zin for breakfast

"these northern california blues ain't so bad"

In 18 days, I'm going to leave Sonoma with an overflowing car and start again in a new place. I think New York is going to be an adjustment. Yeah, just slightly. I imagine it will be like in the old cartoons when some talking animal gets hit by a mac truck and then has to pull his one-dimensional body off the road. I'm starting to feel disoriented here: disoriented about time and how I should be spending it and with whom. I want to be working. I want to be with my family. I want to remember what it's like to be social with people my own age. Okay, I was never very good at that. I want to see and do too many things before I leave. Lately I've been waking up and lying there for half an hour just trying to figure out how to make the best use of each day, and then I get anxious when I find myself home alone without plans and no one to eat all the extra rice I made by mistake. That doesn't happen very often really, considering the way life seems to flow here, but when it does happen, or when I'm there in bed trying to map out my days, I get this sort of slippery feeling, like I'm losing my sense of purpose.

And it's funny because since school ended, I've generally felt more "myself" than I have in a while. I never expected it, but leaving Pomona, really leaving, has been totally liberating.  Pomona was a little too small for me, I think, or maybe just a little too wrapped up in itself. Not that I don't love that place--it was paradise--but a lot of the time I had this feeling of being watched, and it stressed me out and made me self-conscious in a subtle way that I didn't realize until I was free of it. Even as graduation got closer, I remember starting to feel lighter. I remember realizing that it wasn't going to matter anymore, all those little doubts and anxieties and perceptions of other people's perceptions, and so I didn't have the same kind of crisis about leaving that a lot of other people seemed to face. I had a great last few days of college and an epic and satisfying last night. And I landed in Sonoma in late May still riding that wave of sleepless, antsy, go-for-broke ambition, and it's kept me afloat for a while now. 

But it's a little harder to gather up my strength for another, even bigger, transition. Not that I'm not all antsy and excited and curious about grad school and being back on the east coast and being close to my parents again. I am! I'm already dreaming about Thanksgiving, which I haven't been home for since high school. I'm so happy to be going back to school, even though I pretend to complain when people ask me what I'm doing. There's just so much more I want to do here, and so much I meant to accomplish before I'm back to being a student full time. I come back from bike rides around sunset a lot, and I always wish I had my camera. The other night, I finally remembered to bring it along.

Wait, I'm not done.

I got so caught up in my Batman rambling last night that I didn't get a chance to mention a few other things that have been on my mind. I have less than a month to go here in Sonoma, and I'm nostalgic for it already. I wanted to go for a run yesterday after work, but then my iPod Shuffle started doing the alternating orange and green flash of death. By the time I gave up and decided to run without it, it was already 7:30 and I was getting hungry, but I headed out anyway, and I'm glad I did. It was beautiful and a little cool, and the whole world turned that golden color that I keep going on about, and as I ran a loop around a small vineyard near Ravenswood, I thought about Wendell Berry. Yes, Wendell Berry, kooky Kentucky farmer/environmentalist/writer-poet/inspiration for much of my thesis and personal intellectual awakening. Wendell is all about the land and the importance of engaging with it on a micro level. Sometimes he gets a little carried away, like some Luddite on a soapbox ordering us all back to the farm, but the crux of his message is compelling. For decades he's been advocating for all the ideas that have only recently become fashionable in the mainstream: growing and producing food locally, building sustainable communities, living and consuming within our means. My uncle tries to get him to speak at Land Trust Alliance events every year, but he always politely declines. Wendell could probably be the granddaddy of the entire local living movement if he wanted, but from what I hear, he's holed up on his farm feeling a little hopeless about the state of affairs. Although he did send my thesis advisor a beautiful wedding present...

So, to recap, I'm running through the vineyard and it's golden and I'm thinking about Wendell Berry. The grape clusters are getting fuller and heavier on the vines, and I'm marveling at how well they grow in the hot, dusty summer with no rain and very little, if any, irrigation. And I'm remembering the Designate tasting we had last week at Ravenswood, where we tasted the 2006 Vineyard Designate Zinfandels, the favorite children of the winery, so to speak, which were once merely dusty bunches of grapes like the ones I'm passing now.

