Tomato Season

The less cooking you do in summer, the better, especially true when it comes to tomatoes, summer's sexpot that swings both ways - as fruit or vegetable. Sweet, with subtle acidity, unless you are going for sauce the trick is not to overcook them. The less you fuss with them the better, and while bruschetta and a perfect caprese are rites of passage in summer, it's great to stretch for new combinations. 

"Look at this,” Ryan said as he sliced through the translucent skin of a huge heirloom Amana. The flesh of the yellow tomato glistened like it was oozing sunlight. He was cutting beautiful Kinsella Vineyard heirlooms for a quick salad, fanning them across the platter before reaching for a container of tiny jewel colored flowers from Early Birds Place - borage, Johnny jump-ups, bachelor buttons and marigolds. The shot had almost too much color in the frame - do I sound like I am complaining? I am not. It was a marriage made in heaven. We did not even dress the salad. It was that good.

Early and Myrna try and grow the flowers separately, important as we’ve found when grown as a ‘mix’  individual flavors tend to bland out. Edible flowers have a surprising diversity; there was a gentle bite to these, which played off the sweetness of the tomatoes, heightening the flavor of both ingredients. 

 For a tomato dish with a little heat,  I shot the heirloom tomato soup that’s currently on the menu - which Ryan plated with a single, perfect lobster filled ravioli. 

Pancho is our consummate ravioli guy whether the filling is a single egg yolk, lobster or spicy Preston lamb. He's just got the touch. His beautiful brown hands fly over the table as he rolls, stretches, and cuts, making each little bundle seal perfectly with the thinest carapace of pasta dough.

Our heirloom tomato soup has hints of garlic and sherry vinegar, nothing to mask the full bodied flavor of this incredible summer 'fruit.' Concentric circles of EVO and chive sour cream and that lobster ravioli with a few shavings of pecorino finish the dish.

God I love summer.

barndiva reading of the week

seaweed farmer speaks out 

Return of Wednesday at the Barn

Return of Wednesday at the Barn

Truffle Madness

So I’m sitting here wondering what that ancient Sumarian must have thought when a wild pig unearthed that first truffle at his feet. I mean whatever compelled him to pick the thing up, much less consider eating it? The French have a term, jolie laide, usually applied to women, which roughly translates to ugly beautiful ~ a curious attraction one feels for an object which, for all intents and purposes, should repel.

It was the smell, of course, an explosive perfume that makes a direct hit on the senses, earthy, yet transportive. Pigs go wild because the tubers, which only grow underground on the roots of certain trees, emit androstenol, the pig equivalent to a sex pheromone. It may well be ~ as the same pheromone is found in human sweat glands ~ that on some deep level our brains are wired to recognize it as well.

Revered by the early Greeks and Romans who believed lightening and thunder accounted for their mysterious fecundity, the truffle's coveted place in culinary history was firmly established in the 1780’s by the first great food historian/writer/critic Brillat Savarin who anointed them the 'diamonds of the kitchen’ for their magical, umami fragrance. It's a doubly apt description for these subterranean fungi are still often as pricey as jewels.

Skip Lasky is a passionate truffle purveyor, the American face of an international network of truffle hunters that originated in Croatia during the civil war when culinary foresight led his (now) partners to smuggle poplar and oak root truffle scions out of the country. The family planted them in the various countries across Europe as they were repatriated and ten years on, incredibly, most of the host trees are now producing. The American arm of UNDERGROUND Truffle Purveyors is based in Petaluma. They sell an impressive range harvested across Italy, Spain, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia and soon (according to Skip) Hungary and New Zealand. Though this geographic reach has somewhat extended the Fall window for harvesting them, it hasn’t brought the prices down, which is fair when you consider their fragility and factor in what it costs to get them to SFO ~ Underground promises delivery within 36 hours of their truffles being gently dug out of the soil by specially trained dogs who respond as pigs do to the scent, but don't gobble down the product.

The white truffles ~ Tuber Magnatum Pico, also known as the Alba, made their first appearance in our dining room in November ~ served raw, shaved tableside. They were from the Piedmont region of Italy, and true to their specific terrier held hints of river bed willows and honey.

