Over the course of our weekend in Sonoma, I went on three morning runs.
They were chilly, but beautiful.
I mean, running in Central Park has its charms, but even the views downtown from the north side of the reservoir have some stiff competition when it comes to these.
Healdsburg is one of my very favorite places in all of Napa and Sonoma. It's small and charming, but chock full of excellent shopping, food and coffee. And they decorate the pine trees in the park in the center of town, too. So freaking adorable!
On this trip, we made a stop at Flying Goat Coffee before making a circuit of the town. I haven't made an exhaustive survey or anything, but I feel comfortable saying it's unlikely you'll find a better cup in the area. I had a bittersweet mocha, and it was delightful. Rich and interesting, and not at all too sweet. My friend Jeff had the Mexican version, with a whole host of ingredients that sounded overcomplicated, but actually turned out to join together and sign in perfect, delicate harmony.
And such pretty machines, too.
A couple of weeks ago, I ventured out to the Sonoma Valley for a friend's 30th birthday extravaganza. Many a good time was had (with many a detail to come), but one of the highlights was revisiting the amazing taco truck I discovered back in 2009, when I visited Sonoma for my 30th.
While the truck is no longer named Angelina's, the food is just as spectacular - and, trust me, we ordered enough of it to be sure of its consistency. Something like 12 tacos and two burritos - not to mention the tlayuda the staff insisted on making us. It's a sort of giant tostada, and it's a popular food in Oaxaca, where the staff come from. It was pretty freaking good, guys, and I wouldn't recommend leaving the truck without ordering one. Carnitas, tomatoes, avocado and cheese adorned a huge, fried tortilla. Between the six of us, it went so fast that I couldn't even get a shot of the thing.
The tacos were stupendous as well, with the chorizo coming out ahead as a favorite. I ate everyone's radishes, since they didn't see fit to do so themselves.
And, finally, the burritos. You have to go supreme, because you need that crema, trust. And make sure to get the lengua. It's rich, flavorful and just a touch on the chewy side of tender, which is exactly what I like in a piece of meat. (I always go sirloin over tenderloin.) While the carne asada burrito was tasty, the lengua burrito brought us to our knees, to the point where we just repeated the word "lengua" at random throughout the weekend.
One of the reasons I rented a house in Sonoma (as opposed to booking a block of rooms at a hotel or bed and breakfast) is that I wanted us to be able to cook. We had a lot of talented cooks on the trip, and I thought it would be fun to work together in a big kitchen, looking out at the sun setting over the courtyard, and relaxing with cocktails while we chopped, peeled, sautéed and roasted.
As it turned out, that's what we did four nights out of seven - not a bad track record, if you ask me. We had a big bowl of spaghetti with raw tomato, basil and garlic sauce on our first night, Julia Child's boeuf bourgignon on our second, and my favorite grilled lamb on Wednesday. On Friday, my Aunt Cathi made a delicious chicken dish with bacon, figs, plums and garlic that matched the sunset pretty darn admirably.
After our lunch at Healdsburg Bar & Grill, Miriam, Nick, Louisa and I headed down Healdsburg Avenue to Costeaux, a bakery we'd read about in my guide book. I was expecting a tiny little hole-in-the-wall, but Costeaux turned out to be a big, airy, loft-like space with concrete walls, unfinished beams with a long glass display case running along one side.
Our goal had been to collect breakfast pastries for the next morning, but the croissants and brioches had sold out long before we arrived. We were disappointed, but realized this meant we had to take one for the team and sample some desserts to make sure a morning-time return trip wasn't a waste.
The cream puff and eclair were both made with the same pâte à choux (a dough that can also be used for savory purposes, such as gougères), but had very different fillings. The cream puff was filled with a combination of pastry cream and whipped cream, heavy on the whipped cream - meaning the filling was very, very light and fluffy.
The éclair, on the other hand, was filled with boozy pastry cream and topped with an obscene schmear of dark chocolate ganache. Big enough to take up most of a dessert-sized plate, the eclair won the day in terms of pure decadence.
Louisa's tart was delicious, too. The crust was flaky and buttery, and the filling was nutty (courtesy of the browned butter) but also fruity and light - almost like a fruit-filled nougat. Really, really good, and pretty to boot.
