Harvest: ‘For me, Christmas lives inside a cake’
My family’s tradition is the bûche de Noël. A Christmas log. It arrives on an antique silver platter, dusted lightly with powdered sugar for snow, as if it has just been lifted from the forest floor.
Snapshot: ‘No-rehearsal’ Christmas pageant
“In Hoc Anno Domini” is the title a Vermont Royster 1949 editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ reprints his editorial every year, such is the clarity of its prose and power of its message.
Snapshot: Big Sur’s sunny winter weather
It’s mindblowing that Sonoma County is buried under a marine layer for weeks while the coast from Bodega Bay to Big Sur is sunny. Big Sur is having a spectacular streak of sunshine: no rain, no fog, no wind. Yeah, I know. Big Sur...
Snapshot: Taking it to extremes
The guys and gals from Xtreme Xperience came to Sonoma Raceway last Sunday with 14 supercars, including: a Nissan GT-R, a Corvette Z06 and various Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, including this 718 Cayman GT4 RS in the photo above.
Twist in slaying of Healdsburg’s sheriff leads to lynching
One of the girls who was a principal in the gangster assault case in San Francisco just five years ago has written a letter which has been turned over to the state board of prison directors, in which she admits that she falsely testified in a 1920 assault trial that led to lynching of three men...
Snapshot: Talkin’ turkey—mushrooms
Talkin’ turkey here. Nope, not Thanksgiving turkey. Turkey tail mushrooms. It’s mushrooming season in Sonoma County. When the weather turns cold and damp, fog rolls in and rain falls, and mushrooms’ fruiting bodies pop up.
Thanksgiving, open roads and a dog’s life
Border collies, like Gus in the photo with this column, are recognized as a smart breed with exceptional stamina, capable of learning over 500 words and running 30 miles. Border collies appear in the movies Babe and Mad Max: Fury Road, which grossed $254 million and $368 million, respectively.
Library book sale lined up for March
Fear not, bibliophiles: the Friends of the Healdsburg Library has announced the next book sale will be “just before the Ides of March 2026, but we need to get enough donations to make this feasible,” said Board President Tracy Logan.
Snapshot: 50 shades of coastal grey
Down by Bodega Bay, sea meets sand on a foggy day. Fifty shades of coastal gray emerge between white foam and black rock cliffs. One might easily mistake this scene for a classic Ansel Adams nature picture taken on black-and-white film with a Hasselblad but it is, in fact, a color photo taken with an iPhone.
Flashbacks: Offal times at Healdsburg slaughter house
The first robbery occurred in April, just after a big slaughtering had been completed. The hearts, lights, lungs, and other meat taken from carcasses, considered in butcher parlance as “offal” together with one or two tools, disappeared. A few weeks later, immediately after another butchering, the same thing was repeated.
Arts & Entertainment
Blues from the Hill Country
“Modern Mississippi music.” If you ask singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Luther Dickinson to define what the North Mississippi Allstars (NMA) create, that’s the answer he’ll give. It’s the path he and his brother Cody have been traveling down ever since NMA dropped their 2000 debut, Shake Hands with Shorty, and one the band members will share when they hit the LBC stage on May 9.
