Eating with Bob and Suzette

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

May 25, 2022 Lunch - Cobb Salad and Egg and Sausage sandwich Dinner - Chicken Corn and Curry Chowder and Pasta de Suzette

Today was a travel day and food on travel days is usually minimal.

Today was no exception. I ate a bowl of Raisin Bran with blueberry yogurt and milk for breakfast at the hotel and took a sausage and egg sandwich for later.

Then we drove to the Oakland Airport to return our car and board our plane.

The rental car people were nice enough to drive to the door of the terminal when they saw how tortured my walking was, which was a big help.

We arrived at our gate at 11:15, an hour before our flight, so I ate the sausage and egg sandwich at noon.

Suzette bought a Turkey and bacon sandwich and Cobb salad for the flight.

In flight I ate most of the salad and Suzette ate most of the sandwich. The salad and sandwich were $18.00 each and excellent.

The lettuce in the salad was crisp and the blue cheese dressing was thick and filled with bits of cheese. The bacon and turkey were similar on both the salad and sandwich, so you could tell they were made in the same kitchen.

We arrived in Albuquerque at 3:45 and drove home.

We rested until later in the evening when we became hungry again.

I ate a bowl of the PPI curry flavored corn chowder after mincing a shallot.

Suzette sliced mushrooms and a yellow squash and fetched bacon and spinach from the fridge.

She started a pot of water boiling and boiled a handful of shaped macaroni.

She cut several slices of bacon into lardons and fried it and then added diced yellow squash and mushroom slices and finally spinach.

Suzette also diced about 1/4 cup of fresh mozzarella.

When the pasta was cooked Suzette drained the pasta and then combined the pasta and the sautéed vegetables and tossed it with the mozzarella and a little pasta

I shaved slices of Pecorino/Romano cheese that Suzette crumbled on top of the pasta mixture.

We drank the remaining bit of the two red wines we had opened previously and enjoyed a lovely dinner.

We went to bed at 10:00.

Bon Appetitt

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

May 24, 2022 Indian Lunch at Johal’s. Dinner - Stockholm Salad at IKEA

This was a low intensity day. We spent much of it at Johal’s Farm.

I ate a quick breakfast of egg and sausage sandwiches at the hotel and a container of black cherry yogurt. Then we drove to Johal’s and I talked business with him until lunch at 1:00.

Surjit and the lady relatives made a wonderful meal, a curry with vegetable dumplings, riata, a cauliflower and paneer cheese dish, Dahl, rice, and chapatis. Everything was delicious.

At 3:00 we left and drove to IKEA in Berkeley. I pushed the cart around the showrooms until we reached the restaurant, where I selected a Stockholm salad at 5:00. The salad included four slices of Swedish Gravad lax on a pile of gourmet greens accompanied by a large scoop of potato salad made with new potatoes and creme fraiche and a liberal amount of Lax sauce. I also bought a container of apple cider.

The Stockholm Salad

The IKEA restaurant looking West, across the Bay is San Francisco

I was still full of Indian food so could only eat 1/2, but Suzette arrived after she finished shopping and helped finish the salad.

We purchased punch rullor, Diam chocolate covered toffee, a box of ginger and almond cookies, and four chocolate bars to replenish our Swedish sweets.

We drove back to Bernicia at 6:00 in the stop and go rush hour traffic for an hour. I am not used to this type of driving so was really tired when we arrived at the hotel.

Suzette packed the two boxes for checking while I rested. I then fetched tea bags and we made tea and ate some Swedish ginger with almond cookies and went to bed.

Bon Appetit

May 23, 2022 Breakfast - Maple Cafe, Ukiah. Lunch- Pub Republic, Petaluma. Dinner with Johal in Green Valley

I watched the news for a bit and went back to sleep for another 15 minutes. Then I showered and packed and we looked for breakfast. We decided to try a different place and ended up at the Maple Cafe across State street from the park.

I ordered a three egg chorizo omelet and Suzette ordered Corned Beef hash topped with poached eggs. They were served with a pile of Maple’s Home made Fries, which were cottage fries that were not very well fried and rather soggy and lacked crispness. Both of our dishes were just okay, but the restaurant appeared to be the most popular in town if filled seats was an indicator.

After we finished breakfast we drove to Costco to fill the tank with gas and we did a little shopping. We bought Mohan a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label and five pairs of men’s dress shorts for me. So my wardrobe is expanding dramatically.

