Lisa Hemenway’s much-anticipated eat-in/take-out marketplace is officially open — for a sneak peek.
“I’m not sure if there has ever been a more anticipated opening. People have been literally banging on the doors to get in. As of Saturday, the paper has come down. Bowing to public demand, Lisa wanted to allow the locals to get a sneak peek,” said Jenifer Levini, on behalf of Hemenway.
So if you’re jonesing to get a first look the coffee shop is percolating and the pizza ovens cooking 4 types of pizza: Margarita; Pancetta & Artichoke; Roasted Eggplant & Onion with Feta; Wild Mushroom & Smoked Mozzarella. The deli cases are being stocked as Hemenway trains the staff, and much of the fresh produce is in place. The wine and beer bar is open, and local poultry and duck breasts are ready to take home.
If you want the full Fresh experience, you may want to wait a few more weeks as staff finish pricing cheese, dairy and other stock while learning the ropes. Table service, the full deli and finishing touches are rolling out in stages, and Hemenway is clear that the marketplace isn’t totally ready for its close-up just yet. “Please bear with us as we approach the ‘real’ opening in a week or two,” says Lisa’s Facebook page.
So consider this your Beta of Fresh. With subsequent updates coming your way throughout the next few months.
Fresh, open 8am to 8pm daily, 5755 Mountain Hawk Way, Santa Rosa.
Dude, Get Your Car Off My Farm
Walking by a cracked and decrepit freeway on-ramp – reclaimed from the morning commute and relegated to the urban wasteland by the Loma Prieta earthquake – two San Franciscans, thinking more like old-school farmers than new-age city dwellers, look at the cracked blacktop bleeding with weeds and saw, incredibly, an orchard. And the topsoil, so manifestly absent on the windswept concrete col, in which these imagined trees would sink their roots? Heaps of rotting compost, strap-compressed cardboard, leftovers from nearby markets, and landscaper clippings – organic detritus, otherwise sentenced to serve out a capital term as landfill, from across the City.
The best bit of the slide show, the whole point really, is the lens through which the farmers see this hard, raw wasteland: Where you and I see trash and blight, they see “piles of possibility”. Making soil out garbage. Growing fruit trees on a freeway. Why? Because these farmers believe that everyone – even those of us that, by choice or happenstance, live in high-density, high-land-cost forests of concrete, glass, and steel – should be able to grow at least some of the food that they eat, and that vacant space, by the miraculous fact of its mere presence, offers an invitation (an obligation?) to do so.
The punchline, or at least rwhat resonates most deeply about the project for me, is its preordained impermanence: This orchard can only ever be transitory, because, as we all know, the Bay Area’s great armies of cars march through their morning commute with all the inevitability of a glacial ice floe. The trees will be uprooted; the soil scraped away; the pavement once again returned to its urban birthright as. This is not speculation: The City will take the land back – there is no question about this – and yet (or perhaps because) the farmers persist, and until such time as the rubber of our tires replace the soles of their work boots, people will, of all things, eat off that land. I don’t know about you, but I think that is just uber cool.
The slide show will eat up about 5 minutes out of your life – which, truth be told, is about 4 minutes, 30 seconds longer than I typically allot to any given byte of digital cellulose. But it will repay your investment every time you pass a dusty vacant lot, or wonder what to do with your terrace, your windowsill, or that weedy scrap of long-forgotten dirt in the far left corner of your yard.
Worth Our Weight | Santa Rosa
You know you’re old when you start applauding teens working a long Sunday kitchen shift at Worth Our Weight. And even older when you force your own teenager to observe this kind of unnatural behavior. “See,” you say, “this is an example of hard work. You may want to try it out sometime.”
Sigh. Eye roll. Sigh. But the message sinks in between bites of lox and bagels; huevos rancheros with pulled pork and buttermilk waffles: These kids aren’t just working hard. They can actually cook.
Worth Our Weight has slowly but surely become a Santa Rosa institution under Chef Evelyn Cheatham’s steady guidance. An on-the-job culinary apprentice program for 15-24-year-olds, WOW has settled into a solid weekend brunch routine in the last two years at their 1021 Hahman Drive location. And by solid, I mean really good.
Operating as a community table on Saturday and Sunday, brunchers pay what they can for the three-course brunch (pastries and fruit, entrees like bagels and lox, waffles, eggs and a chocolate pot de creme for dessert). “We take cash, check or IOU’s,” said one of the culinary students. There’s no suggested amount for donation, so it’s up to diners to determine what the meal was worth. (I left $10 per person plus a $5 tip).