This week Skip brought in Black winter truffles, Spanish Perigords, and while not as commanding in scent as the white, open up beautifully when warmed, with a delicate flavor that rolls around the palate, confounding the nose brain connection in a wonderful, seductive way.

New Year's Eve Menu

We've added Truffles! (but you will have to join us to find out where)

Anticipation

Christmas in the Gallery ~ come in and enjoy the decorations with a glass of wine!

All text Jil Hales. Photos © Jil Hales, Dawid Jaworski

Dish of the Week: The Lazar Lissitzky Side Salad..... In the Gallery: Fashion for a Cure......

Dish of the Week

Filet Mignon & Ricotta- Egg Yolk Ravioli with "just a salad on the side"

Lazar “El” Lissitzky was one interesting dude, an architect, designer, photographer and typographer who lived between the Czar’s downfall and the rise of Communism in a little window of time when a humanist approach to the arts in Russia was allowed to flourish.  Though he played a role in some of the most revolutionary art movements catching wind in Europe at the time ~ developing Suprematism with Chagall, teaching in Germany with the Bauhaus ~ his lasting contribution was a unique visual language which considered the power of geometric form when projected into the third dimension. Alive today he’d probably be rich and famous at Pixar or Apple.

He was not, to my knowledge, ever a chef, nor does anything you read about him (except perhaps the fact that he once walked across Italy) indicate any interest in food beyond eating it. Yet I think about El a lot these days as I watch our dishes leave Barndiva’s kitchen.

How important is the way food looks to our enjoyment of eating it? Ryan is fond of saying we eat with our eyes first, but do we actually taste things differently depending on the way we perceive them? If a great landscape painting has the power to wake us up to the beauty of nature, does a beautiful plate of food help connect us ~ even subliminally ~ to the place where it was grown, the people who raised or grew it?

Pretentious looking food isn’t what I’m on about; a plate of “beautiful food” that makes no connection to taste ~ and through taste to a field or meadow or body of water ~ is as lost an opportunity as a painting appreciated for its technical prowess that does not have the power to move us toward a love of nature and from there, a desire to protect it.

Over the past year shooting Ryan’s food for Dish of the Week, while I’ve enjoyed writing about all the tricks and clicks that separate the amateur from the professional cook, I find I keep coming back this question. Lazar's language for art had a social context which for him ~ given the times ~ made it relevant. His theory posed that if the right connections were made between the components of "volume, mass, color, space and rhythm," the eye would make an emotional connection to the work which supplied a meaningful narrative, even when the work was 'abstract.' That was art, this is food, but in a curious way the sensory connection we bring to cooking and eating is also the dominate force that defines our relationship to it. We eat to live, but we also live to eat. And the vibrant life of vegetables, the texture of proteins, the delicate colors of edible flowers, the filigreed edges of herbs have all the same compositional resonance we respond to in a work of art. What's more, we don't experience food in a fine dining setting from the prescribed museum distance; we are an essential part of the process, bringing to the experience a crucial interactive piece.

Fine dining is a hybrid art using the physical picture plane of a small 3D canvas with the repetitive timing of a theatrical production. It takes an enormously disciplined aesthetic. As a performance art it starts with sourcing, moves through the precision of cutting, prep and a range of cooking techniques (with and without heat) to the minutes before presentation. Only then are the final 'colors' added 'backstage' in a moment of intense choreography that can make or break ~ within seconds ~ everything that's come before.

Think I'm crazy? Perhaps, but check out the visual appeal and the production values of what Ryan calls "a simple side salad" which we serve with the Filet Mignon and Ricotta-Egg Yolk Ravioli on the lunch menu: slivered dark heart carrots, red and gold beets, tiny toy box radishes, spicy micro sprouts and pineapple sage petals follow a sinuous line that transitions from raw to cooked ~ garlic confit, steamed baby carrots, artichoke hearts and pearl onions ~ halfway across the plate. What's interesting beyond the visual delight of the plating is the narrative arc of the dish, which manages to give equal billing to the salad and vegetables (and for crunch, two house-made lattice potato chips which look like they drifted onto the plate on a breeze) without upstaging the star of the show: a perfectly cooked Filet Mignon.

