Using a spoon, baste the chops with the butter mixture until a thermometer inserted into the pork registers 130°F, which should take about two to four minutes..

The Charter Oak.in St. Helena, California, stoking the logs in its fiery maw or stringing up bunches of rosemary, corncobs, and trussed haunches of meat to dangle in the smoke.

Hong herself has been forged in the fire of.Christopher Kostow.She spent five years working her way up to become the first-ever chef de cuisine at Kostow's The Restaurant at Meadowood.

So when Kostow opened this more casual restaurant nearby, she was more than ready to take the reins.At The Charter Oak, Hong draws from the same well of gorgeous Napa-grown ingredients she had access to at Meadowood, but the results here feel limber and spontaneous.She smashes potatoes and fries them up like tostones, draping them in Mendocino seaweed, local honey, and brown butter.

She reimagines ranch dressing as a tangy, funky blend of fermented soybeans and crème fraîche, served with a platter of vivid crudités.

She brines chicken in buttermilk, grills it slow and steady, and pairs it with subtle nods to her wine-country home: fresh grapes wrinkled over the fire, raisins, preserved young grape leaves, splashes of verjus.Working with 1 pastry square at a time, spread about 1 1/2 tablespoons cream cheese mixture from 1 corner diagonally to opposite corner.

Top each cream cheese strip with 1 strip guava paste.Brush pastry edges with some of the beaten egg.

Fold 1 corner over guava paste but not all the way to opposite corner, pressing lightly to adhere to pastry.Fold the opposite corner over the folded pastry to the other side, creating a cylinder with the guava in the center and 2 open ends.