Culinary nobility

Forget food celebrity, which is often driven more by media than merit. Our region's abundance of culinary nobility —trailblazers all— is astounding. These locals followed their hearts and continue to set our tables, defining excellence along the way. We salute these magnificent seven for their vision, style and passions.

 
 

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Photo: Frankie Frankeny

     Georgeanne Brennan’s passion for food goes from seed to table. This award-winning cookbook author has written more than a dozen books on food and gardening. In 1970, she and her husband bought a 17th-century farmhouse in southern France, where they lived until returning to California two years later. Her memoir, A Pig in Provence, tells the story of how she fell in love with the country and its food. In 1982, Brennan and a fellow Dixon High School teacher launched Le Marché Seeds, a mail-order specialty seed company. Customers flocked to them, including emerging local organic farmers such as Full Belly, Good Humus and Earthbound. After closing the seed business, she shifted her focus to writing cookbooks and in 1998 claimed a James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook and a Julia Child Cookbook Award for Best Wine or Beverage Book.

    In 2000, Brennan opened a cooking vacation school in a French convent, where culinary tourists experienced Provence like insiders. In mid-2008, she moved the school to her home in Winters and her fall cooking classes sold out immediately. Brennan’s articles appear in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bon Appétit, The New York Times, Garden Design and Organic Gardening. She says, “I don’t think of what I do as work. I’m having such a good time.”

    Merci, Georgeanne Brennan, for sharing your passion for gardening, cooking and locavore living.

Photo: Deborah Jones

    Before Thomas Keller  put Yountville on the culinary map, people came to the Napa Valley just to drink wine. All that changed when he opened The French Laundry in 1994. Today, dining out in Napa Valley has caught up to the wine-making, with Keller adding Bouchon, Ad Hoc and Bouchon Bakery to the mix. This American chef, restaurateur and cookbook writer has been called a wizard, a perfectionist, a towering figure in the world of great chefs. Keller tickles our fancy and our taste buds with his innovative approach to dishes such as Oysters and Pearls—a sabayon of pearl tapioca with Malpeque oysters and osetra caviar—and Salmon Tartare Cornets, little ice-cream-cone-shaped appetizers. He’s one of only two chefs with two Michelin three-star restaurants (The French Laundry and Per Se in New York City).

    Keller and his flagship restaurant have won practically every award the culinary world has to offer, plus being named the No. 1 restaurant in America by Esquire, Zagat Survey, Gourmet, Bon Appétit and Wine Spectator. In 1999, he published The French Laundry Cookbook, followed by The Bouchon Cookbook in 2004, and Under Pressure is coming out in December. He says, “A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn’t be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational.” He even had a hand in the 2007 Pixar animated film Ratatouille, ensuring the authenticity of the restaurant kitchen setting.

    We toast you, Thomas Keller, for changing Napa Valley from a wine destination to a food-and-wine-lover’s heaven.

Photo: Steve Rothfeld

When Cindy Pawlcyn threw a party to celebrate Mustards Grill’s 25th anniversary in June, she thanked Napa Valley. That’s so like her: no pretenses. She’s one of America’s first female chefs, creating more than a dozen new restaurants since 1983, including three of Napa Valley’s most beloved: the legendary Mustards Grill, Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen and Go Fish.

    Her take on simple, fresh and seasonal food came well before it was a restaurant mantra. She’ll tell you she hates to fire people and doesn’t like it when people cut themselves. This culinary spitfire shines the light on others, while commanding lots of respect in an industry overflowing with competitors. Pawlcyn has penned three cookbooks: the James Beard Award-winning Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook; Fog City Diner Cookbook; and her latest, Big Small Plates.

    For inspiration, Pawlcyn relies on her vast personal library of nearly 6,000 cookbooks, which fills three rooms of her home and overflows into a separate tent bungalow. She tends her own 1-1/2-acre organic garden at her home in the woods between Calistoga and St. Helena. She credits her parents for her appreciation of good cooking and says, “You’re only as good as your last plate.”
    Thank you, Cindy Pawlcyn, for 25 years of onion rings, American pies and your truck-stop-deluxe style!

