Handblown glass from Sugahara, one of the finest glass blowing companies in Japan.
Barware $30 Drinking Glasses $29
Hands down, the best gift you could give this year is a framed card collection from the early 1900's, unique to Studio Barndiva. Encyclopedic in scope, these beautiful cards reveal fascinating details on a variety of subjects. For that bicycle - bird - flower - horse - butterfly -fish- scientific invention- garden- or even old car- lover in your house, this is a great gift. Framed in-house in 2 panes of UV glass, the better to read the fascinating descriptions on the backside! Collections start at $295.
How To Make Your Own Chicken Coop, circa 1923
The bottling and release of our Sommelier Tommy DeBiase's 2009 Pinot was cause for celebration around Barndiva last week. We love it when we can make a real connection between food and wine, and it doesn't get better when we can do that and ALSO celebrate one of our own. This is the third year Tommy has been making wines with Fritschen grapes. Fritschen VIneyards is located on Eastside Road across the river from the old William Selyem crown. It is also a farm where some of our finest lamb is raised (as well as olives brined on the branch that we serve with our whole roasted baby poussin).
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The winemaker's notes read: "Old vines grown on 36 degree steep rocky hillsides, result in low yields (only 1.5 tons per acre). Lots of minerality and crispness with Bing Cherry and Pomegranate fruit, with a structure that has both bright acidity and supple tannin."
DeBiase 2009 Fritschen Vineyards Pinot Noir, by the bottle and by the glass, is now available in the lounge.
Dish of the Week:
Vegan Winter Vegetable Sauté with Roasted New Potatoes, Local Spicy greens, Mustard Vinaigrette
The images above represent a portion of the mise en place* a single hot station needs on hand every night in order to execute the dishes on Chef Fancher’s ever changing seasonal menus. They also form the basis for a request for a Vegan entrée, which we are happy to prepare a la minute. The better the mise en place, the greater the opportunity to create a memorable produce- inspired dish.
Barndiva’s kitchen under Chef Fancher relies upon a traditional French “Brigade” system where the lead chef on a hot or cold line must have mastery over the focus of a single station. Pulling as we do from the most superlative produce gardens in Sonoma County, the Entremetier ~ the chef in charge of the vegetable station ~ is a pretty important position. Andrew Wycoff is Barndiva’s talented Entremetier who arrives each morning to face hours of prep where his mise en place will be essential to our dinner menus, as well as providing a vibrant display of creative possibilities when animal proteins do not figure in a dish.
First thing to hit the heat with this dish were the Baby Yukon Gold Creamers ~ slowly simmered in salted water until soft, then peeled of their skins. They were then roasted in a hot sauté pan until golden brown and finished with olive oil and Maldon Sea Salt.
While the potatoes were roasting Chef specified which winter vegetables to use: cauliflower – broccoli – pearl onion – carrot – pumpkin – Brussels sprouts. These were sautéed and finished with sage & olive oil.
The lively mustard vinaigrette, pulled from another station with mise en place prepared by our Garde Manger (salad chef), Hugo Hernandez, was comprised of spicy brown mustard – champagne vinegar – grape seed oil – shallot – carrot dice – leek dice – chive – chervil – salt & pepper – pinch of sugar.
To finish the dish Chef Ryan chose a loose ruffle of spicy local greens – an heirloom variety from Mix Garden. Then this delightful Vegan dish, which took hours to prepare though only a few inspired moments to cook was off to the dining room.
*Mise en Place ~ the collection of ingredients (e.g. cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables and other components) which are specifically prepared to execute each dish on the menu.
While there are hundreds of wedding blogs around, many of which we've been featured in, we are always thrilled to see a Barndiva wedding in Style Me Pretty. It's one of the best blogs around which really tell the story of a wedding from start to finish, down to the last details.
We are now deep into booking the available dates for Summer 2011 in the Gallery and the New Studio Gardens. Contact Lukka or Amber if you have a special event ~ doesn't have to be a wedding ~ you'd like to inquire about.
Think outside the Saturday night box!
For more beautiful photos, click below:
Eco-Friendly California Wedding by Shannon Leith
We definitely have a little soft spot around here for beautiful details but when those beautiful details are also eco-friendly, well, let’s just say the result is way beyond your everyday gorgeous wedding. With a limited budget, an eye for crafty projects and a desire to make their event as green as possible, this earth-minded couple crafted one pretty fantastic party all caught on film by Shannon Leith. It’s green, it’s gorgeous and there’s a whole lot more of it in the gallery.
Bastidor Santos mannequins were traditionally paraded around the streets in Spain during religious holidays, adorned with elaborate costumes.
