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Olive & Vine's big week; Sonoma's food-laden weekend; Harvest Wine Auction's hilarious event; important Farm Forum at Estate

Olive & Vine's big week; Sonoma's food-laden weekend; Harvest Wine Auction's hilarious event; important Farm Forum at Estate

 

Olive & Vine owner and chef Catherine Venturini had one heck of a week last week. First, she found out her Glen Ellen restaurant ranked in the Top 10 California cuisine restaurants on Open Table's website, ahead of Meadowood and Chez Panisse. Then on Saturday, at the MacMurray Ranch, she won the "Steel Chef" competition, acing out Sonoma Meritâge owner and chef Carlo Cavallo in the final. By Sunday, she was in shorts and relaxing at the Harvest Wine Auction while partner John Burdick played guitar and sang along with The Ladies of Magnum Force on stage.

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By the way, while confirming the above info I discovered Café La Haye tops the Best American style restaurant list on Open Table.

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Everyone should see the movie, "The Help," which is leading ratings currently. Learning how to cook southern, especially fried chicken, will be a side benefit of this culturally important film.

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Bob Rice's Breakaway Café has launched Monday Night Football Nights at the Breakaway bar, with former Sonoma High School football star Brian McVeigh pouring, while he awaits his appointment to the CHP. Guests can watch the game, have a few laughs with McVeigh and indulge in $5 pork sliders, cheeseburgers, garlic fries with jalapeno aioli, and micro brews on tap for $3.50 a pint. Or you can go for the three-course pot roast dinner for a bargain $15.

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Ramona Nicholson threw a fabulous lobster boil recently where we met lots of fun and interesting people. Our seatmates from Dallas joined Nicholson Ranch wine club after one of them took Ramona's personal tour of the property and fell in wine love. Nicholson Ranch wine flowed forever.

It really was as finger-licking, elbow dripping as I predicted. The whole boiling process in huge pots takes 35 minutes as garlic, onions, artichokes, corn, lobster and prawns are thrown into the boiling cauldrons, all expertly planned and timed, and topped off with It's-It chocolate ice cream sandwiches, invented in San Francisco and now produced in Burlingame.

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Robledo Family Winery seems to have caught the northeastern United States lobster boil bug and will use the same specialty caterer for their Saturday, Sept. 17, lobster feed on Robledo's large patio. Guests will enjoy the same menu as at Nicholson, paired this time with Robledo wines and accompanied by live music. $95 or $85 for La Familia wine club members. 6 to 9 p.m. 21901 Bonness Rd., Sonoma. Reservation required with Nadine at 939-6903 or email Nadine@robledofamilywinery.com.

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Bruce MacKay and son, Sean, just returned from a relative's wedding in England, where they ran into Dame Judi Dench and dined at Rules, London's oldest restaurant.

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We enjoyed and laughed our way through an evening of Catherine Venturini's food at Squire and Suzy Fridell's GlenLyon ranch, high atop Sonoma hills, as part of Sonoma Wine Country Weekend's Winemaker Dinner series on Friday. Suzy choreographed, directed and danced in Magnum Force's evocative chorus line, while Squire, the third Ronald McDonald, served as emcee at Sunday afternoon's Harvest Wine Auction at Cline Cellars. If you ever get the chance, don't miss the Fridells' fabulous collection of dance, theatre, New York, and Ronald McDonald memorabilia, lots of it decorating bathroom walls.

Venturini served chilled gazpacho with roasted pink shrimp, and wild mushroom, leek and St. George cheese crostata at an open V-shaped table and water tower that look over vast Sonoma hills. Back on the dining porch we lunged into loaded dungeness crab cakes with green papaya; Liberty Duck two ways, as in seared breast and smoked duck sausage, Parmesan polenta and dried cherry compote, all served with elegant GlenLyon wines.

Some guests went downstairs to the wine cellar, which smells older and mustier than it is, and where the Fridells keep wines so valuable and memorable that I won't mention them, except the word Mouton. Surprising pianist Bob Gardner tinkled the ivories and had everyone dancing to old rock 'n' roll faves.

Saturday night took us to Wine Country Weekend Honorary Co-Chairs Benziger Family Winery for a dinner catered by Feast of Santa Rosa, which included an excellent fried squash blossom fritter filled with Bodega Goat Cheese with Benziger gardens cucumbers, tomatoes and arugula.

Guests enjoyed a melt-in-your-mouth braised Marin Sun Farms short rib on a smidge of white corn polenta with estate carrots. Dessert was a blissful chocolate bliss of warm chocolate truffle cake, Scharffenberger chocolate ice cream with chocolate Port sauce, and a chocolate snap cookie.

Locals in the dinner crowd included Buck, Angelo, Diane, Mike and Whitney Sangiacomo, Mark and Pat Leveroni Stornetta, Chandra and Bob Friese, Phil Coturri and Gina Roberts and Tracy Dennis. Carolyn and Bob Stone were there and everywhere during the Wine Country Weekend, and pledged an additional $25,000 for Fund-A-Need, which will be split between Carolyn's Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation and the increasingly needed Redwood Empire Food Bank.

One of our table mates, Sarah Kaufman, will teach a quilting class at Broadway Quilts in late September as a result of her visit.

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Sunday's Harvest Wine Auction took in about $600,000, with the largest bid made by lots of attendees paying $500 a person to attend the Benziger Family Prom Party, totaling $62,500 after several "Benziger Boys" and sister, Kathy, made hilarious fools of themselves at an on-stage "prom."

John and Nancy Lassiter took the stage as "Lunch Ladies," with the Pixar creator dressed in a lovely white pinafore apron, along with famous French chef Roland Passot of San Francisco's La Folie restaurant, prior to the bidding on a fabulous "field trip" dinner to be cooked by Passot and accompanied by intimate music by the one and only Chris Isaac.

