Plastic? Think Again.

The community gathers for Conversations Worth Having #2 : Trash Talk, February 16th, in Studio Barndiva

Full Disclosure: we initially had great concerns making Trash the subject of our second Conversation Worth Having. But something happened after our first conversation, Gorgeous Garbage, that made the conversation about trash imperative. Of the many things we took away from our first community evening the realization that haunted us, as never before, was that even if we managed to divert more organic waste into making compost and soil, even if everyone we knew got better at recycling, even if these things began to miraculously happen all over the world, humanity would still go on filling the oceans with plastic, building higher and higher landfills of toxic waste. All the things we no longer have use for - our trash - endlessly circling and befouling the globe.

CWH is all about gathering community to have Serious Fun. We want to talk about important issues in a way which enables us to come away from these conversations making better choices, strengthening a commitment to live lighter on the ground. We don’t want to give up our creature comforts. We care about design. We want to live in a world with the ability to surround ourselves with useful, beautiful things. How do we make this compatible with individual actions, taken consistently, that signal true change in the way the social order works?

As life would have it, over 50 years ago I forged a beautiful, lasting friendship that among its many gifts brought a wondrous goddaughter into my life. And as luck would have it - for me and everyone who attended our February 16th Trash Talk - she has made it her life’s work to build just such a near future, or at least the possibility one might exist. we’re talking about businesses that take honoring a healthy ecology and a respect of the earth into every step of their supply chains. We’re talking about the products and the conduits that bring them into our short and precious lives.

Her name is Zem Joaquin. A founding member of Cradle to Cradle, for many years her company Eco Fabulous espoused the philosophy that we did not have to live lives of deprivation to be good global citizens. If we knew where to look, showed extreme care about how and where things were made, we could be as fabulous as we dared. She dared.

For the past five years she has grown an astonishing community of brilliant, innovative leaders- self identified disrupters to status quo supply chains- made of up scientists, inventors, doctors, designers, artists, and producers of all the things we use in our lives. It’s called The Near Future Summit and through it she has become a champion for businesses that “accelerate solutions to improve societal, individual and planetary health.” Dawnelise, Susan, Amber and I did our due diligence and research into how best to position Trash Talk - we toured Recology SF, met with the wonderful Deborah Munk, director of the artist in residence program. We listened to fascinating sustainable producers at a Women Founders Talk at the Ferry Building. We read and researched. Finally, after an edifying three day experience at 2023’s Near Future Summit, Zem guided our choice of speakers who graciously traveled to Healdsburg to talk to a sold out crowd in Studio Barndiva on Friday, February 16 for Conversations Worth Having, #2, Trash Talk.

It was delicious but serious fun, as you know if you attended. If you didn’t, we missed you. Here is a visual taste of this throughly stimulating evening.

Our Speakers: LEFT: Toby Corey, COO of Cruz Foam, a sustainable foam packaging company that sources fully bio degradable materials made from shrimp shells, mushrooms, and recycled paper as an alternative to styrofoam. Cruz Foam was a PentAwards Bronze winner and one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023; CENTER: Gorgina Alcock, of GaeaStar, a ceramic zero waste alternative to single use plastic cups and vessels made of a clay, water, and salt sourced close to where it is 3’D printed (our CWH branded cups were produced in San Francisco from Sacramento clay); RIGHT: Beth Rattner, a director of the The Bio-Mimicry Institute, who walked us through the essential bridges we must start building between biology and design by advancing the adoption of nature inspired strategies. Highly recommended reading: Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus, who founded the Biomimicry Institute, and The Second Body, by Daisy Hildyard.

ABOVE: Julia Marsh who with her Husband Matt founded Sway, also joined our speaker forum. Sway is a start up whose goal is to harness the power of seaweed to create home compostable replacements for plastic. For their efforts they were the Winners of the Tom Ford Innovation Prize for 2023.

Sway embodies a central premise of circular economies around design that was a take away from the evening: design out waste, keep materials in use, regenerate natural systems. And this: as a consumer, make better choices.

