When you look Farmhouse up on  Trip Advisor, or visit us on Facebook, you’ll find a common thread among many of the posts.  Why are guests loving Farmhouse?  Our location in the heart of Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley?  Sure.  Great Michelin starred food and comfy rooms?  Definitely.  But, the thing that keeps guests raving about their stay (check, they really are…) is the incredible level of service that our team provides.  Through every department, we absolutely love to exceed expectation.  From the delightful young men who will escort you to your room and provide a little property information on the way, to our amazing team of concierges (six of them, on staff to arrange anything your heart desires) to our restaurant team and its devotion to creating not just meals, but incredible experiences, to our spa, filled with passionate therapists and all the season’s bounty, Farmhouse strives to evolve and improve constantly.

I love that about this place!  Almost ten years into Farmhouse and the guest experience gets better every single day.  Our newest, and perhaps most exciting, program has just launched.  So far, the feedback is incredible. You know how we’re always talking about a Farmhouse stay being “experiental”?  Well this new program really speaks to that goal.

We call it our “Winery Friends” program.  Clever, huh?  We’ll, if you have a better name, send it our way…  But, here’s how it works.  We’ve collected information, over the last year or so, on the Russian River Valley wineries that our guests just rave about.  Then, we polled Geoff, our MS, and Megan, our sommelier, on their favorite local wines.  Then Joe and I sat down and thought about the actual people that we like the best at the tons of wineries around us.  Where all of those criteria converged- great experience, great wine, great people- we circled the winery.  Then, we made a bunch of calls. 

Basically, the premise was simple.  When Joe and I and our staff show up in your tasting room, you roll out the red carpet.  We want you to do the same for our guests.  That reserve wine you open for us, open for them.  That impromptu tour, or grape tasting, or sample from the barrel, offer it to them.  And, just about everyone we approached was incredibly enthusiastic.  So, you might be asking, “What do the wineries get in return?”.   Ha! Another win, win.  They get to come over a couple of times a year and have their wines featured during a private tasting for our guests.  Plus, we promote their events and promotions to our guests.  So, we send them our fabulous guests to taste and maybe buy their wine, and then they get to come over to Farmhouse to meet them again. 

These wineries are all open to the public.  No appointments required (that was another critical point in being chosen to participate)  They’re all nearby.  And they’re all treating Farmhouse guests like old friends.  Just like we think it oughta’ be. 

Here’s the list of wineries.  You night like to peruse them before you visit.  Some are little,  some are bigger, some are in their second or third generation, some are quite new, but they’re all really  special. 

Arista… C. Donatiello…Copain… Hartford Winery…Iron Horse… J Vineyards… Lynmar…Porter Creek… Russian Hill Estate…Thomas George… Woodenhead

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…

Farmhouse was ,once again, honored to be invited to be among Northern California’s most elite restaurants and wineries in supporting the 22nd Annual Star Chefs and Vintners Gala benefitting Meals on Wheels, San Francisco.  Our executive chef, Steve Litke, represented Farmhouse.  This was his second (and last, he says) time representing Farmhouse without Joe or me, or actually anyone from Farmhouse, there to help.   (Last year Ken and his crew from our favorite sushi house, Sushi Hana helped him out).  Sad huh?  We are a little reclusive – but have promised that we’ll be there, with bells on, next year.

So I decided to sort of wade into the event by attending the “thank you” party being held by Nancy Oakes (the extraordinary owner of Boulevard Restaurant and the event’s chair person) and her husband Bruce Aidells (of chicken-apple sausage fame) at their newly-built home in the Dry Creek Valley.  They’ve been great friends and supporters of Farmhouse and our restaurant.  I’d read an article in the SF Chronicle, all about the house and the building process, a year or so ago, and was fascinated.

The house is a craftsman-style home. Truly a work of art, and I’d been dying to see it.  Especially his sausage kitchen.  So, when we got the invitation from Nancy, I thought, “what the heck- I’ll get the thanks first and do the work later”.  And anyway, I’m sure Steve worked extra hard at the event, since he was alone…

So Rod and I got a babysitter and headed out to Sweetwater Springs Road.  It was one of those super-hot, sticky days, that don’t come around very often.  And, Dry Creek is even hotter than Russian River Valley.  So, we briefly considered bailing.  But fortunately, we bucked up and stuck with the plan.  The location of their house is actually, basically, perfect.  They’re up on a knoll, overlooking the valley, with views from every direction.  They can see Mt. St. Helena to the east.  And best part, they catch the wonderful ocean breezes from the west, so it was lovely and cool.

