with farmer Judith Redmond,
Full Belly Farm

Monday, June 24, 2013, at 6:30 pm
in Oliveto’s quiet private dining room,
for fourteen* guests

Full Belly Farm Owners: Andrew Brait, Judith Redmond, Paul Miller, and Dru Rivers

Call (510) 547-5356 for reservations or email jessica@oliveto.com

It all begins with the local farmer, who gives us the ability to cook a succulent and salubrious meal and who can restore the health of our soils and environment. In the past few decades, the reemergence of farmers’ markets has made the farm-to-city connection palpable and real and life-changing for many.

We’d like to invite you to extend the short exchanges at farmers’ markets to longer, more relaxed conversations over dinner, to broaden and deepen relationships with our local farmers.

We all have hundreds of questions for the farmer: How and why did you decide to become a farmer? When does your day begin, and end? How do you decide what crops to plant? What effects do politics and legislation have on your business? Describe your farm -the soils, the microclimate, rainfall, water sources? Can you put into words the philosophy by which you live? And on and on.

We’ve invited a different farmer for each of four evenings, beginning with one of the most important and beloved in the family farm community of northern California: Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm in Guinda, Yolo County.

MENU

Salad of new potatoes with summer vegetables

Bigoli pasta with barley, Cranberry beans, tomatoes, and peppers

Roast hen with purée of charred eggplant, corn, and cherry tomatoes

Dessert of seasonal figs or peaches
to be determined

Price: $60 per person
plus tax and gratuity

Check out Full Belly’s beautiful, up-to-date, and informative website: fullbellyfarm.com

Our Pastry Chef, Kam Golightly, visited with Judith Redmond at Full Belly Farms in Guinda last weekend to become familiar with the farm and its workers. Judith was particularly exuberant about her eggplants, which are just reaching their maturity. The corn, haricots verts, and fingerling potatoes are at their peak.

We’ll plan other dinners with growers whose beautiful crops we use at Oliveto as summer progresses. The limited participation of fourteen will keep the evening intimate and let everyone join the conversation.

Call (510) 547-5356 for reservations or email jessica@oliveto.com
Dinner is June 24, 2013
Please note there will be one seating at 6:30 pm

*Subject to cancellation should response not warrant the long drive for each farmer.

Cranberry Beans, Full Belly Farms

Though it may seem like the weather is bouncing around like a yo-yo, for our farms, we’re in full swing! At Tuesday’s Farmers’ Market on Adeline, Jonah got his hands on some colorful cranberry beans from Full Belly Farms (above), not to mention fresh Romano beans, haricots verts, Brentwood corn, cherry tomatoes, and more early summer finds.

The cranberry beans appear in a dish of roast hen rolata. The haricots verts and Brentwood corn will be served with pan-roasted local king salmon, while the cherry tomatoes are going with pan-roasted Alaskan halibut and new fingerling potatoes. On the menu now through the weekend.

For reservations, call (510) 547-5356 or click here

June 16, 2013

Antipasto

Red beet salad with cherry tomatoes, mint, and chêvre

Primo

Fettuccine with ragù of Magruder beef

Secondo

Brasato of pork with caramelized onions and braised fennel

Dolce

Tart of Black Mission figs and brown butter frangipane with mascarpone mousse

Make your reservations online or call 510-547-5356.

Potato-wrapped, wild mushroom-stuffed pigeon with barley risotto, sweet fava beans, and sugo

Thanks to the Bay Area’s myriad microclimates, Martin Bournhonesque, from a farm on the coast, has supplied us with sweet, springlike fava beans at point in the season where the window is closing and most favas go starchy.

This week they are getting paired with Full Belly Farms barley, cooked like risotto, and great pigeons from our friend Phillip Paine of Paine Farm, which Chef Jonah will stuff with wild mushrooms and wrap with long strands of potato.

Make your reservations online or call 510-547-5356.

