MenuPlease

Bruciante, adj, Italian, m/f. .che brucia, accesa, acceso, brillante. English: Burning, fired, lit up, blazing, on fire. Verb, to scorch, to sear, to burn, to burn up

Though there have been ovens as long as people have been cooking (any covered vessel or firepit containing food and heated from an external source may be said to work on the same principle as an oven), it was not until tribes stopped wandering and settled into stable non-nomadic groups that ovens began to be developed past the rudimentary stage. (Interestingly, ovens were apparently developed worldwide independently by peoples who had no knowledge of the folks 6000 miles away.)Flues were added as was insulation to prevent fires from escaping and to ensure a continuous heat. As these little villages moved from hunting food to growing it, grains and grasses were harvested, dried, ground, and made into breads. Likewise, yeast has captured and used in cookery since 4000 BC (give or take a few years), making leavened bread possible. It probably wasn't great bread, but provender is provender. When your main objective in life is to escape the plague, the Barbarians at the gate, and Things That Go Bump In The Night, seeking out the perfect baguette is low on your priority list.

For the next several millennia, cooks dealt with the imperfections and fluctuations of ovens heated with wood, coal, oil, kerosene, peat, and dung (yes). Given the guesswork involved in gauging oven temperatures as well as the laughably vague recipes passed down from previous generations of cooks, there must have been an enormous failure rate for baked grain products. It wasn't until the first quarter of the 20th Century that ovens with temperature regulation became widely available, coinciding with a brief mania for a "scientific" approach to food preparation. As modern kitchen equipment & techniques evolved with precise temperatures and measurements spelled out, perfection seemed virtually guaranteed. Nowadays the plague, Barbarians, and ghoulies & ghosties & long-legged beasties aren't as worrisome as they once were, so we have the luxury of enjoying perfectly-baked bread and related foods for more than just their life-sustaining properties.

It may seem a few giant steps backwards, then, that purveyors of bread products are now embracing a return to wood-fired ovens. Why would anyone in their right mind willingly give up the convenience of gas- or electric-fired ovens to stand over a huge primitive oven, feeding it handfuls of wood, just to bake? You can talk all you want about the purity of such foods, the creation of artisan breads & pizzas, exploring ancient methods of food production, but the only answer that matters: it's better.

Bruciante Wood Fired Pizza opened on Hilltop Drive late last year in a kiosk formerly occupied by a drive-through coffee flogger. Pizzas are made to order and baked on a portable wood-fired oven hauled around on a trailer. It takes no longer and costs no more to get a 10-inch pizza than it does to go into a cafe and get a sandwich - and this is truly wonderful pizza.



House salad, $6.00

Just because there's always someone who says, "Oooh, I'm on a diet," Bruciante makes a colorful, delicious house salad, and it's worth ordering whether you're on a diet or not. Mixed organic greens with dried cranberries, candied pecans, a choice of blue cheese or feta, and a perfect blend of Lucero olive oil and balsamic vinegar - this is one of the very best salads in Redding, and at a bargain price. We picked the last tiny leaves out of the container and squabbled over the last of the balsamic-soaked cranberries.



Blue moo, $9.00 plus $1.00 for tomato addition

Blue cheese on a pizza? Yes, please. This tangy pizza combined bits of top sirloin, blue and mozzarella cheeses on red sauce, Femme de Joie requested cooked tomatoes to be added for an acid bite to contrast with the rich cheeses. This was the first pizza we tried at Bruciante, and how very fine it was. M. de Joie and Amico del Signore exulted over the tender crust that still supported the ingredients without collapsing, the quality of ingredients, and the smoky edge of wood-fired flavor.



Smokey basil, $8.00 plus $1.00 for tomato addition

A variation of the classic margherita pizza, smoked mozzarella substitutes for plain and gives the impression that you're eating a pizza with meaty flavors. A thin drizzle of basil olive oil set off the raw cherry tomatoes (added by request) beautifully. Think of bruschetta - this was a like a cheesy baked bruschetta, though not overwhelmed with so much cheese that it was a fatty globule atop a crust.



Caesar salad, $6.00

In addition to the house salad, Bruciante makes a special salad every day. Caesar was the traditional Romaine lettuce with a lemony-tart creamy dressing, croutons, and mizithra cheese in place of the usual Parmesan. Femme de Joie practically requires anchovies on her Caesar but recognizes that most people run screaming from the room if faced with one of those salty, oily little fillets, so she will let this matter slide for now. The mizithra cheese almost made up for it. Not familiar with mizithra? Well, if Parmesan is subtle, earthy and aged, the essence of umami of cheeses, then mizithra is sharp, snappy, and in-your-face.



