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Whole Foods Adventure

It probably wasn’t the best timing on our part to visit the new Santa Rosa Whole Foods Market in Coddingtown…  It was late afternoon and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so that made everything in the store look twice as delicious. You’ll see by our shopping list that we ended up buying way too many carbs, but we had a great adventure!

At the entrance dozens of fragrant Christmas trees announced the season along with bins of colorful sweet cooking pumpkins, squashes and gourds.   The scent of flowers and winter fruits enticed us to explore further.  A half dozen Fuji apples called my name.

Whole Foods Produce
Whole Foods produce department
Inside the store there were elaborate pyramids of cascading produce.  Further on towards the back led to the fish monger and a beautiful selection of fresh organic meats and poultry.  I felt like I was entering a show of Broadway proportions as the lighting, sounds, smells set the stage, and the actions of the truly friendly and helpful staff came together to do their parts at every turn of every aisle.

Whole Foods Tap Room
Whole Foods Tap Room
The beer selection at the back of the store appears to have every micro-beer you’ve ever heard of and then some.  As you may have heard, you can get a beer at the Tap Room while waiting for other shoppers…or taking a lunch break. A group of determined customers sat contentedly at the bar sipping their brews overseen by a big screen TV on a sports channel.

At the Health and Beauty aisle I picked up some grapefruit deodorant that sounded interesting and a bar of sandalwood soap.  I passed over a really cute pink alpaca hat with multi-colored tassels; maybe someone will get that for me for Christmas?

Whole Foods snack aisle
Whole Foods snack aisle
By now we are really getting hungry and items from every corner of the store are calling out to assuage us.  Unfortunately, it was at exactly this moment that we turned down an aisle that can only be described as Heaven to me – think crunch, salt, oil, and sugar – the chip, cracker, and cookie department!  “…and it’s all so healthy too!”  I remarked as packages of Akmak, Rice Chips, Bunny Crackers, Lemon Scones, and Sesame Thins end up in the basket. (I did skip the peanut butter chocolate cookies).

Whole Foods deli
Whole Foods deli prepared foods
By the time we make it to the Deli section where gorgeous deli meats, cheeses. sandwiches, and prepared foods of every sort and taste await us, we have added a jar of Bubbie’s pickles, a loaf of seeded pumpernickel, some naan bread, and a pound and a half of cooked Indian food-to-go including saag paneer, Tandoori chicken, potato and pea samosas, rice, and lentils!

Whole Foods Indian food
Whole Foods hot food counter
This is a great place for lunch – or dinner for that matter!  Just load up your biodegradable to-go container with salad, chicken, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, soup, gravy, etc. for $7.50 per pound.  All food cooked fresh and tasty on the premises!

We ended up eating our lunch leaning on our car in the parking lot under the clear sunny wintery Santa Rosa sky with a murder of crows perched on the light fixtures around us waiting for the remnants…. Beautiful day!

Whole Foods is located at the west end of the Coddingtown Shopping Center in Santa Rosa, CA in beautiful Sonoma County.  See you there!

Whole Foods
390 Coddingtown Mall
Santa Rosa, CA
(707) 542-7411

Posted in: Activities, Day Trips, Entertainment, Food, Places, Santa Rosa

Sonoma County Harvest Fair

Sonoma County Harvest Fair Logo
Sonoma County Harvest Fair Logo

It’s time (Sept 30-Oct 2) for the 2011 Sonoma County Harvest Fair. Right on schedule the vineyards around the county are laden with ripening fruit that give testament to the bounty that Luther Burbank loved about Sonoma County. You can’t see the densely grouped clusters without appreciating the gift that nature bestows on us.

The Harvest Fair is a great opportunity to get in touch with local growers and wine makers and to share a weekend of food, music, fun, and games with your  fellow food and wine enthusiasts.

Congratulations are due to these Harvest Fair award winners:

Kenwood Vineyards – 2010 Pinot Gris – Russian River Valley:
Sweepstakes Winning White Wine and the James Guymon Memorial Award

Wilson Winery – 2009 Zinfandel – Dry Creek Valley – Sawyer
Sweepstakes Winning Red Wine and the George Cooke Memorial Award

Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards – 2007 Brut Rose – Carneros
Sweepstakes Winning Specialty Wine and the Mike Lee Memorial Award

Posted in: Day Trips, Entertainment, Events, Food, Live Music, Wine

Main Street Station

Main Street Station

This is the great place to look for live entertainment any night of the week. The owner, Suzi Feehery, has an ear for jazz and singers and books the best talent in and out of the area. For a small cover fee (usually $3-5) you can spend the evening with the likes of Grammy Nominee Vernelle Anders ( “At Last”) or a hot blues artist like Gwen “Sugar Mama” Avery. There is someone I’d like to see and hear there every night of the week.