Wine Auction sponsors, Trilogy Glass & Packaging partners Lori and Rick Miron and Greg Windisch, paid $40,000 for the evening, in addition to several other auction lots including $22,000 for the Magum Force magnums, "just giving back" as Lori told me. Last year, Trilogy and Bob Friese each gave more than $50,000 for the lot, which includes dancing with the gang on stage the following year.

Those seducing the Mirons again this year included people mostly involved in the wine industry such as Gayle Arrowood, Julie Atwood (co-producer of the event), Eva Bertran, Vallerie Cohn, Honoré Comfort, Maureen Cottingham, Jann Forth, Suzy Fridell, Chandra Friese, Abby Ham, Lesli John, Betsy Karrer, Nancy Lilly, Christine Munson, Ramona Nicholson, Gail Ross, Betsy Spann, Sally Stone, Kari Briner, Kathy Witkowicki and Abigail Zimmerman.

Bob Friese, Squire Fridell, Mark Stornetta, Michael Muscardini, Tom Menzies, Jim Bundschu, Greg Moegling and Dean Bordigioni all showed up as Fonzi-John Travolta-like dancers on the runway.

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This loaded weekend:

The important FFA Fundraiser BBQ at Larson Family Winery will be Saturday, Sept. 10, featuring Sonoma Market tri-tip, homemade chili, Caesar salad, Blue Ribbon Desserts, wine, beet, oysters, Rich Little Band with Hillary Wicht, and auctions with Ed Vaughn. $40 includes two drink tickets. 4 to 8 p.m. More info from Becky Larson at 938-3031, Ext. 24 or SonomaFFA@yahoo.com.

Wet Paint, the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art fundraising gala that becomes more fun each year, is Saturday, Sept. 10, with a "cosmopolitan Las Vegas flair." Enjoy entertainment by Sheila Whitney, Stan Pappas, John Simon on piano and DJ Jason Aquino, as well as Las Vegas-style gaming by 21 Fun Casino including 21, craps (we can print that), roulette and mini baccarat with great prizes. $250 includes $50 funny money. 7 p.m. to midnight. 551 Broadway, Sonoma. Reserve at svma.org.

Katmandu Festival has moved twice, landing at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building both Saturday and Sunday, with Himalayan cuisine from local Nepalese and Indian restaurants, live music and dance performances, an interesting marketplace, and healing arts to benefit Carol Vernal's Children's Medical Aid Foundation, providing healthcare to impoverished children in Nepal. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 126 First St. W., Sonoma. 938-1807 or childrensmedaid.org.

Valley Wine Shack offers a "Wine & Swine Pig Roast" Saturday, Sept. 10, with slow roasted poor little piggy, baked beans, coleslaw and cornbread, all by Tommy Ronquillo of Vinos Unico Importers, and his Caja China Roasting Box. Owner Windee Smith calls it "full-bore gluttony and carnivorous decadence." $20 includes meal and wine. 4 to 8 p.m. 535 W. Napa St., Sonoma. 938-7218.

Sunday, Sept. 11, brings a community memorial and barbecue with civic speeches and a mini version of the Sonoma Community Center's earlier cancelled Ox Roast, with barbecued beef steak or sausage sandwiches, beer, wine, soda, water, Ox Roast T-shirts and lots of local music including Tommy Thomsen. Food $6 to $7, beer and wine $4 to $8 (with commemorative glass). Food, beer and wine served 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 938-4626, Ext. 1 or sonomacommunitycenter.org.

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Coming up:

We continue to marvel at the Sonoma community's ability to give and raise funds for our Valley's 90-something nonprofits, with totals reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Whole Foods Sonoma will give 5 percent of sales to our Sonoma School Garden Project on Wednesday, Sept. 14.

Next up is the Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation's annual "Dancing with Our Stars," on Sunday, Sept. 18, at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building. A Bea Beasley-catered buffet will include canapés and tea sandwiches. "The Argentine Tango Buffet" brings whole boneless rib eye, Yukon Gold potato purée, grilled ratatouille salad with heirloom tomatoes, organic mesclun and arugula and dinner rolls followed by cupcakes, lemon bars and New York cheesecakes.

Dancers twirl to the Richard Olsen Orchestra, with competitors Elaina O'Malley and Michael Brown, M.D., Ed Default and Sue Albano, Patrick Jude and Gayle Jenkins, Gabrielle von Stephens and Vinny Pacheco, Phyllis Gurney and David Pier, Rhonda Guaraglia and Denny Lane, Craig Atwood and Holly Kyle and Dennis Goss and Rebecca Hengehold leading the way. $200. 5 to 10 p.m. 126 First St. W., Sonoma. Reserve by calling Harmony Plenty at 935-5070.

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Estate restaurant will host,"A Late Summer Farm Forum," organized by Marcy Smothers and esteemed restaurant and food consultant Clark Wolf on Tuesday, Sept. 20, featuring panelists John Toulze, Eric Sheffield, myself for our school gardens, Yannick Phillips of the Grange, Sheana Davis, Steve Garner of KSRO, Chris Silva of St. Francis Winery, egg farmer Arnold Riebli, Kristee Rosendahl of smartgardener.com, and ag commissioner Dave Whitmer.

All proceeds will go to the Sonoma School Garden Project to establish a new orchard at one of our schools. $15 at the door includes nibbles and sips. 5 to 7 p.m. 400 W. Spain St., Sonoma. RSVP to Waverley@clarkwolf.com.

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Check out Kathleen's retro recipes, culinary collection, and other food news at kthill.com.