9/22 - Entering Fall with Bouchon Bistro

Slow Living Radio welcomes Justin Williams, General Manager of Thomas Keller's Yountville Bouchon Bistro.  We discover what delights are to unfold for Autumn on the menu, some interesting history with the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, and a sampling of exciting upcoming events. 

Accueil, Jouir........Welcome, enjoy!

Bouchon Bistro Yountville

The first of three Bouchon properties within the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, Bouchon opened in 1998, just four years after The French Laundry. The restaurant offers French bistro fare and has received numerous accolades from both the culinary community and national press, including a one-star rating from Michelin Guide San Francisco and being included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants” since 2000.

Bouchon’s bistro fare changes with the seasons, and though their presentation may change, some of Chef Keller’s favorite dishes remain as fixtures on the menu: roast chicken, steak frites, croque madame, pot de crème and lemon tart. The restaurant also features an extensive raw bar, a seasonal Vin de Carafe program highlighting local winemakers and an extensive, international wine list complements the restaurant’s cuisine.

 

Justin Williams
General Manager

With more than 10 years of culinary experience, Justin’s comprehensive understanding of the kitchen and the dining room bring a unique point of view to Bouchon Bistro.  He has been working  in restaurants since 1995, notably cooking at Rocco DiSpirito’s Union Pacific and Rocco’s 22^nd Street in New York City, and joined Bouchon Yountville as a Chef de Partie in 2002.

Justin holds a degree in Culinary Arts from The Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park.  He developed valuable management and service skills working at Il Fornaio in Sacramento, Roseville and Burlingame, Calif.  Justin rejoined Bouchon in 2010, gaining invaluable insights into every level of the service team, which he currently oversees, along with daily operations and staffing for both the Bistro and sibling Bouchon Bakery. 

 Some Autumn Samplings.....Fondue and Frites de Panisse

 

 

 

 

 

08/18/2014 - Chinese Wine Escapades

China has become an important and emerging region for wine consumption and is spending big on fine wines from around the world.  This episode of Slow Living's our guests share their experiences working with the Chinese, in particular Dr Joe Chuang of Firefly Vineyards, to help demystify wine for the general population.

 

 
 







Our introduction includes a performance by Panda Ye Peng, a Chinese singer living in Australia, bringing a taste of Reggae to her Chinese Audience.  See the performance here.



Tim and Dr Chuang with their awards in China

Tim Hanni MW
Sasha Paulson ,
Features Editor, Napa Register, and Author

Sasha and Tim have recently co-written, “The Master’s Secrets to Enjoying Wine”, which is being translated to be published later this year. The focus of the book is to engage Chinese consumers to “love wine from the heart” – meaning for the enjoyment of flavors, rather than just for the fashion or prestige.

Their Chinese mission began working with Dr. Joe Chuang, who has Firefly Vineyards in Napa. All of the wine he makes is shipped to China, where it is sold and the profits support a foundation he has established to help poor, rural children continue their education past 9th grade. Joe, a native of Taiwan, is an engineer by training, who has a green energy research company based in Napa that works world-wide. He also has a winery in China,  is hoping to establish a Global Wine Expo to help California winemakers sell wines more easily in China.  Joe is also establishing a Friendship association between his wine region, and California.

 

Sasha and Tim have fun with some local Chinese delicacies, scurrying sea cucumber,

and ........ a foot of some kind!

 

 

 Read more about their stories in the following articles written by Sasha.

http://napavalleyregister.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/wine/napa-valley-men-are-first-foreigners-to-join-chinese-food/article_4bcb2dcc-1c20-11e3-ba68-0019bb2963f4.html

http://napavalleyregister.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/wine/a-global-wine-expo-opens-a-door-to-china-for/article_3d07f2ce-9800-11e2-8a17-001a4bcf887a.html

 

 

08/11/14 - Mixing for Summer

Summer is in full swing and no better time for a nice cool "spirited" beverage infused with the flavors of the season.

Our two guests bring us their own personal "flavor", one through the written word and artifacts, and the other through some good pure mixed drink ideas.  We'll also get the low down on the world of bitters and food pairing.

culinary art and antiques maven. sommelier. hunter gatherer. fisherman. cook. writer. traveler and wanderer.

Lisa Minucci

Owner,
Heritage Artifacts

As a sommelier for many years on both the east coast and west, Lisa Minucci travels the world’s great wine-producing regions and knows that where there is good wine, there is good food.  And where there is good food and wine, there are beautiful arts and antiques devoted to the noble pursuit of gastronomy; these artisanal pieces oftentimes created entirely for their exaltation and celebration. Heritage Culinary Artifacts is the ultimate repository for her treasures and finds. It’s also a wonderful excuse for Lisa to continue to travel, eat, fish, hunt, gather, and forage, returning to her home in California’s Napa Valley with interesting booty and tales from both the trails and the table. 