There are few things in life as satisfying to a carnivore as a forkful of charred steak flooded with glorious golden egg yolk, but the umani seduction we get from eating animal proteins does not necessarily need to rely on the amount of it we consume. Ryan's plating, beyond its visual appeal, also reflects this evolving consideration, and choices that stretch from the plate all the way back to how and where we source our food.

As much as I respect (and try to adhere) to Michael Pollen’s #1 rule: “eat food, not too much, mostly plants", I don't believe any directive ~ no matter how sensible ~ can teach us as much as an actual experience we feel connected to. Dining is a journey, the more visual the better. Our appreciation and joy should be something we build upon, one which grows with every bite we take. Barndiva was created from a desire to feed people delicious food, sourced sustainably, leaving them wanting to eat with us again. Like Lazar Lissitzky, who believed in transformative art ~ the idea that beyond the experience of looking lay connections which could effect a society of change ~ I’d like to think we are also part of a transformative food movement.

Art first, food first, or for us, any thoughtful combination in between.

Tour de Cure

Studio Barndiva is thrilled to be working with our good friends David and Nicole at Brush Salon to help host their Couture for the Cure Fashion Show on Sunday, April 22 in support of the American Diabetes Association. Entertainment for the evening will be an exciting runway show courtesy of four of Healdsburg's most popular shops: Susan Graf Limited, M Clothing, Outlander Men's Gear and Clutch. Before the show Barndiva will provide cocktails and hors d'ouvres, Vin Couture will be pouring wine ~ so don't be late. A live and silent auction will augment the runway show which will star local and professionals models with hair and make-up by the talented folks at Brush. Space is limited for this very special evening. Great night, important charity. We hope to see you here.

To make reservations for dinner after the show, call us at 707 431 0100, and mention the show. For tickets to the event, see below.

All text Jil Hales. All photos Jil Hales(unless otherwise noted).

Dish of the Week.....In the Gallery with Joy.......

Dish of the Week

Crispy Whole Poussin and Egg Yolk Ricotta Ravioli

Poussin is simply the French term for a domesticated young chicken. Similar in flavor to Rock Cornish Game Hens, they weigh just over a pound, small enough to serve the whole bird which Chef loves to do when he can. Nothing goes to waste ~ we bone the legs and use them and the backbones for stock that is reduced for the jus. By breaking the Poussin down into pieces you are able to pull the breast meat out of the pan and let it rest while finishing the dark meat to perfection. Ryan leaves the tiny wings intact, crisp around the edges, to make them easier to eat. I know there are fine dining restaurants which frown upon eating parts of the meal with your hands. I hope ours will never be one of them.

It's worth learning how to break and bone poultry down ~ Always work with gloves and a designated chopping board you scrub down before and after. With some practice you can do it swiftly and neatly and you will never have to worry again that in order to keep the white meat moist you risk having the dark meat red at the bone. There is nothing quite as delicious as biting down through crispy skin to perfectly dark moist meat. The right answer to the eternal tableside question of 'dark or light' should be "both, thank you."

The egg yolk inside the ravioli isn’t just a play on the chicken and egg routine (though in this instance the egg comes first) it's a wonderful taste component to the final dish. When you cut into the ravioli the yolk and ricotta stream down into the meat, bringing everything together: aromatics, crunch, soft comfort flavors. Chef plates the Poussin over a sauté of baby artichoke hearts, spicy pancetta and the last of the heirloom tomatoes oven roasted until they are so redolent with flavor they taste sun-dried. He finishes the dish with the jus and a translucent chive oil with bright grassy notes and a just a hint of pepper.

In the Gallery.... with Joy

It was a weekend of extraordinary highs and lows for all of us here at Barndiva, one that reached into the very heart of what we do, and why.

Saturday we threw one of the truly stellar weddings of the year, an evening where everything that could have gone wrong didn’t, and exceptional food, wine, flowers, music and dancing just flowed. Behind the scenes before the wedding began we scrambled to deal with a rainstorm that came early and far more intensely than expected. An hour before 'show time' half the staff was pulling furniture out of the dining room to accommodate the cocktail hour (which had been planned for sunset in the Barndiva Gardens), while the other half was meticulously setting the Gallery for the formal dinner (which had been envisioned under the stars in the Studio Gardens.)

