The Cakebread Cellars Napa Valley Cookbook: Wine and Recipes to Celebrate Every Season's Harvest
by Dolores and Jack Cakebread, with resident chef Brian Streeter

Reviewed by Kevin Schoeler

In her Cakebread Cellars Napa Valley Cookbook, Dolores Cakebread reveals that "growing grapes and making fine wine was our only intention when Jack and I purchased the property for the winery in 1973." So, why a cookbook? What does food have to do with this story? Isn't making great wine enough?

The Cakebreads are the classic American success story. Today, much of the family works in the business; their land is abundant with grapes of course, but also with vegetable gardens, orchards, groves of olive trees bearing some half-dozen varietals, and beehives. Does life get any better in the Valley? Apparently so.

The Cakebreads helped create the American Harvest Workshop, "a nonprofit, educational effort to increase the appreciation of wine, viticulture, and the nutritional and aesthetic qualities of American farm products." The AHW events are carefully organized, attracting widely respected chefs and local purveyors-they are incomparable celebrations of food and wine. Then there are the Cakebread vintners dinners, cooking classes, and wine tastings paired with food.

Resident chef Brian Streeter, along with Dolores and Jack Cakebread celebrates the seasons of the Valley with their compendium of rustically elegant dishes: appetizers like Roasted Mussels with Bread Crumbs and Garlic; main dishes including Leg of Lamb with Green Olive-Almond Tapenade and Tomato Jam, and Chicken Under a Brick; and vegetables such as Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts, and Polenta. Equally sensible are the salads, soups, sandwiches and pastas. What is there not to like about a Roasted Garlic, Summer Squash and Teleme Pizza, or a picnic basket filled with Pan Bagna—those over-the-top tuna sandwiches.

Think about a spring lunch of Roasted Beet Salad and Candied Walnuts alongside Carrot Soup with Garam Masala and Fromage Blanc. When frost hits, tuck into a cozy dinner of Venison Stew with Dried Cherries. Each recipe is indexed by season, and all relevant dishes are paired with a suggested wine.

Desserts are delightfully simple, and just what you would expect after dinner in Napa. Honey Ice Cream with Candied Walnuts, Apple Cranberry Crisp, and a Polenta Cheesecake with Strawberries Macerated in Zinfandel are just a few that you'll want to devour immediately.

No recipe is overly complicated, and the instructions are clear. Some, however, require the skill, patience and knowledge of a more experienced home cook. The pantry ingredients are no more demanding that Italian tuna and white truffle oil. Sometimes you'll need access to heirloom tomatoes and Dungeness crabmeat, but the book does include a helpful list of purveyors for those harder-to-find ingredients. Streeter and the Cakebreads also include some basic cooking techniques and a glossary with just enough wine-tasting information as to not overwhelm.

It's easy to be cynical, but if you understand the Cakebreads you begin to realize that this book may not be mere self-promotion. They really want to share their passion for great wine and food. And, after they finish telling their story there's some good eating ahead.

RECIPE: CHICKEN UNDER A BRICK

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