The community gathers for Conversations Worth Having #2 : Trash Talk, February 16th, in Studio Barndiva
Full Disclosure: we initially had great concerns making Trash the subject of our second Conversation Worth Having. But something happened after our first conversation, Gorgeous Garbage, that made the conversation about trash imperative. Of the many things we took away from our first community evening the realization that haunted us, as never before, was that even if we managed to divert more organic waste into making compost and soil, even if everyone we knew got better at recycling, even if these things began to miraculously happen all over the world, humanity would still go on filling the oceans with plastic, building higher and higher landfills of toxic waste. All the things we no longer have use for - our trash - endlessly circling and befouling the globe.
CWH is all about gathering community to have Serious Fun. We want to talk about important issues in a way which enables us to come away from these conversations making better choices, strengthening a commitment to live lighter on the ground. We don’t want to give up our creature comforts. We care about design. We want to live in a world with the ability to surround ourselves with useful, beautiful things. How do we make this compatible with individual actions, taken consistently, that signal true change in the way the social order works?
As life would have it, over 50 years ago I forged a beautiful, lasting friendship that among its many gifts brought a wondrous goddaughter into my life. And as luck would have it - for me and everyone who attended our February 16th Trash Talk - she has made it her life’s work to build just such a near future, or at least the possibility one might exist. we’re talking about businesses that take honoring a healthy ecology and a respect of the earth into every step of their supply chains. We’re talking about the products and the conduits that bring them into our short and precious lives.
Her name is Zem Joaquin. A founding member of Cradle to Cradle, for many years her company Eco Fabulous espoused the philosophy that we did not have to live lives of deprivation to be good global citizens. If we knew where to look, showed extreme care about how and where things were made, we could be as fabulous as we dared. She dared.
For the past five years she has grown an astonishing community of brilliant, innovative leaders- self identified disrupters to status quo supply chains- made of up scientists, inventors, doctors, designers, artists, and producers of all the things we use in our lives. It’s called The Near Future Summit and through it she has become a champion for businesses that “accelerate solutions to improve societal, individual and planetary health.” Dawnelise, Susan, Amber and I did our due diligence and research into how best to position Trash Talk - we toured Recology SF, met with the wonderful Deborah Munk, director of the artist in residence program. We listened to fascinating sustainable producers at a Women Founders Talk at the Ferry Building. We read and researched. Finally, after an edifying three day experience at 2023’s Near Future Summit, Zem guided our choice of speakers who graciously traveled to Healdsburg to talk to a sold out crowd in Studio Barndiva on Friday, February 16 for Conversations Worth Having, #2, Trash Talk.
It was delicious but serious fun, as you know if you attended. If you didn’t, we missed you. Here is a visual taste of this throughly stimulating evening.
Our Speakers: LEFT: Toby Corey, COO of Cruz Foam, a sustainable foam packaging company that sources fully bio degradable materials made from shrimp shells, mushrooms, and recycled paper as an alternative to styrofoam. Cruz Foam was a PentAwards Bronze winner and one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023; CENTER: Gorgina Alcock, of GaeaStar, a ceramic zero waste alternative to single use plastic cups and vessels made of a clay, water, and salt sourced close to where it is 3’D printed (our CWH branded cups were produced in San Francisco from Sacramento clay); RIGHT: Beth Rattner, a director of the The Bio-Mimicry Institute, who walked us through the essential bridges we must start building between biology and design by advancing the adoption of nature inspired strategies. Highly recommended reading: Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus, who founded the Biomimicry Institute, and The Second Body, by Daisy Hildyard.
ABOVE: Julia Marsh who with her Husband Matt founded Sway, also joined our speaker forum. Sway is a start up whose goal is to harness the power of seaweed to create home compostable replacements for plastic. For their efforts they were the Winners of the Tom Ford Innovation Prize for 2023.
Sway embodies a central premise of circular economies around design that was a take away from the evening: design out waste, keep materials in use, regenerate natural systems. And this: as a consumer, make better choices.
We were proud to have several local businesses who share our concerns about sustainability contribute to this Conversation Worth Having. Formost among them was Little Saint Healdsburg Healdsburg, whose chef, Stu Stalker, provided exquisite bowls of Little Saint Farm Vegetables with spreads of Carrot Tahini w/ dried chili, Cultured Cashew w/ Tomato Chutney, and Green Lentil Hummus. Little Saint’s director of beverage and sustainability, Matt Seigel collaborated with Barndiva’s Scott Beattie on both the spirit and NA cocktails: A Caipirinha made with Novo Fogo Carbon Negative Organic Cachaça, and Rangpur Me Another, our NA cocktail made with Rangpur lime as a cordial, anise hyssop tea, coconut yogurt, and Ritual N/A rum.
For those enjoying wine in their GaeaStar cups, we were honored to serve Delta Wines for Change made by our friends at Brick and Mortar, Alexis and Matt Ioconis. In bringing the climate conversation to the dinner table, Delta addresses greener packaging, reduces their carbon footprint in every aspect of wine making and supply chain choices, and donates 10% of all sales to the Surfrider Foundation, Cool Effect, and groups fostering environmental education- like Conversations Worth Having.
We also wish to thank Hotel Healdsburg’s Circe Sher for hosting some of our speakers and providing a discount for those traveling for the event. Coming soon: GaeaStar cups in the Hotel Healdsburg Spa.
And for anyone who missed the event or just wanted to keep the conversation going the next day, Flying Goat Coffee on center street hosted a pop-up on Saturday Feb. 17th using GaeaStar cups, which they gave away with every coffee sold.
A dinner for our speakers and a limited number of ticketed guests was held after the event in barndiva, which Daniel Carlson and I filled with foraged arrangements from our forest in Philo. We were so pleased he was able to join us for this CWH.
The Conversations Worth Having team is Dawnelise Rosen, director of Farmpeneurs, Susan Preston, of Preston Family Farm; Jil Hales, all things Barndiva, and Amber Keneally who researched and created our medicine cabinet art installation.
It is our goal to keep Conversation Worth Having events small enough so the actual conversation we have after listening to our speakers is forthright and meaningful. To find out about future events, sign up for the Barndiva Blog, Eat the View, or follow us @barndivahealdsburg.
Hello again.
For those who joined us on November 2 in Studio Barndiva for our first ‘Conversation Worth Having,’ and to all who are reading about CWH for the first time, welcome! Our goal for this homegrown series is to explore ways to live lighter on the ground, taking our cue from Johanna Macy that “whatever the limitations of our lives, we are free to choose which version of reality – or story about our world – we value and want to serve.”
Our first conversation centered around something we deal with every day - our messy, smelly, garbage. Our hope was that with a simple shift in perspective and purpose, we might come to see garbage transformed into the very fragrance of life: healthy soil in which to grow the food we eat. We loved the group the evening attracted and were energized seeing old friends and making new ones. We are humbled and cautiously optimistic that our first conversation continues to grow, engaging stakeholders across Sonoma County - including supportive elected representatives - who are seeking proactive answers to some of the questions and challenges raised at Gorgeous Garbage.
Ah, but talking about trash is not talking about garbage. Trash can’t be transformed into something life affirming. There is no happy ending here….or so it would seem. So…where to begin?
If we define trash as all the things we throw away, objects we once desired or deemed necessary in our lives that eventually cannot be recycled or re-purposed – there’s no refuting the fact that to some degree we all contribute to global landfills, oceans filled with junk. It’s a deeply depressing thought. Increasingly so when you consider that all those ‘things’ we accumulate over a lifetime may take hundreds of years to ‘disappear,’ and depending on what they were made of leave toxic trails in earth, sea, and sky.
From the outset, we have wanted our Conversations with this community to be empowering, not depressing. But beyond supporting organizations focused on cleaning up the toxic mess we leave in our wake, literally strewn across the globe, we found ourselves asking what changes we could make in our lives right now - alongside simply consuming less - which would provide the creature comforts we desire alongside taking health of the planet into account… making it a priority?
A field trip to tour the facilities of Recology in SF and a thought provoking session with the director of their Artists in Residency Program, the remarkable Deborah Munk, was an eye opener for the four of us. We all learned how we can do better separating our trash to make it easier to recycle things that can be repurposed. But invariably we had to confront the fact that recycling is but a drop in the polluted oceans of a world we keep filling up with single use plastic. We came away from that afternoon convinced we needed to find a better way to present a conversation about trash - one that considered how to change the way we live right now. That conversation needs to start with how we behave as consumers.
We are all inundated, every minute of every day, with invasive information technology re-writing the small print of our DNA on what to aspire to, how we should live. How do we circumvent this complicity of desire instigated by an entire system rigged to make us want to buy, buy, buy? Is it possible to use the power we have as consuming individuals and communities to shape what gets made in the world, before it is created? How do we change the way we ship and carry things from one place to another, through our doors and into our lives?