Hand carved Narwood, these are based on an original Spanish Colonial design:
Bust $290
Mannequin $300
(originally posted January 19, 2010) The Patch, AOL's new online community-specific news and information platform has a feature about Barndiva this week. To read Leslie Harlib's article with photos, click here.
The restaurant's name is so curious: Barndiva. What could it mean?
My first thought: It's an opera singer who performs in a barn. Or it's Swedish for 'farm-driven local food star.'
But according to Jil Hales, who has owned a working farm in Philo for 30 years and who founded and co-owns Barndiva with her husband Jeffrey Hales (her son Lukka Feldman is general manager; their farm grows much of what they serve), the restaurant's moniker honors Sonoma County farmers as the stars of the dining experience.
"Barndiva is an old nickname from the year I used to jam in my barn years ago," she explained. "In terms of this restaurant, it has to do with people who hit the high notes in their worlds — people who are at the top of their game.
"Whether they come from barns, stables, fields, make a great bread or cheese, they hit a high note in their craft," she said. "I wanted the concept of diva to be more encompassing than just referencing someone who sings opera.
"Sometimes people think of divas as having tempers," she continued. "The word really means people who excel and are the finest. I think we have that in Sonoma in terms of food.
"People shouldn't feel it's beyond their comfort or their budget to experience that level of local culinary diva in our restaurant," she said.
Based on the feel of the place and the extraordinary meal I sampled there recently, Hales and her team are making good on the unusual name.
Just a block away from Healdsburg Avenue, you don't really feel Barndiva's mass until you walk across the street to marvel at the immense building that's been quietly weathering away on Center Street for nearly seven years. From the outside, it resembles a giant barn designed by a hip architect. Hale and her husband, neither of them architects, conceived of and designed the space; they live in a pied a terre above the 16-foot-high main floor.
Even the entrance is a bit of an adventure. It's not visible from the street. You walk along a flagstone path past hedges growing over metal arches, to enter what feels like an art gallery crossed with a restaurant.
Huge wire sculptures of farm animal heads hang on the wall and cast shadows like seductive webs. There's a sculpture of old wooden cobbler's shoe molds positioned near the check-in podium. The long, full bar is awash with dramatic lighting, as is the visible floor-to-ceiling wine cellar that glows golden, lit from behind. It's also an incredibly comfortable restaurant, with plump banquettes, padded chairs, even padded stools at the long, elegant bar.
Art is as important to the experience of dining here as the food, says Hales. Three years ago, the Hales bought the next-door building and opened Studio Barndiva. By day, it's an art gallery featuring paintings, sculptures and crafts. At night, it becomes event space. Barndiva's private parties, weddings and other special celebrations are held there so the restaurant never has to close, she outlined.
The hands-on Barndiva team includes Hales overseeing the artisan-style cocktails, chef Ryan Fancher, formerly of the French Laundry heading the kitchen, and pastry chef Tracy Mattson, a Cyrus alumna, turning out the desserts, They make a formidable triumvirate.
"I'm a drinker" Hale said. Her interest in artisan cocktails shows in the stimulating line-up of seasonal drinks. Midnight Harvest may one of the most unusual tipples in town: a martini glass brimming with a chilled brew of cognac, house-made pumpkin-curry liqueur, fresh and burnt orange accents ($12). It's like liquid pumpkin pie with Humphrey Bogart overtones.
If there's a must-have in the small plates, it's Fancher's signature goat cheese croquettes with house made tomato jam and lavender honey ($10). Get a half portion, because these are mega-rich. Balls of local goat cheese are rolled in crumbs, quickly deep fried, then sprinkled with lavender sprigs and swirls of honey. All the flavors are at once tangy, sweet and floral. I've never had anything like them. With cocktails, they make a knock-out snack.
Another small plate, crispy sweetbreads with poached quail egg, bacon, leek and truffle butter ($15) offered up lavish layers of texture: crispy, smooth, crunchy, pulpy. Wow. It was utter seduction and thankfully, the portion was just small enough to be a perfect shared starter.
I loved the esoteric combination of braised dandelion greens packed into gossamer-thin noodle dough to become ravioli, served with whole chestnuts, honey glazed turnips and truffle ($24). It was surprisingly light, yet had enough dimension to fill you up. When many restaurants rarely offer tempting or creative vegetarian options, this one was a high point. (The menu also states that chef is happy to prepare vegan or vegetarian entrees upon request.)
Main dishes included a combination that was as much about theater as it was about savor — an entire roasted poussin with assorted root vegetable confit, olives, and a delicate wine-enriched brown sauce one heart-beat silkier than natural jus ($25). This beautifully autumnal dish was carved tableside. Tendrils of aroma swirled up as the suited host sliced the bird and arranged the plate; the experience feel like the gourmet equivalent of a 3-D movie.
