Southern Sonoma Country Life

Wishing You All A Happy Thanksgiving, Big or Small, Home or Away!

"Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is."

Ernest Hemingway

 

128 Black Friday Wildfire Fundraiser for Kincade Wildfire Victims — Treat the Family to a Wonderful Day of Wine Tasting in the Alexander Valley

Looking for somewhere you and your family can go after Thanksgiving? Explore the wineries along Taste Destination 128 for a day of family fun. Fifty % of all ticket sales will be donated to the United Way of Wine Country in supporting Kincade Wildfire victims, survivors & evacuees immediate needs. Visit eight Alexander Valley wineries, each offering holiday wine special and delicious holiday food bites!

The festive participating wineries are: Alexander Valley Vineyards, Hanna, Hawkes, deLorimier, Soda Rock, Trentadue, Simi and Zialena.

Take in the gorgeous views of Wine County in what’s known as the hidden gem of Sonoma County, Alexander Valley.

Fri, November 29, 2025

11:00 AM – 4:00 PM PST

Location

Alexander Valley

95448

Pre-Sale Tickets $50 General Admission | $40 Members | $15 Designated Driver Purchase Tickets

View Map

Shopping for friends and family this holiday season, look no further. Wine makes for a perfect gift for your loved ones. Share the joy of your favorite wine from Alexander Valley with your family and friends.

Tickets include a wristband to taste at all 7 wineries, a food ticket per winery, and a Taste Destination 128 logo glass.

Pre-Sale Tickets:

$50 General Admission | $40 Members | $15 Designated Driver/ Children

Please select your check in winery when purchasing tickets.

 

Participating Wineries:

Alexander Valley Vineyards

Tomato Soup Shooter topped with Grilled Cheese

 

deLorimier

Sweet Potato, Ham and Bean Soup

Paired with our 2017 Primitivo

 

HANNA Winery & Vineyards

Winter Squash Gratin and Stuffed Pork

 

Hawkes

Fall Apart Ribs with a Savory Cabbage Slaw

 

Simi

Nonna's Meatballs with Tierra Farms Polenta

 

Soda Rock Winery

Beef Short Ribs Over Polenta

 

Trentadue

Caramelized Shallot and Blue Cheese Tarts with Crispy Leeks

 

Zialena

Grazing Table from Field and Farm Bountiful Boards & Tables featuring Gourmet Cheese, Charcuterie, and more!

Windrush Farm Holiday Art Faire — Saturday & Sunday Nov 30th and Dec 1st 10 am to 3 pm

Available Now — Big Green Country — A Novel by Frances Rivetti

Big Green Country is now available to order! If you're in the States and you'd like a signed copy or multiple copies by me, the author, then please do order directly from me by clicking on the home page of Southern Sonoma Country Life. Scroll down to find the Paypal button on the right. 

Be sure to order Big Green Country if it's my latest release you are looking for. 

Amazon has both the print version and the e-book available for online orders here in the States. If you order via Amazon and would like books signed at a later date, I'll be announcing dates for upcoming signings and events into the New Year soon. Click here for Amazon orders of Big Green Country.

UK NEWS 

It's super exciting to see that Amazon UK has Big Green Country available on Nov 29 on Kindle which is huge given my  many friends and family and readers in Europe. And Click here for pre-orders for the print version in the UK, coming soon. 

It appears that Amazon is able to access print copies faster than me and as we're at the busiest time of year for the printing presses, please be patient with me in fulfilling any direct orders. I'll send them out as fast as I can when they arrive into my anxiously awaiting hands! 

I've booked a first double book-group reading in Sonoma in January and a radio show in December (more on that soon) and look forward to Big Green Country picking up steam as word gets out on a now international grassroots basis. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raymond Briggs "The Snowman" Featuring Steven Harrison, Tenor from The Metropolitan Opera of NYC, Hotel Petaluma Dec 19, 20 & 21 — Presented by Petaluma Shakespeare Company

This December, Petaluma Shakespeare Company presents a Christmas musical animated story time, The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs, a classic, heartwarming experience that brings more than a snowman to life for the whole family. Guaranteed to spread Christmas cheer and childlike wonder. Performed at the Hotel Petaluma in the main ballroom and featuring Steven Harrison, tenor from The Metropolitan Opera of NYC.