We were greeted with a drink I’ve never had before- they took Go Vino glasses (do you have those yet?  They’re great, plastic, stemless and recyclable/reusable.  We use them like crazy here) and dipped the rim in ground sea salt and locally grown chili powder, then poured a fresh salsa in the bottom and filled the glass with half Mexican beer and half Clamato.  Slightly spicy, really refreshing and great for an afternoon party.  We’re committed to making them for our harvest party this year (I’ll let you know how that goes). 

As you can imagine, the food was, well, great.  They have a huge outdoor kitchen and they had women making fresh corn tortillas on an outdoor griddle- with roast pork, and steak to stuff into them, Hog Island  Oysters  (one of our absolute favorites), was on hand shucking oysters, the tamales (made by those same tortilla women) were the best I’ve ever had, and it was all served in the gardens, overlooking the sweetest little swimming pool, with views of everything. 

It was really so much fun.  We forget how much we love to re-connect with friends we don’t see very often (translate: people without young kids).  We ran into some of Rod’s old chef-acquaintances from SF:  Hubert Keller from Fleur de Lys and Roland Passot from Fleur de Lys, among others. 

On the way out, as we walked by the lush garden boxes filled with tomato and pepper plants, we noticed a small table loaded with beautiful little jars of pickled vegetables.  They turned out to be loaded with habanero chilis, cauliflower, carrots and onions bathed in olive oil.  Incredible- crunchy and very spicy.  I’ve asked Steve to come up with a recipe for me.  I’ll share it if and when he gets it to me…

Having Geoff on the team these past four or so years has been a great experience.  When Joe and I bought Farmhouse, there was literally no wine program.   Steve, our chef, would actually tell anyone who asked to bring their own wines- there was nothing on the list that went with his food.  The food was amazing, the rest of the restaurant was a train wreck.  The previous owner just didn’t care about the wine program, and didn’t have the finances or staff to allow anything to change.

So, Joe and I had nowhere to go but up.  In the beginning, I did the list.   But, tasting, ordering, updating the menu, training the staff on the wines, is really time consuming.  And plus, I wasn’t that good at it.  So I passed it off to our Maitre d’, who got things rolling along a little more swiftly, but still, it was miles from what it should have been to complement the quality of Steve’s food. 

Finally, after a few more stabs at sort of pasting a wine program onto the restaurant, the person who was running it, while maintaining a full server position, decided to move on.  It was time to give wine at Farmhouse some serious thought.  We were still really small, and money was still really tight, and the thought of hiring someone just to manage wine seemed impossible- we weren’t selling a whole lot of wine, and profits weren’t very good.

But, timing and luck have seemed to be in our favor over the last eight years (I probably just jinxed that one), and as luck would have it the person we were seeking was also seeking us.  Joe placed an ad in Craig’s List of all places, for someone to come in and I’m not sure what- basically take over the program, cost us little and make us tons. 

Within a day or so, Joe got a call from this “great sounding guy in New York”.  Geoff was working as Sommelier for Balthazarin the city, and helping to manage the programs for their other restaurants as well.  His girlfriend had been offered an opportunity to come out and work harvest at Williams Selyem, and so he was looking for something fun in Sonoma County, while he prepared to take the Master Sommelier exam.  We got together, struck a bargain and it’s been great for both of us.  Geoff passed the Master’s almost two years ago- and now finds himself on a short list of top young American wine professionals.  Which is, of course, great for us!

So, things like the StarChef award, while not uncommon for our Farmhouse Crew, provide great opportunities for us to get out, attend the events planned around the awards and see what’s really going on out here.  As we already knew, Wine Country is amazing.  Joe and I attended the “Gala Awards Party,” at Charles Krug Winery in Napa, last night. 

