Gluten Free

The olive oil is a nontraditional addition, but Brian believes that it keeps the stock from darkening. He salts it very lightly to avoid overseasoning the dish in which the stock is eventually used. Vegetable stock tastes best when freshly made, but you can freeze it.

We always keep chicken stock in the freezer because it is the foundation of so many of our soups, stews, and sauces. Making stock is an enjoyable project for a rainy day, and the results surpass anything you can buy. Homemade stock tastes fresh and lively compared to canned broth, which typically relies on dehydrated vegetables and seasonings. Brian doesn’t salt his chicken stock but you can add salt to taste if you like.

Lighter than a custard-based ice cream, Chef Rob Wilson’s sorbet makes a refreshing accompaniment to summer berries, grilled peaches, or baked fruit desserts. Or scoop the sorbet into compote dishes and accompany with his Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies (page 185).

An Italian semifreddo is a frozen mousse, lighter than ice cream and made without churning. You can vary it according to season, incorporating flavors from raspberry to pear to chestnut. We like to make it with chopped toasted almonds and Marshall’s Farm wildflower honey, collected from hives in one of our vineyards. The result tastes like frozen nougat. Serve with a thin, crisp cookie.

Napa spice merchant Shuli Madmone has introduced many fascinating seasonings to our kitchen, including the dried rose petals we use in this sorbet. His shop, Whole Spice (see page 126), is a playground for adventuresome cooks, and in recent years, he has brought a collection of exotic seasonings to the Workshop. We grind the dried rose petals fine with sugar, then use that fragrant mixture to sweeten a sparkling wine sorbet.

If you have never dreamed of putting vinegar in ice cream and can’t imagine what it would taste like, don’t summarily dismiss the idea. Balsamic vinegar, reduced to a syrup, gives ice cream a pale plum color and a caramel note. If you can’t get fresh cherries, serve the ice cream with sugared strawberries or baked figs. Accompany with biscotti or another crisp cookie.

Alexis and Eric Koefoed operate Soul Food Farm (see page 173) in a rural area of Solano County, Napa’s neighbor. The eggs from their pasture-raised chickens are so superior to conventional eggs that they inspired a cooking class at the winery. For the class dessert, Brian created this variation on floating island, a retro French dessert that deserves to come back into fashion. The “islands” are poached meringues that, in the original version, float on vanilla custard—a superb way to showcase first-rate eggs. The unusual caramel sauce flavored with Cakebread Cellars rosé is Brian’s addition.

A spicy vegetable side dish from Chef Jon Mortimer, a 2007 Workshop participant, inspired this more substantial stew. By adding more summer vegetables, such as chayote and corn, Brian elevated Chef Mortimer’s dish to entrée status. Prepared with vegetable stock, it is suitable for vegetarians.

This five-minute side dish would complement any fish or meat from the grill, from swordfish to pork chops. Save the recipe for summer, when the cherry tomatoes have thin skins and you can find them in a rainbow of colors—red, gold, yellow, and green—at a farmers’ market.

With names like Good Mother Stallard, Goat’s Eye, and Yellow Indian Woman, the dried heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo (see page 55) charm diners familiar with only generic dried beans. Rancho Gordo proprietor Steve Sando finds some of these intriguing beans in Mexico and Central America and arranges to buy them direct from the farmers. Others are grown on farms in Northern California. You can use a single bean type for this dish, but Brian prefers to use multiple varieties, simmering them separately to accommodate their different cooking times. Just before serving, he unites them with a tomato sauce and some blanched fresh yellow and green beans. You could make a meal of this summer stew with a green salad and some crusty bread, or serve it as an accompaniment to grilled lamb. Note that the beans must soak overnight.

Many people never think to cook radishes, but they are delicious when braised gently in butter. Brian likes to pair them with sugar snap peas, which mature in Dolores’s garden at about the same time. You could add other spring vegetables, such as turnips, baby carrots, or English peas. Blanch them separately (as for the sugar snap peas here) so they don’t pick up any radish color, then combine them all just long enough to reheat. Serve with Slow-Roasted King Salmon with Garden Herbs (page 110) or spring lamb.

Brian sometimes roasts mushrooms and artichokes in the winery’s pizza oven alongside a chicken, but the vegetables will color up beautifully in a hot home oven, too. Serve them, browned and sizzling, as an accompaniment to a roast or to Grilled Bone-In Ribeye Steak with Garlic Sauce (page 138). Or pair with polenta for a meatless meal.

