Inside Sonoma

Talk about starting them young. Jackson Silvers, son of Syrah chef-owner Josh Silvers, was handing out business cards for his father’s new Santa Rosa restaurant at the Artisano culinary festival in Geyserville last Saturday.

Never mind that Jackson had to tug on Artisano guests’ shirtsleeves to get their attention – the five year-old child is still knee-high to a grasshopper – but he was proud of the eatery which bears his name. Jackson’s Bar & Oven opens within the next two weeks, taking over the former Mixx space in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square.

A few minutes later, the senior Silvers took the cooking stage to demonstrate butternut squash soup to a rapt audience. Rather than working on a bulky platform, the chef chopped and cooked in a display kitchen set against a backdrop of vineyards and mountains, along the edge of the emerald lawns surrounding the Geyserville Inn.

Happily, said Artisano coordinator and Relish Culinary School owner Donna del Rey, the weather cooperated, with sunny skies instead of the anticipated rain. And happily, the crowd turned out – several hundred showing up for the inaugural celebration of small production, locally handcrafted wine, food and art.

There was plenty to celebrate, with an impressive lineup of top Sonoma restaurants and wineries giving their A-games. Eateries presented real dishes, not the too-often afterthought snacks tossed out at so many larger events these days.

Quipped one guest: “With food like this, everyone will come next year. But when everyone comes, they won’t be able to serve food like this anymore.”

Some highlights:

• Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Kitchen made for a delicious welcome, plying guests with plates as soon as they entered the garden and picked up their souvenir wine glasses. The dish sang of autumn, in hand carved torchon of foie gras-stuffed duck arranged over sweet pumpkin-walnut succotash.
• Santa Rosa’s Rosso Pizzeria & Wine Bar made it possible for patrons to eat their weight in pie, sending out endless ovals of crackly-crusted creations from its trailer-mounted wood-burning oven. It seemed necessary to try all the varieties, of course, including juicy clam, wild mushroom, butternut squash, margarita, and potato sliced razor thin and tossed with prosciutto. A hungry audience was having it all, with the servers barely able to splash the pies in oil and sea salt and slice them before hands reached to grab them.
• There’s little better in life than savoring a hearty slab of grilled lamb sirloin while sprawled at a picnic table soaking up the sun and a glass of Syrah to the backdrop of live music from the Steve Pile Band. Especially when the lamb is prepared by chef Jeff Mall of Zin Restaurant in Healdsburg, the meat grilled rare and moistened in jalapeno-mint jelly over al dente asparagus-pecan rice pilaf, and the Syrah is a luxurious blackberry-black pepper hued wine from Forth Vineyards of Healdsburg.
• Diavola Pizzeria demanded a double take, for the scary, fur-covered wild pig head perched as decoration on its table. Yet the Geyserville restaurant’s dish was doubly good, as chef Dino Bugica made beauty of a whole goat donated by the Sonoma County Meat Buying Club. His recipe? A bowl of creamy polenta and braised goat stew, for chewy savory knobs of meat bobbing in rich onion broth.
• Geyserville’s Skipstone Ranch winery got bonus points for its variety of full-on food and wine pairings, including chunks of salmon “candy,” squash and pesto on a wonton chip perfectly partnered with Viognier.
• It’s possible that guest chef Gerald Hirigoyen of Piperade and Bocadillos in San Francisco may not be welcome in Healdsburg anytime soon. “I’m so glad this event wasn’t in Healdsburg,” the Basque talent said, halfway through his demonstration of sardines escabeche. “Geyserville is so much better. Healdsburg has just gotten too fancy.”
• Yet any ruffled feathers were likely soothed by the first bite of his outstanding escabeche, in an ample sampling of an entire sardine that had been lightly floured, sautéed and doused in a tangy marinade of vinegar, wine and vegetables then parked atop crostini.

“I’ve made sardine converts,” Hirigoyen crowed.

Indeed, and more than a few fans of Artisano, too. For a debut performance, the event was flawless. Cheers, and here’s to doing it again in 2010.

Details: http://www.artisano.org.