BarnDiva currently has them on their winter menu, served with golden apples, caramelized onions, golden Chanterelles, black trumpet and hedgehog mushrooms ($24). It’s a haute take on this simple, peasant food with crisped, herbed spatzle and precious veggies from around the North Bay. BarnDiva, 231 Center Street, Healdsburg, 707-431-0100.
I’m also a huge fan of the Cafe Europe’s classic winter dish of wild boar with mushroom sauce and lingonberries. The pea-sized spatzle are solid little dumplings that soak up the kraut, juices and sauce. 104 Calistoga Road, Santa Rosa, 707.538-5255
Or…just make your own.
Continue reading “Search for Spatzle”
Zuppa Toscana Soup Recipe
Submitted by Celeste Sagadin
BITECLUBCOOKS: A version of this recipe is a popular favorite at the chain restaurant, Olive Garden. Once you taste it, you can see why folks like it: Lots of smoky meat, plenty of garlic and Italian herbs, cream, sherry and kale (to make us think we’re being healthy!) The hearty Tuscan flavors make this a strapping soup on cool nights.
Don’t cheap out on the bacon or sherry. A thicker cut (I used Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked) crisps up better and infuses the pot. You can buy cooking sherry at most grocery stores, but they’re typically low quality and have salt added. Look around for a sherry you would actually drink.
In the many recipes I looked at for this soup, most called for Russets potatoes. I like a waxier red potato in my dish, so I substituted those. This soup seems to cry out for some nice, soft cannellini beans (aka white beans) to soak up the flavors.
+++++++++++++++
INGREDIENTS FOR ZUPPA TOSCANA
3 large red potatoes cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 mild Italian sausages (in casing)
1/3 pound thick-cut bacon
1/2 large white onion, chopped
1/8 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove
1 cup kale greens, rinsed and chopped
1/4 cup Sherry (not cooking sherry)
1 cup heavy cream
6 cups chicken stock
Salt and Pepper to taste
PROCESS
Put
cut potatoes in large pot of boiling water and boil for approx. 5-8
min. until potatoes are tender. Drain and set potatoes aside to cool.
Put chicken stock, sherry, and heavy cream in pot. Set aside.
Remove
and discard sausage casings. Place the meat in a large pan and brown
lightly. Drain meat on a paper towel and add to the chicken stock
mixture. Wipe out sausage pan and fry bacon until crisp. Reserve 1
tablespoon bacon grease in the pan. Cool and drain bacon on a paper
towel. Crumble into stock.
Add chopped onions into the pan with
the reserved bacon grease. Saute for about two minutes on medium heat.
Add fennel seed and red pepper flakes and saute until onion is
clear.Remove from heat, add garlic, tossing around to mix.
Add
onion mixture, and potatoes to liquid. Return to medium heat, bring to
a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Add chopped kale to soup before
serving. If soup needs more liquid, add additional chicken stock.
Barley and Hops Pub | Occidental Restaurant
“Can I get you a beer?” Six words that strike terror in my heart.
Barley and Hops owner Noah Bolmer stands behind his small Occidental bar with a pilsner glass and a hand poised at the tap. I start to sweat. I’m a beer-ophobe ruined by too many keg stands and quarter beer nights. A worried look gives me away. Along with the gagging sounds.
“I haven’t met a person yet that I couldn’t find a beer for,” he says, sliding caustic-looking glass of deep-brown beer my way at his Occidental restaurant.
Converting Wine Country beer haters like me is nothing new for Bolmer and his wife Mirjam. The couple gave up 9 to 5 drudgery to serve up craft brews and pub grub in a bar that’s ten minutes from nowhere.
It’s of the few watering holes within a 20-mile radius between Sebastopol and Bodega Bay, making it about 85 percent locals on any given night – friends and neighbors catching up over a beer and wings at a quintessentially neighborhood bar. What makes it destination-worthy, however, is…well…pretty much everything.
Bolmer’s got an extensive menu of tasty brews – everything from Moonlight Brewery’s Death and Taxes to a British double chocolate stout, Bear Republic’s Hop Rod Rye Ale, Maui Coconut Porter, Moyland’s Irish Red and a selection of “vault” bottles from Belgium, DogFish Head in Delaware and elsewhere (the most expensive is $15.75 and most are under $10).
Paired with the beers is a menu of solid pub classics: Fish and chips, burgers, onion rings, hand-cut fries and their classic Cottage Pie with ground beef, porter and mashed potatoes. Noah insisted on the food being as good as the beer. “If it isn’t homemade, you’re at the wrong place,” he says.
Chimay Pretzel Chicken ($12), a chicken breast rolled in pretzels and topped with a creamy beer sauce deliver on the promise. Fish and Chips ($9.50) are two massive chunks of battered red snapper with plenty of crunch. The menu changes up frequently, however, and a winter dish of Sonoma Sausage bathed in butter, brandy and mustard cream sauce ($6) with sauerkraut is as comforting as a warm hug on a cold night. (See the menu)
Don’t miss the Guinness Mousse ($6) made with porter and dark chocolate, capped with a creamy head of white chocolate ganache and Mirjam’s freshly baked pretzels with stone ground mustard. Noah’s sure to find a beer to pair up nicely with whatever you’re craving.
