Gold Country influenced picnic fare
Gold Country-influenced picnic fare
In conversation with Sonya Keister, the voice behind the Gold Country’s Rustic Fork blog.
Sonya Keister may say she was once one of the worst cooks in America. We’re having trouble believing it. Keister, the voice behind the Gold Country’s Rustic Fork blog, does cooking demonstrations for Sacramento, California’s KCRA-TV. She runs a cottage industry food company and her self-published “The Savory Gourmet Cookbook,” is going into a second printing. Worst cook? Really? “I think people can relate,” Keister said. “I really did start out as one of the worst cooks in America. My family can attest to that. But if you have that passion for bringing people together, anyone can get to the stage I am.”
Keister calls herself a magazine-taught cook. Bitten by the entertaining bug — “I harbored a secret burning desire to host amazing dinner parties,” she said — Keister quickly realized that her culinary skills didn’t extend much beyond can-opener operation. So she turned to the pages of Bon Appétit and began working her way through, page by page, month by month.
Soon she’d rented a commercial kitchen in Placerville and was making Rustic Fork sauces. “I sold them at farmers markets, a couple small grocery stores and wineries,” she said. The blog followed and then the cookbook “to get some of my recipes — things people have asked for — out there in a tangible format.”
We first spotted the cookbook at the Chateau Davell winery tasting room in Camino, the apple orchard-centric town near Placerville, Calif. Then we spotted Chateau Davell on the cover of the cookbook.
“That’s us,” winemaker Eric Hays said, pointing to the image of a long, festive table set on the winery lawn. “And this,” he said, quickly paging through, “is the carrot-ginger soup we served to more than a thousand people recently.”
Keister laughed when she heard about the encounter. “Eric’s a fabulous cook himself,” she said. “He’ll call or text cooking questions. I think they altered (the soup) a little bit, made it vegan. But I definitely recommend it with pancetta and crème fraiche.”
Noted. Keister may live in Folsom, Calif., but Camino’s Apple Hill orchards and Amador’s wineries are home turf, too. “If I’m (here) with friends, I go wine tasting,” she said. But when she brings her kids, ages 8 and 10, the orchards beckon. “High Hill Ranch (www.highhillranch1.net) has a lake. That’s a great spot for the kids. They do hay rides in the fall and kids can go fishing. And Rainbow Orchards (rainboworchards.net) for the apple-cider doughnuts.”
And if she’s wine-tasting with her family? “We enjoy going to Boeger (www.boegerwinery.com). They have beautiful grounds and
they allow you to bring food,” Keister said. “Chateau Davell (www.chateaudavell.com) is so kidfriendly. They have a play set for the kids. And if we’re in the Amador area, Helwig (www.helwigwinery.com) is beautiful. The setting is gorgeous.”
So what’s in her picnic basket? “Two of my most popular recipes are crostini,” she said. “An apple, brie and blue cheese pesto crostini and a roasted tomato and goat cheese BLT you can prep ahead and assemble onsite. And that soup is a great make-ahead. It’s good cold, too, and it’s really healthy because it has so many vegetables. The crème fraiche and pancetta are nice, but if you’re picnicking, you don’t have to —” she interrupted herself midsentence and reverses direction, with a laugh. “Cook the pancetta or bacon ahead, crumble it up and bring it.”
And finish that picnic on a sweet note, she said with Salted Peanut Brittle Peanut Butter Cookies. You’ll find that recipe and more at www.therusticfork. com.