Perspectiva’s Johanthan Rowson explains this conundrum thusly:
“Consumerism is unsustainable, unrewarding, and ultimately absurd. Yet it endures because it meets a range of emotional and social needs, and because it is conveniently operational — ‘it works’ or at least it seems to. It is certainly hard to imagine replacing it. And yet we have to sail our imagination in precisely that direction.“
If we could sail our imaginations in that direction, cease transgressing a range of red line ecological boundaries, where would we land?
This year we celebrate a milestone: 23 years since we broke ground to build a barn in the center of Healdsburg. The day we opened four years later, full to bursting with curious strangers from across Sonoma County, we threw our first party. It was called Taste of Place, a food-as-art exhibit with over 34 Sonoma and Mendocino County farmers, artisan batch purveyors, and mixed-media artists. We were trying to make a delicious point – one still so relevant - that unless restaurants found a way to support local growers and makers, we would lose the most vital part of why we love this food shed. This has been a continuing story for our family, as we have worked to keep a small heritage apple farm in Philo flourishing since 1984.
If you value your independence, remain curious, believe, to paraphrase Richard Powers, that “there is a politics that can be built out of awe and gratitude,” there is great reward working in hospitality as we do. We have been extremely lucky with the spread of our talents, especially the ability to master the art of the pivot and decisively embrace change. What has come to embody ‘The Barndiva Experience’ is a source of great pride for us. We feel fortunate to have contributed as we have to Healdsburg’s flourishing during a time of great transformation.
The capstone of our 20 years in hospitality was to have been awarded a Michelin star in 2021; an even deeper validation of our values to have kept it in 2022 and 2023 under the brilliant direction of Chef Erik Anderson and the dedication of a truly remarkable staff.
But we have always believed that the reason people go out to dine is not a fixed star, Michelin or otherwise. We all long to return to tastes that trigger happiness and memory; to be excited by new food experiences, step into a room filled with music and engaging conversation. On the simplest and most profound level the sound of other humans having vibrant food and drink experiences gives us agency to enjoy ourselves more fully in the world.
To stay true to what we love, and what our guests have come to expect from Barndiva, this winter we are excited to announce a shift in the allocation of our time and how our rooms and gardens are enjoyed.
Beginning January 21st, we will be serving an a la carte menu in Studio Barndiva Thursday-Monday.
Seasonal menus of dishes we aways have a hankering for & a reason to explore… Reminiscent of our old Sunday Suppers, with their easy vibe, great soundtracks, silent cinema. By extending the same menus to Monday we hope to see friends in the Industry that we well know have scant options on their days off.
Make Reservations
walk-ins welcome!
SET MENU REQUIRED FOR PARTIES OF 8+
Barndiva will now be available for Cocktails Parties, light canapé soirées that weather permitting can extend into the gardens.
We’ve been hearing from clients for years wanting to gather in Barndiva just to mingle, raise a class, and enjoy our infamous canapés. We’d love for you to experience the barn anew. Cocktail parties are booked in advance and are intended for groups from 25-100+.
For all Weddings, Rehearsal Dinners, and Wine or Cocktail Parties in the Barn, Contact Barndiva’s Event Director Susan Bischoff:
The Pink Party
led by Barndiva’s ‘Sommelier for the People,’ Emily Carlson, returns Sunday, April 21.
Tickets on sale Friday, January 12
Conversations Worth Having, a community focused series we launched with ‘Gorgeous Garbage’ in November with Dawnelise Rosen, Susan Preston, and Amber Keneally continues with CWH #2: Trash Talk, Friday, February 16th, from 4-6. Studio Barndiva. There will be limited seating for dinner in the Barn following the event.
Scott Beattie’s Cocktail Classes for groups of 6-26 will be held in Studio Barndiva until spring, when they again move into the Studio Barndiva gardens.
Scott and bar manager Charles Rodenkirch will hold court every Sunday and Monday, and both will work closely with Event Manager Susan Bishcoff to make every Cocktail Party in the Barn unique.
To book a class: scott.beattie@barndiva.com
For the past two decades we have worked to share the joys and challenges that come from running a small family-run restaurant and special event facility in this community. We hope you will continue to help us write an imaginative text for Barndiva as we turn a page and continue our story.
The late great poet John O’ Donohue liked to say “possibility is the secret heart of time.” A Bientot!
No skirting it, 2023 was a challenging year. It seemed like every time we looked up from from the gardens in Philo or out the windows to a seemingly flourishing Healdsburg, the news of the day brought us up short with yet another human or planetary catastrophe. A reminder, as if we needed one, of how truly fragile life is everywhere. How fortunate we are to live and work how and where we do.
This last post of the year celebrates some of the best moments of 2023 for us, giving props to the people and places who made our year appreciably better, the world we share glow a bit brighter.
Our New Years Resolution: To focus even more on joyful moments like the ones captured here. To build collaborative bridges where and how they are needed.
Thank you for dining with us, throwing a party, planning a wedding, gathering a group of friends for a dinner party, showing up at one of our annual wine events - we so appreciate you! We look forward to showing you how much in 2024!
Diptych: Spring & Winter. Photo: Chad Surmick
Photographing Barndiva in all its many beautiful facets is something I love doing, and rarely entrust with another photographer, which made collaborating with the intuitive and extremely talented Chad Surmick this year an unmitigated joy. Together we captured Barndiva’s life in food, cocktails, wine parties, and studio b dinner parties. The most enjoyable work was a series we conceived for our website landing page - four color-resplendent still-life images of the raw ingredients that informed Eric’s brilliant menus. Our hope was that they brought the food conversation about seasonality home for everyone who visited our website. They were also very much an homage to the farm, to Misha and Renee, who joined us this year in Philo, and to the many many other farmers and fisherman, foragers and gardeners who work with us in the creation of our food and cocktail menus: we are grateful to them all.
Chad and I also had the honor to photograph the men and women whose labors transformed those raw ingredients for a B&W portrait series celebrating our 2023 Michelin star.
Barndiva’s Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Bar Manager Charles Rodenkirch and their team rocked the cocktail program this year with creations that lifted our spirits and then some. These were inventive, intriguing, satisfying and absolutely gorgeous cocktails. The bar team also maintained a weekly floral and herbal ‘garden’ for the bar (shout out to Buck), most of it from our farm, that took guests breath away (and invariably cellphones out). Through Scott’s long and legendary career he has had an indefatigable interest in everything growing around him - always with an eye toward how it might end up in a cocktail.
Our cocktail classes were also a highlight of the year, and we embraced gorgeous NA cocktails like never before. A stellar year in drink, with exciting plans for next year.
To learn more about the classes, read the wonderful article written about them in Edible Marine Magazine. Scott can be reached directly scott.beattie@barndiva.com,
We re-launched Studio B events this year with a community series called “Conversations Worth Having” hosted with three of the most formidable women - Dawnelise Rosen, Amber Keneally and Susan Preston. CWH has been a lifeline for us, and we were deeply gratified for others as well, judging by the success of Conversation #1, Gorgeous Garbage. The idea for the series flows from a long held desire to share what we’re reading, listening to, and thinking as we try to live more lightly on the ground in our lives and various businesses. We hope to introduce some of the fascinating people we are meeting on this journey, explore issues that affect us here in Healdsburg, across Sonoma County, and beyond. (No surprise, they are interconnected.)
By opening these conversations to a community we love, gift -wrapped in art, incredible speakers and - this being Barndiva - kick-ass cocktails and wines, we hope to make manifest the changes we long to see in the world. Our only ground rules for the series is that they be fun, and that there is no place for judgment as we explore some pretty complex subjects. Do we believe change starts with small and well considered actions? Yes, we really do.
Next up: Trash Talk, just scheduled for February 16th. We’ve got some incredible speakers coming to town for a panel led by the eco fabulous Zem Joquin, founder of The Near Future Summit, which Dawnelise and I were thrilled to attend this year. To hear about CWH first, Follow us @barndiva.com, or sign up to receive barndiva.com/blog. We will not share your information with anyone.
Above: Conversations Worth Having, A paint and distressed paper canvas by Susan Preston; Photo: Chad Surmick
At the end of the day, everything we do comes down to fostering a genuine feeling of joy in people, and nothing we do comes even close to producing more of it than our weddings and wedding rehearsal dinners. The connections you feel from seeing generations of family and friends gather is electric. Weddings always generate the best moments of our year - they keep us alive in more than ways than one. For that we give thanks to all our wedding couples and their families, who chose Barndiva this year.
Looking forward to 2024, we are so pleased to welcome Susan Bischoff to lead our wedding team - she is already busy with tours and fielding inquiries from across the country. As we say adieu to 2023, a truly grateful thank you, with big love, to our wonderful Natalie Nelson, who after ten years at the helm of Barndiva Weddings has started an exciting new life with her growing family in Utah.
Flowers have always been central to our lives, no surprise they are integral with our farm program, our weddings, and front and center in every dining experience we create. We are hopeful that the increasing world wide support we’re seeing for regenerative farming for food production will also inspire a similar approach when it comes to growing flowers. Because of our many weddings and private events we are able to recommend flower farms and floral designers who source this way - but it’s up to all of us to ask our favorite markets and flowers shops to support slow flower farming! The only critique we hear is “they don’t last as long,” and the most honest response is ‘ask yourself why.’