We were proud to have several local businesses who share our concerns about sustainability contribute to this Conversation Worth Having. Formost among them was Little Saint Healdsburg Healdsburg, whose chef, Stu Stalker, provided exquisite bowls of Little Saint Farm Vegetables with spreads of Carrot Tahini w/ dried chili, Cultured Cashew w/ Tomato Chutney, and Green Lentil Hummus. Little Saint’s director of beverage and sustainability, Matt Seigel collaborated with Barndiva’s Scott Beattie on both the spirit and NA cocktails: A Caipirinha made with Novo Fogo Carbon Negative Organic Cachaça, and Rangpur Me Another, our NA cocktail made with Rangpur lime as a cordial, anise hyssop tea, coconut yogurt, and Ritual N/A rum.

For those enjoying wine in their GaeaStar cups, we were honored to serve Delta Wines for Change made by our friends at Brick and Mortar, Alexis and Matt Ioconis. In bringing the climate conversation to the dinner table, Delta addresses greener packaging, reduces their carbon footprint in every aspect of wine making and supply chain choices, and donates 10% of all sales to the Surfrider Foundation, Cool Effect, and groups fostering environmental education- like Conversations Worth Having.

We also wish to thank Hotel Healdsburg’s Circe Sher for hosting some of our speakers and providing a discount for those traveling for the event. Coming soon: GaeaStar cups in the Hotel Healdsburg Spa.

And for anyone who missed the event or just wanted to keep the conversation going the next day, Flying Goat Coffee on center street hosted a pop-up on Saturday Feb. 17th using GaeaStar cups, which they gave away with every coffee sold.

A dinner for our speakers and a limited number of ticketed guests was held after the event in barndiva, which Daniel Carlson and I filled with foraged arrangements from our forest in Philo. We were so pleased he was able to join us for this CWH.

The Conversations Worth Having team is Dawnelise Rosen, director of Farmpeneurs, Susan Preston, of Preston Family Farm; Jil Hales, all things Barndiva, and Amber Keneally who researched and created our medicine cabinet art installation.

It is our goal to keep Conversation Worth Having events small enough so the actual conversation we have after listening to our speakers is forthright and meaningful. To find out about future events, sign up for the Barndiva Blog, Eat the View, or follow us @barndivahealdsburg.

The Best of 2023, Celebrated!

No skirting it, 2023 was a challenging year. It seemed like every time we looked up from from the gardens in Philo or out the windows to a seemingly flourishing Healdsburg, the news of the day brought us up short with yet another human or planetary catastrophe. A reminder, as if we needed one, of how truly fragile life is everywhere. How fortunate we are to live and work how and where we do.

This last post of the year celebrates some of the best moments of 2023 for us, giving props to the people and places who made our year appreciably better, the world we share glow a bit brighter.

Our New Years Resolution: To focus even more on joyful moments like the ones captured here. To build collaborative bridges where and how they are needed.

Thank you for dining with us, throwing a party, planning a wedding, gathering a group of friends for a dinner party, showing up at one of our annual wine events - we so appreciate you! We look forward to showing you how much in 2024!

Diptych: Spring & Winter. Photo: Chad Surmick

Photographing Barndiva in all its many beautiful facets is something I love doing, and rarely entrust with another photographer, which made collaborating with the intuitive and extremely talented Chad Surmick this year an unmitigated joy. Together we captured Barndiva’s life in food, cocktails, wine parties, and studio b dinner parties. The most enjoyable work was a series we conceived for our website landing page - four color-resplendent still-life images of the raw ingredients that informed Eric’s brilliant menus. Our hope was that they brought the food conversation about seasonality home for everyone who visited our website. They were also very much an homage to the farm, to Misha and Renee, who joined us this year in Philo, and to the many many other farmers and fisherman, foragers and gardeners who work with us in the creation of our food and cocktail menus: we are grateful to them all.

