We are Back from our Italian Road Trip!

We are back from our two-week holiday in Europe!  We spent a few days in Holland and a total of ten days in Italia.  We traveled 1,000 miles (give or take) from Rome north to Monteriggioni in Tuscany, west to the Tuscan Coast of Punt Ala, back north to Carmignano, Firenze, then on to the region of Emilia-Romagna, and finally end up in Venezia.  This Fiat Cinque Cento was a beast on Rome's crazy streets, Tuscany's steep hills, Emilia Romagna's crazy heights, and the cruising highway drive to Venice.   

I would not have chosen to experience Italy any differently.  I feel that with such a concentrated amount of time in Italy's biggest cities combined with places in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna that are completely off the beaten track, enormous amounts of time spent with locals, and twice, learning how to make fresh pasta in Italian kitchens as opposed to some cooking class, we have gotten a fair amount of the real, undiluted dolce vita.

Of course, we did not see it all nor experience it all, but that was never the expectation.  Left to our own devices with loads of books, a Nokia phone-cum-GPS, The Dutch's driving, my stammering Italian, and on one rare occasion, a day driving with a formidable 70-year old Italian all over Emilia-Romagna, we come home different people.  We experienced Italy the way we wanted to experience it - in its natural and authentic state without pretense that is put on for the tourists.

A vintage Fiat 500 still running on the freeway

If you are used to driving in America and don't mind the chaos of driving in Asia, you can definitely drive in Italy.  You drive on the same side of the road as in most parts of the world (on the left).  A GPS loaded with European maps plus actual paper road maps are about all you need.  Well, of course, after you pick where in Italy you want to go.

A typical scene on the road - a red Ferrari roaring to go (and eventually overtakes) and a cyclist

A word of caution, though, when driving in the hills of Toscana or mountains of Emilia-Romagna - there could be drastic elevation changes and the roads wind around mountains, so 35 miles could take you more than an hour.  

In the following days, I hope to recapture the allure, magic, laughter, sighs of my version of Italy.  It has been a long-standing dream of mine to go to Rome and I never imagined I would experience it and much more of Italy in such an intimate way.  I did not have the privilege of travel growing up but I was relentless in my desire to travel and see the world.  I already prepared myself to visit even for just three days, backpacking, staying in dingy hostels, surviving on cheap bread - just to witness the glory of it.  I have kept tear out maps from National Geographic tracing my finger on the boundaries of Rome, wishing that I would make it there one day.

And I did.  And it was a dream and more.  

"Buffalo" Your Dreams (On the California Cheese Trail: Ramini Mozzarella)

Meet Craig Ramini, water buffalo rancher and cheesemaker. You probably could not have guessed that Craig was an ex-Silicon Valley employee. Or perhaps the black turtleneck is a dead giveaway, I don’t know. He traded his days at the grind for what some people think would be the excruciatingly slow lane reserved for the grandmas of the world.  Ramini Mozzarella is a byproduct of soul-searching when that most coveted Silicon Valley career was no longer enough. 

Pared down to a simpler life where a day in the office is twelve hours of just the water buffalos and not much else is where you'd find Craig nowadays.  It makes you start to ponder on what it means to live a life of passion, free from the snares of cubicle life, and start a mental prosecution if you yourself are living your own dreams.  Those two lives – past and present – must be so different.  But when a perfect romantic evening with your wife is rendered to kneading mozzarella cheese balls by hand, accompanying wine and music present, of course, I am rooting for the present.   

It’s a terrifying and threatening idea, especially since when Craig quit Silicon Valley, he had no clue what he would do next, much less how to make buffalo mozzarella.  But perhaps the proverbial lesson to be learned from a farmer, any farmer, is that if you want it enough, you can make it happen.  Yes, the first batches were so terrible they ended up at the hog farm next door (lucky pigs).  But eventually, with perseverance and acquired skill, a far-out idea translates to net income in the balance sheet, despite the fact that he only supplies to a handful of local chefs.   

Outside, under a massive tree, Craig slices up pristine white mozzarella balls and the sight of the shiny, supple white cheese triggers my saliva glands instantly.  The buffalos are resting a few feet away and after Craig serves up our cheese, he serves the buffalos their lunch next.  It was the perfect triangulation of source, farmer, and food, and how the symbiosis of the former two involves so much apparent affection.  And as I sank my teeth into these perfect supple buffalo mozzarella slices, I too, am roped into that tight circle.      

