Dean & DeLuca
607 South St. Helena Hwy, St. Helena, CA
http://www.deandeluca.com/aboutus/NapaValley.aspx
Review date: April 2013

This nationally known fine foods purveyor is located just south of St. Helena's downtown, on the road down to Yountville. They have 14 stores across the U.S., with this one being their only California location. Sited on the west side of Hwy 29, it's easiest to look for the amazing curved roof of Flora Springs Winery's Tasting Room next door (677 South St.). 

D&D is the next building over: a big featureless beige rectangle that you'd pass right by except for the austere "Dean & DeLuca" near the roofline.

As I don't usually feel like cooking dinner when we return from a trip – not to mention there is nothing much left in the refrigerator and I hate using the microwave to defrost food – we decided to hit the delis to buy some bread, cheese and paté for dinner. Our original plans were to visit Dean & DeLuca, then take a leisurely suburban drive back to Browns Valley Market, where we visited May 2012.

Unfortunately, we had such an extended lunch at Etoile (at those prices, nobody is hurrying diners to leave) that we didn't have time to make it to Browns Valley. Realizing this, we made substantial purchases at D&D instead. Our only regret is that we didn't notice they forgot to give us (or charge us for) the 1/2 pint of anchovy-stuffed olives that Carlos wanted to try.

We bought some Acme bread, the sweet French. Neither Carlos nor I are sourdough lovers. I also got a jar of chopped olive bruschetta with onions, carrots and pimento, which I've been slowly demolishing by myself. It's the Sable & Rosenfeld brand. I like it a lot – very tart with capers, and both black and green olives. I just wish the jar had been smaller, since I'm the only one eating it!

They had lovely Parma prosciutto, so we bought some of that along with a French jambon de paris, a beautiful very pale, sweet ham. There were all kinds of patés, but Carlos prefers the smooth types to the country-style, which are too much like meatloaf for his liking (he's not a meatloaf lover in almost any form). We finally settled on the truffled mousse, the goose paté, and the duck rillette.

The truffled mousse was good although the gelatin on top was outrageously salty. Carlos declared this to be "just like the can!", LOL. We both preferred the "Goose Mousse", a smooth super-rich, creamy paté with goose livers. Just as duck eggs are better than chicken eggs, goose livers are yards above duck or chicken livers. Yum!

Both of us were "meh" about the rillette. Rillettes are holdovers from the pre-refrigeration days of meat pies. Meat pies were chunks of meat in a double-pie crust, with butter poured in to hold the meat together and force any air out. Like confit, the fat preserved the meat longer from spoilage.

Rillettes were spreads made with the leftover slivers and shreds, also bound with butter. Although Dean & DeLuca's is about as good an example as one can find, we decided that although we've tried numerous times to like rillette, we'd rather have our duck in its usual forms. Take those meat shreds and turn 'em into pasta toppings with a good sugo, or make a lovely bowl of duck broth with the bones and create a fabulous duck meat-noodle soup. Next time we'll stick strictly to paté and salume.

The cheeses were a lot of fun to pick out. We're suckers for cheese. Carlos, as usual, opted for the Brie de Nantis. I'm very fond of the Brillat-Savarin, but then I noticed they had St. Andre, which I like even better, so I got that. We tried two new ones, the semi-hard, slightly pungent Chimay Grand Cru from Belgium, which was a pale saffron color. I also picked the Andante Picolo Triple Cream. The Picolo Triple combines Jersey milk (the richest) and crème fraiche, for a nutty, slightly tangy cheese.

I didn't realize until I got back home and was researching for this review that Andante is a small, minority/woman-owned cheesemaker in Petaluma (Ms. Soyoung Scanlan, who is Korean). She sells through a few retail outlets, among them Oliver's in Santa Rosa and Dean & DeLuca in St. Helena. If you have eaten at French Laundry, Coi, Gary Danko, Auberge du Soleil, or the Ritz-Carlton/Nob Hill, all of them include one or more of her cheeses on their cheese boards.

D&D also had the usual Cypress Grove suspects, including the Lamb Chopper that we tried at our family Christmas dinner in 2012, and of which the whole family unanimously voted it the best of the ones we had then. I bought a small wedge of the Chopper, as well as a Rogue River Echo Blue, which I've been shaving into scrambled eggs for a yummy breakfast. 

We're sorry we missed Browns Valley Market's deli and charcuterie section, which is not as upscale as D&D but has some interesting choices nonetheless. But we would happily return to Dean & DeLuca for that luscious goose paté. And both the prosciutto and the ham were delicious in sandwiches over the succeeding days. 

Carlos was in heaven a few days later with a Croque Madame on a halved toasted ciabatta roll, topped with a generous amount of folded paper-thin prosciutto, melted Gruyere, and a fried egg on top. That's his idea of a great breakfast!