Chad and I also had the honor to photograph the men and women whose labors transformed those raw ingredients for a B&W portrait series celebrating our 2023 Michelin star.

Barndiva’s Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Bar Manager Charles Rodenkirch and their team rocked the cocktail program this year with creations that lifted our spirits and then some. These were inventive, intriguing, satisfying and absolutely gorgeous cocktails. The bar team also maintained a weekly floral and herbal ‘garden’ for the bar (shout out to Buck), most of it from our farm, that took guests breath away (and invariably cellphones out). Through Scott’s long and legendary career he has had an indefatigable interest in everything growing around him - always with an eye toward how it might end up in a cocktail.

Our cocktail classes were also a highlight of the year, and we embraced gorgeous NA cocktails like never before. A stellar year in drink, with exciting plans for next year.

To learn more about the classes, read the wonderful article written about them in Edible Marine Magazine. Scott can be reached directly scott.beattie@barndiva.com,

We re-launched Studio B events this year with a community series called “Conversations Worth Having” hosted with three of the most formidable women - Dawnelise Rosen, Amber Keneally and Susan Preston. CWH has been a lifeline for us, and we were deeply gratified for others as well, judging by the success of Conversation #1, Gorgeous Garbage. The idea for the series flows from a long held desire to share what we’re reading, listening to, and thinking as we try to live more lightly on the ground in our lives and various businesses. We hope to introduce some of the fascinating people we are meeting on this journey, explore issues that affect us here in Healdsburg, across Sonoma County, and beyond. (No surprise, they are interconnected.)

By opening these conversations to a community we love, gift -wrapped in art, incredible speakers and - this being Barndiva - kick-ass cocktails and wines, we hope to make manifest the changes we long to see in the world. Our only ground rules for the series is that they be fun, and that there is no place for judgment as we explore some pretty complex subjects. Do we believe change starts with small and well considered actions? Yes, we really do.

Next up: Trash Talk, just scheduled for February 16th. We’ve got some incredible speakers coming to town for a panel led by the eco fabulous Zem Joquin, founder of The Near Future Summit, which Dawnelise and I were thrilled to attend this year. To hear about CWH first, Follow us @barndiva.com, or sign up to receive barndiva.com/blog. We will not share your information with anyone.

Above: Conversations Worth Having, A paint and distressed paper canvas by Susan Preston; Photo: Chad Surmick

At the end of the day, everything we do comes down to fostering a genuine feeling of joy in people, and nothing we do comes even close to producing more of it than our weddings and wedding rehearsal dinners. The connections you feel from seeing generations of family and friends gather is electric. Weddings always generate the best moments of our year - they keep us alive in more than ways than one. For that we give thanks to all our wedding couples and their families, who chose Barndiva this year.

Looking forward to 2024, we are so pleased to welcome Susan Bischoff to lead our wedding team - she is already busy with tours and fielding inquiries from across the country. As we say adieu to 2023, a truly grateful thank you, with big love, to our wonderful Natalie Nelson, who after ten years at the helm of Barndiva Weddings has started an exciting new life with her growing family in Utah.

barndiva.com/events

Flowers have always been central to our lives, no surprise they are integral with our farm program, our weddings, and front and center in every dining experience we create. We are hopeful that the increasing world wide support we’re seeing for regenerative farming for food production will also inspire a similar approach when it comes to growing flowers. Because of our many weddings and private events we are able to recommend flower farms and floral designers who source this way - but it’s up to all of us to ask our favorite markets and flowers shops to support slow flower farming! The only critique we hear is “they don’t last as long,” and the most honest response is ‘ask yourself why.’