That tableside theater continued in a dessert of baked Alaska ($11). Fire shot up higher than a foot as the server ignited the confection's liqueur. For a moment, we were the focus of every other diner. We said"ooh," like awestruck kids. As for the pastry, it comprised a thin, crispy cake base mounded with house made butter pecan ice cream that had a heart of coffee granita, a slick of lemon sauce, and that elegant meringue browned to a fare-thee-well in the flames.
"We plan to offer more dishes served tableside, and train our waiters to do this" said Hales in a phone call following my meal. "It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to have the fun of tableside dining. It allows diners to get closer to the food and brings them back to the actual ingredients."
It impressed me that a meal of this caliber was not overwhelmingly pricey. Two can dine here for $100 (that would include one or two cocktails) which I consider to be a reasonable price for such high-quality ingredients from a menu that changes seasonally. Expect to find a complete turnover of options four times a year, though our waiter assured us that one or two staples, including the goat cheese croquettes, will always be available.
If you want to leave the experience up to Fancher and his team, chef's tasting menus are available for $75 with an additional $45 for wine paring.
Between the soft lighting, the art and the artful food, Barndiva may be one of the most romantic, as well as high-end earthy, restaurants in Healdsburg.
Barndiva is at 231 Center St., 431-0100 for reservations, www.barndiva.com. It's open for lunch and dinner noon to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; noon to midnight Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday. Reservations are recommended.
Just in:
Manok Cohen
The Cloud
40 x 48
$2900
(originally posted Dec 2010)
(originally posted January 5, 2010)
(originally posted January 5, 2011)
In case you missed Virginie Boone's wonderful article on Classic Cocktails in last week's Press Democrat, here is a link. Shot here at Barndiva, we were pleased to have them include 'Midnight Harvest,' sure to become a Barndiva classic, currently on our winter cocktail list.
(originally posted December 29, 2010) Considering the tragic, scary and downright stupid things which dominated the news this year, we thought we would end our last newsletter of 2010 with a Top Ten list that speaks to brilliance and talent, with one pertinent reminder that because nothing ever stays the same ~ the only direction that ultimately matters is forward.
1. The Low Budget Film, alive and kicking
The Social Network had a great script, and Inside Job should be required viewing for every American, but the cinematic theme of the year wasn’t about greed and technology, rampant though they both are. Film is primarily a visual medium, so it was all the more remarkable that the most inspired films released this year focused on how, in spite or because of the proliferation of social media, language is failing us. Nicole Holofcener’s mordant, deeply funny Please Give was a pointed but gentle rebuke at the narcissistic face of liberal guilt. Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love was a ravishing visual roman à clef that brought Visconti to mind, confirmed Tilda Swinton’s face as a force of nature, and for all the power in which it captured the empty language of the rich, could have been a silent picture. Of all our favorite films this year, however, none was more impressive than Debra Granik’s Winter's Bone. An explosion of brilliant new talent both in front of and behind the camera, it was the kind of low budget film about the human condition we used to think only foreigners could make. A mystery, an exploration of what it means to be poor and illiterate in America, and, most poignantly, a use of lost language as spare and wounding as a Faulknerian tone poem, this is a great American film. In drawing a world bereft of morality and faith, it speaks to what happens when human beings fall back on superstitions and tribal tradition to guide their destiny. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty powerful global message as well.
2. Montaigne Rules
Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was the great American novel of the year, deserving of all the hype, but the most remarkable book this year, for being both a homecoming and a map to the future, was How to Live (or) A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell. An inventive biography about a dude who lived four hundred years ago, Bakewell invites us to re-discover a voice so honest, charming and clever its wisdom is as relevant today as any self-help book you are likely to find. I am an unapologetic member of the dying tribe that still believes the unexamined life is not worth living, but even if your definition of wisdom runs only to aphorism, you will find a lot to chew on here. Bakewell does an extraordinary job of letting Michel Eyquem de Montaigne speak for himself, while placing him firmly in a Renaissance tradition that exalted the life of the mind. This genteel nobleman was a winegrower who spoke fluent Latin, a self-taught philosopher who participated fully in politics and invented the short for essay which he used to reflect amusingly on every issue of the day. Montaigne believed the more thought we put into life, the more we get out of it. Amen to that.
