Sonoma Vacation: Goat Rock Beach at Jenner

Wildlife interlude.

So after settling in to our cottage at Fern Grove Cottages in Guerneville, (definitely "quaint," meaning "small" but quite nice), we realized we had a bit of time before dinner, so we took a leisurely drive out towards Jenner and crossed over to Goat Rock Beach in hopes of spotting some seals.

Unfortunately, although there are signs advising us not to harass the seals, and ropes up, there are no seals to be seen.

Nevertheless, the beach is gorgeous, and I'm totally fascinated by the flocks and flocks of pelicans, who scatter themselves among the sea gulls all across the beach and sail inches away from the water at the mouth of the Russian River.

They look like nothing so much as the neo-pterodactyls they are, and as each group comes in for a landing, I peer at them, wondering what desert island they've been hiding on since the Mesozoic Era.


I sidle over to get a better look at him, and that amazing neck stretches out, ET-like, to get a better look at me.

We eye each other for a bit, and then he waddles off a step or two and I realize that they're even more absurdly ungainly on land than swans.

But when they take off, suddenly, they're like alien warplanes. No sagging chin full of fish, no thick feet, just streamlined darts cutting through the air. They look dangerous, and prehistoric. As I watch them sail over Goat Rock, I can't hlp but wonder if this is what dinosaurs saw standing on this beach?

No tourists, no taco stand, no wineries or marketing materials. Just gorgeous coastline.

Back to our itinerary.

Sonoma Vacation: Dutton Goldfield/ Balletto and Hartford Family Wineries

We had a few wineries on the list and we hit our first one on the way up Highway 116 to Guerneville.

On the search for Chardonnays of redeeming crispness, my Omnivore turned up the name of Dutton. No, no, we were told, that's the Dutton Estates up the road. Same family, different kids. But while we were there, why not sample...?

Why not indeed?

Balletto, the winery that shares the tasting room made some nice wines, and we bought a bottle of Pinot Gris from Balletto and a Zin from Dutton, but if I'm being honest, the best selling point of the place is a nice quiet patio with a fountain where we could put up the umbrellas over the tables, and indulge in my favorite pastime, picnicking!

It takes me all of about 2 minutes to roll out the spread.

In preparation for this little excursion, I made a couple of batches of homemade mustards-- our mustard adventures will have to wait for a post of their own--and picked up some of Fra'Mani's luscious new Rosemary ham, along with slices of soppresata and toscano. Add some of those Maille cornichons, slices of St. George, toasted pecans, a few bites of fregola..... I'm in picnic heaven!

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Balletto & Dutton-Goldfield Tasting Room
5700 Occidental Road (midway between Hwy 116 and Fulton)
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
707.568.2455 x18

Hartford Family Wines
8075 Martinelli Road
Forestville, CA
800-588-0234

Back to our itinerary.

Sonoma Vacation: Matos Family Cheese

Oh. Oh. OHHH. One of our favorite cheeses.

The Matos Family's St. Jorge or St. George cheese. It's a pungent, cheddary Portuguese style cheese that hint back at the Azores, where the Matos family grew up.

We've been fans of this local cheese for a long time, so it was one of our most anticipated stops of the whole trip. If we played it right, I theorized, we'd have cheese for the rest of the trip-- maybe the rest of the year...

The farm itself, is a working affair, with perhaps not-so-welcoming cows, and crows that toss fruit at you as you come up the drive.

Perhaps we should say the cows are just disinterested. Almost with that French Normandy Bovine disinterested sort of fashion.

But hey, they look a heckuva lot more happy--nay, entitled-- than the Giacomini Dairy cows whose living quarters next to a pit of their own feces so horrified me that I can't bear the sight of Point Reyes Blue, much less eating it.

The Matos farm is a different story. As we drive up, a dog raises a lazy ear on the driveway, but doesn't budge from his dusty corner, giving us leave to inspect the chickens pecking about in their yard.

As always, the city girl is fascinated by the barnyard animals, but we're here for the cheese. We head for the door to what looks like an extension of the family house, which sets off a startling buzz on opening. We quickly close it behind us and stare around at the absurdly austere, tiny room marked only by a counter, a hunk of cheese, a 12-inch chef's knife, a scale, a register and a few posters.

A young woman, who only speaks Spanish, comes out to handle us. The very first thing she does is hack off a slice, a big slice, and hand it over to us to sample. Yum. Well, we clearly seem to want cheese, but after that, she's a little non-plussed as to what exactly we want. She goes back into a ROOM OF CHEESE, and shows us a WHEEL of CHEESE, albeit one of the smaller ones in the room. She weighs it and indicates--about $77. I'm all excited and ready to take the whole damn thing, but my Omnivore-- perhaps envisioning cheese for breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea, dinner and supper, not to mention elevenses--balks.

