Locavore's delight

<p>Sonoma County's diverse climates and regions produce everything from seafood to lamb, from cheese to chickens, and from sparkling wine to big red cabernets. What's also interesting is that these regions have their own social cultures.</p><p>The West County's environmental consciousness is high — a nice weaving of high-tech and down-home. Its food philosophy is strongly organic and local, and nowhere is this better exemplified than at Peter Lowell's restaurant in Sebastopol. Proprietor Lowell Peter Sheldon and chef Daniel Kedan recognize this right on the menu: “We know that our slightly off-kilter attitude toward business — one where people, animals and the environment come before profits, where organic is a way of life, and where the highest quality cuisine is a top priority — is in keeping with our community's standards.”</p><p>A lot of restaurants talk the talk about their commitment to local and organic produce, but Peter Lowell's really walks the walk. On Wednesdays during the growing season, Zero Kilometro dinners are devoted to ingredients grown as close to the restaurant as possible, including lots of produce from Two Belly Acres, Sheldon's nearby farm. If you visit the website, and the site is up to date (chancy), you'll see the name of every farm and fishery where every ingredient in the upcoming Zero Kilometro dinner comes from.</p><p>The current Zero Kilometro wine is from Dehlinger winery, a few miles north of town. Dehlinger is never an easy label to find, due to limited production and huge demand, but the small wine list includes Dehlinger's 2008 Rose of Pinot Noir, the 2008 “Goldridge” Pinot Noir, and the 2009 “Guadagni Brothers Vineyard” Zinfandel.</p><p>The dedication to just-picked, local salad ingredients is evident in the First Light Summer Crisp Lettuce Salad ($9). First Light is the name of the Sebastopol farm that grows these incredibly delicious, crispy, lightly sweet “Summer Crisp” lettuces. They're also known as “French Crisp” or Batavia lettuce, and the tender inner leaves are the color of light jade. They're mixed with “Raven” and “Fox” cherry tomatoes, cut into halves, plus “Butterball” potatoes and roasted corn kernels. The salad is dressed in creamy vinaigrette made from cilantro grown at New Family Farm on Ferguson Road, where draft horses replace tractors and the partners, in their 20s, work 23 acres of organic vegetables, raise farm animals, and make their own sauerkraut, beer, cheese and bread.</p><p>During the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970s, a lot of people dreamed about farming like this. The millennial generation has rediscovered it and applied old-fashioned know-how to heirloom varieties using old-time techniques that yield food the way it must have tasted around the farmhouse tables in the 19th century. The Felton Acres Chicken Soup ($5 a cup) is a good example. The chicken is raised on pasture just west of Sebastopol, where the birds can eat living food rather than being confined to a pen and fed cracked corn. Carrots and Swiss chard are from New Family Farm. Tomatoes are from Two Belly Acres, and the torpedo onions are from First Light farm — everything from right around town. And it's rich with wholesome, honest flavor. Hooray for a soup like this.</p><p>The style of cooking at Peter Lowell's is true Italian, not Italian-American. There is a regular menu, but treasures also can be found in the nightly specials, of which there are usually many — nine on a recent night. We tried the Agnolotti ($18), a kind of Piedmontese ravioli of house-made pasta stuffed with Bellwether Farms ricotta and local roasted squash. Two Belly peppers and heirloom tomatoes, along with sausage and a juicy meat sauce, completed the plate.</p><p>Braised Preston Lamb ($23) featured tasty bits of braised Dry Creek Valley lamb — about as far afield as the kitchen went for any ingredient — ladled over soft and creamy polenta, with Two Belly spinach and Green Valley pepperonata (peppers, tomatoes, onions) along to help out.</p><p>Good pizza in Italy tends toward a thin crust, and in Naples, toward a light coating of marinara, fresh mozzarella and basil. That's what you get in the Neapolitan Pizza ($14) and the crust is ultra thin yet tender. There are five other kinds of pizza available, including two with house-made pork sausage and differing vegetables, plus a special Pizza Patate with Green Valley La Ratte potatoes, caramelized onions, roasted radicchio, Calabrian chilies and tellegio cheese for $15.</p><p>A dish of California Black Cod ($22) came fresh from the Bodega Bay fleet. The fish is marinated in balsamic vinegar and garlic, roasted and served with Summerfield carrots, farro, king trumpet mushrooms from Sebastopol's mushroom farm and local radishes.</p><p>Among a raft of desserts, we chose the Raspberry Curd with Meringue Top ($6), a soft and delightful pot of sweetness.</p><p>To sum up: It's utterly local and entirely delicious.</p><p>Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.</p>