MOZZARELLA CHEESE-MAKING 101 (NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE GUIDE; DON'T ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME)

1  Milk water buffalos.  (Trivia: Craig had buffalo sperm shipped all the way from Italy to breed good Italian animals).  The animals are brought in to these stalls and they stand behind a gate, one buffalo in front of the other, in keeping with their natural instincts to form queues.  When the animal is settled, a calf is brought in to stand next to the mum as this triggers production of happy hormone, oxytocin. 

The Milking Station.  The buffalo's window view (bottom left)

2  Tubes are attached to the udders and are pumped via a vacuum.  It takes about 10-12 minutes to milk a water buffalo.

3  A bucket catches the milk and is hand carried into the cheesemaking room and poured into a huge vat.

4  Milk is pasteurized in a big vat, heated to a certain temperature to kill the bad bacteria. 

5  A different type of special culture/bacteria is added to make the cheese. Craig imports the ones he uses from Italy.

6  Eventually, curd coagulates at the bottom. Whey rises to the top.  

7  A special tool is used to cut the curds.  What’s settled at the bottom is what is rolled into individual mozzarella cheese balls. 

Ramini Mozzarella is located at 175 Gericke Road, Tomales, CA.  Tour with tasting is $20 per person.  To arrange one, contact Craig Ramini at craig@raminimozzarella.com.

Go for Goat! (On the California Cheese Trail: Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese)

I felt as though we were in an estranged place and time. A place perhaps forgotten by the reach of development I thought was inescapable; a time departed from the lure of a life the speed of a bullet train. I feel the clock slow. I rolled down a window and I breathe, my mundane worries quickly vanishing, carried away by the whipping wind like a weightless dandelion. I inhale and more than just clean air fills my lungs – I also breathe in the technicolor of the bright sunshine, blue skies, wild flowers, and free roaming cows. I am having a storybook moment, I guess. We drove through endless country roads where it is lush in every periphery filled with grazing spotted milk cows and sheep. Spring is definitely making a big presence here. The rolling hills are carpeted with thick grass in the most vivid green as if in a dream, and in some spots, with yellow mustard wildflowers, uncontrollable and free. I recall a similar experience on the road, only it was in Bouillon.

I was already captivated and little did I know that the stories told by people here who have built lives and livelihood, raised children and animals, would be just as riveting. It was such a noble way of life, and in a lot of ways, enviable.

I am on the furtive California Cheese Trail. I came here for stories of food. But what I got was a lot more. I got stories of passion.

SAY CHEESE!
Even to West Coasters as myself, the California Cheese Trail remains obscured, and I would argue that we should keep it that way. The trail spans Sonoma and Marin Counties in California, north of San Francisco.  This area is already made famous by its fantastic wine, but to also lay claim to some great, boutique cheese?  Remind me why I don't live here again.  The trail map could be downloaded here, and there is also an app available for both Apple and Android devices.  While some of the cheesemakers are open to the public, some are only available for tours/tastings by appointment only.

Right around March, there is also a festival for serious cheese nerds.  There are guided tours, workshops, tastings, and classes.  The 2014 annual event was last weekend, but you can pin this page for the 2015 schedule.

We were on the trail to meet two cheesemakers that day: Don and Bonnie of Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese and Craig Ramini of Ramini Mozzarella.  We were just whale-watching that morning at Bodega Head and would be wine tasting the next day, so an afternoon was all we had.  But carpe diem, we did!  We allowed two hours per cheesemaker and that was plenty for each place to leave an impression.

GO FOR GOAT


Bonnie meets us at the barn door.  "I've been expecting you."  She has a kind face and a nonna quality about her.  I thaw out instantly.  We entered the barn where she keeps the kids and some mothering ones, and instantly, the chorus of bleeping goats welcome her.  And us.  I didn't realize goats had that much personality!  They were like puppies clamoring to be petted!

She started the goat farm with just two goats as pets for grandkids.  Years later, it ballooned to over one hundred fifty.  They are already an organic cow milk dairy (supplying Organic Valley) so it was not too much of a transition to start milking the goats.  

Outside, there were more goats and it was interesting to see how some goats were more personable than others. There is one particular “show” goat who enjoyed the limelight too much that she started bleating relentlessly when she realized there was a tour happening without her.  She had wanted to be part of the action and she let everyone know.

And what to do with all that goat’s milk? Well, make cheese, of course.