Even on a rainy winter night there might be at least thirty people there enjoying the jam, juice, and jive.

The menu is Italian style featuring great country pizza and prime rib on weekends. You are guaranteed a good time at Main Street. You can even try your hand at Open No Mic with Kit Mariah on alternate Sundays.

Check out their website at http://www.mainststation.com for more information.
16280 Main Street
Guerneville
707-869-0501

PS They deliver too!

Posted in: Activities, Entertainment, Food, Guerneville, Italian, Live Music, Places, Restaurants

Dry Creek Real Estate

Dry Creek Valley has always been a favored address for permanent and part time wine country residents alike. These days, in addition to the famed Dry Creek zinfandel carpeting the valley floor and hillside vineyards, the valley is home to the dark blue of Healdsburg Sotheby’s International Realty signs (and others) marking some beautiful properties.

Wine Country Lifestyle
Wine Country Living
There are lavish wine country estates, more modest view acreage overlooking the valley and surrounding hills, and some excellent vineyard land that occasionally may include turnkey operating wineries. Exemplifying the diversity of Dry Creek Valley, Pug’s Leap Farm is also available. Pug’s Leap is a dairy operation making superb and widely appreciated goat cheese.

Property values in Dry Creek Valley are driven by the standard real estate factors starting with location. Healdsburg is the main attraction in the wine country. Properties closer to town will always have a higher valuation than more distant properties. You can measure in miles or in minutes, but you will pay more to be closer to Healdsburg. Anything along Dry Creek Rd or W. Dry Creek Rd with an address under 1000 is considered close to town. Of course, locations close to town can have drawbacks due to traffic noise, so each property has to be looked at in context.

A second key valuation factor is the utility of the land. In a famed appellation, the potential to grow grapes is a major contributor to the price of the property. The valley floor and gently sloping hillsides are the main beneficiaries of the agricultural value of plantable land. Of course, you may find existing vineyards for sale and the question then isn’t about plantable land but about the quality of what is already there. Within the vineyards already planted, value is based on whether or not the grapes are under a contract for purchase of the grapes, which varietals, rootstocks and clones are planted, the age of the vines, and the quality of historic growing practices such as pruning, irrigation, and frost protection.

Here’s a slideshow of Dry Creek Valley homes and land for sale:

Posted in: Country Land, Healdsburg Real Estate, Luxury Homes, Real Estate, Uncategorized, Vineyards, Wine

Sonoma County Wine Tweeters

I set out to create a list of all the Sonoma County wineries that are active in various social media. My problem has been that there is so much great wine in Sonoma County that it’s hard to know where to start blogging about it. One of the solutions I came up with is to pass through a lot of information from the wineries themselves. Most of them are excellent communicators about everything from events to special sales to vintage announcements. I’m going to try to keep up with the best of what the wineries are promoting, but I thought a list of all the tweeting wineries might be useful.

Here in no particular order are some Sonoma County wine related tweeters:

drycreekvineyard.com
johntylerwines.com
millcreekwinery.com
aristawinery.com
aristawinery.com
bedarravineyards.com
capturewines.com
cellarrat.org
chalkhill.com
DaVero.com
DiablitaWines.com
dirtysouthwine.com
drycreekvineyard.com
EsterlinaVineyards.com
EverettRidge.com
familywines.com
ferrari-carano.com
foppiano.com
hauckcellars.com
hawkeswine.com
hawleywine.com
hobowines.com
hopkilnwinery.com
jimtown.com
jordanwinery.com
jwine.com
kokomowines.com/
lancaster-estate.com
lavenderhillvineyards.com
macphailwines.com
magnanimuswines.com
michelschlumberger.com
mountswinery.com
murphygoodewinery.com
murphygoodewinery.com
papapietro-perry.com
portalupiwine.com
quivirawine.com
relishculinary.com
ridgewine.com
ridgewine.com
rodneystrong.com
rodneystrong.com/
rondobley.com
rosenblumcellars.com
sausalwinery.com
simiwinery.com
skipstonewines.com
thewinespies.com
vergewine.com/blog
whalehead.com
whiteoakwinery.com/index.php
winesandmakers.com
zinrestaurant.com

Posted in: Food, Wine

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