Alexander Mountjoy - Blog & CV

Mise en Place Grocery, Rochester, NY

A brilliant concept whose time has come. I’ve been thinking for a while that a grocery specializing in healthy, prepared foods for take out would be a hit where I live in Sonoma County, California, and here it is in Rochester, my home town, located in the cool South Wedge neighborhood. Ken is the personable, hands-on owner and a chef of this prepared-food focused grocery. Trained in Boston and France. The eclectic, dynamic menu reflects the breadth of his skills. Also offering a selection of gifts and gift baskets, including Dolce Mia soaps.

Taqueria el Favorito — Mexican Taqueria 

565 Sebastopol Rd., Santa Rosa
Between West and Dutton
(707)526-7444

This is the authentic, quality, inexpensive hole-in-the wall tacqueria you’ve been searching for in West Sonoma County. Located at the front of a vast, decrepit shopping center, in what would have once been burger joint, el Favorito looks like a dive restaurant of no consequence.  But the fact alone that its hours are 9 A.M. to midnight suggests it is great.

“Maximum of 3 beers sold when eating in,” says a sign behind the register. The jukebox offers a selection of Spanish-language music. Drive-through available. Also in San Francisco.  By Salvador Lopez. 

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

Michael Alliger
Fine Pruning

Sebastopol
(707)829-3404

When I learned about Michael Alliger it was from a man with a Japanese Maple who described Michael’s first visit, how he contemplated the (small) tree from the yard, then went inside and studied it through the picture window, then came back outside and said, “Yes, I will trim your tree.”

Michael blends the detail of Bonsai with landscape pruning, bringing out the essence of the tree while containing it, allowing the plant to express itself while fitting it into the space provided.

He works with shrubs and small trees—ornamentals, crabapples, and of course Japanese Maples.  Twenty years ago he founded a school of pruning at Merritt College to pursue—and eventually cannonize—his specialty.

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

Renga Arts

Gift Shop

Occidental, CA
(707)874-9407
www.renga-arts.com

We all see the potential in the things we save, like our 70’s record collection we are sure one day we will listen to again.  Some of us, like my father-in-law, have vast personal collections, which in his case includes typewriters from the ‘50s, old timepieces, and antique Boy Scout manuals.

Renga Arts is where these old articles come to life – altered and transformed into beautiful accoutrements, jewelry and object d’art.  Record albums become bowls, typewriter keys become bracelets, hardcover Boy Scout manuals become journals.  All items in the store are made from reclaimed, salvaged, or recycled materials, and all are of museum-store quality and ingenuity. With an eye for the unique, the hip and uber-stylish trends, Renga’s collection is hand-picked from a world of candidates by Sherri Huss and Joe Szuecs.

Hours 11-5, F,S,S,M

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

Willie Bird Turkeys
Real Wood-smoked
Natural, free-range, no additives
Sonoma County, CA

Outlet store: Highway 12 at Llano Rd.
Santa Rosa (but near Sebastopol)

(707)545-2832
www.williebird.com

“Willie cracks the corn for his turkeys.  He loves his turkeys,” says a clerk in the outlet store. Founded in 1963 by Willie Benedetti, and now the last independent turkey producer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Willie Bird ships its free-range, all-natural smoked poultry products all over the world: Smoked turkey legs to Japan for the American army, smoked chicken breast to Guam, turkey bacon to Hong Kong.  On the Monday before Thanksgiving, 5 tractor-trailers depart the Willie Bird shipping facility loaded with 8,000 mail order whole birds.

Suppliers to presidents, queens and Marthas, at home Willie Bird maintains a low-key outlet store on Highway 12. The prices are great and the array of turkey products is boggling:  Ground turkey, turkey hot Italian sausage, turkey apple breakfast sausage, turkey jerky, smoked turkey bacon, smoked peppered turkey bacon, smoked uncured turkey bacon, turkey steaks, smoked turkey spread….  

You can also find Willie Bird meats at the best markets in Northern California. A valuable holiday tip is to order whole birds through your local grocer, such as the Bohemian Market in Occidental, or Pacific Market in Sebastopol or Santa Rosa.  The prices are about what you’d pay at the outlet store and you’ll avoid the long lines. In summer, you can find Willie Bird smoked turkey legs at many local outdoor events, like the Santa Rosa Farmer’s Market and the Sonoma County Fair. 

