California Spirit + Southern Charm
Author Frances Schultz invites us into Rancho La Zaca where good food and a harmonious setting feed both the body and the soul
Written by Sally Daye
The Southern Style of the title is epitomized by Frances herself and what she brings to her brand of hospitality, which she sees as a calling. “Hospitality—if we allow it, if we intend it—connects us to one another and to community.”
“How we do love our Santa Ynez Valley. Which, by the way, I did not know before coming to it. Somehow I’d missed this gorgeous enclave a stone’s throw from Santa Barbara. It was worth the wait.”
And so begins the latest book by lifestyle maven and transplanted insouciant Southerner Frances Schultz—California Cooking and Southern Style: 100 Classic Recipes, Inspired Menus, and Gorgeous Table Settings. How she got here from her native North Carolina is another story, but suffice to say, “Years ago on a road trip, my husband Tom [Dittmer] stopped by here and thought it was the prettiest ranch country he had ever seen. He knew then he wanted to have a ranch here one day, and here we are. And we love nothing better than sharing it with family and friends.” In fact she loves it so much she had to share it with the world. “Seemed like there was all this goodness and beauty here bustin’ to get out. I just wanted to help it along.”
Frances Schultz at her ranch; like many houses in California, Rancho La Zaca is all about outdoor living. “The porch at left is where we have dinner most nights,” she says, “the vine-covered porch at the right is our weekend lunchtime spot.”
Also “helping along” is Santa Ynez resident and chef Stephanie Valentine, who wrote and tested the book’s recipes. Trained at The Culinary Institute of America in New York and a star protégée of legendary Chicago restaurateur Charlie Trotter, Valentine also served as executive chef at Roxanne’s, a premier raw food restaurant in San Francisco. Says Frances in her book’s Cook Notes, “While I appreciate the many beneficial qualities of raw food-ism, Stephanie no longer subscribes. Nothing against raw food-ists, but thank goodness.” She continues, “The California Cooking in the title is as much about place as it is about food. Our Central Coast is blessed with a year-round growing season and some of the best farmers and winemakers in the country. We created recipes for what we love to eat ourselves. Our aim is not to be startlingly original, and the recipes aren’t complicated. Some do take time. It’s a labor of love. No one says it’s a ‘nothing-to-it’ of love. Isn’t the creating half the fun? This is tried, true, doable, and delicious home cooking of the kind that makes us feel warm and welcome, with a fresh California spirit and a spirited Southern charm. Like a good old friend we haven’t seen in a while, familiar but with new tales to tell.”
“Our Central Coast is blessed with a year-round growing season and some of the best farmers and winemakers in the country. We created recipes for what we love to eat ourselves.”
“Good food and a harmonious setting feed both the body and the soul,” she says. Fortunately, the setting was already there. “Occasionally I dress it up with flowers and such, but the backdrop of our Rancho La Zaca is inspiration in itself.”
Situated along the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail, Rancho La Zaca is part of an original Mexican land grant comprising vineyards, oak savannas, valleys, and mountains as far as the eye can see. The setting no doubt appealed as well to previous owner and actor James Garner, who built the current Hugh Newell Jacobsen-designed, contemporary-style house Schultz and Dittmer live in today. Writes Schultz, “Mr. Jacobsen was a favorite of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had him design her house in Martha’s Vineyard. Funnily enough, the Garners bought the property from actor-director Herbert Ross, then married to Jackie’s sister, Lee Radziwill.” Today’s guests, admits Schultz, “are mostly unfamous but ever-cordial family, friends, and those who might become friends.” As long as they do not use their cell phones at the table, she adds. “I cannot believe there are people who still do that.”
With her Southern manners intact, spirited humor, stylish grace, and some 100 recipes and as many photos, Schultz’s book also marks the chapter following her popular The Bee Cottage Story: How I Made a Muddle of Things and Decorated My Way Back to Happiness. A memoir cum decorating chronicle set in The Hamptons, this poignant and funny tale ends in California with a question mark. The question for now seems well answered in California Cooking and Southern Style. With typical irreverence Schultz notes, “I should have made the new book’s subtitle How I Went from Down in the Dumps to One Dinner Party After Another.”
