Dolores Cakebread - The Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Cookbook: Celebrating Wine, Food, and Friends in the Napa Valley

Disclaimer: Some of the recipes in this book include raw eggs, meat, or fish. When these foods are consumed raw, there is always the risk that bacteria, which are killed by proper cooking, may be present. For this reason, when serving these foods raw, always buy certified salmonella-free eggs and the freshest meat and fish available from a reliable grocer, storing them in the refrigerator until they are served. Because of the health risks associated with the consumption of bacteria that can be present in raw eggs, meat, and fish, these foods should not be consumed by infants, small children, pregnant women, the elderly, or any persons who may be immunocompromised.

Copyright 2011 by Cakebread Cellars
Photographs copyright 2011 by Marshall Gordon

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

All photographs by Marshall Gordon, except as noted below.
by Bart Nagel.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cakebread, Jack.
The Cakebread Cellars American harvest cookbook : celebrating wine, food, and friends in the Napa Valley / Jack Cakebread and Dolores Cakebread and Brian Streeter; with Janet Fletcher. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: A collection of 100 recipes and wine pairings celebrating twenty-five years of the Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Workshop, a groundbreaking annual event that explores Napa Valleys vibrant food and wine culture
Provided by publisher.
1. Cooking, AmericanCalifornia style. 2. Food and wine pairing. 3. Wine and wine makingCaliforniaNapa Valley. 4. Cookbooks. I.
Cakebread, Dolores. II. Streeter, Brian. III. Title.
TX715.2.C34C3324 2011
641.59794dc22
2010053848

eISBN: 978-1-60774-047-6

Cover design by Betsy Stromberg
Food styling by Dan Becker
Food styling assistance by Emily Garland
Prop styling by Susan Neuer
Photography/production assistance by Dan Mitchell

v3.1

W hen my wife, Dolores, and I bought the property that became Cakebread Cellars, Napa Valley was not the culinary destination it is today. The year was 1973, and if you wanted to have a nice dinner in a local restaurant then, you had better like steak.

Im Jack Cakebread, and Im the one who made the impulsive offer on that Rutherford cow pasture. Dolores and I were active members of the Berkeley Wine and Food Society at the time, and we enjoyed visiting Napa Valley. Besides, we wanted a new challenge. For twenty years, we had been running an auto-repair shop in OaklandCakebreads Garage, a business my father started. The prospect of growing and selling wine grapes and having a place in the country had a lot of appeal. When family friends offered to sell us their twenty-two acresmostly pasture and walnut treesDolores and I made the leap.

The food scene in wine country was limited then, to understate the case. For years after we started Cakebread Cellars, when Dolores wanted to cook for guests, she had to bring many of the ingredients with her from Oakland. The San Francisco Bay Areas top seafood, meat, and produce purveyors did not send trucks to Napa Valley, a mere fifty miles north, because there wasnt the population or restaurant traffic to make deliveries worthwhile.

What a change we have witnessed. Today, food lovers from around the world consider Napa Valley a dining mecca. Our farmers markets, cheese shops, wine merchants, and well-stocked grocery stores supply almost anything a serious cook could want. The surrounding region nurtures a thriving world of artisan food producers, from cheesemakers to salumi masters to duck farmers. And at Cakebread Cellars, we like to think that our American Harvest Workshop has helped shine a spotlight on these entrepreneurs.

We were advocates for local eating long before the word locavore emerged. In fact, the idea for the American Harvest Workshopnow in its twenty-fifth yearcame from my feeling that American food was not getting its due. In the mid 1980s, the French and Italian governments were spending enormous sums to promote their food and wine here. Yet no one was making a similar effort to spread the word about the maturing culinary scene in America.

In 1985, I met a young Dallas hotelier who shared my thinking. Over a glass of wine, Bill Shoaf and I hatched a plan for the American Harvest Workshop, an annual retreat that would bring up-and-coming American chefs together with the best Northern California food artisans. We knew our raw materials were just as good as the products coming here from Europe. We just needed our talented chefs to recognize the quality of what was made in America and to take pride in serving it.

That first Workshop, held at the winery during the harvest of 1986, created a template for a gathering that we have now hosted for a quarter century. We have refined the itinerary over the years to keep it fresh and relevant and to incorporate new purveyors. But the Workshops mission and the basic format have remained unchanged.

Each year, we invite five chefs from around the country to be our guests at the winery for four days in mid September to share the excitement of harvest. Call it a summer camp for chefs, if you like. Our son Dennis, who travels widely as the winerys head of sales and marketing, keeps an eye out for new restaurant talent. When he particularly enjoys a meal on the road, hell try to get to know the chef and discern whether he or she has the kind of temperament that fits with the Workshop program.

We learned quickly that the retreat is no place for big egos. The participating chefs need to enjoy collaborating and be able to get along as a group. Over the course of the Workshop, they will plan and execute two multicourse dinners together in our winery kitchen, sharing a market basket of ingredients. We ask them to leave their signature dishes at home, to bring no ingredients with them, and to come prepared to explore and experiment with what our purveyors provide. Its a reality cooking show without the cameras.

In that way, the Workshop operates like a writers or artists colony, where like-minded people come to escape everyday pressures and to plant themselves in a new environment, in the hope of stimulating their creative juices. At the Workshop, we strive to provide a comfortable, nonjudgmental venue where chefs can take chances, share techniques, and recharge their batteries.