Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving.  A time of good friends, good family times, and hopefully some good eats. My Thanksgiving was absolutely lovely this year and very luckily was spread over a few weeks. Yes I said it, a few weeks.

It started out a couple of weekends ago at Slow Food’s 4^th annual “Renewing America’s Food Traditions” dinner. The event every year is put on to raise awareness and raise money for the 4H Heritage Breed project. For seven years, 4H kids have raised heritage breed turkeys to sell at Thanksgiving time. It helps not only bring our community closer by bringing the consumer back together again with the producer, but helps preserve heritage breeds from disappearing from our tables.

This year, Slow Food Russian River teamed up with bio-dynamic and very sustainable winery Quivira, to put on a wonderful event. Quivira is nestled quaintly in the Dry Creek Valley, among Sonoma County’s most beautiful vineyards and hills. The dinner was skillfully put together by Chris Cosintino and the rest of his crew at Incanto in San Francisco and included some turkey that had been raised by the kids.

Chris, browning the Confit Turkey wings

Chris and one of Quivera's freshly picked onions

Loading up the cooker with the turkey and lamb

Chris and Tony in the kitchen

Fabulous Salumi Spread pre-dinner. Courtesy of Fatted Calf and Perbacco

Live music

Quivira's Gardens

Heritage Turkey Dinner for 100

Turkey Breast, Turkey Thigh, Confit Wings along with Quivira''s Carrots and Parsnips

Towards the end of the meal, Sonoma County native, Rex Williams, auctioned off nine of the beautiful turkeys that the kids had raised.

Auctioning so fast you can't even see him!

The event raised a lot of money for Slow Food Russian River and most importantly the 4H kids and their projects. Last week, the fun continued with the “transforming” of the turkeys and of course, the distribution for Thanksgiving. Dad’s office was distribution center and we spent two days distributing and delivering 225 Heritage Turkeys, with the 4H kid’s help again. These kids work hard and take pride in what they do, staying involved in the whole process.  For more information about heritage breeds in general, check out the America Breeds Livestock Conservancy.

Tradition seemed to be in the forefront of my own Thanksgiving, celebrating at our dear family friends house. Our job? Bring a pumpkin pie. I was very lucky this year in my harvest 

Planted seeds, Go to Europe for three months, come home to this!!

I planted pie pumpkins specifically, in anticipation that I would hopefully be making a pie. So Thursday morning, I roasted, pureed, and made a pie out of that pumpkin.

Roasting

SO proud of my homemade crust!

I tried the dough press for the middle decor, but took it off mid-cook because it lost this shape. But it looks good for this photo!

I think it turned out ok, especially since I brought home an empty pie pan! You can find the recipe here. The rest of our meal was very traditional, very beautiful, and most importantly, very good.

The boys

One of TWO turkeys for the 24 of us!

Maggie's fantastic butternut, pomegrante salad

The Spread

The plate of plates!

I have to give my thanks to my friends and family. I have been very lucky and very fortunate to have amazing experiences this year and none of it could have been done with out them.

Alba & Out!

I think this may be my last post from my trip abroad. It has now been two weeks since I have been home, and I think it is time to hang up the hat on this one. It has been delightfully busy since I have been back, and should have posted this a long time ago. But there was just one more excursion that I must write about. Just an hour away from Torino, where all the Slow Food activities took place is a town called Alba. Alba is known for one of my most favorite foods, the white truffle. But, it is also nestled in between some of Piedmont’s delicious wineries.

Hills around Alba

Dad and I had the very fortunate chance to go along wine tasting with Ron, with some of our friends from Lagunitas Brewery,  who had their beers proudly on display in the Salone Del Gusto. We left Torino on a cold and rainy day, and carefully followed their car up into the hills above Alba. Our destination was Pietro Rinaldi, a family-run operation since the 1920’s. Monica and Paolo, the owners and operators, opened up their home for the tasting and lunch. They served a delightful yet simple meal full of yummy antipastos and pasta.

Outside their home, the dog is in the wine barrel

Homemade ragu

Cheese, a mix between sheep and cows milk, with homemade jams

Along with the food, we tasted six of their wines and thoroughly enjoyed them all. 

Four of the Six

They take pride in what they make and really like to have fun with the wines. They were all fabulous, and I really enjoyed their 2009 Moscato called D’Ampess, which they explained meant its liking meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. 

Naturally, since we were in Alba, we had to have some of their infamous truffles. We had dinner the night of the wine tasting in the middle of the heart of Alba

The Main Church

I had nice pasta called Tajarin, an egg pasta that is a favorite in the area. It is a perfect accompaniment to the truffles, I just only wished I had more truffles!

Bringing them out to the table

Box of truffles!

Check out a similar  RECIPE here

The next day was our final day in Alba, and Dad’s final day in Italy. I sought out the truffles again and we managed to find a wonderful restaurant in a back alley called Osteria La Libera.  We walked right in and immediately got seated for their lunch service. For starters, Dad ordered a GREAT crudo.

The kitchen

THE crudo

For the main coarse, I ordered, of course, another pasta with truffles. But this was completely different then the night before. First, it had oodles and oodles of truffles on it, shaven right in front of me, so they we fresh. Second, it was one ravioli, stuffed with a pecorino and spinach. And third, it had an egg on it, so once cut into, egg yolk just oozed down the sides. Fantastic!

The smell of these guys permeated the whole restaurant

Shaving away

Helllloooooo Truffles

As if lunch couldn’t get any better, we got dessert, and it was just heavenly. Dad ordered a pannacotta that he argues is one of the best, if not THE best one he has ever had. I ordered a chocolate soufflé with a fabulous cinnamon ice cream (my new obsession) and some caramel. YUM

Pannacotta

Souffle

Oozing with chocolatey goodness

It was the perfect way to end the trip with Dad. We packed up the car and he head back out to the West Coast of California, while I headed up North to Switzerland to meet up with Lexi again. The food was uber expensive so Lexi and I cooked in our really awesome hostel.  It was really good food that we made, but what was missing with the foods was replaced with views. Just fantastic!

Interlaken

Interlaken

"Hello Swan!" Cue Sex & the City 2 reference...

Hiking in Grindenwald

Gettin' in touch with the locals

Lexi & I in Interlaken

Hellooooo Glacier

Montreaux

 And that’s it! I left Switzerland for two nights in Milan, which I wrote about here. I couldn’t believe that my trip had ended and to be honest, now that I have been home for two weeks, it seems so surreal that I was there. I had so much fun, met so many amazing people and most of all, ate some REALLY good food.

But really, that’s not it! Well it is for Europe, but my adventures in food (& wine) are still continuing up in Northern California and beyond. So stayed tuned for them. This area has so much to offer, to see and explore, and to taste. So really, I’m just getting started….