Schake revamping Hillary; Ledson’s new chef and program; Food Truck Fridays and farmers markets; ?Passover treats; SIFF food films How much water does it take to make a ...?

The Schake family does it again.

A group of hard working under achievers (kidding), all three Schake children, Kurt, Kori and Kris were elected and served as student body presidents at Sonoma Valley High School.

Cecelia and Wayne Schake’s kids grew up in Sonoma’s Diamond A, didn’t stop there. Kurt graduated from the Air Force Academy and flew F-15s during the toughest of times and now works in Los Angeles. Kori is a Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford and lectures at West Point, Duke and the University of West Virginia.

Wayne Schake worked enthusiastically as a commercial airline pilot and now gives selflessly to Rotary and the Sonoma Valley Regional Library by picking up anyone’s books almost anywhere for the library’s fundraising sales. Cecelia Schake, a petroleum biologist, threw herself into community volunteering once they moved to Sonoma.

But Kristina Schake was featured in last week’s “Sunday Styles” section of the New York Times as First Lady Michelle Obama’s former communications chief who was the one who advised Mrs. Obama to visit Target to show her closeness to the people. Schake’s efforts to form Mrs. Obama’s public image seems to have worked.

Now Schake has what might even be a greater challenge: to soften up Hillary Clinton, as part of her communications team.

Schake, who graduated with a degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins, got her political start, beyond SVHS student office, helping Michele and Rob Reiner mastermind the passage of the 50-cent cigarette tax to fund early childhood education and First 5 in California, despite the $40 million the tobacco lobby spent to defeat it. Cecelia Schake told me that Rob Reiner is still Kristina’s mentor, introducing her to many along the way.

According to the New York Times, the Los Angeles firm Kristina started with former Clinton presidential aide Chad Griffin handled Maria Shriver’s communications when she was California’s First Lady, the legal case against Proposition 8, and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative.

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Williams-Sonoma presents its monthly Artisans’ Market Saturday, April 11, at the Sonoma store on Broadway with Add Garlic, Boncora Biscotti, CocoaPlanet chocolates, the girl & the fig, featuring their products. Incidentally, Daniela Tempesta, daughter of our late Pets Lifeline supporter Bonnie Tempesta, will bring the family biscotti as part of their effort to resurrect and expand Bonnie’s business. Free. Noon to 4 p.m.

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Bodega Bay’s Annual Fisherman’s Festival (fisherwomen too) and the Blessing of the Fleet will be this weekend, April 11 and 12, at Bodega Bay at Westside Park on Westshore Road. Wooden boat race at 2 p.m. Saturday, boat parade and blessing of the fleet Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Lots of kids’ activities, music, art, food and seafood. $12 adults, $10 seniors, kids under 12 free. Bbfishfest.org. 875-3866.

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Next Friday, April 16, Chef Pierre Lagourgue will present a demo class at Ramekins Culinary School called “The New French Standard” of cooking, combining Parisian and southern French cooking. Lagourgue will lead Sarah Anderson’s next Chateau Sonoma trip to Chateau Dumas in southwestern France.

On this class menu will be salmon terrine, spinach souffle, cassoulet de canard (duck), and cheesecake with berry compote. Fee includes food and wine. $95. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 450 W. Spain St., Sonoma. Reserve at ramekins.com.

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Ramekins executive chef Doug MacFarland will be making waffles for the Presentation School Spring Barn Sale to support the school’s Pathways Scholarship Fund on Sunday, April 12, in Presentation’s courtyard. Apparently there will be lots of cold Lagunitas beer for adults along with a big flea market. Free admission. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 20872 Broadway, Sonoma.

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In case you want to know:

Food Truck Fridays begins again at Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery’s parking lot on April 24, featuring Pagan Pizza, Tips Tri-Tips Trolley, Caribbean Spices, Got Balls Meatball Factory, Marks the Spot, and Seed on the Go food trucks outside and Incognito playing incognito music inside. No outside wine allowed. You have to buy Sebastiani’s, which is a huge boon for them.

The Valley of the Moon Certified Farmers Market, aka the Tuesday Night Farmers Market party, says its first event will be “the first Tuesday in May,” which, according to my calendar, is May 5, aka Cinco de Mayo.

The Sonoma Valley Farmers Market continues its highly successful Friday morning markets at the Arnold Field parking lot, with more vendors than ever, and now celebrating its 20th anniversary, according to manager Hilda Swartz.

And everyone’s favorite “Watmaugh Strawberries,” available at the stand where they are raised at Watmaugh and Arnold Drive, are back in our gustatory lives. While the loving growers do not claim to raise their strawberries organically, they are so good they might as well be. And they last a lot longer than those sold in stores that have been transported for many miles.

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Suite D’s Passover Pop-Up Dinner on Saturday, April 11, is a must-experience for anyone interested in food or food culture, whether you are Jewish or not. Owner Sondra Bernstein and her crew are creating a dinner “based on a traditional Passover menu.”

On the culture side of the event will be a written “Telling the Story of a Passover Haggadah,” as well as a Seder plate at each table, candle light, matzoh and more. Bernstein says, “By no means are we able to officiate a Seder dinner from your past (if you are Jewish). We all have memories the way our mother did it and her mother before her. This dinner is truly meant to be a celebration of spring, of friends and of food.” Everyone is welcome.