3. Park Here If You Must
I’ve not yet been inside Herzog & de Meuron’s new parking & retail structure in Miami, 1111 Lincoln Road Garage, but I almost don’t need to. It's pretty damn hard to rethink space on any level in the current economic climate ~ when you work as big as these guys do it's practically impossible. Yet this Swiss firm consistently challenges preconceived notions of material, design and program in future-forward ways. While the current focus in architecture on ecological and ergonomic utility is certainly important, aesthetically, when it comes to public spaces that aren’t deep pocket museums, it’s been pretty much of a bust. As Healdsburg’s parking problems continue to grow, it’s refreshing to think there may be alternatives to addressing that problem without resorting to the concrete parking bunker. 1111 Lincoln has a mixed-use program with pop-up retail on the top floor. Its undulating concrete walls will eventually be grown to soften the ‘view’ of all that metal inside. During the recent Art Basel Miami Beach some of its vast floor space was also used for performance art, very cool indeed. Even for a town as small as ours I see the potential of parking cars, flea market sales, and stimulating performance art all in one place, especially when that art could represent a segment of the community that cannot afford high street rents.
4. In Bed with Jon and Frank
With the exception of my husband, I spent an inordinate amount of quality time in bed with these two men this year. Late at night, especially when it was a frustrating news day, I fell asleep with a smile on my face thanks to Jon Stewart, America's court jester, who says what we are all thinking a hell of a lot funnier than it plays in our aching heads. Frank Rich provided a different kind of salve for these trying times. In an age when facts have become almost beside the point on a increasingly partisan and commercialized media playing field, his thoroughly researched, riveting editorials in the New York Times every Sunday morning were David and Goliath efforts that never failed to speak truth to power.
5. Public Speaking
While Stewart and Rich deserve twin “the Emperor is Wearing No Clothes” awards this year, Martin Scorsese did us all a favor by bestowing a lifetime achievement nod on Fran Lebowitz, the closest thing America has to a wit the size of Oscar Wilde’s with the feminine acuity of Dorothy Parker. Public Speaking, which arrived on cable without much fanfare is a program that actually lives up to being Must See TV. An hour spent with this woman is an instant elixir, brief respite to the proliferation of Kim Kardasian types and all those other 'fame ho’s' (both male and female) that increasingly clutter the airwaves, and our lives. This is that rare hour of amusing enlightenment which sidesteps youth for age, fake beauty for character, stupidity for profundity. I was especially taken with her remarks about the audience that was lost with AIDS and how that has affected the arts, and the importance of elitism in culture (as opposed to building an elitist society) which has lead to a degradation of quality that has affected every aspect of American cultural life.
6. Jamie at Home
One of the questions I asked myself in 2010 ~ that I didn’t get any closer to answering~ was why food programs on TV continue to get worse instead of better. With the proliferation of farmer's markets, the fervent interest in sourcing, the rise of urban farming, why does food programming increasingly reek of such dumbing down? I haven’t been a fan of the Food Network since they went over to the dark side dropping Mario for Paula. So I was thrilled to find Jamie Oliver over on the Cooking Channel (with fellow Brits Nigella Lawson and Two Fat Ladies) a few months back. I have no idea if he really lives on his farm with Jools and the kids, cooking in wood fired ovens using food he has grown, and I really don’t care. His visceral description of ingredients, the way he touches food, the simplicity of his ideas (recipes are almost besides the point for Jamie) are simply brilliant. I’ve loved Jamie since Naked Chef days. He is a lovely boy (as my dear friend Lynda would say) who has taken his fame as a serious opportunity to improve everything around him for as long as the dance lasts. Yes, his experience with getting Americans to eat healthier was a disaster, but this program is worth taping and referring back to. If you don’t get the channel, go online where you can download the recipes for free.
7. Jil at Home
Speaking of food that doesn’t have to be precious to be delicious, go figure that the best meal I had all year (not made by Chef Fancher) was a simple vegetable soup. Why vegetable soup when I had the great privilege to eat food from the kitchens of Mario, Jean-George, Daniel, April, David, Doug and Ari? You know the Paul Simon line ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans?’ Sometimes it's true about great dishes as well. Food was the last thing on my mind when I started to think about dinner on November 2nd. The stupidity and vitriol in the run-up to the elections that day had, quite literally, made me sick to my stomach. As it was a Tuesday and the restaurant was closed, I rummaged through the walk-in and the fridges, then spent a long time foraging through the raised herb and vegetables beds behind the gallery. It must have taken three hours to make that soup. At first I was simply avoiding the results of the election, but slowly, as I sliced every vegetable carefully, adding them to the pot one at a time, patiently watching them turn translucent, bubble, and simmer I came to see that while the results were now out of my control, feeding myself, my family, and members of the human race who, by luck or by design, wander into Barndiva, wasn’t. In the end I didn’t make that soup so much as it made me. When I finally came to taste it I took great pride in the balance of sweet to salty, the rooty, herbal, heavenly smell, the glorious color. When Geoff tasted it later that night he looked up and said “this is really great, what’s in it?” “Hope”, I replied. He probably thought I was crazy, but there is nothing new in that.
