Kathleen Hill: From dawn to Duskie, pop-up dinner and fire memories
Duskie Estes rides into Friday market
Duskie Estes, of Zazu Kitchen & Farm in the Barlow outdoor marketplace in Sebastopol, filmed a State of California food tourism video with Aarif Lee Chi-Ting, a Hong Kong singer-songwriter, at the Friday Farmers Market on Oct. 5.
A pre-med and pre-law graduate of Brown University, Duskie learned to love food while dining out every Wednesday evening with her father. She was a vegetarian until she married John Stewart, now a salumnist who, with Duskie, raises a wide range of – excuse the expression – table animals such as chickens, ducks, goats, ducks, sheep, rabbits and pigs, the latter for their Black Pig bacon products.
Estes has won several Good Food Awards and competed on the Food Network's 'Next Iron Chef,' 'Guy's Big Bites,' 'Guy's Grocery Games,' and has been featured in the New York Times, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Sunset, Wine Spectator, Bon Appétit, and the Wall Street Journal. She is also a wildly funny character
Zachary Albright pop-up dinner
Saying, 'I always sell out,' Zachary Albright is inviting people to his next pop-up dinner at the Springs Community Hall on Oct. 28.
Albright worked at Harvest Moon Café as chef de cuisine for about seven years, spent time as a sushi chef at Morimoto, and then began to work as a traveling chef from Oregon to Martha's Vineyard. Albright says that currently he has invitations to cook in Croatia, Czech Republic, Nigeria, Jamaica and Russia.
Cautioning 'no modifications,' Albright offers a menu of foie terrine with rye crisps and quince rose compote, Di Stefano burrata crostini with prosciutto, and wild mushroom tartlets with cream sherry and garlic confit purée as hors d'oeuvres.
Entrée choices include a Laura Chenel goat cheese and La Tur stuffed Indian blood peach with pancetta, seared Day Boat scallops with Granny Smith apple purée with braised pork belly, butternut squash agnolotti with housemade ricotta, or Turkish spiced crispy skin duck breast with Chioggia beets and Japanese sweet potato mousseline. Dessert will be a Mangosteen rice pudding with mango sphere, with an orange lace and longan berry relish. '$85 for food, $20 for alcohol per person.' 6 p.m. Reserve directly with Albright at farmtotable707@gmail.com.
Nibs & Sips
Richard Reddington has closed his Redd restaurant in Yountville, citing 28 years in the business, not 'killing it' financially, and wanting to spend more time with his family as reasons.
Restaurants are closing throughout California, partly due to high rents and labor shortages.
Lagunitas Brewing Company is cutting 12 percent of its staff, apparently thinking the craft beer industry has crested with a multitude of small craft breweries. Heineken recently bought the Sonoma County favorite with a taproom in Petaluma.
Flatbed Farm in Glen Ellen has hired Hayley Cutri as farm manager to replace Rachel Cohn-Obut, who has moved on to her own Little Moon Farm in Napa. Some of you might know Cutri as a server at Kenwood's Salt & Stone restaurant. 13450 Highway 12, Glen Ellen.
Wendy Ruiz has left Exchange Bank to take over the Las Palmas location between McDonald's and Happy Dog to start her own Mexican restaurant, Las Diablitas Taco Shop. Love the name. Watch for breakfast, lunch and dinner hopefully opening the week of Oct. 22. But you can already sample tastes of what they will be serving from their new taco cart out in front on Highway 12 in the evening.
Fire reflections
Many of our local chefs found the whole subject difficult to discuss. Here are a few of their reflections from this week. Most restaurants either cooked or donated their food in their refrigerators and freezers before it spoiled. All chefs, food providers, and food donors offered their skills and goods not expecting a penny in return. Simply to help our community.
La Luz Center
During the fires, La Luz served more than 2,000 meals to community fire victims, all of whom were invited to be together, share stories and share food cooked by Taqueria El Paisa this past Monday evening, Oct. 8. Nearly 300 people from ages 2 months to 92 celebrated being alive.
The Girl & the Fig
Owner Sondra Bernstein coordinated a commissary of more than 50 chefs who cooked out of her Suite D and catering kitchen to feed people everywhere and created the 'Delicious New Chapters' cookbook collection and giveaway. We collected about 10,000 cookbooks, gave away about 8,000 on our April 8 giveaway day, and distributed the rest to Republic of Thrift and to fire victims in Santa Rosa, who thought the books were their first steps back toward normalcy. All 10,000 donated cookbooks were given away by three weeks ago.
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