Dinner at Della Fattoria

One of my favorite things, when I am in the Bay Area, is the chance to buy my bread each Saturday at the Della Fattoria stall at the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market.

Anyone who has read this site for awhile will know that I have a soft spot for Della Fattoria bread. What might not be so apparent is that I have a soft spot for the Weber clan, the family that produces these amazing hand-shaped loaves that come crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside, and slightly redolent with the flavor of the wood fires they are baked in. This is bread worth writing home about.

The people behind the bread are no less extraordinary. I first met Kathleen and Ed Weber when I moved back to the Bay Area from Asia and began shopping at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. This was the late ‘90s, when the market had been temporarily displaced from the Ferry Building due to renovations. It had taken up residence in a parking lot at the end of Green Street, a triangular shaped formation that led to walking around in circles.

At one of the points of this triangle was the Della Fattoria stall. It wasn’t the only bakery represented, but the booth stood out thanks to the use of cheerful textiles and baskets. To me it looked like a little bit of Provence transplanted to foggy San Francisco.


Photo courtesy of Della Fattoria

“This is the best bread at the market,” said my friend Amy, who was already a Della devotee. When I tasted it I had to agree with her. San Francisco is a city of good bread, but Della Fattoria is my favorite. I rarely manage to get home from the market with my loaf of bread intact. Somewhere along the way I worm my hand into the bag and rip off a bit.



I began looking forward to my stop at the Della booth every Saturday, saying hi to Kathleen and Ed and picking up a loaf of bread. Over the years, in a long series of quick Saturday morning chats, I heard more about the Della story.

The seed that became Della Fattoria was planted when Kathleen first saw hand-shaped bread loaves at an Il Fornaio restaurant. She says the mere sight of this rustic bread made her heart race and left her feeling giddy. She bought one of each type, took them home, and invited friends over for a meal of soup and bread. Her friends arrived with a copy of the cookbook, The Italian Baker by Carol Field. Kathleen made her first bread starter that evening; she was hooked.

Both Ed and Kathleen will tell you that in the early years they “made a lot of bad bread” in their quest to get it right. Their son Aaron was working in the kitchen at the Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa at the time and brought samples of her bread to the chef there. The chef's father had been a baker and he sometimes gave them feedback. One day he ordered bread from Kathleen for an olive oil tasting he had planned. Kathleen delivered the loaves—enough for the two-day event—and by the time she had driven back to the farmhouse the phone was ringing. It was the chef. "We've sold out of all the bread," he said. "Can you make more?"

The Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa was their first commercial account; their second was The French Laundry.



People began asking about this bread. Kathleen tells the story of a food-loving San Francisco socialite who made the trek up to Petaluma—a good 40 minutes north of the city—to track down the bread she had tasted at the French Laundry. She managed to locate the Weber family ranch, but she arrived on a day of heavy rain. When she got out of her car in the driveway, her designer heels sank into the mud.

For Kathleen’s 50th birthday, friends and family had a wood-burning oven built in her yard as a gift. The baking process used at Della Fattoria relies on radiant heat—the ovens are heated by fire for twelve hours, then left sit for six hours while the heat disperses. Then the bread is put in to bake on the hearth. Son Aaron began helping Kathleen with the baking work, eventually leaving his job to work full time for Della Fattoria.



I loved that this truly was farmstead bread, baked on the farm that had belonged to Ed’s family for years. The Della Fattoria bread starter contains grapes grown from the vines that were planted by the Webers. And I loved the stories Kathleen told me, when we first met, about the bread and her family. How she set the bread starter late at night; how Aaron came into their house early in the morning to start baking; how her baby grandson got into bed to snuggle with his grandparents while his parents started the work of turning out these amazing loaves of bread.



To me the Webers seemed like one of those incredible country families, everyone working together to create something wonderful and real—a quality, tangible product using traditional methods, respect and care . Whether it be bread baking or farming or wine making, there are families still engaged in the honest and honorable hard work of bringing sustenance and artistry from something as basic as flour and water.

I’ve always fallen a little in love with this idea. Perhaps I romanticize it too much—it is hard work, after all—but I imagined the Webers having big country meals together, all sitting at a long table. Kathleen might have mentioned something like this to me, or perhaps I said it to her, but I remember us talking about it. She told me about a film—Antonia’s Line—in which the table gets longer and longer over the years as the circle of family and friends around it grows. I loved this image. The country meal, the long table, a languid time with good food and good friends and wine for all.



That idea of the growth of family and friends meant something to me. Though I was raised in the country, not far from the Webers, my family was small. We had a long table and the trees to put it under, but I never felt like there were enough people to go around the table. There was only the two of us kids and my mom—a single mother who had neither the time nor energy to make or maintain friends. I always wanted more people around, enough to fill a table.

When the farmers’ market moved back to the Ferry , went a few times and then stopped going. It was too big, too packed with people, too gussied up for me. Also, I had been told by a doctor to cut gluten out of my diet, which meant no bread from Della Fattoria. The few times I went to the market I still walked by and said hello to Ed and Kathleen. I went late, after they had sold out of bread and weren’t busy, but it wasn’t the same. Also, I was in grad school at the time. The farmers’ market didn’t fit into my life or my student budget, so I stopped going. But I missed seeing the Webers each Saturday, I missed their bread.



