Taste of the Valley: Hello and good-bye

By Register Staff

The Restaurant at Meadowood is welcoming new chef Christopher Kostow this week as it also bids fond farewell to Joseph Humphrey, chef since the renovated restaurant reopened in May of 2996.

The Restaurant is offering a “Four Star Dinner” tonight as well as on Friday and Saturday as both tribute to Humphrey and welcome to Kostow.

The special eight course menu includes morel tea, black truffle and pecorino crumpet, Dungeness crab with Bartlett pear, foie gras with Fuji apple, wild striped bass roasted over fennel, lobster and sweetbreads, Wolfe Ranch quail with romesco sauce, slow poached grass-fed beef with parsnips and Brussels sprouts, plus butterscotch soufflé with Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream.

Cost of the Four Star Dinner is $155 per person. Sommelier Rom Toulon will pair wines with each course for an additional $115. For reservations, call 967-1205. Space is limited, according to director of wine and cuisine Patrick Davila.

Humphrey is leaving Meadowood to accept the position of executive chef at the new Cavallo Point — the Lodge at Golden Gate, slated to open this summer at Fort Baker. He will serve as chef for Murray Circle, the restaurant in the restored Colonial Revival buildings at Fort Baker, as well as be in charge of the culinary program at Cavallo Point.

Kostow comes to wine country from another Michelin two star restaurant, Chez TJ in Mountain View. His culinary career includes working as sous chef at San Francisco’s Campton Place under executive chef Daniel Humm. He also worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, Montpellier and on the French Riviera.

Zen in the kitchen

Edward Espe Brown, author of the celebrated “Tassajara Bread Book” and “Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings” and subject of the film, “How to Cook Your Life” speaks at Copia, Thursday at 8 p.m.

Brown began cooking and practicing Zen in 1965 and was ordained as a priest by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1971. He has been head resident teacher at each of the San Francisco Zen Centers: Tassajara, Green Gulch and City Center, and has led meditation retreats and cooking classes throughout the United States, as well as Austria, Germany, Spain, and England.

The lecture and interview will be conducted by Dorothy Lind-Salmon. This lecture is made possible by the generous support of Steve Gregory of Morgan Lane.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling 259-1600, or online at www.copia.org.

“How to Cook Your Life” premiered October 2007 and will screen at Copia, Friday at 8 p.m.

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