Category Archives: Great Finds

A Visit to the Philo Apple Farm

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Apples grown the old-fashioned way.

You might not know Sally and Don Schmitt by name. But you know of them by their legacy.

They were the original owners of the French Laundry in Yountville. They transformed what was once variously a bar, laundry, brothel, then run-down rooming house into a destination restaurant with a prix fixe menu even back then that attracted wide acclaim and visits from the likes of Julia Child and Marion Cunningham. Opened in 1978, Don was the maitre d’ and Sally was the cook, serving up five French-comfort-style courses that topped out at $46 per person.

Entrepreneurs and pioneers, Sally and Don Schmitt.

In 1994, after a number of restaurateurs eyed the property with interest, the couple decided to take the chance to sell it to a then down-on-his-luck, young chef named Thomas Keller.

As Sally deadpans now, “That turned out pretty well, didn’t it?”

The Schmitts ran the original French Laundry restaurant. Here is their menu on opening night in 1978.

Sally, 79, and Don, 81 have a gift for seeing the potential in things most folks would turn their backs on.

After selling the French Laundry, they went on to refurbish yet another run-down property — a 30-acre swath in Philo in Mendocino County near the Navarro River. They turned what was once a decrepit sharecroppers farm into a thriving biodynamic farm specializing in heirloom apples. The Philo Apple Farm is so picturesque now that it’s a favorite setting for retailer Pottery Barn to do its catalog shoots.

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Sneak Peek: Baume Chocolates

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Look forward to the day you can try these incredible chocolates at Baume.

Chef Bruno Chemel of Palo Alto’s Baume can be a bit of a mad scientist.

With his molecular gastronomy creations that foam, smoke, fizz and bubble savagely at the dining table, you’d think that any chocolates he would make would be equally jaw-dropping wild.

But instead, they are as timelessly elegant and chic as can be.

Chemel doesn’t make chocolates very often. No time. But on his rare days off from his nearly one- year-old restaurant, which just received a coveted one Michelin star, he likes to pull out molds, temper chocolate and stir ganache. Sometimes, he even enlists the help of his 6-year-old son, Antoine, who is a whiz at piping.

For Chemel, chocolate-making is relaxing — which, he jokes, his pastry chef thinks is preposterous.

Chef Bruno Chemel of Baume.

Next year, Chemel hopes to find the time and a way to incorporate his chocolates into the restaurant. Let’s hope so, because recently, the chef allowed me to try some of the bonbons. They are exquisite.

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One of the Most Fascinating Food Books Ever & Winner of the Gourmet Mushroom Kit

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Cao Xiaoli, a professional acrobat, balances on one hand with her day's worth of food at Shanghai Circus World in Shanghai, China. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a typical day in June was 1700 kcals. She is 16 years of age; 5 feet, 2 inches tall; and 99 pounds. Cao Xiaoli lives in a room with nine other girls. She started her career as a child, performing with a regional troupe in her home province of Anhui. Now she practices five hours a day, attends school with the other members of her troupe, and performs seven days a week. She says what she likes best about being an acrobat is the crowd’s reaction when she does something seemingly dangerous. MODEL RELEASED.

Celeb chef cookbooks may dazzle on the coffee table and instructive cookbooks may be must-haves on the shelf.

But here’s a food book that is so captivating you’ll be hard-pressed to put it down.

“What I Eat” (Material World/Ten Speed Press) is a fascinating around-the-globe look at what 80 people eat over the course of one day.

The authors are Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, whose work you already might be familiar with, as they also were behind the James Beard Award-winning, “Hungry Planet” (Material World), which examined what families around the world eat over the span of one week.

In their newest book, the couple, who lives in Napa, spent three years chronicling the diets of these spotlighted individuals, who range the gamut from a sumo wrestler in Japan to an arctic hunter in Greenland to a model in the United States to an astronaut in space.

Each profile is accompanied by stunning photos, as well as every item each person consumed (from supplements to cigarettes), the total calorie count (from as little as 800 to as much as 12,300), and demographic information such as age, height, weight, occupation and activity level.

For instance, the 99-pound, 5-foot-2-inch Chinese acrobat (top photo) buys yogurt, European-style cakes and fruit for breakfast, then has a hefty lunch of deep-fried pork ribs, noodles, tea-cooked egg, stir-fried cucumber, rice and a salty vegetable broth with green onion in the Shanghai Circus World Employee Cafeteria. The 16-year-old doesn’t eat dinner because most days, she’s performing in a nightly show. Typically, she practices five hours a day and performs seven nights a week.  In all, she consumed 1,700 calories that particular day.

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‘Tis the Season to Give an Olive Tree

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Nudo Italian olive oil. (Photo courtesy of Nudo)

As you contemplate braving the stores tomorrow to shop till you drop on Black Friday, here’s a great gift without any of the hassle.

Give the gift of an Italian olive tree, along with all the luscious oil it produces for a year.

You can through Nudo-Italia.

Jason Gibb and Cathy Rogers chucked their careers as TV producers to restore an abandoned 21-acre olive grove in Italy’s Le Marche in 2005. (We should all be so lucky, right?)

In addition to selling lovely olive oils, organic jarred pesto and dried specialty pastas, they also offer a program where anyone around the world can adopt an olive tree for a year. The project is a collaboration between Nudo and small-scale artisan olive oil producers in Le Marche and Abruzzo.

You can even choose the tree you want in a specific grove. Each tree produces about 2 liters of oil a year. For $105, you receive three shipments during the year.  First, a personalized adoption certificate and booklet about your tree. Then, in the spring, you’ll receive delivery of all the extra virgin olive oil from your selected tree. Finally, in autumn, you’ll get three flavored extra virgin olive oils to enjoy, as well.

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Fruity Over Fruit Bread

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Panettone Autunnale from Emporio Rulli.

Meet panettone, the only fruitcake-like concoction I actually adore.

The others? Cloying, gummy, heavy and dense as can be, they’re the butt of so many tireless jokes. For good reason.

Not panettone, though.

The Italian holiday bread — baked in the shape of a towering cupola — is airy and fluffy, thanks to the long proofing of the sweet dough.

For a really exemplary version, try the one made by the Bay Area’s Emporio Rulli.

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