8. Cocktail of the Year
I don’t care if it sounds like nepotism, the best cocktails anywhere this year were served here at the barn. Strawberry Life called for the ripest of wild strawberries macerated into a cognac base to which we added a touch of Nagori Sake (cloudy, the result of unfiltered dormant yeast particles), homegrown Thai Basil and fresh lemon juice. Finished with a mist of Crème de Violette, it was summer in a glass which we should have called Sex in the Grass (no, not that grass Virginia). Ernest in Love, another favorite (ode to Hemingway’s first marriage) featured Tequila and Aperol with local watermelon compressed with lemongrass, lime juice, agave nectar and, as a grace note, a spray of fresh rosewater. Thanks in great part to Stefan’s mad genius and Adam and Sammy’s desire to push the limits, we infused spirits with all manner of fresh fruit, herb and spice drams, cold smoked apples and rosemary from our farm, washed brown butter, infused rare black teas, fabricated pumpkin curries and stone fruit jams, chopped through all manner of homegrown chili and exotic citrus until our eyes rolled. Croatian cherries? No problem. Jack Daniel's barrel woodchips? Torch ‘em. With the exception of the night Stefan almost burned down the barn cooking up some concoction, every drink these three guys put out this year was bloody brilliant. I was a very proud mama indeed (albeit one with an aching liver.) Cocktail of the year goes to The Lover (named after the great Marguerite Duras novella of the same name) because it perfectly balanced my favorite fruit (white peaches) with fresh ginger and the green herbal notes of lemon verbena we grew from a plant Bonnie Z gave us. Filtered sake and a hit of Navarro grape juice added sweet and yeasty notes. We finished the drink at the bar by igniting a poof of green chartreuse ~ this Divatini even had magic. The trick of making craft cocktails at this level is that all the flourishes must soften and meld the minute you pick up the glass to drink. These do. Cheers.
9. Picture of the Year
Without a doubt you will find more globally important images if you click the links below, but the moment Lukka captured of the Healdsburg Post Office burning resonates deeply for us on several levels. It marks the end of an era: no more walking distractedly through town to post a letter and find the moment of the day in which the town reclaimed you. Sometimes it was just a wave from a neighbor, a quick coffee from Flying Goat, a simple breeze that made you look up at the trees in the Plaza. I am not alone in mourning the loss that experience will mean to living here. But in the weeks and months that followed the fire, as it became clear that efforts by Jim Wood, Ray Holly and others to re-build would come to naught, I began to understand that more than the post office was gone. What if the loss we were experiencing on a community level was just the beginning of the end to Snail Mail which will be gone soon, like listening to music on CD’s, watching films on DVD’s, conversing on land-line telephones. Some of these ‘advances’ are good, no doubt, and all of them will seem inevitable when we look back. What is hardest to reconcile is how change like this undermines a precious connection to the time and place, and to the people you accidentally get to know when you wandered out to experience life first hand.
New York Times 2010 year in pictures
10. A Town Full of Babies
Losing the post office was sad, which makes the last item on our top ten list all the more important. 2010 was the Year of the Baby here in Healdsburg ~ everywhere you looked gorgeous babies glided by with their newly minted parents, making everyone in their wake feel like a cockeyed optimist. Some were spied repeatedly dining in our gardens or at Scopa, others were seen hiding in the foliage at Dragonfly, the changing rooms at Arboretum, the shampoo station at Brush. One young man we knew as a baby had his first, while our bookkeeper had her fifth. This proliferation of new life, the growth of families that have put roots down here and have already contributed so much ~ with so much more left to come ~ is something we can take joy in. And we do.
(originally posted December 22, 2010)
For the second to last newsletter of the year, we thought it would be fun (and relatively easy) to take a quick look back at all the ‘dish of the weeks' we compiled and choose a winner. Fun yes. Easy? Not a chance. We were blown away with the sheer volume of mouthwatering images and fascinating cooking tidbits chef and I managed to compile in one short year. Choosing a dish each week is not based on science (discovering a new technique) or math (what sold the most), it's an ephemeral decision made a few days, sometimes a few hours, before compiling ingredients and shooting them. We did not set out to build what has turned out to be a fascinating food journal (a calendar? The start of a cookbook?). Only two things mattered: the joy of working together and the connection each dish had to a built-in reverence for great raw product, which always guides us.
What began as a bit of entertainment, a way to make the newsletter a more enticing read for you, turns out to be the best Christmas gift we could have given ourselves ~ a grace note to a year that, while it tested us in every way possible, ended up being more nourishing ~ in all senses of the word ~ than any that has preceded it.
Dish of the Week is very much a collaborative project ~ just as every dish we send out to the dining room must be. In this, Chef Ryan, Lukka, Geoff and I are supported by an insanely talented kitchen staff. A special call out to Tommy, who has brought so much to the table (literally and figuratively) this, his first year with us, and to Pancho, Danny and Drew, who always have our backs. A special note of thanks as well to my incredibly talented assistant, K2, who patiently works with me every step of the way to capture the essential spirit of each dish.