A last minute decision by the bride and groom to go ahead with the ceremony outside was brave, and, as it turned out, inspired. Beneath a darkening sky as fairy lights in the trees caught and reflected the jewel-like colors of hundreds of Dragonfly peach and cream roses, pale green hydrangeas, flowering kale and white freesias, the wedding guests huddled under umbrellas holding their collective breath to hear the vows above the rain before erupting into cheers of joy. Coming into the warmth of the candlelit Gallery was magical. For the next five hours it was as if we had created a parallel universe where nothing bad or sad could ever happen.

Sad things do happen though. When we woke Sunday morning it was to prepare for a very different event, a memorial for Rhiannon Joy Hull, the adored young daughter, wife, mother, friend, teacher and athlete who lost her life last week in the waters off the beach at Playa Avellanas in Costa Rica, where she had gone to start a Waldorf Kindergarten. The swift and seeming randomness of Rhiannon’s death had left more than her immediate family in shock. For the young parents in town ~ and we have many ~ it was a tragedy that posed frightening and unanswerable questions. Rhiannon was a woman of exceptional physical strength, and while she faced her last moments of life using every ounce of it to save her son Julian, there was no escaping the feeling that her loss was a reminder of how tenuous a hold even the strongest of us have on life, how easily even those lives which we painstakingly construct can come undone. The first hour of the memorial the mood of the 300 or so that had gathered was friendly but awkward as grief stricken friends and family mixed with members of the community who had only known Rhiannon through school or her classes. As Amber, Barndiva's event coordinator and Rhiannon's close friend plaintively asked after the eulogy and stories and songs were all done …what now?  How do we as family, friends and casting a bigger net, as a community, make sense of this?

It was a question without an immediate answer.  Yet as the afternoon unfolded what transpired held a clue. Octavio had baked all morning ~ platters of tiny exquisitely composed desserts ~ and as people arrived more platters joined ours on the long wood tables from kitchens across the county ~ casseroles of comfort food, baskets of freshly baked bread, salads of all description, cases of juice and wine. Lukka opened bottle after bottle of champagne and big pots of coffee got refilled while the crowd mingled, eating and drinking while babies squirmed and kids ran amok in the gardens.  Conversations rose and fell. We laughed, some cried, everyone present taking simple pleasure just being in the company of others. The word 'celebration' was repeated over and over, as it had been the night before, under vastly different circumstances. How strange that Saturday night’s 'celebration' for one couple’s life beginning, and Sunday’s 'celebration' of  a vibrant young life cut short shared this word so fully ~ that it was the one we reached for both in hope and to console ourselves.

•   •   •

As I write this, I’m thinking of a line in Adam Gopnik’s wonderful new book The Table Comes First, in which he makes the point that  "we don’t always acknowledge enough, that we still live the truth Darwin saw: food is the sensual pleasure that passes most readily into a social value.”

I am the first to admit that from the beginning Barndiva has offered a social agenda. We built and we use our beautiful spaces to strengthen the bonds between farmer and chef, to connect the diner to all the components and meanings behind the dinner served. But while it is vitally important to talk about what we eat within the context of our own and the planet’s health, in fostering celebrations in our space ~ celebrations of every kind ~ more than actual hunger gets sated. Now more than ever we need to take a break from technology and networking and zoning out with social media to make the actual physical human connections that validate joy. Sometimes that celebration is as simple as a meal and bottle of wine with someone you love or hope to love; sometimes it marks a day you will never forget. But the distances we travel to remind ourselves why life is worth living, even when we are forced to come to that moment from a place of pain, is always shorter over a table of food. Of course it matters what you put on that table. But what matters more is remembering, before you sit down, to come with an open heart.

If you’d like to read more about Rhiannon here are a few links…

The Press Democrat The Patch

Donations to the family may be made in Hull's honor to the Julian and Gianni Hull Education Fund at Wells Fargo Bank. For information, contact Jenn@yogaoncenter.com.

