Kathleen Hill: Sonoma still serving, Santa, a community breakfast and the rise of parklets

Restaurants, bars, and wineries still serving in Sonoma

Sonoma County is included in Gov. Gavin Newsom's "Bay Area" region of his Dec. 3 stay-at-home order. The order will only take effect for Sonoma County if and when the Bay Area region has fewer than 15 percent ICU bed availability.

If the ICU bed availability triggers the stay-at-home order, it means that bars, wineries, nail salons, hair salons, barbershops, and "personal services" will have to close within 48 hours.

Restaurants would be limited to take-out and delivery service only.

But not yet.

There is a statewide travel restriction in effect.

Santa drops into Larson Family Winery

We are all looking for a little “normalcy” and fun these days. You might find some of both at Larson Family Winery this weekend, Dec. 5 and 6.

At the former site of Northern California’s one-time largest rodeo, the Larson family says they have come from cowboys and rodeos to vineyards and wine. Their motto is, “We drink what we can, and we sell the rest.”

Always family friendly and dog friendly, Larson will welcome the 17th annual “surprise visit” from Santa on Saturday and Sunday, along with professional photographer Kara Lighthouse who will take photos.

Of course there will be special tastings and sales of Larson wines. Reservations required for a visit with Santa and wine tasting. $45 includes photos. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Book at larsonfamilywinery.com or 938-3031, ext. 10. 23355 Millerick Road, Sonoma.

Community breakfast

Catch it while you can.

While the weather is sunny, you can get out there and have breakfast in the sun or take it home, courtesy of the Valley of the Moon Knights of Columbus. Enjoy the momentary weather on the St. Francis Solano School playground, socially distanced and with masks worn except when actually eating.

This Sunday, Dec. 6, Aunt Momo, her brother Brendan Roche, and the Knights offer their first Sunday of the month Community Breakfast. No preaching and you don’t have to be Catholic. Just fun and a bargain good breakfast that includes scrambled eggs, sausages, pancakes, French toast, fruit salad, sautéed vegetables, potatoes and Aunt Momo’s famous ricotta beignets, plus coffee, tea, hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles. $10 adults, $5 kids, $25 whole family. 8 to 10:30 a.m. Park on the street and enter from Church Street off Third Street West.

Local crab season delayed again

Commercial Dungeness crab season has been postponed again until at least Dec. 16. For us it is a gustatory inconvenience and disappointment, but for crabbers it’s a financial blow or delay.

Last year we were told that crab season was delayed because crabbers didn’t want to net whales, when it was really because the crab shells were too soft and the meat was too spare. It turned out to be the presence of demoic acid in the crabs. Demoic acid can cause nausea, diarrhea and dizziness in humans. No one has suggested yet this year that the current delay is anything but 300 whales spotted off the Pacific Coast between Mendocino and the Mexican border.

Oak Hill Farm now open more days

Oak Hill Farm, now operated by Melissa Bucklin, granddaughter of the late Ann Teller who founded it, will open its Red Barn across from B.R. Cohn Winery both Saturdays and Sundays throughout December with expanded offerings.

As usual, they will offer all sorts of winter squashes, turnips, watermelon radishes, carrots, butterball potatoes, garlic, onions, leeks, persimmons and quince.

They also sell one-of-a-kind handmade wreaths, late year flowers (always cheerful) along with bunches of eucalyptus, bay toyon, myrtle and magnolia cuttings. Also added this year are attractive table linens, soaps, lotions, large glass vases for arrangements, and treats such as organic honey, flour, and lots more from Hummingbird Wholesale in Oregon. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 15101 Sonoma Highway, Glen Ellen.

Cochon Volant adds apple pie and cookie dough

Yes, that would be take-and-bake cookie dough to make Lizzy’s super popular cookies. And apple pie.

For $20 you get eight vacuum-packed two-ounce balls of cookie dough. At two ounces, they are one-third the size of Lizzy’s baked 6-ounce cookies ($5) in the restaurant.

The apple pie is sold by the slice ($6) or as a whole pie, the latter by pre-order only ($32.) 18350 Sonoma Highway, Sonoma. 509-5480.

Parklet updates

Parklets are popping up everywhere, thanks to good weather (although rain would be welcome by some) and a prolonged dining out season.

Innovative designs appear to need those official orange blockades, even disguised. Parklets give restaurants space to make up for their indoor dining rooms that they cannot use as long as Sonoma County stays in the “purple” category of restrictions. At the same time, Sonoma County Visitors Bureau is still running television commercials trying to lure visitors to come to Sonoma.