In the end, we could not come up with a single winner ~ so we give you our favorite meat, fish and vegetable entrées. While each in a special way contributed to the food narrative we try to tell here at Barndiva, a remarkable taste profile combined with the beauty of Ryan’s plating ultimately won our vote.
2nd Runner Up...
Compressed Watermelon Herb Salad This dish was the height of elegant simplicity, but only one of many that hummed with glorious local color, matched by a wonderful taste profile that brought the farm right into your mouth. We are blessed to have many produce partners, thanks in part to Fork & Shovel speed dating events we host here at the barn every year. Two of our favorite veg and fruit producers, Early Bird's Place and Mix, also contract plant for us, a business partnership more thoughtful restaurants are discovering. One of our most popular blogs this year was the one about Myrna and Earl Fincher (October 6th) whom you can buy from at the Healdsburg Farmers Market.
Herbs for these dishes, like most coming out of our kitchen, were grown right here in our raised beds behind the gallery, or at Barndiva Farm in Philo where we also get our dry farmed apples, pears, figs, and chestnuts.
1st Runner Up...
Fritschen Vineyard's Lamb's Liver & Onions 2010 marked the beginning of our collaboration with the Fritschen Family, whose vineyards boast the grapes that Thomas DeBiase, our sommelier, makes into fine wine here in Healdsburg. For three weeks in July we chronicled a nose to tail cooking project that utillized almost every part of a beautiful animal raised for us at the Fritschen Family Farm. Whenever we can, we will continue to work with local farmers to procure excellent animal proteins for Barndiva. We do this despite a lack of local humane slaughterhouses that make these purchases more expensive than it need be for both farmer and chef. In the coming year, look forward to more lamb from Fritschen and the wonderful Preston Family Farm, along with goats and rabbits from new farms. Every season we list on our menus at Barndiva the primary purveyors who inspired us to create that specific menu. Some can be found at your local Farmer's Market if you live in Sonoma, Marin, or Mendocino County.
AND now...the winner is...
Escabèche! Keeping the fish and shellfish selections interesting for our customers continues to be a challenge for us as we try to honor a commitment to primarily source from waters within 100 miles of the restaurant. Though we keep an open mind to ongoing science about the safety of farmed fish, we do not serve it in Barndiva for a variety of reasons (taste being only one). When I spoke at a Seafood Symposium at the U.C. Davis Bodega Bay Marine Aquarium a few years back, (a wonderful event, the brainchild of my good friend Randi Seidner produced by Slow Food Russian River,) I made the point that some responsibility must fall on the diner when it comes to helping restaurants source sustainable fish and shellfish. If you say you want local, do not turn your nose up at varieties you are not familiar with when a restaurant you trust serves it! Happily, there is such faith in anything Chef Fancher sends out of his kitchen that we are able to stretch with less familar local selections without fear it will hit our bottom line. The dish here, Escabèche, is a case in point. It sold out every time it appeared on the menu, often as a result of someone just seeing it come to an adjoining table or hearing our servers talk about it. Make no mistake: when a line caught wild salmon walks in the door in the arms of one of our fishmongers, we grab it. We love local halibut and sole. In the coming year we may cast our net as far as Oregon and Washington's coastal waters, but no fish served at Barndiva will have taken a plane ride to get to your plate, or ever been frozen.
The full collection of our Dish of the Weeks, are available in the Barndiva Journal Archives- or keep reading...
(originally posted Dec 15, 2010)
(Originally posted December 8, 2010)
I often start to write these blogs in my head, which saves time when I can edit in there as well. Last week in NYC, walking blissfully through a Central Park ablaze with glorious fall color, I was playing with the idea of using Oz as a metaphor for the role the city has played in my life. At the exact instant I thought naw, yellow brick roads of possibility is going to sound trite, a tumultuous windstorm came out of nowhere, lifting thousands of leaves high into the air. Runners halted, mothers covered their children’s heads, tourists like Geoff and I, stunned, looked around dumbly, as if for the culprit. It was a truly serendipitous moment, magical, but also a bit unnerving. Classic New York.
I was in New York ostensibly to help my second son relocate from London. Secretly however, I also went in hopes a week there would shake me from the awful mood I had been unable to vanquish since the election. The tenor of discourse in the country has fallen so low, grown so ugly, I have begun to fear that nothing good will ever come from the way we currently practice democracy. Where are we going as a nation? Who are we anymore? As the world sinks into what feels like unprecedented violence, both natural and man-made, too many Americans have resorted to a mindset ever more petty and short sighted, deeply mistrustful of anything which requires intellect or reason.
