French Country Dinners in Studio Barndiva

Ryan Fancher is one of those rare talents that can cook pretty much anything he sets his mind to with a level of passion and consistency that will blow you away, day after day. But when it comes to what he loves to cook “best” anyone who knows him will tell you it's probably going to be French. Not fancy French with all the bells and whistles (though he has that down to an art form), but Country French, those soul-satisfying flavors that are imbedded in the part of our DNA that spells comfort. I’m convinced that in another life Ryan was a French grand-mère living on a farm in some great food town like Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, cooking incredible dishes that pulled from centuries of tradition, using every part of the animals the family raised, churning butter and cheese, pickling vegetables and herbs straight from a huge potager only a few steps from the kitchen door. 

In the interest of brevity when people ask we usually call the style of food we serve at Barndiva “Modern Country.” 'Modern’ refers to the clean elegant flavors and vibrant colors of Ryan’s palette, ‘country’ to the bountiful landscape that surrounds our restaurant, where we live and work and source ingredients. Hence the name of this blog: Eat the View.

So, it was no surprise when Ryan and star sous chef Andrew Wycoff started to play around with ideas for Sunday Dinners in Studio Barndiva they began to dream of menus you might have found in a French family cookbook 100+ years ago. This is the food they want to cook. More to the point it's the food they would love to eat on Sunday evening as the sun gets low, winding down from the weekend, mentally getting ready for the week to come. 

Last Sunday we invited a few friends for the first of what we hope will be many Sunday Dinners here in the Studio. Surrounded by French wine and food antiques that fill the Gallery, fueled by great conversation and a not inconsiderable amount of Rosé, we joyously ate through heaps of pencil thin frites and bowls of moules marinières with an incandescent broth that had us groaning with pleasure. The first course was followed by Mt. Lassen cold water trout with perfect crispy skin, served over haricot beans smothered in caper butter sauce. For dessert, there were old fashioned glass jars filled with silky dark chocolate mousse Andrew had topped with dollops of Bavarian cream and sugary light financiers. 

The wonderful a la carte menus Ryan creates for Barndiva will not change on Sunday, where weather permitting you can dine in our candlelit gardens. But if some Sunday evening you find yourself craving something a little more down home, easy on the pocket, sublime in the way it leaves you feeling just plain happy to be alive, join us for our spin on a Classic French Country Dinner in the Studio. Menus for the month will be posted on the website; book by calling Barndiva. Be sure to tell them you want to snag a seat for French Country Sunday. We will happily offer Vegetarian and Vegan options. 

French Country Dinners - served every Sunday in Studio Barndiva

August Menus, from $35

Sunday August 9th
SALADE DE BETTERAVES beet salad, hazelnut, watercress, blue cheese
STEAK FRITES kobe flat iron steak, hotel butter, fries
CHOCOLATE POTS A CRÈME valhorona 70%, financier

Sunday August 16th
SOUPE A TOMATE, CROQUE MONSIEUR tomato soup, ham & cheese panini
SAUMON AU SALADE OIGNON wild salmon, greens, shallot vinaigrette
CRÈME BRULÉE almond florentine , candied citrus

Sunday August 23rd
SALADE NICOISE greens, egg, green beans, olive d'agneau pistu
SLICED LEG OF LAMB white beans, basil pesto
TARTE TATIN barndiva dry farmed gravensteins, vanilla bean ice cream

Sunday August 30th
FRISÉE LARDON salad of frisée, greens, bacon, garlic crouton, quail egg
COQ AU VIN roasted chicken, red wine jus, mushrooms
PROFITEROLES (chocolate sauce, coffee ice cream

Sweet Reprise

As a diner, I love dessert. Whether a simple celebration of the fruits of a season or a high wire act that astonishes the eye with its technical artistry, what I'm really looking for in those last few bites of a great meal is a blissful way to ease into the rest of my day or night sated with more than food. A bit of sweet to balance the savory, something to amuse or dazzle... dessert is more than the last course of a meal. Sitting in a beautiful restaurant with a full stomach, steeping in the sounds of conversation and music and cocktail shakers firing in the distance, dessert is the time you drift. Life is good. 

But as someone who owns a restaurant which aims to deliver no less than what I expect when I dine out, desserts are a frightening endeavor. Even as part of a tasting menu they are the course you always lose money on, yet must pull off to perfection or risk leaving the wrong lingering impression in the minds of your guests. Add to that, and I’m not sure why (though long term exposure to sugar may have something to do with it), most pastry chefs are temperamental in the extreme, and not always in relationship to their talents. At Barndiva, where we have two dessert programs ~ one for the restaurant, the other for events ~ it has been one of the most difficult and tenuous positions to fill. We need a pastry chef with the nerves of a high platform diver, the back of a stevedore, the patience of a saint.

Scotty Noll, who returns this month as Barndiva’s pastry chef after what must be one of the longest hiatus’ in Sonoma County restaurant history, is the first to tell you he is no saint. But even at his most stressed out, more often than not in the final stages of decorating an eye popping wedding cake, he nails it. When he left, shortly after Ryan arrived, the Barndiva kitchen was like the wild west, with Scott the sheriff. He returns to a well oiled machine with a consummate master at the helm. We are thrilled to have him back.

Like most great pastry chefs he’s part dreamer, part alchemist. Like Ryan, he holds an incredibly high standard for every plate that leaves the kitchen. What I love is that he "gets" the importance of those last moments of a memorable dining experience. But don’t take my word for it. Come in and taste Scott Noll’s extraordinary desserts. You can enjoy them after a sumptuous lunch and dinner in Barndiva or with a cocktail, coffee or tea service in our beautiful new Gallery Bar.  

Welcome home Scotty. 

Our good friend Sofia Bates wants me to invite anyone out there looking for a “rich experience of local people sharing their expertise in rural living” to the wonderful Not So Simple Living Fair which is fast approaching. Held July 24-26 at the Boonville Fairgrounds, this is a mindful and truly inspirational opportunity whether you are a farmer just starting out or an experienced hand that seeks answers to specific questions in soil management, permaculture and animal husbandry. Hell, it’s fascinating for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of what it should mean when we throw around the word sustainable.

 More information: http://notsosimple.info

We have just returned from NYC, where the family clan gathered to celebrate a beloved 1st cousin's birthday and, as it happened, dine quite merrily across Manhattan. We especially loved the  long "farmer's lunch" in the cool portico that floats above the Union Square Market, a brief repast on the roof of the new Whitney Museum, and a wonderful dinner Café Boulud in The Surrey, our hotel of choice when we crave proximity to the park and the Met. (This was after we had eaten and shopped our way across Nolita, Tribeca and Soho, where we stayed at The Crosby Street Hotel, also highly recommended).

As it turned out, our last night in the city coincided with the 11th anniversary of the opening of Barndiva. Though we wanted to celebrate with Ryan and Bekah, they were 3,000 miles and a new baby away. Happily, the 11’s aligned, and as we slid into a banquette in the utterly gorgeous dining room at Eleven Madison Park, the feeling was one of elevation, and abandon. We were welcomed back with a sparkling "champagne" made in upstate New York that was the beginning of an evening that did not end until almost one. It is astounding that EMP still delivers at the levels it does, not just with Daniel Humm’s remarkable talents in the kitchen but through an attention to detail in every aspect of a service that is masterful yet never pretentious, always genuinely informed.

Eleven Madison Park is heaven if you love the elegance of fine dining. From the perfect stem for every wine to the antique ice shaving machine used to churn a palate refresher enjoyed on a coveted visit to the kitchen, every component of this ingeniously customized dining experience shines. This is a crazy business we're in, with layers and layers of labor before you get to the love. But when it comes, there is no greater sense of pride. So here’s a shout out to everyone at EMP from your country-mouse cousins in Healdsburg, especially Maitre D' Zac Fischer and the very talented SOM Dev Ranjan. Thank you for a truly memorable evening celebrating our #11, at yours.

Cheers. 

A Sumptuous Alternative to Immortality

The most delicious lobster I’ve ever eaten arrived on my plate a few minutes after being plucked from the sea, cooked over a wood fire with nothing to dress its succulent white meat but a little lemon and a little salt. In the hands of the right chef lobster is umami heaven, but it’s notoriously difficult to cook to perfection. Once they leave their natural habitat every minute, and how it's spent, counts, lest you lose the fragile delicacy of their flavor.

Lobsters have a metabolism that does not degrade with time - theoretically those that do not perish through mis-adventure can live forever - but providence plays a bigger role around taste than how old they are when “mis-adventure” lands them on your plate. Even with the right ecosystem, one rich with algae, minerals and salt, technique and speed are paramount.

Ryan’s Lobster Risotto, a signature dish with legions of fans this time of year, is in a constant state of play throughout the day here. Live lobsters move from wet burlap bundles to boiling pots filled with lemons and laced with paprika to ice water baths to halt the cooking process while the laborious cracking and picking of all the meat commences. Shells and empty legs go back into another pot of boiling water, this one vibrantly colored with saffron and fragrant with fresh tarragon. Cooked down, the resulting blond fumé will eventually be used to cook the risotto. Tiny jewels of carrot, celery and tomato are prepped, fresh favas shelled, chives and society garlic flowers come in from the garden. Shavings of lemon zest are gathered into little mounds. Fingerling potatoes are made into tiny chips, sprinkled with fennel pollen while still warm from the deep fryer. 

And then we wait. When that first order comes clanking through the printer the dish must come together in a matter of minutes. After the risotto absorbs the fumé to an al dente stage, the mire poix is added, then the moist chunks of lobster meat. Off the heat, there is just enough time to sprinkle the dish with the dusky pink agapanthus and the zest before a crunchy nimbus of fingerling chips crowns the dish and it is rushed off to the dining room.

I love everything about this dish - not least its glorious summer colors, the contrasting texture between the pillowly richness of the lobster risotto and the crunch of the chips, the hide and seek of citrus and edible florals. For all its OMG satisfactions it is a very subtle dish, nowhere more apparent than in the bouquet, which brings with it a faint echo of the sea, taking you all the way back to where its story began.

Our fascination with the concept of immortality - be it a lobster's or our own - will always be with us, but if I’ve learned one thing watching Ryan and his brigade work through every hour of the day, it is what we do with the time we have that matters.

I especially love how we spend time making this dish. 

Calling All Dads ....

Speaking of time well spent, nothing is more important than the time we spend with loved ones. But if you ask most hardworking dads what they'd really like to do on Father's Day (as we have) the truth is most of them would like nothing better than to put their feet up and kick back. We get it. If you are joining us to celebrate, Ryan has  a classic special on the menu- we’re talking Grilled Rib Eye on the Bone, Lobster Twice Baked Potatoes, and Asparagus with Hollandaise.

We will also be celebrating Father's Day with after-dinner cocktails and sensational Scott Knoll desserts in our new Gallery Bar in Studio Barndiva, whatever your earlier plans, a great way to end the day in style.  

Happy Father's Day! 

 

Remembering Myra Hoefer

Photo: Lukka Feldman 

None of us has a truly indomitable spirit as it turns out, though from what I knew of Myra Hoefer these past twelve years, she was a woman who gave the idea a good run for its money. But the heart beats, until it doesn’t, and our elegant friend who lived down the street behind the white rose arches of Ivy House in ever changing au courant rooms of perfect white is no more. The loss of her presence will resonate for a long time here in Healdsburg, a town she put on the design map and loved for over four decades, a town that in her inimitable style she never stopped trying to improve.