These are some of our favorites farmers and floral designers we follow near (to source) and far (for inspiration!) : @dragonflyfloral; @apple_farm_flowers; @longertablefarm; @singlethreadfarmstore; @frontporchfarm; @filigreenfarm; also: @daniel.james.co ( Daniel Carlson still directs the orchard & floral programs at our farm in Philo, now alongside the prodigiously talented Misha Vega); @nicamille; @cultivatingplace; @digdelve;@pithandvigor; @jimiblake_huntingbrookgardens; @clairetakacs
What does it take to be part of a ‘real’ restaurant food community? Michelin is clearly the most vaunted, then there’s James Beard and Slow Food, all of which seek to honor talent, innovation, hard work and tradition. But we are all businesses, from Michelin to the local diner. When we lose restaurants that nurtured talent and supported an ethical approach to food sourcing and labor, their absence is sorely felt. We will especially miss dining at Matt Orlando’s Amass in Copenhagen and The Ethicurean in Barley Wood. Both were truly inspirational in the dining experiences they presented.
We did dine in some remarkable restaurants this year, and want to give a special shout out to two that reminded us why we got into this business in the first place. Sessions Art Club in the Clerkenwell section of London (thank you Linda & Nick) is magical, from the moment you find the semi-secret door and they buzz you in, take a wonky elevator and arrive to a curiously elegant great room where history has it Charles Dickens once dined as a law clerk. The cocktails are unfussy, brilliantly balanced, perfectly served (very cold), the food a delight. The staff both nights we dined were absolutely brilliant - a gleam in the eye of jollity primed with the smooth joy of being part of something very special. We can’t wait to return.
The second memorable experience was at a ‘new’ french bistro on the quieter end of Main Street in Venice, Ca, an area I know well as I raised my first two children up the street in Ocean Park. Full Disclosure: one of those children is a co-owner of Cou Cou, Formerly Chez Tex. Jesse and Hayley Feldman started out with no experience in restaurants, though both are world class diners and share a passion for how design affects our ability to open ourselves to a shared experience. There is no gas on property, all food is cooked by wood fire, and the addition of a cocktail license has brought classy cocktails to their bright, locally sourced seasonal menus. Cou Cou perfectly captures the nostalgia and comfort of a French bistro - the kind where you want to order everything on the menu. Those menus will grow exponentially in the next few months when Hayley and Jesse open a second CouCou in WeHo.
Pay them a visit in the New Year, and order a “Bitches of the Seizeme, a Barndiva classic, on us. We know they make it correctly because, for all those Isabel Hales fans out there, she helped set up the Cou Cou bar when they first opened.
Stay healthy, sane, engaged with all the good things going on in the world.
Hope to see you in 2024!
OK, Full disclosure: garbage is not gorgeous. Even as we choose the name “gorgeous garbage” to launch our Conversation Worth Having series, we assumed it would be an uphill climb to find an audience. But here was our dilemma: how to entice the community to come talk about food waste… all that messy swill of stinky stuff we toss into the bin every day of our lives, unloved. How to make it lovable, and, yes, covetable?
Our hope was to encourage nothing less than a profound shift in perspective. To begin to see organic waste as a sensous entity, one we literally cannot live without. To break through to a realization that it can be transformed into
Soil for food
A way to reduce carbon emissions so we can stay on this planet a little longer
A way to create a truly circular green economy - I mean how many opportunities do we have as individuals to contribute to that?
As it turned out we needn’t have worried. With this cast of speakers and the incredible audience who showed up we could not have asked for anything more to introduce CWH. Heartfelt thanks to Brock, Tucker, Eric, and Ariel for their wisdom and their humility – and for making their remarkable work lives accessible in delicious and meaningful ways we can all enjoy… We’re talking OAEC, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens, Radio Coteau & County Line Vineyards, Healdsburg Local Government!
Above: The incredible group of farmers, educators, community leaders, diners, and the just plain curious who gathered for Conversations Worth Having #1, “Gorgeous Garbage,” held on Nov. 2 in Studio B.
The Indomitable Brock Dolman, Occidental Arts & Ecology
Ariel Kelley, Mayor, City of Healdsburg
Tucker Taylor, Director, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens
Eric Sussman, Radio Coteau/ County Line Vineyards, setting up the Find Your Inner Dog scent box game.
James Gore, Sonoma County Supervisor
Deb Fudge, Councilwoman, Windsor
Josh Whiton, Founder @makesoil.org
Daniel Sonnenberg, OAEC, with our “Look, Smell, Play” interactive soil exhibit
To supervisor James Gore, Josh Whiton, founder @makesoil.org, Mimi Enright and Xinxi Tan from Zero Waste, the lovely Daniel Sonnenberg from OAEC … Thank you all for being so supportive of this conversation. We look forward to a viaduct of information around compost planning for Healdsburg (and Sonoma County) that is actionable. We will pass it all on!
Barndiva canapé starred Tucker’s produce- including his infamous crosnes, Japanese radish, ice lettuce
From the cellers we poured our own label 2015 Barndiva Syrah, graciously made by Eric Sussman
Scott Beattie’s Compost Cocktail, Tops n’ Tails: beet and carrot scrap shrub, lemon rind soda, cool pickled beet and carrot garnish, with carrot top green sprigs. Offered N/A or with Square One organic vodka
Most of all we wish to thank everyone who showed up to have this conversation with us. We were bowled away by your engagement and your on-point questions.
One of our mission statements is to make these great nights of discovery and information. Curiosity is our muse, urgency our engine.
When we decided to foist this series on our unsuspecting neighbors here in Healdsburg, we never dreamed we would re-discover community. We thought we were going in search of something we’d lost, when it was here all the time.
@barndivahealdsburg will announce future conversations as soon as dates are finalized. And no, we haven’t stopped talking about garbage! This is such a perfectly delicious problem for our community to solve that even as we move on to the next conversation we promise to stay connected to the many opportunities the evening presented.
Eat the view!
Jil, Dawnelise, Susan, Amber
Gratitude Dining after the event with our speakers, in the Studio B garden
(yes Virginia, holiday parties can still be booked at the Orchard table, weather permitting, but they are cozier inside).
Credits for CWH #1: Gorgeous Garbage
Food is Medicine : aka the palpable presence of alternatives… our irreverent homage to Joseph Cornell by way of Dr Seuss.
Concept: Jil Hales; Artwork: Susan Preston; Soil: OAEC; Veg Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor; dehydrated Veg Scraps: Dawnelise Rosen, Chef Syd.
Vegetable Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor Jackson Culinary Gardens.
Corks chosen by barndiva wine director Emily Carlson from bio dynamic vineyards.
Execution: Geoff Hales, Chef Syd, and Daniel Sonnenberg (thank you Marcos for the silver shelf!)
Information Tower : our what we are reading, watching, who we are following ongoing resource compilation, compiled and designed by Amber Keneally. (see link above)
Look, Smell, Play! : Our interactive garbage to compost to soil installation, executed by Daniel Sonnenberg.
All Photography: Chad Surmick
For all those who played the ‘find your inner dog’ scent game, contact us if you guessed ‘compost’ was #3!
@barndivahealdsburg
“Central to our use of all systems thinking is the recognition that self-reflexive consciousness is a function of choice-making. Whatever the limitations of our life, we are still free to choose which version of reality – or story about our world – we value and want to serve. We can choose to align with business as usual, the unraveling of living systems, or the creation of a life-sustaining society.”
Joanna Macy
Studio Barndiva has long been known as the memorable space where we host our extraordinary weddings and parties, but we have always stolen time from this, our ‘day job,’ to put forth events we feel of cultural interest to the community. Through photography, paint, film, wire, sculpture, soil, ceramics, literature, wine, food, farming and yes, even the making of cheese, our evening soirees, dinner parties and exhibits all rest upon the belief Joanna Macy elucidates so eloquently in the quote above: the freedom to choose which version of reality - or story about our world - we value and want to serve.
The conceit of hosting a series called CONVERSATIONS WORTH HAVING now, as barndiva enters its 20th year, rests upon the assumption that our most indelible stories are drawn from human interactions we value, especially through conversations that excite, intrigue, and nourish us. In our role as cultural scouts, my CWH partner Dawnelise Rosen and I hope to bring to Studio B inspirational speakers committed to creating circular economies that engender true sustainability in how they approach the future, on both a local and planetary level. Because they are intricately inter-connected. Because conversations about those connections are, in this present moment, imperative.
Our goal beyond listening, and hearing your reactions to what is presented, is to ignite the combustible joy that comes from great ideas and invigorating one on one discourse.
To find out more about Conversation #1, take a scroll below. Future events will be posted here and @barndivahealdsburg.
Eat the View with us!
Jil, Geoffrey, Lukka
CONVERSATION #1 : Gorgeous Garbage
In Northern California, in Sonoma County, right here in Healdsburg, we are blessed to live within a food shed that provides the raw ingredients for some of the most exciting dining in the country. Not only do restaurants make sourcing a priority, but local markets and the proliferation of farmers markets allow us, whether dining in or out, to eat at the very tippy top of the food chain.