In the past New York has afforded me solace, if not answers to questions like these. I was 16 when my despairing parents, “at our wits end!” shipped me off to a very rich aunt who lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They were expecting a miracle, or, failing that, a short course finishing school. My aunt took one look at me in full hippie attire, a backpack of contraband and a guitar I could not play slung over my shoulder, threw up her hands and promptly decamped to her daughter's house in Connecticut. The closest thing I had to minders for the rest of the summer was a cabal of doormen who thought I was crazy. I wasn’t. I was confused and deeply disillusioned, mostly about the war in Vietnam.
Though I only lasted the summer, by happenstance several things conspired to keep me safe and propel me to a place where I began the long journey trying to make sense of Power with a capital P, and the creaky way it turns most people’s lives on history’s spit. I was young, dumb and stoned enough most of the time not to fear the city, and as I was intrepid in my appetite for adventure, explored Manhattan from Harlem to what was then a meatpacking district with actual butchers. Coming from monosyllabic LA, where vocabulary basically consisted of only three statements ~ “far out,” “that’s cool (especially when something wasn’t), and “bitchen” (when something was), I was fascinated with the way new yawkers talked, talked, talked. Everyone, from the countess across the hall to the taxi drivers who picked me up late at night, dispensed advice. In Paris success in social conversation resides in the perfect bon mot, in Italy the well chosen hand gesture, in New York it means 'having the last word.' Which of course is not a word at all, but a stream of passionate, opinionated, often colorful lectures that fall somewhere between a short story and a graduate thesis. On any subject. Even if marginally not worth talking about in the first place.
On long hot muggy days, waiting for night to fall, I stalked the halls of great old American buildings stuffed with Robber Baron art, starting with the Frick, one of greatest small museums in the world, which happened to be right across the street. It was my first exposure to art where I wasn’t tagging along with my mother, or forced to look at muddy prints in boring school lessons. Experiencing it on my own, from a vulnerable yet curiously open place, it opened my eyes to a number of things. The first was that Americans didn’t understand sex or the female body, (I was from LA, remember, which still doesn’t). It was incredibly exciting to know there was a whole sensual world out there. The second, which spoke directly to the pain I was in, was the extent to which art was a valuable witness to the misuse of power that is repeated in every age, no matter who the man was behind the curtain is. What was taking place in my lifetime wasn’t an aberration of history. While I must have already known this on some level, instead of making me even sadder, as I studied canvas after canvas of masterful paintings and sculpture going back more than 500 years, I began to see a concurrent theme of hope and ambition. One that, against the odds, almost seemed to be fueled by adversity. The history of art is the history of an indomitable human spirit, a hunger not just to survive, but to see the beauty in life, bruised though it may be. Life is opportunity, which for an artist starts with the very impulse to pick up a brush or chisel.
We stayed at The Surry for the first three days, a hotel not far from my old haunting grounds. In the clear bracing sunshine we walked in the park, took our time over delicious prix fixe lunches at Café Boulud (which happily was attached to our hotel), then climbed the big steps of the Met and went our separate ways, or slowly trailed each other, until just before closing. Below are my notes on a few of the shows that I saw. The Barndiva Newsletter is primarily focused on food and art; both are sources of nourishment without which we cannot survive. But even if you are not traveling East in the next few months, the diversity of what you find in any great museum is essential viewing. The Met, sadly, is one of the few in NY that is still free if you do not have the money to donate ‘an appropriate’ entrance fee. It astounds me that we are making fine art an elitist sport in this country when it offers one of the few singular opportunities for citizens of all persuasions (income levels, ethnicities, religions) to come together in consideration of shared human values. Go to a museum and look around, not just at what is on the walls.
I won’t lie: while my time in NYC’s museums and parks topped up a flagging spirit, the most important moments for me on this trip were those I spent with my family. Seeing the Metropolitan Opera’s Così fan Tutte with my daughter ~ her first opera experience. Having a grown son know enough about New York (and for that matter, life) to guide us straight into Bemelmans Bar when the sky opened and a sudden rainstorm clamored down. Noisy and late dinners at Del Posto, abc kitchen, Pastis, where, for a few hours, it was permissible to believe that good restaurants, the ones that source with their hearts and take care to provide great service, like Barndiva, will survive this recession. (A glass raised to Mario Batali who has the biggest balls right now in this big balled restaurant town, not only for what it took to build the beautifully retro Del Posto and take it to four stars, but for his just launched and truly audacious attempt, with his partners, the mother and son Bastianich, to create America’s first great food hall in Eataly).
I also won’t lie that all those experiences cost money. A not inconsiderable amount of it. My point is that even as we feed the essential personal narratives in our lives, to whatever extent we find important and can afford, we need to make time to consider upping our participation in institutions and public open spaces that everyone can enjoy and reflect in.
