Flavors of famous wine regions at Napa Auction lunch
When guests gather at the Napa Valley Live Auction Celebration this Saturday at Meadowood in St. Helena, they will be served a seamless feast drawing inspiration from three of the most renowned wine regions in the world.
Dishes from the sun-kissed climates of France, Italy and the Napa Valley will be served during a casual, al fresco lunch designed by longtime Napa Valley restaurateur Michael Chiarello, chef/owner of Bottega in Yountville and Coqueta in San Francisco.
“There’s so many dinners where every course is different, made by a different chef,” Chiarello said. “With this, every dish will make sense as a lunch, and it’s approachable and celebratory.”
The picnic menu not only pays tribute to Chiarello’s own roots in southern Italy, but to the French roots of Opus One Winery in Oakville, which is serving as the honorary chair of the 2015 event. Finally, it gives a nod to the hard-working chefs and purveyors of the Napa Valley itself.
Chiarello has been cooking in the valley since opening his first restaurant, Tra Vigne, in St. Helena in 1987. Since then, he has only missed one Napa Valley Auction, due to a death in the family.
“I’ve probably hosted three dinners and two lunches ... and I’ve loved every one,” said the graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, known not only for his restaurants but for his award-winning cookbooks and television shows, his line of Consorzio Flavored Oils and his Napastyle collection of artisanal foods, kitchenware and home decor.
For the auction lunch, Chiarello chose dishes that represent each wine region, with inspiration and guidance from the kitchen at Meadowood, which has earned three Michelin stars. The dishes are mostly classics, with a bit of a innovation and whimsy thrown in for good measure.
“Sometimes as chefs we have a bad habit of always wanting to create new,” he said. “You like things you are going to look forward to, but the classics should be classics.”
Chiarello’s first stop is France and the simple, street food of Paris, the Jambon Beurre Baguette, consisting of a baguette, ham and house-churned butter. “It’s the salty and sweet and crunchy,” he said. “I love that.”
He also came up with a sandwich with roots in the South of France, Ratatouille and Brie on a batard. Rounding out the menu is a classic dish from the Perigord, Cassoulet with Great Northern Beans, Pork Shoulder and Parsley; and a Kale Salad with Herbes de Provence and Summer Stonefruit.
“It’s fresh, and you think about sitting under a pergola,” he said of the salad. “The South of France has that sunbaked feeling to it.”
His next stop was Italy, which inspired a sandwich that pulls together some of the most iconic ingredients of that country: Prosciutto, Arugula, Fresh Ricotta and Caselvetrano Olives.
For vegetable lovers, he added two dishes: Melanzane al Forno (baked eggplant) and Polenta Antica (ancient grain polenta) with Mushrooms and Fontina cheese, a hearty dish that pairs nicely with Napa’s big reds.
The rest of the Italian menu consists of traditional Melon Salad with Frisee and Crispy Pancetta and an Insalata di Tomato and Burrata with Balsamic Caviar (vinegar formed into little balls), which reverses the usual taste order of the dish.
“With balsamic, it often washes the tomatoes out because you taste it first,” he said. “With this dish, you get the creaminess of the burrata, the tartness and sweetness of the tomato, and then the brightness of the balsamic caviar.”
The Napa Valley portion of the menu also provides a showcase for local ingredients like artisanal cheeses and breads, plus oysters, wildflower honey and even some “Napa” cabbage.
“This is the American side of it,” he said. “You want to shuck some oysters if you can, because Hog Island is very close to us.”
For his Napa Cabbage Slaw, Chiarello took inspiration from a dish that a sous chef of his once prepared at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
“The dressing is apple cider from The Apple Farm in Philo, honey, olive oil and toasted fennel seed, emulsified together,” he said. “I love the texture of it and the emotion of it. It tastes like good country living.”
The Fried Chicken with Wildflower Honey also showcases the rustic simplicity of Southern cooking, which Chiarello compares to the cooking of Southern Italy.
“The country ham and prosciutto, the grits and the polenta, there’s an incredible similarity,” he said.
Finally, the tour of America concludes with an array of Heirloom Vegetables grown in the garden at Meadowood Napa Valley restaurant, a few cheeses from the Swiss-Italian immigrants who settled in West Marin, and some Homemade Kettle Chips.
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