Warning: Vegeterians may not want to read this.

I have not always been a meat eater. For 13 years I didn’t eat red meat, then one day while meditating at the Vedanta Center in Santa Barbara, I heard a distinct voice say, “Eat meat!” I opened one eye and peeked around the room. Ted sat next to me still meditating. A large painting of Sri Ramakrishna, a vegetarian holy man, looked down from the altar. No one else was there. I closed my eye and pondered.

Eat meat? Not what you’d expect to hear in a Hindu temple, but it was clear as a bell. So hmmmm. Okay. Well you might think I’m crazy, but for whatever reason it just felt right and from that day forward I began eating red meat again. Now I know why.

Sonoma County Meat Company. (http://www.sonomacountymeatco.com)

Not a Hindu temple for sure, but a totally other kind of venerable place if you are of the meat-eating persuasion. Sonoma county natives, Rian Rinn and Jenine Alexander have opened an artisanal, state-of-the-art butcher processing and retail shop in what used to be an old tire store in Roseland. Coming from west Santa Rosa, it’s way down at the eastern most end of Sebastopol Road, past the rusted Acme Wrecking Company sign, right near the Highway 12 overpass. A cute, sparkly little store in an industrial No Man’s Land.   

Ok Meaty Meat Lovers. You’ve just found Mecca. The aroma of sweet smoke greets you in the parking lot and once inside, Jenine’s rosy-cheeked street urchin face has you at “hello.” As you ogle the compact meat case (yes, you will be ooogling!), she chats about how she and Rian had wanted to open a butcher shop for over ten years. Rian’s credentials are long, including a stint at Michelin 3-star restaurant, El Bulli in Catalonia Spain. He can cook and he can cut! These people know what they’re doing.

Mesmerized by the meat case, you’re going to have a tough choice. Their bacon and hams are sweet, salty, smokey—in our opinion the best tasting we’ve had since before too much meat processing, too many chemicals, too much breeding for the masses, killed the flavor of a lot of meat. Coils of their lamb merguez sausages are spiced just right. Little crepinette balls mix lamb, beef and goat encased in a thin mesh of caul fat that melts into sizzly crispness in a hot pan. And their chorizo is done Spanish style, flavored to make you wanna take out your castinets. 

We love this place and can’t seem to stay away. Our freezer is now full of all kinds of meaty delights and we’re wondering how we’re going to eat it all—slowly and with great relish I’m sure!

Fremont Friday

I'm honestly not complaining when I say that I'm getting more pillowy around the middle. I'm actually embracing the fact that working out regularly isn't cuttin' it any more. My doughiness is blooming and oh well. Of course, I could just stop eating so much great food. Hmmmm. (That was a nano-second of consideration.) Nope. I enjoy food too much … making it, thinking about it, eating it.

Take this morning. Ted rolled outta bed early and went to the kitchen for his morning ritual of making coffee and reading the newspaper. I rolled out a little later and went in to give him his usual morning hug. He looked up from the paper and said, "Wanna go to the Fremont Diner for breakfast?"

No brainer.

The Fremont Diner is at the south end of Sonoma County just west of where Hwy 121 and Napa Road meet. Smack in the middle of farmland and vineyards their website says it all. "We get most of our ingredients from the farm out back and the rest from our friends nearby. Always." http://thefremontdiner.com

The thing is, yes, their food is FRESH, but what's crucial is their "better-than-the-best-down-home-momma's-cookin'" way they fix it. Here's what we ate today:

Top Left:

Hangtown Fry with Drake's Bay Oysters

Locals here know that there's a controversy between the government and Drake's Bay 

Oyster Farms in Point Reyes. The Gov wants to shut 'em down. 

You can guess whose side we're on.

Top Right:

Farmer's Toast with Guacamole and Pickled Onions

Looks a little weird in print, but Goodness rules in your mouth!

Bottom Right:

Fried Nutella Pie

Yep. Fried pie filled with warm hazelnut chocolate oobleck. (See Dr. Seuss)

Fremont Diner has indoor and outdoor seating, but we like to sit at the six-stool counter inside and watch Chad Harris (owner) and his "comadres" (Spanish for "friends") do their thang. Cutting fatty fat off the brisket, rolling out tender biscuit dough and mixing up bins of pungent spices they listen to bits and pieces of customers' conversations.

Today Ted and I were talking about how good their coffee is. Without realizing that Chad had heard us, he stopped what he was doing, picked up a bin of ground coffee and brought it over for Ted to see. "Of course, you have to use good beans to start with," he explained. "We use Four Barrel Coffee, but part of making good coffee is in the grind. It has to be somewhere between fine and course." He took a fistful of coffee grounds and rained them off his hand for Ted to see. "The ratio is 1 oz of ground coffee to 12oz of water, and the brew time is important too. In a French press, we tell our customers to let it sit 2-3 minutes before pressing depending on how strong they like it." (Ted likes his at 4 minutes. Full tilt.) Chad's attention to detail is keen. They even warm up the coffee mugs before you're ready to pour. 

See, that's the thing. Chad has this sixth-sense sensitivity to the integrity of every food he touches. It's like he's plugged into some culinary Higher Intelligence out there in the ethers. But without getting too esoteric, his food is just Goodness x a Gazillion.

So what could be finer than to eat at Fremont Diner in the morning?

Nuthin'.