Kathleen Hill: Ag Academy fundraiser and a new lunch menu at EDK
Personal note: While we worry about the heat's effect on wine grapes and flowers in our gardens and how hot we feel here in Sonoma Valley, thousands of people have lost their entire homes in Texas due to Hurricane Harvey's devastating downpours. Imagine four feet of rain in four days here. Please do whatever you can to help, from prayers to donations. Try houstonfoodbank.org to help with food, water and other supplies.
Amazon completes purchase of Whole Foods
Do we have to drop “Whole Paycheck” from our culinary language now that Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods has closed, complete with threatened or promised reduced prices, depending on your perspective?
Basic foods have been marked down, but will quality stay up?
What will these reductions and national moves mean to other grocery stores and competition?
On Monday I checked the Sonoma Whole Foods and found the following: the organic avocados that are now $1.49 are the small ones. Large organic avocados are $1.99 each. The salmon on sale for $9.99 a pound is farmed Atlantic salmon, which is similarly priced at Safeway. Organic bananas are now 69 cents per pound while 99 cents elsewhere. And the ground beef that was on sale had five percent more fat than the ground beef at regular price.
Meanwhile, according to Eater.com, some people are boycotting Whole Foods because its now parent company, Amazon, refuses to remove its ads from Breitbart.com.
El Dorado Kitchen's new Local Love lunch menu
Pay attention to this one: EDK just offered a new locals' prix-fixe lunch menu, available Monday through Thursday, in addition to its regular menu.
The first course entails a choice of Caesar salad or soup, followed by the EDK Burger of all natural Angus beef and fries or a vegetarian risotto with English peas, asparagus, Beech mushrooms, spinach purée and Meyer lemon with truffle oil.
Course three offers a choice of tres leches with fruit salsa, fried peach pie, chocolate torta, coconut tapioca or ice cream or sorbet. Two courses $25, three courses $35. Can't wait to try this. Reservations at 996-3030. 405 First St. W., Sonoma.
Instacart grocery delivery?
Catering to large grocery stores is a grocery delivery company called Instacart, which will deliver groceries you order from certain stores to your door within one hour. Yes, one hour.
Stores they say will deliver to households in Sonoma Valley include Costco, CVS, Whole Foods and Safeway stores. Minimum order is $10 with a delivery charge of $9.99. With an order of $35 or more, delivery charge drops to $5.99. You order through the Instacart app.
Sonoma County Fermentation Festival
As a fundraiser for the Sebastopol Grange Hall, the Petaluma community will present its ever-growing Fermentation Festival to celebrate all things fermented on Saturday, Sept. 2 at the Petaluma Fairgrounds. Bring a cooler bag in case you buy your favorites.
They will have a libation lounge where they will serve alcohol such as cider, beer, mead and wine from small producers such as HenHouse Brewing, Almanac Beer Co., Tilted Shed Ciderworks, Old World Winey and more.
Craft spirits are a huge trend and often better than those mass produced.
Attend classes on making kimchi, water kefir, flatbreads, fire cider, Asian nukazuke pickles and enjoy fermented and probiotic root beer floats with Triple Root Beer from the Kefiry, non-dairy and dairy ice cream from Coconut Bliss and Straus for the vanilla ice cream. All proceeds of root beer float sales go directly into to donation pot for the Sebastopol Grange Hall.
Generosity pure and simple
Apparently Carol and Sam Morphy unexpectedly delivered more than 20 Red Grape pizzas to the volunteer crew working hard to set up the everything for last Saturday's Red & White Ball, according to Sallie Kyle Moore.
Marin French Cheese annual summer picnic
Take a picnic, blanket, chair or whatever you want out to Marin French Cheese for a lazy afternoon on their vast lawns and next to the pond on Sunday, Sept. 10.
Taste loads of cheeses and other foods including Laura Chenel's goat cheeses, Marin French cheeses, Nicasio Valley Cheese, and many more from the California Artisan Cheese Guild, plus samples from Petaluma Coffee Co., Tea & Trumpets, Three Twins ice cream, Bonnie Bee & Company, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, Fabrique Délices, Saint Benoit Creamery, Sonoma Harvest, DGLangley Farms, McEvoy Ranch, L'Appart Pesto, Farm Chocolate, Angelo's meats, Orchard Choice fig growers, and the Fig Rig. And there will be a display of my Kathleen Hill Culinary Collection.
Fig Rig owner Sondra Bernstein and I were both installed as Compagnons of France's Guilde Internationale Des Fromagers, during a ceremony two years ago at Marin French Cheese, where I serve as Culinary Historian.
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