Stanford Inn husband-wife team Jeff and Joan Stanford have created a sensory delight at The Stanford Inn by the Sea. The extensive lobby is welcoming with comfy furniture, a cozy working fireplace, and books galore to peruse and purchase. The Stanfords support local artists by displaying their work on the walls of the inn. Company is welcome to use the piano, as well. There’s a lot to enjoy here…including the comfort of the inn’s rescue cats that enjoy the petting and attention that is offered to them. (The inn is pet friendly and four legged guests are welcomed in most areas of the property.)

The inn offers a library and many of the available books are related to “conscious living.” Joan and Jeff look at every aspect of their endeavor with an eye to reducing impacts on the environment and providing the healthiest context possible for guests, diners, staff, and the surrounding community.

Located on the property is a California Certified Organic Garden, which supplies the food for The Ravens, the vegetarian restaurant, headed by Chef Barry Horton. The inn composts all food and organic wastes, recycling them into the garden and thus virtually eliminating the use of outside fertilizers. The food gardens fit well into the natural beauty of the property.

A pond situated near the gardens allows for a nightly symphonic performance by the bullfrogs that call the pond their home. These   amphibians join other creatures around the property. In addition to the cats and dogs that have found their way home to the inn, there are rescued horses in the pasture… and llamas. The walk around the property is serene – but the trek can be extended by continuing on to nearby Mendocino Bay. The site also has a boathouse with canoe and kayak livery available to explore Big River. If you prefer land, check out a mountain bike to explore Mendocino’s trails and back roads.

All this outdoor activity is bound to bring up an appetite. Some guests, who are omnivores, may have some doubt as to the all-   vegetarian menu at The Ravens. Chef Barry, a graduate of Cordon Bleu who once cooked with lots of butter, cream, and meats, came to The Ravens on an internship in order to broaden his horizons – and never left. He has found that many guests are “pleasantly amazed…they come away with a good experience.” Part of the good experience may include sampling the signature dish at The Ravens, Sea Palm Srudel: locally harvested sea palm and Japanese root vegetables baked in sesame phyllo accompanied by a stir fry of broccoli, shitake mushroom, bell pepper and cashews with  Umeboshi plum and Wasabi plum sauces.

The hotel also serves a complementary, generous breakfast from a large menu, and offers a wide selection of organic teas.

Chef Barry describes his cooking as “fresh, organic,sources,” and nothing is farther than 150 miles of the restaurant. An avowed vegan, the chef translated everything he learned at Cordon Bleau into vegetarian cooking. Although he has learned from other vegetarian chefs, he considers himself self-taught by reading and experimenting, such as using nut milks and soy products rather than heavy creams. Because he wanted to get healthier himself and experienced more energy when eating a plant-based diet, he did lots of reading.  One book he recommends is The China Study.

Chef Barry encourages chefs to offer some vegetarian dishes on their traditional menus. He believes “it’s easiest to start with baby steps – you don’t want to change by taking a big leap.” The first step can be as easy as using vegetable broth rather than chicken broth. He is definitely interested in sharing techniques – not necessarily his viewpoints. He simply wants to demonstrate a different way.

A chef who has been on a “different” path in her cuisine for many years is Chef Cherie Soria. Just a few miles north of Mendocino in Fort Bragg, Chef Cherie is considered a raw-food revolutionary, teaching gourmet raw vegan cuisine to individuals, chefs and instructors for over 15 years. (She has been in vegetarian culinary arts for more than 35 years). Chef Cherie is the founder and co-director of Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. She inspires students “to create healthier, more conscious cuisine without sacrificing taste, presentation, or the emotional satisfaction of food.”

Chef Cherie instructs professional chefs, novice cooks, healthy eating enthusiasts, and hobbyists in a most unique food preparation style. Chefs from the entire United States, Europe, and Asia have graduated from her institute. Chef Cherie sees that “the raw food cuisine is growing exponentially…it is a revolution around the world. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired and want to take their health back.”

Chef Cherie has always been a chef, winning her first cooking contest at the age of 12. It was towards the end of her tenure as a traditional chef that she began to eat less meat and meat products. As she began to feel better physically and emotionally, she evolved her cooking into using only raw plant foods in her personal life. She reflected that this was quite an evolution from someone groomed on the Galloping Gourmet and the French Cook.

Upon leaving the traditional kitchen, she began her quest to cook raw. Trial and error led her learning of dehydration, fermentation, marinating and infusion techniques. She learned how to bind without the use of processed binders. Cherie has a talent for mimicking the texture and taste of comfort foods. She does this with research and even more “trial and error.”

Chef Cherie generously offers free classes to local chefs. She encourages chefs to use raw foods in their menus. She points out that chefs already use a large amount of raw foods – and only need to learn to make the presentation and taste more interesting. She finds great satisfaction when students – both chefs and novices – tell her the raw food have changed, and sometimes saved, their lives. “Professional chefs attend the courses – they talk about what they learned at night. Their wheels are turning – how can I make this? They say it’s the most exciting time since they first went to culinary school,” she said.

