While Catherine’s on a romantic getaway with her hubby, I’ll be manning the helm of the blog machine this week – stand back…  Chatting with our guests each morning at breakfast about their many adventures exploring Northern California, I can’t help but notice that I’m hearing so many of our guests rave about so many of the same activities.  And, not just adventures here in the Russian River Valley, but out on the Sonoma Coast, in the towns of Healdsburg and Sebstopol, up in the Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley, and even over in the Napa Valley – all easy drives from us and all chocked-full of great discoveries.  Now, here’s the catch, everyone knows about our fabulous wines, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah… but did you know that there is so much more to do than drink wine in wine country?  Of course, you can’t come to the Sonoma Wine County without drinking some wine, and in no way am I suggesting you skip the wine.  I’m just saying there’re lots of great finds in addition to tasting all of our fantastic wines!   So, I’ve polled our guests and I’ve polled our concierge team and – are you ready? –  we’ve come up with a list of the Top 10 Things to Do in California Wine Country (imagine reading this with a drum roll in the back ground!) other than WINE TASTING (gasp!)!  Here goes…

1. Blackberries – It’s blackberry season.  They grow everywhere and they taste so good.  Pull over on the side of the road and pick a few handfuls.  You won’t be sorry.  They taste like summer. 
2. Live Music Sundays at C. Donatiello Winery – Yes it’s a winery and yes you can drink wine.  But, in addition to their stellar portfolio of wines, they manage to pull in some of the best acts in wine country for their FREE summer concert series. 
3. Zip-lining through the Redwoods – They’re big, they’re beautiful and you can see them from an all new vantage point – 100 feet up in the air!
   

   Zipping through the Redwood Trees

4. Overlook at Lake Sonoma – Take in one of the most majestic views in all of wine country form the overlook at Lake Sonoma located a the north end of the Dry Creek Valley.  And, if you happen to be there on a Sunday morning, enjoy a Ranger led bird walk.
5. Olive oil tasting at Dry Creek Olive Company – Some of the best olive oil to be found, no designated driver required!
6. Walk the lakes at Riverfront Park – Just a few miles down the road from us, this park is a nesting site for the great blue heron, North America’s largest wading water bird.  Their nests can be spotted high in the trees.
7. Windsor’s Thursday Music on the Green and Farmers Market – Great local produce and great bands.  Bring a famous Farmhouse picnic or pick something up from one of the many vendors.
8. Safari West – Home to over 400 wild and exotic animals. This 400-acre wildlife preserve is part zoo and part jeep safari adventure. Get up close and personal with a giraffe or cheetah.
   

   Getting up close and personal with a giraffe!

9. Segway Tours of Healdsburg – Great itineraries and a travel speed where you can really enjoy the scenery.  Added bonus, you get to brag to all your friends back home that you segwayed your way through wine country!
10. Oysters Hog Island – Have an oyster picnic at a real live oyster farm.  Never mind the fact that these are some of the best oysters to be found anywhere and the view is amazing! 
    

    Have an oyster feed along the water's edge.

Have a great adventure! 

Post by Joe Bartolomei

Wine grapes are fabulous.  Heaven knows we love what they turn into.  Wine!  (Ok, that’s stating the obvious…)  But, one of the many things that makes our lovely Russian River Valley, and Sonoma County as a whole, unique, is our incredible diversity of agriculture and artisan produce.  We farm- and our farming really speaks to the old world traditions of using the land for a variety of different crops, livestock and native habitats.  More and more, we’re seeing the farmers and ranchers expand from one crop or one animal on the land to a variety of uses on one property.

On our ranch, where we’ve farmed for five generations, we have chickens for eggs and meat, antique apple trees, vegetable gardens, bee hives for honey and polination, prunes, plums, cherries, peaches and berries scattered about the property and lovely creeks with riparian habitats.   

Lettuces and Heirloom Shelling Beans

This kind of farming is wonderful, because it’s year-round.  We have produce, eggs and meat every month of the year.  But, I have to admit that this month and the next few months are just amazing and so incredibly bountiful! 

An heirloom squash and its delicious blossoms

Doesn’t eveyone just love the idea of a Wine Country picnic?  You and your sweetheart tucked  in amid the vineyards and the rolling hills of Sonoma Wine Country, or out on the Sonoma Coast, toasting your everlasting love with Russian River Valley sparkling wine (or maybe pinot noir), nibbling bites of locally made Laura Chenel cabecou cheese, hand-crafted salumi and Farmhouse cured olives…  Well I do.   Throw in some lovely Russian River Valley spring or summer weather and nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon and I don’t think there’s much that can beat it.