Celery complements blue cheese, and blue cheese complements steak, so Brian put the three ingredients together. The salad includes celery leaves, which contribute a refreshing herbaceousness. Spooned over the steaks like a salsa or relish, it helps cut their richness. Serve with Potato and Celery Root Gratin (page 165) or wilted spinach.

The quince trees at our River Ranch property are just delivering their first harvest at the time of the Workshop. Many chefs are captivated with these uncommon autumn fruits, which are rockhard and astringent when raw and must be cooked to release their floral perfume. Chef David Everett made a memorable quince chutney for duck breasts when he attended the Workshop in 1994. Brian likes to serve the same chutney with brined pork chops. Cooking the pork on the bone enhances flavor and seals in the succulence imparted by the brine. Accompany the pork with braised escarole or Tuscan kale, or with Brussels sprouts and chestnuts. Any leftover chutney will keep for at least a week in the refrigerator and would be delicious with blue cheese. Note that the chops need to rest in the brine overnight.

Seattle chef Emily Moore created this dish for Passover, but it’s too good to reserve for a holiday. Keep the recipe in mind for those cold, rainy days when you want the warmth and comfort of a pot roast. Don’t let the butcher trim all the surface fat from the brisket, and if possible, make the dish a day ahead; it improves with reheating. If necessary, you can brown the meat in one pot, then transfer it to a roasting pan for baking. Accompany with egg noodles and a crisp escarole salad. Leftovers make great sandwiches. Chef Moore participated in the 1994 Workshop.

The plump and pristine Belgian endive from California Vegetable Specialties (see page 91) always impresses the Workshop chefs, and they come up with some novel uses for it. Chef James Boyce, a 2008 participant, made “choucroute” with the sliced endive, braising it with onion, bacon, and apples as if it were cabbage. He paired it with seared duck breasts, but you could serve it with a pork chop and boiled potatoes instead.

The venison we serve at Cakebread Cellars comes from Broken Arrow Ranch in Texas (see page 144). The meat is as dark as beef but much leaner, with even less cholesterol and fewer calories than skinless chicken breast. Like pork, venison has a natural sweetness that welcomes a tart, fruity sauce. At the 1998 Workshop, Bruce Hill paired it with wild huckleberries; wild blueberries make a good substitute. Serve the venison with potato puree, as Bruce did, or with Brussels sprouts, roasted root vegetables, or the celery root puree from The Cakebread Cellars Napa Valley Cookbook.

Ancho chiles have an earthy, rich, raisiny flavor that adds depth to the sauce for these short ribs. The chiles are not particularly spicy, so the dish still works well with red wine. In fact, we serve a variation of this recipe in our Wine and Food Pairing Experience for winery visitors, pulling the short-rib meat from the bones and serving it on mini hamburger buns with coleslaw. For a dinner entrée, we serve the braised short ribs on the bone, as described here, with mashed potatoes or noodles.

Pureed garlic—and lots of it—gives body to the sauce for these steaks. The whole cloves are blanched multiple times to mute their pungency, then simmered in milk until they are as soft as butter. Pureed until smooth, the finished sauce looks rich with cream, yet it doesn’t have a drop. It would be tasty with grilled leg of lamb, too. Steeping the cloves in hot water first makes them easy to peel, a handy restaurant technique. Accompany the steaks with Roasted Mushrooms and Baby Artichokes (page 155) in spring or fall, and with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes (page 157) in summer.

Our charcuterie supplier, Taylor Boetticher of Napa’s Fatted Calf (opposite page), had the fine idea to wrap a pork tenderloin in a cloak of paper-thin pancetta. The pancetta bastes the lean tenderloin as it cooks, so the meat remains moist. A thyme-scented tomato fondue makes a light, summery accompaniment, suggested by 2009 Workshop participant Scott Gottlich. Add some sautéed Blue Lake beans or a slice of Mediterranean Summer Vegetable Gratin (page 158) to complete the plate. You can roast only one tenderloin, if you like, but you may need to reduce the heat as you sear it because of the reduced volume of meat in the skillet. Do prepare the full amount of tomato fondue, however. You won’t have enough volume for the blender otherwise, and you won’t regret having extra. Note that the pork needs to marinate overnight.