Etoile’s Perry Hoffman — A Chef To Watch in the Future

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Chef Perry Hoffman in the kitchen at Etoile.

Perry Hoffman, executive chef of Etoile at Domaine Chandon in Yountville, has quite the pedigree.

His grandparents, Sally and Don Schmitt, were the original owners of the French Laundry in Yountville, who turned a dilapidated building into a destination restaurant in 1978, before selling it in 1993 to a then down-on-his-luck chef named Thomas Keller.

At age 4, Hoffman played in the kitchen of the French Laundry, while his grandma cooked in the kitchen, his grandfather seated guests in the dining room, and his mom (Sally and Don’s daughter) arranged flowers and worked as a waitress in the dining room.

His Mom later started her own florist business, which still supplies the blooms to the French Laundry, as well as a host of Wine Country restaurants. His grandparents went on to buy the Philo Apple Farm in Mendocino County, once again turning a rundown property into a showcase. Today, it is an organic, biodynamic farm that grows 80 varieties of heirloom apples in a setting so picturesque that Pottery Barn does catalog shoots there.

Hoffman, 27, followed in his grandmother’s footsteps, working in restaurants since he was 15. His food is already quite refined and mature for his young age. In fact, two years ago, he became the youngest chef in the country to garner a Michelin star — an achievement that prompted Keller to send him a hand-written note and a bottle of Dom Perignon.

For the past three years, he’s overseen the kitchen at the elegant Etoile, the Napa Valley’s only fine-dining restaurant housed inside a winery.

Etoile, the only fine-dining restaurant inside a winery in the Napa Valley.

The serene dining room.

Starting the evening off with a rose from Domaine Chandon.

During fall and winter, too, there are apples aplenty on his menu, which, of course, come from the Philo Apple Farm. My husband and I couldn’t resist honing in on those particular dishes when we treated ourselves to dinner at Etoile in December. Choose either a seven-course chef’s tasting menu for $110 or a four-course tasting menu with options for $85. The latter is what we went with, though we added one additional dish.

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Crisp-Chewy Fruity Cookie Squares

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Buttery, sugary and filled with plump black currants and lemon zest.

There are times when I’m decidedly old-school.

I prefer a paper wall calendar — the big kind with pics of the Eiffel Tower or Berkeley Breathed characters  on it — to keep track of my appointments rather than my smart phone.

I like to hold a real book in my hands, not a Kindle.

I like to plop myself on the couch on Sunday mornings with the many sections of the New York Times stacked by my side, not an iPad with various newspaper apps loaded onto it.

And there are times when I just want a simple buttery cookie with nothing more than good ol’ dried fruit in it.

Old-school, but oh-so wonderful.

That’s just what “Pebbly Beach Fruit Squares” are. The recipe is from “Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy: Melt-In-Your-Mouth-Cookies” (Artisan), of which I received a review copy last year, by Berkeley’s doyenne of baking, Alice Medrich.

With turbinado sprinkled on top, these are kind of like a sugar cookie sandwich with a filling of your favorite dried fruit, such as prunes, apricots, cherries, dates, cranberries or even dried ginger. Medrich recommends a combo of ginger and cranberries for the winter holidays. I used some especially plump, dried black currants, which I toted back from Quebec last year.

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Pebble Beach Food & Wine Extravaganza and Food Gal Giveaway

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Team Lexus -- culinary-style. (Photo courtesy of Lexus)

The fourth annual Pebble Beach Food & Wine extravaganza rolls into town, April 28-May 1, with more than 70 top toques and 250 acclaimed wineries doing cooking demos, wine seminars and glam dinners at the picturesque Pebble Beach Resorts.

Among the who’s who of culinary talent who will be participating are: Tom Colicchio of “Top Chef”; Yigit Pura, winner of “Top Chef Just Desserts”; Charlie Trotter; Ming Tsai; Tyler Florence; and the one and only Jacques Pepin.

Ticket prices range from $100 for a single event pass to $4,750 for a VIP four-day pass.

If that’s too rich for your blood — and I’m sure for most of us, it definitely is — the Food Gal has another way for you to enjoy a little of the action.

Four lucky readers will each win an autographed apron. (Image courtesy of Lexus)

Contest: I’m thrilled to be giving away four Pebble Beach Food & Wine aprons signed by Daniel Boulud, Michael Chiarello, Dean Fearing, Christopher Kostow, Masaharu Morimoto and Michael Symon, who are all part of the Lexus Culinary Masters team.

Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight May 1. Winners will be announced May 3.

How to win?

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A Taste of Paris at Chez Papa Resto

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Tender beef cheeks with hot pink beet puree.

With its pulsating soundtrack, bejeweled Murano glass chandeliers, menu covers done up in graffiti-like script, and dimly lit dining room in bold black and orange, Chez Papa Resto in downtown San Francisco is like one of those hip Parisian bistros you stumble upon down a cobblestone side street in Paris.

But this stylish spot serving up French Provencal cuisine is actually in the Mint Plaza, a short stroll from the Intercontinental San Francisco. Executive Chef Steven Rojas took over the helm there late last year from Chef David Bazirgan who jumped ship to the nearby Fifth Floor restaurant.

Born in Los Angeles, but raised in Argentina, Rojas staged at Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain and worked at Tru in Chicago, as well as Patina in Los Angeles. He also was executive chef at the Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas, Calif., where he became the youngest chef in Los Angeles to receive a Michelin star.

Chez Papa Resto's hip Parisian vibe.

Recently, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant, where our waiter immediately greeted us with a friendly, “Merci” after we placed our orders and he set down baguette slices with black and green tapenades for spreading pleasure.

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High on the Ham

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Newsom's prosciutto that's been aged for 15 months.

There is ham. And then there are Newsom’s Country Hams of Princeton, KY.

After all, a family that has been curing hams the traditional way since the 1600s is sure to have the method down pat. Even now, this salt and brown sugar-method has changed little since the family first started selling the cured, slow-aged hams at its Newsom’s Old Mill Store in 1917.

Today, it remains the smallest national ham curing business in the country, and one of the few — if not only — to use this old-fashioned method born of necessity when refrigeration had not yet been invented. The process of making these hams takes about a year. Each ham is hand-rubbed, then allowed to cure for a month or so, before being smoked for days on end. Then, the hams are hung again in the smokehouse for months to develop their intense flavor. After about 10 months, the hams are ready. After 11 to 15 months, the prosciutto is done.

Newsom's Smoky BBQ Ham

“We use old -fashioned methods of using just the salt and brown sugar, and hickory smoke smoldering out of an old iron kettle which fills the whole room from just one small fire, damped with green hickory saw dust,” says owner Nancy Newsom Mahaffey (aka The Ham Lady).  “We smoke for weeks off and on depending on the weather.  We are the last to still do an ambient weather curing process of circulating outdoor weather in and around our hams for the full duration of time from the time they are out of salt as the spring is warming, going through the hot, dog days of summer, and into the fall when they are finally ready for sale.  In fact, our process was born before nitrates and nitrites were even discovered.”

When illustrious chef and food writer James Beard stumbled upon the store in 1975, he was so floored by the flavor of the hams that he went on to use them in his cooking classes and to promote their attributes in his writings. As word spread about these hams, Newsom’s started its mail-order business in 1975 to keep up with the increased demand.

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