The public is invited to eat breakfast, like this Stanford Ranchero, at The Ravens at the Stanford Inn in Mendocino. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

No matter how full I felt when breakfast was over, I looked forward to doing it all again the next morning.

Going out to breakfast is a rare treat for me, so having someone fix me something so delectable six days in a row, well, I was in unfamiliar territory. To be undecided about what to order because of the bounty of choices was a wonderful problem to have.

Breakfast is included with a night’s stay at the Stanford Inn in Mendocino. You won’t want to skip this meal. (The restaurant is open for breakfast and dinner to non-guests as well.)

Food in general is a big part of what this property is all about. After all, it’s one of the only vegan resorts in the country. The Ravens, the name of the restaurant, is all vegan. As the owners, Joan and Jeff Stanford say, vegan is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. It’s their compassion for animals that brought them to this belief.

“At The Ravens, we choose to serve a whole-food, plant-based diet, setting us apart from most other vegan restaurants in the United States. Many vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants rely on seitan, soy protein, isolates, and tofu in main course to replace meat,” the cookbook from the resort says. “Seitan is pure wheat gluten and can be flavored and then roasted, grilled, or fried and can smell like and taste like animal meats. Soy protein isolate are nearly pure soy protein, concentrating the protein and with it, phytoestrogens. Tofu is the least processed of the three but lacks fiber. A version of edamame, or soybeans, is tempeh, a fermented soy product and whole food. We do not use seitan or soy isolates at all. We avoid using tofu in a major role of a dish, relegating it to a condiment.”

The Portobello Benedict is one of the recipes in the cookbook from The Ravens. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

The breakfasts I had in the order I liked them were:

• Portobello Benedict—English muffin, with spinach, grilled tomato and marinated portobello slices. Ravens hollandaise sauce. Choice of country rosemary potatoes or sweet potatoes. ($22)
• Stanford Ranchero—Corn tortillas with black beans, and choice of seasoned tofu or braised tempeh topped with chipotle sauce and salsa cruda. Choice of potatoes. ($18)
• Burrito—Scrambled tofu or braised tempeh, garden vegetables, black beans, rice, Ravens’ enchilada sauce and our cashew cheese in a whole wheat tortilla. With salsa cruda, tofu sour cream. Choice of potatoes. ($19)
• Enchilada—Organic corn tortillas steeped in Ravens enchilada sauce, filled with quinoa and spinach and topped with salsa cruda. Served with refried pintos and Spanish rice. ($20)
• Savory Breakfast Crepe—Chickpea crepe with turmeric tofu, zucchini, onion, garlic, topped with Ravens avocado chimichurri sauce; with choice of potatoes. ($19)
• Stanford Herbed Polenta—Their signature brunch entrée: grilled sun-dried tomato polenta with garden greens sautéed in our braising sauce. Served with cashew cream sauce. ($20)

This confirmed I’m not a fan of polenta, but glad I tried it. The rosemary potatoes won out over the sweet potatoes. Fruit could be substituted for the taters.

Most of the breakfasts are savory, but sweet options are on the menu.

Sea Palm Pad Thai pairs well with this local Cabernet Sauvignon. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Choosing what to have for dinner was just as difficult. The lone dinner I had at The Ravens was the Sea Palm Pad Thai: local sea palm, rice noodles, tofu, broccoli, cauliflower, peanuts, mung bean sprouts, green onions—$27. It was outstanding.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I had sea palm, which is an edible seaweed. It comes in several forms, and it often used in a stir fry—which makes sense for the dish I had.

Dessert was the best carrot cake ($18) I have ever had. On a previous night I had a to-go order of the Mint Chocolate Ganache Tart ($19), so that’s why I didn’t get it. Mint chocolate is usually my go-to. It was so dense and rich I could not eat it in one sitting. It sure paired well with red wine in the room in front of the fire.

Back to the carrot cake. Moist, flavorful and melt in your mouth luxury. I didn’t know carrot cake could taste so sumptuous, especially considering I thought I made a pretty good carrot cake. This one is so far beyond my recipe. Instead of cream cheese for the frosting it uses a coconut spread and vegan shortening sticks. Vegan shortening sticks might be something added to my grocery list.

This carrot cake was so good, I would order it over the ganache.

Nearly every afternoon the Stanford Inn offers complimentary finger food and happy hour prices on adult beverages. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

I’ll have to try making the carrot cake at home because the recipe is in the cookbook I bought, Dining at The Ravens: Over 150 Nourishing Vegan Recipes from the Stanford Inn by the Sea (BenBella Books, 2016).

Besides how delicious the food was, it had me trying things that were new to me. With it being vegan, I knew I could eat everything so I didn’t worry if I didn’t know what something was. This was so liberating.

One day I took a 90-minute vegan sauce making class with Sid Garza-Hillman, the wellness programs director at the inn. He made Cashew Ranch Dressing/Dip, Hemp and Sunflower Ricotta, and Roasted Tomato Chipotle Sauce.

Garza-Hillman offers a few classes, with this one seeming like the one I’d be most likely to replicate in my kitchen. The private lesson allowed me to ask what I wanted and to be the sole recipient of the finished product.

Sid Garza-Hillman chops herbs for a vegan sauce during a class at Stanford Inn. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

I have read plenty of recipes to know cashews are a big deal in vegan sauces—I just hadn’t seen them made or tasted any that I remember. Garza-Hillman had me try the cashews after they were pulverized with some water. Much sweeter than I expected.

As he pointed out, traditional ranch dressing is primarily buttermilk and dill—and definitely not sweet. An acid would need to be added to balance that sweetness. Vinegars, though, come in a range of flavors. He had me taste a few. This confirmed how important it is to know the flavor profile of what you are adding to the cashew mixture—or any concoction for that matter.

I had never taken a vegan cooking class of any sort before. (I’m not a vegan, but I seem to keep getting closer without really trying.) It opened my eyes, and taste buds, to possibilities I had not explored before. Like learning anything new, as well as adapting to change, it will take some time. However, I think I’ll start trying some of these vegan sauces. They certainly are better for me than using animal products.