I know, that sounds really cute.  Gotta get my Farmer’s Market fix?  Or what?  I go postal for want of fresh picked peas?  I go into fits from the absence of perfectly ripe heirloom tomatoes perched, all fragrant and enticing, on my kitchen counter?  Well yes.  Actually.  I realize that that’s just kind of precious.  I live in Wine Country, it’s all about the “lifestyle”, here, right?  So we put on our big straw hats, grab our chic, but totally organic market baskets, and we head to the market to see and be seen by other fabulous Wine Country-lifestyle-types, while we purchase perfectly peeled, dewy produce and feel so good about “doing the right thing”.  Isn’t is just so green to be addicted to the Farmer’s market? 

Actually, that’s not it at all.  Eating fresh, seasonal food, grown or made by people you know and like, is addictive.  Not gotta have my Twinkie addictive, but it becomes a sort of food for your soul as much as anything.  Plus, our Farmer’s Market is just so much fun!   We go to Sebastopol and Occidental.  Western Sonoma County.  The Green Capital of America.  More kids per capita than any other towns anywhere.  Barely even Wine Country at all.  Not to say that Wine Country doesn’t have it’s share of Farmer’s Markets that are more, say, glamorous.  But they’re not over here in West County.

Sunday morning is all about the market.  We roll out of bed, load up the kids and the stroller, grab coffee and a donut at My Friend Joe’s (yes, an actual donut.  Helen likes the ones with sprinkles,

Pink sprinkles for Helen thank you very much

Rod goes for Old Fashioned and Rocco will take anything we give him.  For me, it’s those greasy double-fried apple fritter things.  I know it’s gross, but it’s only once a week… And, we’re on the way to Nutrition Nirvana…) and head for Sebastopol. 

The Farmer’s Markets are a weekly festival.  Music, food, crafts and incredible produce grown by dynamic farmers.  We load Rocco into the stroller/shopping cart  (the super-grubby, falling apart thing that used to be Helen’s) and away we go. 

First stop (always, can’t be missed or skipped) Hector’s stand, for honey sticks.  $.25 each.  Everyone gets two.  Helen is in charge of choosing flavors and passing out.  We also get spring garlic, sweet onions and lemon cucumbers from Hector. 

That's Hector

Next, once the kids are good and sticky, we make our way all the way to the end of the market.  Got to see who’s got what.  And it gives the kids a chance to “check out the scene”. 

While we sort of “troll” the market, we decide the menu for the week.  We have to be strategic- because we’re committed to eating everything we buy.  Before next Sunday.  Beautiful squash blossoms?  Great, what are they going into?  And when?  

This week’s Sunday dinner ended up being our favorite salad of yellow wax beans (the ones tinged with green that are unbearably fresh and sweet tasting) and grilled fresh, wild Copper River salmon with a sorrel aioli. 

Full Circle Breads

The salad is one we live on in the summer.  My grandmother made it religiously every Sunday for my uncle. When she had beans in the garden, anyway.  We called it “Cuncia”.  I’m not sure where it got the name, but it’s basically tender green beans with sweet onions, olive oil and red wine vinegar.  The trick it tossing the beans with the oil and vinegar and salt when they’re still warm.  They get the most amazing flavor.  In my family you could add canned tuna- the really good Italian stuff packed in oil, you could add potatoes, starchy ones, so the potatoes break up and coat the beans, pesto (that’s from my great grandmother, who put pesto on everything), and that’s it.  End of the line.  Can’t add anything else.  Well, we do.  Tomatoes, olives, cucumber, you name it, it all works and is really good. 

The sorrel aioli or mayonnaise is also a basic at our house.  Pretty much every Sunday Rod makes some form of aioli from whatever herbs we find: nettles, sorrel and basil are standard for us with our eggs and some McEvoy olive oil.  We smear it on everything all week. 

Jill from Crescent Moon Farm

Anyway, back at the market… We make our stops at Crescent Moon for all of our hot fresh and dried ground chili peppers (we use a lot of peppers) and heirloom shelling beans, Laguna Farm for lettuces and the sweetest carrots you’ve ever had-their corn is fantastic too.

Then we head over to see Mateoat his Yucatan Tamale cart for “Farmer’s Market Huevos Rancheros”.  Fresh duck eggs, housemade tortillas, fresh salsa, peppers from Cresent Moon.  You get the picture.  And an agua fresca- this week was peach and thyme. 

We eat while the kids dance in the fountain with the other jillion half naked, tribal toddlers and pop in for occasional bites and slurps.  There’s always live music.  Sometimes its great, sometimes it’s not, but the kids always love it, and actually we do too.   The Farmer’s Market, like the seasons themselves only lasts a short while.  We anticipate its arrival, we mourn its departure and we sure make the most of  it while it’s here.