For some time now, I’ve been asking our fabulous team of chefs to come up with the “Perfect Wine Country Picnic”.  Which, now that I look back, is sort of a lot of pressure.  Not just the “Ok” or “Fine Wine Country Picnic”, but perfect.  Definitive.  A brown tote bag filled with a lovely selection of delectable foods, all prepared by us or our friends.   And, easy to prepare, maintain, tote and enjoy.  So, ok, a little pressure.

We’ll they’ve finally pulled it together.  We offered our first picnics to guests about two weeks ago.  And, the feedback’s been worth the wait.  I’ve even packed one off to the beach myself- and loved it!  The picnic changes with the whims of the chef, but always includes salumi, olives, local cheese, house-made hummus or something similar, fresh greens and a vinaigrette, seasonal fruit from our ranch or a neighbor, flatbread and the most amazing desserts from Patti (right now it’s a decadent chocolate brownie).  We offer some great wines that you can purchase to take along, or, if you’ll be picnicking at a winery, pick up wine there.

Copain Winery

Our concierge team is equipped with a list of our very favorite spots.  From Copain Winery, up on a hill overlooking the Russian River Valley, to Quivira Winery, deep in Dry Creek Valley, where you can picnic in the biodynamic vegetable garden overlooking their vineyards, to the Armstrong Redwood Forest

Armstrong Woods, Redwood Forest

or, my favorite, out on the Sonoma Coast… we can send you in a million great directions.  Oh, last Monday, we packed up and headed down to Marshall to Hog Island Oyster Company where we added briny, fresh sweet water oysters to the mix. 

Oysters at Hog Island

 (If you visit their website, download their clam chowder recipe.  I brought home 5# of clams and made their chowder with carrots and celery from my garden….So crazy good!  But that’s another post…) 

Summer’s heating up, the produce coming in from our farm is incredible, the winery gardens are in full bloom or full swing, and, doesn’t a picnic just evoke magical images of timeless, laid back, romance and good old fashioned fun? 

I’d love to know some of your favorite picnic ideas and locations- around here, where you are now, or around the world. 

My own naivete continues to amaze me.  I could be talking about any number of weird little things that come up during the course of a day- but, in this instance, I’m talking about a little conversation my brother and I had, sitting in this very cramped, little office, about a year ago.  It went something like this, “Cath, this construction project is really a lot of work”.  “True, Joe, but once the building’s up and we have all of the interior work done, then we can really relax for a while.”  “Yeah, wow, what are we going to do with all of our time??”  “Well, Joe, I hadn’t thought about that.  Probably take some vacations?  And I’ll have time to blog all the time!”…

Needless to say, once we finished building the building and expanding the property, we had to learn how to run the thing.  And, while it’s been challenging in a number of ways, to go from a tidy little ten room country inn to what really amounts to a small hotel, in a recession to boot,  I don’t think we’d change a thing. 

So, this is a long way of saying that I really thought I’d have more time to write blog entries.  But, I spend all of my time working on sales, marketing and public relations programs, plus all of the wonderful fun day-to-day stuff that still goes on everyday.  Joe and I have brought on some amazing, incredibly talented consultants to help us brand and position Farmhouse, and now we have a lot of meetings.  But, boy, have we learned a lot.  And it has actually been so much fun!

But, here it is, a super-rainy day.  Joe’s gone on an actual vacation (Nevada to take the kids to see the in-laws, but I’m calling it a vacation…)  My meetings are done for the day.  The river is rising, and I’m drinking a fabulous cup of cocoa and thinking about how lucky I am. 

Here’s the recipe for the cocoa and marshmallows- in case you’re in the mood for something cozy.  (This is a great rainy day project with kids, too).

Cocoa Mix

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (we use Valhrona)
2 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste
Homemade marshmallows
Hot water or millk
Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot water or milk. Stir to combine. Add marshmallows to taste. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry.

Vanilla or Peppermint Marshmallows       
 
3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin ·        
1/2 cup cold water ·        
2 cups granulated sugar ·        
2/3 cups corn syrup ·        
1/4 cup water ·        
1/4 teaspoon salt ·        
1 Tablespoon pure vanilla or peppermint extract ·        
Confectioners’ sugar for dredging
Preparation:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes.
Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add extract and incorporate into mixture.
 Scrape into a 9 x 9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly.
(Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper).
After pouring marshmallow mixture into the pan, take another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan.
Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners’ sugar and cut into 12 equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef’s knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners’ sugar.

Hope you enjoy it.  I sure am.

Yes, and breakfast and lunch too!  We’re sold, we’re excited, we’re totally turned on.  How did this come about, you might ask.  Well, slowly actually.  We’ve been reading about the health benefits of various seaweeds and sea vegetables- they’re really high in trace minerals and vitamins, and they’re reputed to have wonderful, medicinal qualities.  But, we haven’t been able to commit to integrating it into our daily routines.  Until this past weekend.

