Greetings friends!
Spring has sprung early in the Napa Valley and if you blinked, you missed winter. I love this season with its bright green vegetables like fava beans, spring peas, asparagus, spring garlic, and onions.
The patio at CBK is now open for lunch on these warm spring days. Bring your appetite, well-behaved dog, and friends to enjoy dining under the 100-year-old fig tree.
CBK is excited to be honoring the valley. Look for our new Napa-centric wine list which will be premiering the first week of March. Come enjoy some amazing Napa wines to pair with your favorite dishes!
This month you'll want to rev up your appetite as Jim will be featuring "Racetrack" lamb from our friend Don Watson as the
"Whole Beast" specials during March. These lamb have grazed on the sunny slopes of the Sonoma Raceway in southern Sonoma County.
And lastly at CBK, it's not too early to book for that Passover weekend. Jim will be serving delicious Passover menu additions on Friday and Saturday, April 3 & 4 and a special Easter menu on Sunday. Take a look a the menu additions.
At
Mustards,
the hot house is bursting with seedlings of tomatoes, padron peppers, and a variety of delicious squash. We recently planted bare root bushes of raspberry, blueberry, gooseberry, honeyberry, as well as Comice and Bartlett pear trees purchased from Harmony Farm Supply in Sebastopol.
Pair Off Pour Off at Mustards features all the foods of spring from the garden and the ocean, which come in shells. Think of peas, fava beans, oysters, shrimp, clams, and mussels. And since chocolate comes from a pod (close enough to a shell!)...chocolate desserts! I am looking forward to the strawberries and rhubarb that will be in season come April.
St. Patrick's Day is on Tuesday, March 17 and both CBK and Mustards will celebrate the luck of Irish! It's fun to restaurant and bar hop like they do in New York City on this festive day. Wear something green, eat lunch at CBK and dinner at Mustards, or reverse it. This month's recipe honors the day with Irish soda bread.
At CBK there will be Irish potato soup with white cheddar and black pudding, Guinness-braised beef cottage pie with spring peas, colcannon potatoes, and Irish soda bread pudding with whiskey sauce.
Among the St. Patty's Day choices at Mustards are a Kilkenny rabbit stew, grilled wild salmon, strip steak, shepherd's pie, and sticky toffee pudding.
Last month I hosted a "Cooking for Solutions" dinner at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with winemaker Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Winery. It was a fun evening filled great food, wine and lots of laughter. On March 28 I return to the Aquarium for a dinner featuring wines from Hourglass Winery. Cooking for Solutions goes on the road to The Hess Collection in the Napa Valley on April 25 with celebrity chefs from throughout Northern California.
I am honored to be a semifinalist for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur. The finalists will be announced on March 24, so keep your fingers crossed for me!