We negotiate in my high school pidgin Spanish and settle on three large chunks of cheese. $44 and a steal.

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Matos Cheese Factory
3669 Llano Rd,
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
707-584-5283
Daily 9-5

Back to our itinerary.

Sonoma Vacation: Bud's Custom Meats

What a hilarious place.

I don't know what I expected when we drove off the beaten path to head for Penngrove and Bud's Custom Meats. It was a little like driving around Tuscany when we discovered that the roads marked in white on the Italian Touring Club maps are basically dirt roads.

"Turn right here," I say, torquing around my map and peering intently at the crisscross of rail lines with-- I thought-- roads.

The incredulous look on my Omnivore's face says, "Um... into the field?"

Well, anyway, we made it to Bud's, which at least is marked with a prominent sign, and discovered a hard-core butcher shop.

There's a.. a... well, a deer, a deer head, that is, overseeing the counter, which separates an impressive meat packing operation, done by hand by several workers, who look pretty much ready to ignore us until we fire off a shotgun.

In the mean time, folks are coming in here and there, picking up what seem to be humongous pre-orders of meat, chops, ground, all kinds of stuff.

"They have wild boar!" I say excitedly, pointing into one of the vast refrigerated cases.

Sadly, we have no cooler (and it's pretty hot outside) and I'm not sure there's a refrigerator where we're going anyhow. Sighing, we settle on some fairly safe venison jerky and something delectable, with the undelectable name of "Bloody Mary" jerky.

We'll be back.

Bud's Custom Meats
7750 Petaluma Hill Rd
Penngrove CA
(707) 795-8402
Open Monday-Saturday 8-5

Back to our itinerary.

Sonoma Vacation: Divine Delights

Vacation! Really? Honest? Yay!

We kicked off our trip up to the gorgeous Russian River with a quick pass by a place I found online a few weeks ago after paroxysms of frustration unleashed by the great Petits Fours Debacle.

The Petaluma-based Divine Delights makes Petits Fours... and they'll ship them to you.

But are they any good? Their Petit Four Outlet is apparently "Now Open" and easily accessed from the Old Redwood Highway exit off 101, so we made them our first target.

Petit Four Outlet?

Fine, bring it on.

Actually, the place is the home base where they make the thousands of painfully, adorable little cakes, and ship them all over the country. There's a small room with a case of samples that are less expensive than if you ordered them from the catalog and had to pay shipping (about $1.00 apiece for the small petits fours).

They were kind enough to let us peek at the facility where the magic happens. Cakes are made on site, using Italian almond paste for the cake, and poured Guittard chocolate (not fondant-- aha! the secret!) for the smooth, sweet covering. All of the cakes are run through a machine for their two coats of chocolate, but they are expertly hand decorated, as you can see from the two charming ladies who are already working on Christmas themes.

Right, right. They're disarmingly precious and look stunning on a tea stand, but are they any good??

Ahhhh... yes, yes, the Strawberry one... quite nice... Yes, the Apple one, yes, indeedy, quite good. The Hazelnut... um.. let me take a bite. Oh yes, yes. And that's one...? Orange? Yes, yes, by Jove, quite good. And the Lemon? Mmmm-ph, mmmm-hmmmm... And ugggmmmph...? Pass the mmmmmph....with the ..... mmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmm.

Mmmmmmm...

Note: Management would like to indicate that insufficient testing was conducted. One sample of each flavor results in an OBVIOUSLY inconclusive study. Testing must begin again. From the beginning. With more samples. Now.

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Divine Delights
1250 Holm Rd
Petaluma, CA 94954
Phone: 800-443-2836

Back to our itinerary.

Sonoma Vacation: the List

Sonoma Vacation

places we visited and stuff we did!

And we're off! My Omnivore headed out last weekend (to beat the Labor Day crush) in search of a bout of much-needed R & R along with foraging for wine and food. And wine. And food.

We visited so many places that if I put them all in one post it would be probably be as many miles long as we drove last weekend, so I've parsed our itinerary out into individual posts. Looking at the list, I'm actually surprised at how many places we hit. I guess this will give us a head start on the Slow Food Nation next weekend and make it easier to get through all those taste pavilions at Fort Mason!

I post updates to this page as I finish blogging! Whew!

An alphabetical list of all the places we went with links to the individual posts. Take that Slow Food.

