Calistoga Inn

By my own accounting I am middle class. My father was a farmer whose father and grandfather farmed on the same land. My mother’s father sold produce. Both were from Connecticut however my mother’s line reached into the south to Maryland. Despite moving to California in 1960, I still considered myself a Yankee and was taken aback when a Japanese neighbor was stunned when I referred to myself as such. To him Yankee was an epithet.

I have not made much progress. I live in a town aptly called Middletown in a little house (less than 1000 sq. ft.), which I affectionately call The Cracker Box. Imagine a box of saltines with two packs of crackers and it will perfectly match the footprint of my house. I live here alone with two Norwich Terriers and, until yesterday, two cats. Now it is one cat. I have lived alone since 1990 and consider the opportunity of single living a gift.

In the 1960’s I was three bedroom-two baths. No Haight-Asbury, however there were trickle down social influences which prompted our little family of four to abandon the three-two and head to Lake Tahoe. This was 1973. A life style correction one could call it. This correction put me into the food world. I was a good cook and from that time forward I have made my living by cooking. (”She was a good cook and as good cooks go, she left!”)

Cooking is a passion. Not my only. I like to cook for myself, which is another gift. I also know how to cook, which I don’t think most people know how to do. That makes a difference. Both my children like to cook and know how too.

My kitchen fits a cracker box house. Small. Can’t swing a cat. Stand in one place and reach everything. Pots overhead clanging. Everything at the ready. No dishwasher. Kitchen Aid mixer here. Cuisinart there. Favorite pots on the stovetop. Olive oil hiding dark in the cupboard drawer down below. Three salts… kosher, Malden, grey - right there. Wooden spoons crocked together. Tongs and spats the same. Everything at the ready. Above cupboards gone. Open shelves giving what’s needed…glass Pyrex for mis en plus, cups for strong coffee, pots for tea, glasses for water, wine. Plates. Bowls. A hot little kitchen with the heart and beat of a quarter horse. One cookbook. Joy of Cooking! A workhorse. Art on the walls. A sign “Rosie’s Gourmet Cafe the original, routed out of pine by a friend back in ‘73. So what do I cook?

*Indian curried vegetables, humus for snacks, comfort food like *Squash Casserole, trial recipes for the restaurant, *Roy’s Supreme Vegetable Salad, birthday cakes for grandchildren, family dinners, preserving like crazy – pickles, sour plum jam, tomato chutney, on and on. And so it goes as if it matters. All very middle class.

*As follows:
Curried Vegetables - Cooks Magazine, May-June 2007
Roy’s Supreme Vegetable Salad: www.walford.com/roysalad.htm

SQUASH CASSEROLE
1# yellow summer squash, thinly sliced
3T. butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1T. chopped chive & parsley
1 lemon
1/3 cup grated Swiss cheese
1/2 t. paprika
3T. buttered soft breadcrumbs
Salt & pepper

Sautee sliced squash in butter (I use olive oil) until almost cooked and browned. Squeeze half a lemon over the squash and season with salt and pepper. Don’t crowd the pan. Sautee in batches if necessary adjusting the butter and the lemon juice. …Layer the sauteed squash in a shallow baking dish (oval au gratin is perfect) with the rest of the ingredients saving the buttered crumbs, paprika and some cheese for the top. Bake at 375 until browned. I am always asked for this recipe.

N.Y.C.

“Hello all Dunsfords, waitrons, kitchen-dudes, bussers, bartenders, bar flies, local yokels, the “Inn” crowd, open-mic singers, hotel desk ladies, brewers, drinkers, bachelorette parties and Robert Redford…Brendan”

(Waiter, floor manager, bartender, farmer’s son, asparing actor, handsome as the day is long and new New Yorker.)

Australia

“Greetings from a long lost friend…Hi Rosie, How the hell are you? I am coming in 10 weeks for a visit and want to see you…Peter Grubi” (Waiter at Rosie’s Cafe, 1982, from New Zealand, met future wife at bar, now divorced with young adult daughter.)

Staff cometh and goeth, just like money. The seasons when you have a good batch are memorable…all hard workers, funny, show up on time, become friends and stay in touch.

How does someone get into this business with a 90% failure rate the first year and a 90% failure rate of the surviving 10% the second year? The following article was written 26 years ago by myself for the Tahoe World in Tahoe City. I resided in Tahoe City and was the proprietor of Rosie’s Cafe. Reading it will help darken the waters even more. Please note I have changed the name of the vitamin company to something generic, however I have not adjusted the 1980 math just to give you an idea of how much simpler things were 26 years ago.

The Passionate Cook

Ins and Outs of Running a Restaurant

I have heard this for 20 years: “Why don’t you open a restaurant?” I have heard the statement bantered between all of you as you sit at a friend’s table and bite into a well stuffed baked potato, “Why don’t you open a restaurant?” The role of restaurateur is lofty in the mind. Very acceptable if well done along with antique shops, children’s apparel and the now passe boutique.