Suzette then took the wheel and drove us down US 101 and 116 to Petaluma. At 1:00 Suzette wanted to stop to drink a beer because her stomach was still unsettled from the chilis in the wrap she ate at Windbourne Winery yesterday.

We stopped at the next brew pub named Pub Republic. It turned out to have a large patio facing a wildlife zone abutting a creek. This area near the San Francisco Bay has lots of deltas from the creeks and rivers that terminate into the Bay and this was one of them at Petaluma.

Suzette ordered a Pilsner made at Fort Bragg and I ordered a pineapple cider that was the only cider on tap. Both turned out to be quite good.

Then we looked at the menu and I immediately saw that they served a Caesar salad made with the restaurant’s own homemade dressing with which you could order extra anchovies. I was intrigued, so I ordered that. Suzette was not hungry and only wanted to treat her stomach ache with beer, so she sampled a bit of my salad.

It turned out that this was the best Caesar Salad I have ever eaten in a restaurant. It used fresh Romaine hearts chopped, the salad dressing was creamy and lightly applied so as not to drown the lettuce, there was not a speck of black pepper, the anchovies were crisp and salty, and the restaurant used a Parmesan cheese grated into thin stands that lovingly embraced the lettuce rather than distracted from the overall effect.

This Caesar Salad was a revelation of what a Caesar salad can be. It was as if the chef had learned how to make it under the tutelage of Caesar in Tijuana.

We then drove to the hotel in Bernicia, a lovely new Holiday Inn. Thanks to Karim for helping us by reserving the room.

After a short nap and a shower we dressed and drove to Il Fiorello Olive farm in Suisun Valley. We arrived at 4:50 and they had shut the door, but Suzette called and they opened the door. We tasted three olive oils and bought two balsamic vinegars, two bottles of olive oil, three soaps, and a jar of of orange marmalade made from the oranges from the tree in front of the tasting room.

The farm uses the most modern equipment, such as a centrifugal press that strips the olive fruit from the seed by tumbling at high speed rather than a press.

The oil was surprisingly volatile with deep flavors and amazing mouthiness.

It was not like any oil I had tasted before.

We then drove the few miles through Suisun Valley to Rockville Road and over the hill to Green Valley Rd. to The Johal Farm. Mohan greeted us and we went inside to admire all the improvements made to the house. The occasion for our visit was the baby shower for Pavn’s first child. That was celebrated yesterday by over 150 relatives from mainly Vancouver and Toronto. Pavn married a girl from Toronto and many of Mohan’s family still live in the Surrey suburb of Vancouver.

We were served successive offerings of food. Surjit, Mohan’s wife, was cooking with many of the women. For appetizers, we were served sautéed breaded chicken breast with a lovely tamarind, catsup, and chutney salsa, guacamole and chips, mixed nuts, and little crackers.

We then went outside and admired the 8 acres planted in Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and Mohan’s garden and listened to his chickens cackling. We sat at a table on the patio beside the kitchen.

The electricity had gone off and the women were cooking by candle light on the gas burners on the top of the stove, but that did not diminish their effort.

Mohan opened a bottle of his 2019 Cab and it was surprisingly good. It was smooth and had no harsh after taste. He is a lucky man.

He has an interesting contract with a producer that provides full services to land owners with grape vines. The arrangement he has is he split the cost of planting the vineyard on his land. His production partner then took over and provides all the maintenance and picking of the grapes and produces the wine and Mohan pays the partner it’s usual fee of $13.00 per bottle to ferment and bottle the wine. The 2020 crop resulted in Mohan’s share being 840 cases or 10,080 bottles. I don’t know what he is going to do with the wine but he can never drink that much wine.

After a bit Pavn set up the propane grill with the help of some of the younger cousins from Canada and BBQ chicken legs and then boneless thighs were grilled. Then the food was laid out on a table, corn on the cob, a lovely salad and Cole slaw mixture made with fresh lettuce from the garden, amazing potatoes that Surjit made on the stove by slow cooking potato slices in milk and then adding cheese, a rice and vegetable risotto or biriyani, and lovely sautéed carrots. I need to mention that Surjit is a wonderful cook.

Mohan opened bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and a Steep Ridge Cab, so there was lots of wine for the few of us who were drinking. We were introduced to over a dozen relatives still in town. It was another one of those large Indian family festivities; the baby shower for Pavn’s first child.

We brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label. If the baby does not drink it, Mohan surely will.

