“cake and culture:” the delta of the Russian River

delta of the Russian River with the gleaming Pacific beyond

Today instead of whining about our kitchen, presenting tasty food or writing in our vague prose about the glories of California wine, I’m going to take the lead suggested by Heavenly and write something which I shall loosely label “cake and culture,” specifically, about the Russian River in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties.

The Russian River is best known to us as a region for exciting pinot noir production, though according to my online standby, Wikipedia, it has a long and fascinating history. The current name comes from the Russian-American Company. In the Nineteenth Century members of that firm hunted along the river for beaver and sea otter pelts, which they transported back to Russia via Alaska.

The river has been known by numerous other names: Ashokawna, which means “Water to the East;” Bidapte, or “big river;” San Ygnacio or Rio Grande in Spanish; or my favorite of the lot, Slavianka River, “Slav Woman” river. Those Russian guys must have been really worked up in the old days.

sea lions sunning themselves on the banks of the Russian River

There are marvelous redwood trees growing along the river. We stayed in a forest of these in Guerneville on our last visit. The Delta, where the river joins the Pacific Ocean, is stunningly beautiful. We drove along the riverbanks to reach it and the town of Jenner on our last Williams Selyem trip. From the highway, perched somewhat precariously on the cliffs, we saw the water flowing between the river and the ocean. We could just make out some sea lions playing in the water. The whole thing was breathtaking.

Town of Jenner, CA perched along the cliff

Heavenly always finishes her posts on culture with mouthwatering cake. We didn’t actually eat cake on the banks of the Russian River. But we did have breakfast at this tiny coffee shop right nearby before we went shopping for mood rings. I had a marvelous homemade peach cardamom muffin. This seemed like the perfect representation of the Northern California culinary landscape: down home East-meets-West style eating. It was so good that I completely forgot to take a picture and gobbled it up instead. Heavenly would never make that beginners mistake.

Cardamom is a wonderful flavor that I usually associate with Indian food. It hadn’t occurred to me to put in a baked product. Though powerful, it did not overwhelm the peach flavors and went quite well with coffee. Now that the kitchen is back on track, I’m going to try to come up with a recipe for this delightful weirdcombination.

Hope that you enjoy the delta of the Russian River as much as we did.

rocky California coastline