Kathleen Hill: Last-minute NYE plans?

Last minute New Year's opportunities to party

Reservations are available at Ramekins Culinary School for its NYE Celebration 2017 'in true Hollywood Style. Dress in your glamorous best.' Expect beer, wine and champagne, savory bites, a midnight toast, and late night snacks, with music by the French Connection.

Ramekins just announced its NYE menu that includes lots of passed appetizers and varied 'stations,' meaning tables of food. Those include one for cheese and charcuterie including 5th Street Farm root vegetable chips with Green Goddess dressing, and assorted flavors of popcorn.

Then there's the wood-fired station of vegetables, roasted chicken with jalapeno chimichurri, and shrimp and grits, and a station of desserts and sweets such as chocolate ganache and sea salt brownies, chocolate almond cornets with passion fruit curd and warm spiced beignets. Truffle fries and grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup make late night snacks. $125. 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. 450 W. Spain St. Register at Ramekins.com.

Della Santina's Trattoria just released a fabulous à la carte menu of crab cake on greens, smoked salmon on greens, barley soup, Caesar salad with white Italian anchovies, or grilled quail antipasti ($14.95 to $29.96). Entrée choices includes marinated veal chop, pan seared sea bass, chicken breast with prosciutto and Fontina cheese, Arborio rice risotto with black truffles, or housemade wide noodles with wild boar ragu ($24.95 to $34.95). Desserts to tempt include housemade bread pudding with Bosc pears and vanilla bean gelato, Tuscan chocolate Amaretto soufflé with Italian cherries, white chocolate cheesecake, or imported Bindi Italian gelato with espresso and Italian sweet bread (all desserts $10).

Sonoma Grille's four-course NYE menu of tomato bisque, Blood Orange salad, or a raw oyster trio, followed by a choice of crispy polenta, grilled Tiger shrimp, or beef carpaccio. Entrée selections will be homemade gnocchi with butter sage sauce and white truffle oil, lobster ravioli, wild King salmon, or filet mignon. Desserts range from chocolate torte to crème brûlée and tiramisu. $65, kids $34. 165 W. Napa St. 938-7542. Also open New Year's Day.

Crab season wide open

While the price of whole Dungeness crabs went up $1 locally to $7.99 a pound at Sonoma Market, but stayed at $6.99 at Broadway Market, the state of California announced that it has opened the commercial crabbing season along the California coast all the way to Pt. Arena. Hopefully with a new abundance of crab, the price of crab will drop even farther.

The Christmas Eve day line for cracked crab at Sonoma Market snaked by the vegetable bins, even though the store hired oodles of extra temporary help to crack the crab. They certainly did their best at a hard, messy and cold job.

Wine and beer in your barber shop or beauty salon

Much to the delight of some barbers and stylists, as well as certain customers, barber shops and beauty salons can now legally serve beer and wine before 10 p.m., just so they give it away for free and don't sell the beverages.

Sonoma Stompers news

Sonoma's own championship Stompers, the first professional baseball team in the U.S. to pay women to play, is offering a holiday special on various levels of seats for 2017 season. The Early Bird ticket sale ends Dec. 31.

The team has the support of Francis Ford Coppola and Coppola's newish Virginia Dare Winery in Geyserville. Hence, certain ticket holders will drink lots of Virginia Dare's wines, and everyone else will pay for it.

Wouldn't it be great if the Stompers also offered native cuisine from Coppola's Werowocomoco American Native Food Restaurant inside Virginia Dare Winery? We could taste fry bread tacos, bison ribs with berry barbecue sauces, and maybe even cedar plank grilled salmon. But then, I am dreaming. The restaurant's recipes stem from those of the Pamunkey Tribe in Virginia, reputed to be the tribe of Pocahontas. info@stompersbaseball.com.

Wine Country Chocolates everywhere

Wine Country Chocolates, with its tiny factory in Glen Ellen's Jack London Village, is doing very well, indeed. We do have local products besides wine – including chocolates and olive oil, and crafts that are actually made here.

Wine Country Chocolates specializes in small chocolate truffles made with all sorts of fillings.

You can find them at their factory, at their tasting room in El Paseo off Sonoma Plaza, and at Chateau Sonoma. Betty Kelly has made solid chocolates for Sarah Anderson with her Chateau logo in gold on each piece. Find them on her counter at Cornerstone.