Because of the community aspect, the brunch draws a broad cross-section of folks. Recently its become a destination for the local scooterati as well as chefs, foodies and neighborhood supporters. (And speaking of scooters, there’s a Vespa raffle going on through the beginning of October to help support the program).
Students who are accepted to the program (most have faced significant challenges in their lives) learn not only how to cook, but also how to work the dining room — meaning handling customers, taking orders and serving the food. The students are clearly well-trained and try hard to make the experience professional, but this is clearly, a learning environment, so there are inevitable snafus and gaffes that make the dining event even more charming.
Worth their weight, and then some.
Worth Our Weight: 1021 Hahman Drive, Santa Rosa, (707) 544-1200
In addition to brunch (Saturday 9am-2p, Sunday 9am to 1pm), WOW serves an Apprentice Dinner at 6pm the third Friday of each month and a take-out ribs, chicken and tri-tip dinner for pick-up on the second Friday of the month.
Santi | Santa Rosa
CLOSED
Rustic Italian classics are the main attraction at this Santa Rosa (formerly Geyserville) trattoria. The kitchen changes its offerings to regional specialties monthly, so you may never see the same dish twice.
The restaurant picked up stakes in 2010, moving to the ritzy Fountaingrove neighborhood, next door to popular Italian/gourmet grocer and wine purveyor, Traverso’s. It’s a match made in heaven. With the move came an updated menu. Santi regulars will still recognize plenty many of the regional dishes from the past, but there’s a lighter, feel to everything. Ten years ago, says Chef Liza Hinman, restaurants did a traditional protein, side, veg plate and portions got enormous. “You’d see people taking home these huge boxes.” Instead she’s updated the menu to include more concentrated, “you can eat everything on the plate” entrees and antipasti.
Open for lunch and dinner. Santi Restaurant, 2097 Stagecoach Rd., Santa Rosa, (707) 528-1549. tavernasanti.com
Whole Foods Coddingtown PIX
Just a couple days out from its grand opening, the Coddingtown Whole Foods market is nearly set up and ready to roll. Here are some of the highlights:
– The Tap Room: An in-house beer lounge open during store hours, the Tap House features 16 local craft brews on tap.
– Kombucha Bar: This fermented health tonic flows on tap near the frozen yogurt bar.
– Fresh Pretzels: The bakery has high-tech in-store ovens and we hear the fresh soft pretzels are the bomb.
– Dry Aged beef and sustainable meats: The store will feature many local meat purveyors, including a super-local beef program that sources from North Bay ranchers. Their 5-step animal welfare program rates how chicken, beef, pork and other meats are raised.
– Monterrey Bay Seafood Watch seafoods: Sustainably raised seafood is a high priority.
– Local Produce: The store will highlight locally-grown produce
– Gluten/Vegan: Specialty foods for gluten-free and animal-free lifestyles will also be highlighted
– Education Center
– Expanded bulk and bulk spices
The store opens Wednesday, Sept. 22 and hosts a barbecue on Sunday, Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This free event is an outdoor barbeque featuring fun for the entire family including a delicious selection of meat and seafood on the grill, live music and an opportunity to meet local ranchers and attend workshops to learn everything from buying, cutting and marinating meat.
Local vendors include more than 125 Sonoma county producers and farmers: Crumb Hither baked goods; Rawk Me Organics raw, vegan, organic ice cream; Mateo Granados’ line of Mayan habanero sauces; Primavera tortilla chips, salsa, hand-made tortillas and tamales; Alexander Valley Gourmet™ pickles; Café Gratitude raw foods to go; Harvest Time spring rolls; The Hummus Guy hummus, dips and spreads; Gipson’s Golden honey; Artisan Bakers baked goods; Full Circle Baking Company baked goods; Salmon Creek Ranch pasture-raised organic duck eggs; Vibranz Kombucha; St. Benoît Yogurt and yogurt cheese; McClelland’s Dairy organic European-style butter; Dry Creek Peach & Produce and Quetzal Farms produce; Devoto Gardens flowers; Two Rock Valley cheese; Coast Roast Coffee, Taylor Maid and Ecco Caffé organic coffee and Bohemian Creamery Italian-style cheeses.