These are some of our favorites farmers and floral designers we follow near (to source) and far (for inspiration!) : @dragonflyfloral; @apple_farm_flowers; @longertablefarm; @singlethreadfarmstore; @frontporchfarm; @filigreenfarm; also: @daniel.james.co ( Daniel Carlson still directs the orchard & floral programs at our farm in Philo, now alongside the prodigiously talented Misha Vega); @nicamille; @cultivatingplace; @digdelve;@pithandvigor; @jimiblake_huntingbrookgardens; @clairetakacs

What does it take to be part of a ‘real’ restaurant food community? Michelin is clearly the most vaunted, then there’s James Beard and Slow Food, all of which seek to honor talent, innovation, hard work and tradition. But we are all businesses, from Michelin to the local diner. When we lose restaurants that nurtured talent and supported an ethical approach to food sourcing and labor, their absence is sorely felt. We will especially miss dining at Matt Orlando’s Amass in Copenhagen and The Ethicurean in Barley Wood. Both were truly inspirational in the dining experiences they presented.

We did dine in some remarkable restaurants this year, and want to give a special shout out to two that reminded us why we got into this business in the first place. Sessions Art Club in the Clerkenwell section of London (thank you Linda & Nick) is magical, from the moment you find the semi-secret door and they buzz you in, take a wonky elevator and arrive to a curiously elegant great room where history has it Charles Dickens once dined as a law clerk. The cocktails are unfussy, brilliantly balanced, perfectly served (very cold), the food a delight. The staff both nights we dined were absolutely brilliant - a gleam in the eye of jollity primed with the smooth joy of being part of something very special. We can’t wait to return.

The second memorable experience was at a ‘new’ french bistro on the quieter end of Main Street in Venice, Ca, an area I know well as I raised my first two children up the street in Ocean Park. Full Disclosure: one of those children is a co-owner of Cou Cou, Formerly Chez Tex. Jesse and Hayley Feldman started out with no experience in restaurants, though both are world class diners and share a passion for how design affects our ability to open ourselves to a shared experience. There is no gas on property, all food is cooked by wood fire, and the addition of a cocktail license has brought classy cocktails to their bright, locally sourced seasonal menus. Cou Cou perfectly captures the nostalgia and comfort of a French bistro - the kind where you want to order everything on the menu. Those menus will grow exponentially in the next few months when Hayley and Jesse open a second CouCou in WeHo.

Pay them a visit in the New Year, and order a “Bitches of the Seizeme, a Barndiva classic, on us. We know they make it correctly because, for all those Isabel Hales fans out there, she helped set up the Cou Cou bar when they first opened.

Stay healthy, sane, engaged with all the good things going on in the world.

Hope to see you in 2024!

CWH #1. For the love of soil

OK, Full disclosure:  garbage is not gorgeous. Even as we choose the name “gorgeous garbage” to launch our Conversation Worth Having series, we assumed it would be an uphill climb to find an audience. But here was our dilemma: how to entice the community to come talk about food waste… all that messy swill of stinky stuff we toss into the bin every day of our lives, unloved. How to make it lovable, and, yes, covetable?

Our hope was to encourage nothing less than a profound shift in perspective. To begin to see organic waste as a sensous entity, one we literally cannot live without. To break through to a realization that it can be transformed into

• Soil for food

• A way to reduce carbon emissions so we can stay on this planet a little longer

• A way to create a truly circular green economy - I mean how many opportunities do we have as individuals to contribute to that?

As it turned out we needn’t have worried. With this cast of speakers and the incredible audience who showed up we could not have asked for anything more to introduce CWH. Heartfelt thanks to Brock, Tucker, Eric, and Ariel for their wisdom and their humility – and for making their remarkable work lives accessible in delicious and meaningful ways we can all enjoy… We’re talking OAEC, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens, Radio Coteau & County Line Vineyards, Healdsburg Local Government!

Above: The incredible group of farmers, educators, community leaders, diners, and the just plain curious who gathered for Conversations Worth Having #1, “Gorgeous Garbage,” held on Nov. 2 in Studio B.

The Indomitable Brock Dolman, Occidental Arts & Ecology 

Ariel Kelley, Mayor, City of Healdsburg

Tucker Taylor, Director, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens

Eric Sussman, Radio Coteau/ County Line Vineyards, setting up the Find Your Inner Dog scent box game.