Photo: Shawn Hall

Eric Stille, President and CEO of Woodland-based Nugget Market, Inc., is a fourth-generation grocer and bona fide industry pioneer. Since taking the reins of the family business in 1996, he’s redefined grocery shopping and created a work culture that cherishes every guest (customer) and every employee.

    He clearly loves his job—to the benefit of every person who passes through the doors of a Nugget Market. Known for elegant presentation and world-class service, Nugget ponies up a mix of gourmet, health-conscious and conventional items—more than 600 varieties of produce, healthy meats and sustainable fish—plus restaurant-quality to-go food. While other grocery chains are shrinking, Nugget Market’s expansion is on a tear.

    Stille credits the company’s credo for its success. “We have three goals: guest satisfaction, constant improvement and to be a world-class employer.” For the third straight year, Nugget Market, Inc. has made Fortune’s “100 Best Places to Work” list, ranking No. 12 in the nation for 2008 (No. 13 in 2007 and No. 33 in 2006). “We try to offer the impossible: great prices, a unique shopping experience and unsurpassed selection, quality and service.”

    We salute you, Eric Stille, for making food shopping fun again!

Photo: Culinary Institute of America

  Greg Drescher, executive director of strategic initiatives at The Culinary Institute of America, travels the world in search of new cuisines, unusual ingredients and the latest food trends, many of them likely to show up on your dinner plate. Bon Appétit magazine calls him “the flavor hunter.”

    He’s the brains behind the CIA’s Worlds of Flavor Conference, now in its 11th year, which draws a sold-out crowd of 700 food industry attendees to St. Helena. “Much of the world’s best food comes from home-cooking traditions, festival traditions and market stand traditions,” he says. In the 1980s he headed up the American Institute of Wine & Food in Napa Valley. In the ’90s, he worked with Harvard and the World Health Organization, authoring “The Traditional Healthy Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.”

    Drescher’s passion for food comes from growing up in a small Minnesota town, where his family grew its own food and baked its own bread. “My quest for quality goes back to what I ate as a kid,” he says. Drescher was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America in 2005; he shared a second Beard Award for developing the CIA’s Savoring the Best of World Flavors DVD and webcasts. “For those who think food is an important part of life, this is a hopeful time.”

    Thanks, Greg Drescher, for putting worlds of flavor on our plates!

Photo: Mark Brown

    Husband-and-wife team John Pickerel and Melanie Bajakian know how to make beef lovers happy. The couple owns The Buckhorn Steak & Roadhouse in Winters and has been setting the standard for steaks and prime rib since 1980.

    As a young boy, Pickerel loved visiting his father on the job at the stockyards in Spokane, Wash. He’s been passionate about beef ever since. The Buckhorn’s claim to fame: certified Angus beef—seven grades higher than USDA choice—aged for 42 days, hand-cut on site and cooked in a high-heat, infrared broiler at 1,500 degrees.

    The couple then opened Buckhorn Catering, expanded The Buckhorn from 50 seats to 200, then launched the Putah Creek Café across the street, where locals line up for Bajakian’s farm-to-table fare, which also plays a crowd-pleasing role on their catering menus. They took their roadhouse on the road in 2000, opening their first Buckhorn Grill in San Francisco’s Metreon, expanding to Napa Town Center, Emeryville, Walnut Creek and Sacramento, plus opening two more in San Francisco. Pickerel’s restaurateur mantra is, “The guest returns.” He says, “There’s nothing more sacred in the restaurant business.” You’ll find The Buckhorn on the pages of food magazines and “best of” lists throughout the region.

    Bravo, John Pickerel and Melanie Bajakian, for upping the ante for beef lovers!

 

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