I remember when Raymond Briggs' The Snowman movie took Britain by holiday snow storm in 1985. Fifteen-year-old Welsh choirboy Aled Jones' angelic rendition of "Walking in the Air" topped the UK charts that Christmas. I was in my late teens and still living in England. 

When I became a mom to my own three sons here in Northern California, I made it our tradition to watch The Snowman every Christmas Eve. I wanted my boys to feel the magic and simplicity and joy of the message of The Snowman. 

And so I'm really excited to attend the first of three shows produced by the wonderful Kristina Wenz and Petaluma Shakespeare Company, this holiday season, right here in the heart of Petaluma in the lovely main ballroom of the Petaluma Hotel. Won't you join me?

 

• Thursday, December 19th @ 8pm
• Friday, December 20th@ 7pm
• Saturday, December 21st @ 7pm
• $10/General Admission
• Tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

 

The Cardinal Club — A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance — A New Memoir by Southern Sonoma County Author Suzanne Maggio

I'm inordinately proud of my dear friend Suzanne Maggio as she celebrates her debut book launch this week. Her first book, The Cardinal's Club, A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance — published by Adelaide Books, is an extraordinarily vivid and riveting memoir, a story that will make you laugh and cry.

After Suzanne's demanding and self-absorbed mother developed dementia, the author was compelled to apply the wisdom she'd acquired from decades of experience as a family therapist to her own family. 

As one of Suzanne's early readers, I loved her beautifully detailed, tender, compassionate re-examination of a complex mother/daughter relationship. The Cardinal Club is written with graceful prose and kindness — a guidebook to rethinking self-worth through our reactions to loss and grief.

I especially enjoyed Suzanne's nostalgic and moving depiction of her New Jersey Italian/American childhood in the 1960s and 70s as well as her evocative family trips to Italy. Her attention to detail as a memoir writer is remarkable. 

After a 30 year career as a licensed clinical social worker, Suzanne now trains the new generation of helpers as a university lecturer in  Psychology, Counseling and Social Work here in Sonoma County. The granddaughter of Italian immigrants, she grew up understanding the importance of family and the pleasures of gathering around a dining room table laden with good company and delicious food. 

"I have long been fascinated with the human condition, the ability we have to face enormous struggles and come through them, often the stronger for it," says Suzanne. "I have seen it over and over again in the people I've worked with. Resilience humbles me. We are stronger than we know."

Click here to purchase The Cardinal's Club, A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance by Suzanne Maggio, now available on Amazon.com and other major online retailers. 

Hopefully our local bookstores will be on board in ordering copies in support of local authors such as Suzanne who have moved small mountains in getting important new stories into print.

Click here for Suzanne's website. 

photo: Sara Rosalsky

Create a Handmade, Heirloom-Quality Gift Box, Journal or Art Piece at Sonoma County Artist Roberta Ahrens Cracked Linen Technique Holiday Workshop, December 14th, 2019

Photos: Roberta Ahrens

On Saturday December 14, renown Sonoma County artist Roberta Ahrens is holding an all day Holiday Workshop in the Petaluma Mentor Me Center art room, West Petaluma where participants are invited to learn to work with her "Cracked Linen" technique to create handmade, heirloom quality beautiful gift boxes, journals, and art pieces suitable for framing to hang in your home or give as beautiful one-of-a-kind gifts.

"It's both a deep dive into the techniques I have been using to create art work for over 35 years, and the opportunity to simply cut loose and enjoy making beautiful creative gifts for friends and family," says Roberta.

The cost for this one day workshop, including materials is $225, but an EARLY BIRD price of $175 is available through Black Friday, November 29.

