VinOlivo Grand Tasting Saturday; Joe-to-Go sold; Bocuse d’Or at Williams-Sonoma; St. Paddy’s Day events; Food in the movies

Happy lucky Friday the 13th! Two months in a row. Best of good fortune and health to all of us today.|

Happy lucky Friday the 13th!

Two months in a row. Best of good fortune and health to all of us today.

HHH

VinOlivo, Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers’ fundraiser and celebration of wine and olives, starts tonight with a sold-out dinner at Williams-Sonoma featuring Auteur wines, and continues through Sunday, March 15.

The Grand Tasting is Saturday, March 14, at The Lodge at Sonoma Renaissance Resort & Spa. It features more than 50 Sonoma Valley wineries’ best and food tastes from Aventine Glen Ellen, B&V Whiskey Bar & Grill (formerly Burgers & Vine, I presume), Crisp Bakeshop, Drums & Crumbs, EDK, Glen Ellen Star, HelloCello & Prohibition Spirits, Hopmonk Tavern, Krave Jerky, Olive & Vine, Q Craft Barbecue, Sonoma Market, Epicurean Connection, the girl & the fig, The Red Grape and Wild Thyme Garden & Events. $75 advance, $85 at door. $95 VIP. Three-day ticket for Valley wine tasting $50, one-day ticket $25. $130 VIP Grand Tasting and three-day ticket. VIP tickets admitted at 6:30. Main event 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets at 935-0803 or Sonomavalleywine.com.

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Heidi Stearn has sold her popular coffee bar, Joe-2-Go at Friedman Bros., leaving a whole fan club homeless in the mornings.

By the sheer force of her hilarious gregarious personality, Heidi attracted a loyal following of poets, chefs and many others who would join her for a cup of coffee and more every morning just inside the lumberyard’s entrance. Personally, I lusted after her collection of old coffee cans.

Heidi says she sold her coffee bar to “Hare & Hatter, a local Sonoma-based coffee company.” Googling the name, I only found a closed restaurant in Indonesia. She said she was unable legally to reveal the new owners’ names and that they will make their own announcement.

The stand is closed now, but will reopen sometime.

Meanwhile, Stearn says she “has reinvented herself with Go-2-Gal, offering concierge services, business, personal and family assistance and household estate management.” She told me in the past that she used to provide all of these services for movie stars and other rich and famous characters.

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Ready for an escargot burger? That means snail burger. You can test yourself at Bisou Bistronomy on Market Street in San Francisco near the Castro where chef Nicolas Ronan, originally from Paris, is making mini snail burger sliders with parsley aioli, coleslaw, tomato, caramelized shallots and sauce, all of which will pretty much disguise the flavor. If I am going to enjoy snails, I want them loaded with garlic butter and a little parsley – a different disguise.

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Can you imagine a food event here with at least 60 people seated and 20 more standing outside on the sidewalk with their noses pressed to the window?

That’s what happened when the famed chef Thomas Keller and his Team USA came to Williams-Sonoma on Broadway a couple of weeks ago to demonstrate some of the recipes and techniques that helped them win the second place trophy at the Bocuse d’Or cooking contest in Lyon, France.

As I arrived, some friends outside were upset that they “weren’t invited.” Actually, everyone was invited to pay $75 to attend, ostensibly to help pay for the team’s expenses. Since this event had been postponed due to rain and floods (remember those?) in December, people who paid then got first entry priority this time.

Keller described the Bocuse d’Or, which I call the Cooking Olympics, in minute detail, complete with blow-by-blow year-long preparation, meticulous design of foods and serving dishes, flights, crates getting lost and much more. Explaining that competing chefs from 24 countries were assessed by judges from all 24 of those countries, he also highlighted and introduced one of his chefs at Per Se in New York, Phillip Tessier, and Tessier’s commis, 21-year-old Skylar Stover. Tessier defined commis as an “assistant.” In a book I wrote called “Career Opportunities in the Food and Beverage Industry“ (2010) a commis serves the chef (or person above him or her) as a mentee. According to 2015 Bocuse d’Or rules, the commis could not turn 22 before Jan. 7 of this year.

