Grabbing a beer with your mushroom purveyor is a point of pride for many Sonoma County chefs. And while high-profile, Michelin-favored restaurants get plenty of love for their agricultural ethos, there are also lots of neighborhood restaurateurs who wouldn’t go within 10 feet of factory-farmed, well, anything. Here’s a shoutout to a few of my farm-friendliest favorites.

The Priestess of Produce: Lunchette

Naomi Crawford doesn’t just source locally — she’s a superfan of local farms and ranches. Her Instagram (@lunchette_petaluma) is a daily reminder of the incredible bounty of Sonoma County. 25 Fourth St., Petaluma. 707-241-7443, lunchettepetaluma.com

Sea to Table: Handline

You’ll be hard-pressed to find fresher fish tacos, citrusy ceviche and raw oysters than at this casual Sebastopol café. Seasonal veggie dishes don’t take a back seat, carefully sourced from a who’s who of local farmers. Worth a pilgrimage in summer, too, for their sweet elote. 935 Gravenstein Highway S., Sebastopol. 707-827-3744,  handline.com

Classic Comfort: Americana

Burgers, shakes and piles of pancakes are almost virtuous, with painstakingly sourced Sonoma-centric ingredients at two locations. Even the mimosas get seasonal fruit infusions. 205 Fifth St., Santa Rosa, 707-755-1548; 162 N. Main St., Sebastopol, 707-827-3309. americanasonomacounty.com

Natural Pairing: The Redwood

This Sebastopol wine bar is all about not messing with what nature provides, both with the low-intervention wine list and the Mediterranean-inspired menu. Liberty Duck liver mousse, smoked black cod dip with yogurt and potato chips and warm pita bread with smoky baba ghanoush are best bets. 234 S. Main St., Sebastopol. 707-861-9730, theredwoodwine.com

Snail Approved: The Spinster Sisters

One of just a handful of local chefs awarded Slow Food’s Snail of Approval, Liza Hinman walks the walk of sustainable Sonoma County ingredients cooked with care. Even a simple side of beans and greens is magical. 401 S. A St., Santa Rosa. 707-528-7100, thespinstersisters.com

All in the Family: Glen Ellen Star

Most of the produce at chef Ari Weiswasser’s popular bistro comes from his father-in-law Mike Benziger’s Glentucky Family Farm just up the hill. You can’t get more local than that. 13648 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen. 707-343-1384, glenellenstar.com

You can reach Dining Editor Heather Irwin at heather.irwin@pressdemocrat.com. Follow Heather on Instagram @biteclubeats.

The post Here Are Some of the Best Spots for Real Farm-To-Table Dining in Sonoma County appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Romanesco: Is it broccoli? Is it cauliflower? Both?

Whatever its exact classification – and most experts agree it is a cousin of both broccoli and cauliflower, but a variety of neither – romanesco may be the most beautiful vegetable in the world. To be precise, it is a flower: Unharvested, it rises on tall stalks and opens into pale yellow blossoms. Its mesmerizing beauty is derived from fractals, identical repeating patterns, with the tiniest floret exactly the same as the largest and as the entire head itself. This mathematical precision is seen throughout nature in everything from snowflakes to seashells.

What this means to home cooks is that it is best to prepare this gorgeous vegetable in ways that highlight its appearance. Roast whole or separate the florets from the core and boil, braise or roast; they hold their shape well.

Romanesco is best from late fall to early spring, as its flavors sweeten and intensify in cold weather. Like broccoli, it has sweet, nutty and earthy flavors that shine in this easy, comforting pasta.

Roasted Romanesco Pasta with Celery, Green Olives and Feta

Makes 4 to 6 servings 

1 head romanesco, individual florets separated

Olive oil

Kosher salt

2/3 cup celery vinaigrette (see below)

6 ounces gemelli or similarly shaped pasta

4 celery stalks, trimmed and cut into very thin diagonal slices

1/2 lemon

1 tbsp. capers, drained

3 ounces (3/4 cup) feta, crumbled

3/4 cup green olives, such as Picholine or Castelvetrano, pitted and halved

1 tablespoon freshly snipped chives 

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. While the oven heats, make the celery vinaigrette (see below).

Put the romanesco florets on a small sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and toss gently to coat each piece in the oil. Set on the middle rack of the oven and cook until the florets are slightly tender but not mushy, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the heat, place in a large bowl, and cover with a towel.

While the romanesco roasts, cook the pasta in salted water according to package directions. Drain the pasta, add to the bowl of romanesco, and set aside.

Pour a little olive oil into a medium sauté pan, set over medium heat, add the thinly sliced celery, and sauté until it just begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Squeeze in the lemon juice, season with salt, and add to the bowl.

To finish the pasta, add the capers, feta, green olives and half the vinaigrette to the bowl and toss gently. Divide among individual soup plates or shallow bowls, spoon the remaining vinaigrette on top, and enjoy right away.

