S'more Of Us To Love

A little over a week ago Adam's brother and his family, including cousins Sam and Henry, moved from the East Bay to our neighborhood in Petaluma. We still can't believe it. In less than a month his folks will pack it up and join us as well, also just down the street, AND our best family friends from the hilly perch in Oakland are officially in contract on a house about 2 miles away, with plans to send their boys to school with ours. I don't know how this happened, it's like it's all coming together. When we moved here two years ago we didn't know a soul, and we assumed we were always going to be the lone family to the north. As the school years have passed we've built a little framily of like-minded transplants, and settled in as Petalumans. I run into people at the grocery store, we have a steady stream of kids running through our house, and Fridays tend to lead to late night hang outs with their parents. Now, it seems, we have it all. To celebrate our close proximity, we had the family over to break in our new fire pit.

For our campfire dessert we followed Jasper's instructions carefully (apparently he knows a lot about making S'mores). I love: "You also need a campfire" and the descriptive: "Then you get a S'mores square that look smushy brown, white, and tan" Oxford comma. "They smell burnt".  A boy after my own heart..  

Welcome to P-Town Sam and Henry! We're so happy that you'll get to grow up together. 

A Daydream Believer

A disco ball speckles light on an historic house near downtown Petaluma, California

We used to pass through Petaluma on our way to go wine tasting in Sonoma and the Russian River. It's one of those towns that you daydream about moving to, with it's lovely downtown, historical homes and proximity to everything that makes California the geographic paradise that it is. Just on the outskirts of town to the west you find dairy cows grazing on grassy hills, beyond that the craggy coastline of the Pacific ocean. To the East you have the Sonoma and Napa Valley wine regions, to the north the Mendocino forest, and to the south, the most beautiful city in the world, San Francisco, and my beloved, ever-evolving Oakland. Petaluma is a quirky mix of old and new, independent design and local agriculture. There are families that have lived here for generations, and there are transplants like me, looking for that perfect place to put down roots. When my husband suggested we move up here a couple of years ago I was nervous about leaving my urban existence behind, but wanted the opportunity to live in my daydream, where our boys could have a hometown, and we could buy a house to make our own. Last month, after renting downtown for a few years, we finally closed on our first home, a small 1960's fixer, perched high on a hill at the top of a cul-de-sac in an area called Cherry Valley. My daydreams have come true... 

Champion the mechanical horse- Heebe Jeebe on Kentucky Street, downtown Petaluma

We have spent a lot of time exploring this little town. If you are a city transplant like me, you seek out creature comforts like a pour over coffee shop, and a farm to table restaurant with a good wine list.  You also look for things that you can only find in a smaller town, like Champion the beloved mechanical horse, and the slew of parades and oddities like The Rivertown Revival Festival. As a foodie I have come to realize that Petaluma doesn't offer everything that we had in the city, but it does the artisan/farm to table genre better than anyone. For coffee there is Acre. They play my tunes, they make great drinks, and it's where the cool kids hang out. For a night out we have Central Market. I feel at home in one of their booths with a plate farm food and a glass of grassy wine. For beer, an important consideration in this part of the state, it's Taps. We sit at German biergarten tables with friends or at the bar to catch a Giants game. For lunch it's either Topsy's Kitchen, the new fancy fried chicken cafe, and official post-looking-at-houses eatery for our family, or Della Fattoria, the makers and bakers of a rosemary-lemon bread and a white beans on toast that will knock your socks off.  Even newer to P-town than me is Thistle Meats- an ethically sourced, local meat, whole animal butcher.  We just picked up some good looking pork butt for homemade carnitas. And then there's Free Range, a new shop two doors down from Acre, that serves a little nosh and sells local indie housewares and gifts like make-your-own cheese kits. It's just the kind of place I was hoping would come to town. 

Thistle Meats- Petaluma's new whole animal butcher shop, selling ethically sourced, local meats

Taps in it's new location on the river

A midday stop at Acre Coffee, downtown Petaluma

Farm to Table at it's best.  Petaluma's Central Market restaurant 

Buying a home in California was pretty challenging for us, but we had a trusted partner in our REALTOR®. She has since helped my husband's parents purchase a home in Petaluma, and she's in the process of getting our best friends from Oakland to P-town. We kind of love her like family at this point. For this reason, I decided to collaborate with CA Association of REALTORS® on this post. I wanted to show you my beautiful hometown, and spread their message for home ownership, and the idea that it can start with one really competent REALTOR®.

Here's more about their ad campaign: 

What starts with one California REALTOR® benefits all of California. That’s the underlying sentiment of the California Association of REALTORS® (CAR) integrated consumer ad campaign called 'Ripple'.