In an effort to regroup and come down from a really crazy summer/year, Rod and I rented a little house up at Sea Ranch for a week. 

The view from our house

Sea Ranch is one of our absolute favorite spots in the world.  Just an hour away from Forestville, but a whole world away from our day to day.  Seven days of nothing but rugged coastline and, beautiful beaches, totally isolated, but surrounded by a really exciting, eclectic community.  When things get crazy, we pack and head up the coast.  We eat, we drink and we just hang out together.  And inevitably, we encounter something new and exciting that comes home with us.  No, not the snake. 

Helen and her "beach pet" a small, friendly snake

At the Gualala Farmer’s Market last Saturday, we were pleasantly surprised to find a small but thriving community of

Biodynamic for 32 years.

biodynamic and just plain-old farmers, beekeepers and environmentalists all working together and producing/creating a diverse and beautiful collection of crafts and edibles.  Of course we picked up loads of dry farmed tomatoes, lacey lettuces and absolutely gorgeous coastal berries and some fantastic pickles. 

Wild halibut tacos with local tomato salsa, shell beans and, of couse, kombu!

 But, what really caught our attention, were two different stalls.  One with beautifully crafted containers of salt and what looked like a seasoning mix.  And one with bags and bags of dried seaweed and vegetables piled in big baskets. 

The first turned out to be a new venture, The Mendocino Sea Salt Company,

Bob and Lora La Mar, and their bounty

started by Bob and Lora La Mar when fishery closures forced their commercial fishing business to close its doors.  Rather than dry up and move away, they discovered another sea harvest.  Salt!  Bob takes the boat out into deep areas off the Mendocino and Sonoma Coasts and gathers water.  He brings it ashore and through a painstaking and meticulous process, crystalizes the salt, extracts it and packages it for sale.  Lora, who’s a passionate cook, has created a blend, using locally harvested seaweeds, ground and blended with the salt.  At first taste we were hooked.  We picked up some salt and some of the blend, which they call Seasoning Sand, and we’ve been using it on everything. It’s local, it’s amazing and it’s healthy!  They’re bringing in samples.  I”m hoping to start using it in the restaurant.

The other stall housed Gualala Seaweed Products.  Founded by the self-proclaimed, and I think actually Renaissance woman, Donna Bishop, they sell all kinds of edible seaweed and seaweed products.  Donna does all of the harvesting, drying and processing herself.  We picked up some of her Kombu- which is particularly great added to beans, while they’re cooking, stews and soups. 

If you haven’t tuned into seaweed yet, look into it.  It doesn’t just taste good, it’s easy to use, really versatile, and a super-powerhouse.  Best of all, for me anyway, now we can get it locally!

Helen and Rocco having a tong battle. Things get interesting when we're just hanging out...

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.

Really.  Out on the ranch we can sense the change of season coming by the changes in the wildlife around us.  In the evenings, we love to sit on the porch and just watch and listen to our little valley.  As day fades into evening and evening into night, some of our friends go off to bed as others arrive.  Our son needs to ”say good night” to the Great Horned Owls- they start to hoot and he hoots back and then off to bed he’ll go.

Spring arrives with the Swainsons thrushes .  Their haunting flute-like calls serenade us in those cool evenings.  Spring means counting and identifying our new fawns, scores of mama quails followed by their scurrying chicks, baby rabbits everywhere and incredibly darling raccoon cubs (it’s so hard not to adore them, even knowing how truly awful they’re going to be in  a month or so).

Look at that little monster. He doesn't even care that I'm two feet away...

Last night, while we were sitting out on the porch, enjoying a glass of Scherrer rose, an all-time, summer-time  favorite- Late Summer arrived.  With a vengeance.  As the sun set, and the nest of Great Horned owls, up in the old pine above the vineyard, woke up, and the warmth of the day shifted abruptly to the cool of the evening, the summer chorus of cicadas and tree frogs started.  Just like that.  I know it doesn’t sound that exciting- but you really had to be there.    Out of nowhere, this cacophony of sound erupted from the creek and voila!  Summer’s here.

You know what makes it so exciting, right?  Blackberries.  Tomatoes.  Gravenstein apples.  Melons.  Corn.  Shell beans…. On and on.  When the cicadas and tree frogs come, so does our summer bounty.  The first berries are ripening as we speak.  The vines are heavy with our summer harvest and  we are ready!

Here they come...