Joel Peterson, Ravenswood founder and winemaker, led the tasting and talked about the climate, the soils, all the little details that went into each of the eight zins we tasted. I found myself scribbling notes as if I were back in a seminar... A seminar that included eight glasses of wine.

 

And then there was the Growers' Dinner, where the growers who own the vineyards come to the winery for a night to celebrate the new releases and taste the wine that was made from their vineyards' grapes. I wasn't there, but Ann Marie and Dave described how many of the growers were wearing work shirts and jeans, how Joel brought out a 1986 vintage of Cooke Zinfandel for Charlie Cooke himself, how Catarina Teldeschi, well into her 80s, bragged that she still leads picking teams into the fields at harvest, and I realize that this is still an agriculturally dependent place. Despite the tourists and the marketing and the wine-snob stereotypes, these are people whose lives and livelihoods depend on the land. And when Joel talks about winemaking, he sounds like a biologist and a scholar and a father all at the same time. My dear friend Sydney says that all she wants to do on this earth is build things and help things grow. I think that's a pretty solid ambition. For many of the growers and winemakers here, it really is about building things (like wineries) and helping things grow.

Joel's son is starting his own winery, Bedrock Wine Co. He has a memoir-type essay on his blog that serves as a beautiful example of all this. I have a feeling that I'll be coming back to these themes in my writing too.

And some eye candy to end with: beautiful plums from the tree in front of my house become a delicious Dorie's Dimply Plum Cake (from who else but Dorie Greenspan?), thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes over eggplant and caramelized onions, and Clare.

"Hi Amanda. Welcome to NYC."

"Hi Amanda,
 
Welcome to NYC.
 
Here is your renters agreement."

And so the email was sent today confirming that I will indeed have a room of my own when I move to the city next month. That's right, no couch surfing or floor crashing for this soon-to-be grad student. Sources who scoped the site last weekend report that it's an old old building with a tiny kitchen and some rustic-looking plumbing, but just look at those Ikea furnishings! That bay window! (Thanks to my future landlords for the picture, swiped from her ad on craigslist). It feels funny to say that I found an apartment on craigslist. Miracles do happen sometimes.

So that's the exciting news. On to other notable events...

I saw The Dark Knight last night with Molly, and we agreed that it was a stressful movie-going experience but that ultimately that was the point of the film. It's not the kind of movie that leaves your mind when you leave the theater. I usually react to movies in one of two ways: I either forget about it almost entirely, or I tell everyone I know to go see it. But it's rare that I feel truly moved or inspired or even bothered by a movie after it's over. I like the superhero genre and it's close relatives, the conspiracy, action/adventure, and psychological thriller genres for what they usually are--fun, impressive, exhilarating, and sometimes timely. The Dark Knight is all those things, but it's also deeply troubling and relevant. It's troubling on the obvious level: Heath Ledger creates a masterpiece as the Joker, who lives only to create anarchy and suffering, and it's made clear over and over again that Batman, whose morality is as relentless as the Joker's lack thereof, is not the hero that Gotham needs. When Batman tries to do good, the Joker twists things so that Batman becomes responsible for the bad. The superhero has always been a symbol of hope and humanity, but this version of the genre makes us wonder if that symbol has any more use in this world. And what troubled me on another level were the parts that just didn't ring true. I won't put any spoilers here, but there were a few scenes that were meant to show that humans are ultimately good and will do good things when faced with decisions of huge moral consequence. These seemed like the weakest parts of the movie to me, as if the studios asked the director to plant a seed of good cheer amid the wreckage. It's not that I didn't want to feel a glimmer of hope for Gotham and humankind, I was just too convinced by the Joker's power to make everyone lose their minds.

Well, I guess I had something to say about that. As promised, though, here's Jenny Lewis at Gundlach Bundschu two weekends ago. And Maria Taylor too. I apologize in advance for the second video. Cal took the first one, and it's very nice, but I got a little lost in the sky for a while on the second, not to mention the damn focusing.

