Chef's Blog

We’ve actually had two nights of frost, so the flowers aren’t as brilliant gold as they were earlier in the week, but you get the idea from the picture: mustard takes over the vineyards in the early spring. The vines have been pulled out of this field and piled up for burning once the rain stops for a few days (the picture is taken about 100 yd south of August Briggs Winery, right by the Calistoga city limit sign). We don’t use a lot of flowers at solbar–that is, we don’t fly in edible nasturtiums from Ohio or anything–but we use what we can pick; you can see a few on the carrot salad dish. Barney Welsh at Forni-Brown Gardens has great chive and garlic blossoms but they are STRONG and you only need a couple. We use our own lavender blossoms, usually for cocktails.

And yes, it’s been pointed out already that “an iphone doesn’t mean you’re a photographer all of a sudden.”