Myra was a formidable and much loved mother and grandmother, but to the outside world she will be remembered as a famous designer whose career will no doubt be the focus in the weeks to come, as her role as progenitor of “wine country design” is parsed and lauded. Two books were already in the works when she took a last health spiral a few weeks ago, and they will be welcome, because her talent was in fact prodigious. It deserves to be celebrated.

But it is not the doyen of design who will be missed most here at Barndiva, where her very close friendship with Lukka and her support of all things Barndiva afforded us front row seats to this vibrant woman’s operatic life. Myra had genuine star quality in an age where insipid selfie projections masquerade as talent. She was a Rabelaisian figure, always on the hunt for the joy to be found in any given moment, with a bawdy sense of humor and a relentless desire to unmask hypocrisy wherever she found it hiding. When she entered a room in those brilliant silk ensembles, huge costume jewelry and that beautiful smile, a deep throated laugh just this side of mischievous was never far behind. Crossing the Plaza a few months ago behind a family of tourists, we all caught sight of Myra zipping along Center Street in her white linen upholstered motorized wheelchair at the same moment, and they literally stopped in their tracks. “Now that,” said the father, “is what I call style.” 

He was right of course, it was all about style, whether the perfect chair, painting, or overflowing vase of single color flowers - but it was never style where price alone gave you bragging rights. Myra could walk into a room, any room, and break down exactly what she thought was wrong with it, but she did so with a generosity of spirit that was most uncommon in the insular world most designers protect as if it were a birthright. She would then proceed to tell you what she thought you needed to do to make the room “work,” with envisioned changes lavish or inexpensive, depending on your budget.

That she wasn’t overly precious about design, which she often called  "the art of smoke and mirrors,’  is not to imply there wasn’t great nuance to her signature rooms. We all made jokes about painting the town Pashmina, but it takes more than a few oversized couches and a chair with goat feet to make a room truly comfortable yet visually stunning, which hers always were. Her “smoke” wasn’t a slight of hand so much as an intrinsic understanding of how to value atmosphere, calibrate what really happens in the rooms we live in, how they should change with us. Her “mirrors” were the reflected glow of all things beautiful. Which she wanted to share. I’ve been designing all my life for the sheer joy of it, and while we never collaborated (our styles could not have been more different) I knew a fellow traveler when I saw one. 

A number of years ago Geoff and I stopped over in Paris and wanted to stay in the studio Myra kept in the heart of the Marais along the Rue de Tournelles. Because she and Wade were in residence she offered us instead the little apartment farther back in the building that looked down on a nondescript courtyard. She had decorated it for herself as a bolt hole with mismatched antiques and not a yard of silk in sight, yet the room was a master class of graceful lines, comfort as the ultimate expression of form, and the judicious use of color (though the rooms were white, of course). One night we met up for early drinks then went on our separate ways, returning very late. Geoff and I were worse for wear the next morning, creeping gingerly down the stairway in sunglasses, but there was Myra and Wade, sitting on the sidewalk like they were taking the sun in Biarritz, sipping coffee from little demitasse cups a waiter from Chez Janou sprinted across the street to deliver. Myra was dressed in a flowing silk and perfectly pressed linen, a St. Laurent Bedouin. She looked up, I rolled my eyes, we laughed. “Give me a few hours and I’ll be raring to go,” she said.  And she always was.

What I remember most about that flat was the way the planks of the polished old wood floors slanted, ever so slightly, just enough so that without consciously realizing it every step you took tilted you toward the boulevard, and the life outside that courtyard. Myra Hoefer may have been a designer of exquisite interiors but it is the life she brought outside those rooms, to a world that was never too big for her to try and wrap her arms around, that made her a singular human being. She will be sorely missed. RIP My. Healdsburg will not be the same without you.

“Life is the fruit she longs to hand you
Ripe on a plate”

— Phyliss McGinley

Go Big for Mama

The energy in Barndiva on Mother’s Day is electric. At Brunch we have two, three and sometimes four generations of moms being feted in a joyful commotion of laughter, family stories, dogs in the garden, babies passed around until they’ve had enough and let you know it. Dinner is a quieter, more elegant affair with love-you-mom bouquets leaning this way and that on the banquettes and candle lit tables, beautiful plates of food fueling reflective conversation.

 While we always expand the champagne list and offer Barndiva’s Seasonal List as well as The Gallery Bar’s Classic Collection, Special Cocktails have always been an integral part of Mother’s Day for us. A Mother’s Day cocktail should be celebratory, not too alcoholic, and deliver a few surprises with a soft punch. Don't worry,  Mom can take it.

Go Big For Mama is classic Sarah Cleveland. Here, our lead bartender has taken the idea for a sparkling cocktail composed around a soupcon of brandy, the spicy notes of ginger canton liqueur, fresh lemon juice and a favorite bitters of late...grapefruit hibiscus. The gorgeous nose comes from variegated apple/pineapple mint we grow here in the gardens.  I do believe the mama of this plant came from one of the wonderful Occidental Arts and Ecology plant sales. "Big” is a reference to the Magnums of Roederer that finish the cocktail, and to big love, of course. 

Our other  new cocktail is a first from bartender Chris Wright, who, when not studying opera for an advanced degree at SSU is the Barn’s go-to for devising incredible non-alcoholic libations for Dealer’s Choice. NAs are the vegetarians and vegans of bar world, and feared for as many silly reasons. Get over it.  Building a drink around a base spirit is not always your entry to the ideas you have for it. I've had (and we've created) a great many great drinks that work exceedingly well with, and without alcohol.

For Mother’s Day I asked Chris to update an NA classic handed down from his Mum, Patricia, and see if he could make it work with Vodka. He choose Organic 360 but the resulting dark ruby red cocktail, summer shimmery from the first sip, took its incredible flavor from the combination of thyme infused huckleberry jus and fresh grapefruit juice. A surprising delicacy you notice on the second or third sip rises from a hint of rosewater, and a lingering scent of the St George Absinthe Chris sprays inside the glass before building the drink, with or without the vodka. An exotic bouquet that has you at hello, with a curious familiarity.  While photographing him making the drink, I watched as he rubbed a thick slice of fresh lime peel against the inside of the martini glass. We’re calling the cocktail “Whatever It Takes.” 

Start out in that state of mind this Mother’s Day as you celebrate and you can’t go wrong. Go Big for Mama cause she does Whatever it Takes.

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Take a peek at what we're serving up for Mom on Sunday.

And if you can't join us on the date, give us a ring to grab the perfect gift certificate for your perfectly wonderful mom. 

707 . 431 . 0100

The Gallery Grows Up

No telling what Roger Chevalier would say upon seeing his old school chalkboard being used as a tray for martinis in an art gallery in Healdsburg, California, 75 years after he was rebellious or dumb enough (or both) to carve his name on the oak frame encircling his scribbled math problems and conjugations. If he's still alive I hope Roger would see the humor in this homage to the art of coloring outside the lines. Because it pretty much sums up what we're trying to do in The Gallery Bar in Studio Barndiva. Cheers Roger.

Our split personality at 237 Center Street is, by now, well known: Art Gallery by day, fabulous dining and dancing by night. Now we're adding yet another personality to a historical mix which once included a skating rink (1860, burned to the ground) and an auto body shop (segued into a head shop). We have benefited greatly from Healdsburg's growing popularity the past few years, but we miss the oddball irrepressibility which first attracted us to this town. We miss the custom of neighbors drifting into the Barn after work for a few drinks with friends, groups that would exponentially grow by dragging a few tables together without worrying about the noise or someone with a reservation needing the tables. 

The first bar I ever frequented with any regularity was in Westwood, just off the campus from UCLA, where Professors in the graduate Film and English departments would go to drown their sorrows proving the adage if you can't write, teach. Then drink. The Algonquin it was not, but they were heady political and cultural times and the combination of elevated conversation fueled by glass after glass of wan liquids in cold glasses was catnip to me. I was old enough by then to have lifted a glass in more than a few grand hotels bars where the cocktails arrived on silver trays, the lighting was sexy, the floral arrangements large. I was also no stranger to the seedy dives filled with great jukebox soundtracks and cracked leather booths that flourished along Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevard. To this day I still have a fondness for both swank and dive; more elusive to find is the camaraderie  of  community. There's something to be said for those rare drinking establishments that put bonhomie before the booze.

Because the space is still very much an art gallery, a crazily eclectic collection of antiques, painted and sculptural stories, we wanted the spirits in the Gallery Bar to reflect a keenly curated selection of artisanal spirits. All the popular brands will be on hand, but to make it into one of the framed vitrines we've built on the back bar we're sourcing smaller batch spirits made by inspired and passionate distillers. A higher calling that's really never gone away, distilling is suddenly resurgent in virtually every part of the country right now. Happily, many of the best distillers are working right here in the North Coast.  

For ten years Barndiva Restaurant has been proud to create nuanced cocktails with layers of complex flavors meant to compliment the exquisite food coming out of Ryan Fancher's kitchen. For the Gallery Bar, we are going in a different direction, not re-inventing the classics so much as putting our spin on them. These are simpler cocktails, elegant but spare, three ingredients or less, that come up cold and fast. Combine the practiced insouciance of Nick and Nora in The Thin Man Movies and the exacting standards of James Bond and you'll see where we're headed.  

As for the food, it's still all about our farmers, but while the way we prepare each dish in the Barn is necessarily time consuming the bites at the Studio are designed as lounge dining, easily plated to share with friends. To come up with the opening menu we spent a few months reaching into the walk-in and pulling out whatever struck our fancy, cooking the kind of dishes we crave after a hard service or on our days off. This is what came out of the kitchen: juicy pork meatballs redolent with fennel and red pepper; perfect baby radishes with sweet butter and salt; a tricked out Cuban sandwich with extra pickled peppers; an artisan platter with enough fixings to last through a bottle of wine. Geoff wanted fish and chips, Lukka voted for bone marrow tater tots. I wanted everything served on olive wood platters, no utensils necessary (though if you want them, we are happy to oblige.)

Andrew Wycoff, Ryan’s oh so talented protégé, is leading up the new studio kitchen, bringing incredible focus and a sense of mischief we're going to encourage. Their initial menu is briny, salty, crunchy. Think ‘bistro small plate specials,' which balance the local heart of a blue plate with a more manageable size that leaves room for more than one dish. Manageable pricing too. 

So here it is: The Gallery Bar in Studio Barndiva. A no reservation policy, with expanded hours five nights a week. Liz from Oklahoma will steer the evenings, with Dawid, from Poland, whom many already know as our charismatic Gallery Manager, now shaking a mean Manhattan when he's not showing off the collection. Continuous food and drink from 3 o'clock on. 

The brilliant film montage installations will change monthly, curated by Isabel Hales. Given how many of these cinematic nuggets come from movies I first saw on those long days that ended in that bar in Westwood, there is a sweet nostalgia to working on this project with my daughter. We'll no doubt expound more on the entertainment front as we find performers we want to see and hear in the Gallery, but for now Isabel says to tell you everything will change because everything must change. Words to live by. 

Come and see us!

Cheers

drink the view

A  few welcome showers blew in and out of the North Coast on Sunday, but not nearly enough to assuage the ongoing fears this drought continues to exert over us, which have become an inevitable topic in every conversation. The farmers and wine growers we depend upon to build a restaurant like Barndiva - or any restaurant in town that supports the local food shed - can't thrive without water. A good amount of it. We have been conserving water sensibly here at the restaurant, but running out of water is a constant worry now. It's going to take a concerted effort on everyone's part to navigate the next few dry years.