Barley and Hops, 3688 Bohemian Hwy, Occidental, 707.874.9037.
Curried Carrot Ginger Soup recipe
The curry in this soup gives it a really nice twist. The bright, piquant flavors of the spices and ginger make a great contrast to the sweetness of the carrots.
Adaptions: I always love orange with carrots. You could add a 1/4 cup of bottled orange juice or a few squeezes of fresh orange to brighten up the flavor even more. I cut back a bit on the brown sugar at the end, as my carrots were pretty sweet to start with.
If you don’t have an immersion blender, don’t worry. A regular blender works fine, but you’ll want to let the soup cool a bit and work in batches. Don’t get overzealous or you’ll have a mess on your hands. Blend all the soup back together in a large bowl — each batch may have slightly more carrots, etc. and you’ll want to get a good consistent mix.
Curried Carrot Ginger Soup Recipe
Submitted by Craig Chrisenson, adapted by Heather Irwin
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt
White pepper
2/3 cup brown sugar (I used quite a bit less. Adapt to taste)
Sour cream (for garnish)
Cilantro or fresh chive (for garnish)
On medium heat, saute all vegetables in a large pot with two tablespoons of olive oil until soft. Add ginger and garlic and stir
until flavors are released, about a minute or so. Add curry powder and stir (about one minute). Add stock and bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.
Add cream and blend until smooth with immersion blender in the pot. (If using a standard blender let cool first for
safety). Finish with salt and white pepper to taste. Add brown sugar by the tablespoon and taste for sweetness.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of cilantro or diced chive.
Witness to the slaughter
It happened before we were ready, which is often the way with death.
Walking toward the barn, a 22-caliber rifle popped once. Then again.
Despite being barely 8 a.m. in the morning, Chef John Stewart and I rush toward a small pig sty in the freezing hills north of Santa Rosa. “Damn. We missed it,” I said, having spent the previous 24-hours emotionally girding myself to watch a 300-pound animal die at my feet. The pigs had been shot. The slaughter doesn’t wait.
Stewart purchased one of the Duroc sows last July, banking on juicy hams come winter. For the last five years he’s been curing pork for Black Pig Meats as a side project to his two restaurants. When I first heard about it, he was doing most of the aging in his garage for friends and family. Now he graces the celeb-salumi circuit and cover of Wine Spectator.
Great prosciutto, pancetta and ham, however, all start with a pig whose fate is sealed the day it’s born. A very real part of being a meat-monger is overseeing their demise, and on this cold January morning Stewart’s Slow Food philosophy extends to watching Sonoma County’s last remaining mobile slaughterer kill, skin and gut his pig.
Entering the sty, the pigs already lay dead. Still twitching, blood gushes from a deep slash in each of their necks. Steaming. The heart continues to pump the blood out of the body in amazing quantities. The lone executioner, John Taylor of JT’s Custom Slaughter, claims that the single shot to the head immediately kills the animals.
Still, it feels intrusive to watch the death throes of these 8-month old creatures. Taylor impassively wades through the muck, straw and blood, impaling the now-still animals under the jaw with a steel hook and dragging them to a small bulldozer.
The bodies jiggle and fluids leak out of every orifice. It’s graphic. Unconditioned to knowing meat any way other than in a neatly wrapped package it’s easy to ignore the reality of death. But, I’m here because I eat pork and it seems only fair to acknowledge how it gets to my table. I want to know.
I can’t help personalizing it, though. Rolling around in bed the night before, I wondered if they somehow knew today was their last day. I have to ask if they had names.
“Pork and chop,” Taylor deadpans. After years of killing and gutting livestock the act of death is unemotional, quick and skillful.
Did they have a good life, I wonder. “Never a day of stress. Until today,” the owner tells us.
“Not even today,” said Taylor, slicing off the pigs’ forelegs, using them as blocks to keep them from rolling over. Because he is here, there is no transporting or stressing the animals which otherwise would have had to travel three hours north to a slaughterhouse in Orland.
Taylor spends his days driving around the North Bay in his custom-built truck which includes a “gut bucket”, winch and hanging rack for the carcasses. There used to be others, but Taylor claims he’s the last in the county who’ll come to your farm and do your dirty work. “This is a dying art.”
Despite a renewed interest in humane treatment of animals and small farm operations there isn’t enough money in on-site butchering to attract many takers. Plus it’s a damn lot of heavy, unpleasant work. “I’m getting to old for this,” Taylor tells us, leaning over the hosed-down animals, slicing through skin and bone. Well-honed knives make it look as effortless as slicing butter.
He’s becoming a meat-lebrity lately, after a few magazine articles about his work as a mobile slaughterer. “It’s a novelty, now.” Taylor never stops moving, slicing, cutting, finally hacking the animal in half. In a little over an hour, the two pigs are simply two carcasses ready for processing in the back of his truck. Taylor heads out to the next kill. It’s over.
Wiping the blood off my shoes, Stewart and I walk toward our vehicles. He loads two garbage bags filled with hearts, livers and heads into his truck for pate, heart sandwiches (a favorite of his wife) and pork jowls. But its the short, stubby legs he’s most excited about getting his hands on next week, after they’ve been processed.
“Those are going to be some nice hams,” he says dreamily. I can’t help but think he’s right.