• Amphora Family Wines, Dry Creek


• Applewood Inn, Guerneville


• Balletto Vineyards, Santa Rosa


• BeeKind Honey, Sebastopol


• Bistro des Copains, Occidental


• Bud's Custom Meats, Penngrove


• The Cheese Shop, Healdsburg


• Divine Delights, Petaluma


• Dutton Goldfield Winery, Santa Rosa


• Farmer Dave's, Penngrove


• Gary Farrell Wines, Healdsburg


• Goat Rock Beach, Jenner


• Hagemann Ranch Trout Farm, Bodega Bay


• Hop Kiln Winery, Healdsburg


• Farmers Market, Healdsburg


• Matos Family Cheese, Santa Rosa


• Oakville Grocery, Healdsburg


• Preston Vineyards, Healdsburg


• Pug's Leap Cheeses, Dry Creek


• Taco Truck, Guerneville


• Unti Vineyards, Dry Creek


• Wild Flour Bread, Freestone

An easy dinner: Fregola and Smoked Scallops

Okay, so yeah, we're spoiled, spoiled, spoiled, but this was in fact a super-easy dinner to make, and it was FANTASTIC.

We picked up a half a dozen scallops from Swan's, salt and pepper, smoked them in the stovetop smoker with a tablespoon of mixed maple and oak chips for 15 minutes, and then seared them for a couple of minutes on each side to finish.

For a lovely effect, serve them with several dots of quality balsamic vinegar. If you don't have the good thick kind, simmer 1/3 cup of regular balsamic in a saucepan until reduced by half. (A tip of the hat to Patrick Hoogehyde, whose recipe inspired our version.) Absolutely spectacular, with a gorgeous, gentle, browned color deepened to a mahogany by the sear--succulent and perfectly tender--this has now become my most highly-recommended way to cook perfect scallops.

Indeed, the smoker has taken the lead as my Omnivore's most favorite-est piece of equipment in the kitchen. We got it in a bizarre-but-highly-profitable trading triangle in which we got rid of the plant that never got love in our house, and got a smoker and a wine fridge in the bargain. Don't ask...

After smoking just about everything in sight, we recently re-ordered wood chips and now have to work our way through ten pints of wood chips--hickory, oak, alder, maple, pecan, mesquite, bourbon soaked oak... Basically if it fits inside the smoker, it's fair game. Even some things that don't fit in the smoker are fair game...

To go with it, we tried some fregola--a Sardinian pasta made of semolina rolled couscous-style into balls and then toasted. I ran across it at the Berkeley Fourth Street Pasta Shop and on impulse picked up a couple of cups of it. As promised, it has a wonderful texture and a nutty flavour, and cooked in the clam juice it's utterly divine. I hadn't ever heard of it before, although fregola seems to have been featured in the New York Times about ten years ago.

We didn't want to cook clams this time, so instead of using the clam water to make the fregola, we substituted a bottle of clam juice and it worked just fine.

Fregola and Katinka Cherry Tomatoes

1 8 oz bottle of clam juice
1 cup dry white wine like sauvignon blanc
3/4 cup fregola
1 pint orange Katinka Cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper

In a medium saucepan, bring the clam juice and wine to a simmer. Add the tomatoes and fregola and simmer over a low to medium heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Cav of the Heart

A yummy time was had by all at Cav, the Market street wine bar and restaurant that sits next to Zuni Cafe. In fact, it's so close that for many years, I'm sorry to say, I've sailed past it on my usual mission to get a margarita and shoestring fries at Zuni's copper bar. You have to respect a place though, that can thrive right next to one of San Francisco's most beloved eateries.

My Omnivore and I stopped in there a few weeks back, lured in by their extensive, EXTENSIVE (did I mention that it's extensive?) wine list. They serve food at the bar, but we were on a different mission to rant about politics and life and down some Italian wines.

After a recent bout in the Exploratorium's fabulous Tactile Dome and a stroll out to the Wave Organ with Mr and Ms. Art Attack, we worked up a hefty appetite. She highly recommended Cav, so off we went.

Cav's fare is of the California fresh-from-the-market style. There's nothing earthshattering on this menu, but it is well done.

To start off, because we're so hungry, a bowl of olives and some of the famous Fried Sweet Potatoes with Tomato Jam.





I'm a total sucker for olives in good olive oil warmed to just a little past room temperature. But those fries--bulky and starchy, they were just what I needed at the moment.



















Wine we leave up to my Omnivore, who comes up with a Gruner from the Wachau, guaranteed to go with our asparagus and salads and various nibbles. The Limerick Lane, not as dense as one might expect, but a nice match for the red-meat eaters at our table.

I might as well mention here too, that we had a long discussion about service. Ms. Art Attack had just been to the fancy-schmancy Maya, where she was unimpressed by the state of the service. The staff evidently messed up part of her party's order, bringing the vegetarian a meat dish and assembling the vegetarian's dish along with the meat-eater's order. But after the error was pointed out--and corrected--Ms. Art Attack was surprised to see that they had been charged twice, for both the incorrect and correct orders. It took some arguing with the manager to have the incorrect order taken off the bill, but we marveled that any restaurant would go so far as to double charge the customer and then also argue with them. Especially in this day and age, when any noodnik can get on a blog and broadcast to all about the bad experience.