Mohan was raised on a large farm in Punjab and lives close to the land. He has turned the property into a beautiful and productive property, for which I am very proud of him.

There is a big issue we discussed concerning an easement on the land that will be fun to work on. I helped create it and I think I can help fix it.

At 8:30 as the sky was darkening we said goodnight just as a large cake was being brought out for dessert, and drove the 15 miles back to the hotel inn Bernicia and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Bon Appetit

Monday, May 23, 2022

May 22, 2022 Wine and Food Tasting in Anderson Valley

On Sunday the wineries traditionally open for tastings. This year it is a little different. You must now register on line and pay for a tasting with food. It provides an opportunity to try more of the wines of the ones you liked or to try different vineyard’s you missed in the tasting.

We did a bit of both.

After Suzette went for coffee and brought me back a pain au Chocolat that was very delicious, we drove over the hills to Anderson Valley and to nearly the deep end where the weather is slightly cooler that produces a more mature and elegant fruit in my opinion.

We first went to Phillips Hill which used to be named Standish. The proprietress Is French, so for $15.00 we were poured a four or five wine tasting with a small platter of two Burgundy Cheese puffs (Gougeres) probably with Gruyere, two more narrow Bordeaux cheese puffs probably with a blue cheese, and two slices of Tomme de Savoie, one of my favorite cheeses produced from the milk of cows that forage the high lush meadows of the Haut Savoie.

The French Proprietress

The tasting shed

I felt like I was in France when I ate my Chocolate croissant for breakfast.

Then I felt that feeling spreading throughout my body as I nibbled the lovely cheese puffs and one of my favorite French cheeses.

We next went to Suzette’s favorite winery, Brashley (https://www.brashleyvineyards.com). They served a five wine tasting that included their wonderful Riesling with two amazing tacos of pork for $20.00. We loved the tacos and they piqued our taste buds.

The last winery we went to was Winterbourne that does not have very good wines but Rick’s friend who makes wine using the Boonville label was pouring some of his excellent Syrah and cooking BBQ brisket that was served in a flour tortilla wrap.

After Winterbourne we said goodbye to Rick after ordering 6 bottles of his 2013 San Jacamo PN and his 2019 River’s Edge PN.

We returned to our room and rested and went to bed early after a full day of tasting.

I think I have decided to join Handley’s wine club because of their broad list of wines and constant quality.

Bon Appetit

May 21, 2022 Lunch - At Pinot Fest wine tasting. Dinner - Boonville Hotel Wine dinner

This was another fantastic day.

We started by walking the Farmer’s Market in Ukiah and then we drove the two blocks to Schaft’s Bakery. Suzette ordered coffee and I ordered orange juice and a toasted everything bagel spread with cream cheese.

We carried our food to the Grace-Hudson Museum and the Sun House. The Museum featured a paper exhibition, Pulped Under Pressure. The Museum features the esprit of Grace Hudson and her collection of Pomo Indian baskets. Next to the museum is the Sun House, a craftsman style redwood bungalow the Hudson’s built in 1911.

We ate our breakfast at a bench in the garden of the Museum and then viewed the exhibits.

We then drove to Anderson Valley to Schrauffenburger Cellars for the Grand Tasting. Schraufenburger is now owned by Roederer, the giant French wine company, that also bought Domaine Anderson.

There were two rows of booths of dispensers and food purveyors.

When we walked in I stopped at the first food booth and took a container of duck champagne with French dried cherries.

We drank 20 or 30 Tastes and ate several plates of food in the two hours we were tasting. My favorite food was Chiappino and crab cakes made without egg white.

When we left the field we drove to Henley Woods State Park. We were tired and exhausted from drink and food so we took a 30 minute nap.

Then we walked through the woods on a one mile accessible path that was flat and easy for me to walk. I had forgotten how large the trees in this grove were. There were dozens of monster trees over 30 feet around and over 300 feet tall.

I love Coastal redwoods more than any other tree. They are so tall and thin that they appear to be a most efficient growing tree.

And they are old. Some are over 2000 years old.

After our walk we drove to Boonville Hotel at 5:30 for the 6:00 dinner.

This was the second great meal of the trip. In fact, it was the best meal of the trip.

It was 5 courses paired with Handley Vineyard wines. I have always liked Handley wines. It is located next to Roederer, and is family owned and operated. Last time we came to the Pinot Fest six or seven years ago we attended this dinner and it also featured Handley wines, so I have great memories of this dinner.

This dinner did not disappoint in any respect.