Guests enjoyed the finite details of perfect peas, Keller’s French warehouse of equipment for the annual contest, and the full history of American participation and America’s lack of wins prior to this year.

With carefully choreographed precision, when Tessier spoke a certain word, Stover and other aides in the background began to move and do their jobs silently with only facial expressions to communicate, to assist in the demonstration as Tessier and Stover created some of their winning dishes. Probably the most surprising nibble was a corn silk appetizer.

Both Keller and Tessier, the latter of whose wife and little children sat politely in the front row, stressed the importance of “magic” in any team – cooking, football or baseball. Among the supporting actors was blacksmith Martin Kastner, who designed and made Team USA’s serving platters after seeing the food, and even made tiny molds and devices to enable the cooks to create more precise pieces of everything, from tiny vegetable cutting tubes to molds to make perfectly shaped quenelles and for perfectly shaped guinea hen.

Jerome Bocuse created this cooking competition to honor his father, the famous French chef Paul Bocuse of Lyon, who always said he was part American because he once had an American blood transfusion while in the U.S.

And this year, when Team USA placed second, its highest ever, Tessier asked young Stover to carry the American flag to represent the U.S. in the parade to Bocuse’s restaurant.

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Back here in River City, some of us who are friends of Lori and Rick Miron recently had the pleasure of joining them for two years’ worth of Boys & Girls Club auction lots for dinner in the wine aisle of Sonoma Market, all created by house chef Mario. Rick’s mother, Susan, and his sister Emily and baby amused everyone as well. Dale and Erin Downing of Sonoma Market donated all of the food, wine and staff time by the way, so that all of the Mirons’ donations went to help the Boys & Girls Club, of which Erin will be president after this July.

As we arrived, we tasted flatbread topped with pan-seared foie gras and caramelized apples, served with Three Sticks Durell Vineyard Chardonnay. When we took our seats at the elegantly set table, we received Oysters Rockefeller and French onion soup accompanied by Gallerie Knights Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

Next came beef Wellington with au gratin butternut squash, and wild mushroom broccolini with a Champ de Rêves Anderson Valley Pinot Noir. It was all followed by a Boston cream roulade with chocolate ganâche that everyone either ate pretending they weren’t or took home, accompanied by an excellent Schramsberg Napa Valley Crémant.

I will never forget Rick’s tenderness in pushing his sister around the neighborhood in an old-fashioned pram. Please send good vibes and prayers to Lori for better health.

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Murphy’s Irish Pub, Town Square, Steiner’s and every other bar in town will serve beer and some form of corned beef and cabbage over the next few days to celebrate the all-American form of St. Patrick’s Day.

For a wild and wooly evening, check out Sonoma Valley Rotary’s St. Paddy’s Day Party Saturday, March 14 at the Moose Lodge with a full dinner of corned beef and cabbage, carrots, potatoes and loads of beer and wine ($5), plus the Moose Lodge cash bar for other beverages. I can vouch for the veggies because I will be helping the washing and cutting team. Dinner, DJ, dancing and a $50 raffle for a trip to Ireland for two. Rotary members free, guests $40 (includes 2 drink tickets). 5:30 to 10 p.m. 20580 Broadway, Sonoma. Tickets from a Rotary member or at the door.

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Michael Muscardini brings the fabulous Oyster Girls and their traveling oyster bar to the Muscardini tasting room Saturday, March 14, with lots of instruction about appreciating oysters and glasses of pinot grigio, rosato or sparkling wine. $20, $15 wine club members (includes four oysters and one glass of wine.) 1 to 5 p.m. 9380 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood. 933-9305.

P.S. If you see Michael Muscardini, give him a hug. He just suddenly lost his delightful mother.