But for far too long our attention- wherever we live - has been captivated by what’s on the plate with little or no attention paid to what happens after we push off from the table, happy and sated from a delicious food moment.
We all understand on some level that to grow nourishing food one needs good soil, along with water and sunlight; we get that there is a circular process taking place. But it is hard for most of us to look at a plate of food as we raise our forks and truly see, much less feel admiration for what we scrape into the trash when all the sourcing, cutting, cooking, plating, and dining is done. We call it garbage, what the Oxford English dictionary defines as “wasted or spoiled food and other refuse… a thing that is considered worthless or meaningless.”
But is it?
In every scrap of organic waste we throw in the bin after our meals, in every ton of garbage trucks haul away in the early mornings is the potential, at almost at no cost, to grows the food we need to thrive. With no carbon footprint left behind. Compost is an essential component in regenerative farming, it sequesters carbon and converts it into energy. But while SB-1383 – the ‘’compost law” – is now in effect for all residences, restaurants, and food banks in California, that potential is only vaguely understood; in Healdburg alone, like too many cities and towns across California, SB-1383 lacks the essential support systems that could take organic waste and turn it into compost, into soil.
On Nov. 2, for our first Conversation Worth Having, we have gathered some esteemed guests at the top of their game in permaculture, winemaking, farming and social action to talk through how we might best transform all our glorious garbage into compost and nutrient rich soil for the benefit of our community and – if we are successful – create a blueprint that might be of use to other towns.
Join us if you can, stay in touch if you can’t. With this cast of characters and the subject at hand, It promises to be an illuminating - and surprisingly delicious evening, with more to come!
Warmly,
Jil Hales, Co-Owner, Creative Director, Barndiva/Studio Barndiva/Barndiva Farm
Dawnelise Rosen, Former Co-Owner Scopa/Campo Fina; Co-Founder, CorazónHealdsburg; Director, Farmpreneurs
L to R: Brock Dolman, OAEC; Eric Sussman, Radio Coteau; Tucker Taylor, Jackson Family Farms; Ariel Kelley, Mayor, City of Healdsburg
Photo: Jil Hales for Daniel Carlson Photo: Chad Surmick for The Press Democrat
Barndiva wine director Emily Carlson with the wonderful Féte Blanc 2023 entourage, along with the dedicated ladies from Sonoma Family Meal who directed the raffle - six cases of all the wines poured, donated by every winery attending.
Each of Barndiva’s three collaborative wine events have a different personality. Pink Party always brings a ‘Summer is Here’ festive madness to it and trends younger, while Féte Rouge is the most community centric, with a focus on harvest and the upcoming holidays. Féte Blanc is a stand out because it hits all the notes winemakers look for in a wine tasting event. Sure, Féte Blanc guests love dressing up and socializing, you could feel it in the air on Sunday. But these are serious wine lovers. When they put their heads down and inhale, then taste something special, you can just tell the winery has made a lasting connection if not a future wine club friend. It was a great crowd that left very very happy, as you can tell from these images shot by the incomparable Chad Surmick.
We wish to thank Chef Mike Degan and his crew for the divine pizza’s, Barndiva Event Manager Natalie Nelson and her incredible staff, and our Chef Erik Anderson for the platters of deviled eggs with trout roe, charcoal grilled duck skewers, salmon tartar with egg yolk jam, and very special Barndiva farm fig tartlets- summery hors d’oeuvres from our currant event menus - along with our infamous goat balls with lavender honey.
For all who joined us, especially those who participated in the raffle benefiting Sonoma Family Meal, we thank you for sharing your Sunday with us in the gardens.
Collaborating with Slo-Flower farms we admire to create extravagant floral displays has become a hallmark of our bigger wine events. This year we were thrilled to welcome Rita Bates to organize and design the arrangements that filled both gardens for Féte Blanc. In addition to her ‘day’ job at the family farm - that would be The Philo Apple Farm - she is an incredibly intuitive and talented gardener floral designer. For Féte Blanc 2023 Rita ordered some blooms from our friends at Longer Table Farm and SinglethreadFarm, but the bulk of these late summer flowers were harvested at Barndiva Farm by Misha Vega, and from The Apple Farm’s extensive gardens. If you haven’t visited this extraordinary family farm in Philo, make hast to book one of their incredible Sally Dinners and be sure to stay over in one of their cottages, set amidst the apple orchards, right now heavy with fruit.
Bittersweet: the blackberry vines that graced the main Harvest Table arrangement were a long ago gift from the late, dearly missed Myrna and Earl Fincher, who owned and ingeniously farmed Early Bird Place for many years in Healdsburg. In the first decade of Barndiva’s life, Earle and Myrna suppled vegetables and gourds and we spent memorable time with Earle at their farm. The Berries have never been prodigious producers, but I never had the heart to cut them out. Seeing how much joy they gave folks on Sunday, knowing the history, I doubt I ever will.
We have been passionate diners and drinkers pretty much all our lives, but until we opened Barndiva nineteen years ago we never had reason to peek behind the doors of a professional kitchen except to say hello and thank you from time to time. There was never an imperative to see the whole organism of a restaurant, from chef to dishwasher, as a living breathing entity, much less learn of the many farmers and purveyors who had provided the raw materials for a meal we had just enjoyed.
If you haven’t worked in this environment you can’t fully understand how many pieces need to fall into place - the skill sets needed, the timing you have to get just right, the talent at the top that must filter down to the patience on the floor, in order to survive the long days and longer nights this profession demands. From early in the morning, when a dizzying array of product begins to arrive, to late into the night when the last ones out have cleaned every conceivable surface and locked up, this life is relentless. As the seasonal menus flash by, there is daily education of the entire staff on new dishes, cocktails and wine, service to be corrected and perfected, rooms set and polished so every piece falls into place. Then showing up the next day and no matter how tired, hung over, or personally challenged, doing it all again to the same level.
What goes on behind the scenes of a restaurant should never be obvious, or stand in the way of a wonderful fine dining experience. The promised land is that moment of sensory magic for the diner: that is the ultimate goal. But as we hurtle into a more reductive, impersonal, technologically obsessed future, knowing what we know now we’ve come to see that celebrating the human touch present at every stage of this beautiful, exacting, transitory, thoroughly human profession is an indispensable way to continue to celebrate the best in ourselves. As a family we have always been clear that knowing where our food comes from is the defining question for all human beings on the planet - exponentially a greater issue when you own a restaurant. You are what you eat, to be sure. But how you come to appreciate and respect the human endeavor that brings that food to the plate may very well hold the key to what you become, as well.
We now have, under the direction of Chef Erik Anderson, Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Wine Director Emily Carlson, Events Manager Natalie Nelson, and Restaurant Manager Cathryn Hulsman, the strongest team we have ever had the fortune to work alongside. Being awarded a Michelin Star in 2021 after 17 years in service, again in 2022, and now in 2023 is a validation of the highly coordinated talents of our entire kitchen brigade and front of house teams. We hope these remarkable photographs by Chad Surmick, a humble homage to the great Irving Penn’s ‘The Small Trades’, conveys our appreciation for their efforts this past year, and serves as an affirmation of the respect we hold for them, and the dedication, skill, and true grit they bring to Barndiva every day.
A familiar complaint we’ve all heard around town of late is about the dearth of genuine community in Healdsburg. It’s a grumbling refrain that holds particular meaning from anyone that remembers Healdsburg when the words quaint and small town charm could be said about it with a straight face. The usual culprits are a mind boggling collection of new businesses, hotels and restaurants that have opened over the past few years to capitalize on the town’s ‘success’ as a destination location, but the quickening pace of our lives, and the emotional distancing of technology certainly contribute to the disconnect at the heart of the discontent.
The way we see it, community isn’t stagnant, is should and must accommodate change. It’s a layered human construct that is constantly telegraphing across the web of seemingly random connections we make with the people whose paths we cross as we go about our lives, working, shopping, dining out, walking the dogs or, yes, coming out on a beautiful afternoon to taste wine. Of course It can be locational, found in the church hall, a sporting event, working alongside neighbors at the local food pantry, but we are creating it all the time, with every interaction. It starts with a desire to connect, is sustained by courtesy, respect, and common interests, and, if you are lucky enough to find them, shared goals.
If the only goal is to make money, if you don’t truly care about your product, respect or spend the time getting to know the people you live and work alongside, you cannot sustain genuine community. Especially in small towns like ours, relationships reverberate in subtle ways when you pay attention; good will resonates whether you’ve known someone for years, or just met them by chance. Community can happen in an afternoon – as it did on Pink Party Sunday. The thing that makes it real is the genuine presence you bring to it, no matter what role you play.