I'll get better at this, I promise.

gears shifting, tides turning, preparing for the next event

I'm overwhelmed by exciting things to report. Let's start with the first, which is the freshest in my mind and belly. I've been cooking with no net recently, meaning I've been assessing the contents of my pantry and going for it, which makes me extremely nervous before I start but has yielded surprisingly delicious results. The latest project was tonight's dinner. I'm trying to stick a little closer to my budget, which has been sabotaged, I think, by my ambitious cooking and baking routines. So rather than stop at the farmer's market on my way home from work, I challenged myself to face my semi-bare refrigerator and see what could be done. (Okay, fine, I stopped for a carton of milk. A girl needs her calcium, according to my grandmother.)

I found Scharffen Berger cocoa powder (tempting, but no). I found frozen veggies in the freezer and some garden burgers...bleh. I had some cream cheese left over from the BBQ that was getting fuzzy. I was just starting to fear that it was going to be Annie's mac and cheese for me (not a bad meal, don't get me wrong), when I remembered a little thing called breakfast for dinner.

And with that that, I give you some of the best pancakes I have ever had, certainly the best I've made myself, dedicated to Cal, who loves pancakes and had to suffer through my last pancake debacle.

Whole Wheat Pecan Apricot Pancakes
adapted from Whole Wheat Vanilla Pancakes by Cooking with Amy

makes 6 small(ish) pancakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 heaping tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup water
1 Tablespoon unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts or sliced almonds)
1/4 cup chopped apricots (or golden raisins, or any fruit, really)

Whisk together the whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt, water, applesauce, and vanilla. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir until moistened. Stir in chopped nuts and fruit. Use a scant 1/4 cup per pancake, cooking in a griddle pan over medium heat. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until bubbles form and flip, cooking until golden brown. If you want, keep a baking tray in the oven at 200 degrees to keep the pancakes warm while you finish cooking.

Look at that! My first recipe! This blog is growing up so quickly. Speaking of growing up quickly...

PUPPY!!!

Okay, I just had to let that out. Let's get back to the real stuff, like pancakes and tomato sauce. That's right, I also made my own tomato sauce last week. I won't go into the details of that, mostly because I can't remember, but it involved canned whole tomatoes, fresh zucchini, lots of spices that got haphazardly tossed in, and a fair amount of red wine, and it was just perfect. I have to brag about these things, you see, because for every one success, there are about 8 failures that don't even get mentioned, trust me. An avocado basil pesto was a semi-success. Too much lime juice, though, and not the best topping for parmesan brown rice, but it was a semi-creative way to use a too-ripe avocado. My cooking doesn't make for beautiful photography, I've realized, so I'm also throwing in some shots of the incredible fresh fruit I was eating before Operation Stay on Budget began.

Fruit on oatmeal will never stop being my all-time favorite breakfast. Although those pancakes came close.

I didn't mean to spend so long talking about what I'm cooking/eating, honestly. I don't know how this happens. I have more important things to say, like, I went on the Gundlach Bundschu Pinzgauer tour today! That's right. Gundlach Bundschu Pinzgauer. A Pinzgauer, for the uninitiated, is a Swiss military transport and now, it is also a vineyard touring vehicle.

Yup, there it is. Gun Bun has 320 acres of vineyards on the estate, which sits on the edge of the Mayacamas mountain range, and this baby is the only way to see all of them. Shannon, who was practicing to drive the Pinzgauer for the tour, took the employees on a test run. I'm completely in awe of anyone who manages to maneuver that thing. It looked like she was pulling and pushing twelve different levers and wheels with her hands and feet at all times while the engine groaned up and down the hills.

It's adventures like this that make me love my job(s) and this place. I've been working with Jeff a lot on his blog, Blogschu,  and that's been really fun and educational for me. Maybe some of the cool stuff I'm designing for him will find it's way to my blog too. Jeff just posted all about the indie concert we held at the winery last weekend, and I'm going to have to dedicate a post to it as well. For now I'll just say that it was an unexpected highlight of the summer and Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley fame just happened to perform half a set with Johnathan Rice. I have the video to prove it, and I'll post it with pictures tomorrow.

I spent a windy, gray day in San Francisco last week with some beloved and sorely missed friends, and it was really good for me. I think the melancholy of the weather jumpstarted something in me, because I've been writing again, really writing. Then again, that girl always has been a good muse.

Yes, that one.

But I sure like this one too.