I bring all this up to vent my fury towards a television commercial. I cannot watch television anymore for fear of seeing the Multi-Vitamin commercial with the glossy girl who is now serving lunch for 100 everyday and surviving with MV’s. Madison Avenue has glommed onto the fantasy of owning a restaurant and packaged it properly. The little restaurant scene going on behind Sandy (I think that’s what they call the glossy girl) as she tells us about MV’s is slick. Waiters bustle, tables packed with men in business suits, ladies chic, menus fashionably large, decor white and gleaming with plants imposing. All this as she, the owner glides from table to table offering menu suggestions and greeting friends. The classic restaurant fantasy.

Sandy has given us one figure with which to work - 100 lunches a day. I will be generous and say that her lunch tickets average $5 per person (remember this is 1980) which gives a daily gross income of $500. Considering the caliber of clientel in the background, the food must be at least fashionable and costing 30 percent of the gross - $150. That leaves Sandy $350.

Even though Sandy’s friends encouraged her to open a restaurant because she is such a good cook, she is not cooking. She is table hopping and giving menu suggestions. So in addition to the dishwasher, the busboy, two waiters and food prep person, she is paying a cook.

I would put her daily labor at around $120. She now has $230 left. If she won’t cook, I doubt she will dust and vacuum or go home and do her own books. Nor will she wash tablecloths and napkins. Let’s deduct another $80 a day for general building maintenance, accounting, liability insurance, advertising, utilities and linen service. That now leaves $150. If she leases the restaurant and pays a percentage of the gross, and I would think 10 percent a modest guess considering the style of the place, off goes another $50 leaving $100.

One hundred dollars a day for Sandy! Not bad! The only expenses she has left are the prorated cost of the serviceware and kitchen equipment, all those plants, taxes, her own wage (which is what’s left over), and her MV’s. Sandy’s not living high, perhaps a wage of $20,000 a year with one day off a week, $18,000 with two days off a week. $17,000 with holidays, $16,000 with a vacation. If she is single and self supporting at Tahoe, I am sure she left months ago and is probably working for a caterer in San Francisco.

“Why don’t you open a restaurant?”, is always followed by “It’s a tough business.” Why is it any tougher than any other business? Because: 1. June’s unused tomato cannot be sold at 40% off Labor Day weekend; 2. 100 lunches a day is not 100 lunches a day, it’s 53, 86, 12, 105, 72, 67 and so on. The day Sandy serves 61 lunches she has staffed for 100. It is a lot easier to staff for 100 and serve 50 than to staff for 50 and serve 100; 3. On Tuesday everyone will want Sandy’s special avocado-sprout sandwich and then not order any on Thursday; 4. Everyone thinks of eating at the same time. Not 11 a.m. everyday, but 11 a.m., noon, 12:15 or 2 p.m. There is some mystical vapor in the air that sends out a message at a certain time telling people when to eat! I would like to solve this enigma of the restaurant business, market the solution and retire a rich woman; 5. Running a restaurant is being in the perpetual care of a two year old…almost old enough to care for himself but never quite, into mischief everyday and running off every time you turn your head. Baby sitters are hard to find and expensive. They don’t like to work early and stay late. They don’t do dishes or tidy up. So you become the constant mother hen with a brood of chicks. If it is going to be consistently good, it has to be consistently mothered.

Tonight I am sitting with an elephant gun pointed at the screen. When I see that Sandy and her MV’s I am going to let her have it fair and square. I will then write to the ad agency who conceived the idea of Sandy and the restaurant fantasy and give them some pointers. 1. Put an egg stain somewhere on her front and flour paws on her rear where she has rested her hands. 2. When she sits down to consult with friends over the menu, have her put her feet up on the table, light a cigarette and take sips from their drinks. 3. Begin the commercial with a shot of Sandy carrying in bags of groceries. End it with a closing shot of Sandy taking out the trash. Or better yet, end it with sandy taking her MV’s with a straight shot of Jack Daniels!

A man came into a restaurant with a butcher wrapped steak under his arm and said, “I will sit here, use your table and wares, go into the kitchen and cook my steak. That way, I can dine out and not have to pay for dinner.”

A man came into a restaurant with a brown-bagged bottle of wine under his arm and sat down to order dinner. When asked if he would like to order wine, the man replied “I have brought my own, all I need is to have the bottle opened and a clean glass. That way, I can dine out and not have to pay for wine.”

Hence the creation of corkage, or with the first gentleman, a term we have coined at the Inn, cakeage. Actually that is not the real reason for the creation of a corkage charge. The original idea was to give the guest the opportunity to bring a special wine to be enjoyed with dinner. Definitely not a bottle that could be found on the proprietor’s wine list and definitely not a bottle of Two Buck Chuck.

Napa Valley corkage is $15.00-$20.00 per bottle (plus tax and gratuity) and probably a little more at higher end establishments. Some restaurants also offer gratis corkage for every bottle one purchases from the list, bottle for bottle. Every restaurant has their own policy and philosophy. Here is mine:

1. As stated at the bottom of our menu: “Corkage is $15.00 per 750 ml. bottle, complimentary for each bottle purchased from our list.”

