Gourmet Food Services | top
~ Picnic Lunches: You can pick up or have delivered, perfect for a wine-tasting day. Minimum Cost: $20 per person for a group of 6 minimum for simple lunch of a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a beverage. There is an additional drop-off fee of $25 for deliveries between Santa Rosa and Guerneville (including homes located in Forestville & Guerneville).

~ Drop-Off Dinners: Delivered ready for you to heat/finish and serve. Minimum Cost: $35 per person for a three course meal. The containers are disposable and instructions on how to finish are included. There is an additional drop-off fee of $25 for deliveries between Santa Rosa and Guerneville (including homes located in Forestville & Guerneville).

~ Personal Chef Services in Your Home:

    For a single meal crafted for your occasion, cooked in your home by a superb chef, with servers, including wine service if you like: This meal can be served buffet-style ($400 + groceries for up to 20) or as a multi-course sit-down dinner ($400 + groceries for up to eight). Larger parties or more complicated menus may involve more staff and fit under the catering category of services.

    For multiple meals in one day: $75/ hour + groceries ($600 for 8 hours minimum charge). Billable hours will include shopping, preparing and executing each meal and the time between each meal within the day. Costs for additional staff, including other chefs, servers, bartender, etc., may apply.

    Our chef will provide all the customary catering services, in conjunction with the Monte Rio Community Center event planner. Your event can be catered in one of three ways: full service, buffet or family style. Pricing can range from $25-$75 per guest for chef and groceries. This price range is based on specific menu items and courses required, and number of guests. Additional staff, such as other chefs, servers, bartenders, rental equipment, décor, and facility rental will cost extra.

Meet Our Chef | top
Greg Barnes...Greg was born and raised in Northern California to an Italian family with strong feelings about food, family, and nutritious health. For four generations his family has called these northern valleys home. Greg loves to spend a lot of time in both his garden & his kitchen. In the garden he learns from the seasons and the plants themselves. Every year he and his gardener find new varieties of old world heirlooms, searching for new flavors and colors to add to his menus. Greg started cooking at home for his family. Learning about food and basic gardening from his nonna inspired him to start on a passionate journey of food. Greg started locally in Healdsburg under renowned pastry chef Lindsey Shere, formerly of Chez Panisse. He then worked at such places as San Francisco's Bizou, Stars, and Rubicon restaurants, as well as several large catering companies, then spent several years cooking with the Schmitts (of French Laundry fame). The journey then took Greg to Europe, North Africa and Thailand. Coming full circle, back in Sonoma County by 2001, Greg worked with local restaurant success story, Zazu, and then notable Fife's Roadhouse. Now, as proprietor of the home chef and catering business, Simply Good Food, countless happy clients including John Scharffenberger, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Mondavi, Thomas Bartlett, Don and Sally Schmitt, and the Bohemian Grove have all called on Greg to assist with their culinary adventures.

After watching many cultures bring their food from the field to the table, Greg has learned to bring the same quality of life back to your table. He is committed to always using organic, sustainable, local and conscientiously created products. Whether it is the carrots or veal bones in his stock broth or the hand crafted cheeses and crusty sourdough breads enjoyed in front of a fire with a great bottle of wine, you can be sure that you're in good hands, so sit back, relax and let California's flavors show their stuff.

"Growing up in the middle of this garden called Sonoma County with the best ingredients in the world, I focus on simple delicious menus. I believe that I need not go far to find the best ingredients, harvested at the peak of ripeness and prepared in a minimal way will create the best results."   ---Greg Barnes

About Our Food: | top
While Sonoma County wines have established us as a premier wine country destination, Sonoma County locally grown, gathered, produced food is establishing us equally as a gastronomic destination. From the luscious alluvial banks of the Russian River to the emerald foothills of the Mayacamas mountains, mineral-rich soil sustains an incredible bounty of agricultural produce of virtually every kind.

Sonoma County has been at the heart of the development of contemporary California cooking. The gourmet revolution of the 1970's, its origin credited to Alice Waters of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, led to the search for handcrafted ingredients by Bay Area chefs and those ingredients were to be found in the small farms of Sonoma County. These artisan products have led to a Sonoma County cuisine shaped by the seasons, by the land, by the ocean, and by chefs devoted to using what the local land yields at any given moment. Here your dinner in a local restaurant may depend upon what was fresh at the Farmer's Market earlier than day.

Sonoma County cuisine finds its origins in the bounty of our land and sea: heirloom fruits and vegetables, handcrafted cow, sheep, and goat cheeses, hand pressed olive oils that best their cousins in Tuscany, free-range Rocky organic chickens, Willie Bird turkeys, Liberty ducks, emu, local foie gras (the family producers say their geese enjoy the feeding), Willowside and Caggiano homemade sausages, lavender and blackberry honey, brown fertile eggs, 65 varieties of garlic, Arctic Gem white peaches, Moon and Stars yellow watermelons, dozens of varieties of incredibly flavorful mushrooms (oh, the Trump Royale, queen of them all), dozens of heirloom tomatoes (with festivals to celebrate them), all gathered from our land or lovingly cultivated, Dungeness crab, wild King salmon, oysters, and albacore from our coast, everything at our doorsteps, local, fresh, from individuals, not corporate conglomerates.

To find Sonoma County cuisine, you must eat in Sonoma County, for much of its bounty is sold locally, fresh that day, and never reaches any wider distribution. The salmon and crab caught off our coast are sold off the boats in Bodega Bay to locals and served fresh; little or none is left over for distant markets. Our Gravenstein apples do not keep well, so mass distributors have little interest in them. They are a delicious local treat, celebrated in local festivals and sold at roadside stands. Many of our local greens, tomatoes, peppers, and the entire range of vegetables grown here are sold entirely at Farmer's Markets, where the local chefs shop. With our mild Mediterranean climate, virtually everything grows here and something is harvested at any given time during the entire year.

And the bread: we think our bread is the best in the world, not one bread but our entire variety of breads, made in boutique bakeries all over the county. Dare to compare: we lay down the challenge that nowhere in France or Italy will you find the quality of small bakery breads we enjoy here.

It would take a book, or two or more, to describe all the specialty foods that are part of our everyday eating experience in this incredible garden, in this most blessed spot of nature. To enjoy our bounty to its fullest extent, hire a personal chef, someone who comes to your vacation rental, prepares a Sonoma County gourmet meal, mostly or entirely organic since that is pretty much standard here, and shares with you a gastronomic experience of a lifetime. Take back a vision of what eating locally can mean and the memory of our food will enrich your life forever.