Picazo Café reopens
The Chavez family just announced that they are now able to serve customers inside Picazo in a warm and cozy atmosphere free of smoke and smoky smells.
Since a very sad fire last August 15, father Salvador, “Don Chava,” has been barbecuing with family members and cooking from their Picazo food truck in front of the Arnold Drive restaurant. And of course Don Chava has continued to bake his fabulous pastries in the kitchen and serve his special blend coffees.
Including new items, Picazo’s menu is simple and well-priced, including a breakfast egg sandwich or burrito, an All-American breakfast, buttermilk pancakes, fruit cup, or their Kaboom Bowl ($5-$15). Lunch choices include chilaquiles, chicken fried chicken, ceviche, their many-time prize-winning Picazo Burger, a pesto chicken sandwich or an El Señor crispy sandwich ($14-$18).
The Chavez family invites everyone to their official re-opening scheduled for February 14, which happens to be Valentine’s Day. They want to celebrate the many people who have continued to support their efforts with all of the family. For more info email kina@kinaskitchengroup.com or call (707) 931-4377. Picazo is at 19100 Arnold Drive.
I admire two public statements the Chavez family makes: “We try to use local, sustainable and organic ingredients such as eggs, garden vegetables, Niman Ranch beef, Clover milk, Peerless Coffee, Sobre Vista fruit, Watmaugh strawberries” (not organic but delicious). The Chavez family also states that they “welcome all races, all religions, all countries of origin, all abilities, all genders, and all sexual orientations,” adding “You are safe here. We stand with you.”
Palms Grill update
Pemba Sherpa said by phone last week that the county health department wants a few changes at his renovation of the former Palms Grill, which he plans to finish this month and open his Farmhouse Sonoma in March.
Glen Ellen Star honored
Glen Ellen Star and chef/owner Ari Weiswasser have been honored as a semi-finalist in the James Beard 2025 awards. They still have to get into and through the finals, but as many Academy Awards nominees say, it truly is an honor to get this far. Congratulations!
Their weekly Wednesday “neighborhood night” offers excellent two-course meals ($49) with free corkage, an idea they picked up from Catherine Venturini when she closed Olive & Vine in the Jack London Village space now occupied by Songbird Parlour.
Glen Ellen Star was first off the blocks to offer a 2025 Valentine dinner, to include Amberjack tartare with Satsuma mandarin and pickled Fresno peppers; Yukon Gold potato vichyssoise; lobster ravioli with Hanson’s Vodka sauce and fennel pollen ricotta. Or, Snake River Farms American wagyu Zabuton with whipped horseradish sweet potatoes, and a wild mushroom gratin with Périgord black truffles. Dessert will be “PB&C” peanut butter crunch bar with cocoa mousse and dark chocolate glaze ($135). Wine pairing $65 per person. 13648 Arnold Dr., Glen Ellen. (707) 343-1384.
Valentine dining
One of the most obvious Hallmark Holidays, Valentine’s Day comes up Feb. 14, which is sooner than you think. If you want to go out or take someone out for dinner, Sonoma offers lots of locally-owned opportunities. Here are a couple of them. Or you can cook your favorites for a person special to you, even if it is you, yourself.
Sonoma Grille
Nima Sherpa and Executive Chef Saul Razo offer a four-course dinner starting with oysters, shrimp skewers or eggplant terrine, followed by either lobster miso or beet salad. Entrée choices include butternut squash tortellini, rack of lamb, seared scallops or Mahi Mahi with grilled asparagus, followed by desserts of a honey wine pear, a heart shaped raspberry cheesecake, or a Valentine’s chocolate bowl with raspberry mousse. $85. 165 W. Napa St., Sonoma. (707) 938-7542.
The Mill at Glen Ellen
Dana Jaffe and Sanjeev Kumar present a prix fix menu of della Fattoria bread, wild mushroom soup and roasted beet salad with strawberries, followed by entrée options of mustard glazed Australian rack of lamb, ricotta stuffed chicken breast, seared Day Boat scallops, or eggplant tempura, followed by a sweetheart Pavlova or warm flourless chocolate cake. Price varies by entrée from $85 to $95.
The Mill now also offers special three-course dinners on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday evenings including soup or salad; choices of grilled chicken breast, poached salmon, or their version of Salisbury steak, followed by Dana’s warm coconut Khir (rice pudding) or chocolate raspberry mousse. $49. 1430 Arnold Dr., Glen Ellen. (707) 721-1818.
Crab Feed at Roche Winery
The Roche family will host a five-course Dungeness Crab Feed on Saturday, February 15 with tastings of five of their Gold Medal and Best of Class wines, awarded at the 2025 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.
This evening starts with a sparkling wine at an appetizer reception by Aunt Momo’s Catering in the Roche Winery Barrel Room, featuring the winning sparkling wine. Aunt Momo is actually Sara Roche, one of siblings who own the winery.