James Gore, Sonoma County Supervisor

Deb Fudge, Councilwoman, Windsor

Josh Whiton, Founder @makesoil.org

Daniel Sonnenberg, OAEC, with our “Look, Smell, Play” interactive soil exhibit

 To supervisor James Gore, Josh Whiton, founder @makesoil.org, Mimi Enright and Xinxi Tan from Zero Waste, the lovely Daniel Sonnenberg from OAEC … Thank you all for being so supportive of this conversation. We look forward to a viaduct of information around compost planning for Healdsburg (and Sonoma County) that is actionable. We will pass it all on!

Barndiva canapé starred Tucker’s produce- including his infamous crosnes, Japanese radish, ice lettuce

From the cellers we poured our own label 2015 Barndiva Syrah, graciously made by Eric Sussman

Scott Beattie’s Compost Cocktail, Tops n’ Tails: beet and carrot scrap shrub, lemon rind soda, cool pickled beet and carrot garnish, with carrot top green sprigs. Offered N/A or with Square One organic vodka

Most of all we wish to thank everyone who showed up to have this conversation with us. We were bowled away by your engagement and your on-point questions.

One of our mission statements is to make these great nights of discovery and information. Curiosity is our muse, urgency our engine.

When we decided to foist this series on our unsuspecting neighbors here in Healdsburg, we never dreamed we would re-discover community. We thought we were going in search of something we’d lost, when it was here all the time.

@barndivahealdsburg will announce future conversations as soon as dates are finalized. And no, we haven’t stopped talking about garbage! This is such a perfectly delicious problem for our community to solve that even as we move on to the next conversation we promise to stay connected to the many opportunities the evening presented.

 Eat the view!

Jil, Dawnelise, Susan, Amber

Gratitude Dining after the event with our speakers, in the Studio B garden
(yes Virginia, holiday parties can still be booked at the Orchard table, weather permitting, but they are cozier inside).

Credits for CWH #1: Gorgeous Garbage

Food is Medicine : aka the palpable presence of alternatives… our irreverent homage to Joseph Cornell by way of Dr Seuss.

Concept: Jil Hales; Artwork: Susan Preston; Soil: OAEC; Veg Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor; dehydrated Veg Scraps: Dawnelise Rosen, Chef Syd.
Vegetable Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor Jackson Culinary Gardens. 
Corks chosen by barndiva wine director Emily Carlson from bio dynamic vineyards. 
Execution: Geoff Hales, Chef Syd, and Daniel Sonnenberg (thank you Marcos for the silver shelf!)

Information Tower : our what we are reading, watching, who we are following ongoing resource compilation, compiled and designed by Amber Keneally. (see link above)

Look, Smell, Play! : Our interactive garbage to compost to soil installation, executed by Daniel Sonnenberg.

All Photography: Chad Surmick

For all those who played the ‘find your inner dog’ scent game, contact us if you guessed ‘compost’ was #3!

@barndivahealdsburg

The 'official' Pink Party Album

A familiar complaint we’ve all heard around town of late is about the dearth of genuine community in Healdsburg. It’s a grumbling refrain that holds particular meaning from anyone that remembers Healdsburg when the words quaint and small town charm could be said about it with a straight face. The usual culprits are a mind boggling collection of new businesses, hotels and restaurants that have opened over the past few years to capitalize on the town’s ‘success’ as a destination location, but the quickening pace of our lives, and the emotional distancing of technology certainly contribute to the disconnect at the heart of the discontent.

The way we see it, community isn’t stagnant, is should and must accommodate change. It’s a layered human construct that is constantly telegraphing across the web of seemingly random connections we make with the people whose paths we cross as we go about our lives, working, shopping, dining out, walking the dogs or, yes, coming out on a beautiful afternoon to taste wine.  Of course It can be locational, found in the church hall, a sporting event, working alongside neighbors at the local food pantry, but we are creating it all the time, with every interaction.  It starts with a desire to connect, is sustained by courtesy, respect, and common interests, and, if you are lucky enough to find them, shared goals.