Another way to help out, Take Them A Meal.

All text Jil Hales. All photos Jil Hales and Dawid Jaworski (unless otherwise noted).  NYE artwork k2pdesigns.

Menu of the Week.....In the Gallery.......

Dish of the Week

New Fall Menu

The garden dictates changes to our menus virtually every week of the year. But while there’s no hard line in the sand that can be drawn to signal the end of one season and the beginning of the next, some weeks, like this one, the juggling we do to accommodate the superlative produce our farmers bring to the kitchen door is more dramatic than others.  While heirloom beans, sprouts, quince, and pancetta all started to arrive in abundance this week, so did the last of the heirloom tomatoes. The crazy weather that had left Lazero’s fig trees still bursting with fruit also had chestnuts falling from our trees on the ridge in Philo … I know, there are worse problems to have in life. But it makes calling the menu below the "definitive Autumn" menu a bit of a stretch.

I love this time of year for the crisp snap to the mornings, coming in from the chill to a kitchen fragrant with the smell of quince.  Creamy Mushroom Ragù and classic Frisée salads with lashings of bacon. Lobster Risotto scented with preserved lemons. Ryan’s incandescent Cauliflower Velouté with caramelized florets, raisins, and brown butter almonds (he calls it Trail Mix).  The menu is a blessing right now, a garden-sensitive work in progress, the first of the delicious holiday season to come.

BARNDIVA DINNER Autumn 2011

CAULIFLOWER Velouté, Caramelized Florets, Raisin, Caper, Almond, Caviar   15 Caramelized Diver SCALLOP, Gnocchi, Brussels Sprouts, Quince, Pancetta   16 BUTTER LETTUCE, Champagne Vinaigrette, Orange, Radish, Shaved Carrot   10 Crispy PORK BELLY, Heirloom Bean Cassoulet, Tomato Marmalade, Chive   14 BEET & ENDIVE, Avocado, Apple, Walnut, Warm Chèvre   13 FRISÉE LARDON, Creamy Cabernet Vinaigrette, Garlic Croutons, Fried Hen Egg   15 Local FIG Salad, Bellwether Farms San Andreas, Almond, Shaved Radish   12 Cowgirl Creamery “MT, TAM”, Fall Fruit, Radish, Marmalade 18 “THE ARTISAN” Hand Made Cheeses, Charcuterie, Seasonal Accompaniments   39

LOBSTER Risotto, Corn, Crispy Garlic Chips, Preserved Lemon, Watercress   30 Crispy Young CHICKEN, Roasted Artichoke, Pancetta, Ricotta & Egg Yolk Ravioli   25 Wild Alaskan HALIBUT, Caramelized Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash Agnolotti, Bacon   28 Niman Ranch Tenderloin of BEEF, Creamy Morel Mushrooms, Yukon Gold Potato Tots, Carrot Purée    32 Crispy Leg & Sliced Breast of Sonoma DUCK, Spinach, Glazed Cipollini Onion, Caramelized Pear, Foie Toast   29 Bacon Wrapped PORK Tenderloin, Yukon Gold Potato Purée, Apple Marmalade, Caramelized Endive   27

 Goat Cheese CROQUETTES, Wildflower Honey, Lavender   10 BD FRITES, Spicy Ketchup   10 Preston OLIVE OIL, Maldon Salt, Port, Chive   4

TASTING MENU Five course   75     Wine pairing   40 Tasting menus available for the entire table only

Chef Ryan Fancher

In the Gallery

All that glitters is not gold...and thankfully isn't priced like it either. These cuffs and bracelets just in for Xmas are some of the coolest ~ and most affordable ~ we've had in years. Beautiful handcrafted pieces are arriving everyday ~ wire sculpture by Ismael, textiles from Ethiopia, antiques from Burgundy, glass from Syria, ceramics from Japan, and beautiful paintings and steel sculpture...from just down the road. Shop local this holiday knowing you are supporting talented artisans from all over the world.