On one of our last days Geoff and I walked the new High Line Park, on the lower east side, where we were now staying. Even in the cold, without the families with dogs and young children, it was easy to see what a wonderful addition this park is to the city. Designed by the always excellent Diller, Scofidio + Renfro out of a raised rail track built in the 1930’s but unused for the past thirty years, it instantly transforms one’s view of the city ~ not just the views down into the streets, but an inner view of what it means to reclaim and interact with awkward unused urban spaces. The High Line is a sculptural park with simple but sinuous benches of concrete and old wood that rise up out of the old tracks. The hardscape is softened with a landscaping plan by James Corner primarily of grasses which pay homage to what had been growing there wild, since the trains stopped running.
I was greatly impressed with Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance, an exhibit of lush representational color with a politically subversive subtext which must have raised eyebrows at the time. The Dutch empire fell from a height of considerable power for sins of hubris, so make your own connections on that score. This was a good one for me to see right now.
In conjunction with viewing the work of Gossart, I was really looking forward to an exhibit of a series of Joan Miró pieces that the great Spanish artist did shortly after he returned from studying the Dutch masters at the start of his career. But while the works in Miró: The Dutch Interiors makes clear the colorful and compositional connections between what would seem two remarkably incompatible styles, the show was not as revealing as I hoped. Not really a surprise: Miró is to the Dutch movement like Jeff Koons is to real sex. Having said that, for me, a day where you can see three roomfuls of Mirós, even marginal ones, is always a joy.
Of the exhibits I managed to see, I was least impressed with John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, the much touted show of the season, which, intended irony aside, simply was not. (beautiful) For me this show was another case of the Emperor's New Clothes a la Art Basel. From all accounts Baldessari was a great teacher, but in even his strongest work here (and with the exception of what he burned in the 70’s, it's all here) this is art with a heart of stone, wordplay that is dated, video that makes me long for Nam June Paik. Baldessari is an LA artist in the same way Frank Gehry is an LA architect. There is great irreverence here to be admired, a “take that” attempt at disarming pretension anyone hoping to survive LA must have in their DNA, but whereas Gehry plays to his strengths in three dimensions, Baldessari’s antipathy to negative space produces work that is flat and ugly, devoid of even a rueful use of color. I would love someone to explain why this shit works for them.
Which is not to say that living the vida loca (modern life IS crazy) does not come with a concomitant desire to take a deeper look at why post war prosperity ultimately led to the American soul becoming disenfranchised. American’s suffer from a misconception of what material wealth really brings to the table, that much is clear and sorely needs to be addressed. Lee Friedlander: America By Car at the Whitney (which I wandered into by accident on my way to visit the Hopper exhibit upstairs) is the real deal. Taken over the last decade through his car window while he crisscrossed America, it is one of those shows that builds as you move through it. The exhibit is a revelation that speaks to Friedlander’s talent for composition which brilliantly straddles wit with profundity. Image after image reveals what happens when our insatiable hunger for illusion gets left by the roadside. Like unfinished poems, the detritus and people he captures along the highways and byways of this country made the point about junk culture the Baldessari exhibit didn’t. Think Wim Wenders of Paris, Texas crossed with Bruegel the Elder if you transferred his work to black and white and then set to having some fun with a mimeo machine.
My favorite show this fall, perhaps because I was on a lover's journey in New York, was Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand which takes up a number of connecting backrooms at the Met. Stieglitz, the master teacher, and his two most famous protégées (who arguably overtook him in the craft) captured images from a mindset we hardly remember now as the instant documentary aspects of the medium have subsumed the painterly qualities they sought to capture. In addition to being beautiful in their own right, most of these images are fragrant love letters to New York, and while I have seen many of them before, seeing them collected together in room after room, made me realize that all the bells and whistles we've added to the medium of photography hasn't done as much to capture its soul as envisioned by these pioneers. Technical virtuosos in their day, while that aspect of their work is no longer remarkable to our 21st Century eyes, their approach to the details of everyday life is all the more thrilling when you realize so much of what they captured happened in the incredible city right outside the door of the museum.
Links: The High Line The Surrey Hotel (I booked The Surrey at half price on Jetsetter which you can join for free.) My favorite travel site, Tablet, also has auctions every week worth checking out if you are willing to spend a bit more on boutique accommodations. SoHo House- These are among the biggest and most comfortable rooms in Manhattan if you can take the neighborhood which parties on Fridays and Saturdays until the wee hours. Great spa and you are graciously invited to all the in-house events. I came back from dinner too late one night for the premier of Paul Haggis' The Next Three Days but I crashed the after party and though I knew not a soul, had a good time.