And yet, driving through what we literally know as 'Dry Creek' Valley this week on my way to the farm, winding up 128 through Boonville where Anderson Valley opens its arms wide, climbing further still up to the Greenwood Ridge, I was struck by how lush the world felt. Cool sea breezes roll over the mountains every night from the West drenching our gardens and fields with fog - an incredible microclimate that burns off into long hot days when you can almost hear the fruit ripen. To water the gardens and vegetable beds we rely on an aquifer hundreds of feet below the ground. Food is paramount, of course, but in these first days of Spring right before the dry farmed orchards burst into bloom, all eyes and thoughts turn to flowering things for the sheer joy found in them.

It isn't a simple matter to understand the fascination civilization has always had with flowers, long before the historical event known as Tulip Mania in the 17th Century. For thousands of years horticulturally obsessed Kings and Queens collected floral rarities as they explored and conquered the world. Kingdoms rose and fell, but when the imported plants managed to survive their new climates, they thrived, becoming part of a richer, more diverse landscape which we eventually inherited. 

But even in the most humble of gardens our desire to collect objects of unsettling beauty is also the chance to watch the life cycle of plants as they move from bud to blossom to decay. Just knowing after they disappear that they return again makes for a fascinating uplifting story - one you helped write.

Many years ago when for reasons I've never completely deciphered I decided I would be a gardening woman, I planted formal English borders up here in the remnants of Victoria Cassinelli's rose gardens. Over the years they have all gone a bit native, as I have, but pedigree stalks smuggled from England when Isabel was a baby still burst forth to take their place alongside Hellebores the color of burnt sugar Daniel planted only last year. Chartreuse Euphorbia thrive alongside pale pink Camellias (which I love) and purple Azaleas ( I do not.) Trailing Banksia Roses climb old wood walls, night blooming Jasmine huddle over the entry on the new house, scenting the evenings as we come and go. The gardens do not end so much as disappear into a Gertrude Jekyll Maginot Line of naturalized meadows that creep up toward the highest point on the ridge. fey Tulips and Wild Lilac. Sweet Clover and Hyssop Loosestrife. Beneath the apple trees on the west slope sun loving Ixia flout their color like saucy chorines dancing with abandon in the wild grasses. Even the despised contingent of birds we call Fatsos (yes you can file them under birds we would like to kill) whose uncontrolled gluttony in the Queen Anne and Bing cherry blossoms leave us fruitless every year contribute to the moment, sending wedding showers of white petals that catch in your hair, hide in the folds of your clothes, sprinkling the bathwater as you undress, exhausted, well after dark.

Flowers are the poetry of the natural world - as enduring as Eliot's Four Quartets in a garden you've tended most of your life, as short and bittersweet as an Issa Haiku the moment you step into the forest and see a wildflower so thin and delicate and alive it takes your breath away, knowing full well it will be gone by morning.  

“Don’t weep, insects
-lovers, stars themselves
Must part.”

Whatever the future holds, it feels right to luxuriate in this wet green wonderland right now. Its mad floral frenzy of color and fragrance and perfect natural form feeds the soul just as surely as the food we grow fills our stomachs. 

Mendocino, 2015 

The official guidelines released by the California Water Authority last week set forth new water service regulations for the hospitality industry - we can now only provide customers with water service when asked. It may seem a hassle, you may wonder if there aren't bigger and better ways to save water right now, (less alfalfa anyone?) but it makes sense to consider that every little bit counts. Bottled sparkling water is an alternative, but even when we know its sourcing is sustainable, the measurable energy it takes on its journey to the table itself involves another sort of compromise. 

 The one thing we know for sure is that we're in this together - chefs, farmers, all BOH and FOH staff and crucially, you, our customers. 

 

 Next Week: The Gallery Bar in studio barndiva

The Guilty Joys of an Precocious Spring

In a week that saw unseasonably glorious spring weather we spent much of our time inside finalizing design, drinks, music, films, and a sweet little bar menu in anticipation of opening The Gallery Bar in Studio Barndiva this week - finally! 

 We did make time for walking the length of West Dry Creek (above), biking to Cloverdale, trenching and pruning at the farm, and surviving the first of two busy Barrel Tasting weeks.  We even ended the week eating succulents (yes, succulents, see below), but hats off to Chef, who in the middle of all this delicious, madly beautiful din also managed to preview a brilliant dish that takes a beloved old classic out for a new spin.

Though they seem to exist at opposite ends of the comfort food spectrum pork belly and microgreens make an indelible pairing. If you have a jones for a compact package of protein and saturated fat that can be soft and crunchy, rich yet lean, you gotta love pork, especially the belly. If the clean earthy taste of leafy greens gets your blood flowing, then the Lilliputian world of microgreens is happyville. Both are delicious but curiously, both lack the hallmark that makes the other so special. Enter Ryan, with an inspired move to pair them with only the creamy yolk of a perfectly poached quail egg binding their disparate but delectable flavors together.

For me, most pork belly dishes lose it at the crust. The trick is to make the most of the fat cap, cooking it so you render a perfectly golden crust sprinkled with Maldon salt flakes. Satisfying crunch needs to easily give way to a rich moist layer below of meat - we use Niman Ranch - that has all the fulsome flavors of good breeding and sustainable husbandry, grass and sunshine. 

The real surprise player in this dish was a fantastic new microgreen our friends at Mix Garden are growing called Spreen, a gloriously colored forest green and magenta tipped leaf that looks like it's been sprinkled with fairy dust. Seriously, if you said elves grew this stuff I would not be surprised. I call Spreen’s flavor buttery, but the good folks at High Mowing Seed Company describe it as nutty. Close enough, it's a brilliant addition to our ever expanding microgreen shortlist which in this dish plays off the sharply sweet edges of Red Russian kale and amaranth. The dressing was appropriately light - Cab vinegar, crème frâiche, fines herbes from the garden. 

If you want to try growing Spreen this spring - they only takes 12 days - High Mowing Seed Company would be glad to help by supplying the seeds. They describe Organic Magenta Spreen (Chenopodium), as "A beauty in the field with sparkly green leaves and a pink powdered center. Known not only for its densely packed nutritional value but also for its ability to color the lips pink."  To taste it quicker, buy it fresh right here in Healdsburg, at Mix Garden where they are about to expand in-store retail sales to include the microgreens, vegetables and roots they contract plant for Barndiva and some of our more discerning chefs in town, notably Campo Fino and Diavola.

My recommendation? Come on down to the Barn, grab a glass of wine, snag a table in the sunny garden and order this wonderful first course on what we’re provisionally calling an “early spring” menu.  What else can you say when you look out the window and see all these flowering trees? Is more rain on the way? While we certainly only hope so, it seems downright churlish to deny how beautiful the weather’s been, and not celebrate what’s coming through the kitchen doors every day now.

As for those edible succulents, they were the sublime creations of Pâtisserie Angelica, enjoyed by all who were lucky enough to attend the incomparable Bonnie Z's Birthday Party at Dragonfly Farms on Sunday. Angelica's Deb said she had more fun making them than any confection "in years," and given the extraordinary range of cakes she and sister Condra produce in their bakery and custom cake studio in Sebastopol, that's saying a lot. Even the giant "terracotta" planter was edible, filled with chocolate beet "soil" that was knock your socks off delicious. Pâtisserie Angelica is a county treasure for its artistry and impeccable sourcing. But then so is the lady we were all celebrating, Bonnie Z. Great news -  Dragonfly is expanding its wonderful schedule of classes this summer in a new studio on the farm. We are truly blessed to have such dynamic women around. Enjoy.

The Gallery Bar in Studio Barndiva, hitherto used only for our private events, has now "officially" opened to the public!  Expect classic cocktails, a very special curated selection of hard to find spirits, fine wines and unusual beers, and a delectable bar menu from Chef Ryan Fancher and Drew Wycoff. The Barndiva aesthetic, as well as our commitment to sustainable sourcing, stays the same, but in The Gallery Bar we've amped up the music, thrown our favorite old films on the wall, and filled the gallery with lounging sofas. Kick back without reservations (seriously, you do not need reservations). Hours will be flexible but we will start stirring and serving at 3:30 and stay open late.

Drop in for a drink after work or just before heading off to bed. Here's looking at you kid.

#barndivaabroad: what defines fine dining?

Happily, EAT THE VIEW just completed an inspirational voyage out, eating and drinking through London, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. It was, without doubt, a very entitled journey. Travel by choice is always a privilege; the opportunity to appreciate the fullness of hospitality performed at its highest levels is a gift indeed, especially if you also have your head and heart in the game.  

It's a complicated, messy world right now, even when you can afford to rest that head on a feather pillow after a night of dining in the best a foreign city has to offer. I landed in London to meet Mr. Hales the day of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo - Europe was reeling, with all eyes on Paris where we were headed in two days time. Many called it a 9/11 line in the sand for Europe, and while I could not quite see that, the assault on freedom of expression alongside an alarming rise of anti-semitism was frightening. Profoundly sad. But if anything, it spurred us on. Hospitality is commercially driven but at heart it's just a meta version of the decency that should transpire between human beings all the time. When expressed with talent and passion through food, drink, and design, hospitality can be an art form.

If you live in the countryside and follow traditions handed down from your grandmother, chances are you eat pretty well. But running a restaurant that is committed to sustainable sourcing and cooking in tune with these traditions, whether in a large city or small tourist destination like our town, is a constant challenge. From my humble perch in Healdsburg like everyone else in the food world I've watched the rise of Noma with great curiosity, wondering whether in style and substance it might be a game changer in ways that really matter. The fact that René Redzepi had moved Noma - chefs, spouses, children - to Tokyo for three months did not effect our itinerary though. To really count, food movements must resonate. 

From London to Paris, Amsterdam to Copenhagen, it did seem like something had shifted. The restaurants we enjoyed most all had what the French call esprit de corps...a feeling of pride and fellowship aimed at contributing, and in a few cases dramatically extending, new definitions of hospitality. Each restaurant we admired had fashioned a distinct ontology built to survive its own mutable landscape of diners that could be as fickle as the weather, but all shared a commitment to excellence that more often than not went beyond the talents of a single vision. 

In London and Paris there was greater emphasis on old world cooking traditions - doing things the way they had always been done but selectively choosing aspects that could be cohesively reinterpreted for 2015. In London, at the century old RAC Club this was as simple (and elegant) as cutting wild smoked salmon off the bone from a rolling cart brought to the table. At The Clove Club, housed in what was once the Shoreditch Town Hall in East London, one early mid-course in a wonderful tasting menu had the Sommelier arrive with a tray of wine glasses and a bottle of  1908 Madeira, which he 'rinsed' the glasses with before filling them with Mallard consommé poured from a cut glass decanter. The beautiful way this was served, the fragrance of fortified wine lingering on the nose, spoke both to the restorative nature of broth and the thoughtful direction the Chef was taking his menu. 

In Paris, at Chez Georges, when I ordered Maijtes herring as a first course a half dozen plump whole fish submerged in brine were presented in a huge porcelain bowl, as if instead of sitting at a table for two I was suddenly at a family dinner at Grand’Mere’s house by the sea. I only managed one, but they left the bowl on the adjoining table, just in case. Even at the tony Le Coq Rico, one of four restaurants "directed" by Antoine Westermann, where a small fortune affords you a choice between a whole “Cou-Nu” yellow chicken from Landes or the infamous Bresse, you are also served a beautifully succulent plate of roasted giblets from the same bird. Even from the old guard, a nod to 'nose to tail' (in this case, beak to tail feather) dining.