While highlighting the intrinsic value of REALTORS® as Champions of Home™, the "Ripple" campaign goes beyond the story of the individual REALTOR® and focuses on the powerful positive economic impact that REALTORS®, buyers, and sellers are making throughout California. The facts (Source: National Association of REALTORS®):

• One job is generated for every two home sales
• One home purchase stimulates the economy by $60K
• A homeowner’s net worth is 34 times that of a renter

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

What's Really Going On

I haven't been posting a lot lately, because we've been going through some stuff...good and bad.  For several months, my little guy, Wylie, has been complaining of headaches. Totally disturbing, right? We were forced to schedule an MRI, something that required him to be completely anesthetized, in order to find out if something was up with his brain. We had to take an early morning trip back to Oakland to have him put under for the scan.  It is not really all that fun watching your child with tubes up his nose, completely knocked out. The procedure went well, and much to our relief, about 10 minutes into our post-MRI ice cream party at Fenton's, his doctor called to tell us that the radiologist found no brain abnormalities. This doesn't explain the headaches, but I'll take it. As you can imagine, I've been operating at a high stress level. I got sick. Really sick. I'm still on really powerful antibiotics to treat a double ear infection brought on by a bad cold. I just haven't had the time to produce new project based content for Poppy Haus for the past few weeks, and I'm feeling a little melancholy about that.

There's something else, something I've debated about even sharing at this point, so as not to jinx it. We just made an offer on a house, and holy crap the offer was accepted.  This is something that we were pretty sure was never ever going to happen for us. We live in the Bay Area, where we've always been pretty much priced out of the market, even here in Petaluma. If all goes according to plan, we'll soon be the proud owners of a small,1968 split level ranch with a big old yard for our boys to run wild. It will need so much work done to make it right, but I've been waiting for this opportunity since, well, since forever. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

xo,

Heather

Come Gather 'Round People

It's pretty up here in Sonoma County right now.  The seasons are so much more vivid than by the bay, and it's chilly. With an unexpected weekend with no plans, we busied ourselves with some fun fall projects.  After 2 years of sitting idle in the box, we opened up our grinding attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer and made our first attempt at a handmade whisky-fennel sausage. More on that later.  We also played a mean game of family mud football, complete with a bloody lip, I refinished some campaign chests I found at a thrift store (upcoming feature), and Jasper and I made some wreaths from the shrubs and trees in our back yard.

To make one like ours you'll need gather some olive branches (or sturdy, pliable vines), berry branches, small dark rubber bands and some hot glue. Snip several rubber bands open. Attach the olive branches together, overlapping by about 6 inches. Tie their ends together with the rubber bands, trim to finish. Stretch the wreath to shape. Place berries around wreath, we draped ours to give it more dimension, and hot glue them to the olive wreath.   

   

North By Northwest

After 4 long months, we finally got away to do some wine tasting, this time up in Healdsburg.  Adam and I used to make monthly trips before we had the boys, but even now that we find ourselves at the edge of two wine regions, we tend to visit the grocery store for wine and craft beer.  This obviously needs to change.  To be honest, I really prefer European style wines, and we were in jam jar zinfandel country, but we found a handful of places that knocked my socks off. We began our day at Quivira, a Demeter certified biodynamic winery, with farm grounds nearly as impressive as their wine. I LOVED their Refuge Savingon Blanc, and Grenache.  They sent us to Preston, a family owned and operated biodynamic vineyard.  On Sundays they bake bread in their hearth and pour Guadagni, a Zin blend table wine, into jugs straight from the barrel.  We picked one up for our pumpkin carving party.  Preston is quirky, and all kinds of awesome; a must visit, with tasting room that looks like it was designed by Jonathan Adler's country cousin.  You must try their Cinsault and  GSM.  We stopped off for a bite at the Dry Creek General Store, and made our way to UNTI.  Adjacent to their small tasting room they were processing Montepulciano while rocking out to Modest Mouse. We really enjoyed their Benchland Syrah and Petit Frere GSM. To calm our pre-game jitters (Go Giants) we ended our day lounging with a view of the vines at Ridge. They offer outdoor tastings with more of their Rhone varietals, with the option of tasting their signature Monte Bello Cab blend.  

My Little Corner of the World

I love to take day trips to the small towns that scatter Western Marin County, the Russian River, and Sonoma County.  It used to mean an hour or two in the car without traffic, but now I am right here in the middle of it all.  Last weekend we met up with all the cousins in Pt. Reyes Station for farmer's market and a quick trip to Cow Girl Creamery.  It's no secret that I love a well put together market, and this one might be the most idyllic I've ever been to.  Highlights were Brickmaiden Breads, grilled cheese sandwiches, scaling bags of manure (yes, that's right), and the unbelievable pressed Gravenstein apple cider.  The market also had a cooking demo for kids featuring refrigerator pickles, a great offering of organic produce, live music, and the requisite pour over coffee stand. Every Sunday 9am-1pm from June through November.  

