Gretchen Giles
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Can Do! West + Wilder Canned Wines
Can you drink, can you enjoy, can you understand West + Wilder canned wines? The French invented the screw-top wine closure, but the Australians took the heat for it, popularizing it at the turn of the 21st century and enduring the withering disdain of the fine wine world—until everyone got a chance to try it.…
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Incremental Pleasures
Downtown Santa Rosa is getting happier by the hour. Downtown Santa Rosa has brightened up considerably in just the last year, with several drinking and dining establishments newly opened, every one of them determined to give you a deal. Let’s call it “Happy Hour.” In this hard-hitting journalistic investigation of downtown happy hours, we restricted…
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How to Regenerate an Apple Orchard
Ethic Ciders and the quest for a rich, delicious existence in the now It helps to understand that Johnny Appleseed’s main gig was a land grab scheme. Born in the late 1700s, one John Chapman walked west ahead of North American expansion, planting apples to form orchards for pioneers who had been promised 100 acres…
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Driven by Ambition
‘Empire on Main Street’ tracks Crista Luedtke’s boon to Guerneville. A boon is something helpful, beneficial. It’s a word with many definitions in entrepreneur Crista Luedtke’s life. Her rescue dog is named Boon because he was found in Boonville and was a helpful, beneficial addition to her life; her restaurant and hotel are named after…
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Adventures in Beer
Carneros Brewing Company Driving along Highway 121 in the Sonoma Valley, you may find your head turning as you pass a small hop yard slightly obscured behind a few olive trees. Make a quick turn and you’ll enter the park-like grounds that are home to Carneros Brewing Company. Upon arriving I’m usually torn whether to…
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Female Flowering
Cannabusiness is set to bloom for women entrepreneurs. On a blustery Thursday night in early March, a small conference room at Santa Rosa’s Volunteer Center was filled to overflowing. A few talkative young women buzzed about, but the majority of the people who filled the meeting room to capacity at this bland business park were…
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Found Food
Foraging is the best way to find true California cuisine. On a drizzling spring morning in Northern California, Healdsburg SHED’s culinary director Perry Hoffman leads a group walk along Grape Creek. Hoffman and his chef de cuisine, Bryan Oliver, are experienced foragers seeking the wild foods that naturally grow in northern Sonoma County: Land and…
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Scientific Method
UCCE Farm Advisor Paul Vossen set to retire. Imagine the bucolic glory of farming in Sonoma County 100 years ago! Except for that beetle. Or that fly. Or that leaf fungus that the trees simply can’t shake. And then the harvest doesn’t come in. And then the money doesn’t come in. And then the bills…
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A Letter from the Editor
Should I get the biscuits and gravy or the pancakes?” the young stranger seated next to me asked the server at Wishbone in Petaluma. “Oh, that’s easy,” the server said, leaning on the counter we shared. “Get the biscuits and gravy. We only have it when we’re working with an animal, and we have the…
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Suds ‘n’ Spirits
Thinkin’ to drinkin’, we offer a rotating round of spots we love. CLOVERDALE ALE COMPANY’S RUTH MCGOWAN’S BREWPUB ruthmcgowansbrewpub.com | 707.894.9610 131 E. First St., Cloverdale Open Monday-Thursday, 3pm to 9pm; Friday-Sunday, 11:30am to closing For those weary of being sandwiched in at Russian River or waiting vainly for a stool to vacate at Bear Republic,…