 At Caffè Stern in the historic Passage de Panoramas the dining experience prompts its particular magic from the setting with Philippe Starck, channeling Fellini, setting the stage with bejeweled wolf and lynx in the windows, a winged white rabbit behind the fireplace, miniature Murano chandeliers encased in bubbles. Somehow it all works. Every corner of the 18th century Stern's Engraving workshop is an enchantment that refers back to various points in its history, an exquisite frame for old world style service, a memorable wine list, perfectly sourced and executed classic Italian dishes. 

In Amsterdam, whether at the humble Marius, the elegant Brasserie van Baerle, or the knock-out De Kas, where you dine in one of a set of greenhouses that date back to 1926, emphasis is sourcing, sourcing, sourcing. At play here is allowing flavors to sing but keeping them honest, with simple plating that ensures food arrives at the table minutes after it leaves the stove.

Dead winter there is only so much one can grow in Amsterdam, even for a greenhouse restaurant like De Kas, with farms in nearby Beemster. This meal in particular celebrated its immediate landscape thoughtfully, with grains and fruits preserved from the summer, controlled portions of proteins. I was so impressed with the food as it began arriving I broke a hard and fast rule and walked into the kitchen, unannounced. Surprisingly, they let me stay, not dropping a stitch as they plated 6 and 8 and 10 tops, even inviting me to shoot them "so long as you get our good side."  As far as I could see, there were no bad sides in that kitchen.

Nor any in Copenhagen, as it turned out, where I had managed to book two restaurants bound to be fantastically busy: BROR and Amass. (When I invited them to go online and check out Barndiva to see if Mr. Hales and I could score a table, on the weekend no less, both responded graciously, with Julie and Matt Orlando of Amass - who many are calling the next Noma- going so far as to make space for us prime time, Saturday night.)

Nordic cuisine is not adaptable to many parts of the world, but Noma's style of foraging and sourcing oddities from their own landscape - to seriously eat the view - has been considerable, especially in the city it calls home. First day out we wandered off the tourist path along the docks at Nyhavn (New Haven) and on a hunch descended into a shadowy candlelit basement inauspiciously called Gorms. Gorm turned out to be a Jamie Oliver styled TV chef/personality whose absence from the kitchen didn’t seem to effect surprising combinations, all fresh and delicious. The joyful mood in this little place - at least that afternoon - was infectious. Ditto lunch at the Torvehallerne food and spice market and again with a simple cold lunch of smoked salmon, fennel and black whole grain Danish bread at the Copenhagen Design Museum. All were spot on, enjoyed by appreciative crowds of all ages. With a gorgeous new waterfront development that will eventually encompass more theatres and parks next to the stunning Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen is hot right now, accessible but not overly precious. Go before it turns into Brooklyn.

Our first port of call for serious dining was BROR, (or Brother. Lille Bror, with only ten seats, opened to great press a few months ago). There would be significant differences in the level of our dining experience at BROR and Amass, but they had one thing in common which again came back to Noma. Beyond inspired sourcing there was a concerted effort to dissolve the hard wall that almost always exists between BOH and FOH….the place where you dine, and the kitchen. The word teamwork doesn’t do justice to what this lends to the dining experience: you can get teamwork in spades at any Whole Foods. This was a schema with purpose and passion, serious food that didn’t make you feel a ‘holier than thou’ headache coming on every time a dish is placed in front of you. It's hard to fathom how chefs involved in split second timing decisions can move away from the line to deliver a course to your table (usually one they cooked) at all, much less converse, then calmly walk back into the kitchen. A different chef delivered each course to us at Amass (Matt delivered two, but more on that in a minute) and while there were designated servers and a sommelier who performed excellent wine duties, they too seemed to know as much as the chefs about the smallest details that went into each dish. Though BROR was more freewheeling, like a talented rock band was cooking in the semi-open kitchen, both of these dining experiences stood out because they had a vibrant, informed vibe at play throughout the meal that worked like connective tissue between the food and the experience.

Mind you, we had indifferent service in Copenhagen, at a Michelin starred restaurant no less, which shall remain nameless. I’m not saying the city is nirvana. Nor do I want to piss off Michelin, whom we respect greatly, but the two most uninspiring meals I had on this trip were at one and two starred Michelin Restaurants. Go figure.

I had broken my only lens in Amsterdam, so did not have a camera at BROR, and while I took a few iPhone images for #barndivahealdsburg they really don't capture the food the way I want to remember it. Course after course, all served on old faience plates, was an artful jumble of beautifully cooked vegetables and well chosen proteins. I’m not confident, even if I’d had my 50mm that I could have made the Cod Sperm dish look appetizing, but hell if it wasn’t an (excessively) creamy few mouthfuls of delicious. The meal started with large Jerusalem artichokes that looked like they had been foraged from the moon, dark and blistered on the outside, split to reveal a soft mash of ground hazelnuts, bone marrow and yogurt-butter finished with pine salt. (note to self: we have pine trees at the farm! This salt was delicious!) This was followed by a sour milk and parsley broth with crisp tapioca, soft ling cod, roasted celeriac and a single nasturtium leaf. We’d already come across crispy chicken skin dishes in Copenhagen - must be trending- but BRORS was the best, with baby cabbage and red kale leaves floating in a broth of ramp flavored chicken stock with a delightfully unexpected kick of horseradish. Pickled garlic and a grilled chicken heart “garnished” the dish. The dessert that really stood out was an ethereal floating disc of toasted buckwheat ice cream you broke through to reach a mound of fresh lingonberries on lingonberry purée. I felt like Bambi eating it, standing in a snow covered glade. I later found out the ice cream had been dipped in liquid coconut butter, thus allowing it to form a thin carapace that melted the minute it hit your tongue.

Actual snow started falling the next morning and continued through the day as we shopped for a new lens and spent blissful hours at the Design Museum. Sunset found us crossing Sankt Annae Plads (St Ann’s Plaza), trying to working up a world class appetite for Amass.

Located outside the center of town in the open industrial part of Christianshavn, Amass is a huge converted warehouse where you climb concrete steps, walk through a dim candlelit entry, then descend again into the main dining hall. Julie, Matt Orlando’s beautiful Danish wife, greeted us- though we did not know who she was at the time - saying she’d saved a table next to the kitchen. No sooner had we sat down and checked out the gleaming open kitchen when a huge flame shot up in a snow-covered field just beyond glass walls at the opposite end of the dining room. We’d had innovated bread service this trip in London, Paris and Amsterdam, where all kinds of heirloom grains are being used with various butters and fragrant lard but this was the first time (ever?) a bread course- crunchy, billowy fermented flatbread - was bonfire baked moments before arriving at the table.

Because of its size and the amount of floor to ceiling glass that wraps the dining room, Amass could be coldly overwhelming but the minute you sit down the experience is a warm one, with no pretensions whatsoever. Polished concrete floors glow in candlelight; one entire wall is covered in graffiti, a modern hieroglyphic that sets the stage for an evening of discovery. We went for the tasting menu, paired, which leaned toward biodynamic. None were from vineyards or producers we had ever seen before. All were uniformly excellent. This was new cuisine for us, but even things like cod, (called simply, ling) or buckwheat, (which appeared in different courses, starting with that fantastic bread) or a simple potato, tasted and often looked different. 

For a start, the potatoes were not simple, not by a long shot. They were dried, looking as pale and soft as ballet slippers, redolent of an earthy creaminess that took on flavors both green and nutty as you pulled them through streaks of almond and parsley cream. In the next course, soft pieces of pumpkin hid beneath a cool disc of cultured cream, a layer of burnt honey and buckwheat holding the two soft textures apart until your fork drew them together into a surprising tango. One course paired tiny bullet shaped onions with teardrops of pistachio cream and delicate rose petals. I remember thinking the rose petals would be floral, surprised upon finding them vinegary and bright. 

A tangle of squid and pickled pork fat shaped like pasta was another dish about indulgent texture, until you crunched into the sea lettuce - our bright eyed Portuguese server called it "scurvy grass" because that's what it prevented once upon a time when sailors took it to sea. Brussels sprout leaves in the next course floated over a foam of virgin butter while your spoon led you down gently into a loose custard-like substance of creamy egg yolk and lemon peel.

Ling was paired with bone marrow and young cabbage leaves from the greenhouse, wild ramp greens and hazelnuts, while in another course, one of my favorites, lamb neck, pink and divinely fatty, met a hillock of sculpin roe. The salty whitefish eggs played against the unctious richness of  lamb, Angelica seed brought herbal notes while raw leaves of Icelandic red and green kale were sharp and wonderful. So too the creamy acidic butter, the color of Meyer lemons. These were complicated dishes, yet seemingly executed so simply they made you wonder why you'd never thought to pair these elements before.

At this point in the meal we were asked if we wanted a short break before desserts, but we didn't, what we wanted was the Aged Danish Beef, not on the tasting menu. A few minutes after ordering it I looked over the low embankment separating us from the kitchen surprised to see Matt cooking, one of the few times he'd left the pass where he oversaw or plated every dish with a serious young woman. All of the sous and chefs de partis were heads down throughout the evening "Yes Chef!" rings out across the dining room every time a new table's order is delivered), but Julie and the sommelier, Bo Bratlann, a big fellow in suspenders with an impish grin, strode in and out throughout the evening, updating information on guests, cracking wise, lightening the mood.

The beef was the best dish in a remarkable dining experience - ribeye cap, loin and shoulder, all with great crust, perfectly cooked inside, smothered with hot smoked bone marrow pearls that popped and melted into the meat as you chewed. Turns out ordering the beef had been a litmus test, which we’d passed. Aged Beef is a particular passion for Matt, one of many. “What did you think of the beef?” was the first question he asked when he came striding over to the table just as we’d finished the dish and were busy licking our fingers. “Pardon my French, but fucking A,” I replied. The ex-surfer from San Diego smiled. “That’s exactly what I said when you ordered it.”

A dessert amuse of "beets, chocolate, coffee, condensed milk" was followed by a salty, sweet swoop of soft caramel ice cream over a crumbled chestnut cookie. The menu Julie printed out for us says black trumpet mushrooms figured somewhere in the dish, but I have no memory of how, just that the balance of sweet to earthy (which could also have been the chestnuts) was the perfect end to the meal. Except it wasn’t. A small basket of hot golden muffins arrived wrapped in linen with a pot of comfiture. How could we not?

As soon as the last order went out every member of the kitchen brigade got to work scrubbing and washing, which I know from Ryan is integral to the training you get working with Thomas Keller. In addition to time spent at Per Se, Matt Orlando's impressive resumé includes working under Eric Ripert at  Le Bernardin, Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saison, and Heston Blumenthal at Fat Duck. This was all before his two stints at Noma, the last, just before he opened Amass, as its first ever chef de cuisine.

