Insider guide to Fort Bragg: 20-plus delicious reasons to go there now — Part 2

May 23, 6:10 PMSF Culinary Travel ExaminerWanda Hennig

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Takes two to tango — and plant — at Noyo Hills Farms.

Could this Mendocino County outpost be Northern California wine country's new culinary hot spot?

Continued from Part 1 and on to Part 3

Geographically, Mendocino County comprises five main areas:

The Anderson Valley (famed for its wines and its 25-mile scenic drive ripe with wine tasting opportunities);

the Russian River Valley (also famed for its wines and the location of both Ukiah, the county seat, and the town of Hopland with its celebrated brewery (although Ukiah has the nation’s first organic brew pub), wine-tasting rooms and renowned Solar Living Institute);

North Mendocino County (here, the town of Willits is the eastern terminus of the famed that sets off from Fort Bragg and home to the Mendocino County Museum — and you can drive through a redwood tree near Leggett);

the South Mendocino Coast (where the Point Arena Lighthouse is a landmark);

and the North Mendocino Coast (which includes Mendocino Village and Fort Bragg).

The county markets itself as “America’s greenest wine region” and prides itself on its green credentials.

Read on for green tango, edible gardens, Cherie Soria’s Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, Julia Conway’s home-based Fort Bragg cooking school, olives, olive oil and more…

3. John Richardson and Joanne Frasier met at a tango dancing class. (Tango, by the way, is big in Fort Bragg. For what’s on at tango central, the Virgin Redwood Ballroom at the Weller House Inn.) Now married, Richardson and Frasier grow vegetables outdoors year-round at their Noyo Hill Farm, which overlooks the Fort Bragg Harbor.

They sell their produce at the Fort Bragg farmers market in summer. Year round, on Fridays between 3 pm and 6 pm, they sell boxes of seasonal veggies ($10 and $15) from their yard. Visitors are welcome to place an order through their Web site.

4. Speaking of tango, Weller House Inn has more than its rather grand ballroom. Built in 1886, it’s the only residence on the Mendocino coast listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. Tango diva Vivien LaMothe, who recently took over the place, is in the process of replanting the entire garden with edibles.

She cooks and serves a multi-course breakfast each day. (I don’t usually like frittata as it can be dry but hers was moist and yummy.) The ingredients she uses are all seasonal and organic. And a biggie Weller House attraction in my book is the renovated water tower. Not only is it the tallest point in Fort Bragg, it has a hot tub in a room immediately below the rooftop viewing platform. I don’t know if I was meant to be there at midnight, but my room was in the water tower and nobody else was — and it was a real treat.

5. Cherie Soria’s Living Light Culinary Arts Institute comes as a total surprise. Who would expect to find a state-of-the-art organic raw food vegan chef school on the main drag in Fort Bragg?

But it attracts students from around the world who do classes that range from half a day to two years. Soria’s café, downstairs from the well-equipped demonstration classroom (she is photographed in it, above left, teaching) where you’ll be taught that raw and vegan can be a lot more than a salad or crudités if you sign up for a weekender class (her focus is on gourmet possibilities), is a good place to sample her fare. Check the Web site for class schedules.

6. Julia Conway (pictured right), my Slow Food Mendocino guide, teaches Italian-style and seasonal cooking at her home-based Fort Bragg cooking school, where she makes good use of her wood-fired pizza oven.

She also leads informal custom tours to local producers and loves putting together on-site classes around a theme for visitors staying in rental properties. You cook together, you learn — and then she serves up the food paired with Mendocino wines.

Conway is also a partner in an olive oil companyand holds tastings and gives classes on her oils.

(Fran Gage in her definitive book on olive oil in the United States, The New American Olive Oil: Profiles of Artisan Producers and 75 Recipes (2009), features the story of Stella Cadente olive oil — see page 174). The oil comes from 1,300 trees that grow on seven acres in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley.

Continued in 20-plus delicious reasons to go there now — Part 3.

Photos by Wanda Hennig

Copyright © Wanda Hennig, 2009

Coming Up: Part 3 on how this funky Northern California town is moving out of the pantry onto the culinary tourism platter.