Well, this was not the case at Cav, where the staff was attentive and accommodating. We were initially seated very near the door. On such an Arctic summer night as we have in San Francisco, we were getting a blast from the door everyime someone oh-so-kindly held it open for the next person. So I asked--if it wouldn't be too much trouble--if we could move to the back? No problem. Lickety-split we were in a nice warm corner.

The charcuterie plate, which in this evening included (clockwise from the top) a quenelle of duck liver mousse, more duck liver with dried dates, pheasant pate, beef tongue with grated parmagiano and pickled baby onions, a slice of head cheese, pickled carrots, beef bresaola, and some thin slices of duck prosciutto. In the center with the caper berries, are housemade mustards, including an apricot mustard, and a delicious piquant whole grain mustard made with cider vinegar.

For her appetizer, Ms. Art Attack had the Ragout of Morels, Fava Beans, and Asparagus under those nice shavings of Parmagiano. A loverly earthy sauce that went quite nicely with the Gruner, thank you very much.

Her main included some light, summery raviolis stuffed with beautifully sweet corn and ricotta, and garnished with roasted cherry tomatoes and basil.


My Omnivore and Mr. Art Attack went for the Pork Tenderloin stuffed with chanterelles and served on a bed of braised cabbage with porcini confit. Extremely tasty, although in my humble opinion, a touch on the dry side.













I can't believe we didn't take a picture of the cheese course. Must have been the champagne.

I was actually excited by the cheese menu since it actually included several cheeses I've never had, no easy feat.

For the record, we had a slice of the Haystack Mountain Haystack Peak, a pyramidal goat cheese with a bloomy rind. I picked that one because we liked the tang of Haystack's Snowdrop, but I have to say, the Snowdrop is superior, maybe a little less assertive. We also had the Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill double cream cows milk cheese from Thomasville, GA. Tasty, but I'll forever be looking for young raw milk cow's cheeses...

To finish up our selection, the Caciocavallo Silano from the Basilicata region in Italy. Cut from its normal teardrop shape, it has a nice nutty taste, but I thought wasn't necessarily enhanced by the dried fruits that came with it. Also on the plate were assorted nibbles, currants, marcona almonds, quince paste, apple jelly, that sort of thing. As I said at the top, not exceptionally imaginative, but hey, made us happy!

The Two of Cakes

Apparently, I am destined never to make petits fours. It is written in the stars.

Back at college-- an old-school, East Coast, Seven Sisters type of place-- we used to have elegant teas. Yes, tea, as in teatime. Don't knock it till you've tried it! And at certain special teas and garden parties, we would get these delectable, adorable, addictive little cakes, not unlike the ones you see here from The Dessert Course. Oh, they were so good! Light, lemony, you could eat about a dozen and still be reaching back for more.

Since I graduated I have never had petits fours so good.

Being the eternal optimist, I've tried off and on, over the years, to make petits fours. I won't even tell you how many times, but I have never, never, ever, EVER achieved success. What can I say? Bad recipes for cake, bad recipes for fondant, unevenly heating ovens. You name, it's killed my cakes.

This time, though, I thought I had it nailed. I was making petits fours for a baby shower last Sunday. I had a nice recipe for almond cake, which I hoped would stay nice and moist, and give me a pretty tight crumb, so the cakes would stand up to being cut so small.

We had a fondant I liked, and I thought I'd gotten the hang of getting the cake layers to just the right height. I had strained apricot jam mixed with bittersweet orange marmalade standing by and marzipan to give me an extra smooth surface on the top.

I've had some experience with the wedding cake construction now, so the batter went just fine-- nice and light, tasty.

I had the cakes stacked with layers of jam, and refrigerated. It cut into dozens of cakes smoothly and evenly. The marzipan was spread very cleanly on the top. and everything was ready for fondant. But I was behind schedule. I had to get to the venue to unlock the doors for everyone else, but I planned to just do that, and then do the final icing while everyone else worked on setup. and decorations.

So, I put the cakes on a baking sheet and headed out the door. I put it down on a cooler and turned to lock the door and.... BAM!

Cakes. All over the floor. ALL over the floor.

I couldn't even get that worked up about it. Somehow, it just seemed like the predetermined end. No petits fours.

Again.

Petits fours disastres have happened so often to me now that this doesn't even qualify as unusual. This IS the way it's supposed to be. I just piled them all back up onto the sheet and left them on the kitchen table.

So that's that. I'm done, out, finis. I am definitely NOT the Ace of Cakes -- more like the Two of Cakes.

Maybe next time, I'll just order them from Divine Delights and pretend I made them myself.