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. 

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

Images of our new spa taken by photographer Edward Duarte

In partnership with Francis and Alexander (of Auberge du Soleil, Calistoga Ranch, Solage, and Mansion on Peachtree fame, just to name a few) Farmhouse, or rather I, get to announce the launch of our fabulous new farm-to-table spa- Spa at Farmhouse, by Francis and Alexander.  Romantic couples treatments, girls getaways or individual therapeutic healing, our new spa embraces and celebrates it all!  Exciting, huh?  Well, it really, really is for us.  Spas are hard.  Really hard.  I should know.  My brother, Joe and I have been at this for nine years.  And we’re just getting it right. 

Peggy Francis and Loma Alexander

 Joe and I bought the then rundown and oh so creepy (but loaded with potential and a great location in the Russian River Valley Wine Country!)  Farmhouse back in 2001 (Valentine’s Day was our first day of ownership), with an incredibly optimistic business plan and about $.50 to update the entire property and realize our “vision”  (oh my!).   

For what seemed like the worst, but turned out to be the better, we didn’t have the upfront money to simply come in and fix everything that was wrong .  We had to do it bit by bit, as we earned the money.  But, in retrospect, we could have spent millions- and we’d have spent it all wrong. Our first “direction” for the property “Wine Country Chic Amid the Vines” (what does that even mean?) involved a lot of shiny fabric that couldn’t be burned with a blow torch or stained with squid ink…  (apparently we didn’t have much faith in our guests-to-be…)  Although we’ve always emphasized local, seasonal and organic- for ages, we just didn’t know how to take that out of the restaurant and into the rest of the business.

We”ll, through endless fits and starts, we’ve finally come to a point where Farmhouse is a truly Farm-to-Table property-wide.  Meaning that the food and products from the farm, ours and our neighbors,  make their way into every corner of the business.  From breakfast to spa to dinner to the product you use in your after dinner bath, the farm is present.

Early winter honey from the bees on our ranch

Last year we added the Barn, redecorated and re-renovated the Cottages and restaurant- and last but far from least, we’re finally launching the spa we’ve been dreaming of.

The spa has been, by far, the toughest thing to get our arms around.  When we purchased Farmhouse, our then marketing consultant convinced us that we needed a “spa”.  Guests of a “Wine Country Chic” Inn wanted massage!  Well, that sounded good to us.  So we hired a local massage therapist to head it up, got some phone numbers from some local therapists and voila!  Most of our rooms were too small to fit a massage table, so our “spa” moved all over the property, each location weirder, colder and more remote than the last. 

Finally, about 5 years ago, Joe and I decided to give our little spa a home at last.  Still, with no budget, we committed our vast and completely under utilized “event center” (that’s a whole other story) to the spa.  We built some walls, painted them sky blue and yellow (I know, what was I thinking), brought in a wonderful local woman to “manage” it, and called it a day.  With grand dreams of farm-to-table treatments, utilizing our own cream, eggs and honey, Joe and I waited.  And waited.  And, what we ultimately found out was that spa is easy to talk about and as hard to make happen as a Michelin Starred restaurant.  See, we’re learning as we go!

Outdoor massage, fireside on a Barn deck

This time, I think we’ve done it right.  We turned to Myra Hoefer again for the interior design.  Weathered wood floors, creamy wainscotted walls and fresh, farmy accents have evolved our two spa rooms into cozy, warm and simply lovely spaces.  Our great room has been transformed into a haven for relaxation.  Comfy chairs, ottomans and sofas invite guests to choose one of our many lovely spa, art or design books off our huge farm table (or bring a book of their own) and stay a while. 

One of our lovely new spa rooms, designed by Myra Hoefer

Well, I’m so pleased and proud of the partnership that we’ve created and that’s resulted in our incredible new spa!  Please, take a look at our new spa menu, an actual masterpiece by Francis and Alexander.  We think it’s simply delightful- and hope you’ll join us soon and take advantage of one of our new treatments.  They’re all so exciting and will make you feel divine.   ”Catherine’s Favorite” really is my favorite.  Every time I have it my five year old daughter makes me bring her a towel with the delicious scented oil for her to sleep with (cute, huh?).  But the Carrot, Carrot, Carrot is wonderful too.  Loma actually has added a fresh carrot eye treatment and has been finishing it up with a carrot muffin.  So Carrot times 5?  Maybe too much.  Then again, maybe not.

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...