The menu starts with passed hors d’oeuvres of mini gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup shooters, minted baba ghanoush, red pepper hummus, olives, matzo with apple, along and fig haroset, chopped liver and cucumber.

The salad will be roasted beets and oranges, olives, feta, watercress with yellow beet vinaigrette, followed by an entree of slow braised brisket au jus, spinach and eek gratin, noodle kugel, schmaltzy potatoes with fresh herbs and grilled asparagus with a Balsamic reduction. And dessert: my favorite chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, a flourless mini chocolate torte and Passover apple cake.

Price includes a glass of white wine during reception, a glass of red wine with dinner, gratuity and taxes. BYOW, no corkage. $60. 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. 21800 Schellville Road, Sonoma. Tickets at Eventbrite.com.

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Ready, set, go to the Jewish Winemakers’ Tasting & Nosh on Sunday, April 12. Nosh Committee co-chairs Mara Kahn and Alexandra Allen started to prepare food this week, such as matzo ball shooters, noodle kugel, bagels and lox, potato knishes, gefilte fish sushi, grilled Rueben wraps (these are delish), latkes, Kosher hot dogs with all the fixings and much more.

If you are going for the excellent wines, taste great ones from B.R. Cohn, Cline and Jacuzzi, Hagafen, Hobo, Idell, Longboard, Match, Orpheus, Paint Horse, Paradox, Shapiro, Stein, Tres Hijas and Wake Robin wineries.

Stephanie Ozer will play Brazilian music along with keyboardist and composer Larry Ebert at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building. $50 advance, $60 at door. 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tickets available at Readers’ Books, Tiddle E. Winks, or at shir-shalom.org/hewishwinecountry.html. For more info contact Maddy Leader at maddy@maddyleader.com.

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Watch for Steve Ledson’s Zina Hyde Cunningham food and wine pairing salon to open around May 1 in the Ledson Hotel on First Street East in Sonoma.

Formerly the site of his Centre du Vin and Harmony Lounge, which offered upscale cafe food, the new dining space will feature Ledson wine and food pairings by his new executive chef de cuisine Yoshiharu Sogi. Sogi attended cooking schools in Japan and France and cooked as executive chef at Sierra Hotel and Resorts in Nagano in the '90s through the Winter Olympics. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Japan Sommelier Association and of the Society of Wine Educators of America, worked at the Mauna Kea Hotel, Terra in St. Helena, Silverado Country Club, Go Fish!, and Eagle Vines Golf Club in Napa.

A few of us were lucky enough to taste a pre-preview of the menu, which included two excellent Miyagi oysters, one wrapped In prosciutto with a lime sauvignon blanc ponzu and one with tomato and an apple honey mignonette. Next came a creamy Wasabi-accented clam chowder with edamame and crispy wonton, seared Ahi and salmon with herbed rice, roasted marinated pork loin with raisin chutney, mustard miso mousse and asparagus puree, then a slice of pan fried strip loin with two Brussels sprouts and fingerling potatoes with carrot puree, all finished with chocolate mousse and banana flambe with Ledson Zinfandel light chocolate sauce.

All of this comes with excellent Ledson wines from a Russian River Valley Sauvignon Blanc to Anderson Valley Chardonnay, pinot noir, ancient vine zinfandel, Stagecoach Vineyard cabernet sauvignon and a succulent Redwood Valley Zinfandel Port. When it opens, pairing menus will be $150 with seatings at 10:30 a.m., and at 1, 3:30 and 6 p.m. Reserve at 537-3823.

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Heidi Stearn, popular former owner of the coffee cart at Friedman’s, has started another enterprise that she calls the Go-2-Gal Concierge Service by which she will order, pick up and deliver your groceries, flowers and almost anything else. Sonoma Market actually advertised her services on their in-store big screens. Call her at 415-637-5590 for details and rates.

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As promised, here are some valuable lessons we could learn from the excellent food-related films from this year’s Sonoma International Film Festival.

Among the facts we collected from “Just Eat It,” by a Vancouver couple who vowed to only eat discarded food for six months, is that 40 percent of our food goes uneaten, 20 percent of all food grown and raised goes to waste, it takes as much water as is in a 90-minute shower to produce a hamburger from grass to package, and we throw away 15 to 20 percent of the food in our homes. See this surprisingly fun documentary’s trailer at foodwastemovie.com.

In all my interviews of hundreds of chefs for our guidebooks, radio shows, and magazine stories, I have never encountered a chef with the passion for his cultural community as with Gaston Acurio in Patricia Perez’s documentary “Finding Gaston.” Director Perez, who divides her time between her native Peru and Los Angeles, followed Acurio around several countries and took three years to make this profound movie about the culture and history of food and the people who grow, catch and produce it in Peru and Europe. Watch the trainer at gastondoc.com.

“Cowspiracy” documents the severe damage cattle do to the environment, from water consumption to methane gas production. Several viewers said they wouldn’t eat beef again, or at least for a while. Cowspiracy.com.

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See “How much water does it take” sidebar on this page.