I think I'm also coming to terms with the idea of leaving here. I'm apartment hunting, I'm filling out vaccination forms for graduate school, I'm starting to imagine what it's going to be like to be back on the East Coast. I'm hearing from long, lost childhood friends and other great people who I'll be near again, and that's making it easier to be excited about the move. It's hard, though, because I realized that if I didn't have such a wonderful opportunity waiting for me across the country, I'd never want to leave here, at least not for a while. That's a rare feeling to have about a place, I think, and not something to be taken lightly. The thing about Sonoma is that it seems to be approaching a crossroads. It's been maintaining this tenuous balance between its tourism appeal and its small-town, agricultural roots, and I see how it's changing and how quickly it become a different area altogether. I feel really worried about this for my family's sake and for my own selfish reasons. I feel like Peter Pan in this Never Never Land that I never want to see change. And there's probably more to the fairytale analogy than I'm willing to admit.

Videos, pictures, and weekend recap to come.

4th of July Wrap-up

I can't help but start this post where it should end because I have my first video to post! This was the fireworks finale...totally crazed and haphazard. Everyone's pets must have been going nuts. (Be patient. It's my first time. It took me a little while to figure out that I should rotate the camera right-side-up.)

Okay, now let's back up about 24 hours. The most important elements of the 4th of July are a barbecue, a parade, and fireworks. Here's an in-depth look at how I (modestly) conquered all three.

Thursday night I played hostess to the Sonoma "it" crowd, meaning the wonderful people I work with at Ravenswood and their families. The most stressful part of the event was (of course) deciding what I was going to bake, and if you've been a loyal reader, you know that I was freaking out about tart dough and pastry cream a few nights back. Well, let me tell you, I couldn't be happier with how the berry tart turned out, as you can tell by the obscene number of pictures taken of it after assembly. Credit to Lily for the artistic design.

The quintuple chocolate brownies were ridiculous. Surprising that something with five different types of chocolate would be a little too much, I know. Nevertheless, I can't fault Dorie Greenspan. It's an incredible recipe, and it certainly delivers what it promises.

The actual barbecue went off without a hitch. Okay, there was a hitch, but it wasn't my fault. The garbage disposal broke and the sink overflowed. Oops!

I spent the early hours of Friday morning cleaning, doing dishes in the back house, and collecting half empty bottles of wine from around the yard. Then there was the parade. Oh, the small-town 4th of July parade, I know thee well. Sonoma's was adorable, of course, full of dogs and kids and good, old-fashioned patriotism. I'm a sucker for traditions like these, and I won't pretend that I wasn't in a full red, white, and blue getup, riding my bike around the square, trying to take pictures without wiping out (unsuccessful).

Dogs walking dogs, hot dogs, Uncle Sam dogs, dogs in cars...

                      

Holding down the fort since 6 am

Look who decided to show up!

Chinese dragon?

Every parade needs a Revolutionary-era drum.

That's one way to show your support for breast cancer research.

And the children, oh the children!

I left the parade early to get to work, but I had been there less than three hours when we got word of a wildfire that had started on the other side of the hill. Considering that half of Northern California's forests seem to be on fire, everyone acted pretty quickly. We closed the tasting room early and watched the helicopters dumping retardant from the sky.

The fire was stamped out fairly quickly, and I took the rest of the day to finish cleaning and collapse on my couch for an hour before it was time for the grand finale. Fireworks on the Field of Dreams. Yes, the Field of Dreams.

And Dads with kids. What is this, a Hallmark commercial?

And the fireworks were, well, just how Sonoma fireworks should be. Beautiful and slow, each flame bursting and fading before the next came to take its place. Until the finale, that is.

An "I love America" Post in the wings...

...while I upload my 8 billion July 4th photos. In the meantime, am I the last person on earth to see this video? Probably, but I still have to write about it. This four-minute clip had me grinning the whole way through. It gave me new love for the Internet and people and what we can do for and with each other with silly things like this.

More to come.

castles and happy reunions

I love getting visitors to Sonoma, and I love that I've had so many in the short time that I've been here. It's usually only for a day, squished between days of work, but I always feel like it's a mini-vacation when friends come to town. The weekend before last was especially wonderful because Liz and Britt came, and I had my first weekend day free since I've been here. I met them after work on Saturday, and we went to dinner at The Girl and the Fig, which was such a treat. I've been eying the place since I got here, and it's the one restaurant that everyone here seems to love. I got grilled trout, which was surprisingly flavorful... lots of salt and an almost crispy skin. The desserts were out of control. Liz dominated her lavender creme brulee, and I couldn't stop raving about the crust on Britt's chocolate tart.