The winemakers who gathered in our gardens to pour their Rosé’s at this years Pink Party, who charmed and educated the guests who came to meet them and admire their craft, are a community with like minded goals, just as the slow flower farmers who grew the blooms we sourced to help create dazzling displays, and the food purveyors like Chef Mike Degan, The Healdsburg Bagel Company, Chef Anderson. Our wonderful staff here at Barndiva, the amazing Corazón crew lead by Ashley Mauritson, Alexis Ioconis who steered the wine ship for us for this years Pink on top of everything else she does, Amber Kneally who sewed our Pink Party Pirate flag at the last minute simply because we asked her to - these are the members of our community we depend upon who bring quality and meaning to our lives as we work through them. Dawnelise and Ari Rosen, last seen leading a joyous if bittersweet progression at the closing of campo fino with patrons who very much considered themselves a community - came to help raise funds and awareness for Corazón, the community organization they founded that focuses upon strengthening families at the very heart of hospitality in Healdsburg. Community is everywhere you choose to see it, and engage with it.
I want to give a special shout out to the many beautiful women in their pink dresses who danced together at the end of the day, as the rest of us looked on beneath the wisteria enjoying the same breeze and listening to the music. It felt so good just to be together and celebrate spring, and the abundance of Healdsburg.
The fabulous Pink Party Line Up for 2023:
@bloodrootwines, @almafriawines, @prestonfarmandwinery, @raftwines, @mauritsonwines, @idlewildwines, @jolielaidewines, @drinkseppi, @cruxwinery, @amistavineyards, @bricoleurvineyards, @brickandmortarwines, @stephane.vivier.wines, @reevewines, @daniel_sonoma, @handleycellars, @flowerswinery, @roedererestate, @grosventrewines, @breathlesswines, @dunstanwine, @tberkleywines, @marinelayerwines, @scharffenbergercellars, @hirschvineyards, @domainesott, @matanzascreekwinery, @liocowineco, @cruesswine, @leosteen_wines, @theharrisgalleryandwine, @ernestvineyards, @rootdownwines, @county_line_vineyards, @copainwines, @drinkkally, @altaorsowinery, @captûrewines, @untiwines.com, @guv_hales, @natalienelsonkirby
Special Friends who always bring it: Chef Francisco, Alexis Ioconis, Ari Rosen & Geoffrey Hales, Scott Beattie (in search of a cocktail no doubt), the irrepressible Susan Preston, Lukka Feldman in from London, Releigh and Asijah, Barndiva’s wine Director Emily Carlson, Eric Sussman, Dan Fitzgerald, Jil Hales & Chappy Cottrell, Dawnelise Rosen, and another belle of the ball in her pink frock, Birdy.
Our thanks to all the winemakers for donating to the raffle benefiting Corazón.
Healdsburg has an abundance of vital community organizations that welcome new energy - join one!
All photographs by the incredible Chad Surmick can be shared. TM us @barndivahealdsburg. And heads up: If you are one of many who missed attending when The Pink Party because it sold out so early, consider signing up to receive our newsletter, Eat the View, so you are first to know about future public events. we’ve got some doozies up our sleeves.
Tickets are now on sale for Fête Blanc, August 20.
@dragonfly_floral, @singlethreadfarm, @longertablefarm, @filigreenfarm, @frontporchfarm, @whodoestheflowers!
@airick72, @franciscoa_, @healdsburgbagel, @chefdegan
We throw fabulous parties of all kinds and sizes; It’s what we do to earn our crust and something we love - there is nothing quite like the energy of beautifully decorated rooms filled with fabulous food and drink, and the energy that comes when guests arrive wanting to have a great time. Parties open us up to an experience, they connect the dots between milestones, achievement, our desire to have fun. At a moment in time when there seems to be diminishing reasons to celebrate, gathering together (again) in larger groups reminds us why we need the powerful strength we get from community.
The Pink Party holds a special place for Barndiva. Started with Alexis Ioconis and a small group of winemaker friends many years ago as a way to showcase wineries that did not then have a presence in Healdsburg, it has grown exponentially to fill both our gardens as the penultimate party signaling spring is here and summer is about to commence. Healdsburg has changed quite a bit, and many of those fledging winemakers now have international followings, but the heart of the event is still very much about this community doing what it does best. Alexis is back at the helm again this year, and we are thrilled with the line up of winemakers she and our wine team have chosen to join us and pour. The Rosé will flow!
Barndiva Pink Party 2023 will take place on Sunday April 23, from 2-5. There will be music, there will be food - expanded this year to include several street food stations and a pizza oven. We’ll even have a snow cone machine with some inspired flavorings to refresh your palate as you make your way around the gardens tasting through 40 of Sonoma and Mendocino County’s best rosés. As it is every year, the Dress Code is Think Pink!
The wine raffle will benefit Corazón Healdsburg, whose efforts to create a more just and compassionate community includes a bilingual family resource center, and cradle to career education. Their work now stretches across Healdsburg, Windsor, Cloverdale, and Geyserville. Corazón’s inimitable founders, Dawnelise and Ari Rosen have agreed to lead the auction this year, a total treat for us and the community. So you know the drill: Each winemaker graciously donates 2 bottles of their Rosé making it possible to raffle off multiple cases. Corazón benefits from 100% of the proceeds. Great fun for a good cause.
Tickets are now on site for Barndiva’s Pink Party 2023 and friends, they will sell out, so we encourage you to purchase them now.
Join us as we once again fill the gardens with flowers, music, laughter, and a Rosé loving community.
Come, Drink the View with us!
80% of all species living on earth are anthropoids, they are the largest phylum in the animal kingdom. These include bees, ants, spiders, butterflies, and moths. Live on a farm and they are happily your daily companions, going about their business, as you go about yours. Though I was admittedly once a diehard city girl who would quickly default to ‘is this a predator?’ toward anything unknown (whether it walked on two legs or crawled on four) I’ve come to love the muck and tosh of farm life. Yes, it has taken me years to stop killing spiders – who for the most part do not bite – but I now marvel at the beauty to their balletic grace, the cunning in their designs for living.
And I am not squeamish. Or so I thought, until one sunny winter day just after the recent torrential rains when Dan, Nick and I began to tackle the ¼ acre of ‘treasures,’ aka trash, that had grown to fill a neglected corner by the front gate. A few minutes after we started, Dan lifted the edge of a rotting tarp and a family of centipedes scurried out, followed by a score of creatures, all webbed feed and slimy exoskeletons. I jumped back, fully creeped out. Dan, on the other hand, was positively joyful. He immediately set about transporting them, giggling like a child as he ran the ten feet to the edge of the forest where he deposited them to a new life. It went on: Beneath a pile of warped ply from some long forgotten project he found blue tailed skinks “beautiful!”; in the grassy muck around an old stove, several alligator lizards. Then beneath a stack of rotting ply, for Dan, a treasure trove of “three species of Salamander!”
Revulsion is the act of stepping back from something, it is generally instinctive, rather than rational. Like all forms of prejudice, it usually comes from ignorance. As the sun crept beyond the canopy of trees casting us in shadow, it was hard to miss the difference between what Dan and I were experiencing. If I have learned anything in over three decades dry farming organically up here on the ridge it’s that while insects may make strange bedfellows, they make grand partners in building the layers of biodiversity our farm has needed to survive and flourish. Why then, do most of us treat things that crawl out from under rocks- arguably where we all started - differently than those that float from flower to flower? We anthropomorphize some creature and not others, easily finding connection to ‘anything with a face,’ but repulsed by slithering snakes and slimy bug eyed creatures. Even within a species most of us hold to established standards of coherent beauty. Why else do we more frequently ooh at the butterfly, ignore the dusty moth circling the porch light on a summer night?
Dan is still, happily, the director of our big farm programs in Philo, though he now delegates from London most of the year, coming back to do a big push in winter and again in fall. He is especially wonderful at reminding us to always take a closer look at the impact our lives up here have upon the surrounding ecology of this ridge; reminding us that as form often follows function, so too beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This trip he gifted us with the knowledge that its often the unseen life on the farm, that over time contribute essential layers necessary to healthy biodynamic structure. These creatures happened to be feasting in the dump, but it is the feces of arthropods which are the basis for the formation of soil aggregates and humus, which physically stabilize soil and increase its capacity to store nutrients. Ecosystem engineers.
As for all those piles of trash we’ve kept around that we no longer have hopes of someday using, we are going to take another look at them before we pay someone to haul them off to yet a bigger trash pile we just can’t see. Before he left he urged us to listen to a John Little Podcast - John, who founded the Grass Roof Company.Co.UK (@grassroofcompany), in 1998, has been a seminal force in both macro and micro thinking around fly-tipping (dumping) and how it adversely affects biodiversity.
If you are in the least bit curious how to come to meaningful terms with all the junk that invariably surrounds us - how to cultivate your living situation in ways that encourage and protect wild life so it might thrive alongside you, how to cultivate plants that will more easily adapt to our changing climate, I recommend spending some time with this gentleman. Choose any podcast that strikes your fancy - and look at his website. John Little is a marvel rethinking how we live, especially in cities and towns, where every day we pass refuse in both private and public spaces that could be transformed to be pleasurable, have purpose. He grows things in unimaginable places, with very little resources beyond his ingenuity and vision - even top soil has a relegated place in his world. His work in the private and public spheres offers imaginative and inexpensive ways to create remarkable gardens and landscaped installations. So much to learn here.
