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Paula Wolfert on stage; Firehouse pancakes

Jewish Winemakers’ Tasting & Nosh; New chef at EDK; Kitchen exhibit opens; Supervisors honor local food folks

Freshly home from a wild book tour full of kudos and honors, Paula Wolfert will be at Ramekins Culinary School on Saturday, Oct. 22, where Chef Lisa Lavagetto will offer tastes from Wolfert’s new book, “The Food of Morocco.” I will interview Wolfert to draw out all those intimate stories she lived in Morocco, Algeria and France, to say nothing of New York and Sonoma. $85 includes tastes, interview, book and signing. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 450 W. Spain St., Sonoma. 933-0450.

  On Sunday, Oct. 23, Wolfert will sign books at Bram Claypot Cookware on First Street East from 2 to 4 p.m. Book only, $45. 493 First St. E., Sonoma. 935-3717.

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  Pop-up restaurateur Vance Rose will perform his magic for dinner Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Community Café. Rose will create 10 small taste courses including a demitasse of lemongrass and garlic infused Vichyssoise, Watsonville artichoke bisque, Half Moon Farms pea broth risotto, black cod, wattle pork cheek on cauliflower purée, grilled Rolf Beeler gruyere cheese sandwich, desserts and fleur de sel caramels, with all courses paired with equally fine wines. $125. 7 to 11 p.m. 875 W. Napa St., Sonoma. Reserve at dujourdining.com or gusta.com.

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  Sonoma Valley Fire & Rescue puts on its annual pancake breakfast this Sunday, Oct. 23, at the Second Street West station for a good time, good food, good history, good fire engine rides and great firefighters. Costumes welcomed. $6 adults, $5 seniors, $4 age 5 to 12, free to age 4 and under. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 630 Second St. W., Sonoma. 996-2102.

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  Jewish Winemakers Tasting & Nosh comes around Sunday, Oct. 23, for its second annual appearance, this time at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building, featuring knishes, Ruebens, kosher dog sliders, kugel, cheese cake, rugelach, Mandelbrot, bagels and smear and more. If you don’t know what all of these are, it’s worth an afternoon to taste and find out.

  B. R. Cohn, Carelia Kaplan, Coho, Covenant/RedC, Fichtenberg, Hagafen, Idell, Jaffee, Judd’s Hill, Kamen, Leto, Longboard, Mojon’s Bench, Paradox, Shapiro Silver Pines, Stein, Tres Hijas and Wake Robin wineries will pour at this year’s Tasting and Nosh sponsored by Congregation Shir Shalom. Stephanie Ozer plays Brazilian jazz, and Simka performs fun Klezmer, along with 60 silent auction lots including wine, restaurant gift certificates, an electric bike, a portable barbecue and sports tickets. $35 advance, $40 at door. 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tickets at shir-shalom.org/winemakers.

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  El Dorado Kitchen has another new executive chef. Armando G. Navarro has served as executive sous chef at Moana Group’s Auberge du Soleil before training at Le Bernardin, Jean Georges and Daniel Boulud in New York. He also worked at Jardinière and Masa’s in San Francisco, and as chef de cuisine at Redd in Yountville. Navarro is revamping both the dining room and Corner Café menus. No wonder I’m getting reports of fabulous food.

  Treg Finney just took over as general manager of the restaurant, bringing experience from Fish Story, Left Bank, Martini House, Jardinière and One Market. 405 First St. W., Sonoma. eldoradosonoma.com.

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  Marcy Smothers and Clark Wolfe, who are passionate advocates for growing locally and organically, announced at their “Late Summer Food Forum” at Estate restaurant that they will donate a “Luther Burbank Orchard” to a Sonoma Valley school. These will be fruit trees all developed by Burbank and selected to have fruit ripen during the school year. Thank you Marcy and Clark!

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  This year’s Pinot on the River festival’s Grand Tasting will be in Healdsburg’s town square Sunday, Oct. 23, which is not quite on the Russian River. One-hundred wineries from throughout the West Coast will pour tastes of pinots, including Sonoma Valley’s Donum Estate, Gloria Ferrer, Gundlach Bundschu, Landmark, MacRostie, Patz & Hall, Roessler, Schug and Sojourn Cellars. $75. VIP Lounge $150. Noon to 4 p.m. Tickets at pinotfestival.com.

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  Speedway Children’s Charities, which gives thousands of dollars to Sonoma Valley nonprofits every year, hosts the “24 Hours of LeMons” this weekend, Oct. 22 to 23, featuring cars that can’t cost more than $500. Entries will range from VW bugs to stretch limos, just so they make the $500 cut, are ugly and have bad drivers. Organizer of the nationwide fundraiser, Jay Lamm, says “America is the land of opportunity – all you need is one bad idea.” Spectator tickets $20 a day or $30 a weekend, which includes an all-access paddock pass. Racing 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. 24hoursoflemons.com.

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  Join me and the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation next Wednesday, Oct. 26, for a reception at The Heritage Center at Maysonnave House for an opening reception for the Kathleen Thompson Hill Culinary Collection. Wine and cheese from Laura Chenel Chèvre, the Epicurean Connection and Vella’s will be served, thanks to underwriting from Laura Chenel Chèvre, the Epicurean Connection and an anonymous donor.

  I will speak briefly on the history of cheese graters and cracker tins, which are on display and actually can be amusing. Many thanks to the throngs of interested guests who attended our lecture last Friday at Sonoma Valley Woman’s Club. I loved it that several people brought bags of their kitchen treasures to share.