 

 

 

Paul Martin

Tasting Room Manager/Brand Ambassador

Napa Valley Distillery

 

Paul had been enjoying “mixed” beverages since 2001, but it wasn’t until 2008 that he learned the difference between good and bad “booze” and became “intoxicated” with the industry.  Working his way through all aspects, from tour guide, to production, bottling, tasting room management, and of course, mixing, Paul has an acute sense of  the defining levels of many spirits including vodka, gin, brandy, tequila, rum, whiskey, absinthe, liquor, and the accompanying world of bitters.

 

Leading the tasting room of Napa Valley Distillery, Paul is often seen guiding large groups through a more extensive selection of beverages than one would ever see in a wine tasting room.  One could wonder whether his goal was to educate or inebriate?

Here's Paul's Drink of the Day:

 

Blood and Scandal.

 

Build in a rocks or tasting glass

 

1/4 ounce of Simple syrup

3 dashes of Meyer Lemon Sage Napa Valley bitters

1 1/2 ounce of the Napa Valley Distillery Gin

 

Add ice and top off with Blood Orange soda, stir and garnish with a cucumber wheel.

Try not to drink more that 5! :)

 

 



 

 

 

07/28/14 - Supporting Small Local Farmers

In this age of huge monoculture farms, Genetically Modified Crops and other environmental hazards, causing havoc to our food systems and health, there are a rising breed of folk trying to bring us back to thinking small and local, feeding our communities and our land, and nurturing a real Slow Living Lifestyle.  We talk to a couple on this mission tonight, as well as to two organizations whose goal is to find funding for such courageous and caring individuals.

Peter Ruddock

Slow Money

Peter is Coordinator of the Slow Money - LION South Bay group. He is advocate for a more resilient food system and a strong local economy.

 

Slow Money provides a meaningful alternative to our current financial system that has run amok – trillions of dollars a day flowing through capital markets in securities that no one fully understands, contributing to systemic problems of our time.

What does Slow Money mean?

Investing in real places, in people and enterprises close to home. Investing patiently, over time, with a goal of building healthy enterprises, communities and ecosystems, not just extracting financial wealth. Measuring Return on Investment by the tangible world we create around us and the health of our soil, not just the profit we make.

 

 

Sarah Lopez

Fiesta Farm

Aurelio and Sarah Lopez began experimenting with pasture-raised chickens in 2009 after reading one of Joel Salatin’s books.  To begin with they lived in a barn above a single acre of rented land, moonlighting as chicken farmers while both working full-time day jobs.  Fast-forward a few years and 2013 finds Fiesta Farm raising chickens for both meat and eggs, as well as pigs, rabbits, and goats on almost 30 acres of mixed grass pasture and oak forest.   They are proud of our “triple bottom line” business which feeds hundreds of local families with nourishing, nutrient-dense foods while maintaining a balance between People, Profit, and Planet.

 

Sarah (Greene) Lopez grew up on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  Her first part-time job was taking care of the birds and snakes behind the scenes at a pet store… which makes her parents wonder… Sarah studied natural resource management at the University of Michigan and then returned to the Chesapeake to earn a master’s degree in marine science.  Like many east coasties, she ventured west to California in search of gold, and found Aurelio.  A former vegetarian, Sarah became interested in raising her own meat, and stumbled upon the growing demand for local and humanely raised meat and dairy products, which led to the creation of the former Surfside Chickens (which became Fiesta Farm).  Sarah maintains an off-farm job monitoring water quality on behalf of the irrigated agriculture industry here on the Central Coast.  She also manages the Fiesta Farm sales, marketing, and “office.”

 

Aurelio Lopez was born and spent his early years in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico.  A Mixteco indian, he speaks fluent Mixteco, Spanish, and English.  With 10 children in the family (Aurelio is the second youngest), Aurelio’s parents grow corn, beans, and coffee… Aurelio has been a farmer all his life!  More recently, Aurelio spent just over a decade working for an organic vegetable farm in Watsonville.  Though chickens and other livestock are new “crops” for him, Aurelio’s experience with organic farming and the type of production schedule needed to support CSA and farmer’s market sales are what makes Fiesta Farm “go.”  For example, whenever things get hard enough to make Sarah cry, Aurelio responds with a reassuring, “Like I always tell you, this is farming.”

 

Brett Melone

Loan Officer
California FarmLink

Brett Melone has served as Loan Officer at California FarmLink since July 2013. Prior to that time Brett was a member of the California Farmlink Board of Directors and Loan Committee. Brett has more than 15 years of experience supporting the business success of farmers and leading non profit organizations that serve farmers. He is an adjunct instructor of sustainable agriculture at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Brett has extensive non-profit management experience and served as Executive Director of Friends of MarViva Foundation and as the Executive Director of ALBA, Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association in Salinas, California. Brett has a BA in International Relations, Business and Spanish from the University of San Diego, and an MA in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies

The mission of California FarmLink is to link independent farmers and ranchers to the land and financing they need for a sustainable future.  Established in 1999, California FarmLink has developed a statewide program of economic development support for beginning, limited-resource, immigrant and other underserved farmers across the state.