Handpicked – The Apple Farm in Anderson Valley

 

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From the New York Times

Northern California breeds food pioneers: M. F. K. Fisher, Alice Waters, Alfred Peet, for starters. But to some, a pioneering spirit means finding the next frontier. Take Sally and Don Schmitt and their family. First they put the agricultural backwater of Yountville on the culinary map with their restaurant, the French Laundry. Then they left town and spun around farm-to-table in Philo.

Napa Valley might seem like the stuff of “Falcon Crest,” but it’s really farm country. It was much more so in the early ’70s, when Sally Schmitt’s cafe had the area’s only espresso machine and she cooked meals for the gatherings of Napa’s 13 vintners. The kitchen that was built for her mail-order chutney business was soon used to host theme dinners, with menus inspired by the Time-Life cooking series. After the couple took over a former French steam laundry, the meals evolved into one of the area’s first set-menu restaurants — a financially iffy move in a place where farmers loved their red-sauce Italian restaurants. On its opening night in 1978, the French Laundry served pasta with clam sauce, blanquette de veau, rice, asparagus, salad, cheese and rhubarb mousse for $12.50.

By the mid-’80s, the French Laundry had become a destination restaurant — and Napa a destination. But the family was eager to find the next fringe. They began fantasizing about life in the Anderson Valley, a hard-to-reach area in Mendocino County with its own dialect and an economy that runs partly on the barter system. A real estate agent showed Don and Sally a run-down apple farm in Philo that reminded them of “the old Napa.”

“So they called us and asked us if we wanted to be apple farmers,” recalls Karen, one of the Schmitts’ five children. “We said yes! with no hesitation, knowing nothing about it.” The Philo Apple Farm was born.

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