While it’s only natural for Bohemian readers to imagine our edit staff perpetually robed in cool silks spun from the stuff of our own mulberry trees, having hourly hand massage/information updates from the small squad of Russian spies who live under our office, nibbling delicately on hummingbird hearts and sweet black raspberries from our perma-dynamic, bio-organic gardens—where we perform sun salutations each morning draped in little but blood-free diamonds—and swigging J sparkling for breakfast, only the J part is true. Yes, since the glory days last known as 2007, even we—with our outsized salaries, stealth helicopters and shadow army of unpaid ninja interns—have had to draw our cool silks just a bit tighter in around the waist. (Each of us bravely gave up a spot at this year’s Bohemian Grove Owl’s Nest camp. Let the Bush boys get along without us, we selflessly crowed, knowing that they simply can’t.)
But darned if we don’t still like a treat now and then. That black raspberries have spiked ridiculously in price doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally eat a bowl of them woozy with Straus cream. It is the small pleasures, we assure our Russian comrades when they emerge from the crawl space, that matter. And it is the small pleasures—the “luxe” moments, places and comestibles—that we salute in this year’s Arcadia issue, our annual food and wine guide devoted to the North Bay’s rural bucolic paradise.
The lovely and very forgiving Misty Green is featured on these pages as she wanders the accessible luxury of Healdsburg, from Barndiva to Costeaux Bakery to the H2Hotel to Prohibition to Ravenous. Unless noted, all photos were taken by supremely talented ninja intern Chelsea Lindsey. We hope you enjoy the tiny tipplings that we’ve found so dear.
—Gretchen Giles