Guests seem to be happy sitting fairly close to each other and sharing air with those at nearby tables, since most people remove their masks when they sit down, possibly endangering each other and restaurant servers.

On a Tuesday tour around Sonoma Plaza, the following all had parklets, either in full use or in construction (only Della Santina’s has a tent): Girl & the Fig, El Dorado Kitchen, Valley, Pangloss Cellars, Maya, Café La Haye, Basque Boulangerie, Plaza Bistro, Sweet Scoops, B&V Whiskey Bar & Grille and Black Bear Diner. And most have had to compete for hard to find patio heaters.

Mary’s Pizza Shack, La Casa, Enoteca Della Santina, Steiners, Taub Family Outpost, Oso, Tasca Tasca, La Salette, Sonoma Grille, and some tasting rooms already added or had tables set up along sidewalks.

Thanks to Maureen Cottingham and the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance for sharing the guidelines released Monday as follows. These are good for the dining public to know for their own safety as well as clarifications for restaurateurs and staff who set up the tables daily in parklets. For all of the details, email maureen@sonomavalleywine.com.

The guidelines provide additional details concerning partial walls. Only one fully enclosed side wall is allowed.

A main point for guests is that tables and chairs in outdoor dining areas must be positioned to ensure 6 feet between patrons at other tables. Previously some understood that the tables themselves had to be 6 feet apart, which left diners’ backsides about three feet apart.

‘Dinner is Served’ for Mentoring Alliance supporters

The Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance fundraiser in August apparently was such a success that they are holding another on Thursday, Dec. 17, again starring food from Kivelstadt Cellars Wine Garden & Eatery.

Your delivered evening starts with a Holiday Gin Moscow Mule from Uncle Val’s gin from 3 Badge Beverage Corporation. You also receive three separate 8-ounce wine tastes from Kivelstadt Cellars, Sangiacomo Family Vineyards and Saxon Brown. There will be a brief zoom program from 6 to 6:30 p.m. featuring alumni mentor, Linda Higueras and her alumni mentee, Miriam. You don’t even have to leave home to enjoy the evening.

Here’s the menu with lots of choices:

Choose three sides from roasted root vegetables, spiced winter squash medley, three cheese mac, beet and chicories salad, and charred cauliflower.

Then come choices of pot roast marinated in wine, cedar plank smoked Skuna Bay salmon, vanilla chipotle-basted double cut pork chop, or vegan al pastor tostadas without pork. Choose one dessert among a cheese course, apple cobbler or a Ghirardelli chocolate trifle. $200 donation for one person, $325 for two. For more information call Susie Gallo at 938-1990 or email info@sonomamentoring.org.

Contrasts of our times…

Last Saturday, the “day off” I give myself, I found myself flipping back and forth between MSNBC and the Food Network.

Andrew Zimmern is a famed chef, author and television star whose latest series, “What’s Eating America” on MSNBC, seems to have morphed into a show that illustrates where food comes from in America and who works to produce it. He recently cited several statistics of food insecurity (meaning hunger) during the pandemic, including among people who have never had to ask for anything because they had substantive jobs prior to COVID.

Zimmern mentioned the miles-long lines at food banks throughout the country and pleaded with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to at least read the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s rescue act to keep the country’s restaurants and bars open and employing staff.

By contrast, the Food Network’s “The Kitchen,” starring Geoffrey Zakarian, who had been billed to come to Sonoma as a consultant to then-developing Layla at MacArthur Place, was focusing on how many raspberries to line up and where on the plate around a chocolate-drizzled chocolate cake.

Maybe we need a show on how to stretch your food money and where best to get nutritious food, a la MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook A Wolf.” Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher wrote the book as a hint of what to do when you were either low on money or couldn’t find certain foods because so many staples were going to the military during World War II. It was a how to get along book with recipes and humor while addressing a national problem. Many of us could use that now. I was fortunate to spend many weekdays with her for seven years, including the day she passed from this world.

There really wasn’t a wolf at her or anyone else’s door and no one cooked one – it was a symbolic way of saying you (and the wolf) were hungry. Her irreverent and slightly zany and frank writing style were also how she spoke and lived.

Give locally as you are able to Sonoma Overnight Support, Friends In Sonoma Helping, Food for All, and anyone else you know of that is helping to feed our many hungry Sonoma Valley neighbors newly out of jobs and looking for nourishment.