Blazin' Buffalo, $9.00

Chicken on pizza has never appealed to M. de Joie. It just seems so wrong. But here the chicken breast is shredded into a spicy Buffalo-wing sauce to keep it moist - none of those odd little moon rock-like pellets of desiccated chicken here - and topped with mozzarella, blue cheese, and more of that delectable mizithra cheese. For full enjoyment: have cold bottles of beer in refrigerator. Put beer mug in freezer. Call Bruciante and order Blazin' Buffalo (maybe two). Go pick up pizza and bring home. Pop open beer, pour into frozen mug. Stuff face. You'll thank us later.

Let us be clear: this is not pizza as most Americans think of pizza. No pile-it-all-on combinations. No extra-gargantuan-stuffed-crust pizza to feed six people. You don't have a choice of twenty-five toppings. No, this is the Mies van de Rohe of pizza. The ingredients are sourced locally and organic if possible - you can get an additional veggie (say, zucchini or bell peppers) from the farmer's market added to your pizza for one measly buck; sometimes Sweetie's Barbecue is called up to provide smoked meats for specialty pizzas. Dough and sauces are house-made. It's too bad that beer isn't served because this pizza really deserves a cold one with it, but that problem is solved by taking it home and enjoying it there. M. de Joie wasn't expecting to see top-quality pizza in Redding anytime soon, so the appearance of Bruciante has made her - and A. del Signore - very, very happy. This place deserves to succeed.

Bruciante Wood Fired Pizza, 2491 Hilltop Drive #C, at the corner of Commerce (north of IHOP in a parking lot by Remax), Redding. 530-242-6128. Open Monday-Friday, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Cash, cards. Closed weekends. Drive-though or eat at one of the tables. No alcohol. Vegetarian & vegan options. Small parking lot on-site. Follow them on Facebook here.

Femme de Joie isn’t sure if the Redding Old Millhouse Deli was ever really an Old Mill. She does recall in the late 1970s when she’d drive by on her way to Brandy Creek, Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra playing on the 8-track, and seeing the mystifying Shufflin’ Beaver sign out front. There were whispers about what kind of a place that was and being a hopelessly naïve young gal, M. de Joie never darkened that door, which she now deeply regrets.

Since those days, Old Millhouse Deli has become more decorous, if not quite mainstream. Situated barely half a mile west of Buenaventura on Eureka Way, it decidedly feels more Old Shasta than Redding. The interior is rustic wood with oddments of gourds, 20s-style wall paintings, and hackamores hanging on the walls. The spacious back room has a panoramic view and there's a pleasant patio for dining outside and large lawn available for parties, weddings, etc. Occasionally there's live music, as evidenced by the instruments set up.

Old Millhouse's menu is casual, mainly sandwiches and salads, with an occasional special like lasagna thrown in. Most of the food is good but sometimes the portions aren’t in keeping with the price.



Cream of broccoli soup and macaroni salad, $3.75 each

Side dishes are generous - for $3.75, they should be - and freshly prepared. The cream of broccoli soup was smoothly wonderful with good broccoli flavor in a light creamy base, topped with a sprinkle of shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheese. Macaroni salad would have been delicious if it had been made with real mayonnaise instead of Miracle Whip (M. de Joie is aware many people love Miracle Whip but she is not one of them).



Laurie's deluxe french dip, $9.25

Laurie's Deluxe, $9.25, a French dip with cheddar, jack, red onions, and chopped Ortega chiles on an onion roll. The sandwich was hot and freshly made with tasty ingredients, but onion rolls being the size they are, there wasn’t a lot of it.



Old Millhouse Deli double deluxe spinach salad, $9.25

Double Deluxe Spinach Salad, $9.25, was topped with avocados, crumbled blue cheese, tomatoes, bacon bits, hard-cooked egg, cheese, tomatoes, and croutons on a thin bed of fresh spinach, vinaigrette on the side. Again, what was there was fresh and tasty and attractively composed, but it really wasn’t a full meal salad.



Sides of potato salad and clam chowder, $3.75 each

Sides of potato salad and clam chowder, $3.75 each. These were very good - the hot chowder was comforting on a cold rainy day. Potato salad, accented with bits of celery and pickle and made with mayonnaise, was a good accompaniment to a sandwich.