When I started shopping again at the farmers’ market three years ago, I was most excited to see the Webers and to taste their incredible bread again. Kathleen doesn’t always come to the market these days, but Ed is there. They have helpers as well—all equally friendly. And Ed told me they had opened up a café in Petaluma. I couldn’t wait to visit.

One spring weekend, about three years ago, I made a trip north to the Della Fattoria Café in Petaluma, an old agricultural town just over the border into Sonoma County. The café is charming—just the sort of place you’d want to spend time over coffee, a pastry, and the morning paper, or with a friend for lunch. Ed and Kathleen aren’t always there—much of the baking still takes place on the Weber Ranch—but their daughter Elisa often is, and each time I’ve been there the staff has greeted me with the same Weber-style friendliness. It feels warm and cozy, a little bit like home.



The café has allowed the Webers to expand their offerings beyond just bread. I’ve fallen in love with their panforte, their peanut butter cookies are amazing, and tarts like these just speak for themselves, don’t they? I can honestly say that every Della product I have tasted was one of the best versions of that product I’ve ever experienced. These people, this family, they know good food—and they work hard to create it.



When I was in Petaluma at the café—and I stop by whenever I’m heading north—I signed up for the Della Fattoria mailing list, a weekly email that’s sent out with news and special events. That is how I learned about the Della Friday night dinners. On Friday nights the café stays open late to host a dinner.

Dinners at Della? I could hardly wait.

Before I left for Seattle last year, I rustled up a group of friends and made reservations at the café for Friday night dinner. Each week has a different theme—either a winemaker to pour their wines, or a special dish or wine pairing (think crab and champagne, port and blue cheese). The night we were there was Pinot Night, and they were pouring five pinot noir wines.



The café in the evening is warm and casually elegant. There are flowers and wine glasses and interesting chatter from the other tables (nice if you happen to be an eavesdropper, as I am). And if you get there early enough, you can take a peek in the back and watch the staff go about the business of crafting this incredible bread.



You may laugh at me when I say this, but watching this scene is a little bit like watching a ballet—the continual motion of small pieces being cut off the large mound of dough, the loaves being shaped and set aside. As with anyone who is skilled and practiced at a craft, there is a a fluidity and grace that I find transfixing. Laugh if you like, but to me it is beautiful.

And I love to see the small details, the dusting of flour on old wooden floors.



The print of fingers in a basket of flour.



The racks of unbaked bread, each nestled in cloth.



I can think of no place else I’d rather be on a Friday evening, than watching this bread being made and preparing to eat at the Della Fattoria Café. I often dream about having a little ramshackle farmhouse in western Sonoma County, not far from where I grew up. If I did it would mean that I could have Friday dinner at Della every week. This is an idea that makes me seriously happy.

That night the food was delicious—a creamy gratin of new potatoes, a spring bread salad with tender asparagus spears, and one of my favorite of the Della dishes: their polenta. This is upscale comfort food, creamy polenta topped with proscuitto, a soft-cooked egg, slivers of asparagus, chives, and crunchy bread crumbs made from Della bread. I’ve had other versions of their polenta as well as well. Every time I go it's different, but it’s always good.



The night we were there for dinner we were seated at a the long communal table. There it was—the long table I had always imagined. It is an expanse that brings together friends and strangers in the communion of breaking bread and making conversation. Kathleen says that one of her favorite moments at the cafe was when she noticed that the group at the communal table—people who hadn't known each other before that evening—were debating and discussing the existence and nature of god. That's the perfect evening to me, when your palate, heart, and mind have all been fed.

When I ask Kathleen about the cafe, she says it's an extension of the family. "We're by no means perfect people," she says. "We squabble like everyone else, but we do have a vision about what is important in life and it's not about material things. It's about beauty and cooking for each other."



Even though I am mostly in Seattle these day, I still look forward to the Della Fattoria newsletter each Wednesday. I like to watch the menu change through the seasons—the produce is sourced locally, some of it even grown or raised on the Weber ranch. Time has moved on and Kathleen tells me that little baby grandson of hers, the one who used to get tucked into his grandparents bed when the baking commenced, is now seven years old and quite good at shaping a loaf himself (he has his own time card and gets paid when he helps out). Perhaps there will be a third generation of Weber bakers at Della Fattoria some day.

If you are in the Bay Area on a Friday evening, take my advice and go to Della Fattoria for dinner. Take the back roads and let the stress of your week slough off into the rolling golden hills. When at last you reach the old town of Petaluma, you’ll find good food and the feeling of home waiting for you. Sit at the communal table and make new friends—you might even see me there if I am in town. But I should warn you that you may end up wanting to stay forever. I know I always do.

Della Fattoria Café

141 Petaluma Boulevard North

Petaluma, CA 94952

Tel. 707-763-0161

Sign up for the Della newsletter here (scroll to bottom of page)

If you do go, just make sure to save some room for dessert. You'll be glad that you did.

Final table photo courtesy of Della Fattoria