Above: Brass Squares Bracelet:  brass plated metal squares nestle together to create this light and fluid bracelet with a warm, burnished patina. Great worn in multiples. Strung on elastic to fit most wrists.  $35/ each

left: Square Bead Cuff: Handcrafted brass-plated metal beads strung on wire and finished in softly antiqued tones. $35

middle: Liquid Bronze Cuff: Cast from high quality brass, has molten appearance. $45

right: Crocheted Pyrite Bracelet: Lustrous Pyrite married with gold vermiel make for a striking pairing. Comprised of seven strands of small pyrite beads intricately woven and bound together with gold-filled wire and clasp. $150

All text Jil Hales. All photos Jil Hales and Dawid Jaworski (unless otherwise noted)

Dish of the Week.....Local Harvest Festivals.........

Dish of the Week

Saffron Pasta

I’ve never been fond of flavored pastas. Fresh tomatoes are never bitter when you chop them up and add them to a sauce, and you'd be hard-pressed to use too much fresh basil in an Italian dish. But for some reason when the same ingredients are solidified into flour and water more often than not they taste off to me; resinous herbs like rosemary or thyme end up with a slightly medicinal edge.

Saffron is different. All it adds to the taste of fresh pasta is a slight floral note, but more importantly it brings back the glorious color of the egg yolks ~ always doomed to be lost in the white blur of flour, salt and milk. Saffron brings that yellow back to the front, where it belongs. It's also the color of the sun, which makes me think of wheat in a field.

Everything about Italian food references the simple beauties of nature; it is the earthiest cuisine, the most able to satisfy the base comfort I look for in food. I admire French presentation and technique, I crave Indian and Thai, but it's Italian I return to when I've had a bad day or just need that little bit of mama in my soul. To get that splendid color, saffron threads are added to white wine which has been brought almost to a boil, a process called 'blooming'. As the saffron dissolves you cool it over ice water, leaving some threads intact, then add to the egg yolks. We use a classic old machine Geoff rebuilt for us to cut our dough, but we always start by mixing and kneading our pastas by hand which demands time and patience, a good practice in a kitchen like ours where speed under pressure is constantly required. There's also a sound technical reason for making pasta by hand rather than dumping all the ingredients into a big machine. Pasta is all about texture. You need to feel it as you go; to learn to trust your fingers when they tell you more, or tell you stop. Which, in a round about way, brings me back to my comment about nurture and comfort. To have an abundance of both in life, you need to be hands on.

Paul Bertolli, a friend from the early Barndiva days, wrote what I still consider a benchmark Italian cookbook no kitchen should be without called, appropriately enough, Cooking by Hand. Written in essay form with chapters like Twelve Ways to Look at a Tomato,  it's not a book you pick up when you need a quickie recipe, but one you linger over in bed before you fall asleep.  With any luck you may find yourself in a dream where you have miraculously found the time to work the dough, cut the tomatoes, rip the basil, crush the oregano, taste the wine.  Only a few chef-writers capture the magic of why we cook ~ MFK Fisher comes to mind ~ by managing to tap into our culinary soul. Paul finds the magic.

Chef served Rabbit with the Saffron Fettuccine this week:  kidneys, loin, and rack, beautifully butchered then flash seared in butter and garlic and thyme. Wish I could say  “just like the mama used to make,” but with no disrespect to my mother,  I grew up thinking rabbits were girly pets, pasta only came in boxes, tomato sauce only came in cans.  I’ve since learned that it’s usually the time it takes to do things simply that matters most when it comes to food.   Happily, the joy of Italian food is that when you use great ingredients and put your heart into it,  wherever you started on your food journey  you can end up making your own delicious traditions.

Local Events

As it happened I attended two Harvest Festivals this week. The Mendocino County Fair, held in the Boonville Fairgrounds ten miles from our farm, has been going strong for 87 years (we’ve been attending, on and off, for the past 30).  The National Heirloom Expo, held amidst great fanfare (and high expectations) at the fairgrounds in Santa Rosa is brand spanking new.

