Kathleen Hill: Zukes alors! and other food news

Reminder: Zucchini races today

Anyone who has too many zucchini, not enough, or just plain feels creative enough to borrow and decorate one, or wants a good laugh, this is for you!

The Friday Farmers Market, aka Sonoma Valley Certified Farmer's Market, holds its 30th Annual Zucchini Car Races today, Friday, Aug. 3 at Sebastiani Winery's Arbor Park.

If you don't want to sacrifice a squash or don't have any, come anyway. At first you will wonder what you are doing there, and soon you will be laughing at and cheering for the 'cars.'

The prizes are prized 'Farmer's Market Dollars,' which you can spend with any grower or vendor at the Friday Farmers' Market, who are reimbursed by market manager Hilda Swartz.

Race rules say 'entries no more than 10 inches wide; the squash must represent three-quarters of the attached car; and no skateboards, roller skates or doll buggies.'

Turn in your race-ready zukes between 5 and 6 at Sebastiani's Arbor Park. The races begin at 6:30 p.m.

Scott Sherman coordinates and starts each race, and yours truly will coordinate the creativity jury.

Steve and Holly Kyle – two amusing Muses

Many world famous artists and writers have had muses, usually women who inspire them to be more creative and better at what they want to do.

This year's official Muses, Holly and Stephen Kyle, to be honored by the Sonoma Community Center, inspire everyone around them by setting examples and working as hard as they do as volunteers for everything from the Sonoma Community Center to Senior Projects at Sonoma Valley High School.

Past muses have included Nicholas Carriger, Mary Ellen Pleasant (Beltane Ranch), Alma Spreckles, Chuck Williams, founder (in Sonoma) of Williams-Sonoma, and Jack Lundgren, who rebuilt and revitalized the Community Center.

The Kyles will be celebrated Saturday evening, Aug. 11 behind the Community Center in the shaded event space created between the building and the back parking lot. The late Jerry Casson, for whom Vintage House is named, said that this is where the Vintage Festival started with restaurants providing the food and home winemakers bringing their own wines, sampling possibly too many of them, then each declaring theirs was the best.

Professionally the Kyles co-founded and managed large events for 30 years, ranging from the San Francisco Gourmet food & Wine Festival, the Harvest Festival & Christmas Crafts Market in 23 major cities, the American Folk Arts Festival in Amsterdam, and sold the company in 1998 to a Canadian company.

Holly Kyle is still a world champion synchronized swimmer, winning around 70 gold medals over 35 years, and was recently inducted into the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida.

To some lucky friends, Steve Kyle is known as the Scone Ranger who occasionally drops off little bags of his handmade scones. He actually taught a quickly sold-out class on making scones at the Community Center. Time for a reprise, Steve.

The evening starts with cocktails in the 'Secret Garden,' another Jack Lundgren passion, with a silent auction open from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. Dinner will be served at 7 p.m. in the back patio.

Speaking of dinner, Sonoma resident Elaine Bell will cater passed hors d'oeuvres of lemon cheesecake with smoked salmon, Asian braised pork belly on little sticky rice pancakes, Fontina cheese risotto arancini, mini tostadas with tomato and avocado, and Frog Hollow peach, Mozzarella and basil skewers.

Guests will sit down to a first course salad of smoked trout with crème fraîche, asparagus, pickled yellow beets, cucumber, trout caviar and rye toasts.

The menu, served 'family style,' will include lamb tenderloin pinwheels, corn husk wrapped grilled cod with charred corn relish, roasted rainbow carrots, and Basque Boulangerie sourdough rolls with sweet butter.

Dessert brings lemon panna cotta, blueberry gelée with fresh blueberries, and white chocolate dancers.

MacRostie, TR Elliott, Gloria Ferrer, Beltane Ranch and Gundlach Bundschu will donate the wines. Safeway is giving the non-alcoholic beverages, according to Executive Director John Gurney.

Dress: 'Sonoma Casual – anything from swimwear to fishing waders.' Tickets $225, 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma; phone 938-4626, ext. 4. Sonomacommunitycenter.org.

Personal note: As a former president of the Sonoma Community Center, I hope you will attend this event if you can. We need our Community Center.

Frenchie offers wine cooler samples Saturday

Chefs Sarah Pinkin and Liz Payne will offer tastings of St. Mayhem wine coolers all the way from Healdsburg on Saturday, Aug. 4, at their Frenchie Picnics & Provisions. With names we can't print in a family newspaper, the wine coolers are flavored variously including sangria, ginger, spicy, mint and a few others. From 1 to 3 p.m, 521 Broadway, Sonoma, 343-7559.

No 'little ole winemaker' here

Leslie Rudd's Leslie Rudd Investment Company has gone back to the drawing board for his proposed Fremont Ranch Winery and event center at the former Stornetta's Dairy and Laura Chenel Chèvre location after being turned down by the Sonoma Citizens Advisory Commission.

Having bought the property from the Stornetta family before last October's fires that incinerated the former dairy and neighborhood, Leslie Rudd is no 'little ole winemaker me.'

Rudd and his company sold Dean & DeLuca to a Thai development company called Pace Development in 2014 for a cool $140 million. Currently he owns or partners in many spirits companies, Press in St. Helena, Oakville Grocery, Vintage Wine Estates which include Viansa, B. R. Cohn, Clos Pegase, Cosentino, Cartlidge & Browne, Girard, Swanson and several other wineries, according to Rudd's lrico.com.

Based in Wichita, Kansas, Rudd also owns 'Napa Junction Retail,' meaning the large Wal-Mart shopping center in American Canyon, and the Temescal Retail Plaza in Oakland.

Sad chuckle of the day

Apparently Starbucks has replaced plastic straws wrapped in paper with paper straws wrapped in plastic.

Sonoma-Greve Sister Cities hosts two events this weekend

From a talk on 'Saints and Sinners of Renaissance Tuscany' to Italian Heritage Day at the Sonoma Stompers vs. Martinez Clippers baseball game, the Sonoma-Greve in Chianti Sister Cities Committee offers lots of activity this weekend.

On Saturday, Aug. 4, Alexandra Lawrence, an art historian and private tour guide in Florence, will present the lecture 'Saints and Sinners: A Look at the Papal Politics Behind Three of Tuscany's Most Famous Figures – St. Catherine of Siena, Michelangelo, and Galileo Galilei.'

Catch the lecture and a glass of Jacuzzi wine at the Jacuzzi Family Winery Barrel Room. $25 public includes glass of wine, $20 for SSCA and Jacuzzi wine club members; $30 at door (no credit cards.) From 3 to 5 p.m. at 24724 Arnold Drive, Sonoma. Tickets: groupspaces.com/SonomaSisterCityAssociation/item/1180102

Italian Heritage Day at the Sonoma Stompers game is Sunday, Aug. 5, at Palooza Park (Arnold Field), sponsored by Mia's Kitchen. The first 100 guests will receive a bottle of Mea Sebastiani Coakley's hot sauce. Go for the afternoon, take some cash and enjoy the food.

Tickets $12. Game time is 1:05 p.m., at 180 First St. W., Sonoma. For tickets contact Mike at 227-7345 or sonomawineguy@yahoo.com.

Maybe not so good Napa news

Recently a group of French nuclear physicists said they have found possible traces of radioactive material, specifically cesium-137, in some Napa Valley wines, allegedly from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

Lead researcher Michael Pravikoff admitted, 'These levels are so low, way below the natural radioactivity that's everywhere in the world.'

The California Department of Public Health told the New York Times on July 20 that there are no 'health and safety concerns to California residents.'

Or is this just some French scientists trying to cast doubt on the area's competition with French wines?