Mass produced goat cheese has a distinct flavor. It is musky and some people would describe a tangible and unique bitterness to say, chevre and gruyere. As our tour wrapped to the pens outside, we smelled that familiar goat cheese smell.  It turns out that that musky scent emanates from the stud.  The trick to making cheese without this taste is for the milking goats to be separated from the studs.  It works pretty well because all the cheeses we tried (except for the goat’s brie, which is a young cheese) had none of that musky flavor.

Meanwhile, Bonnie steps inside the house to fetch her husband, Don DeBernardi, the cheesemaker, who has spent time with family ties in the Alps to learn the art of making goat cheese.  He had a couple of temperature controlled trailers in the property where the wheels of cheese are being aged. Due to sanitation reasons, we couldn’t go inside, but he would bring the special ones out and you could tell, this is a man proud of this cheese.

And one could see – no, TASTE, why.  We tried four different kinds – each one older than the last.  In the US, it is illegal to sell “raw”cheese products so cheese has to be aged at least three months.  The older a cheese is, the harder it gets.  So a three-month old would be softer and suppler with more of a tang. A nine-month old cheese would be harder, the flavor subtler.  This would be your grating cheeses. 

I say this without being patronizing, but each cheese we tried was excellent.  I’ve never had brie as fresh as this one in my life before and it made all the difference.  In the small sun-filled tasting room at DeBernardi, with two DeBernardis, one the lactose-intolerant goat-lover, the other, the passionate cheesemaker, the world melts, like the most perfect grilled cheese.

This is it.  We've found gold.  

Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese is located at 7955 Valley Ford Road, Petaluma, CA. Check them out on Facebook here.  Some of their cheeses are available at Whole Foods. Don DeBernardi is also a mainstay at the local farmer's markets.

Heritage Oak Winery in Lodi, California

If there is one wine region in California that I rave most about and has flown under the radar, it is Lodi.  It is a small rural town south of Sacramento on highway 99 and has very little in common with Napa or Sonoma on the touristy scale.  We frequent an artisan winemaker called Heritage Oak for its stellar zinfandels.  Over the year or so that we've (well, The Dutch) been members of its wine club, we've cultivated a soft spot for their excellent wine, and for the people who own the winery and make the wines, Tom and Carmela.

Heritage Oak is a small-batch winery which is probably the reason why each bottle we open that come from this vineyard is astounding.  I'm not a sommelier or a an oenophile, but I know a good bottle of red.  And Heritage Oak zinfandels in its boldness and character is one of the best ones I've had.

I never pay attention to wine labels, but over dinner, while savoring a glass of 2011 Zinhead, the Dutch suggested I read what's inscribed on the back of the bottle.  Here's what is written:

"I'm a zinhead", John Henry Snyder told me as I poured it into his glass.  The passion in his eyes told me it was true.  He swirled the dark liquid.  Nostrils widened as he inhaled its perfume.  

I sat at the piano and played.  It was Bach.  When I was done his glass was empty and a tear was on his cheek.  "That was beautiful," he said.  I'm certain he meant the wine.

This wine's for you, John Henry.  And for your friends.  And for the friends of your friends and all other uncompromising, unwavering, Zin Loving, Zin drinking Zinheads out there, who will never, ever settle for anything less than the lusty, seductive taste of Zinfandel.  

The guy who wrote that label is this guy, Tom:

This is the spirit of patronizing small scale and artisanal farmers.  It is a very personal experience each time, and that is what resonates with me.  Robert Mondavi has a winery in Lodi as well. We have been there for a tasting but it felt more like an oil refinery than a winery with its massive production facility.  We tasted the wine, but it was a blase' experience.  Forgettable.  Mediocre.  The wines were not memorable and neither was the winemaker.  Robert who?

Meanwhile, at Tom's, the experience is very different.  Sometimes he pours wine when he's not out tending to the grapes during the growing season. Sometimes he plays the piano randomly.  He doesn't hard sell his wine.  Actually, he's pretty nonchalant about it, because he knows it is outstanding wine. We've picked bags of oranges twice from his overflowing tree.  His wife, Carmela, told us that when his grandparents still owned the house, little Tom would ride his bike to this house (which they now own) so he could have freshly squeezed orange juice from oranges that came from the same tree.

Simply put, when you come to Heritage Oak, you come for wine and leave with something more.

Heritage Oak (www.heritageoakwinery.com) is located at 10112 E. Woodbridge Road, Acampo, CA 95220. If you go, tell them you read about them on this blog!

Stop for lunch and European-style bakery cafe at Dancing Fox located at 203 School Street, Lodi, CA.