K & L Bistro | Sebastopol
K&L Bistro is a cozy French cafe in the heart of Sebastopol that’s long been a Michelin and Zagat favorite.
Lunch and dinner menus are similar, featuring well-loved comfort food standards like French onion soup, lemon-butter sole and steak frites as well as crab cakes, charcuterie and a cheese course. Seasonal specials add color, and desserts are simple, can’t-miss affairs that frequently incorporate local fruit.
Burgers are a surprise stand-out at this Main St. gem, but you can rarely misstep at this Paris-meets-Wine Country classic. Solid wine list featuring many locals. Exposed brick walls and original art work painted in Paris brings a bit of France to the dining room.
Tight quarters can make for awkward moments if you need to hit the powder room, but such is the price of getting a chance to rub elbows with friends, neighbors and Sebastopol locals.
Lunch: Monday – Saturday: 11:30am – 3:00pm
Dinner: Monday – Thursday: 5:00pm – 9:00pm
Friday & Saturday: 5:00pm – 10:00pm
Tomatoes Are Berries, Strawberries Are Not
Cruising the Tuesday market with my youngest daughter, under strict orders to return home with the makings of a salad but little other guidance, we walked by Lou Preston’s stall, and were stopped in our tracks by Lou’s strawberries. As a rule, I’m not a big fan of strawberries, finding them a poster child for the over-engineered style of supermarket fruit: Big, firm, nice to look at, but overly dry and unpleasantly chalky to the tooth and so often devoid of any real taste. On Tuesday, however, with the oblique angle of the late day sun glancing off their perfectly ripe, almost impossibly red skins, Lou’s teeming baskets of rubescent little berries were like traffic lights designed to halt our egress down the aisle.
Farmer’s markets are all about quality over quantity, and the rest of Lou’s stall was a case study: Small, compact, efficient, and I wanted to eat everything in it, the rainbow-in-a-box of plump tomatoes, the short and squat sweet peppers and the long, lean, twisting, and vaguely sinister fiery ones, the progressive shading of green into crimson and yellow tracking the late-season maturation of the fruit. On the corner of the table, a wicker basket full of crusty sourdough loaves, labeled “country white”, but, to my taste, more closely resembling a dense, chewy version of the classic French miches, with its distinctive tang of rye flour. (Etymological specificity notwithstanding, I took a loaf home. It barely lasted through breakfast the next day.)
Anyway, back to dinner, and our latest installment of “Three”. Armed with strawberries of such high sugar content, I wanted something with a bit of bite to provide ballast to the dish: Green Zebra heirloom tomatoes, with higher acidity and more tartness than most of their heirloom cousins, would balance the flavor profile and a splash of color at the same time. Now, strawberries and tomatoes may or may not sound odd to you – they are both fruits, after all – but the what makes the match particularly interesting is that the tomato is a berry, while the strawberry is not: A botanist will insist that most of what we instinctively classify as berries (with the notable exception of the blueberry, which is a true berry) actually comprises a peripherally related cousin-class called aggregate fruit (many little fruits grouped together), while tomatoes (and bananas, which always surprises me)with their fruit, comprised of flesh from a single ovary, are true berries. Lest you think that’s the end of the story, the strawberry is, in fact, neither berry nor aggregate fruit, but is instead an accessory fruit, in which the edible portion has not been produced from the ovary (apparently, the little bunches of seeds are the true “fruit” of the strawberry, but I don’t really get that).
The rest, as they say, is history, because I was now short one, and only one, ingredient, and there is no more classic accompaniment to either strawberries or tomatoes than balsamic vinegar. You could make a reasonable case that balsamic vinegars, ubiquitous throughout professional and home kitchens alike, have developed into something of a crutch, and I’d likely agree. Certainly, when encountered in excess (and in increasingly suspect applications, such as a heavy-handed drizzle on the cloyingly sweet, sticky pizza I recently had the misfortune to order), their oaky sweetness has a tendency to become monolithic and wearing on the palate. Still and all, for my money, you’ll not often go wrong if you drizzle balsamic vinegar on your strawberries or tomatoes (I would almost always add olive oil and certainly salt and pepper to the latter, although not to the former, and not in combination, as in this “salad”).
I served this as a dessert, to rave reviews from a 10- and an 8-year old with particularly finicky, and not wholly adventurous tastes, so I’m thinking it’s pretty solid.