  Alex Mitchell and Barbara White Perry have devoted hours to curating the exhibit, which will rotate every three months with a different part of my collection of 600 kitchen utensils. Free. 5 to 7 p.m. 291 First St. E., Sonoma. sonomaleague.org.

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  Taste “frightfully delicious” Transylvanian food at Wild Thyme’s next Dining Club Rive Gauche on Wed., Oct. 26, featuring cream of sorrel soup, layered eggplant with grilled sausages, roast garlic chicken and baklava. The entire menu is inspired by the foods of Hungarians, Rumanians, Saxons, Jews and Armenians. $35. BYOW, no corkage. 7 p.m. 19030 Railroad Ave., El Verano. Reserve: 996-9453 or wildthyme@vom.com.

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Glen Ellen food news:

  Rosemarie Ramponi is baking lots more goodies for take-out at her Garden Court Café, which has added two tables on the walkway in front of the café.

  Apparently the asking price for the former Saffron restaurant location is $300,000 including all kitchen equipment, tables and chairs.

  Yeti, Grist Mill, Garden Court, Harvey’s Gourmet Donuts, Glen Ellen Village Market, Jack London Lodge & Bar and Dim Sum Charlie’s from Napa all did well catering at the Glen Ellen Village Fair.

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  At last Thursday’s reception before the Sonoma International Film Festival’s standing-room-only screening of “Page One” on the New York Times, guests were surprised to enjoy Mia Sebastiani’s pastas as well as Caprese and Caesar salads, all for $5. In the kitchen power-washing pots and pans: always supportive mother, Nancy Sebastiani.

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  The same evening, Readers’ Books hosted Marissa Guggiana, whose book “Off the Menu” tells stories of what some restaurant chefs cook for kitchen staffs. It turns out that Guggiana’s family owns Sonoma Direct, the Petaluma meat plant that cuts and prepares various meat distributors’ and growers’ products, including Victorian Farmstead. Guggiana runs the new national Butchers Guild and wrote a book called “Primal Cuts.”

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  Randy and Harriet Derwingson, Joshua Rymer and Tim Frazer co-hosted “Hog Heaven,” a Cuban-themed event attended last weekend by bidders from La Luz’s Noche de Copacabana at Rymer and Frazer’s Wolf Run home in Glen Ellen. The whole pig spit-roasted for four hours in a Caja China box while guests sipped and swayed to Los Diferentes del Ritmo’s Latin music before dining on Cuban black beans, Spanish rice, fresh tortillas from Tortilleria Jalisco, Mexican cookies from Basque Boulangerie and John McReynolds’ recipe for jalapeno cole slaw. McReynolds was in Germany for a family wedding and then went to Sicily for some culinary R’n’R.

  Among the guests were Yvonne Hall, Marcelo DeFreitas and Scott Smith, Dave and Vicki Stollmeyer, Bob Kowal and Mark Sipes, Anne and Dennis Ziemienski, Steven and Troy Hightower, Joyce Miller, John Huber and Martin Forbes, Dr. Brian Sebastian and Richard Mabe, Joe and Beth Aaron, Karen Collins, Dan and Teri Parks, Stephen and Diane Bieneman, Jan and Susan Hoeffel, Don and Vicki Jackson, Dave Fazzio and Philip Peck, and Marcie and Dave Waldron.

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  Peter Haywood invites everyone to enjoy “wine by the glass and complimentary cheese” Thursday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m. at his new tasting room in Sonoma Court Shops across from the Plaza. Stroll to the Plaza’s 14 tasting rooms as part of the “Sonoma Plaza Wine Walk.” Taste them all and it might turn into a wine stagger. Drive responsibly.

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  According to USA Today, the Obama White House served Japanese Wagyu beef, grown in Texas, at a recent state dinner honoring South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, Japan held Korea from

the 1890s through World War II.

  Bak and President Barack Obama signed a U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement that, according to the Wine Institute, “immediately removes the 15 percent tariff on U.S. wines imported to Korea,” presumably South Korea only. The Wine Institute says that 90 percent of wine imported by Korea is from California, meaning 500,000 cases and $11.2 million in revenue to wineries in 2010, second only to France.

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  Having finished a year at the Chicago Art Institute after resigning as a veep of Sony Music, Mack Hill and a friend bought alien masks in Chicago and wore them to Elvis’ Graceland, New Orleans, San Antonio and especially Roswell, N.M., where aliens are supposed to have landed. Check sonomanews.com for Mack’s crawfish étoufée omelet at Mother’s in NO.

  Both of the paintings he donated for the Lance Armstrong’s Live Strong Foundation auction in Los Angeles sold with a bidding war. In the crowd were Mack’s good friend Gingger Shankar, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, basketball star Chris Webber and San Francisco Giant Brian “The Beard” Wilson.

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  San Francisco’s Delicious Dish catering and gourmet delivery company, owned by Lauren and Charles Cotner, has opened in Sonoma, expanding its service from Hillsborough, Burlingame, Atherton and Palo Alto. Previous clients include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pixar, The North Face and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. 19201 Sonoma Highway, Sonoma. 721-1060 or deliciousdishsf.com.

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  Thanks to Supervisor Valerie Brown, who instigated the first Sonoma County Food Forum, and her fabulous assistant, Jennifer Hainstock, several Sonoma Valley residents were among those honored by the board of supervisors Tuesday for their service in food. Elizabeth Kemp of Brown Baggers, migrant camps and the soup kitchen at La Luz; Anne Teller of Oak Hill Farm; Alexa Wood and daughter Lauren Benward Krause of Beltane Ranch; Sonoma Valley Education Foundation (Laura Zimmerman) for fundraising for our gardens, and I as coordinator of the Sonoma School Garden Project, were all flattered to be among those recognized.