Celery Vinaigrette

Makes about 2/3 cup 

1 small shallot, minced

2 inner celery stalks, finely diced

Kosher salt

1/2 tsp. celery seed

2 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. Dijon mustard

5 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 

Put the shallot and celery into a small bowl or pint jar, season with salt, and add the celery seed. Pour in the lemon juice and set aside for about 15 minutes.

To finish, stir in the mustard and olive oil. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

The post Seasonal Romanesco Shines in This Easy, Comforting Pasta appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

I’ve never butchered an animal before. But not that long ago I watched as third-generation Yucatan butcher Mateo Granados expertly trimmed away the fat of a slab of beef in the chilly backroom of his Healdsburg restaurant, Mateo’s Cocina Latina.

The makeshift butchery of his seven-year-old restaurant is cooler than fall’s brisk outside temperature—perfect drinking weather. Someone hands me a Yucatan-inspired cocktail made of tequila and spices, and I’m immediately transported to an exotic paradise. That’s when Mateo passes me a thinly sliced piece of the freshly trimmed tartare, my senses recognizing grass, dirt and muscle as I swallow the piece whole.

“I have a 700-pound beef hanging in the walk-in,” Mateo tells me on a follow-up visit.

Mateo butchers every single piece of meat that makes its way into his kitchen. “Everything comes [to the restaurant] whole—from the kidneys to the tongue,” says Mateo. And like his father before him, Mateo uses every part of the animal—from the blood to the bones. “Everything is usable,” he says.

“Mateo is unique in many ways, including that he purchases an entire carcass and breaks it down himself,” says Pamela Torliatt, co-founder and partner at Progressive Pastures, the Petaluma-based farm that exclusively raises animals for Mateo.

Sourcing only locally raised, grass-fed meat, Mateo doesn’t skimp on great ingredients. It shows. His menu is a unique reflection of the French techniques he learned while cooking at Masa’s and Dry Creek Kitchen, combined with the resourcefulness of a butcher’s son.

An “honest” man, Mateo grew up watching his father rise at 2am to butcher animals in the family’s manzana before walking off to sell it in the mercado by 6am. It was the family business where Mateo learned not to waste a thing—something that he continues to practice today in his own kitchen, a rarity among chefs who often don’t have the time nor the knowledge to butcher every protein they use on their menu.

“Butchering is the most important part of the kitchen,” he says. “I wanted to do my own butchering because I don’t think it’s really done anymore—it’s done by machine.” That means you can find Mateo most days in his kitchen. There, or picking vegetables from his half-acre garden at home that’ll eventually get used in his kitchen. It’s not an easy job, he admits, to source locally and sustainably, but it’s how he was raised. “I grew up using local ingredients, and that’s why I decided to practice it,” he says.

Growing up in what he calls the “bread basket” of the Yucatan, about an hour from Merida, Mateo was raised by two generations of butchers. His father and all six uncles “owned the majority of the butcher stores in town” and taught him to respect the animal. That’s why the chef makes it a point to visit every farm from which he sources his meat. The mass-produced stuff, where there’s more fat than meat, just isn’t for him.

Mateo will make a point to trek out to Petaluma to visit Progressive Pastures, or Acorn Ranch in Anderson Valley to check on how the pigs are being raised. “He picked that first animal himself,” Pamela tells me about the first time they met in September 2013.

It’s also why you won’t currently see any chicken on his menu. His former poultry producer was slaughtering their animals overseas, and once Mateo learned of this practice, just couldn’t continue to use the product. “It’s not what we do; it’s not what we support,” he says. His last shipment of chicken was eight months ago.

That change didn’t really hurt Mateo, but only drove his creativity. Since his menu is always changing with the season, he’s learned to adapt quickly by what arrives each morning. So if you fell in love with that slow-braised oxtail with capers and olives during your last visit, don’t expect to see it on his menu again (or at least for a while). Instead, Mateo makes it a point to turn irregular dishes that aren’t on many menus, or part of many American diets, into favorites. Pamela says her favorite dish is the beef heart, which she says he prepares as tender as filet mignon.

Everything from blood sausage to chicharrones has appeared on his menu, which is a unique reflection of Mateo himself – blending his Yucatan upbringing as a butcher’s son with the French techniques he learned in the decade he spent at Masa’s. There are French, Spanish, Lebanese and Maya influences in dishes like salbuches, empanadas, and cochinita pupil. He fondly refers to his cuisine as “Yucatan food using my French technique with ingredients made in America.”

While his butchering style might reflect a humbler man, Mateo is anything but. Once you get him talking about his food, he can’t help but brag; of course, there’s reason to. His cuisine is an amplified version of the farm-to-table movement our palates in the Bay Area have come to love, from the farm-fresh vegetables to the sustainably raised meats. “People have no idea what this restaurant does,” he tells me.

Childlike in his enthusiasm for great food and even better conversation, it’s hard not to fall in love with Mateo. And guaranteed he’ll be there in the kitchen, butchering something for the night’s menu, when you stop by.

This article was originally published on kqed.org/bayareabites. 

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