Strawberry-Tomato ‘Salad’ with Balsamic Syrup
- Pour a quarter cup (this is for about 4 plates) of good balsamic vinegar into a small sauce pan and reduce to a syrupy consistency. Watch the heat carefully – balsamic vinegar scorches easily, and even before then, with all the sugar, it will turn into caramel, which you can’t work with (if it starts to foam, start over, because by the time it cools, it’ll be a hard, sticky mess).
- While the vinegar is reducing, wash the fruit and cut the stems off the strawberries perpendicular to their long axis (i.e., so that they will stand straight up when plated on the cut side). Cut the Green Zebra into uniform small or medium dice (I cut them small and plated them in piles, but it turned out they were a little tricky to eat; I think I’d cut them larger next time, and keep the fingers out of the sticky vinegar drizzle).
- Once the vinegar syrup starts to cool and thicken, drizzle or splatter the plate and arrange the fruit on top (do it in that order, it’ll look cleaner).
It’s Happy Hour Somewhere
It’s Friday afternoon, the sun has won its daily battle with the fog, and I’m making cocktails. Never let it be said that the Proximal Kitchen does not count booze as a food group.
We have lavender planted all over the property (wine country residents alternate between delusions of Tuscany and ones of Provence) and I often wonder what to do with all the precious stuff: We occasionally dry it and bundle it for gifts, we often use large quantities as our house-brand air freshener, and my wife has a great eye for incorporating it into our homegrown floral arrangements. However, as a cook, I always feel a bit guilty about not doing more with it – I mean, here we have this beautiful plant that we have paid to plant and water, that commands what strikes us as an absurd price in the marketplace, and that often gets cut and dumped into the green waste recycle bin at the end of the summer. Somehow, that just seems wrong.
My gut reaction is, unsurprisingly, to think of more ways to eat it. Lavender is, after all, a culinary herb: It does wonders for certain salads, I’ve seen all sorts of interesting lavender desserts (I’m not really a sweets person, but I’ll take it on faith that they didn’t all suck), and it provides a great touch of color and aroma as a garnish on the plate. But what I’ve come to learn is, the easiest and arguably best use of lavender is in cocktails: Try it in mojitos, margaritas, or – as I’m planning on doing as soon as I finish this post – just simply mixed with vodka and lots of fresh lime. And it’s outstanding in (non-alcoholic, if you must) lemonade. The way to do it is to make a lavender simple syrup, and then use that in lieu of whatever sweet syrup your drink would have otherwise called for. It takes no time at all and can be stored for long periods in the fridge.
Lavender Simple Syrup
- Combine 2 cups of sugar with 1 cup of water and bring to a low boil (watch it, you don’t want to scorch it).
- Throw in a large handful of lavender blossoms. It doesn’t really matter which kind; we grow several, I just grab them all and strip the blossoms from the stems. Simmer gently until the flavor is extracted – maybe 15 minutes, there’s plenty of slack here.
- Pour through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing gently on the blossoms to get all the goodness out.
- Use in place of simple syrup in any cocktail or sweetened juice drink.
Should I buy local wines at Costco?
We’ve talked about Costco before, a conversation in which I argued that monolithic, small-business-destroying category killers still have a place in the kitchen, even proximal kitchens, if for no other reason than because saving money on staples allows us to allocate a larger share of our budget to the locally produced goods of premium quality (and, let’s be honest, at a premium price), that we like to cook with. But what about buying locally produced goods at the Big C?
If the identical local product is offered at the farmer’s market, the local health food store, and Costco, and I choose to buy more of it, at a lower price, at Costco, should I pat myself on the back for being such a savvy, sustainably-minded locavore and supporting the production of good, local food, all while saving my family money? Or, should I offer myself up as whipping boy du jour for the inevitable and copious tongue lashing and politically correct cacophony emanating from the barbarous hordes of checkbook liberals and self-described apostles of some quasi Pollan-esque faith lying in wait?
Let’s consider the case of wine: The wine industry is Sonoma County’s largest single employer (directly accounting for some 19% of all jobs county-wide, excluding all the ancillary but clearly material employment in restaurants, hotels and gift shops generated by wine country tourism), and total wine-related revenues account for 40% of the County’s entire contribution to the nation’s GDP. So one thing is clear: Where and how I spend my wine dollars matters to Sonoma County.
