Why Food Like This Matters Now

With our second week as a To Go restaurant behind us we are feeling immense gratitude for the support we’ve received from the Barndiva community near and far. But as we shift our gaze down the road, as necessary as sheltering in place is right now, there are going to be long term effects on almost all small independently owned restaurants and on anyone who services or provides for them, up and down the food chain. This is true everywhere because as Lucas Kwan Peterson wrote in an article published in the LA Times on March 26, “Times are uncertain and people need to eat, preferably cheaply given the fact that they are also worried about or have already lost their jobs. But our multi-billion dollar fast food industry is equipped to weather this shutdown. Our small restaurants are not.” As he, and many many respected restaurateurs like David Chang, Danny Meyer and Tom Colicchio are warning, we aren’t just talking about weathering this shutdown in the short term.

There is no Eat the View blog without Barndiva. But over the past decade that I’ve been writing it, while very much a personal story of the joys and challenges we’ve encountered as our family farmed this ridge and built a sustainable business in the heart of Healdsburg, whenever possible the blog has tried to draw a larger circle around the two food sheds we work from, and the stories of many who work within it, often with little or no financial or physical safety nets. Whether these players are young, having moved here with a dream, or working within long held family businesses, they are dedicated to re-telling and extending the remarkable food history of this area. Many will now be facing serious hurdles.

As proud as I am of the delicious series of dishes coming out of our kitchens right now, I’m equally gratified that many kitchens here in Healdsburg are still producing food, keeping chefs and purveyors working. We miss seeing you in our dining rooms, that’s for sure. For us, going back to the basics has been a refresher course in why food like this matters - its power to convey the love we feel when we know where our food comes from and who produces it. If you have the financial bandwidth, seek out and support smaller independent producers and farms that have online stores and CSA’s - it’s a great time to join one!

And do consider donating to Sonoma Family Meal a vital ‘Groceries to Go’ drive through program here in Healdsburg, whose immediate goal is to aid families and seniors during the pandemic. Read more from our friends at Corazón Healdsburg.

Below are just some of Chef Jordan’s dishes coming out of our kitchen right now which can be picked up curbside at The Gallery or delivered at no charge by Lukka and Isabel along with cocktails and selected bottles of wine from local wineries. Starting next week we will also be offering kits that are easy to finish cooking at home. If you are too far away to enjoy Barndiva To Go but want to show support, consider paying it forward for lunch in the gardens this summer, one of our collaborative wine events like Pink Party, Fête Blanc, Fête Rouge, or taking your significant other out to…dinner. Just dinner. We are dreaming of that - just being together again in the comfort of strangers, sharing full dining rooms filled with flowers and the music of glinting shakers. That will feel like celebration enough.

To order Barndiva To Go or a gift certificate: shop.barndiva.com or call us at 431.0100.

Here are: Spring Onion and Yukon Gold Potato Soup with garlic croutons; a Jackson Family Farm Green Salad; Whole Roasted Chicken for two; Coconut Rice Pudding with fresh mango; Teriyaki Glazed Steelhead Salmon with green cabbage salad; the first Cook at Home Kits from Chef Jordan: hand cut Semolina Lumache with a bolognese of grass fed beef, walnut finished pork, and veal demi-glace, with a hunk of Grana Padano, herbs and finishing salt.

Chappy will have a lot more to say about wine next week - he’s been pretty busy since he took over my job as Barndiva food and drinks photographer. As you can see, he’s killing it. He’s also posting and updating the shop daily. At the same time he has been producing a series of podcasts the local wine community has fallen in love with: we urge you to check out: @crupodcast.

As for cocktails, Isabel is shaking them moments before the food comes out, packed to go for curbside or delivery. Glass keeps them nice and cold, and they are all ready to be enjoyed. She will be adding more favorites, but let us know if there is a cocktail you are missing.

Local distilleries would appreciate business right now and there are some terrific spirits made here in the County, try and order them when you stock up.

For Cocktails To Go, our Manhattan is made with two Redwood Empire whiskies - Lost Monarch and Emerald Giant (The Graton Distilling Company plants a tree for every bottle sold), Sipsong; The Negroni features Healdsburg’s Sipsong Indira Gin (made by everyone’s sweetheart Terra Jasper); The Diva Gimlet is made with Young & Yonder’s Armont Vodka, from other Healdsburg neighbors Josh and Sara. Local products have real stories behind them in addition to talent and passion. This one is a love story (he is the distiller, she designs the gorgeous labels).

Cheers.

#staytuned #stayhealthy #stayhealdsburg #healdsburgchamber #stayhome #eattheview #shelteringinplace #barndiva #togo #healdsburg #thisishealdsburg #sonomacounty #sommtablehealdsburg #sonomastrong

Behind the scene of Restaurant Week!

If we are indeed at the beginning of the end of the Anthropocene era, we are going out in one big beautiful bang. This magical gap that’s opened up between winter and spring has us all a bit giddy. The buds are still setting, the orchards have yet to go mad with blossoms, but cold frosty mornings warm up as if it were mid summer. With verdant carpets of grass along the ridge strewn with necklaces of daffodils it’s hard not to just wander off and lose track of time. The air is softly scented with them, and with heady clematis armandii having its moment. We are constantly stripping layers of clothing, shedding personalities as we do, trying to forget it’s only February and we may have a long hot and dry summer and fall ahead. Only when the sun drops below the ridge and the air shudders suddenly and closes in do we come to our senses, amble back inside. These early mornings of cutting and hauling and digging have been back breaking, but wonderfully joyous work. Big love to Moises and his crew and, as ever, to our farm manager Dan for his inspiration.

This week’s blog is a late but enthusiastic shout out to Restaurant Week, or Restaurant Fortnight as it should be called now in its final five days from Wednesday to Monday. The common wisdom is that it’s a giveaway, frequented by diners just looking for a deal who may never return, but honestly that runs counter to the reason we are participating in it. A countywide initiative which comes at great expense and effort by many, we see it as an opportunity to celebrate purveyors and technique. In short to strut our best barn dancing. So this year we practiced uncommon wisdom in our approach: cook food we want to eat, now. Make it fun. Everything on this menu is delicious - a huge thank you to Chefs Danny, Randy, Sarah and Ben for their inspiring dishes!

We all agreed the stand out dish is Porchetta, made with LLano Seco Porchetta. We are thrilled to be sourcing from this Chico ranch and we thank Ben for the introduction. Even Mr. Hales has never seen crackling like this before, encasing sweet herb rubbed pork that is succulent and tastes of fair fields and fine grain. Here’s how Ben Wilson, our guest chef this spring, describes the dish he lovingly created for Barndiva: “It represents the end of winter and the beginnings of spring. Sweet root vegetables, bright citrus, sweet garlic, and clean wild lettuces. We finish the dish with a bright salsa verde made with chives, parsley, cilantro, green garlic, whole garlic cloves, lemon zest, grapefruit zest, and lot of California extra virgin olive.”

There is one more week to partake. Very busy last week but there are often seats at the bar.

Last but never least, here is a snap of Dan harvesting camellias for a dining room arrangement. Check out the size of our star pink camellia bush, keeping in mind he is 6’4”! Planted by our patron saint Victoria Cassenelli well over 80 years ago, it is one of her remaining bushes, though the trees that shaded it burned a decade ago. Extreme frost browned some of the plant’s prodigious output but the flowers are a gorgeous delicate pink, like the inside ear of a conch shell. Not a day goes by we are not in awe of what Victoria planted and left for us to enjoy.