Triple-decker club, $9.25 with soup or salad

A triple-decker club was good value for money - plenty of turkey, avocados and tomatoes on toasted wheat, with a choice of soup or salad for $9.25.



Old Mill Deli lasagna, $9.75 with soup or salad

Lasagna was a lunch special for $9.75, including soup or salad. It looked and smelled good was but disappointingly bland, with squashy overcooked noodles and not much flavor from the cheese and meat filling.

On the one hand, Femme de Joie loves the atmosphere at Old Mill Deli. On a cold rainy day it was warm and inviting inside, where a customer could sit in the back by the windows and listen to the rain, almost feeling like she was in a cabin at the coast. During good weather, it’s very pleasant to sit at a table in the garden and enjoy the shade of Japanese maples. There’s a good beer and wine selection, and it would be most enjoyable to sit with friends and have a drink or two in this relaxing café. Service is friendly and quick. On the other hand, some of the prices are a bit high for the portions served, and some of the food could be better.

Still, this is a unique local place and worth the short drive to have lunch. It really isn’t far from downtown Redding and you could find yourself calling back to work - “Yeah, got a flat tire. I’ll be back at the office in an hour … or two.”

Old Millhouse Deli, 4478 Eureka Way, Redding, CA 96001. 530-241-9011. Open Monday-Friday 10:30 am - 2:30 p.m. for lunch, 5 p.m. - 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights for homemade pizza. Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. On-site parking. Cash and checks only, NO CARDS.

In her time M. de Joie has enjoyed many a fine meal in the Napa Valley. In particular she reminisces pleasantly about the 1000-Almond Duck at Mustard's in Yountville, the rabbit at the sadly late Catahoula in the Mount View Hotel in Calistoga, and the frisee with lardons and a poached egg at Thomas Keller's Bouchon (since the oil well in the back yard has yet to pay off, that is as close as M. de Joie is going to get to Keller's $240.00-including-service dinners at the French Laundry).

In recent trips, though, it seemed to her that some of the more heavily touted places, such as Cindy Pawlcyn's Go Fish in St. Helena were long on hubris and short on results. While Mlle. de Joie does not mind spending money on good food, she does object to being ripped off. Both service and the quality-slash-quantity of food served seemed to have suffered, replaced by very small portions of peculiarly-combined foods presented beautifully on very large plates by waiters who were more concerned with larger parties and the 20% tip they hoped to get.


Recently M. de Joie and Amico del Signore spent a few days in Calistoga. In our opinion, this little town at the north end of the Napa Valley is the only place to stay while doing a little wine tasting. To be sure, there are plenty of accomodations in Napa, Yountville, St. Helena, and so forth, but Calistoga beats them all for charm, peacefulness, dignity, and value for money.



Where to Stay:

Washington Street Lodging features small cottages with effencies or full kitchens on a quiet street along the Napa River. We parked there and walked to Lincoln Avenue (downtown). A good value.

Dining:

All parking is on the street, which shouldn't be a problem.

Checkers, 1414 Lincoln Avenue, (707) 942-9300. Cash, credit cards. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Beer and wine.

Checkers is decorated in warm earthy tones with a vaguely Italianate feel. Tables are covered with butcher paper over the tablecloths. Service is offhand: you better know what you want because the servers aren't up for giving much detail.

We enjoyed fat wedges of warm rosemary foccacia bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to start.


.
The Calistoga salad, with frisee, baby greens, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, blue cheese, pine nuts, honey-mustard dressing.

.


.
Greek salad: Romaine and leaf lettuces, cucumbers, red onion, olives, feta, yellow and red tomatoes.


.
The Mediterranean pizza with feta, red onion, olives.
.


Thai pizza - chicken, cilantro, peanuts, shredded carrots, lime, mozzarella.

Checkers also features pasta (a clerk in Zenobia Dress Shop down the street waxed rhapsodic over the garlic prawn linguine) and more substantial mains such as leg of lamb.

Hydro Bar and Grill, 1403 Lincoln Avenue, (707) 942-9777. Cash and credit cards. Full bar. Open at 8:30 AM for breakfast. Closes: late.
.

.
As we strolled along Lincoln Avenue late in the evening, we passed Hydro Bar and Grill and were drawn in by live swing jazz floating through the open windows.
.