Besides the fact that both the Fair and the Expo are at heart celebrations of all things grown and living, from inception to delivery they were radically different events. The Mendocino County Fair opens with a rodeo and ends with a parade down Hwy 128 with people and horses in fancy dress; it boasts an impressive collection of award winning animals, rides, cotton candy and hot dogs on a stick. No one cares where the hot dogs come from. It’s simply a fair all about fun, and the folks that put it on, from the 4H and FFA kids who raise the animals to the women who bake the pies from the (fast disappearing) apple orchards of Anderson Valley work hard all year long to make it happen. The fair celebrates their labors and their lives ~ it's not about thinking deeply about farming methods or where the seed they use to grow their food and feed their animals comes from. It's about taking three days off in September to stand back and go, phew, can you believe we made it through another year? Pass the popcorn.

There were no rides at the National Heirloom Expo. There was a mind boggling array of open pollinated fruits and vegetables, food vendors clearly vetted for where they sourced ingredients (not a hot dog on a stick in sight), a giant tower of squash (by the same folks who built the squash tower in Michelle Obama’s White House vegetable garden) and an entire hall filled with non-profit (read: optimistically struggling) seed people. While there was country music and a convivial air in the crowds milling around the fresh produce stalls outside the halls, it was clear from the moment you pushed through the turnstile that unlike the Mendocino County Fair there was a decidedly political bent to this event.

On Tuesday Ryan gave a cooking demo at the Expo in the Hall of Flowers with Alex Lapham of MIX Garden. The bromance these two extremely talented big guys have going, sustained by the superlative produce one grows and the other cooks, is something to behold. They did a reprise of their heirloom tomato and melon salad, bantering non-stop back and forth while I sat snapping away in the first row with Geoff and Chef’s beautiful wife Rebekah.  Mick Kopetsky and Bryan Hohnstein, the other two parts of MIX Garden’s phenomenal success, stood at the back of the crowd grinning madly.

It’s great when you can walk around a fair and connect with people whose livelihood is integral to your own: old friend Kristee Rosendahl was there with her exciting Smart Gardener website, new friends Belle Starr and Bill McDorman of Native Seed/SEARCH were there with their special varieties of Southwest seeds which they'd also brought to Barndiva for us to cook with. On Thursday night we returned to the fairgrounds to hear Dr. Vandana Shiva speak. Dr. Shiva is one of those rare human beings who can deliver a message that is dire, yet manage to take you to a place where you know you are up to the challenge.   If you don’t know who she is, I urge you to go online and find out.

On Sunday we arrived at the Boonville Fairgrounds a half hour before the sheep dog trials began. Sheep Dog trials are my all time favorite spectator sport ~  if you have children trust me on this one, sheepdog trials hold a paradigm for your life. The trials this year delivered big time with great dogs and wonderful handlers (all but one of whom were women). After the trials we toured the animal tents and spoke to some of the kids who raised them, falling in love with a breed of pig we hope to raise at the farm.

What I didn’t do this year in Boonville ~ that I’ve always done in the past ~ was visit the Apple Hall to see the stands filled with boxes of apples in competition. The Mendocino Apple Fair is a cherished part of my life’s traditions (Knowing More and More, about Less and Less) but it’s increasingly hard for me to reconcile the absence of awareness at this event. The organizers in Boonville ~ and 4H and FFA at the national level ~ could use a good dose of fire in the belly that drove the organizers and participants of the Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa. This is one case where if worlds could collide we'd all be the better for it.

87 years ago almost all the apples polished to a shine at the Mendocino Fair were grown from diverse varieties, many brought to the valley with the immigrants that came over to work the forests before they settled down to farming and raising sheep. These days less than 10% of all the apples grown in the US are heirlooms, much less open pollinated, thanks to nefarious inroads made by Monsanto to control and limit seed varieties (for their own profit) which ultimately will imperil the world’s ability to feed itself. Much as I’d like to go to the Fair in Boonville and forget for a day about GM, forget about the 'legal' patenting of seeds, forget the damage chemical dependence is doing to our soil, forget about CAFO’s, I can’t get away from the feeling that mindlessness, even for a day, is no longer an option. For those of us whose lives depend upon the soil and the animals reared on it, hell,  for anyone who eats, we do so at our peril, and at risk of losing everything we hold dear.