Or does it? If I buy Bordeaux in-bond from a broker in London, then you might argue that I’m not doing much to support artisanal winemakers (not that that should stop anyone from drinking the occasional Bordeaux, mind you – the road to deprivation is littered with the carcasses of overzealous locavores, and I, for one, have little interest in dinner-table asceticism), but it’s far from obvious that I’m doing harm to our local economy. Suppose I take the total number of dollars that I would have otherwise spent on Sonoma County wines, at tasting rooms and specialty retailers in my neighborhood, and instead spend those same dollars, on the same wines, at Costco? Who wins, who loses, how much is at stake, and should I care? The answer is not as obvious as you may think. (Unfortunately, this post is about to run quite a bit longer than usual; call it the curse of the two-handed economist. I promise to get back on-thread tomorrow.)
Costco, the nation’s largest (although I’m never sure if this statistic refers to volume, revenue, or both) wine retailer, is the elephant in the cellar, and their fine-wine pricing can be very competitive, provided you can separate wheat from chaff, because their selection, and the price/quality ratio thereof, can be inconsistent; the prices are never bad, but some of the wines are distinctly mediocre, and at prices no better than you’ll find in about 5 minutes on Google. That being said, here is what I picked up the other day on a completely random visit, 3 outstanding examples of Sonoma County Pinot Noir (out of at least a half-dozen options), each from a premium local winery that I could easily drive to, and collectively a representative sample of just what is at stake, from my wallet’s perspective:
- 2006 Keller Estate “La Cruz Vineyard” Pinot Noir. Costco price: $18.49. Winery price: $44.00 (current release – 2007).
- 2007 J Vineyards “Russian River Valley” Pinot Noir: Costco price: $24.99. Winery price: $35.00 (identical bottling).
- 2008 Pellegrini Family Vineyards “Olivet Lane” Pinot Noir. Costco price: $19.99. Winery price: $35.00 (identical bottling)
Thus confronting the data, we find an average savings of 43% of retail, or better than $200/case, and moves a few of what I would otherwise consider “luxury” wines back into the “maybe not for every day, but plausible and guilt-free” category. Still, while total dollars spent remain constant, who gets those dollars does not. I’m a trained economist with a weak suit in micro, so I enlisted the help of former classmate and top-shelf game theory wonk, Mad Dog, and we came up with the following economic implications:
- My wallet, and my palate (although perhaps not my liver) win, because I get to consume more and/or better wine for the same outlay.
- The County coffers are indifferent, because my total taxable consumption, as well as overall wine industry receipts, remain constant.
- The wineries are a slightly trickier story: Definitively, some of what they would have made now goes to Costco, and their gross margins suffer; their cost-of-goods-sold likely falls (e.g., less labor, no tasting room lease), but I think it’s safe to assume that, on balance, winery profits decline on a per-bottle basis. But there is a price and volume story here: It’s entirely possible that the winery sells so many additional bottles, by virtue of the Costco distribution channel, that the absolute level of winery profits actually increases.
- Even if total profits in the economy may remain unchanged (it’s hard to see them falling, or else the business model wouldn’t persist), the reallocation of profits from the winery to Costco would shift some income out of the County, inasmuch as winery capital is locally owned and Costco capital is not. Still, that does not necessarily imply a net loss to the County, because of what we gain in return: If Sonoma has a competitive advantage in making wine but not in selling it, then we, collectively, will be better off if we “pay” Costco to sell it for us, thereby reallocating our resources to more productive ends. (This is, essentially, the “gains from trade” argument. Don’t let the “anti-globalization” whack jobs bamboozle you, they have no idea what they’re talking about, a world without trade would be a far darker, colder, and generally poorer place for nearly everyone.)
- Employment at Costco gains, but at the expense of jobs at the wineries. I’d rather work in a tasting room than Costco, but that’s a purely personal preference, it’s not my place to say which job is “better”. I do, however, think it’s fair to assume that Costco labor is more productive (in the economic sense, i.e., it takes less person-hours to sell the same dollar volume of wine), which would imply fewer total jobs for the County. However, one has to be careful, because that does not necessarily imply a net loss of income, but rather a reallocation of the share of total profits away from labor and toward capital, which is unequivocally bad only if you’re still reading that threadbare copy of Marx from your freshman year.