Ok, all of the Cs in the title is pretty cute.  But titles are tough…

What a weekend!  It’s Wednesday and I’m just finding the time- uhm energy- to write about it.  For me, the 4th of July has a few necessary components and the rest is up for grabs.  Something really good on the grill.. a must.  Good friends and/or family and some sort of water component… gotta have it.   Fireworks… absolutely… but I’m not picky about what or where.  The rest just evolves year-to-year. 

We realized, a few weeks ago, that Joe and his family were going to be away, so no family this year.  When Kathryn Sloan called to tell us that she and her family were wondering what we were up to on the 4th we knew we were in for an adventure…  

A little about the Sloans.  Paul and Kathryn have a world-class farming company called Small Vines Viticulture.  They farm organically and biodynamically and produce some of the most beautiful fruit imaginable.  That’s how we met.  Paul farmed our vineyard for a few years.  We’re a really small vineyard, and Paul’s in really high demand, so once we parted ways on the vineyard, we naturally fell into a really great friendship.  Our kids go to the same school, Summerfield Waldorf, (that’s a whole different post), and Paul and Kathryn also make Small Vines wine.  Their children, Dakota and Savannah are about the same age as Helen and Rocco and they’re all great buddies too.  They’re avid outdoors people- Paul’s an actual Eagle scout- how handy is that?  And they’re always up for a good time. 

Dakota, Helen and Savannah. Where's Rocco?

 After a lot of debating about where to go and what to do, we decided we’d just do a little of everything.  We’d head over to the Sloan’s place on Friday for dinner and the Sebastopol fireworks and then go out to Doran Beach (our absolute favorite local beach) on Saturday.  We’d wrap it all up with dinner at our place Saturday evening- if we all could manage.

We’ve been serving some incredible Copper River Salmon in the restaurant- what better for the grill on the 4th?  A side of a salmon,  Kathryn’s weekly CSA box from Singing Frog Farm  , some Sebastopol Berry Farm blueberry ice cream and wine gathered from a few different sources…  Voila, dinner. 

Salmon and Small Vines Chardonnay

One of my favorites.

and a 2007 Small Vines Chardonnay.  What an amazing comparison.  The ‘97 was fantastic, golden and slightly earthy, but still showing that incredible minerality that made us love it in the first place.  The Small Vines Chardonnays are a perfect expression of Paul’s farming.  They’re bright and fruit driven, but they have wonderful structure and balance. 

'97 on the left, '07 on the right

With dinner we also opened a mystery bottle.  Rod had pulled it from a box of Kermit Lynch- the label was shot, but the color was right…  It was one of the best wines any of us had ever had.  Fortunately, we have several bottles left…

What's in this bottle?

After dinner, we popped popcorn in the chiminea and waited for it to get dark.  One great thing about the fact that we can’t ever eat before 8 is that we don’t have that long to wait for dark…  At about 8:30 Paul started getting antsy-  We’d decided we were going to “sneak” into the neighbor’s orchard for a reallly great view of the fireworks.  Well, with a Ford F250 Super-Diesel (I don’t really know what kind of truck it is but it’d really big and really loud), four small kids, one large dog and four slightly rowdy adults, how sneaky do you think we were?  Oh, and we broght some of our own fire crackers just to make sure we were hard to spot…  Sitting on the cab of a truck, in an old apple orchard, drinking great wine, holding my sleeping son and watching fireworks is a really good time. 

Paul and Rod doing their own little show.

Saturday… On to the beach.   I had to run into Farmhouse first thing.  So Rod packed up the kids and headed to the Santa Rosa Farmers Market for Santi Sausages for dinner, some stuff to take out to the beach and yes, more fireworks.  We all met out at Doran at about noon. 

Savannah, Helen and Rocco.

Dakota, Helen and Savannah in the "supply business".

The kids got on their suits and life vests and spent about four hours throwing sand and “boogie boarding”.  When we were all soaking wet and sure we’d accumulated sand everywhere, dinner and cocktails called.

Our current favorite, one part Square one Vodka, one part Ginger People ginger beer, a squeeze of lime and a dash of Peychod’s bitters, on ice, pepped us up and got us rolling agian.  Back to the grill for Calabrese and Brats, down to the garden for chard, kale and strawberries, and dinner was as good as on the table.  Rod had been tasting with Copain and Arnot-Roberts on Thursday, and still had some bottles open.  (Rod’s a writer and is including them in a piece he’s working on.  I’ll link to it when it publishes next month).  We were four adults with about 9 open bottles on the table.  I sometimes wonder what my kids memories of dinner will be?  “They always had at least four bottles on the table”  is going to make prospective in-laws really excited about our kids…

After dinner, Paul and Rod did a little Fireworks show for us all (minus sleepy head Rocco) and then home to bed so we could be off early to the Sunday Farmer’s Market…