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Sonoma’s Best will host a special tasting of wines grown by the great Anne Moller-Racke on Thursday, March 19.

Anne, her daughter. Dorothe and Teresa Harrison will pour tastes pinots, rosés and a chardonnay from Russian River Valley and Anderson Valley Donum Estate, Blue Farm Anne Katerina pinot, Ernest Bloom and Stemmler wineries.

Owners Gayle and Tom Jenkins will only charge a $15 tasting fee and will donate every bit of it to Pets Lifeline. 1190 E. Napa St., Sonoma. 996-7600.

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Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen at Hotel Healdsburg has named Andrew Wilson as executive chef. Many fans of his cooking miss him at Carneros Bistro. Congratulations, Andrew.

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More than 90 cheesemakers will offer tastes (and some cookbooks) at the Artisan Cheese Festival in two tents outside the Sheraton Sonoma County hotel on Lakeville Road in Petaluma. Of course they will be joined by many brewers and winemakers galore.

Sunday will bring a delish sounding Bubbles & Brunch before the Artisan Cheese Tasting & Marketplace on March 20 to 22.

Guests will be greeted with a glass of J Vineyards sparkling wine when they arrive at 9 a.m., followed by a sit-down three-course brunch and cheese-centric cooking demos by the winery’s executive chef Erik Johnson.

The brunch menu will include Bellwether Farms Pepato fondue with poached eggs and mixed garden greens; duck confit with Point Reyes Bay Blue mousse with Anson Mills cornbread; and “pain perdu” with Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam and brown butter apple compote.

All brunch attendees will get access to the Artisan Cheese Tasting and Marketplace at 11 a.m., an hour before it opens to the public, which is a very good idea to beat elbow-bumping crowds. Lots of cooking demos. Brunch $115. Artisan Cheese Tasting and Marketplace $45 adults, $20 children under 12. Admission includes insulated tote bag and logo wine glass. Brunch 9 to 11 a.m. Marketplace noon to 4 p.m. More events info at artisancheesefestival.com.

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This year’s Sonoma International Film Festival later this month will only feature two full-length movies about food.

“Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story” sounds disturbing and valuable. Jen and Grant Baldwin, who will do Q&A after the screenings, directed the film based on Americans’ obsessions with food, food shows, magazines and foodie blogs, and follow food from farm to market to their own fridge, and finally garbage can on the theory that we waste 50 percent of our food. Find out what they discover by surviving only on discarded food. Thursday, March 26, 9:15 a.m. at Vintage House senior center, and Friday, March 27 at 5 p.m. at the Woman’s Club.

The documentary “Finding Gaston (Buscando a Gastón)” follows chef Gaston Acurio in discovering all the stories behind one man’s effort to change his country (Peru) with food. Friday, March 27 at 9 a.m. in Burlingame Hall and Saturday, March 28 at 3 p.m. at Burlingame Hall.

Two short shorts include one featuring “a wide variety of eaters from around the world, ranging from vegetarians, pescatarians and dedicate carnivores,” by Siqi Song; and one called “Submarine Sandwich” in which “a butcher makes a unique submarine sandwich out of objects,” according to programmer Claudia Mendoza-Carruth.

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Bryter Estates, led by Terin Ignozzi, will celebrate the third anniversary of its tasting room in Vine Alley of Sonoma Court Shops on Saturday, March 28.

Wine club members and the public are invited, although non-wine club members must pay $20 for tastes but will get 10 percent off if they buy a bottle of wine. Small food tastes will also be served. 25 E. Napa St., Sonoma. 501-8757.

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According to the Washington Post, “Georgia police raided a retired Atlanta man’s garden last Wednesday after a helicopter crew with the Governor’s Task Force for Drug Suppression spotted suspicious-looking plants on the man’s property. A heavily-armed K9 unit arrived and discovered that the plants were, in fact, okra bushes.”

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