"Best of" Sonoma wineries.

Several people commented on the June 21 posting on Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in the Napa Valley. One reader is planning a July 4^th vacation and wanted favorite picks from the Sonoma Valley –especially the Russian River, Alexander Valley, and Healdsburg areas.

We’ve spent several July 4^th vacations in Napa and Sonoma. It is a great place to be that time of year. The fireworks in Healdsburg are terrific.

As it turns out, we had dinner last night with the two couples we’ve traveled the Napa and

Sonoma areas with over the years. (In fact, our little group was featured in an issue dedicated to wine country vacations in Sun Country magazine a couple of years ago. We weren’t cute enough for the cover, but we owned the story.)

So, I put the “best of” question to the group and here’s the combined list of places we love in Sonoma. They range from bigger operations to mom and pop places. Each place represents a great story that keeps getting better each time we tell it.

Presented in alpha order because otherwise we’d fight about which one was the best.

Bella (There’s a Minnesota connection. Ask about Cedric Adams and WCCO Radio.)

Château Sovereign (Fabulous patio for lunch or dinner.)

Château St. Jean (Wins awards all the time.)

Hanna (Perfect lunch stop. See information below on JimTown.)

Iron Horse (Sparkling to still. Whites to reds. Perfect views.)

Loxton (Next to Wellington. Don’t miss it.)

Meeker (Join the Meeker Tribe. Tell them Drinking Bear sent you.)

Mill Creek (There’s a Minnesota connection. Find it.)

Rochioli (Fabulous Sauvignon Blanc.)

Wellington (Lovely people. Terrific wine. Full range of options.)

Yoakim Bridge (Reds only. Great tasting. Ask about the meatball sauce with chocolate.)

And, one place we agreed you have to stop is JimTown, just outside Healdsburg. Grab a picnic lunch and head to Hanna. Get a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Grab a table on the deck. It is a ritual for our group. I expect it will become one for you, too.

Radishes and cucumbers.

Radishes and cucumbers.

Funny how you can be doing one thing and your memory kicks in and takes you someplace completely different.

I was grocery shopping last weekend. Cruising through the produce area, I glanced at the radishes, cucumbers, and fennel. Blink. I instantly remembered stories my mom told me about her childhood.

My mom is the oldest of six -- four girls, two boys -- all born between 1932 and 1945. Her family certainly didn’t have it easy. She was 13 when her parents divorced and her father took off for other parts. Her mom tried keeping the family together by working two jobs. But at one point, stretched too thin to keep up the rent, she moved everyone back to her family’s farm in southern Minnesota.

If my mom’s siblings are together for more than an hour, they’ll eventually drift into stories about their time at the farm. They’ll recall their great-grandmother’s perfect white hair, held back in a lace cap, cousins who raced with them in the fields and through the barn, and a Christmas that brought unexpected presents. (That Christmas story made me cry the first time I heard it as a child. It still does today.)

Their reminiscences will always turn to food. Or lack of it. The garden offered up the makings of every meal. Chickens laid fresh eggs for supper. And, as my mom tells it, one unlucky chicken would end up as the much-anticipated Sunday dinner. Each of her siblings recalls a garden concoction they ate then. My mom loved cucumber sandwiches. One of her brothers feasted on radishes and onion slapped between white bread. And, one of her younger sisters swears she put chopped cabbage between her bread slices.

These sandwiches weren’t fancy. No dainty cucumber- radish-onion high tea delights. They were basic, plain, good. They had crunch, snap, and taste. In fact, more that 60 years later, the sandwiches are still among the siblings most preferred. Well, maybe not the chopped cabbage one.

Mom’s cucumber sandwich

What you’ll need:

White bread (store bought or homemade)

Butter (unsweetened)

Cucumber (seedless or not, your choice)

Salt and pepper

Peel the cucumber and slice it into ¼ inch rounds. Butter both sides of the bread. Layer cucumber slices on the butter. Add salt and paper to taste. Slap the sandwich together and take a crunchy first bite. Enjoy.

(Mom also said that substituting Kraft salad dressing instead of the butter is good, too. She’s not a mayo fan. So, she couldn’t recommend that as an option.)

No summer plans.

We don’t have a summer vacation planned this year. It’s the first time in years that we haven’t spent a week or so in some warm, lovely place. I’m not sure if it is the Great Recession that’s keeping us grounded or simply apathy since we don’t even have a plan to take time off and stay home.

What we have committed to is spending as much time as possible in our garden, enjoying the glories of Minnesota summer, and recreating great meals we enjoyed on previous vacations.

Here’s a perfect summer recipe that we’ve dug out recently. It recalled a terrific vacation to Napa and Sonoma a couple of years ago with some good friends. We rented a house in Sonoma and spent one day traipsing around Napa visiting favorite wineries. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant in St. Helena that we’d read about called Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. Turns out that Cindy is Twin Cities-native Cindy Pawlcyn, who made her way to California and culinary fame by founding three well-known restaurants in the San Francisco (Go Fish) and Napa Valley (Mustards Grill and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen) area.

Thanks to Cindy for the great lunch we had that day and the recipe we’ve enjoyed since.

Grilled Artichokes

Serves 6-8

Blanching liquid for artichokes:

1½ gallons water

1 quart white vinegar

1 large onion diced

3 bay leaves

10 peppercorns

5 coriander seeds

5 garlic cloves

½ cup lemon juice

½ cup salt

6-8 medium artichokes

Place all ingredients in large pot and bring to a boil then simmer for 45 minutes. Start checking after 30 minutes. Artichokes need to be fork tender to the heart. Cool and drain artichokes upside down to remove all the water. Cut artichokes in half and scoop out thistle.

Preparing the artichokes:

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

2-4 tablespoons butter

Artichokes from above

3-4 lemons, halved

Heat oil and butter in saucepan until hot. Add artichokes and lemons cut-side down and cook until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Roast artichokes and lemon halves cut side up in roasting plan in 500º oven for an additional 8-10 minutes until caramelized.

Serve artichokes with lemon halves and your favorite aioli.

Perfect served with Hanna Sauvignon Blanc.

If you’ve actually made vacation plans this summer and find yourself anywhere near Napa, add Cindy’s to your itinerary.

Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen

1327 Railroad Avenue

St. Helena, CA 94574

Reservations: 707.963.1200

http://www.cindysbackstreetkitchen.com/

Served on the Side.

Served on the Side.

It wasn’t my first choice for a blog name. In fact, it wasn’t among the Top 25 names I really liked. Alas, they were all taken. Who knew that so many people wanted to reference food or cooking or ingredients or eating in their blogs? Food Network must be having more of an impact than I thought.

So, what’s the point of Served on the Side? I'm not sure, really.

I’m experimenting with blogging. Don’t ask why. That’s a long story and another blog.

Suffice to say, I committed to learning and exploring the art of the blog. That said, I don’t bring to the exploration a stridency, political point of view, or urge to change the world. (Is that a sigh of relief I hear from those who feared otherwise?)

Nope. My interests lie in the more mundane. I’m going to focus on food, cooking, eating, and great places where I've done all those things or hope to someday.

Along the way, I’m going to share some recipes, probably name a couple of great restaurants where I had a memorable meal, and no doubt share some cooking disasters.

Full disclosure: I’m no cooking expert. I treated myself to six weeks of cooking classes 30 years ago and I don’t’ remember a thing I learned. I do read cooking magazines for pleasure. The Food Network is on whenever I’m in the kitchen. And, I make dinner almost every night because I like cooking. So, there you have it.

Let's see what gets Served on the Side.