It started with Brut Rose in the garden with small glasses of a creamy avocado soup. During this period I met Randy, the wine maker, Lulu, the current owner and a Handley daughter and her husband, Scott.

Then we sat down and just as the first course was being served Rick joined us. We met Rick when we would visit the Londers, who owned a winery in Philo, who I met at wine tastings in Albuquerque, where they were originally from. Rick was the Londer’s wine maker who made some great wines. Rick still makes wine. His company is named Calstar Cellars and he still makes good wine.

I am a member of Rick’s wine club.

Handley Pinot Fest Dinner

The first official course was my favorite, a fresh Halibut served crudo style with wild ginger, thin radish slices, poached kumquats, rose petals and olive oil. It was served with a lovely recently bottled 2021 Pinot Noir Blanc. I have found a new way to love raw fish.

The second course was perhaps the most creative dish of the meal, Knights Valley Beef Tartare. A mound of beef that was hand hacked, not mechanically ground, was served in a bowl garnished with slivered baby asparagus, blanched fiddlehead ferns and seasoned with ground pink peppercorns and juniper berries. The most creative part of this dish was the addition of sliced bing cherries tossed with a small amount of lovage to the bowl.

The tartare was served with small platters filled with strips of warm foccacia and a very flavorful glass of 2018 Roderick Ranch Pinot Noir.

I was gastronomically satiated at this point but there were still three courses.

The third course was interesting. It was a warm salad of Coal Roasted sliced beets served with rehydrated morel mushrooms garnished with fresh basil leaves, charred onions, and flakes of Parmesan cheese. The dish seemed to be lightly dressed with a reduction of the cooking liquid from the morels.

The warm salad was served with a 2018 RSM Pinot noir grown on a newer vineyard higher

The fourth course was impressive, a whole quail stuffed with fresh diced onion to prevent it from collapsing garnished with a sunflower seed Dukkah (an Egyptian combination of spices and seeds) and marigolds and served on a thick swatch of guajillo chili sauce.

By this time I had dispensed with the niceties of fine dining and tore into the quail with the steak knife provided for this course. The quail was tender and lovely by itself which was good because the guajillo sauce was rather too spicy for me even though sweetened with honey.

We were poured a library 2015 Estate PN for this course that was lovely but did not deter me from my task of surgically dissecting the quail.

Rick brought a bag of his wines and was serving several along side the Handley wines. As always, I preferred his 2013 Sanjacamo PN for its complexity and smoothness.

Finally we reached dessert, an understated slice of Cana de Cabra cheese (a semi-soft goat cheese from Murcia region of southern Spain) with puff pastry balls and a dab of Blenheim apricot jam served with glasses of Handley’s wonderful 2014 late harvest Riesling. The late harvest Riesling was the most memorable part of the PN Dinner we ate five or six years ago. This time the strongest impression was of the good creative food, especially the first two appetizer courses. The visions of fresh halibut and beef with those amazing lovage laced fresh bing cherries will last for a long time.

At 8:30 we said good night and drove back over the mountains to UkiaH before the sky darkened to total darkness.

I think I might become a member of Handley’s wine club. All their wnes are solid and several are exceptional like their Late harvest Riesling.

Bon Appetit

Friday, May 20, 2022

May 20, 2022 Breakfast - Mama’s Snack at Vichy Hot Springs. Dinner - Anderson Valley Pinot Festival BBQ

We had a full day of activity today. At 7:30 we drove to Mama’s in downtown Ukiah. I ordered a dish I had never eaten before, a baked pancake stuffed with ham, scallions, and three cheeses with two sunny side up eggs and served with a small pitcher of maple syrup. I have never eaten a baked stuffed pancake and I can tell you I did not like as much as I thought I would. I enjoy pupusas much more.

Suzette ordered a bacon, lettuce, avocado, and egg sandwich on a freshly baked bun made at the Mama’s Bakery next door.