With Matt in little more than a T shirt we traipsed across the snow to the small greenhouse where he explained how starts are inserted into vertical metal channels stacked with earthworms, then consistently sprayed with 'juice' from the compost. Upstairs we saw the fermenting fridges and peered into cool meat cabinets, which he is about to expand behind a glass wall which will face the private dining room, flanked on the other side by the impressive wine cellar. The joints and ribs looked almost prehistoric beneath thick layers of cracked fat, which, if memory serves (I’d had quite a bit to drink by this point) was the result of a cider (apple?) and VOO mixture he sprays on to seal the surface. Mr. Hales remains dubious well heeled diners will embrace a wall of raw meat looming at them in the private dining room, even flanked on the other side by a wall of wine, but I'm betting on Matt's belief that the more real the experience of dining is made, the more dramatic the connection to where the food we eat comes from, the better. Besides, his boyish energy for everything he’s doing at Amass is contagious. Dining there was an unmitigated delight, inspiring and incredibly delicious. It was also surprisingly sexy food. 

So what did I learn on this journey, or needed to be reminded of?

Solidarity in the workplace has many faces, all of them essential. The closer servers get to understanding what chefs do...not just the what but the how, the better. Interactions with diners must be informed, not pretentious, never rote. Pride starts at the source - where food is grown, animals raised- it must radiate from every member of the brigade through every member on the floor. Look, unless you are Nobu bound, intent on world domination (and hey, I had the worst meal at a Nobu in Perth last year) this is not a career you go into looking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The rainbow is in the pot, or should be. You will eat and drink well, love what you do and the people you work alongside, feel a real connection to the sea and the earth and what we grow in it and raise on it in a way most folks won't, though you’ll never give up hoping to share it with them so ultimately, it resonates.

We ate in many other restaurants, drank in many bars this trip: by no means is this Eat the View post a comprehensive overview of dining in the four cities we visited. Some restaurants, like le Caprice in London, we return to only because of fond memories. Others, like Summer, in a gorgeous setting in Somerset House, because we believe in the talent of the chef whose vision it is supposed to represent - in this case Skye Gyngell who cooked up a storm (and lit a firestorm when she regretted being awarded a Michelin) at Petersham Nursery a few years back. We had a wonderful dinner with old friends one night at Palomar, a packed Palestinian restaurant in the heart of Soho - the only one, I might add, that had women cooking front and center. It's not included here because while the food was full of flavor,  the service and the experience in general was frenetic, so loud you could not hear yourself think, much less talk to dining companions or truly enjoy what I hope will become a more popular cuisine. 

We had gone in search of fine dining that was exciting and meaningful, both in its approach to food and to service, which extends to what's happening in the kitchen. Fine dining with or without the bells and whistles, though we love the bells and whistles, especially when they come in the form of flowers, soft lighting, an artistic attention to detail. At the end of an evening what we hope to convey at Barndiva is that fine dining is an ideal that cannot, should not, be separated from where food comes from. Having that knowledge in the glow created by genuine hospitality and beautiful surroundings the experience of dining moves to a higher dimension. Tall order, I know. But appetite is all about expectation followed by fullness, of both the literal and metaphorical kinds. Beyond being sated, you should walk away from a great meal with the memory of time well spent. If we can honor healthy food systems while we're having a whaling good time, so much the better.

Cheers.

LINKS:

Amass
ASA Spices
Brasserie van Baerle
BROR
Caffè Stern
The Clove Club
Copenhagen Design Museum
le Coq Rico
Gorm's
de Kas
det Kongelige Teater
Marius
Torvehallerne
 

A Ghost of a Chance: Pressing Sorghum Syrup at the Philo Apple Farm

Sweet Sorghum Syrup is another name for molasses, but it’s a far cry from the acrid stuff you may know as Black Strap. Grown from organic seed, harvested by hand and fed through a century old steel press, this is sugar that comes on like a funky blues tune, the smoky bad ass cousin to honey. The world's fifth most important cereal crop, sorghum is second only to corn for feeding dairy cattle and a big player in the ever expanding demand for ethanol, but as a sweetener it doesn’t rate a place in your local supermarket where burgeoning shelves for sugars and sugar alternatives run the gamut from Agave to Xylito. Shelton's, our favorite little market here in Healdsburg, sells four grades of brown sugar alongside coconut nectar, rice syrup and barley malt. But when I looked the other day, no Sorghum to be found. 

Which is interesting. Before things that sweeten our lives started being sourced from every corner of the world or synthesized in laboratories, hand-pressed molasses from corn and sorghum cane comprised most of the sugar in America. Labor intensive, its decline in popularity was assured with more delicious and cost effective alternatives you could pluck off the shelves. But beware the words “simply" and “pluck” next to each other in the same sentence. Which brings me to Sophia. 

The first time I laid eyes on Sophia Bates she was seven, dressed head to foot as an Indian princess in a hand stitched soft leather skirt, beaded vest, and knee high moccasins. A single elegantly placed feather was braided into a lock of very blond hair. Mike Langley, our builder, had dropped her at the front gate before he tore off up to the house, an hour late as usual. She and her brother Joe stood looking around for a minute before Joe ran off with Jesse, my youngest, but Lukka and I stood rooted to the road, taking in her full visage. I finally managed, “What a lovely outfit, where ever did your mother buy it,” to which she gave me the steely look I’ve since seen many times - Sophia even at seven did not suffer fools - before replying, “I made it. You shouldn’t buy things you can make.”

Since that day I would have followed her anywhere just to see where she was going, such has been my admiration and curiosity watching her journey, so when she wrote to say everyone at the Philo Apple Farm had fled to Mexico for the holidays, while she still had a crop of sorghum cane in the fields with a small window to harvest and press before the first frost - did Team Barndiva want to have a go - Daniel and I immediately wrote back “yes!”  It was an opportunity to hang out with Soph, and to see what it would be like to make our own sugar. 

Before you get to the point of reducing sorghum cane to syrup though, you need to get the juice out of it, which is where our learning curve started. By mid afternoon we had only harvested and filled one pick-up truck full of cane. Time had been expended cutting down only those canes with popped ventricles, avoiding those still tight with seed, which Sophia hoped to sell to The Sustainable Seed Company. More time still had been spent slipping, quipping and sliding around the waterlogged field in one of the apple farm's lower orchards, where the cane had been sown. Which was fine. The towering old forest of Hendy Woods runs just the other side of the Navarro River along the Apple Farm's south property line, framing the orchards, which were blanketed with grass from the recent rainstorms. The air was crisp but the sun warm on our backs.

The next step was to inch the truck up the hill and park it near the press, unload, sort and top the ventricles before stripping the leaves, taking care because caught the wrong way they are sharp as knives. Then the real fun began: feeding the washed cane into the press, where three calibrated wheels with serrated teeth crush the cane as it's pushed through, extracting the juice which free flows into a bucket with a cheesecloth over it to catch any random cane fibers (and keep the bugs out). Feeding the cane in three at a time at just the right angle so the wheels don't clog or sweet juice hits you smack in the eyes proved a bit tricky, but even when you get the hang of it you can only feed cane as fast as the wheels turn. Which is where the role of beast of burden comes in. The effort here doesn't involve skill - just strength, and it is monotonous or, as we found, peaceful, depending on the temperament of your ox. Isabel quickly grew frustrated, Evan, a friend from Germany we'd roped into "a day at the farm," held out a bit longer, but it was Daniel who carried the day, pacing the circle with a soporific grin, like he'd just discovered a new religion. 

The Chattanooga Sorghum Press we used had been making its rounds in the Anderson Valley - anyone willing to pass it on in good condition (which basically means washing the wheels thoroughly to break down the corrosive effects of the sugar) could get in line to borrow it. I’ve since learned from blogs like “My Home Among the Hills,” that there appears to be a small sorghum revival going on in a number of sustainable communities across the country.

The press was antique, a beautiful piece of machinery with an incredibly cool font spelling out the words Chattanooga Plow Compy (the word company compressed to fit). Originally from Tennessee, Chattanooga made their name forging horse driven single foot plows in the late 1800’s, expanding into cane presses in the 1920’s, about the time rum from the Caribbean was becoming a popular libation in America.

 Even if we'd been more adept, the ratio of juice to cane with sorghum is not considerable for the work involved; we ended up with five gallons of juice, which Sophia thought would probably only cook down to one. While a gallon of syrup goes a long way if you are only planning on using it sparingly in cocktails, as we were, this might seem a ridiculous amount of work for a gallon of anything.

Not so.

Should you find yourself on some sparkling fall day working alongside people you love at something new, providing you don’t run out of mule jokes, you’re way ahead of the game. 

We drank fresh green sorghum juice straight from the press, marveling at its light grassy notes and lack of cloying sweetness. I’ve tried fresh cane juice in Jamaica and Cuba; a few sips and your palate dulls from the heavy sweetness. While my plan for the syrup had been focused on creating a variety of bourbon cocktails for the studio, the idea of experimenting with fresh juice and gin was a no brainer. Exhausted and sticky, we headed up the hill to make dinner, jug in hand.

Many a great Barndiva cocktail has started life with St. George artisanal gin as the base spirit; I keep all three on hand at the farm. At first I went in the wrong direction, trying to use their fragrant Botanivore; its delicacy was overwhelmed by the sorghum, which had already begun to deepen in color and flavor. The stronger aromatics of Terrior along with a wedge of lime and a sprig of crushed mint from the garden was a perfect match, fragrant and bright, with a sweet roundness in the mouth, just like the day we'd just had.

Tommy, Sophia’s beau, finished his work at Acorn Ranch and made it up to the ridge just in time for a last round around the fire; Lukka arrived with delicious patés; I heated up a pork stew. The fog rolled in, we switched to wine and our favorite subject - why it's so damn hard to survive at sustainable farming - but we called the night pretty early. Team Barndiva had aching muscles; Tommy and Sophia had to check on their animals. 

All day long, trudging through muck and dodging sugary sprays with my camera, my thoughts kept returning to the generations of farming families who had used that old press to provide a little sweetness in what must have been pretty hard lives. Then Evan sent me an image he'd taken of Geoff, sitting in the little cut we’d left in the grass which suddenly felt as enigmatic as a crop circle. It brought me back to the present.

Turning dirt into soil, every farmer's mantra, is a long slow process with many setbacks and seemingly more hardships than rewards, especially of the financial kind. But if there was even a ghost of a chance our labor that day around the old sorghum press had channeled a better understanding of farming in a like-minded community, in any way which could be played forward, the experience we'd just had couldn't be measured in gallons and pints. At the very least it was a great way to end one year and head into another, learning new ways to connect farm to table.

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If you've been following our dining and drinking Euro journey on Instagram and Facebook, you'll know we fell in love with some pretty fantastic restaurants. Next up for the blog we are headed to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Stay tuned!

Rock'n Both Houses

We had TWO elegant NYE dinner parties last night, followed by a rock'n dance party that rang in 2015, Barndiva style. It was the first New Year's Eve we dined in the Studio Gallery thanks to finally finishing the build-out of our second kitchen. In both the Barn and Studio we felt especially blessed with incredible guests... romantic deuces, four and six tops who always celebrate NYE together, some great groups from NYC, DC, and the very cool Toronto. Everyone was primed to party. Our little group of 11 camped out on the new couches, drank, ate, and (I know I was not alone) drank some more. Then we started dancing. NYE is about creating a great din and ours grew louder still when diners from the Barn wandered over. I try to keep bragging at a minimum, but food and service were incredible, no two ways. Hats off to Chef Fancher and our entire staff.

Ever wonder why it's so easy to party with strangers on NYE? Doesn't matter if you've had one of those years you are just happy to get out of alive or you're genuinely looking forward to a new year, new projects, renewed optimism for something... partying with other people in rooms decked out to show off your finery and your cool moves (be they actually cool or not) can feel so good. Now is the time to say thank you to everyone who dined with us, or entrusted us with your special event this past year  -  NYE was reflective of a year of great patrons who have helped us become better at our jobs. We actually love working together, which makes earning your continued support resolution #1.

