What if your favorite restaurant was in the same state you were in but it was 9 hours away???
We really couldn’t take a vacation this summer but we did run off for a week-end to Mendocino (don’t laugh). It seemed like a good idea at the time. After an extensive google search of all the best restaurants in Mendocino, I discovered one that had been there forever (or at least a very long time and this was before Mark Bittman discovered it two months later....) There was something about the comments, the user reviews, the description that just made it sound like it might actually be the real deal.
The Ledford House, tucked onto a cliff, so the views are amazing, surrounded by a weathered redwood deck on which there are always really pretty girls smoking things that don’t look (or smell) at all like cigarettes, but hey it’s Mendocino and no one seems to mind.
But the interior of the restaurant makes you feel as if you’re in the South of France. So much so, that we almost left the first night we were there – too stodgy, we thought, too over the top. And then we glanced at the menu. In addition to home-made duck paté (they had me at the duck paté), they also had cassoulet? No one makes cassoulet any more. And cassoulet and me and Alan have a funny history.
I am somewhat obsessed with a dish called the Lucky Pig, it’s served at 
Boon Eat + Drink in Guerneville on the Russian River is a delightful place with delightful food. We stopped by one Saturday to have lunch. The summertime crowd was out in force. The restaurant was pleasantly busy, but not too crowded.
Whilst in the Napa Valley, this Farmer gave into a deadly sin – no, not drunkenness in the wine country…gluttony! There's no beating around the bush about my love for food - I write about food, I photograph food, I travel to eat and relish in reading a cookbook like a good novel. Between design projects and book tours, I was able to squeeze in a few days in the Napa Valley proper after the ACS convention was adjourned. A dear friend from home said she would meet me there, and our journey through the aforementioned valley began.
Gott's Roadside (formerly Taylor’s Automatic Refresher) in St. Helena has been a Napa Valley institution for years. Everyone talks about wine when they think of Napa, but they should also think of great hamburgers.