In my “previous life” as GM of one of our mid-sized wineries down the road, I spent a lot of time tasting wine.  Comparative tasting, harvest tasting, barrel tasting, quality evaluation tasting, tasting with visiting press…  We had consultants come in regularly to help us “hone our palates”, so we could “taste wine better”.  And the honest truth… I never really enjoyed it.   I loved the business, the product, really all of it- but those long, drawn out, evaulative tastings killed me.  My husband, who has an extraordinary palate and ability to concentrate and ditto our MS Geoff Kruth, can spend days tasting, evaluating, talking and exploring the subtle nuances in a bottle of wine.  I rarely hang out for long once they get going.

But, you know what?  I love that they do it.  I get all of the benefit and don’t have to do any of the work.  I know you’re thinking- Please, sitting around tasting tons of wine and talking about how good it is?  Hard work?  Seriously give me a break. 

So, as you can imagine, I don’t often attend professional tastings and steer clear of the dining room when Geoff’s tasting with winemakers.  Occasionally, though, something comes along that I just can’t miss.

Yesterday just happened to be one of those times.  Geoff sent an email telling me that he was moderating a Pinot Noir panel discussion for the Russian River Valley Winegrowers- and would I like to attend?  I love to watch Geoff in front of a crowd (he’s a great combination of intensely professional and charmingly playful) and found out Rod was already planning to attend, so without finding out any more than the time and location, said “Sure”!

So, I arrived at the beautiful, brand-new Merriam Winery, 15 miniutes late, with my first coffee of the day still in my hand, and walked into a super-serious evaluative tasting with press from all over the world.  Rows and rows of very intense  people, notebooks out sitting in front of glass after glass of wine.  So I tossed the coffee (painful), took a deep breath and found my seat.  And, do you know what?  It was so much fun!

The tasting was broken  into three flights (meaning groupings of wine).  The first was single vineyard pinot noirs , the second was blended pinots and the third was other varietals.  All the wines were from the Russian River Valley.  The moderators were the coolest group of guys (yeah all guys- I wondered about that one too… There are some amazing women making wine up here…) John Holdredge (Holdredge Wines), Pete Opatz (Picket Fence Vineyards), Dan Kosta (Kosta Brown), Tom Dehlinger (Dehlinger Winery) and Peter Merriam provided incredible information about the vintage, insights into our appellation and what makes it so unique and some really witty stories.  They were also a terrrific representation of the diversity within our AVA (American Viticultural Areas).  They represented very small wineries, where the wine production is very limited and the wines are truly hand-crafted, up to Pete Opatz who’s a viticultual consultant on more than sixty vineyards. 

The first flight was held in their lovely new tasting room.  It consisted of nine, single vineyard pinots.  We tasted and evaluated for about half an hour and then the group discussed their findings, with the panel and Geoff answering questions and providing insights.  These nine wines were very different in some ways- but the really interesting thing was the similarities.  They all shared a really strong red fruit character, rather than the black fruit that you find in really ripe wines.  Raspberry, cranberry, strawberry- the flavors I personally love in pinot.  My favorite quote of the tasting was from John Holdredge, “They don’t hit you with a 2X4, they’re willing to caress you, but it’s a strong hand that’s doing it.”

Favorites from that flight included:

C. Donatiello Winery’s Maddie’s Vineyard, 2007, $62- Amazing rose petals open up to tart pomegranates and even some brown spice.  Beautiful balance. 

Freeman Vineyard and Winery’s Keefer Ranch, 2007, $46 – The most coastal of the lot. Red cherry and rhubarb- youthful and fresh.  This is a “drink now” wine that I’d love to have with some fresh salmon (wish I could get some… )

Dutton Goldfield Winery’s Freestone Hill Vineyard, 2007, $58.  Dan’s wines always taste like Dan’s wines.  Beautiful and extracted, but balanced and infinitely friendly. 

The second flight was all blended wines.  It was a really great contrast to the single vineyard wines.  Pinot noir as a single vineyard bottling is often so clear and beautiful.  Once blended, it can be wonderful, or can get kind of muddy.  Of the blended wines, one stood out as being fresh, tasty and a fantastic value.  The Kenwood Vineyards, 2007 at $18 a bottle was just terrific.  For the record, I think they are one of our best value wineries. 

Unfortunately I missed the third flight and the wonderful lunch (Rod stayed and is still talking about some brownie thing with lemon curd…) but over all, had a great time, saw some old friends and was reminded, once again, what an incredible valley it is that I call home.