The National Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa

I still remember the first time I saw a Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalog. My aunt had given it to me along with a gift certificate for a birthday gift when I was in my mid-20s. After all these years, Baker Creek is still my favorite seed company. Every winter I  love to curl up with their colorful catalog and dream of my spring garden.

Last year, I desperately wanted to attend the National Heirloom Expo that Baker Creek sponsors every year in Santa Rosa (about 2 hours from my home), but with a colicky 3-month-old baby, it just wasn't feasible.

This year, we finally made it to the Expo, and it was so much more than I expected. Imagine the State Fair meets Farmer's Market with a dash of Woodstock, plus a series of speakers on various food and gardening issues. It was Kid's Day when we went yesterday, so we got in free for bringing our daughter with us- hooray!

Let's begin at the entrance of the expo. There was a large presence of those supporting food industry transparency and promoting the labeling of GMOs...

Amongst other political ideas (obligatory "legalize pot" dude not pictured)...  I thought this game was pretty funny.

 

Petaluma Pete tinkled the ivory near the entrance, and...

 ... this guy was carving a massive pumpkin right next to him. I'm not sure what that sign means, but whatever!

  It took us forever to choose what to eat for lunch because there were so many excellent local  food vendors present selling their wares. (We did NOT end up splurging on the $14 burger below. It just felt wrong, especially with no side dishes.)

  My daughter loved looking at the long-haired sheep and goats on display-

  - while I was fascinated by this woman using traditional methods to make yarn from the wool.

  There were so many amazing vendors featuring fun gardening themed products! Just a few samples:

 

  

 Have you ever been given free Strauss Family Creamery vanilla bean ice cream? After this, I can say that I have! Best free ice cream I have ever eaten!

  I mentioned there was a dash of Woodstock at the Expo, meaning there were hippies and live music. Instead of rock bands, the stage was dominated by bluegrass bands, and some pretty good ones at that. I love me some bluegrass, and my daughter loved playing with the display squashes and dancing to the music.

  There was one area devoted to a display of biodynamic gardening, including composting, rain barrels, and compost tea-making. I especially appreciated the sheet mulching demo, as we are preparing to convert our ugly half-dead lawn to something more drought-tolerant and (hopefully) attractive:

Finally, the main exhibit area boasted the tallest mountain of squash I have ever seen...

 Watermelon carving and an heirloom watermelon taste testing:

Prize-winning pumpkins weighing over a thousand pounds!

 

 And just hundreds of varieties of heirloom melons, squashes, tomatoes, and more. There were also rare fruits, school garden and composting displays, and more. I found a lot of information that I hope will be useful as I participate in starting our local school garden in the coming year- even better!

 

My only regret was not getting to attend more of the gardening lectures. I would love to have heard more, but my one-year-old can only be patient for so long.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was how many freebies I walked away with when we left the Expo. Besides many samples of free food (all good EXCEPT the beet kvass- not my thing!), I also got a dial seed scatterer, a bottled supplement called Strange Brew, a bag of free compost, a free herbal tea mix, and a bag full of free seeds for kids. The vendors were interesting and unique- selling everything from butterfly water dishes to pickling devices to locally harvested seaweed and locally made tempeh.

I would love to go to the National Heirloom Expo yearly. It was a gardener's dream come true.

Point Reyes Anniversary Trip

Despite being sick last week, we did not cancel our anniversary trip, but felt gratitude for having chosen a destination so close to home so that we could still enjoy it to some degree.

A little cottage in Point Reyes Station was our home for the weekend. A lovely welcome basket included local cheese and chickens from the hens on site, and organic McIntosh apples grown in the orchard our window looked out upon. We found a new favorite restaurant, Stellina, where we enjoyed a stellar lunch, followed by this amazing Raspberry-Pistachio Crisp with honey ice cream (using wonderful local ingredients).

Next up, we wanted to visit Bolinas, the hidden town famous for residents who took down the exit sign so often that there isn't one anymore. What impressed me about this small town was how giving, passionate, and trusting it could be, with a strong sense of community.

Observe: a room full of stuff free to anybody:

A beautiful art mural depicting the history of the town:

This is a farm stand on the edge of town full of beautiful produce. No one stands guard here - you can leave cash or mail a check. Now THAT is trusting!

And we couldn't resist a quick trip to San Francisco. Coming from this direction, I actually went over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time. (Usually coming from my neck of the woods, we cross over the Bay Bridge).

We stuffed ourselves silly with Indian food...

And made a trip to the bakery Tartine, which I deem utterly deserving of all the praise and popularity it has garnered, a legitimate foodie destination. Their morning buns, tarts and bread pudding were all divine. (Morning bun below, about to be devoured.) We shall return!

