We are working to keep our community fed. I have added the Take n’ Bake menu to my blog with new options for everyone to survive the stay at home order and support family owned businesses.
Our curbside service is helping keep everyone safe including our employees. Click the link below to take a look!
I for one don’t like being told what to do or being confined, it goes against my wild nature. I am trying desperately to think of ways to entertain myself and flip this negative situation around into a positive because that’s how my mind works. This is a good time to do things that perhaps we never made the time for before because we were too busy. For me that would be practicing meditation which I never seem to make time for. Quieting the mind right now seems like a positive thing to do., better than supporting the endless chatter in my mind that says “Your’re all screwed”. Some other ideas would be to try all the new recipes I have ever wanted to cook, start doing yoga, read the stack of books I have collected and never seems to have the time to read. The list goes on and all healthy things to do for one’s mind and body.
We all live in such a fast pace world that maybe the silver lining in all this is just the requirement to stop. One thing is certain we will all be in a different place mentally, emotionally and financially when this is over. The financial impact we have very little control over but we do have control over our mental and emotional state and physical wellbeing. Let’s focus on improving these things so we come out of this stronger not weaker.
These are my goals hope they are helpful to inspire YOU.
Ciao,
Sheri
When Lea and I were on our Wild Mushroom Expedition in Healdsburg, California we visited a local winery named Spicy Vines. We carry 2 of their wines at PizzaVino, their Zinfandel and Syrah. They are exceptional wines at an affordable price.
While visiting their tasting room and meeting with the wine maker Doug Hackett and partner Crystalyn Hoffman we experienced the most fun wine adventure. Not only is Doug a great wine maker but quite the entertainer while passionately describing his wines. His description of his Zinfandel is sex and candy in a bottle. The Dragons Kiss Syrah is described as wrapping yourself in velvet curtains while eating dark chocolate and being sprinkled with flowers. He definitely has a very descriptive imagination and a fun guy. Taste it for yourself to make up your own mind about an appropriate description, personally I like his.
Our private label is a Barbera which he describes as gentle and soft as if you were taking a walk thru the Italian Alps on a spring day, fresh berries, delicate spices and extremely food friendly.
We will be hosting a wine dinner with Doug in the late spring, dates to follow.
Ciao,
Sheri
Fact check: Many people think Italy was the birthplace of pasta, but the oldest noodles ever found were unearthed during an archaeological exploration in China. The noodles, found in a bowl buried under 10 feet of dirt, were made from two types of grain grown in China for more than 7,000 years!
Though there are hundreds of different types of noodles, pasta can be organized into different groups, including long pasta (spaghetti, angel hair), tubes (penne), soup pastas (orzo, alphabet), stuffed (tortellini, ravioli) and special shapes (farfalle, fusilli).
There are approximately 350 different types of pasta around the world — and about four times that many names for them! For example, due to its shape, farfalle pasta is often called “butterfly” or “bowtie” pasta.
Cooks use different shapes and sizes of pasta for different purposes. For example, different shapes hold different sauces better than others.
Some cooks say thin pastas, such as angel hair, should be served with thin sauces, while thicker sauces work better with thicker, heavier pastas. People often pair flat pastas with cream sauces, while tomato sauces seem to cling better to round pastas.
Stuffed pasta requires special pasta shapes, like ravioli and manicotti. What is your favorite pasta?
Ciao,
Sheri
People ask me all the time if we make our desserts in house and the answer is YES! Audrey Arnold is our personal pastry chef with an extensive background in business, catering and baking. She is a master pastry chef and can turn any visual into a beautiful cake. Last year to celebrate our achievements at the Tennis Tournament she made us a cake that was a tennis racket and ball. It was magnificent and tasted incredible. I have seen her creations for birthday parties, weddings, Christmas and all are like nothing I have ever seen. Audrey is an artistic pastry chef and we are so fortunate to have her here at PizzaVino.
One of PizzaVino’s specialties is our Flourless Chocolate Cake. This is labor intensive with many steps before the final product is ready. We melt our finest chocolate and then in sequence incorporate the other ingredients. Then we bake it, let it cool while making the chocolate mousse. Once the cake has cooled we add the mousse and freeze it. The following day we glaze it with velvety chocolate ganache. If you’re a chocolate lover this is for you.