After the appetizer reception, guests go into the “cozy lighted and heated tent” located between their barrel room building and fermentation building for the crab feed. The family-style feast will include Shrimp Louie Salad, Orzo pasta with mixed grilled vegetables, a bountiful main course of fresh as possible Dungeness crab with freshly baked San Francisco sourdough bread, and desserts by Aunt Momo’s Catering. The half crab servings will be fresh caught, cooked, and cracked the same day and served with melted butter with extra half crab servings available by request.
The Roches will pour their gold and Double Gold 2023 Carneros Chardonnay (both from American Oak and French Oak), 2023 Sonoma Valley Dry Rosé, their 2022 Carneros Pinot Noir Longford Vineyard, and their 2023 Sparkling Brut Rosé. Dinner $145 public, $120 club members. 5:30-9:30 p.m. 2209A Bonness Rd., Sonoma. www.rochwinery.com/events/publicevents.
Roche Family Winery was started in 1987 by Drs. Joe and Genevieve Roche, north of Sears Point Raceway. Full disclosure: Both pathologists, the Roches helped us analyze the autopsy of Benigno Aquino for a book we wrote, and Genevieve and I served together on the St. Francis Solano School Board.
Larson Family Winery’s tasty Valentine’s weekend
Becky and Tom Larson will host a whole weekend of Rosé, Reds, and Chocolate Tasting and Tour February 13 through 16, a great chance to visit Larson since their barn fire. Your date includes a wine tasting and tour of their production facility and their barrel room. Guests will enjoy “a bold red” with the Larsons’ Millerick Road Fudge and “a rich Cabernet Sauvignon” with their 3 Lab Cab Chocolate sauce. And you might even get to pet the three labs. Three tours at 11 a.m., and 1 and 3 p.m. $55 public, $20 club members. Kids are free. 23355 Millerick Rd., Sonoma. (707) 938-3031.
Mozaik offers bubbles and dessert
For Valentine’s Day Mozaik, on Sonoma Plaza, offers Valentine’s diners “a glass of complimentary bubbles and free dessert” with dinner. 31 East Napa St., Sonoma. Mozaiksonoma.com.
Kivelstadt’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese Night
Always thinking of new ideas, Jordan Kivelstadt will offer a super grilled cheese night at his Bloom Carneros as a pop-up by Nicole and David of “A Moveable Feast” catering. “A Moveable Feast” happens to be the title of an Ernest Hemingway memoir that he wrote in Paris in the 1920s and was actually published posthumously in 1964. Hopefully the food will live up to his reputation.
The party starts with “Dorito” popcorn, an amuse bouche of artichoke green chili tartlets, a Little Gems salad with radicchio, radish and cranberries, followed by roasted tomato orange soup. The main course consists of three grilled cheese sandwich fingers made with smoked cheddar, one with Vella Cheese’s Jalapeño Jack and cream cheese, and one with Pt. Reyes blue cheese and fig jam. $55. Each course can be paired with one of Kivelstadt’s prized wines for an additional $35.
Eggs, Bird Flu, and Trump Cuts
Chicken and ducks lay eggs, usually not presidents of the United States.
President Donald J. Trump and friends have managed to suggest that the bird flu, egg prices, and the tragic airplane crash into the Potomac River are former President Joe Biden’s fault.
Migrating birds fly over, drop their poop indiscriminately, including the avian flu virus if they have it. Now it has mutated and shown up in livestock and even humans, with a possibility of another mutation becoming widespread.
And then there is the outbreak of tuberculosis in Kansas.
President Trump has shut down communication from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and he has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), which cuts off sharing of research and information to and from other countries.
President Trump ordered the arrest and deportation of certain people, many of whom have local businesses, grow and pick our crops, harvest Sonoma Valley grapes, pack and lift food into trucks, process smelly meats in sometimes unhealthy work conditions, cook restaurant foods, clean toilets in hotels, maintain gardens, and do the most physically demanding work in building our homes, and are thankful to do all of this to make better lives for their families.
So what will happen when they are gone? Will fruit spoil on trees, grapes linger on vines, lettuce go unpicked, meat rot uncleaned and un-butchered, and will restaurants large and small suffer when those workers with brown skin from other countries stop showing up to work?
Federal funding for our county Meals on Wheels (but not our privately funded Meals on Wheels that cooks at the Episcopal Church), Head Start, kids’ free school breakfasts and lunches, food for some seniors and nursing homes, and much more are threatened.
Last Tuesday, Congressman Mike Thompson said in a press release, “The Administration is blocking funds for firefighting and disaster relief, housing assistance, veterans’ care, food banks and food assistance, Medicaid, childcare, farmers, small businesses, military readiness and more. That is unacceptable.” And what about the help to the L.A. fire victims he reluctantly said he would give.
On Tuesday, Jan. 28, a federal judge put Trump’s funding dump on pause until Feb. 3 so the judge can learn more about it and its constitutionality.
Check Please
KQED’s show “Check Please” is inviting local guests for their 20th season. Applications for Check, Please! Bay Area are open! If you have a favorite spot in Sonoma Valley to recommend, please use this qr code to fill out the form and tell them all about it. www.kqed.org/checkplease
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