Glasses raised for an interesting, forgiving and fortifying new year.

Clockwise from 11:00: Chris,our musical prodigy/ bartender with New Orleans moves; the lovely Sarah, shining star of the main bar with two new cocktails on the list; the one and only All Night All Dave; Andrew, who with Pancho, crushed it in the Studio Kitchen

“So I say it quickly; whoever is in your life, those who hurt you, those who help you, those whom you know and those whom you do not know- let them off the hook, help them off the hook, Recognize the hook.
You are listening to Radio Resistance. ”

— Leonard Cohen

Decapod Heaven for the New Year

Beautiful Northern Lobsters from Maine are back in the kitchen this week, and really, what odd extraterrestrial looking creatures they are. Hard to believe that beneath that foreboding carapace, gleaming with extraordinary color, is the softest most succulent white flesh in the Crustacea kingdom. The work to get at what’s inside is well worth it, even if all you end up doing is gobbling it off a small fork, sea water dripping from your chin. Ryan’s plan for them was a bit more evolved however, Ryan being Ryan. Imagine a tower of freshly cracked lobster meat gently mixed with lightly pickled red cabbage, mascarpone, tarragon and lemon zest, gently tucked inside a giant saffron ravioli. Delicious. I especially loved the dish being paired with cardoons glazed in brown butter in an al dente mirepoix of vegetables as a bed for the ravioli. 

Cardoons, another beautiful freak of nature, look like they come from ancient times, which in fact they do. Often mistaken in the garden to their cousin the artichoke (also known for its pairing with lobster), they have spiky celery-like stalks topped with thistle flowers that bloom a gorgeous imperial purple. The expressive geometry of the cardoon flowers look like something designed by Rei Kawakubo, but are all but inedible. The stalks on the other hand, if harvested before the flowers bloom, are delicious. Like celery, cardoon leaves and stalks need TLC, trimmed carefully to render them string less. I've never seen them sold in supermarkets and even around here they disappear from farmers markets this time of year. We usually get beautiful cardoons from Preston, but this week they arrived from Knoll Organic Farm in Brentwood. 

Pancho, our consummate pasta guy, was entrusted with making the saffron pasta, then enclosing the lobster filling in perfectly air tight ravioli so the shellfish and herbs steam through without any water slipping in. Slide a fork through one of these heavenly bundles and a heady perfume of sea and garden inundates the senses for a brief few seconds. What you taste picks up the theme from there, and for a few perfect mouthfuls you could be facing the sea, dreaming of a trip to Italy.

We are serving this luxurious dish as a winter starter. Elegant and surprisingly light, it's a perfect first course before a heartier stick-to-your-ribs entrée. It will also be one of the choices on our NYE menu. I have no idea if any seats remain for the 31st but Natalie tells me the response to us scaling down the price and opening the gallery to a midnight dance party for guests dining with us has been impressive. We have a few surprises up our sleeve - the more Eat the View readers present, the better. (always the case, of course).

Enjoy!

Our Cup Runneth Over

I’ve been drinking wine and loving it for more years than I care to count, but in the unique way wine manages to be both celebratory and sustaining, I’ve always thought of it as more of an art form than a simple entertainment. Wine is one of the few things in life that can be either playful or serious, sometimes, depending on the occasion (or the vintage), both at the same time. But from a restaurant’s perspective, building a cellar can be an ongoing conundrum. Even a lot of money invested towards creating a stellar list doesn’t ensure the final product will have heart, must less integrity.

For a start, you need to remember that no two customers will look upon your list (and judge it) through the same eyes. Some diners come in hiding their preferences, or not knowing them, while others wear their new found expertise like a badge of honor, or use it like a high powered flashlight.

A few years back, hoping to address this diversity of interest, we created narratives for our wine book - with chapters titled Local Heroes, Hands Across the Water, Off the Beaten Path. We even called one 97+, because while we held the opinion Robert Parker’s rating system was deeply flawed, if that’s what customers came in looking for, we wanted them to have it. We were happy, if not relieved, when diners gravitated to Local Heroes, followed closely by the foreign entries on the list, but we had to admit we still hadn’t cracked the code. 

Though we live in the heart of arguably the best wine growing region in America, our list has always had a healthy percentage of foreign inclusions. It was our hope that the vintners who might become regular customers (they did and thankfully still are) already had plenty of access to local expressions of terroir and style. What they sought when they dined out - what we sought ourselves - was expanding a life-long love of the grape and the almost mystical way it transforms itself - with a little help from the human hand - in the bottle.

Figuring out the secret of what drives an exciting wine list is a conversation we’ve had with every wine director we’ve ever hired. Our litmus test was never how much ego they brought to the job - too little and the list floundered, too much and we soon parted ways - but how creatively they tapped into a hunt for gems, how closely they wore humility next to prowess.   

Which brings us to our new list, and the talented woman now guiding it. 

I can give you Alexis Iaconis’ impressive achievements  - she was Head Sommelier at the Restaurant at Meadowood, and has reached level three in the four level Court of Master Sommeliers - but a careful reading of her résumé does more than shout accomplishment. To command respect in what remains the still very cliquish, male centric world of wine takes hard work, long hours, and incredible focus. It takes mastering the ability to communicate what you know with elegance instead of verbosity. She worked as a food runner at Cyrus to get her fine dining knowledge, and before that was the brains (if not the heart) behind the still much lamented Green Grocer in Windsor. Once upon a time, after art school and the CIA in New York, she had thought work behind the scenes in the kitchen was the future, but life had other plans. These now include, in addition to being Barndiva's Wine Director, the demanding full time job of Hospitality Director at Copain Winery where she manages the tasting room, direct sales, a huge wine club and all their events, while raising two great kids with new husband Matt Iaconis. Who just happens to be a terrific winemaker.  

In the course of getting to know Alexis I’ve learned that it’s not the bragging rights of having an exquisite palate that is her favorite part of the life she’s chosen, it’s sharing her excitement for wine and its flavors, passing on the story behind the region, the history and culture that cross-pollinates wine and food. I don’t just love the fact we have a woman now managing our wine program, I love the fact it's this woman. One who cares about how grapes are grown, and every step they take after they leave the vine. Because it’s the same way we feel about food.

 It's early days in knowing what lasting changes Alexis will bring to our cellar, but we’ve already seen an end to the line of rolling suitcases that used to form on tasting days. There is a sharper focus on balancing new winemakers with revered ones, with special care taken to bring back old friends. With Lukka and Cathryn’s help we’ve introduced a single page “snapshot” of wines-by-the-glass, splits and specials treasures for those who don’t want to peruse the book. And for those guests who have longed to taste a glass of a precious vintage without committing to a whole bottle, Alexis has instigated a Coravin program where single glasses can be extracted from bottles without pulling the cork - a thin hollow needle is inserted to withdraw the wine before the cork reseals, with argon gas preventing any oxidation in the bottle.

Perhaps the art of curating a discerning wine list is allowing that it is an organic document, and so, by its very nature, will always be a work in progress. Therein lies the fun and the challenge. I look forward to growing the list in more ways that fully reflect the diversity of talent possessed by the growers and vintners we are so fortunate to know. And most especially, with Alexis' help, to revitalizing our commitment to creating a cellar with a personality reflective of the multi-faceted Barndiva experience.  

For the look at our complete current wine list,  click here. 

For a look at how Alexis is pairing our wonderful menu for New Years Eve , click here.

Finding the Community in Christmas

One hears the term “Home for the Holidays” so often in the run up to Christmas it starts to feel positively anxiety inducing. Of course Home is the best place to be on Christmas Day (duh), but out of love, not obligation. And it’s not the only place to be. Sometimes it feels like everything is conspiring to turn us into holiday machines, instead of acknowledging and building on the obvious: people just long for a connection to other people of good will this time of year. Not so long ago even war stopped for Xmas. Now we’re encouraged to start rushing towards it before we've even given Thanksgiving its due.  'Tis a season to be joyful, and thankful, folks. In equal measure if we can manage it.

It takes a lot of creative minds - and hands  - to decorate two public spaces for the holidays in ways that will continue to surprise and delight our patrons, whether they come bundled with their extended families, or in ones or twos, seeking the warmth and succor of a bar stool or a banquette, a cocktail or a great meal.  Dawid, ever the track star, hurdles over most creative challenges, but we've both loved working with the HEW team this year. With Daniel in Paris with his family over Thanksgiving,  Alexis drove up from LA to help put the finishing touches in the Studio, even as workmen crashed and bashed through the final stages of the Gallery Bar, which we hope will be fully operational by New Year's. What’s it going to be? Come in and find out!

Consensus around town is that as Healdsburg rushes to embrace its future as a year round tourist destination, those who live and work here need places to unwind and relax, and share news of the day.  The gallery is often busy with private events, but with a new kitchen and now a wonderful new bar, we're going to do whatever it takes in 2015 to open it regularly to the community, and to stay open late. 

But I digress - back to Christmas.  I gathered an assortment of found treasures to hang this year - heavy Indian silver balls, red dogwood, recycled tin angels from Alabama (he’s a king, she's a ballerina).  Geoff and I cut long boughs of conifer and brought them down from the Farm for that fresh green smell of forest that should always be a part of Christmas. The night before Alexis arrived I had a strange dream that we were standing in the gallery filled with poinsettia plants. I know, beloved at Christmas, but with their dull red leaves, definitely not a personal favorite.  I remember shouting “but I hate poinsettias!” then I woke up. We laughed about it on the way to Safeway where I’d heard a local flower wholesaler has been selling roses. It was early in the morning, the Healdsburg time I love best. Inside the flower shop blooms were just arriving, and low and behold there were eight poinsettia plants at my feet, unlike any I'd ever seen before. They were ivory, with just a light sprinkling of crimson across the leaves. We bought them all and Dawid hung them upside down from the highest beams, burlap tightly wrapped to keep the dirt, and the whole plant, from plopping on the heads of customers.

While we were hard at work in the gallery, over in the kitchen Octavio was putting the finishing touches on a giant Croquembouche, which thanks to his considerable talent is fast becoming a Barndiva Christmas tradition. Like culinary paparazzi, Dawid and I circled him with cameras as he carefully made his way through the gardens to the gallery. There was something wonderfully incongruous in seeing this towering sculpture of choux pastry balls and spun sugar, first created by Marie-Antonin Carême for Talleyrand, moving through our gardens in Healdsburg. The mulberry trees have begun to turn from green to brilliant canary yellow, and thanks to the recent rain everything else is green green green. A shaft of sunlight reflected off the medallions of sugar as Octavio maneuvered down a series of steps and through the narrow Tunisian gate. Producing things that delight the eye and excite the appetite is what the holiday season is all about for us. This was one of those moments.

The croquembouche is gone, but there is a lot to see in the gallery right now, not least some enchanting statues of French Saints that once played their role in traditional market nativity scenes, circa 1950.  Their edges are chipped a bit, colors faded, but they speak to an era when the holidays still revolved around something spiritual, and communal. I rarely find pieces like these anymore but I'm so happy to offer them in the gallery when I do.  Mention to Dawid or Fatima that you read the blog and we’ll see if we can’t find a sparkling libation behind the new bar to help keep your holiday spirits from flagging. Be they ever so humble or ever so small, there is great joy to be found in this holiday season.   Enjoy.