- All the preceding is an inherently partial equilibrium analysis, and there may be more complex, general equilibrium considerations, particularly along the temporal dimension: It is possible, for instance, that the winery will eventually go out of business by selling via Costco, even if doing so maximizes its short-run profitability (or minimizes its losses, as the case may be). The Keller wine is a case in point: I don’t know what Keller’s cost structure looks like, but I seriously doubt they are making money by selling a $44 Pinot for well under $19 (remember, Costco has a margin in there too, of that we can be certain). More likely, they lose less, which is a perfectly rational thing to do, but hardly a sustainable business model. It is at least possible, therefore, that I will contribute to the demise of the local wine industry by consuming its wines exclusively through Costco. (General equilibrium analysis can get very complicated: One could argue that the failure of an otherwise unsustainable business leads to a more overall economic efficiency in the long-run, in which employment, consumption, and tax receipts could all actually be higher in the absence of the business than they were in its presence.)
- You could argue that one should “shop locally” in order to “support” the local economy, which is all fine and dandy, but starts to get awfully close to subsidization, if not outright charity. While I’ve got no axe to grind with charity, it’s not at all clear what that should have to do with my consumption decision: If I want to subsidize a winery, I don’t need to overpay for their wine, I should just write them a check and save everyone the trouble. A useful test: Would you mind buying the wine for less at Costco and sending the price difference, in cash, back to the winery? That (to a close approximation) is the economic equivalent of a subsidy, so if that doesn’t make sense to you, then you probably didn’t want to subsidize them by paying more than you had to in the first place.
This is hardly an exhaustive analysis, but the lesson is simple enough: First and foremost, you should buy the wine you like to drink at the best possible price. If knowing that the wine is local confers other, non-pecuniary benefits (e.g., it makes you feel better about yourself), then by all means, buy locally – heck, I like our local wines on their merits, and purchasing them makes me feel good about our community. Similarly, if tasting rooms have value to you – as they do for me – then, again, buy some wine directly from the winery (especially the stuff that you’ll never see at Costco). And if you can only afford to drink local wines from Costco, or you just want to spend as little as possible, then don’t sweat it – you may be doing a lot more for the local economy than you think.
Do this now: September 2010 events
It’s that painful time of year when there are just too many amazing events and not enough time. Here are some of BiteClub’s Top Picks.
Sept. 25: PRIMAL: Celebrating Fire Cooking, Meat and the Art of Butchering
Top meatheads meet up in Napa for a protein showdown while guests eat and drink to the clamor of cleavers. This isn’t for the squeamish, but rather a celebration of old school meat love. Nose-to-tail headliners include Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats, John Stewart of Black Pig Meat and Duskie Estes of zazu and bovolo; Sheamus Feeley from Farmstead; Michael Sullivan from Blackberry Farm and a whole host of other chefs and butchers. $75 per person, VIP tix $125. Chase Cellars’ Hayne Vineyard, St. Helena, 2-7pm. artofthebutcher.com.
Sept. 25: Guerrilla Cuisine, a wandering supper club experiment is doing a West Coast storytelling series and it kicks off Saturday September 25th in Healdsburg. If you’re a fan of The Moth, you’ll get this: 5 course dinner + storytelling (live, no notes). Guerrilla Cuisine is a culinary and artistic experiment that’s secret and delicious.Tickets are $50 plus BYOB. Location given out 24 hours in advance of the event. http://gcwest.eventbrite.com/
Sept. 25: Taste of Petaluma
So many restaurants, so many bites. So little time to stuff it all in. In its fifth year, the annual Taste of Petaluma is a tasty jaunt where local stores and chefs and winemakers pair up deliciously. More than 60 participants this year will tempt you on this tasty treasure hunt. A benefit for the Cinnabar Theater. $50 in advance, $60 day-of. More details: http://www.cinnabartheater.org/taste/index.htm
Sept. 25: Harvest Fair Awards Night Gala. Drink, eat and be very merry at this county-wide harvest party honoring winners of the Sonoma County wine competition (1,000+ wines submitted) and professional food awards. Admission includes Unlimited Tasting of Medal-Winning Wines from 150+ Wineries. 7-9:30pm at Grace Pavilion, $65 per person. harvestfair.org.
Sept. 26: Handcar Regatta. Check out the BiteClub Food Circus, with live butchery and demos on radical pickling, exotic spices, sausagery, a flaming pepper party, paneer-making and more. Details at handcar-regatta.com. FREE.
Sept. 26: New Coddingtown Whole Foods “Big Time Barbecue Bash” 11am-3pm. Whole Foods at Coddingtown, Santa Rosa. FREE.