On our Wednesday in Sonoma, Jeremy had arranged for a tour and tasting at C. Donatiello Winery in Healdsburg. Five of us bundled into one of the rental sedans haunting the driveway and drove north to Westside Road, a gorgeous, slightly winding street that follows a ridge perched alongside the Russian River.
Our tour included a look into the entire process, including the harvest, de-stemming, pressing and fermentation - but the highlight, for me, was a visit to the garden planted down the hill from the winery's tasting room. Designed to echo the flavors and aromas found in Donatiello's wines, the garden is planted with fruits, herbs and aromatics representative of Pinot and Chardonnay. Even the steps are planted - each tread is lined with mint, rosemary, and the like, so that their scents follow you as you scuff your shoes against them.
After poking our noses in all around the estate, we headed into the tasting room for a different sort of tour: an extensive tasting of Donatiello's Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. Most of the wines we tasted were single vineyard wines (meaning the grapes in that wine all came from the same vineyard), and there were a few that really grabbed me.
The Branley Chardonnay was slightly spicy and citrusy, with hints of apple. It's one of the few oak-aged Chardonnays I tasted and liked on our Sonoma trip. My favorite, though, was the Hervey Pinot Noir. It was full of different fruit and berries, but still smooth and round in the mouth - sometimes I find Pinot to be a bit too dry, but this one was creamy and soft.
After our visit to DeLoach, Miriam, Nick, Louisa and I took a drive up the road to the ridiculously adorable town of Healdsburg. Nestled in between Dry Creek and the Russian River, Healdsburg is a great jumping off point for exploring the eastern side of Sonoma. It's full of delicious restaurants, and we've already decided we want to give the Hotel Healdsburg a try.
But we hadn't come to Healdsburg looking for a place to sleep - we were hungry, and in search of good food. We poked around my guide book a bit, but it was a Tuesday afternoon and lots of places listed were closed. We decided to just park the car downtown and wander a bit. A block or two into our walk, we stumbled onto the Healdsburg Bar & Grill (listed in the book, but noted for its child-friendliness, something we'd specifically avoided) and decided its outdoor seating and salad- and sandwich-heavy menu was just the thing.
Like pretty much everywhere else I ate in California (save the taqueria truck), Healdsburg Bar & Grill is obsessed with the origin of its food; almost every item on the menu listed the provenance of the primary ingredients. While this convention can get a bit trying, it did telegraph a level of care and attention for the food that boded well for the meal.
Next up, our mains. Louisa loved her sandwich - so much so that I couldn't get a picture of it before she got started on it. Ditto on Nick's portobello burger. Miriam, though, is family, so I had no qualms ordering her to hold off for a photo of her beautiful salad. Figs, tomatoes and creamy (not crumbly) feta made for a delicious combination, rich and sweet and salty all at once.
My macaroni and cheese was good, but not great. More of a creamy pasta with a sprinkling of panko on top, it was dotted with bacon and rich with stinky cheeses, as opposed to mild, kid-friendly cheddar. That said, it could have used a bit more tang, and the bites I enjoyed most were those I supplemented with teeny dots of mustard.
On our first real day in Sonoma (we spent Monday getting massages and consuming too much Mexican food), Jeremy & Mom went off to play golf in Bodega Bay, and Nick, Louisa, Miriam and I headed off to DeLoach Vineyards, just a mile or so down the road in Santa Rosa.
Lisa took us on a tour of the winery, starting with the vineyards. The vineyards are all organic and biodynamic, meaning that they are farmed not only without pesticides, but also treats the farm as a living, breathing organism, capable of sustaining itself (but not capable of being pushed beyond its limits through chemical or artificial processes). This means that in addition tot he vineyards themselves, DeLoach also boasts an on-site organic garden, chickens, bees and sheep!
The garden and animals are reached by a path that winds past the winery's gorgeous guesthouse, which is reserved strictly for trade use. The wine industry is, by and large, about hospitality, and the guesthouses (most wineries have them) are where the winemakers entertain their clients.
The garden itself is rambling and windblown; the gardeners let things run their course here, so we saw not only perfectly ripe Sungolds (Lisa invited us to sample as many tomatoes as we liked; we were happy to oblige), but also late-season, flowering artichokes. It's pretty cool to see fruits and vegetables actually live out their life cycles; you don't get that opportunity too often here in Manhattan.