2. SPECIAL BOTTLES ONLY - It is not fair to the owner of a restaurant to bring in wine to avoid having to purchase wine from the wine list. The owner is in the business of selling food and wine. This is how he pay the rent and his employees. As wine buyer, I make a point of having good, value priced wines on the list to accommodate a frequent, local dinner who enjoys wine with dinner.

3. ALWAYS CALL - If you have a special bottle of wine, by all means bring it in to commemorate the occasion. However, call first and ask if there is a corkage policy and if so the corkage fee. … Last summer a group of local guests came into the restaurant with LOTS of bottles of wine. At the end of the evening the server charged them corkage. There was a huge bruhaha at the billing presentation and a phone call the next day to the office saying “We’ll never eat lunch in this town again!” A phone call would have saved a lot of grief and perhaps a proffer of waived corkage as a neighborly gesture from the restaurant. In the end everyone felt badly, the server who followed policy, the guest who felt bilked and the owner regretting loosing a customer.

4. WAIVED CORKAGE - If you are a group from a winery, call first and let the restaurant know you are bringing your own wines. 90% of the time, the owner will comp the corkage. If you are my next door neighbor and want to bring in a bottle, call first. Etc., etc.

5. GRATUITY - If the corkage has been waived, always leave a gratuity on the waived corkage. If the corkage has not been waived, always leave a gratuity on the corkage.

6. SPECIAL BOTTLE? Offer a taste to the server. Most servers in the Valley are very wine knowledgeable or interested in wine. Just say, “Bring an extra glass so I can give you a taste.”

Here are a couple of corkage-smorkage stories from Lincoln Avenue: Guests at a neighbor restaurant whipped out a thermos of soup and asked that it be served to his guests at the table! … A woman came into the office at the Inn and said that she had not been allowed to have her picnic at one of our tables on the patio. (Imagine that!) I explained that we were in the business of selling food, not providing a picnic area (very nicely of course). However, I continued, she could have her picnic but there would be a cakeage charge of $1.50 per item! (What?) As I was leaving for home, there, seated at the “prop” table we set at the entrance of the patio, was my lady enjoying her brown-bag lunch. I had to hand it to her. She was determined to have her lunch at the Calistoga Inn even sitting on the sidewalk with a dusty placesetting. … Honey, you shoulda called first. I’d probably have said OK!

      Work continues rebuilding the trellis on the patio. Interesting exit of the old unit. The contractor took down one of the existing light strands and the whole unit torqued and crashed! Hmmmm.
     Calistoga Education Foundation progressive dinner was in last night with wine maker Bob Pecota from Robert Pecota Winery. Bob was pouring his Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, L’Artiste ‘05 which we paired with arugula, fresh fennel, pine nuts, shaved Parmesan Reggiano, fresh lemon and good olive oil. Bob happy! I happy. 
     Also did the St. Helena Montessori’s Festa Primavera at the Culinary. Made Duck Buns…duck confit, an itty bitty bun, Chinese plum sauce, scallions & daikon sprouts. We ran out early…popular! 
     I had the unusual pleasure of wine tasting for a week. Going to wineries and tasting is a luxury if one lives here. However, my high school girlfriend came for a week and we hit the road in the 89SNBMR. When all was said and done Sterling Vineyards, right here in Calistoga got the gold. Great wines and for $15 a ride up the tram to the winery, a very informative self-guided tour of the winery and a tasting of five wines in a lovely room with personal tables and chairs, views and a fire place. Beats elbowing up to the bar and “I wanna taste the Zin.” 
     Here’s a nice surprise. We were driving in Lake County, specifically around Clear Lake itself. Lake County wines are looming large on the horizon. There are jaw dropping vineyards owned by Beckstoffer Vineyards just before Kelsyville and Jed Steele with Steele Wines is in Kelsyville. Anyway, Upper Lake was a destination (antique shops) and there on Main Street in Upper Lake is a new, gorgeous hotel with adjoining restaurant (both architecturally appropriate for Upper Lake.) Tallman Hotel and the Blue Wing Saloon & Cafe. Web sites: www.BlueWingSaloon.com and www.TallmanHotel.com Did not dine at the Blue Wing having gone to my all time favorite breakfast place in Kelsyville, Marci’s Brick Grill. (Yes, it is still 1950 in Kelsyville.)
     After Upper Lake a quick 20 minutes toward Nice and there, on the Lake is Ceago Winery and what appears to be perhaps a spa, dining, sort of hotel in the future. Tasting room person somewhat vague. I did understand that Ceago is a next generation Fetzer project. Great Sauvignon Blanc.
     So, you can get there from here. Pitch the tent in Calistoga, one or two days tasting wines and dining in the Valley; day three drive due west from Calistoga to the coast on River Road tasting a gazillion Sonoma County wines; day four, due North thru Knights and Alexander Valleys to the charming town of Healdsburg…maybe a little canoe trip on the Russian River and then for a final-final on day five, drive northeast to Lake County and around Clear Lake. Two more days in San Francisco and you’ve had a great vacation.