Have your next party at PizzaVino and order a special cake, Audrey can make anything and will surely WOW your guests.
Ciao,
Sheri
With PizzaVinos mobile wood burning Pizza Oven we drive up to your location set up a beautiful buffet table decorated in a Tuscan theme with grape vines and wood planks. Our friendly, professional staff serves you freshly made pizzas and salads of your choosing.
PizzaVinos catering menu isn’t limited to just pizzas and salads. We also offer a choice of appetizers, delicious entrees and desserts.
We cater a minimum of 25 guests and have served as many as 400 at the annual Brew at the Zoo fundraiser for the Living Desert.
Let PizzaVino cater your next party. We promise to make it a huge success.
Ciao,
Sheri
Lea my daughter and manager of PizzaVino talked me into going with her to Sonoma County on a Wild Mushroom expedition. Now I have never been wild mushroom hunting before but I love being out in the forest and like treasure hunts so I was game.
We found many varieties of wild mushrooms not all of them being edible. As everyone knows one must be very cautious as to what you actually pick to eat. Mushrooms
can make you very sick and even kill you if you eat the poisonous ones.
This wasn’t Leas first rodeo with mushrooms and she knew exactly which ones to just admire for their incredible beauty and which ones to bring home. After 4 hours of foraging thru the forest we brought home 4 bags of mushrooms, mostly King and Queen
Boletes.
This will become a yearly adventure with us staying longer so we can bring back enough to run weekend specials at the restaurant. We will let you all know before we go so you can reserve your space in our Wild Mushroom Tasting with Wine paired to compliment the flavors, a true culinary experience.
So it’s that time again…..preparation for Indian Wells Tennis Tournament 2020. People ask me, “How do you put together a restaurant that only runs for 2 weeks while running another restaurant”. Well the short answer to that is that it is CRAZY!!!!
We start preparing 2 months in advance calling all our last year hires hoping they will be onboard for another 2 weeks of insanity. It’s the hardest work one can imagine but a ton of fun and lines the pockets of those that are willing to work that hard. We serve 10,000 people in 2 weeks. Imagine that 10,000 people. That’s 10,000 rollup that need to be done, 10,000 tables that need to be set, 10,000 guests that need there needs met. It’s a high functioning machine that needs to be well orchestrated in order to run smoothly.
The toughest part is when someone you hired quits because they can’t handle the pace, they can’t cut it. Then we are scrambling to replace that person, always last minute, major stressor. Things always seem to work out somehow, someway.
We are very lucky to have friends and family who come to our rescue and wanr to be apart of our craziness, share in the laughs and hard work. We enjoy a good bottle of wine at the end of the day and tell stories about the day and how we can make the next one better. It’s a bonding time for all and a sense of real accomplishment when it’s done.
Come see us out there…..watch our crazy in action ☺
Ciao,
Sheri
The summer of 2014 we were traveling down a country road in Norwood Colorado when we saw a lone Buffalo pacing the fence line. Buffalos are herd animals and require companionship to be happy. Being concerned we asked neighbors what his story was only to discover the previous owner had died and sold off the herd leaving this poor guy alone. Feeling sorry for him a friend and I quickly got to work trying to find him a home where he could join a herd of his own.
In luck we found a Buffalo Preserve outside of Denver that was willing to take him if he tested positive for being 100% Buffalo and not a bison mix. We had to gather a piece of his hair which in itself was an interesting experience but thankfully after sending it to a lab we were in luck, he was 100% Buffalo. Now we just needed to get him to Denver!!!
How do you transport a Buffalo…..very carefully!!! The man who ran the Preserve being a cattle rancher knew large animal handling. He came with a huge truck and managed to load this Buffalo. As it turns out The Buffalo was very gentle and friendly and loaded quite easily. It always amazes me how most animals know when you’re trying to help them.
In remembrance of this Buffalo we named on of our Pizza after him, thus the name Bubba-Bubba. It was a great accomplishment. Bubba now lives on a Buffalo Preserve with a herd of his own outside Denver Colorado.
This is Sheri Pierattoni owner of Piero’s Pizzavino reaching out to you to tell stories about PizzaVino, our staff, make you aware of fun events and menu items.
My first story is about how the Bubba-Bubba pizza got it’s name. It’s an interesting story so I hope you will enjoy it.
All the best,
Sheri
Sheri's PizzaVino Blog