We then drove the few blocks to Craft Distillers at 108 Clay St., the retail showroom of Caddell and Williams to taste their wide assortment of cognacs and mezcals. Caddell and Williams used to produce Germain Robin cognac, probably the best American made cognac, but Christie, the proprietress told us that almost five years ago Gallo bought all the equipment, the name, and 1000 casks of cognac from Germain-Robin with a five year non-compete agreement. So, Caddell has added new lines of spirits including lots mezcals and still imports French Maison Surrenne cognacs. We tasted lots of cognacs and mezcals and bought Caddell’s last bottle of Maison Surrenne VSOP available at this time and an attractive bottle of Raicilla from Jalisco with a Huichol beaded plaque pasted to the bottle made from the largest sub-species of maguey, Maxmillano. All tequilas, mezcals, and Raicilla are made from maguey using more or less the same process of removing the leaves, roasting the pina/core, and pressing and distilling the juice from the roasted core. But there are approximately 200 sub-species and varieties of maguey of which about 30 are grown commercially, depending upon locale in Mexico.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezcal

After our spirit tasting we drove to the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery but it was closed so we drove south looking for and open winery. We did not find any so we turned around at Hopland where Suzette said, “Stop.”

We were In front of a shop offering 3-D printed fabrics. Suzette bought 5 for $40.00 each.

We then drove back to Ukiah, stopping at a winery and olive farm that was supposed to be open but was not.

At 12:30 we drove east out of Ukiah to Vichy Hot Springs. This is a hot springs used by the Indians until Anglos ”discovered it” in 1848 and turned it into a resort in 1854. It is named Vichy because its water is slightly carbonated and bubbles out of the source, similar to the Vichy springs in France.

We soaked in tubs for about 30 minutes and then in the larger hot tub for another 45 minutes. I loved it. I sat in front of the jet shooting the bubbling water at my lower back for about 15 minutes.

I felt that my joints had loosened a bit when we finished soaking.

I was getting weak and after I shaved and dressed and Suzette changed up into her clothes for the evening, we sat at a picnic table in the shade of of a tree on the lawn and ate bread and goat cheese and with blueberries and drank the Rickshaw Pinot we had bought for a few pleasant minutes.

The grounds are beautifully maintained and there was even a peacock walking around.

On the way back into town we saw a Turkey cross the road. This is still rather wild country.

It was 3:30 when we drove back into Ukiah so we drove to Anderson Valley for the Pinot Fest BBQ. We arrived 30 minutes early at 4:30, were able to park inside Golden Eye’s parking lot. When I told the attendants I had a mobility problem.

We walked around the tasting room and checked in. We then were given a glass and wandered down to the twenty or so picnic tables in a grove of trees. We joined David and Lynn who live in Palm Springs and sponsor a Pinot Fest in Palm Springs. Soon George and his wife joined us. George is an oenologist who taught organic chemistry for many years at Harvard and Rice University.

Between David and George they seem to know most of the wine makers at the event. More interestingly, George knew which wines were the best wines and brought us several bottles to try. I recall drinking Mary Edwards Meredith Vineyard Pinot and Handley Reserve Pinot on my own and Cobb and Witching Stick thanks to George.

People are encouraged to bring a bottle or two to share and under a gazebo two or three tables had been set up where there were hundreds of bottles of wine that you could open and pour.

Suzette had a lovely experience. As she approached the wine tables an olde man walked up with two bottles of wine. Suzette asked up if it was good and he said, “I think so, I made it.”

Suzette asked, “May I try it?

The Roma owner opened a bottle and poured her a glass. She was kind enough to share it with me. We both liked the Roma Pinot because it was light in color and had an elegant finish, just the kind of Pinot that makes me love Anderson Valley Pinots. It could not be produced anywhere else in America in my opinion because Anderson valley protects the grapes from extreme conditions and allows them to mature in a cool climate that protects their delicate Pinot flavor.

We ate plates of BBQ brisket and pork, a horseradish coleslaw, baked beans, Mac and cheese, and corn bread. I thought the creamy cheesy Mac and cheese was the best dish, although I did return for some good BBQ chicken with a rather Moroccan herb seasoning and some wetter brisket properly cooked and more Mac and cheese.

At 7:30 as the sun was beginning to cast long shadows, we told everyone we would look for them tomorrow at the Grand Tasting and left so we could drive back over the mountains in sunlight.

California Highway 253 is a scenic byway that runs from the Russian River over a series of hills into the Navarro Creek watershed where Boonvile and Philo are located. It is 23 mikes of winding road full of switchbacks that required 45 minutes of intense concentration. We saw a deer eating grass on the side of the road as we drove over the hills. I am sure there are more deer than people living between Ukiah and Boonville.

When we returned to Ukiah it was still light so we celebrated by sharing scoops of Jamaica Almond Fudge, pistachio almond, and Coconut Nut ice cream at Baskin and Robbins and then returned to our room for the night.

Suzette said it was a great day and I agreed.

Bon Appetit