Charles Krug Winery at Sunset

What an incredible collection of talented people.  Visit the StarChef link above- it takes you to the list of winners, with their bios and the “Dish That Cinched It” for each of them.  Each chef prepared that dish last night, and Geoff paired all of the wines to go with each dish.  So, the Barrel Room at Charles Krug was transformed into a series of stations, where they were preparing and serving these incredible little morsels paired with wines or beers from around the world.  Two of the dishes that really stood out were Restaurant Eloise’s Egg Yolk Ravioli with Sweet Peas, Local Butter and Black Truffles and Bouchon’sTrumpet Mushroom and Sunchoke Salad.  John and Duskie, from our favorite neighbor,  Zazu, did housemade salumi and antipasti that were some of the best I’ve ever had.   I have all of the recipes- actually all of the recipes listed on the StarChef site- let me know if you’d like any of them.  And, Scott Beattie’s Bella Ruffinas and Bellinis

Scott's Bellini

were incredible.  He has a beautiful book out with all of the seasonal and ground breaking cocktails that he invented/created while he was at Cyrus.  A few of the wines that, had I not been driving, I’d have gone back for more of were the 2007 Pinot Gris, RRV, from Wind Gap (a new producer, right here in Forestville-we can make you an appointment to visit when you come to Farmhouse) and the Sheldon Wines 2005 “Vinolocity”, cooincidently the owner/winemaker, Dylan Sheldon, is part of our Farmhouse Team in his “spare” time. 

So, all in all, a wonderful evening under a spectacular Napa summer sky, celebrating tributes to well deserving industry professionals.  So, it’s not all hard work for me and Joe…

For the last several years, Joe and I have been invited to attend the Wine Spectator Bring Your Own Magnum Party in Healdsburg.  Actually, Joe gets the invitation- but I’ve assumed that he’d take me as his guest if I wanted to go.  Which, for some reason, I haven’t.  He hasn’t either, so we’ve passed the invite on  to Geoff or Steve, or whomever.  Well, this year, the invite came and was “non-transferrable, ID required at the door”.  Our attention was caught.  This sounded serious.  So we decided to spiff up a little and make the trip up to Healdsburg. 

Now, all we needed was a magnum- one suitable to the event.  We checked our cellar.  Nothing under 10 years old and $275 on our list.  We needed to make some calls.  And quick, the party was starting in a couple of hours, and our neighboorhood wineries were closing for the day.  We called Alex over at Porter Creek.  Success.  One of our favorite Pinots, the 2005 Fiona Vineyard Pinot, in a magnum. 

So, the party started at 6:30 and we needed to pick the wine up by 5:30.  Time to kill in Healdsburg.  What to do?  We headed down to our favorite bar for a pre-party pick us up.  Cyrus, our friendly, neighborhood Michelin two-starred restaurant, is a fantastic place to spend an entire evening- start with the champagne and caviar cart and indulge all the way through to the rolling cart loaded with housemade candy and petit fours.  But, it’s also perfect for a quiet seasonal cocktail before heading somewhere a little less uhm, celebratory.  Cyrus opened their bar with Scott Beattie- mixologist extraordinarie, at the helm.  We’ve seen foams and froths and muddles like you wouldn’t believe!  They were offering two brand new drinks for spring- we couldn’t resist the Plum Dandy and the Spring Grove here’s the descriptions: http://cyrusrestaurant.com/pdf/cocktails.pdf.  Sure enough, refreshing and uplifting just like we’d hoped. 

So, we headed down to the party, magnum in hand and a with nice little glow.  We found the entrance, showed our IDs and were admitted.  As we walked away from the table, the very perky check-in girl asked us,  “Aren’t you just soooo excited about the party?”  Well… maybe.

The party was taking up the entire lower floor of the Hotel Healdsburg and its restaurant, the Dry Creek Kitchen- The place was absolutely packed with food and people, and they had a live band doing obscure 70’s covers.  Chef, Charlie Palmer and his two young sons were manning the grill and a big carving station, and wine was being poured, from magnums, in every direction.  The only thing missing, conspicuously missing, in my opinion, was white wine.  Everything was red, big and actually pretty alcoholic.  But, I guess, all big scorers Wine Spectator-wise.

Parties like these always make me realize just how very small our corner of the world actually is.    The upshot of the entire party- all of which was spent nibbling, sipping (I found a guy with some bottles of 2008 Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc, which I love) and catching up with myriad old friends, is that John and Duskie- that incredible chef pair from Zazu- agreed to make us the chorizo that we need for the Huevos Rancheros we’re bringing onto our Sunday breakfast program.  All in all a very fun and successful evening!