And yes, upon much reflection, the skinks were pretty awesome.
There is breathtaking beauty everywhere you look in Anderson Valley this winter, and it’s easy to see while passing vineyards which are dedicated to cultivating more than grapes. Handley Cellars Vineyards, always a Barndiva Family Favorite, is particularly stunning. And check out a recent @barndivahealdsburg post about Navarro’s remarkable annual approach to sheep season, captured during a joyful visit with the incomparable Sophia Bates.
Finally, We’d be remiss in closing this newsletter failing to mention how pleased we were with the turn-out for our Book & Film Event on Sunday January 22, which launched Studio B in 2023. It exceeded our expectations. Thanks to the help of Copperfields Bookstore the authors sold a great many books and fully half the sold- out audience stayed for the end of Elizabeth Falkner’s documentary “Sorry We’re Closed” which resumed after a probing, and frank Q & A about the state of the restaurant industry. A difficult conversation at times, it was a necessary one for anyone who loves dining out and is having trouble getting their heads around why and how it has become so expensive. We were proud to have helped facilitate it. Hopefully, there will be more to come like this for Studio B!
Our thanks to Heather Irwin and the Press Democrat ( @pressdemo, @biteclubbeats) for advance publicity for the event; to @shoplocalhealdsburg, @heatherfreyer, @jillkd, and our good friend @alexisconis for their IG follow ups - which we are admittedly dreadful at - so many reached out to say they were sorry to have missed the event but wanted to attend the next one!
And of course Big Love to our incredibly talented divas - Tanya Holland (@mstanyaholland, #californiasoulcookbook) who started the ball rolling, Jennifer Reichardt (@duckdaughterjj, #thewholeduckcookbook), Elizabeth Falkner (@cheffalkner, #sorrywereclosed) and the inimitable Duskie Estes, who guided the Q & A so deftly. (@farmtopantry).
We’ll leave the last word to @shophealdburg and their succinct take-away from the afternoon: #eattheview!
Healdsburg is justly famous as a mecca of fine dining these days, and Barndiva is proud to have been a part of that evolution, just as we are truly honored to have been awarded a Michelin Star for a second year. But this community has always been about more than fine dining for us. It is also a motherlode of single owner shops and galleries, makers and creators, neighbors, and friends – all of us surrounded by magnificent, verdant countryside.
If the past few years have taught us anything about keeping this landscape truly healthy so we can all thrive, we need to gather more to talk and listen, the better to protect what we love about this singular community. And who knows, these conversations might eventually have a ripple effect.
So it is that one of our resolutions this New Year is to focus on extended use of Studio Barndiva to foster more ongoing community conversations. First up in the newly branded Studio B is an afternoon celebrating four remarkable women whose food journeys have a great deal to teach us.
Tanya Holland is a new friend of the barn, a restaurateur, magnetic TV & podcast host and cookbook author of bestsellers like “Brown Sugar Kitchen.” She has just released a fabulous new cookbook called “California Soul,” something she has in abundance and is gracious enough to share.
Jennifer Reichardt is the winemaker/owner of Raft Wines always a star at The Pink Party and Fête Blanc – and she also has a new cookbook, “The Whole Duck,” which draws its recipes from her family owned business Liberty Duck – a valued purveyor of Barndiva’s since the day we opened.
We have admired Elizabeth Falkner since her Citizen Cake days, long before she went on to open four more acclaimed restaurants in San Francisco and New York and became an international presence as a TV personality and consultant. She now adds filmmaker to her impressive resume with the release “Sorry We’re Closed,” a timely film she directed about how the pandemic has adversely affected small restaurants throughout the country.
Healdsburg’s Duskie Estes hardly needs an introduction — the former owner of beloved restaurant Zazu and The Black Pig Meat Co with husband John Stewart, she is an iron chef, a brilliant speaker and mentor to many. Duskie has transformed Healdsburg’s non-profit Farm to Pantry in ways that are having a profound impact across the state on how to address food insecurity by strengthening our faltering food distribution systems.
That these four women are successful business owners, Top Chefs, Iron Chefs, Food Network Stars, winemakers and authors isn’t beside the point – the take away for us is how they are all using their considerable personal successes to fuel conversations about definitive ways to support farms, restaurants, and organizations that care as much about people as the food they source, serve, and distribute.
In the final days of December, we hosted a sold-out dinner for the late Sally Schmitt’s Six California Kitchens with Sally’s family, friends of our Philo family for many many years. Winemaker Phil Baxter gave a toast that night I have thought about often since. It was after a cooking class with Sally in 1999 that his parents decided to uproot their lives and come live and work in the Anderson Valley. “That single experience, Phil explained, “that connection to the Schmitt family, is the pure reason why I am living in Anderson Valley and doing what I do today.”
We are all looking for pure connections, especially those that provide direction to our lives. We all know they are rare. But as we try and build our businesses around meaningful lives in these most difficult times, trying to feed necessary personal notions of success that will keep us going, it is essential we form more inclusive, expansive definitions of what it means to be part of a “family.” Cooking and serving food and wine to the public we are ever mindful of farming practices and conscious sourcing; we try to honor connections to our purveyors and our work force. But you, our customers and clients, are the other side of that equation. Taken altogether, in good faith, in an environment where kindness matters, this is the family we have chosen.
We hope you are able to join us on January 22nd in Studio B, and meet these four remarkable women. We will be sipping Alma de Oakland cocktails and Raft wine, nibbling bites Chef Erik Anderson has prepared from California Soul. The authors will be talking about and signing their cookbooks, we’ll hear about and preview a bit of “Sorry We’re Closed,” and Duskie will inspire us about the vital mission of Farm to Pantry and what they have planned for the new year. If you are unable to be with us we encourage you to go out and purchase ‘California Soul’ and ‘The Whole Duck’ cookbooks at your local bookshop, seek out Elizabeth’s Film “Sorry We’re Closed,” and to find and support – with whatever resources you can manage – a non-profit food distribution network where you live.
FOOD NEWS: Chef Erik Anderson’s Winter Prix Fixe Menu
Maine Lobster from our January 4 menu
Photo: Chad Surmick
We are thrilled to present prix fixe menus this winter the better to showcase more of Erik’s prodigious talents. The menus will also enable us– including our chefs – to spend more time with our guests. The prix fixe will reflect exciting seasonal changes every week*, and can be enjoyed by vegetarians from start to sweet finish. Wine pairings are optional – a chance to dig through the cellar for gems and wines we love from lesser known vineyards. This week’s pairing from Barndiva’s (and soon to open Maison Healdsburg Wine Bar) Jade Hufford.
Starting this Janurary there will also be Bar Menus ~ come in for a Scott Beattie cocktail and share something unexpected.
We’d love to see you.
New Years Eve is the ultra FOMO evening of the year, full to the brim with unreasonable expectations. But it doesn't have to be that way. This year we are throwing TWO NYE parties, each with a different personality, both inspired by what we do best. Parties we'd love to attend if we could.
In the main dining room in the Barn we will be offering an exquisite a la carté seasonal winter menu, with all the NYE bells & whistles you'd expect - Chef's own label “PIPER caviar, Truffle tart flambé, killer cocktails from Scott Beattie, magnums of champagne. Isabel Hales, in an encore performance, will be spinning an incredible playlist.
Think festive, noisy, delicious.
Over In Studio B we offer BRUT, Chef Erik Anderson's multi-course tasting menu drawing on classic French techniques to create a vibrant and fresh new vision of modern French fine dining. A curated evening tracing our executive chefs remarkable culinary journey, it will be a dinner party of luxurious delights.
Think small, intimate, & candlelit, with scintillating conversation.
An Apology and An Invitation:
When I started to format this newsletter just a week ago, The Sally Schmitt Dinner on December 15 to celebrate three decades of friendship in Philo with our friends from the incredibly talented Bates and Schmitt family, had not yet gone on sale. It sold out from word of mouth within days. BUT … If you missed out on a place at the table to Celebrate Sally Schmitt’s life and Six California Kitchens at the dinner swing by Barndiva in the afternoon of the 15th between 3:30 and 5:00 when Karen and the family will be showing Ben Proudfoot’s documentary about Sally featured in the NYT and signing books!
There will be Apple Farm Jams and Jellies, Apple Syrup and Vinegars to purchase - great xmas stocking gifts or just to have in the pantry heading into the Holidays. We will be serving their delicious hot cider. Who knows, we may even get Scott to open the bar a few hours early to serve cocktails inspired by our three decades on Greenwood Ridge. Bahl Hornin’! (Which means Great Drink in Boontling)
Speaking of cocktails…We have only a few openings left for a Scott Beattie lead holiday cocktail class - as a stand alone experience to treat special friends and co-workers. scott.beattie@barndiva.com
And don’t forget to add a Barndiva Gift Certificate to your xmas list - they are good all year for every delicious thing we do! Share the Barndiva Experience…
This is a photo album and the following images speak in a language we all understand. Our first Fête Blanc since 2019, it was lovely to gather once again to celebrate fine white wines and the people who make them. We wish to thank our guests for the delightful energy they brought to our gardens on Sunday. Fête Blanc draws incredible talent from across Sonoma and Mendocino; it attracts one of the most discerning and engaged group of wine drinkers we see in the year. But boy, do they know how to enjoy an afternoon. You brought the shade friends. Thank you for joining us. Onward!
