Lifestyle

When one thinks of celebrations at The Matheson in downtown Healdsburg (the town’s de facto club room), one usually goes straight to the top, literally the top-floor Roof 106 brasserie and bar where all manner of shindigs have occurred over the years. However, this year’s release of Valette Wines, which shares a proprietor with The Matheson, was a decidedly ground-floor affair.

This year the Gay Wine Weekend becomes even more closely tied to Healdsburg, with the Lodge at Healdsburg on Grove Street serving as unofficial headquarters. As well as the winery tours and winemaker dinners, the signature events continue this year for the most part at Healdsburg-area locations.

Inside the Healdsburg Community Center near the north end of town, formerly the home of Foss Creek Elementary, two of the school’s old classrooms are newly renovated and filled with children again—this time, even younger. The rooms are bustling with the sounds of cooing babies, giggling toddlers and active preschoolers...

Mark Themig, a close friend of Jen’s in recent years, was in a position to coordinate both city and community resources for the ceremony. “I think it was exactly what Jen would have wanted and enjoyed herself,” he said of the April afternoon gathering at Villa Chanticleer.

With the closures and limitations of the pandemic fading into memory, restaurant dining has regained its position as one of Sonoma County’s most popular, close-to-home recreations.

In her new cookbook, In My Kusina (2013), Healdsburg resident Dinna Villacorta Eisenhart captures the magic of Filipino cooking and culture through her exacting documentation of the well-loved dishes from her childhood.

So prevalent if under-reported is this latest Covid surge that CVS Pharmacy ran out of Covid test kits, as did other drug stores. Rite Aid in Healdsburg did manage to keep tests on hand, but the fact that some places did not is pretty clear evidence something’s going around...

The fanciest vegan fine-dining restaurant in the Bay Area, located right here in Healdsburg, will shut down just shy of its first birthday. he restaurant is called Second Story, up the stairs from Little Saint...

Chef Douglas Keane has now written a revealing and insightful memoir, 'Culinary Leverage.' Last week we spoke with the 53-year-old chef about the book, his interest in dog rescue, his opinion of social media, trendy restaurants and even induction cooking. 

The 29 pooches that entered in the 2024 Howl-O-Ween pet parade, sponsored by the Humane Society of Sonoma County, showed why they’re beloved by their people as they showed off costumes, wigs, novelty rigs and, in at least one case, their stripes.