Here’s the New Year's Eve menu hot off the press - with a beautiful wine pairing for each dish from the talented Alexis Laconis. Should you wish to forgo the pairing, we will have exciting Champagnes poured from the Magnum and a by-the-glass selection, as well as special cocktails created for the night. After dining we'll be opening the new gallery bar for an after party with great music. Book your table (or tables) in the next week or two if you’d like to ring in the New Year with us.  We’re also excited to be able to welcome larger parties this year.  Shaking it up this New Year's Eve, for smooth sailing into 2015!  Join us!

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barndiva reading of the week 

Last Friends, the final novel in the Old Filth trilogy by the incomparable Jane Gardam

On the Hunt for Zuzu's Petals

Holiday madness is almost upon us so this week's Eat the View is all about keeping one’s gaze focused on spending delicious, meaningful time with loved ones. Though we will be closed for Thanksgiving so our staff can celebrate at home, where they hopefully get to step away from the stove, Black Friday we open our doors (and our arms) wide for a holiday season we’re really looking forward to....with a few well chosen festivities we think are gonna rock it. Here are some unique treats and dates to get on your calendar. 

First up is Healdsburg’s Downtown Holiday Party, this Friday from 4-8.  We love this evening when the whole community is engaged with strolling around, catching up with old friends, sipping, nibbling and checking out all the beautifully decorated shops around the Plaza.  We do our bit: the Studio will be glittering with charming Christmas ornaments, soaring porcelain vases for your holiday table, and unique arts and crafts from down the road and around the world - all one of a kind gifts - all here for your ogling enjoyment.  Until Christmas Barndiva Gift Certificates for over $100 will include a bottle of Preston/Barndiva proprietary red or white. We've never met a person who didn't love getting one of our gift certificates -  good for anything we do in either the barn or the gallery - cocktails, food, wine, art. The perfect gift when you don't know what to give, and most especially when you do.

There will of course (it's Barndiva) be a special spirited libation Friday night and Octavio has promised a towering Croquembouche with plenty of bite sized versions of this classic French Christmas treat to pass around. It will also be the first time the town gets a glimpse of what all the banging has been about in the studio lately - come take a look!  Our lips are sealed what will happen in the space come January, but hints abound...

On Friday we will publish the NYE menu, elegant, three-course, classic Ryan (with a few surprises) for $85, with an extraordinary wine pairing by Alexis if you so choose for $55. There will be a full bar in both the barn and the studio and we’ll be pouring magnums. This year you can reserve from five o'clock on - so even if you choose to dine earlier in the evening and go visit friends, you are invited back at midnight to dance and raise high the roof beams as we ring in 2015.  We will accept large parties this year, but feel free to come a deux and make new friends. 

And don't forget: Barndiva will be participating in Strolling Dine Around on December 3rd, 4th, 10th & 11th,  and we are proud to once again be contributing to Dine Around for Life, which is December 4th.

All in all, it's shaping up to be a great season. We invite you to escape into the barn for a drink after shopping or a quiet dinner with friends before the whole family descends. Whether you join us for a little moment this season or the last blowout of the year, we look forward to seeing you and raising a glass.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Barndiva does Banshee Fest

Banshee Winery runs one of the most popular tasting rooms in Healdsburg, with a cool design vibe and great wines, so when founders Noah and Kelly Dorance approached us six months ago to play a key role in their first annual “Banshee Fest,” we didn’t think about it too long before saying yes. With all their hard work paying off (Banshee was just named best winery to visit this fall by Harpers Bazar) they were right to want to celebrate. 

The outline for Banshee Fest was ambitious. Starting with an early pinot tasting at Spoonbar, Barndiva would then host a backyard bash with two bands - Crazy Famous and Fool’s Gold - here in the studio and both gardens. At 8 'clock everyone would stroll down the street to a concert by the DODOS at the Raven Preforming Arts Theatre, and after that, a final party at Bergamot Alley.  Saturday dawned a glorious day, all autumnal light and gorgeous colors. There was even a snap in the air - fall in Sonoma County is sublime. There is no resisting it.

We’d already had a run of great parties all week - a heartfelt harvest dinner for Peay Vineyards, an elegant annual Planning Conference for the SF Chamber of Commerce, and a lovely wedding rehearsal dinner -  so our staff was jazzed going into Banshee Fest. The back of house machinations that must collide to pull off a “whole pig” event with wine, cocktails, and live music for 200 are many, but the moving target was to run three bars offering three classically inspired cocktails, four Banshee wines, and Scrimshaw Pilsner, while the kitchen sent out three interpretations of classic street food starring pork - yummy bites you could eat while standing and listening to music. Eat neatly, with maybe a finger lick or two.  We had ordered beautiful heirloom Cinta hogs from Front Porch,  delighted when Acorn Ranch Manager Tommy Oteley showed up to deliver them. The goal was to really do a “whole hog” bash using every ounce of these precious animals.

For the Cuban we dry rubbed cumin, fennel, paprika and garlic on the hind quarters, then brined, cooked, and broke them down before rolling them on the grill, which renders the meat succulent but super crunchy. Sliced and mounded into a soft bun with aioli, gruyere, and a pile of pickled Fresno chilies, traditional Cubans are finished by pressing them on a flat top, creating a second crust to the ham. These things are addictive. We think Pancho might have perfected the Mexican equivalent of a croquet monsieur.

Banh Mi is a meat filled sandwich which originated in Vietnam, that great kingdom of street food culture, but the kind of meat, spices and other flourishes tend to change from one country to another.  Ryan used the tastiest bits from the neck and ribs, seasoned with equal parts rice wine vinegar and white wine with generous handfuls of cilantro and garlic. He swiped the bottom with Jalapeno Escabeche, a decadently hot and saucy guilty pleasure.  Mi means wheat, and ours came in the form of what local Healdsburg bakers at Costeaux call Hawaiian buns - I know not why. Topped with thinly sliced cucumber, fresh herbs and micro greens from MIX, even the Banh Mi we served without the Thjt (meat) for vegetarians were pretty damn tasty.

The last savory dish we launched on the crowd was our new carnitas - handmade corn tortillas stuffed with shredded shoulder, head, and trotter which had steeped in bourbon and coke overnight.  Yes, I know, I raised a brow, but turns out the sugar in the soft drink and the punch in the booze gives the meat an incredible finish, sweet and crispy, with a sumptuous bite after it has cooked down a good long time. Essential to the dish is bright red fermented cabbage. Rosalia and Teresa pressed tortillas while Francisco cooked them on the grill, letting them get softly charred around the edges.  I managed to devour four of them, and I was on the run most of the time.

To go with all this fatty, juicy, salty, vinegary finger food we poured Banshee’s Sauvignon Blanc, and two of their Pinot Noirs, one the beautiful 2012 Marine Layer, a 2012 Cabernet, and three cocktails.  Sara, George and I wanted the spirit drinks to be classics with a tilt - paired to the bold street food flavors, but with a nod to the expediency of time. We offered a Missouri Mule named in honor of Noah and Kelly (Buffalo Trace and Cock n' Bull ginger beer, on the rocks) ; a Smoky Dog (fresh grapefruit and vodka - the smoky rim was Cathryn’s idea that we talked Sara into making); and a batched version of Barndiva’s Flirt #4 (renamed Frisky for the night). Frisky has Jalapeno infused tequila, peach bitters and essence of golden root. Its one of our lift/flirt/slide elixirs. For the Fest we added spicy sugar lip.

Just before Fools Gold went onstage for the final set, Octavio’s desserts left the kitchen on big wooden boards - succulent brownie cakes with cocoa cream and a single raspberry and light lemon cakes with dark Amarena cherries.

People drank and talked and visited and danced - bluesy rock with Crazy Famous that moved in a smooth groove with Fool's Gold. The night was young, the winter not yet upon us. All was well in South Healdsburg. Late that night I saw one of the Cinta skulls in a place of honor above Drew's station. As Chef had promised, it was picked clean. 

Opening Night

One of the great joys of my life has come from looking at art, which always manages to confound, goad, teach, humor and ultimately save me from myself and a general unhappiness with the world. It’s been a constant, this love affaire, always urging me forward. Until I opened a gallery however, my understanding of what it takes to ‘be’ an artist, someone whose life revolves around the making of art, was cursory at best. The great privilege of nurturing Studio Barndiva through its seven years of existence has been to peek around the canvas and watch artists whose work I believe in evolve and flourish. But while I never forget that finding an audience (and selling work to them) is paramount, thats not the engine that’s kept the gallery going in what has become an increasingly uninspired, commoditized marketplace.

Don’t get me wrong, I think its great how our Etsyized world has given rise to millions of “artists” finding a way to speak directly to an audience who might appreciate and subsidize their careers. Artistic vision is a true democracy, or should be. But art created solely for business misses the point. Theo van Gogh didn’t expect to make bank on his brother's paintings, he wanted to find a place for them in the world because he believed they said something about the human condition the rest of us needed to see.

Sadly, the tradition of the art dealer who nurtures a career over decades “because they believe in them,” is for the most part a thing of the past.  Investment trumps passion as the driving force behind art sales at the very fickle top end of the art industry, while collecting art, for arts sake -- where it does still exist -- implies disposable income and lots of wall space most folks simply don’t have.

Yet I’d make the case that without surrounding ourselves with art that moves us, we miss an indelibly important connection that both explains and ennobles existence. Movies, TV, the  Amazonification of literature, an art landscape where Jeff Koons is king, is culture by committee, codified and calibrated to cater to our fears and feed on our illnesses. It’s dumb and getting dumber.

Which makes the individual artistic vision a rare and necessary tonic.

Manok Cohen and Seth Minor, whose second show together opens tonight, are not tortured artists. Manok’s paintings are seductively pleasing to the eye, giving up landscapes that are both primordial and thoroughly modern. Seth’s single wire work cannot help but make you smile though at heart his vision is a mordant one, a wry pronouncement on what we see when we look in the mirror and find ourselves confused yet steadfast. To have been able to nurture and watch them both grow in their respective mediums over the years has been an honor, which makes this show a celebration of their still evolving talents and a source of pride for all of us here at Studio Barndiva.

At the end of the day art does not explain anything we don’t already know, or at least have an intimation of, about the human condition. Which is perhaps why it feels so damn good when we connect with a work of art. To be able to see clearly even the smallest movement in the complicated dance we have with life filtered through someone else’s hand is confirmation that we are not alone. That as hard as it is to make sense of life, not only does it beat the alternative, but there is great joy to be found in the journey.

Come celebrate with us this evening. Support the arts!

The Crush

Turns out you can do a great many things with apples besides eating one a day to keep mortality at bay. You can juice ‘em, of course, but incredibly, without adding anything at all except labor, time, and TLC, you can also make sweet and hard cider, apple syrup, apple cider vinegar and aged apple balsamic.

Following our unwritten mantra here at Barndiva to never do anything at half measure when we can over-extend and really drive ourselves crazy, we went full monty on our apples this year.  In the next few months we will attempt to make ALL of the above.  What the hell, right?