[Sidenote: It was such an inspiration that I'm currently in the midst of baking my own tart for the barbecue I'm having tomorrow. This is the first time I've attempted a crust of any kind, and I'm a little petrified. I made the dough on Sunday and froze it in the tart pan. Tonight I'm going to make the pastry cream, which involves a lot of dairy products at high temperatures, so I'm equally nervous about that. Tomorrow morning I'll bake off the crust and let it cool, and if all goes according to plan, assemble the crust, pastry cream, and berries (it's Dorie Greenspan's recipe, of course, from Baking: From My Home to Yours--thank you Julia!).]

After dinner, we met up with my friends from work and spent some time at Murphy's Pub just off the square. It was really relaxing, and I felt as though I'd lived in Sonoma forever and known everyone around me for just as long. The next morning, after a pancake fiasco that does not need to be recounted, we set off for a day of adventuring around Sonoma and (gasp!) even as far as Napa. The theme of the day was castles:

That's Ledson Winery on the top left, a massive Gothic structure that took over a decade to build and was originally intended to be a private residence. The millionaire, Ledson (of Ledson Hotel from previous post), gave up on that, though, when tourists kept coming onto the property thinking it was a winery, so now that's what it is. The next two pictures are the Castillo di Amorosa, a legit Medieval castle in Napa. This millionaire was just obsessed with castles and Medieval architecture, and he had most of the material for the structure imported from Italy. It is, in fact, a winery, but we didn't try any because it was a whopping $10 just to get past the gates.The last castle is the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, where we watched an awesome Food Network-esque cooking demo and reveled in the thousands and thousands of cook books and kitchenware.

This was definitely my highlight of the day. Top left photo is dedicated to Julia. She probably has all those books already. Liz wanted to buy a white vase full of spatulas like that to decorate her house. Bottom left was where the cooking demo happened. A recent grad of the Institute showed us how to make gourmet (and I mean gourmet--duck confit!) picnic sandwiches. Best blue cheese I've ever tasted from Point Reyes, with sweet red onion jam and lettuce. Oy.

Napa was beautiful, but in a different way than Sonoma. It's got a neat and tidy way about it. The vines roll out into the horizon in perfect squares of green. The road goes straight down the middle. Many of the wineries are literally chateaus at the end of long straight driveways, surrounded by formal gardens in the French tradition. The symmetry is very soothing, although it's all a little ornate for my taste.

Liz liked the vines too.

The town of St. Helena, in Napa, is like Beverly Hills masquarading as small town America. Okay, maybe not quite so extreme. There weren't any big-name designer stores, but there were rows of little boutiques selling $300 flip flops, $75 dog collars, and other nonsense. But there was chocolate. And there was olive oil. So we were happy.

We got back to Sonoma in time to have a picnic dinner near the old Vallejo house. Once again, the light was beautiful, and we found the turtles! I didn't remember being there, but once I saw the pond, I had such strong memories of visiting with my mom and Ann Marie and Lily when I was in high school.

Liz and Britt tried to escape after dinner, but Sonoma wasn't ready to let them go. There had been a big Nascar event at the raceway all weekend, and everyone was trying to get back to the city, so traffic was basically stopped. So they came back to the house, and we spent a peaceful hour or so reading/card playing/stressing about work. It made me want roommates, or, more precisely, it made me want Liz and Britt to be my roommates. I generally feel really happy living alone, just because the family in the front house is so great, and they're always around, and I'm always at Ann Marie's, and I get enough social stimulation working in the tasting rooms all day, but sometimes it's nice just to have quiet, comfortable company.

I still have to tell you about Ann Marie's birthday dinner, homemade pasta that changed my life, and Dan's visit. But I am at work, which means I'm supposed to be putzing around on Adobe Illustrator. I'm making recipe cards for Gundlach Bundschu's Wine & BBQ promotion. I do love my jobs sometimes. So more to come, and I'll let you know how that berry tart turns out too.