After a peek into the winery itself, where grapes were being moved out of the barrels after the first pressing, we moved on to the (epic) tasting. Lisa poured a dizying series of De Loach wines (Exhibit A: Miriam double-fisting below.), including a Sauvignon Blanc, a rosé, and some Pinot Noirs, Zinfandels and Chardonnays. Our favorites were the rosé (gorgeously dry but with a hint of fruit) and the OFS Chardonnay, a big, creamy wine completely devoid of the notorious California oakiness.
At the end, Lisa brought out a special treat: tawny port. She guessed right; she was working with a group of dessert wine fanatics, and we couldn't get enough. Rich and smooth but with a kick at the end, DeLoach port is fantastic. Three bottles made it into the case we took home, along with six bottles of rose and three of the chardonnay.
Have you ever stumbled on something so delicious, so fantastic, and so wonderful that you can't quite believe your luck? That's pretty much how our whole houseful of people felt about Angelina's Taqueria in Santa Rosa. Jeremy, Miriam and I passed the truck on our grocery expedition the day we arrived, so when we needed a quick, delicious lunch the next day, we were prepared.
Mom, Louisa and I drove five minutes towards Healdsburg and pulled into the small parking lot. The taqueria itself (and Angelina along with it) were housed in an old Airstream trailer. Angelina spoke only Spanish - Mom and I speak French (totally useless), but, luckily, Louisa was a Romance Languages major at Bryn Mawr and speaks Spanish.
We ordered an obscene amount of food (Si, seis tacos de chorizo.) and waited patiently while Angelina cooked up a storm. Every few minutes the sizzling sounds would cease and she'd appear at the window, holding out another box of piping hot tacos. These stacked up rather quickly.
After paying inside, we made our way back to the house with our treasure: tacos de pollo (chicken), al pastor (pork with a rich, garlicky sauce) and de chorizo (self-explanatory); burritos (supreme - meaning with queso and crema) with carne asada (grilled beef), and some tiny containers of salsa verde. It may not sound like a lot of food; trust me, it was.
We ate blissfully, enjoying the food in a way that only Easterners deprived of decent Mexican for months on end can. The burrito was well-balanced and full of flavors: rice, beans, sinfully creamy crema, all of which cried out for a touch of salsa verde to cut the richness. The tacos were double-tortilla, topped with salsa and chopped cilantro, and full of flavor. The burrito carne asada and the chorizo tacos proved to be early favorites - but don't worry, we couldn't in all good conscience leave it there.
Over the next week, we visited Angelina's not one but two more times; we tried the tostadas, the quesadillas, every kind of taco - I even had a real Coke with my second burrito (pollo this time). Yes, Angelina's was the site of much debauchery and merriment. I can't wait to go back.
Upon landing in California, it is simply imperative that you head to the nearest In-N-Out Burger for a fix. This is particularly true if you've been up since 1 AM California time and haven't eaten in thirteen hours.
My burger was, of course, delicious. "Animal style" (one of In-N-Out's many secret menu options) means that your patties have been fried in mustard and onions, and that extra sauce has been added to your sandwich. (You can also order fries this way, in which case they come topped with special sauce and mustardy onions.) The shake was thick and creamy and delightfully pink (a good thing, as it was strawberry), and the fries were, as usual, ok - but not great.
As a creature of habit and routine (generously peppered with adventure, of course), I'm not altogether sad to be headed back across the country today, toward my bed, my closet and my kitchen. That said, I wouldn't mind a few more days at Rancho Wikiup, the house we rented in Sonoma last week.
We did all of that in a truly unique spot. Rancho Wikiup is a converted stable in Santa Rosa, nestled up against the ridge that divides Napa from Sonoma. Built by John Rosseter in 1915, the stables were converted into living quarters about thirty years ago. The house is quirky; after our first tour, I still didn't know where the fifth bedroom was, or where the fourth bathroom might be hiding. It rambles and wanders; luckily, though, it's built around a central courtyard, so you can always stand there and yell for help.
Yes, I'm happy to be headed back to my home, my heart: New York. But I wouldn't say no to a few more days at Rancho Wikiup, particularly if they included a few more dips in the hot tub and an afternoon or two of courtyard relaxation.
Hello, my lovelies! If I've timed things right, you'll be reading this post just as I land in sunny California. I'm headed to the Sonoma Valley to celebrate my 30th birthday with a group of family and friends. We've rented a house in Santa Rosa, and will be scampering all over the valley, with a few detours to Napa.
Keep the city safe while I'm gone!
