October 14, 15, and 16

For our upcoming beef dinners, we are inviting a few notable local beef ranchers to join us each night so our patrons can meet them.  We’re pleased that Mac Magruder will join us on Saturday, October 16th.  Mac is probably one of the first grass-fed cattle ranchers in the alternative-to-feedlot era from northern California, and probably well beyond.  For the past twenty years he’s been developing a very well-thought-out system of grazing and pasture management, and in the process has invented a business for himself which is enriching all of us.  When interest in grass-fed beef took-off several years ago, it was Mac’s beef that showed us how tasty it could be.

Chef Paul Canales has been working with whole beef animals from Mac and other local cattle ranchers for the past three years.  He’s been learning about breeds, diet (there’s considerable variation in grass-fed beef), maturity, aging, butchery and how best to cook each cut.  So, Paul wanted to present these Beef Dinners as a way of showing some of the various, unexpected, and delicious things he’s learned.

Mac will be here with his wonderful family: wife, Kate, daughter Grace, and Ben–the new son-in-law. They’ll be in the cafe available for chatting from 5 to 6 PM, then have dinner with us upstairs; they’ll be back down in the Café to socialize after dinner.

We’ll be posting additional information/menus, and announce other guest ranchers’ dates in the coming weeks on the Oliveto Community Journal.  But we recommend you reserve now.

We’re seeing the first few trickles of tasty tomatoes, but not nearly what you’d expect for mid-August.  We got some solid information from Bill about this year’s weird weather and how it has effected tomato crops in northern California.

In the hopes of things heating up in time for a late-late summer ripening, we’ve pushed back the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners to September.  Fingers crossed.

Made from 100% California sugarcane, pressed fresh in their hangar on the island of Alameda, they have two editions available: the Fresh-Squeezed is a quintessential expression of newly cut cane. The Aged spent two and a half years in French oak.

We’ll be mixing up the rum classics, such as Daiquiris, Cuba Libres, and Mai Tais along with some special concoctions in honor of the occasion.  Please join us.

Make a Reservation

Yesterday, we hit the Derby Street Farmers’ Market with Chef Canales & got a good look at what is available.  Okra, check.  Black-Eyed peas, check.  Jimmy Nardello peppers, check.  Gypsy peppers…not so much.

Melons on the other hand are going gangbusters right now.  Trini Campbell tells us about the numerous varieties Riverdog Farm grows & how to know when they are ready to be eaten.

We also have tomato reports from two of our go-to tomato farms:  Lucero Organic & Dirty Girl Produce.  And we have Stella Schlesinger (on tape!) saying Dirty Girl Produce will hopefully definitely have oodles of their famous Early Girls tomatoes available in time for Tomato Dinners 2010.  phew.

After separating from Niman Ranch, Bill has been working with goats and turkeys, but his real interest remains beef. For him, the ideal beef animal is older, more developed, grass-fed, and harvested when the animals are still feeding on dried grass where the seed is hard.

We’ll be getting more of these animals next week. For now, we should have cheeks this Saturday, August 7th, and tongues for our 2010 Beef Dinners, October 14th – 16th.

Every Monday – Thursday in the Cafe

8:30 pm – 10 pm

After perfecting our whole-grain pizza dough, Chef Canales decided to take it one step further & concocted  the geniusness that is Pizza Gufo.  Simple and fresh, we’ll be serving it the Cafe along with some other smaller plates and some affordable glass wines later in the evenings.  We’re thinking this is the perfect time to pop in for a drink, sit out on the patio, kick back, and have a gufo, you know?

Cafe Oliveto Gufo Menu

Pizza Gufo         5.
Salume fino & Cacio di Roma cheese plate       7.
Salad of seasonal greens          5.
Soup          5.

Biscotti        1.50
Beignet with crème anglaise 2.50

Red wine          5.
White wine          5.
Well drinks          6.
(season cocktails coming soon)

We have 5 acres of Floriani Red Flint corn growing, and an acre of Otto File.  That’s a lot, possibly 10,000 to 15,000 lbs. of grain.    It will probably be ready for harvest in late September or October, and ready to eat by this winter.   Most of it will be machine harvested, but we’re thinking of trying to harvest some by hand (sounds like a party).   And hopefully, we’ll be selling some of the grain.  More to come on that…

Last year’s crop of Floriani Red Flint polenta is served in the cafe every day and usually available on the dinner menu as well.  The corn is milled fresh and whole grain (or integrale).  So, not only do you get the nutty, distinct flavor of the red flint corn, you also get all of the flavor.

The Rominger Brothers also grew out some Italian wheat varieties for us, as we continue to work with them in our attempt to understand which wheat varieties grow best here in Northern California.   This is a massive yet extraordinarily interesting project.  Stay tuned…

This year, because the rainy season went so long, we’ve pushed the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners [reserve] back to September 15 – 19 and are watching and waiting.   Recently, we’ve seen the first few cherry tomatoes and Sun Golds, and just this week some delicious “ugly” Early Girls.

In the meantime, we had fun revisiting Tomato Watch 2009 so we collected the posts here and thought we’d share:

Highlights include:
Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce on Dry-Farming in post #2, and then on July 3rd with further dry-farming information. Also, Joe’s own video reports in post #5 and #10 are of special note.

Riverdog Farm explain their growing cycle and how and when tomatoes are picked in posts #18 and #20.

Brookside Farm’s Welling and Ann Tom show us lovely pictures and thoughtful reports on their season in Brendwood, culminating in the October 1st Dead Ripe video.

This weekend we’re breaking into a beautifully aged hunk of Mac Magruder’s green-grass-fed beef. Chef Canales will braise this with Chianti, Vin Santo, and wild fennel pollen.  It will be on the menu through Sunday.

Chianti is also the topic at  the Oliveto Wine Journal, where Chris Ryerson discusses an Eric Asimov’s article about a rather depressing Chianti taste test.   Chris has some recommendations of a few often over-looked, smaller-production Chiantis that you’ll want to make a point of tracking down.

Official confirmation from Trini at Riverdog Farm: tomato season has started! Also, some recommended older varieties of apricots & peaches from Didar, and Chef Canales tells us how he likes to prepare Jimmy Nardello’s peppers. Who’s Jimmy Nardello?!