The National

Just so you know, I'm really embracing this small town pride thing.  This weekend Petaluma honored it's 3rd in the world Little League team with a classic motorcade parade through downtown. The build up has been coming with virtually every business in town posting a handmade victory sign in their windows and school marquees welcoming the kids back to school also congratulating the team; the local theater was broadcasting the games on the big screen during their final run. Yesterday, the streets were filled with kids waving flags and families posted up in lawn chairs. It seemed as though everyone came out to celebrate.  We'd followed the games over the past few weeks and came to know these little jr. high school kids by name, Jasper eagerly awaited Bradley Smith's drive by. I think we're going to like it here...

Sweet Tart

This weekend, in between trips to the paint store and performing balancing acts on high ladders getting started on our new room, I will be heading out to Sebastopol's Gravenstein Apple Fair. If you've never had a Gravenstein, it's sweet and tart, and yields amazing applesauce and pies.  The festival celebrates all things Gravenstein, and features local wines from the likes of Matanzas Creek, and beer from Lagunitas and Bear Republic.  In addition to the food and drink there will be a musical lineup, chefs tables and educational workshops.

August 11th, 10am-6pm
August 12th, 10am-5pm

Due West

This morning Adam left his computer at home, and because there is no cell phone service in Tomales, and I knew he'd need it, I threw the kids in the car and drove it out to him.  Driving out of our already small town into the rolling hills of far west Marin county is not a bad commute. I put on a little Bon Iver and went with it. The high school is like a mirage in the midst of sun-scorched fields, dotted with cows and wild flowers, like something out of a Steinbeck novel. When we were leaving, I looked back at the tiny school marquee and saw the welcome message.  It's funny, because since we've moved it's felt a little like vacation, and I still call Oakland "home". We're mostly unpacked, but we still haven't really met anyone yet, and while this has been a transformative month,  I'm really looking forward to the start of school for us all to make some friends, to get this party started.   

Hot Hot Heat

Our visit to Rivertown Revival was a little bit like experiencing the dustbowl of the 1930's on the surface of the sun.  Hot.  So hot that we didn't actually stay for more than a couple of hours.  I will say this, it was stylized and well run. If the weather was kinder, we would have stayed all day until they kicked us out.  Jasper beamed a ball into the target and dunked a teacher from his new elementary school, the kids made dream catchers and rain sticks, and feasted on Three Twins ice cream and rosewater lemonade.  The highlight of their time was a junkyard drum kit.  They played "I Want Candy" and "We Will Rock You" to a small audience, had their pictures taken by total strangers, and forgot the heat for a few minutes before we headed home to cool off.

Girl From the North Country

We've decided to uproot ourselves from the eucalyptus grove in Oakland and head for greener pastures in Petaluma. This is one of those major life decisions that I would have made in about one minute ten years ago, like when we moved to Portland without jobs after traveling through Europe for a month.  That is not my life anymore. Now we have to debate about leaving schools, friends and our old familiar haunts. We've been hemming and hawing about it for a while now. Despite the fact that it's a small city, and a bit off the beaten path, Petaluma has a robust, creative downtown and the outlying neighborhoods are within walking distance. On the outskirts of town there are lots of cows, past the cows there's beautiful coastline and fancy oysters. I like this a lot. I grew up in a small town, and I went to college in a small town, so this feels right. We move this Summer. I expect I'll be doing lots of Sunset Magazine style write ups on my new finds.  Here's what I'm most excited about* so far in our new city:

Acre Coffee - it's important to me to have a coffee place to call my own.  I'm really serious about my coffee, it has to be good.  We stopped at Acre twice in one day during a recent visit. They do it right.

Cowgirl Creamery- made in Petaluma, enough said.

Central Market- A five star farm to table restaurant in downtown Petaluma.  I cannot wait to eat here.


The Seed Bank- Petaluma has an excellent climate for home gardening and this is Baker Creek Heirloom Seed's west coast location. We poked our heads in and it looks amazing.


The Petaluma Farmer's Market- The markets run twice a week in different areas of the Theater District of downtown.  I've read that Three Twins Ice Cream sometimes has a booth here. 

Lagunitas Brewing Company- We stopped by on our way out of town so that my double IPA loving man could get a growler to take home.  They put them in giant jam jars.  The tasting room has an adjoining patio with picnic tables and live music.  Oh, there was a Neko Case poster in the bathroom, so this place is obviously awesome.

*Yes, this is all food related.