Thursday, December 8, Mendocino
Friday, December 9, Fort Bragg
Saturday, December 10, Little River
Sunday, December 11, Elk

About 40 people attended the May 7 event at $75 / person. The atmosphere was upbeat, participants in a good mood and a lot of good conversations going on between the small group. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great event and can’t wait for next year. The proceeds go to help restoration projects for the Ford House.

St. Anthony’s Church in Mendocino throws opens its doors Saturday, November 14, for its third annual Wine and Mushroom Festival, 1-5 p.m.    The party is in the church hall at 10700 Lansing Street, overlooking the village.Tickets are $25, and that includes a wineglass; proceeds benefit the Mendocino community.  For more information, call 707-937-2406.

For the palate, guests will enjoy wine tasting from eight premier vintners, and sips of mushroom soup from six local restaurants – part of a Mushroom Soup Competition which gives guests a chance to vote on their favorite, and the winner, a handsome plaque.

To further tantalize the taste, a variety of homemade mushroom appetizers will be passed throughout the afternoon, and candy cap mushroom ice cream cones will be served.

Featured Guest Eric Schramm is extremely popular with festivalgoers.  The mushroom expert brings an educational display, and talks with them about the varieties of the fungi    They may have read about Eric’s Mendocino Mushroom Co. in Oprah’s O magazine last month.

Adding to the celebration is music performed by Starlight Trio, plus a silent auction of valuables, collectibles and one-of-a-kind finds – all up for bid.

When Chris and Tricia Kump open the doors of their new European-style retail bakery October 14, customers will be transported back 100 years in time. And they probably won’t even know it.

Of course, history will not be on the minds of most locals and tourists when they begin lining up at 7:30 a.m. for freshly baked breads, bagels, pastries, and espresso, and at 11:30 for pizzas, soup, salads and no-wait sandwiches.

They’ll be lured by the culinary creations of Chris Kump, a Paris-trained chef, and Philippe Garcia, an artisan baker from Lyon, France.

While Kump, Garcia and their team labor behind the scenes baking the day’s hearth breads and pastries in state of the art ovens, however, one piece of culinary equipment will be the center of everyone’s attention: a large brick façade pizza oven in the retail café.

Although the pizza oven is a relatively new addition to the building, the seasoned bricks are actually over 100 years old, part of the original oven, which began operation as early as 1909, when the Fort Bragg Bakery opened at its current location. To add some perspective, that was just three years after the 1906 Earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed San Francisco (and part of Fort Bragg), and the same year the nearby Point Cabrillo Lighthouse was being completed.

Now, the Rest of the Story
The bricks had been removed by the previous building owner and were thought to have been discarded in a landfill. Instead, they ended up covered with brambles in a backyard where Chris and Tricia rescued them earlier this year. After laboriously scrubbing them clean and careful planning, they returned the venerable bricks to their original home.

“With the help of the Fort Bragg Historical Society, previous owners and workers and a lot of our own research, we discovered that the bakery dates from at least 1909,” explained Tricia. “That is the earliest date we found records for the presence of the brick oven.”
Among those who helped reconstruct the history of the oven and bakery was Don Dutil, known as “Donut Dutil” by his classmates in the 1950’s, when he cooked as many as 120 dozen donuts for mill workers each morning before attending classes at Fort Bragg High.

“Chris and I both love history,” said Tricia, who points with pride to a “history wall” of old photos that she is assembling. The pictures and oven will transport us all to another time. The smell of fresh, hot pizza coming out of the oven will snap us back.

I just found another great breakfast place on the Mendocino Coast: the Rollerville Café at the Lighthouse Pointe Resort. Located at Highway 1 and Lighthouse Road in Point Arena, 35 miles south of Mendocino Village and 15 miles south of Highway 128, it is family run, offers great breakfasts for about $10, and is the perfect place to fuel up before strolling next door in the Stornetta Preserve or visiting the newly reopened Point Arena Lighthouse museum and gift shop. Rollerville, also known as Flumeville, was named for the way logs were rolled up the hill to waiting wagons in the late 1800’s, according to Alysia Calkins, who owns the café with her mother, Dorothy Barrett. She provided us a history book with photos along with our hash.

The day my wife, Gerry, and I visited, Alysia was waitressing and her brother, Sterling, was cooking. Sterling made the best fresh corned beef hash I have ever eaten. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not a food writer, so I won’t try to toss about a bunch of culinary jargon. I can only tell you it is spicy with a little bit of crispness and I loved it. In addition to food, Lighthouse Pointe resort offers cabins and parking for RV’s.

After breakfast, drive to Stornetta, walk toward the old coast guard houses ¾ miles distant and look back at the waterfall pouring into the ocean. Afterward, continue down Lighthouse Road to the Point Arena Lighthouse for a tour. The lighthouse tower has been reinforced and the fog signal building remodeled. The Fresnel lens is now in the museum.

Docent-led historic walking tours will run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday and include buildings not open to the general public, such as the Masonic Temple, Presbyterian Church, and the Temple of Kwan Tai. Historic characters come alive on the cemetery tour and through old-time radio broadcasts.  Visitors can tour heritage roses at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens or talk with historic characters on the Skunk Train.

April 11 & 12 @ 10am: Easter Egg Express
Join us on the Skunk Train for an Easter Egg Hunt, fun and games and a surprise stop to visit the Easter Bunny. Goody bag provided. Departs Fort Bragg. Adults $47 Child $22 866-457-5865

April 11 from 11am-2:30pm: Bunny Camp
Children ages 3 – 7 are invited to join us for Bunny Camp. The Easter Bunny will welcome campers for crafts and an Easter egg hunt! Campers will decorate eggs, bags and cookies and have their faces painted. Then join the dash as the Easter egg hunt begins! Two sessions: 11:00 am to 12:30 pm and 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm The camp fee is $10 per camper with a limit of 35 campers per session. This event supports the Friends of Mendocino Coast Animal Shelter.  707-937-5942 for reservations. This event will sell out, so please call early.