All text Jil Hales. All photos Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)

Barndiva's 6th annual Oscars Menu

Barndiva's 6th Annual Oscars dinner party

The Fighter: Raw Course

Chiogga Beet Tartar, Caviar Moussaline, Mustard Vinaigrette, Sunchoke Chips

The dish we paired with The Fighter was meant to be raw and bloody ~ though the ‘blood’ came from a vibrant beet tartar whose magnificent color was spiked with a bit of vinegar.  It was topped with a moussaline of whipped crème fraîche, a dollop of caviar, and a wreath of baby sunchoke chips.  Texturally, while the beets and sunchoke chips initially tasted very different, the earthy flavor profiles of both root vegetables played in concert when paired with the creamy moussaline and salty caviar.

Black Swan: Salad Course Butter Lettuce Salad, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Meyer Lemon, Virgin Olive Oil, Radish

The idea behind serving a spare green salad to honor a movie about starving ballerinas started as a joke.  Then Chef saw Black Swan and was actually incredible moved by Natalie Portman’s beauty and elegance.  With it’s ruffle of butter lettuce, sharp crimson edge of radish, and delicate segments of ruby red grapefruit, the salad, finished with champagne vinaigrette and a shower of flowering rapini, was indeed a visual ballet of color and form.  Delicious as well.

True Grit: Fire Course Veal Chop, Boulangère Potatoes, Golden Chanterelle Mushroom, Pickled Pearl Onion

Back in the day, when people still cooked on the hearth, small town bakeries were often used by villagers to cook their evening meal in the still warm wood fired ovens once the bread run was finished.  There wasn’t a lot of heat left and space was always at a premium ~ but I’m guessing some wonderful rustic recipes came out of this unique and very communal way of cooking.  The story behind Boulangère potatoes was simple: meats were put on the top shelf with sliced potatoes beneath them, the better to catch the delicious meat drippings.

Ryan’s homage to the dish couldn’t involve a bread oven.  But if you took your eyes away from the screen on Oscar night and closed them, it was easy to taste the inspiration.  His savory layer cake of thinly shaved potatoes was saturated in dark stock that dripped down flavoring the potatoes during the baking process.  Served alongside big juicy veal chops from milk and grass-fed free range calves, this was haute campfire with True Grit.  The veal was sourced from Sonoma Direct, where Ritz Guggiana and his cookbook-writing daughter Marissa (Primal Cuts) find some of the most delicious ethically sustainable animals in the county.

Toy Story 3: Sweet Course 3 flavors of Bon Bons

Opps.  While the Journal’s photographer clearly remembers devouring the Toy Story 3 Bon Bon course just as Best Picture was announced, images of it clearly did not make it into the camera.  The plate was a riot of color ~ with sprinkles, roasted coconut and almond flakes covering dark, milk and white chocolate Bon Bons filled with passion fruit, vanilla and crème fraîche ice cream.  The good news is that the Bon Bons above are equally delicious and better yet, available often on our regular dessert menu.

Dandelion Green Ravioli

Grilled Wild Salmon

Saffron Capellini with Baby Fall Vegetables

Baby Artichoke Lasagna

Chef Ryan's basic pasta recipe

Pasta dough 1.25 lb “00” flour 18 egg yolks 3 large eggs 1 tablespoon milk 1 tablespoon olive oil Place flour on a cutting board, making a well in the middle. Add eggs, milk, olive oil. With a fork whisk the egg mixture slowly incorporating the flour. Knead the dough until completely smooth. Let rest at least 20 min, then roll Eggs for our pasta sourced from our friends at Quivera and Earlybirds Place.

Anglotti Pasta~ Celery Root Filling

Anglotti Celery Root Filling

2 large Celery Roots 2 tbsp unsalted butter 2 tbsp minced shallot 2 tbsp garlic confit 1 C white wine 2 C cream salt/ pepper/sugar

Peel the celery root and dice into small pieces. Heat the butter in a medium sized sauce pan. Add shallot & garlic. Sweat until translucent & then add celery root. Deglaze with white wine and reduce. Pour cream over celery & simmer on low heat until soft. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Blend until smooth, then chill. Place in a piping bag

Bellwether Gnocchi with Rainy May Vegetables