Polly’s Paladar (your Nevada City supper club) presents…
In collaboration with the Yuba Watershed Institute’s Fungus Foray
Chef Aaron Thompson
Music with Mariee Sioux
Paintings with Jennifer Rain Crosby
As the rains spill and nature tucks itself in, hushed forests become rich with breath and overflow with underground umami. Baskets beg for stretching spores which have woken with the wetness of the season. After all, we are stewards of the soil. It’s our duty to discover it. I like to imagine myself barefoot, stepping through moss peppered boulders and fallen oak bark. I can feel the pressure of dirt underneath my fingernails and hear the voice of the rain falling. The flurry floods my eyelashes and I squint to see to gather the telluric wealth. I am one who saves the flowers of spring and the berries of autumn. My kitchen holds caldrons of honey soaked elder and baskets of winnowed hawthorn. I spend hours clawing open chestnuts to find the tawny treasure. My summers are graced with tiptoeing through foxtail laden meadows and rose thorn scratches, to collect the golden flower of sacred hypericum. August blackberry outings are a major event. My complete obsession with the wild figs and California Bay trees of the Yuba Canyon drives my family crazy. I travel with a basket and clippers in my car, often pulling over to grab the elderflowers I pass. I KNOW the delight and pride of the forage and it is because of this, that I am overjoyed to announce our 50th Paladar entitled, “Hen of the Woods” in collaboration with the Yuba Watershed Institute’s 19th annual Fungus Foray.
Yes, it is our 50th. That holds substance for me. I never thought we would make it this far. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been hella fun. Thank you for bringing us here. I invite all of you who will participate in the Fungus Foray to join us. However, you don’t HAVE to go to the mushroom hunt to enjoy the Paladar! We will be applying many of the mushrooms found by the foragers that very weekend in the dinner so this is a phenomenal way to experience the flavors of the forest. Please visit http://
CHEF AARON THOMPSON
When I met Aaron Thompson 15 years ago, we were both in a far off land, rich in its own way. We both managed somehow to make sure ending up in Nevada County was part of the equation. Aaron and his beautiful family have built a home and shaped a life around sustainability. They have devoted themselves to reach only as far as their arms can muster, to get the things they need. He spent years cooking gourmet-multi-course meals for himself and anyone who would show up, in his tiny trailer kitchen. Perfecting the art of curing the meats they raised themselves was an obsession. The sanctity of vine ripening, home canning, and teaching their children the joys of spice is not lost on them. Aaron Thompson is a true chef. I do not use that term lightly, either. I’ve met a lot of them. Aaron doesn’t make a living off of cooking food, he just cooks it. All. The. Time. I’ve hired Aaron so many times at the Paladar, I’ve lost track. In fact, when I started the supper club in 2012, I asked him to be a chef for me and it wasn’t until October 2014, that I finally persuaded him to take the helm for the first time at the San Juan Ridge Taxpayer’s Association fundraising dinner event at the Stonehouse in Nevada City. He killed it. Aaron has been a huge supporter of the Paladar. He has spent hundreds of hours creating elements of courses for OTHER chefs. Simply put, ANYONE who has worked a Paladar with Aaron demands to have him by their side from then on in any kitchen work they do ever after. He does not take short cuts, he delights in subtlety of flavor, and he makes unquestionably exquisite food. He is a true gem and I am so proud to see him shine this December on his own.
“Aaron Thompson is a deeply passionate, skilled, and heart centered chef. Working with him over the years has both been inspirational and deeply educational for me. He embodies truly sourcing from what nature provides and utilizing his tried and true commitment to bring astounding flavor to his creations.” ~ Shanan Manuel, Feast & Gather Catering
MARIEE SIOUX
Mariee Sioux writes music that is a rare concoction of beautiful simplicity and haunting intricacies. The sound is absolutely captivating and timeless. Her delicate arrangements mix elements of bluegrass and Native American music. On first blush, the shorthand for most listeners will be to connect the sound of Mariee Sioux with that of fellow neo-folk songstress Joanna Newsom. They both come from the same part of the world — Nevada City, California. Each writes songs tying together the magickal and natural world with the trials of human experience. Sioux’s work has a spacious quality to it too. It has plenty of open air blowing through delicate arrangements that have been filled out with light touches of electric guitar, percussion, flute, and synthesizers. Sioux keeps her songs on path with her fluttering voice and lyrics that compare music to medicine, or rattles off a stream of bucolic imagery that paints vivid, stirring pictures in the mind’s eye. She has shared the stage with kindred spirit, Alela Diane, made an album with fellow folk hero Bonnie Prince Billy, and has led countless travelers through the soaring journeys her vocals inspire. Having her perform for the guests at Polly’s Paladar has been a dream in the making. I can hardly believe that she said yes! Come for the food, stay for the music.
JENNIFER RAIN CROSBY
Jen was one of the first people I met when I moved to Nevada County in February 2002. I have modeled for her drawing class pregnant and then not pregnant. Her capacity to capture the essence of a face in pen is simply astounding. Jen has danced under the pines with me at parties and sung songs with me in various ceremonies over the years, under moonlit nights. All the while, she has been pumping out some of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. I have highlighted her work before at Paladars and she so graciously hangs them. The process of creating art is Jen’s method of communing with an unseen force that resides in her and in the world around her. It makes no difference if she is painting plein air, fantasy, or abstract, the source is the same. The connection comes from within. She lives surrounded by the incredible beauty of the Sierra Nevada foothills in northern California. The land and the people there would inspire any artist to create. Jen sees things every day to paint: the lattice of oak branches against the pale sky, the curving pattern of lichen and moss on granite, wet ponderosa pine bark, dancing manzanita limbs, the creamy and blushing flesh of exposed jurassic soils in the diggins, the enchanting emerald pools of the middle and south Yuba rivers – the list is endless. She particularly loves plein aire painting as it is a direct connection to each moment. It is time and place encapsulated. Each painting becomes a door to the magic of the world we live in. She races the sun’s light in its relentless motion, digs into her strength of intuition to choose color and form without thought. “There is no time to doubt. There is no time to agonize over a choice. There is only the present moment, the canvas, the paint, the brushes, the sun, and the wide world.” -JRC
“Jennifer Rain combines a fine and painterly discipline with a playful sense of people and landscape. She gets the air, the light, its plants, the eyes and ears. By turns magical, precise, global, and local, her ongoing work is a constant and exciting surprise.”
Gary Snyder, poet
***MENU***
(Subject to change based on availability of ingredients)
BREAD: Bay nut cracker, rosemary compound butter, honey
APPETIZER: Porcini Pierogi, Daikon & dandelion, Creme Fraische, Candied blood orange
SOUP: Madrone Consumme, Pine nuts, Scallion, Quail egg
SALAD: Oyster mushroom, Frisee with wild greens, beets, fir tip and elderberry vinaigrette
MAIN: Venison 2 ways: Braised beef with balsamic fig glaze and madrone berry chutney; Ham with blackberry mustard. Wild rice risotto croquette, morel cream. Yerba Santa seasonal veg.
DESSERT: Acorn crepe, pickled persimmon, farm chèvre, candy cap mushroom, manzanita butterscotch, spice cookie, rose hip gastrique.
Allowable Dietary Preferences:
GLUTEN FREE ONLY
Childcare available, upstairs: $8/hour/kid
No Refunds
Gratuity Not Included