We pulled up to the quaint Ramekins Cooking School and Inn in Sonoma, and knew I’d like this place as soon as I laid eyes on the spork and spoon handles on the front door.

I was invited by Ramekins to check out one of their many cooking classes and stay at their 6-room bed and breakfast. Cooking classes include both demonstration and hands-on classes, and are geared toward food enthusiasts and home cooks. Well, I’m always saying how I really need to make it up to wine country more often than I do, and this sounded like the perfect excuse!

Joyce Goldstein

Plus, I saw that the esteemed Joyce Goldstein would be teaching a Regional Tour of Italy: The Veneto with this mouth-watering menu:

• Warm Scallop and Mushroom Salad
• Crab and Fennel Risotto with Meyer Lemon Gremolata
• Pork with Chestnuts served with Pumpkin Polenta
• Blood Orange Marmalade Tart

Yeah, let’s recap.

1) Weekend getaway in Sonoma. (Check)
2) Adorable B&B. (Check)
3) Cooking class with a culinary legend. (Check)

Right. Sign me up.

Cooking Class at Ramekins with Joyce Goldstein

Since this was a demonstration class, there was no actual hands-on cooking by us students, however, there was plenty of Q&A, discussion, and of course, tasting.

Warm Scallop and Mushroom Salad

Joyce was full of knowledge about Italian cuisine, tips and tricks when preparing the dishes on our own, and stories. As we nibbled on succulent seared scallops and gorgeous chanterelle mushrooms, she lectured us on proper and humane tomato care (“once you refrigerate a tomato, you commit murder”), gave us tips on how to select a good salad dressing-quality balsamic vinegar (“if the first ingredient is ‘caramel’ or ‘vinegar’, put it down; look for ‘grape must’ as a primary ingredient”), and warned us against overcooking the scallops (“they should be quivering in the middle”).

Crab and Fennel Risotto with Meyer Lemon Gremolata

As we tucked into the brightly flavored risotto made with sweet crab meat, fennel, and a gremolata of meyer lemon zest, parsley and garlic, we learned that the Venetians actually prefer their risotto on the soupy side.

Speaking of Venetians, I asked Joyce, why the Veneto? She replied that while this meal actually borrows from various regions of Italy, she originally wanted to highlight Venice because of its interesting culinary history born from its unique location. One of the first cities in the spice trade, the food of the Veneto was influenced by goods traded by merchants traveling in and out of the port (like Marco Polo, Venice’s most famous traveler). The food and drink of the Veneto includes an abundance of seafood, game meat (an influence of Yugoslavia), artichokes, radicchio, rice (rather than pasta), lighter wines, and grappa.

Pork Stew with Chestnuts

All this edification got me hungry. Good thing the pork stew was ready.

Originally prepared with wild boar, Joyce first had this dish at a farro farm in Abruzzo. Farro was the earliest wheat that was cultivated in Europe. It tastes like barley, is sweet and hazelnutty, and puffs up when it is cooked.

With a few adaptations made, our stew featured pork shoulder rather than boar, and a delicious pumpkin polenta rather than farro. The pork stew was rich and hearty, slow simmered with red wine (Pinot Noir and Valpolicella), aromatics, sage, and warm spices (juniper berries, cloves, and cinnamon). It also contained chestnuts, which added a superb sweetness and richness to the stew. They were delicious, and I don’t usually even like chestnuts!

We used vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts, but if you’re shelling fresh ones, Joyce let us in on a little secret she discovered to save your hands, and time. Cut an “X” on the flat side of the chestnuts, cutting through to the brown skin, then microwave them for a bit. The hard outer shell and bitter inner skin should easily come off afterward.

Pork with Chestnuts served with Pumpkin Polenta

Oh, and let’s not forget the polenta. The pumpkin polenta was heavenly. Granted, I may be biased, since as you may already know, I am a pumpkin/butternut squash/sweet potato freak.

But really, what is there not to love about this savory-sweet, rich combination of pumpkin, cornmeal, and parmesan cheese? Other than being utterly delicious, polenta is also pretty forgiving. Unlike risotto, which needs to hit the table as soon as it’s ready, “Polenta, you can baby,” as Joyce puts it. (Brands recommended for polenta: Giusto’s and Gold Pheasant.)

Also, a great trick we learned to avoid lumps in it was to start with the polenta in cold water rather than streaming it into boiling water like most recipes call for. Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Joyce Goldstein, laying lattice

Now for my favorite part…the course that clinched it when I signed up for this class – the Blood Orange Marmalade Tart, which needless to say, did not disappoint. It was fragrant, perfumed by the gorgeous blood oranges and Grand Marnier (two of my favorite ingredients of all time), and had a perfectly buttery, flaky crust.

As Joyce so aptly describes, a blood orange tastes different from other oranges, it is really floral, “like an orange mixed with a rose.”

This tart is adapted from a recipe served at the Vineria Cozzi in Bergamo Alta. It is called Crostata di Marmellata delle Suore Trappiste, a tart filled with jam made by the Trappist nuns. The recipe takes a homemade orange marmalade and binds it with eggs and cornstarch. Fitting. It tastes divine.

A few tricks of the trade when making this:

• Use a sharp vegetable peeler to remove all the zest from the oranges. It is the quickest way I’ve ever seen zest removed. After you have all the peel, chop it finely.
• Remember to discard the bitter pith.
• Blood oranges are small so you don’t need to really segment them, especially since it is all being cooked down anyway for the marmalade. Just chop them up into 1 inch pieces.

Other than this tart – which I’ve been thinking about ever since – what struck me was a comment that someone made towards the end of the class. She was a woman who was an old fan of Joyce’s restaurant, Square One, before it closed in 1996. She was not alone, as it seemed that the class was filled with devout fans. The woman used to come in from Central Valley for a night out at Square One, and wrote in once after being particularly taken by a certain apple tart. Joyce wrote her back (she answered every letter that came in), and said they make it en masse, so the translation may not be perfect, but nonetheless, here was the recipe. It worked beautifully, and this was the first chance the woman had to thank Joyce personally. The room burst into applause.

This story got me thinking about food and how our best memories of particular dishes or meals are inextricably tied to the people who made them special. It is not only about the food, but about the stories and the shared experience. Maybe that is why places like Ramekins make me so happy. Places that get it. They get the love of food (it’s written on the apple-adorned walls and asparagus-lined railing), and they get that people are looking to share that experience.

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