Our executive chef is Erik Anderson, our pastry chef is Neidy Venegas. Natalie Nelson directs our event team. The exquisite floral arrangements in both gardens were grown in Philo at Barndiva Farm, under the direction of Nick Gueli.
Over $2,000 was raised at Fête Blanc through an auction of wine donated by participants toward our continued support of Healdsburg’s Farm to Pantry.
We love this image. It speaks to both our history and our future, and the intersection is a good part of why we continue to love this community. The gentleman on the far right, Daniel Fitzgerald, was Barndiva’s very first bartender, his sister Emily, our very first server. The man sitting next to him, Sam Bilbro, also worked behind our bar quite a few moons ago. It gives us immense pleasure to welcome them both back for Fête Blanc as singularly talented winemakers - of Daniel Wines and Idlewild, respectively. This story of connection was repeated through the gardens on Sunday. As for the three rogues on the left, well, hopefully they are here to stay for a while. The renown mixologist and gleaner Scott Beattie, also a dear friend of many many years, now directs our beverage program. He is flanked by Barndiva’s newest bartenders, Charles and Daniel. The beat goes on.
All Rights Reserved Barndiva, LLC. Photography: Chad Surmick and Jil Hales.
We have never been as proud of the food we are sourcing and serving than in this moment. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Challenges across the hospitality industry are still being felt acutely, and building kitchen and front of house teams that have the desire to work with great skill and integrity has been a considerable challenge. All of which raises the bar on what to deliver when guests come in search of a great - make that gorgeous - food and drink experience. We get it.
Enter Erik Anderson, for whom every challenge is met with a nod and a wink. He and Thomas Noonan, the guiding force behind our hospitality, have built kitchen and Front of House teams that have both the skill set and the desire to be a part of something truly special. Erik's food has an elegant focus of flavors, subtly of texture, glorious color. We will savor the memory of the food we are cooking this summer for a long time to come.
Neidy Venegas continues to create deliriously delicious desserts, and she has expanded her heritage bread program for both dinner and brunch.
Here then is a snapshot of some of our favorite dishes on the dinner menu right now. Reservations are accepted one month out, but the bar, under the direction of Scott Beattie, is now serving dinner on a drop-in without reservation, first come first serve basis.
Barndiva serves dinner Wednesday - Sunday, with a later reservations policy of 9:30 on Friday and Saturday.
We are also pleased to present the new barndiva brunch menu, below.
We hope to see you for a meal, or a cocktail soon. Eat the view!
Dishes above: Nijimasu Crudo horseradish, buttermilk, smoked trout roe, english cucumber; Charcoal Roasted Squab medjool dates, coco nibs; Mount Lassen Trout saffron nage, Jimmy nardello pepper, grilled baby fenne; ; Grilled Spanish Octopus, pimenton caramel, pepper relish, salsa verde;
Our wonderful in house pasta program continues.. on the left: Brentwood Corn Snail Shell Pasta w/ sunflower yogurt, fresno peppers, perilla. on the right: Egg Yolk Dumplings w/ peas, onions, bacon, radish
Roasted Chicken green asparagus, morels, vin jaune, petit baguette
Red Currant Curd chocolate tahini crust, glazed Preston peaches, ras el hanout ice cream
Big News…
While Barndiva will no longer be serving lunch on Wednesday and Thursday, we have expanded our hours for Brunch with an exciting and completely new Menu.
On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Barndiva Brunch will be served from 11-2:30. This collaboration between Erik and Neidy have created a big C Comfort menu that is surprisingly fresh and nuanced. Never to be outdone, Scott has upped the ante on brunch cocktails and every week we will be offering a new short list of the best wines to drink on an afternoon. Reservations are required, but as with dinner the bar will be open for diners on a first come first serve basis. And of course, If there are cancellations in the gardens on any afternoon, we will try our best to accommodate your party.
all rights reserved Barndiva llc. Photography: Chad Surmick
Hello again! We are spilling over with exciting news to share. This will be the first of two early summer newsletters. Short but sweet.
Join us as we head into a beautiful summer here in Healdsburg and at the farm.
Two very special wine events follow on the heels of Barndiva’s earning the Wine Spectator ‘Best of Award of Excellence’ for the sixth year running. On July 27th we host Baron Ziegler and Pax Mahle of Marine Layer and PAX, followed by the return of Fête du vin Blanc after an absent of two years. Details and ticket links for both: below. Seating is limited for the Marine Layer / Pax dinner. Fête Blanc, which has just gone on sale, will invariably sell out. We hope to raise a glass with you at one of these wine events.
Should you want a bit of romance a few weeks before Fête Blanc, according to the fine folks at Travel and Leisure (who know these things) our upcoming wine dinner with Marine Layer and Pax is the ticket. These two talented winemakers - Pax Mahle and Baron Ziegler -have charged Erik to create a very special menu we will pair with the vintages THEY are most excited about. Rumor has it they will be raiding their own wine cellars for this one.
In between the launch of the season with The Pink Party and Féte Rouge at the end around harvest time, we host our most elegant garden party, known as Fête Blanc. Gathering in both gardens over 30 vintners pour their most fabulous white wines and bubbles. There will be music, incredible florals, and we’ve expanded the grazing menu from the kitchen. A wine raffle of all the wines being poured, donated by the winemakers, will benefit the essential services of Healdsburg’s Farm to Pantry.
THE BAR IS OPEN FOR DINING!
Yes! we are finally back to drinking AND dining at the barndiva bar, so it’s a perfect time to come in and experience the green and floral oasis Scott and our farm manager Nick have created. Sitting there is slipping into Henri Rousseau’s The Dream with an icy coup filled to the brim. No tiger, pure joy. For those who have followed Scott’s illustrious career over the years, you are in for a treat. For us, the connection between the farm and Barndiva bar program has never been so beautiful. When we quip “Drink the View,” this is what we mean by it.
With the days growing long we have also extended dinner hours with last seatings at 9:30 Friday - Saturday
This this month we also welcome two terrific new bartenders to join Isabel and Hayden. Charles has come to us from Montage Healdsburg, Daniel moved all the way across the country to work with Scott from The Hayride Scandal, in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, where he and Charles met . We are thrilled they are here and can’t wait for you to meet them.
Food service at the Bar does not require a reservation; it is first come first served. You are most welcome to start your evening with a cocktail, but whether at the bar or the allée please ensure it’s before your dinner reservation.
Scott wants us to remind everyone that summer is the perfect time to get friends, family, co-workers TOGETHER for one of his Cocktail Classes - an experience in master mixology, foraging technique and the true nature of good spirit(s). Held in the Studio Barndiva Gardens, we are happy to offer priority seating for dinner following class.
That is all the liquid news for now. We will have great food news from Chefs Erik and Neidy in Part 2. Please, stay tuned. As a teaser, here is something new from Neidy. A sweet adieu if you’ve read this far.
Eat the View,
Barndiva
BARNDIVA’S PINK PARTY CREW 2022
BloodRoot | Reeve | Leo Steen | Ryme Cellars | Valkyrie Wine Imports | Raventós I Blanc | Carboniste Robert Sinskey | Private Property | Captûre | Orsa Wines | Schramsberg | Handley Cellars | Pax Wines | Rootdown Wine Cellars | brick & mortar | Kara Marie | Cep/Peay Vineyards | County Line | Scribe | Long Meadow Ranch | Marine Layer Wines | Railsback Frére| Roederer Estate | Tendu Wines | Ruth Lewandowski | Ernest Vineyards | Raft | Flowers | Tansy Wines | Halleck Vineyard | Lili Sparkler | Idlewild | Inizi
It was an afternoon of gloriously coloured rosé in every glass, a wisteria sky, gardens filled with laughter and smiles. Yes, we know, the world is a mess and covid is not done with us yet, but for a few hours on a Sunday in April we all dressed up and mingled again without fear. We even danced a little. Barndiva was proud to have hosted a party such as this, where we tipped the scales towards delight as we celebrated a scintellating spring moment and the singular talents of the 32 Rosé winemakers in our midst.
The Pink Party has always been about community. It arrives at the start of the season when our small town is about to be inundated with tourists, so it is especially gratifying to gather together and touch base with so many dear friends- and make new ones - in the winemaking community. Not that it mattered if you came not knowing a soul –as you can see from these wonderful images shot by our friend Chad Surmick . At Barndiva we pride ourselves on knowing how to throw a great party, but the truth is that no matter how on point you are at planning the really successful parties always ultimately depend upon the wilingness of the crowd to make a day or an evening come alive. Together, we nailed it, so thank you to every face pictured here and to those we may have missed capturing. You are gorgeous. We loved having you here.
