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Inspired stories about artisan wine, food and travel.
by L.M. Archer, FWS | Bourgogne ML
Cornerstone Sonoma
Sometimes change is good. Case in point: Sunset‘s sprawling New Outdoor Test Kitchen and Test Garden at Cornerstone Sonoma, scene of recent, flawlessly executed Sunset Celebration Weekend 2016.
It’s a deliciously designed set-up, perfect for hosting a bevy of outdoor home and garden displays, Airstream Village, food wine, and beer court with live entertainment, open-air kitchen and garden presentations, lifestyle merchants, specialty wine and spirits seminars spearheaded by Sunset Wine Editor Sara Schneider in the Sunset International Wine Competition Pouring Pavilion – even a cooperage demonstration.
In short, the ultimate sweet spot for lovers of all things ‘western living.’
Western Living
What exactly is ‘western living?”
“I would say for me the California lifestyle is like being in the south of France with no French people,” jokes celebrity chef Ludo Levebre to Sunset Editor-in-Chief Irene Edwards.
We’re in the outdoor Sunset Celebration Weekend ‘green room’, where Edwards holds court with Los Angeles TV personality, author, and Executive chef/co-owner Ludo Lefebvre of Trois Mec, Petit Trois, Trois Familia, and Ludo Bird, Napa chef/owner Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards Grill and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, and East Coast author/TV personality Ellie Krieger. The guest talent perch on stylish wooden stools, sipping water against a backdrop of flitting birds, carefully manicured shrubs, and a myriad of garden accents.
Lefebvre continues, “No,but I stay here in the west because as a chef, as you know, we need fresh ingredients, and for me, for my job, being here in California in the west – the ingredients are amazing and fresh….but also, I love the lifestyle here. I’m also fascinated with the 1970’s raw food movement…I don’t know why, but I just do. In France growing up, we weren’t thinking about raw food, no. We just have butter over there.”
For Pawlcyn, it’s about options from quality local purveyors. “You not only get good vegetables, but there are farmers here that are growing lamb, duck… I can get really fresh lamb right here in the Napa Valley.”
Krieger offers her take on ‘the spirit’ of California cuisine, “I feel for me, there’s very much a sense, I think nationwide, about how to make healthy eating happen on a daily basis. What are really practical things you can do? I think this is what Sunset does really so well is this “these are things you can do.” Things that are really doable for people on an everyday basis. Life is really busy – wherever we are, and you can make it happen. Certainly, the raw ingredients are here in California.”
Sustainable Sonoma
Sunset Celebrate Weekend and Cornerstone Sonoma walks the talk, keeping it sustainable with ample, well-placed recycling containers, innovative event water solutions bottle-free water refill stations, and complimentary hand-crafted bouquets, bulbs, and seeds from California Cut Flower Commission (CCFC), reminders of CCFC‘s importance in a flower market flooded with international vendors.
No question about it – Sunset’s New Outdoor Kitchen and Test Gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma showcases the best of western living, with flair. Clearly, we’re not in Menlo Park anymore.
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Thank you:
Colby Smith, CANVAS
Dana Smith, Kat Goren, & Kelley
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