As an avid fan of the culinary arts, I’ve long been mystified by the term ‘wine country cuisine.’ I find it in funky, homey urban wine bars as well as swank buttoned-down restaurants with a platoon of certified wine experts at your service.
There is no rhyme or reason, nor a clear definition. So I took my inquiring mind to the source, sitting down with the legendary Cindy Pawlcyn on a recent trip to the Napa Valley. Cindy is a Midwesterner — her first serious restaurant gig was at the Pump Room in Chicago — who moved to the West Coast in 1980.
She was the original chef at St. Helena’s Meadowood Resort and in 1983, along with four partners, opened Mustards Grill along Highway 29 in Oakville. The rest is history. Mustards is a culinary icon in the heart of the Napa Valley and will celebrate its 25th anniversary in June.
If there is such a thing as authentic wine country cuisine, it would be the hearty American fare served up at this unpretentious one-story roadhouse that has been a magnet for vintners and wine enthusiasts alike since the day it opened.
‘At the time there was Auberge and Domaine Chandon, so fancy French,’ Pawlcyn says of the Napa Valley restaurant scene at the time.
‘I wanted a place where people could come in wearing their winery boots. I wanted a good burger and fun things to eat; really fresh, tasty stuff. And I wanted a place where you could hang out.’
The Mustards menu has always been eclectic and unusual, and inspired copycats throughout the United States, but she clings to the belief that she’s merely interpreting traditional cuisine in an eclectic fashion.
‘My definition of wine country cuisine is to try to cook as close to the traditional dishes of the region as I can, using fresh local ingredients,’ she said. ‘And it has to be wine friendly, of course.
‘I get ideas all over – from cookbooks, from friends, out in the garden, talking to the fish guy at 3 a.m. I don’t think you ‘create’ and much as you ‘recreate.’
The Famous Mongolian Pork Chop is the signature dish at Mustards, and the burger is always a hit, there have been a number of popular menu items over the years that will be reprised during an anniversary celebration in June.
‘I’ve saved all the menus from each year of Mustards since the beginning,’ said Pawlcyn. ‘I’ve gone through them and identified all of the big sellers, which we’ll put on the menu through the entire month of June – a history of Mustards Grill.’
I asked Cindy if she would change any recipes from the originals?
‘I think I’m more sophisticated now,’ she said. ‘I’ve traveled more. I’ve eaten more. So I may modernize a few dishes. Once you’ve learned how to cook better, you cook better.’
I came away from my chat with Pawlcyn yearning to know more about the topic. I do believe school will be in session beginning June 1, in Oakville, at Pawlcyn’s historic roadhouse beside the Napa Valley’s main north-south highway. If this isn’t wine country cuisine, I don’t know what is.
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