Not pictured: Two picnics on the beach... Lovely!

Chez Panisse: At Last

This weekend we traveled to the Bay Area in an attempt to enjoy at least one real day of summer. We started our trip at Berkeley Bowl, the most amazing grocery store I have ever seen in my life. By the end of our exploration, we were joking about driving 1.5 hours every week just to do our grocery shopping at this place! I mean, look how many kinds of cucumbers alone the produce section carries:

Need squash or eggplant? Talk about having a variety to choose from:

When it came to yogurt, I haven't seen this kind of a selection since I was in France. I discovered the most amazing small-batch, French-style yogurt called St. Benoit. Produced in Sonoma, it tastes like a cross between yogurt, custard, and manna. I even found out that they carry this product at the Sacramento Natural Food Co-Op, so I can find it locally. Hooray!

For lunch, we fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine by eating at Chez Panisse Cafe. As I walked under the wooden sign into the wonderfully atmostpheric restaurant, I blissfully sighed, "I'm here, Alice!" (Waters, that is.)

The menu changes every day here, according to what is in season and at its best.

Our meal began with a crusty, hearty wedge of artisan bread and yellow, creamy butter.

Here is what my husband ordered Devil's Gulch Fried Rabbit, served over amaranth greens, sweet corn, and green tomatillos. He said that if everyone could make rabbit this delicious, it would be eaten much more commonly in America.

And here was my selection: Romanesco de Peix, a bowl of squid, mussels, clams, and shrimp cooked in a tomato-leek broth. It was simply perfection.

Finally, I couldn't resist dessert, especially since I desperately wanted to compare the apricot galette with the version I make using the Chez Panisse recipe - just to see how close I come in replicating the taste. Result? Because their galette is cooked in a wood-fired oven, the top gets a bit blacker and the bottom a bit browner and crisper, but other than that, it's definitely the same recipe - and a wonderful one.

Finally, we ended our trip with a stop at Stinson Beach. The smell of eucalyptus and fog and sea air always stirs something deep and moving inside of me. When the clouds quickly blew away, the sun was surprisingly hot and we moved on to exploring a little bookshop in town. It was a wonderful memory for this quickly fleeting summer of ours.

February Indulgence

Um... hi?

I've been swimming along in the sea of life and friends and trips and just now pausing to reflect on how wonderful the past few weeks have been. There was Valentine's Day:


For the second year in a row we made the Zuni Cafe Roast Chicken with Bread Salad, and it is hard to foresee us ever departing from this tradition. This is one make-at-home dish that is so sublimely simple and perfectly elegant, that it makes me forget any ideas I ever had of getting dressed up, going out amongst the crowd and spending three times as much on dinner in a restaurant. It's just that good!

For dessert, I made Smitten Kitchen's Pear-Bittersweet Chocolate Cake, a symbolic coming together of my love for fruit and my husband's chocolate preference. This was truly a stellar cake, and it may become a future V-Day tradition as well!

A close friend came to visit next, and there was Muir Woods (below), a coffee house concert, independent bookstore perusal, artsy movies at the local retro movie theater, chocolate pie, Bula Burgers, high tea, and Bollywood. In other words, a perfect three-day weekend.

This past weekend, we joined up with another couple for an evening of soul food in San Francisco...

And live blues music with a band that won 3rd place in the country in a recent competition in Memphis! There's just something about live music...

The next day, we drove to the Legion of Honor, which (intentionally, I think) feels like a miniature Louvre - very French in spirit and style.

The current exhibition focused on the Pre-Raphaelite era and the Cult of Beauty. A whole exhibition dedicated to the worship of beauty? I'm a fan! Here's one of Rossetti's most famous paintings that was on display (and it turns out the model was one several of his mistresses):

Our last stop in the city was at the Bi-Rite Market, which came out with a fantastic cookbook last fall that I own and adore. The author gives more than just recipes for the store's most popular prepared items; he lays out, step by step, how to seek out and "Eat Good Food", as the store's motto goes, from cheese to eggs to meat.

The store itself felt like a specialty food market meets independent bookstore, with hand-written, thoughtful notes on many items explaining the product's origin, flavor, and best use. Who does that? Bi-Rite Market does, and it explains why there was a huge (albeit fast-moving) line in the tiny store.

I headed immediately to the back of the store, where I procured a pint of their Brown Butter Ice Cream, preferring to take it home than stand in line for a scoop at the nearby Creamery. Other ice cream options included honey lavender, salted caramel, and seasonal citrus flavors.

So concluded my series of weekend adventures. Next adventure: Staying at home long enough to plant a spring garden!