Antipasto
Arancini al Telefono – Fried risotto balls stuffed with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses; tomato sauce

Primo
Rigatoni alla carbonara with lamb pancetta

Secondo
Arrosto di maiale – Roman-style roasted pork stuffed with herbs and garlic, served with braised spinach and roasted potatoes

Dolce
Tortino di polenta with balsamic cherries, sweet corn, vanilla bean ice cream

Make your reservations online or call 510-547-5356.

Menu

Crudo of local King Salmon

with new Yellow Finn potatoes, fines herbes, and crème fraîche

Riesling to Live

Tajarin with ragù of porcini mushrooms

’12 Vin Gris de Cigare

’11 Le Cigare Blanc

’10 Le Cigare Blanc Réserve

’04 Le Cigare Blanc

Tortelloni of Parmesan & house-made ricotta with squash blossoms

’01 Le Cigare Volant

’03 Le Cigare Volant

’05 Le Cigare Volant

’08 Le Cigare Volant (normale)

’08 Le Cigare Volant Reserve

Brasato of Magruder Ranch beef

with Community Grains Red Flint Polenta

’06 Nebbiolo

’07 Nebbiolo

’09 Nebbiolo

Castelmagno

with candied walnuts, crostini, and fruit

’11 Le Vol des Anges

Peach torta with Le Vol des Anges zabaglione and peach sorbetto

Randall, first planting at his new garden vineyard, San Juan Bautista

June 10, 2013 at 6:30 pm

Call (510) 547-5356 for reservations

We thought it extraordinary that a small, independent – very independent – winemaker would make so many wines, and that they could all be very good. And there may be no one we’d rather send time with than Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm. So while presenting a wine dinner with 14 different wines would be challenging, we thought could make it fun, fresh, unpretentious, worthwhile, and delicious.

Menu

Crudo of local king salmon

with new Yellow Finn potatoes, fines herbes, and crème fraîche

Riesling to Live

Tajarin with ragù of porcini mushrooms

‘12 Vin Gris de Cigare
’11 Le Cigare Blanc

’10 Le Cigare Blanc Réserve

Price: $125

Antipasto
Insalata di rinforzo
Grilled cauliflower with pickled vegetables

Primo
Farfalle with zucchini and saffron

Secondo
Magruder beef brasato with new potatoes

Dolce
Peach-leaf crema di latticello with stone fruit “salad”

We’ve known Randall for quite some time: the Rhone Ranger of old, deeply devoted to terroir as the source of a wine’s character, leader and practitioner of a movement for transparency in wine labels, advocate of the screwcap closure, lover of obscure Italian grape varieties, biodynamic farmer with dry-farming leanings, the man who would plant grape vines from seed and plant a vineyard that looked more like a garden (“promiscuous culture,” in the vernacular).  He is an original thinker, a charming, witty, and gentle person.

May 26, 2013

 

Antipasto

Panzanella
Tuscan-style bread salad with tomatoes, olives, capers, and chili flakes

Primo

Trompetti with Sausage and Broccoli di Ciccio

Secondo

Roasted leg of pork with Cavolo Nero in Agrodolce

Dolce

Strawberry Rhubarb “Cheesecake”: Cream Cheese Ice Cream,  
Graham Cracker Cookie, Poached Rhubarb, and Fresh Strawberries

Monday – Friday from 4 to 6 pm
in the Oliveto Cafe.

Bar Snacks

Salumi platter
Spicy pork polpettine
Arancini - fried risotto balls filled with mozzarella, Parmesan and tomato
Oliveto flatbread with cannellini bean purée
Garlic-roasted almonds and marinated olives

Oliveto Happy Hour Specialty Cocktails

The Oliveto
Gin, Licor 43, egg whites, Regina olive oil, lemon
8.

SideCar
Brandy, Cointreau, lemon, sugar rim
7.

Alameda Sazerac
St. George Bourbon, St. George Absinthe, simple syrup, bitters, lemon twist
9.

In addition:

$2.00 off all well drinks and wines by the glass

$3 off all wine flights