Managed by the affable Beagle Brodsky.

Studio Nouveau
Liquid Metal Jewelry

Duncans Mills, CA
(707) 865-2461
www.studionouveau.com

Studio Nouveau in Duncans Mills, at the mouth of the Russian River, carries one of the largest selections of Liquid Metal jewelry by Miami Beach based designer Sergio Guttierez (http://www.liquidmetalbysg.com) in the world.  If the beautiful trip out this direction doesn’t figure in your near term plans, you can shop online at www.studionouveau.com

Elegant and seductive, these necklaces, chokers, bracelets, rings, earrings…and halters and skirts…made of soldered silver/nickel ball chain have a diamond-like ability to attract attention.  On the body they are brilliant, form-following and arresting.  Even the bracelets seem seem somehow revealing.  It is this captivating quality that is the singular magic of the line.

Studio Nouveau also offers personal and home accessories, candy and gifts.  By Andrea Record

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

Chris Hayes
Jazz Guitarist

Private Functions, Expert lessons   
Santa Rosa
(707)544-6810

At the Upper Fourth Jazz Club on a Friday afternoon, with very “jazzy” weather—the first showers of October coming down in heavy drops, with great holes of bright blue sky and the sun still shining strongly through one of them in the West—Chris Hayes was playing guitar, silhouetted against the windows, with his keyboardist Tim, just jamming and nodding appreciatively at each other whenever things took a really groovy turn, and I was sitting deep in a leather couch alone in front of the fireplace watching and listening to them and sipping my cocktail and thinking, “God, I’m enjoying life at this particular moment.  You guys are making my day.”

Chris was lead guitarist for Huey Lewis & The News for twenty years—He wrote Workin’ for a Livin’, among other tunes—and has been retired for a few, and is now raising a family in Northwest Santa Rosa.  Because he enjoys it, he plays private parties with his keyboardist and other friend-musicians who happen to be around.  He also teaches intermediate to expert levels.  His easy-going, modest demeanor (no gold records on the wall) and good humor make any association with him a pleasure.

Chris comes from a musical family, one of 7 children.  But as Huey says, he’s “the pick of the litter”. 

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

How to Trap Gophers Like a Master
Lesson #1

Make sure you identify an area of fresh activity—”New works” as Fred Bollinger says, a Master whose record for one year is 89.

With trapping, your goal is to locate the gopher, underground, and put the trap right in front of him. If you put your trap in a site of old activity, all your hard digging and dirty knees will be in vain.  Dry dirt typicall indicates the gopher has moved on.  As you’re scrabbling around, making a hole big enough for your trap, he’s pulling down tomato plants in another part of your garden.

New works is what you need.

Source: Fred Bollinger, Sebastopol, CA

Next: How to make a gopher hide hat.

© Alex Mountjoy 2007

(707)874-2797

All-Natural Sausages
Occidental, CA
 
Panizzera sausages are made by Bob Panizzera according to his grandfather Constante’s recipe and some newer ones of Bob’s own invention. They are made with no fillers or preservatives, and in some recipes with ingredients that only he (being grandfathered) is allowed by the USDA to use, such as fresh garlic and wine.  Because Panizzera does everything himself—from cooking and packing to delivering—his distribution list is shorter than a pig’s tail.  Fresh Pannizzera sausages—an especial treat—are available only at the Bohemian Market in Occidental.

Cotati, CA
(707)285-2200
www.msmosquito.com

Mosquito Abatement Services

Rarely does the product of one’s tax dollars seem either wondrous or satisfying, much less both.  There was a time I would consider the asphalt beneath my wheels and think, Well, it is all worth it just to have a smooth ride.  Nowadays, however, driving the pothole-stricken roads of West Sonoma County, this thought seldom rises to my mind.  In its place, restoring my faith in the government’s occasional ability to aptly deliver valuable services is the Marin-Sonoma Vector Control Agency.  For free, an employee of the agency will check your property and treat your ponds and fountains for mosquito larvae, even stocking your standing water with mosquito fish.