In Sonoma County, Kyle and Katina Connaughton are weaving culinary magic through their work on the farm as well as in the kitchen
The late afternoon sunlight in Sonoma County casts a golden glow over everything it touches. As we drive over the crest of a hill through Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Chardonnay vines, SingleThread Farm appears beneath us in all its glory. The Russian River runs through the property, a winding oasis of dark green in the dusty late-summer landscape that sits just 70 miles north of San Francisco.
The farm includes a greenhouse with more than 30 varietals of tomatoes, while a mind-blowing bounty of other vegetables, herbs and flowers abound in the neatly-manicured rows. There are eggplant and broccoli, summer squash, melons and turnips, kale and garlic, Jerusalem artichokes and vast bushes of herbs, while less immediately familiar are delicate long Japanese spring onions called negi and mustard greens called mizuna.
Chicken coops, an heirloom fruit orchard, olive trees, beehives and a cattle paddock add to the supply of world-class seasonal organic produce that heads to the kitchens of SingleThread Inn and Restaurant, just seven miles away over the hill in the quaint town of Healdsburg.
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