The culinary school is housed in a historic building in Fort Bragg, where timber was a major industry. In 1912, the Union Lumber Company, the major employer, built a company store. In addition to boutiques and small businesses, it now houses The Living Light Cuisine Café. The Café offers organic smoothies, juices, salads, entrees and desserts.

The Rendezvous Inn & Restaurant, owned and operated by Chef Kim Badenhop and his wife, Janice, represents the best of Fort Bragg. Situated in a large home converted to a B&B, Chef Kim uses the fresh seafood, game, and the abundant fruits and vegetables from the area (including his own garden) to create dishes in the French and European tradition. Chef Kim also serves the best of local wines to complement his meals.

Although Chef Kim lives in a smaller, “off the beaten path” community (Fort Bragg has a population which hovers around 7,000), he got his start in the slightly more populated New York City. He has always enjoyed cooking – he worked in restaurants throughout his college career – and continued to work after graduation, while working full-time at Merrill Lynch. He began attending the New York Restaurant School at night. Earning one of the two externships available to his class, he began working at John Clancy’s Restaurant in Greenwich Village, at the time considered to be one of the finest seafood restaurants in New York City. Following his graduation from the restaurant school, he worked part-time at Clancy’s for the next couple of years while continuing to work at Merrill Lynch.

His travels through Europe for work allowed Kim to visit the finest restaurants. A meeting with Georges Blanc provided him an opportunity to study with him for a year. Kim and his wife, Janice, quit their jobs in New York and moved to France.

In early 1991, Janice and Kim moved back to the U.S., at which time Kim was hired by Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino. After two years at Beaujolais, Kim left to   become Executive Chef at the Old Coast Hotel in Fort Bragg. In mid-1995, Janice and Kim bought the Rendezvous, “where comfort, cuisine and convenience converge.” Situated on a piece of property with fruit trees and an herb garden, the inn boasts six comfortable rooms above the ground floor, where the restaurant is located. A beautiful stone fireplace is in the center of the room – the solarium on the south side of the home offers a perfect setting for the wine tastings that Kim offers.

Kim’s cuisine at The Rendezvous makes use of local foods. He does not follow “trends” and has a loyal following of locals as well as tourists. He loves to try various game recipes – if his guests do not like it, he will take it off or change it.

The restaurant seats 36 people, sometimes doing 50 a night. His cooking is labor intensive. As in many kitchens, he finds staffing difficult. The labor pool in his words is the “labor puddle.”

Living in smaller communities, most of the chefs in the area know each other – such is the case with Kim and Chef Alan Kantor of MacCallum House Inn and Restaurant, in Mendocino. The main inn is a Victorian built in 1882 set amongst flowering gardens. Cottages, barns, and nearby buildings bring the total number of rooms at this unique site to 44.

Executive Chef Kantor offers his cuisine in the Inn’s Restaurant, the Grey Whale Bar and Café. Since this is a bed and breakfast, Chef Kantor and his staff offer guests breakfast and dinner. He offers a “two-tiered” restaurant. The more formal dining is in the former library, warmed by two large stone fireplaces. The café, located in the sun porch facing the Pacific Ocean, offers a more casual dining experience.

The food offered here is all created here – including pasta, breads, pastry, and sauces from stock. Additionally, Alan and his three chefs cure the meat that is served at the Inn. There are 65 seats in the restaurant and café, and 120-130 meals are served a night. The kitchen work is intense but guests taste and appreciate the difference.

Chef Alan uses all organic foods at the restaurant – sustainability is important to him. (His appreciation of his purveyors is demonstrated with an original food-shed map posted at the entrance of the inn.) He changes the main menu every season.

Using all organic and fresh food can pose some challenges, not the least of which is high food cost. To find diners willing to pay for such high quality, the Inn turns to its Web site, which the chef says is a great source of booking. Partnering with wine tour businesses has also proven to be profitable.

The abundance, diversity and, of course, freshness of locally-harvested seafood enables restaurants to showcase crab and salmon. Fort Bragg celebrates a crab festival and salmon barbeque annually.

Mendocino offers wonderful weekend getaways with lots of activities indeed. Nature lovers can hike and enjoy the beaches and coastal bluffs or stroll redwood and oak forests. The popular Skunk Train offers a train ride through the redwoods. Truly, the towns of Mendocino County are rich in both history and culinary treasures.

Stanford Inn, The Ravens
Hwy 1 and Comptche-Ukiah Rd., Mendocino, CA 95437
800-331-8884
www.Stanfordinn.com

Living Light
301-B North Main St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437
706-964-2420
rawfoodchef.com

MacCallum House, Grey Whale Bar & Café
45020 Albion St., PO Box 206, Mendocino, CA 95460
800-609-0492
www.maccallumhouse.com

Rendezvous Inn
647 North Main St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437
707-964-8142 or 800-491-8142
www.rendezvousinn.com