If the only goal is to make money, if you don’t truly care about your product, respect or spend the time getting to know the people you live and work alongside, you cannot sustain genuine community. Especially in small towns like ours, relationships reverberate in subtle ways when you pay attention; good will resonates whether you’ve known someone for years, or just met them by chance. Community can happen in an afternoon – as it did on Pink Party Sunday. The thing that makes it real is the genuine presence you bring to it, no matter what role you play.

The winemakers who gathered in our gardens to pour their Rosé’s at this years Pink Party, who charmed and educated the guests who came to meet them and admire their craft, are a community with like minded goals, just as the slow flower farmers who grew the blooms we sourced to help create dazzling displays, and the food purveyors like Chef Mike Degan, The Healdsburg Bagel Company, Chef Anderson. Our wonderful staff here at Barndiva, the amazing Corazón crew lead by Ashley Mauritson, Alexis Ioconis who steered the wine ship for us for this years Pink on top of everything else she does, Amber Kneally who sewed our Pink Party Pirate flag at the last minute simply because we asked her to - these are the members of our community we depend upon who bring quality and meaning to our lives as we work through them. Dawnelise and Ari Rosen, last seen leading a joyous if bittersweet progression at the closing of campo fino with patrons who very much considered themselves a community - came to help raise funds and awareness for Corazón, the community organization they founded that focuses upon strengthening families at the very heart of hospitality in Healdsburg. Community is everywhere you choose to see it, and engage with it.

I want to give a special shout out to the many beautiful women in their pink dresses who danced together at the end of the day, as the rest of us looked on beneath the wisteria enjoying the same breeze and listening to the music. It felt so good just to be together and celebrate spring, and the abundance of Healdsburg.

The fabulous Pink Party Line Up for 2023:

@bloodrootwines, @almafriawines, @prestonfarmandwinery, @raftwines, @mauritsonwines, @idlewildwines, @jolielaidewines, @drinkseppi, @cruxwinery, @amistavineyards, @bricoleurvineyards, @brickandmortarwines, @stephane.vivier.wines, @reevewines, @daniel_sonoma, @handleycellars, @flowerswinery, @roedererestate, @grosventrewines, @breathlesswines, @dunstanwine, @tberkleywines, @marinelayerwines, @scharffenbergercellars, @hirschvineyards, @domainesott, @matanzascreekwinery, @liocowineco, @cruesswine, @leosteen_wines, @theharrisgalleryandwine, @ernestvineyards, @rootdownwines, @county_line_vineyards, @copainwines, @drinkkally, @altaorsowinery, @captûrewines, @untiwines.com, @guv_hales, @natalienelsonkirby

Special Friends who always bring it: Chef Francisco, Alexis Ioconis, Ari Rosen & Geoffrey Hales, Scott Beattie (in search of a cocktail no doubt), the irrepressible Susan Preston, Lukka Feldman in from London, Releigh and Asijah, Barndiva’s wine Director Emily Carlson, Eric Sussman, Dan Fitzgerald, Jil Hales & Chappy Cottrell, Dawnelise Rosen, and another belle of the ball in her pink frock, Birdy.

Our thanks to all the winemakers for donating to the raffle benefiting Corazón.

Healdsburg has an abundance of vital community organizations that welcome new energy - join one!

All photographs by the incredible Chad Surmick can be shared. TM us @barndivahealdsburg. And heads up: If you are one of many who missed attending when The Pink Party because it sold out so early, consider signing up to receive our newsletter, Eat the View, so you are first to know about future public events. we’ve got some doozies up our sleeves.

Tickets are now on sale for Fête Blanc, August 20.

@dragonfly_floral, @singlethreadfarm, @longertablefarm, @filigreenfarm, @frontporchfarm, @whodoestheflowers!

@airick72, @franciscoa_, @healdsburgbagel, @chefdegan