{"id":934,"date":"2012-07-05T09:56:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T09:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theduanewells.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2018-07-29T03:29:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T03:29:21","slug":"sonoma-good-eats-duskie-estes-fabulous-zazu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/sonoma-good-eats-duskie-estes-fabulous-zazu\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonoma Good Eats: Duskie Estes\u2019 Fabulous Zazu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you\u2019ve been to Sonoma then you probably already know that the folks in this corner of America have a peculiarly familiar, almost European relationship with food (and if you didn\u2019t already know, now you do!). At every turn in this slice of Northern California, staggeringly fresh food prepared with elegant simplicity is as much a star attraction as the increasingly celebrated wines the region produces.\u00a0 Whether you visit a roadside food stand, a food truck, a corner caf\u00e9 or a Michelin-starred restaurant, you are bound to find some epicurean surprise on the menu that will taunt your appetite and tantalize your senses.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I recently made a visit to the celebrated roadside restaurant,\u00a0Zazu<\/a>. Situated amid farms and wineries on a sparsely populated stretch of road in Santa Rosa , Zazu appears simple and unpretentious from the outside. In fact, the parking lot at the restaurant isn\u2019t even paved. However, once inside, Zazu packs a culinary punch that defies its unassuming environs, as does its star of a chef, the diminutive but sparkling Duskie Estes whose masterful culinary skills were seen on season 3 of Food Network\u2019s\u00a0Next Iron Chef\u00a0<\/em>competition series.<\/p>\n

Armed with the most magnificent Bellini I\u2019ve ever experienced\u2026which is no small compliment given that I\u2019ve enjoyed the drink everywhere from the famed Harry\u2019s Bar in Venice, Italy to the lauded Cipriani in New York City\u2026I sat down for a sunset chat with Chef Estes on a simple, wooden picnic bench plunked down right dab dab smack in front of the garden behind her restaurant. Over that life-changing libation, I chatted with Chef Duskie about her food, her restaurant and her experience onNext Iron Chef<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Speaking of the latter, Chef Estes told me with a mischievous giggle that she had incredulously never seen Food Network\u2019s\u00a0Iron Chef America\u00a0<\/em>series before she agreed to do the show.\u00a0 How is that possible you ask?\u00a0 Because she doesn\u2019t even own a television, a fact that she hid from the show\u2019s producers until days before taping was about to begin .<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had a television in nine years,\u201d the chef told me conspiratorially. \u201cSo I tried to do Hulu searches and other web stuff but the show is nowhere online.\u00a0 All I can say is that I withheld information throughout the interview process.\u00a0 I never said \u2018I\u2019ve never seen the show, I don\u2019t have a TV\u2019 because I was afraid they might cut me. So I didn\u2019t say anything until I had signed the 22-page [contract for the show],\u201d she continued with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Such is life on the farm I suppose.\u00a0 That\u2019s right I said farm (and yes we still have those in America).\u00a0 Estes, her husband and two children,\u00a0 live on a working farm in Sonoma County with 120 chickens, two turkeys, four pigs, two sheep, two goats, four rabbits, two dogs, two cats and a hamster, which clearly influences her philosophy about food.<\/p>\n

As for her take on food which she describes as \u201cplayful Americana\u201d, Estes, who maintains another farm about ten minutes down the road from her restaurant, had this to say about her reverence for the ingredients she uses, \u201c[At the restaurant] there\u2019s a do not waste policy, so we try to figure out how to use everything and definitely cook within season. We do that for vegetables and meats in terms of respect for the life given. We\u2019re real advocates of the snout to tail philosophy of using every part.\u00a0 You have to eat everything. You don\u2019t get to just eat the tenderloin, you have to eat the cheek, the heart, and the ears and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Our conversation complete, I headed inside to sample Chef Estes\u2019 snout to tail creations and was summarily impressed with each and every dish that came out of the kitchen. I started with the sublime salumi, cured in-house in coordination with her husband John Stewart, who learned the skill with the help of Iron Chef Mario Batali.\u00a0 The starter was an absolute indicator of the quality of the pork dishes on the menu, which reflect the Estes family affinity for the pig. In fact, not only do both John and Duskie both love pork, they also jointly produce their own line of meats, bacon & salumi made from heritage breed, antibiotic and hormone free, and free range pork called BLACK PIG, which has earned raves from the likes of Rachael Ray among others.<\/p>\n

With swine in mind, I also sampled Zazu\u2019s BLT pizza, which featured Black Pig bacon, organic tomatoes, arugula and just the perfect amount of cheese on a delicately thin, crispy crust. It was shear heaven and worth every carbohydrate riddled calorie. Chef Duskie occasionally serves this delish treat on her weekly Pinot and Pizza nights where a flight of Pinots is paired with a succession of pizzas. I haven\u2019t personally experienced a Pinot and Pizza night but the word is that they\u2019re fabulous.\u00a0 And after only the briefest introduction to Zazu\u2019s pizzas via that BLT pizza magic,\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine that the nights would be anything but.<\/p>\n

At the end of my meal, I had concluded that the great charm of Estes\u2019 menu is that it\u2019s made up of seasonal, simple and familiar food that has \u201cthe volume turned up\u201d to quote Ina Garten.\u00a0 When she simply says \u201cI try to get the best ingredients and \u2026then get out of their way,\u201d Chef Estes is perhaps speaking her greatest truth. And that is perhaps what makes the fare she prepares so soul-satisfying. In a landscape filled with restaurants that work so very hard at making impressions with the kind of cooking that she has described as \u201cprecious\u201d, Chef Estes creates hearty dishes that celebrate great ingredients, skillful preparation and pitch-perfect balance. The result is a menu filled with food that can best be described as revelatory.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:\u00a0 The expected becomes the unexpected in Chef Duskie Estes hands and nothing but nothing says talent than a feat like that. However I can definitely say after having experienced her food that Chef Estes is without question an Iron Chef in her own right\u2026title or not.<\/p>\n

Until next time\u2026Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been to Sonoma then you probably already know that the folks in this corner of America have a peculiarly familiar, almost European relationship with food (and if you didn\u2019t already know, now you do!). At every turn in this slice of Northern California, staggeringly fresh food prepared with elegant simplicity is as much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1551],"tags":[1183,1207,1209,1434],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-celebrity","tag-dining","tag-restaurants","tag-sonoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}