A few weekends ago my friends Dan and Steve invited Courtney, Chris, Chip and I for a few days at their home in Sonoma. Nestled on top of a hill, the house sits on one of the Martinelli vineyards and has beautiful views of the Sonoma Valley. The weekend was spent cooking, playing games, laughing and of course drinking great wine.
Steve and I decided to leave early on Friday and meandered through San Anselmo on Sir Francis Drake Rd. (one amazing drive) through Olema to Pt. Reyes Station. Both of us wanted to purchase the food for the weekend from the local purveyors that are perched in the little towns along Rt. 1. Our first stop was Marin Sun Farms. All of their meat is organically raised, grass fed and is free of antibiotics and the other icky stuff that is fed to animals in mass animal raising factories. We purchased a 9 lb roast, which Steve planned to cook in a crock pot for hours upon hours, two chickens that I wanted to roast, fresh bacon, which would be used for breakfast one morning and a dozen eggs, which cost us a whopping $7.00 -- yes buying this way can be expensive, but we figured it was all justified in flavor and environmental friendliness.
From there we moved on to Cowgirl Creamery and purchased a few cheeses with one of them being rather stinky, but of course awfully tasty. The Red Hawk ranks as one of their most famous cheeses and is best served alone, but we planned to drizzle ours with honey (more on the honey later). Our next stop was the Tomales Bay Oyster Company where we purchased 3 dozen oysters to make one of my favorites Oysters Sha-Lou-Mi.
And what would a trip up North be without a stop at a winery. It was 4:20 and since the wineries close at 4:30 we only had ten minutes to spare. Steve and I pulled into Graton Ridge winery for a taste or two (or seven) and met the family in charge. They have owned the land for many many years and operated it as an apple orchard. A few years ago they decided to try their hands at wine. From the taste of their wines you would think that they have been at it for a while. Their Chardonnay was incredible and not too heavy or oaky. It has some wonderful fruity Sauvignon Blanc characteristics to it. Their Pinot Noir was also delicious in addition to their apple wine, which was delicious, not too sweet and inspired by their grandson.
Finally making it to the house, we began cooking immediately and lost ourselves in our respective dishes. Steve was busy preparing his Crock Pot dish, while I started in on the chickens. I cooked them my mom's way -- liberally coat with Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and then place in over for one hour at 400 degrees, take out and cover for fifteen minutes -- but this time I added a little twist.
Steve and Dan recently began keeping bees. They have two big hives on their property and over 20,000 bees living and working right in their back yard. The benefit of having bees is that you get lots of honey, amazing honey. Since they are perched on a vineyard, have a huge garden and lots of vegetation around them there is more than enough healthy pollen to go around. Their honey is not golden like you see in the grocery store (this is a sign that the honey has been pasteurized), but a deep golden brown color. When the honey sits for a while it emits a white foam-like substance at the top. A quick search on Wikipedia and we learned that this is the sign of an exceptional product. Thank you mother nature for these amazing bees.
My inner recipe developer told me to use that honey all weekend long. Besides drizzling it onto the Red Hawk cheese and gobbling it down, I decided that a honey glaze for the chicken was in order. I used the Chardonnay from Graton Ridge, a bunch of rosemary and heaping helping of Piper Down's Golden Brown Honey (the name they have bestowed upon this amazing treat).
To make my chicken I used the method above and while it was roasting in the oven I combined the following into a stock pot:
- 1 cup of honey
- 1 cup of Chardonnay
- 1 handful of fresh rosemary
I turned the heat onto medium and brought the mixture to a slow simmer.
While that was heating up I took a tbsp of corn starch and dissolved it in a 1/4 cup of hot water and then drizzled it, while whisking, into the pan. This helped to thicken the mixture and give it a glaze consistency.
About 10 minutes before the chickens were done roasting I liberally brushed them with the glaze, which created a wonderful sugary crust.
They turned out to be absolutely amazing. And although I am sure you could get a similar result with store bought honey I urge you to find the highest quality product you can buy. Amazing ingredients always make for amazing food.
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