It was a serendipitous find: not only did the Hydro have wonderful music and a lively crowd that crossed all lines - age, race, income, sexual orientation - but the bar is by far the most inclusive we'd ever seen. Bottles lined up on the stone bar (where you can actually pick them up and take a closer look) included specialty vodkas (Acai and blueberry, anyone?) and anejo tequilas that had certainly escaped our eyes. There are twenty - twenty! - beers on tap, including a healthy selection of Northern California microbrews such as Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.

And the food isn't bad either.
.

.
An appetizer order of Pimentos de Padron was $6.95, about two dozen thumb-sized peppers, sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with salt. As Calvin Trillin wrote in Feeding a Yen, these sweet and crunchy peppers are highly addictive.

We enjoyed breakfast one morning at Hydro - Eggs Bennetto, poached eggs on a thick cake of polenta, creamy marinara poured over and a sprinkle of Parmesan, paired with chicken-apple sausages, and a whole-grain French toast with fresh fruit were both filling and slightly out of the ordinary.

Service was fine when we visited, though there are rumors that it can be disorganized and slow. We had no complaints.

Puerto Vallarta, 1473 Lincoln Avenue. (707) 942-6563. Cash and credit cards. Beer and wine.

At one end of Lincoln Avenue is the popular Pacifico Restaurant. It's perfectly good, has a full bar, and serves Sunday brunch. Nice place. But if you eat there, you might miss the delights of Puerto Vallarta. This little hole in the wall offers delicous, authentic Mexican cuisine at bargain prices.

NOTE: This Puerto Vallarta is not, as far as we could tell, related in any way whatsoever to the Puerto Vallarta chain.
.

.
There's an shady outdoor patio just off the street; it leads to a small cafe that shares a fenceline with Cal-Mart Supermarket next door.
.



Enchiladas rancheras with rice and beans. Mlle. de Joie asked if carnitas could be substituted for the usual beef-chicken-cheese choices and the waitress was happy to do so.
.


.
Chile rellano and a bean taco plate.
.
What we liked: the freshest of salsas, mild and flavorful, with crisp chips. We loved that the plates were not topped with handfuls of shredded cheese to add nonessential fat and a gummy coating to cover up all other tastes. The refried pinto beans were made on-site - not the usual puree, these were about half mashed and half left whole. And the greenery accompanying the taco was not the watery crunch of iceberg lettuce, but a flavorful shred of leaf lettuces and cilantro. Fresh-made iced tea had a surprising fruity taste that was refreshing with the hot food.

We liked Puerto Vallarta enough to eat there twice in one day. While Amico del Signore ordered the chile rellano and crisp bean taco again - they were that good - M. de Joie opted for a tongue soft taco and a bowl of shrimp ceviche. The taco was small, tender, juicy, with squares of tongue dressed with cilantro and tomato. Finding ceviche on a restaurant menu is well-nigh impossible in Redding but not at this little place that caters to a largely Mexican clientele. The ceviche was tart with lime, crunchy with lemon cucumbers, filled with small shrimp and fresh vegetables: refreshing on a warm summer night and virtually fat-free.

Bosko's Trattoria, 1364 Lincoln Avenue. 707-942-9088. Cash and credit cards. Open seven days for lunch and dinner. Website at http://www.boskos.com/

We wanted to like Bosko's. It gets great reviews and the staff is friendly and helpful. It's attractive and peaceful inside. But not everything was quite up to par.

The list of wines by the glass is fairly extensive and reasonably priced for the Napa Valley, including a few Italian wines such as a rosseneu. In addition to tasting flights, Bosko's also offers a flight of beers - three half-pints for $8.00.

Our waitress was cheerful and helpful, but she advised us that a half-order of garlic bread was plenty for two people. Perhaps two people who aren't hungry is what she meant.

We ordered house salads - a nice balanced mixture of greens with cherry tomatoes and a "creamy Italian dressing" that didn't seem at all creamy, but did enhance the greens nicely. Both of us ordered spaghetti with marinara and a side of meatballs. The marinara was quite spicy and tasted of tomato paste; the spaghetti was regrettably overcooked. However, the meatballs had a good meaty texture and herby flavors of basil and oregano. Fortunately the pastas came with additional bread and butter - otherwise we would have left still hungry.


To sum: there is plenty of good food to be had in Calistoga, and you don't need to spend the moon for it. But buyer beware: not all bargains are created equal.

Next: food shopping in wine country.