We’ll keep you posted on the results as the kitchen and bar concoct dishes and cocktails from fresh juice and syrup while we slowly ferment in drums and barrels the bulk of what we juiced for apple cider vinegar, and down the road, balsamic. The good thing about a labor of love is that even when heavy on the labor, as this one certainly was, whatever happens, you get to keep the love. Which is pretty much what we all felt on Tuesday Sept. 23, a balmy Fall kissed afternoon that was equal parts exhausting and exhilarating. We were blessed to have been invited to use an apple press just 2 miles down the Philo-Greenwood Road from the farm, at the gorgeous Philo Apple Farm, where Karen and Tim Bates and their children have been good neighbors and great friends for three decades. Full disclosure: Tim and Karen had agreed to mentor us on the fine art of cider and vinegar making after dinner and a long night of drinking upstairs at the Barn a few months ago. We laughed about it afterward but the truth is they've always been generous sharing the skill set they've gained over the years slowly transforming 40 overworked acres of commercial apples into an organic, bio-dynamic, heirloom fruit and vegetable farm where they also excel in design, gardening and hospitality in ways that are off the hook yet somehow classically sublime. I do not use that word blithely. The Philo Apple Farm is a treasure.

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Karen would be the first to tell you that in the remarkable way they always offer encouragement they are only following customs endemic to most small family farm communities, where sharing hard won knowledge is a badge of honor as much as a way to pass time;  where time itself, that most precious commodity for a farmer, is mutable when it comes to lending a hand.

The Bates agreed to open their press to us during their very busy harvest, when pressing and jamming their apples and fruit is almost nonstop, so that our chefs  - always eager to get closer to the ‘farm’ part of our farm to table ethos - could participate.

Their beautiful old press sits above the Navarro River shaded by plane trees that refreshingly, for our evergreen side of Anderson Valley, act like trees should this time of year with leaves turning brilliant crimson yellow and gold. Everybody but little Rylee, the dogs and yours truly, handling the camera, threw their backs into it. Local radio KZYX was on low, playing Mexican dance music; the air was redolent of wood smoke then, increasingly, sweetly pungent with the smell of freshly pressed apples. Five tons of them.

As tired as we all were at the end of the day, the only thing crushed were the apples. Spirits ran high as we carefully placed a half dozen 55 gallon drums into our lower barn where they will begin the process of losing their sugar, then alcohol, on the way to becoming vinegar and (hopefully, this part being a bit trickier) balsamic. We also have 100 gallons of fresh juice here in Healdsburg, the better to offer cocktails like “Why Bears Do It” to our customers through the year. We even managed to start ten gallons of hard cider - an experiment which has been a long time coming. The only thing on our wish list it looked like we would not accomplish, reducing fresh juice for eight hours to made something approximating the ethereal apple syrup the apple farm produces, Rita Bates, rare and beautiful creature at heart that she is, took on for us. Heavy brown glass jugs of it now sit in pride of place in Barndiva's pantry to be used in desserts and savory dishes like apple glazed whole roasted chicken. Yum.

Barndiva would like to give a big shout out to Tim Bates for opening the press on a Tuesday and also finding the time to help us move our apples from farm to farm; to the awesome Sophia Bates, who like her mum makes it all look easy even when its not; to Rita, Jerzy, and Lauren, and most especially to Vidal Espinoza, our farm manager of thirty years who spent weeks picking and mixing the heirloom varieties that give our juice - and now hopefully our vinegar and balsamic - its unique, dry farmed ridge-top flavor profile.

And, as ever, I’d like to thank chefs Fancher, Wycoff and Mulligan, who despite being in the middle of an exhausting summer season here at Barndiva showed up on their day off to crush apples with us.  This was truly a family affair we will remember and cherish.

Studio Barndiva’s multi talented manager Dawid Jaworski edited my images into the 2 minute video of what crush looked like on that resplendent Fall day. 

Drink the View!

Geoffrey, Lukka, Daniel and Jil

Up Close and Personal to the Rapid Beating of their Wings

I am not now nor have ever been entomologically inclined. A confirmed and unrepentant killer of flies and mosquitos or any insect whose modus operandi is spreading s--t around on tiny pointed feet or plunging a needle into some unsuspecting part of my anatomy. But oh, the industry and grace of diaphanous winged things like dragonflies, butterflies and bees! These insectum, who live their relatively short lives in frenzied activity, are astounding life forms.

With the ability to move 360 degrees in any direction at 30 miles an hour calibrating the trajectory of a moving target with 95% accuracy, dragonflies are one of the most effective hunters on the planet. With a brain the size of a sesame seed, its wings stroking at 200 beats per second, the honeybee can differentiate and retain the location of hundreds of floral varieties in an instant - noting whether they carry pollen or nectar. Butterflies can taste with their feet to ascertain whether a leaf is good enough food (for the eventual caterpillar) to lay eggs on; they wear their skeletons on the outside (the better to keep the water on the inside) and have wings made of chitin, which work like solar panels to soak up sunlight without which they cannot fly.

Those are pretty astounding facts. But it’s the animate experience of them I’m reveling in this Summer. Stop moving and sit, just sit, directly inside the world of these beautiful fliers and your perception of them will change forever.

Gloriously colored, multi-legged, compound-eyed, these beautiful organisms are one of nature's most successful arguments to the theory that superior form is one that follows function.

Unlike humans, insects coexist - when they chance to kill one another it is not out of greed or prejudice but hunger or fear, even for those flying insects - like bees - that can kill in unison. Remarkably, huge though we are, they are not the least perturbed by us, more occupied with being industrious than suspicious. Sitting for hours one recent summer day amongst dragonflies, bees, butterflies and hummingbirds - not technically insects but fellow travelers in the communal hunting and gathering space - I was struck by the fact that they didn’t register me at all, as predator or prey. They couldn’t have cared less that I was there. Which, whether you carry a camera or not, can be a wonderfully liberating proposition.

For all their diminutive size the cacophony these little guys make in unison is nothing short of thunderous. We’ve all had a dragonfly moment when one whizzes by close enough to shave eyebrow off; we’ve all watched bees gathering honey across a meadow of flowers. But sitting low to the ground in the middle of a large plot of soil that is flowering for any length of time alters your perception not just of nature, but of sound, as opposed to noise.  Reminding ourselves of the difference is curiously therapeutic.

We have a lot of flying insects up here, to be sure. In Spring we have flowering chestnuts, filberts, and walnuts followed by blossoming orchards of apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries and figs. All summer long well into late fall we have roses blooming everywhere, lavender lawns, flowering shrubs and vines. You can’t be up here through the year and not notice that insect activity never really ceases, only slowing around the time the bears disappear, starting up in again at end of January.

But while I’ve always “known” that this coterie of flying insects contributes in profound ways to our life here on the ridge, what comes from sustained listening and study of their aerial patterns - which seem random but are not - bumps right up against personal revelation.

I am incredibly grateful for the forty jars of honey Vidal collected this year, but beyond what we can eat or serve at the restaurant it’s the notion that we all share this ridge top together in a mutually beneficial dance that makes me incredibly happy. I plant the fruit trees and flowers, they keep them going.

I doubt I will stop murdering flies and mosquitos anytime soon, but with an expanding awareness of the connective tissue that contributes to making a working farm healthy as well as productive, I’m looking at every flowering thing out there now, across the clover lawn all the way to the edge of the redwoods that surround the ridge, with new found respect. Which is always a good start to turning over a new leaf. Whatever you hope to find there.

We will be serving Vidal's apple blossom honey with our award winning Jonathan Apples on Barndiva's cheese course for as long as the honey and the apples last.  Our apple crush is scheduled for next week, so if you enjoyed those incredible complimentary heirloom apple juice shooters last year, plan on coming by the barn after September 24th. We will have a little less juice this year, as we are finally producing an Apple Cider Vinegar, but serving shooters to Friends of the Barn and to all our diners at the start of lunch or dinner has become a treasured Fall tradition.  Let us share it with you.

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barndiva reading of the week

How forest fires shape ecology in a world thats getting increasingly hotter

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The Ineffable Charm of Fraises des Bois

You don’t need to have read Marcel Proust to know he is famous for immortalizing a pastry.  In thousands upon thousands of words over the course of his epic Swanns Way the comely madeleine comes to represent all we hold dear about memory - how it triggers sensation, acting as a conduit to our lives on the most rudimentary level.

There’s little doubt that food triggers memory, sometimes in uncannily intimate ways. But while many of the food moments we remember best are a tribute to time and place and other people - the pleasure of eating chocolate in childhood, the intensity of tasting your first oyster with your first love - every now and then we come across a taste so singular we instantly know we’re never going to forget it.

Fraises des Bois, drooping oddly on their seemingly too slender stalks, are an unlikely looking candidate for one of these unforgettable mouthfuls. Shriveled up like full sized strawberries that have had all the moisture sucked out of them, when ripe they are anything but dry, evocative of earth and sun and summertime. Put one on your tongue and it emits a delicate perfume; bite down and a tiny puff of strawberry air fills your mouth and nose, waking up that little stretch of real estate in your brain that longs to be seduced with simple pleasures. Often all you get is one bite. Be warned, the taste does not linger. But what you register in that magical, brief moment is a flavor achingly alive, sweet yet floral, followed by a curious faint earthy afterglow: the phantom scent of a forest or wood, for which they are aptly named. 

In a world where strawberry “essence,” derived chemically, turns up in everything from toothpaste to chewing gum, it can be a revelation to experience real strawberry flavor - that concentrated ripeness that justifies a strawberry’s glorious hue.

Technically, strawberries are not really even a fruit, or a true berry, they are botanically what's called an “aggregate accessory.”

The juicy part we eat doesn’t come from the ovaries of the flower, but the enlarged stamen. But while we don't eat what issues from their seed, seeds in abundance they do have -  a single gram can contain over 2,500. Growing them from seed is notoriously difficult however, even for a seasoned gardener. Better to buy good quality starts and watch them spread their string-like runners across the surface of the ground; their tiny filigreed roots will cling tenaciously to all but the worst soils. 

It is thought that the first wild woodland strawberries traveled over the silk road from Persia two thousand years ago, picking up a French pedigree in the 14th Century, when Charles V grew tired of waiting for them to be collected from his forests and had thousands of Fraise de Bois runners re-planted in the Royal Gardens. More for the king, less for the mule deer I guess - but to this day, wherever you plant them and despite (or because of) their alluring kiss-me-crimson color, they are a bitch to harvest, hiding under masses of three lobed serrated edged leaves, close to the soil where they like seem to thrive best.

Rachel uses a single Fraises des Bois on a rose petal float for one of our newest and most requested cocktails, The Never Ending Now, made with strawberry infused vodka, rose water, a hint of orange bitters, and a splash of Navarro Gewürztraminer. It’s an appropriate finish for this cocktail, whose name was inspired by the transitory but ineffaceable beauty of living moment to moment on our ridge, where Fraises des Bois (and other things) are encouraged to grow wild. Navarro Vineyards, our neighbors for the past three decades right down the hill, makes the heavenly grape juice. 

Chef took a similar circumspect approach with the small supply we grow here at the Barn, keying just a few of them off the bolder flavors of fat, juicy, San Andreas strawberries from Preston of Dry Creek - picked optimally and delivering incredible flavor this summer - which Octavio has front and center in a simple but elegant summer sorbet dessert. To plate it Ryan edges shallow but wide rimmed white bowls with a sprightly trio of Fraises des Bois, micro thyme leaves and pale white flowers. Against the bracing taste of the sorbet, the delicacy of these tiny wonders makes you want to sing an ode to summer.

Rarely sold commercially, even when you grow them Fraises des Bois will barely give up more than a bowlful every few days. We naturally use them sparingly in the restaurant, which is fine - the better to appreciate each precious mouthful. 

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barndiva reading of the week

Creativity Creep: The changing landscape of how we define "creativity"

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