We send thanks to all the hands behind the scene who played a crucial role in Pink Party 2022: to Sally, Natalie, Cathryn, Haley, Duskie, Scott and Nick, who harvested, sourced and arranged all the glorious florals in both gardens. And of course to Chefs Erik , Neidy, Michael, and everyone in the kitchens and on the serving staff.
Finally, a word about Farm to Pantry: We were thrilled to be able to support them this year with a raffle of wines donated by every winery who participated. We cannot stress how Important what Duskie Estes and her dedicated team at Farm to Pantry are doing within the Sonoma Community to distribute the excess bounty of our landscape – and then some. They are helping put food on tables where it is most needed. That we can enjoy a day such a this and also help a little to redress the inequities of food availability in the larger community was a privledge. Donate your time to glean with them and enjoy making a difference as you spend time with a wonderful group of neighbors.
The Philo Apple Farm, looking towards Hendy Woods and Greenwood Ridge
We talk about farm to table a lot these days without understanding the back breaking, thoroughly unglamorous hours of work it takes to accomplish anything close to that profound connection. Or, for that matter, loom to sweater or clay to vase… instead we covet power and the goodies that come with money and recognition as proof of some notion of success that increasingly seems to come and go with the season. But the deeply felt rewards of following your intuition and putting in the time and work because you care was Sally Schmitt’s genius, and clearly something she taught her children. In her case it came in the form of taking honed traditional values and making them ‘true’ to her own time and her family’s ongoing needs. It’s very old fashioned to think of character in this way - in the sense that True North is philosophical as well as directional. Sally Schmitt didn’t set out to be a trendsetter for so many of the things we’ve come back around to valuing today - she lived those values. And it was bloody hard work until it became easier.
Sally, who passed away peacefully at The Apple Farm on March 5, was the formidable mother of my good friend Karen Bates who moved to Philo with her husband Tim the same year, 1984, that we bought our farm on Greenwood Ridge. Whenever I saw Sally after she and Don had sold the French Laundry to Thomas Keller and re-located to Anderson Valley, first to Elk and then the Apple Farm, I was still hopping on planes from London every summer to get my family back to our ‘work-in-progress’ farm. Always in her apron, moving slowly but with purpose, she’d stop and break into a beatific smile when she saw me and the kids. I like to think this was because she knew I loved her family, but it also just might have been that she knew I connected all my crazy dots about life in a way that also revolved around family, creativity, hard work. Our backgrounds could not have been more different except that I had a mother for whom nothing was impossible if you believed it was the right thing for you and your family. So. A kindred spirit.
In interacting and observing the world Sally built with her children over the years, I saw how much it centered around family, and food. Specifically food that exemplified Brillat-Savarin’s ideal that all great dishes must ultimately come down to satisfying ‘le goût du revenez-y’ – the taste you come back to. Savarin never established where this longing started – in childhood perhaps – but it has always rung true. And Sally’s cooking nailed it.
The last time I saw Sally for any length of time was at her granddaughter Rita’s splendid wedding to Jerzy. Never the social butterfly and moving more slowly by then, she was happy to watch her family celebrate around her - she did not move far from her chair that day – and I took the opportunity to keep her company. We talked about the whole pig we roasted per her recipe at Barndiva for Grandson Perry’s wedding and the extraordinary dancing at Grandson Joe’s wedding at The Apple Farm years before that – Joe’s sons now running wild in the orchards below us. At some point I remember her turning in her chair to look me straight on and ask how things were going “at that barn of yours in Healdsburg.” I shook my head, said something like “I may have bitten off more than I can chew,” expecting some pithy Sally response like “take smaller bites.” What she said, simply, was ‘You know what you are doing.’ I didn’t fully. Not that day, and not now – do any of us? We hope and too often our hubris allows us to think we know, but do we?
But thinking back now it wasn’t that she thought I “knew” in the sense of planning for a tomorrow that might never come, especially in the crazy world of hospitality and restaurants, but in Montaigne’s sense that “the greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself.” Staying true, somehow, to that indefatigable North Star even as it moves across the sky of your life, through loss and success, joy and sadness. Just willing to put the work in.
There’s a wonderful line in Richard Powers The Overstory – one of many in that great book – that seems applicable here: “As certain as weather coming from the west the things people know will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.”
I’ve had trouble learning humility. My mother warned me of this. But as a woman in a man’s world, being fierce was – as I saw it and built my life – the only way forward without being compliant to anyone’s version of the status quo, or, crucially, becoming complicit in supporting values that were morally reprehensible. I am still learning to lean into humility. But I do know it starts with looking.
I am not in the habit of making predictions but here’s one I am sure of: Six California Kitchens is going to be a classic. Troyce, yet another talented grandson, has done a magnificent job melding the old photographs of Sally’s life with images of dishes she and daughters Karen and Kathy cooked and styled at The Apple Farm. There is no spiffy cookbook artifice here - gorgeously photographed dishes you can’t hope to recreate - just wonderful recipes, and the story of one remarkable woman’s life.
If you find yourself heading up to Anderson Valley and can cage a reservation to stay at The Apple Farm to experience a real small family farm, do not hesitate, and try to talk to Tim about apples. The extremely talented Perry Hoffman, now working with his Uncle Johnny at the Boonville Hotel can cook you dinner there - the best Anderson Valley has to offer. And don’t miss stopping off first for some wine and cheese at Pennyroyal Farm, where if you are very lucky you may get a glimpse of granddaughter Sofia if she’s not off on some mountain above Navarro tending their sheep.
Life is not easy to get through unscathed, but the trait of character that gets one through it – at least to the extent you are satisfied with the life you’ve led at the end of it - is something I’m pretty sure Sally Schmitt figured out.
What a legacy. RIP Sally.
We hope this Eat the View finds you well, your spirit intact and exciting plans for gathering with friends, extended family, and co-workers gaining momentum. It is so great to be out together again, maskless, re-connecting. While It’s been beautiful here in Sonoma and Mendocino - cold, sunny, green - we need more rain and the News of the World continues to be challenging (to say the least). Call it the new normal - but all we know for sure living in these wonderful, confounding, delicious, too often heartbreaking times is that life is so much better trying to make sense of things with other people who are passionate about food and wine and design and gardens. we hope like us you are intent on rooting out genuine storylines that are ongoing and real, if slightly fantastical. We have been largely silent of late on the blog front for a reason, taking stock and getting ready for a spring… of emergence. We’re ready now.
This Eat the View contains three events we want to tell you about that capture what we’re feeling and planning right now: the first is a deep dive dinner party Wednesday, March 9; the second is a scoop for Eat the View readers; the third a temptation around libations unlike anything we’ve done (or seen) before.
Read on. And thank you for your continued support!
DEEP DIVE DINNER PARTY Our wine director the inimitable Sally Kim, formerly of the Delfina Restaurant Group will be curating a seasonal series of unusual wine maker evenings in the elegant Studio Barndiva this spring kicking off 9th March with a Deep Dive into the best of Sonoma Coast’s wines, starting with the legendary Littorai vineyards. Biodynamic grape growers, farmers, winemakers and educators Ted & Heidi Lemon will be joining us, pairing their wines with a dynamic five course menu created by Barndiva’s Chef Erik Anderson. $350 per person, all inclusive.
CLICK HERE FOR THE MENU, WINE PAIRINGS, AND A SEAT AT THE TABLE.
THE SCOOP: Tickets have quietly gone on sale, online as of today, for the long awaited return of The Pink Party on the 3rd April, 11am – 2pm. Our 40+ winemaker Sunday extravaganza (you know if you’ve been there) is a glorious collaboration and celebration of over 35 local wineries, with winemakers in attendance serving their finest local Rosé’s accompanied by delectable, Barndiva canapé & hors d’oeuvres. Served beneath the flowering wisteria and mulberries of our gardens- with Nick Gueli this year doing the honors of our instagram floral wall- you won’t want to miss this launch of the season. Be advised dear Eat the View Readers, tickets will disappear.
THE TEMPTATION:. if you follow us @barndivahealdsburg you may know that come April 1st - no fool he- the legendary mixologist Scott Beattie will be joining us as our Beverage Director. Future Eat the Views will no doubt have to be sub-titled Drink the View in future as Scott, after a short honeymoon, puts the finishing touches on an exciting new cocktail service to be followed with a return to dining at the bar.
And we are pleased to offer the very first series of Scott Beattie Cocktail Classes at Barndiva. These will be lively, full sensatory experiences where Scott will teach you how to make classic and original cocktails using the finest spirits, elixirs and organic fruit material, much of it forged from the Barndiva Farm. Classes start at $150 per person and can be booked for 6 – 24 ‘students’ in a spectacular classroom otherwiseknowas The Studio Barndvia Gardens.
Learn how to make great seasonal cocktails from the man who wrote the book on it.
DIRECT BOOKING ONLY: 707 4310100.