Find more information and sign up at https://robertaahrens.gallery

When: December 14th, 2019 ALL DAY WORKSHOP   9:45 am - 4:pm     Where: Mentor Me Cavanagh Recreation Center Art Room 426 8th Street (corner of 8th & G St) Petaluma, CA 94952 What:  Digital and/or Graphical Collage On Handmade Cracked Linen: Learn the steps for creating a one of a kind piece. This is an exploration of imagery, painting and gilding applied to Cracked Linen plaster on fiber medium, completing with a functional box, journal or art panel ready for framing. Class Description: Opening conversation about the process and creation of Cracked Linen with samples and examples of possibilities. Students sort, choose, cut and paste photographic collage, digital collage and draw or paint with ink, metallic pens, or acrylic washes directly onto the Cracked Linen. All supplies provided. Students may choose to gild with silver, copper or gold leaf directly to the cracked linen surface for an additional $15 materials charge. Students may bring their own color or halftone Xerox copied designs, please use ordinary copy paper. Designs may be border details, mandalas, overall patterns and there will be plenty of styles and image designs to choose from. 1hr lunch break   12-1pm     Full Day Cost   Early Bird Price: $175   ($225 after Black Friday)  $20 Discount on second enrollment if you bring a friend. Sign up at robertaahrens.gallery/ ENROLLMENT LIMIT 18 ENROLLMENT MINIMUM 10

Cover Reveal for "Big Green Country" — A Novel by Frances Rivetti — Available Very Soon (Late Nov 2019)

It's with great excitement and some nail-biting that I'm finally able to announce that after three-and-a-half long years of work my debut novel "Big Green Country"  is available to pre-order on Amazon and will be in print in time for Christmas. An e-book will also be available in the coming weeks. 

I've just decided to add an option to buy directly from me as author/publisher via PayPal as soon as the book is uploaded and ready for print. I will add that button to buy here on my blog site and will share via an updated post and social media. 

Big Green Country is a gripping and unforgettable family suspense story lifting the veil from the shrouded secrecy surrounding the ugly underbelly of Northern California's complex cannabis culture.

Culling from my research as an independent journalist at home at the gateway to the region's infamous Redwood Curtain, I have painted a gritty, graphic fictional portrait of the contemporary Green-Rush from one women-driven family's unique perspective — the lure, the benefits, the potential for boom and bust, but most importantly, its impact on the human condition and the real and present danger posed to young women attracted by large cash earnings.

Big Green Country is a controversial crisis of rural poverty, environmental issues, immigration, addiction, a broken health care system, alternative medicine and the stark reality of human trafficking within the region known as the Emerald Triangle.

This book is suitable for readers 18 and over due to its graphic content.

I'm also delighted to unveil a brand new FrancesRivetti.com website for my books, indie published under Fog Valley Press. 

Please take a few minutes to explore my new site, produced by the wonderful and talented Dana Weitzenberg of Southern Sonoma County-based Lobstervine Web Design & Development. Do sign up for my book release newsletter. I promise not to send too many mailchimp e-missives, only when there's book news to report such as launch events, readings and signings which I will be planning in the New Year. 

I'll be working on getting Big Green Country into physical bookstores as soon as possible, it may take a couple of weeks from the first orders for print books to arrive, so please be patient. The good news is I am printing with IngramSpark and as Ingram Content Book Group is the world's biggest book distributor, book stores should have no problem ordering copies. 

If you do purchase hard copies before Christmas and I hope so, I encourage you to bring them for me to sign at one of my launch events after the holidays. 

 

 

 

Petaluma to the Playa Exhibit, Petaluma Arts Center — Artists Who Create For and Document Burning Man November 23rd 2019 through January 18th, 2020

If you've never been to Burning Man and wish you had — or not, now's your chance to experience a selection of the art and originality of this unique annual gathering of creative, free thinking souls, many of whom are home-based in the Petaluma Area. Petaluma Arts Center hosts Petaluma to The Playa, November 23rd 2019 through January 18th, 2020 featuring work of artists who document for and create Burning Man. 

Exhibition Opening Day — November 23rd, 2019

Hat Making Workshop:  12pm - 4pm Click here to register. 
Bliss Studio Tour 4pm - 6pm
Mutant bicycle decorating and community parade 12pm - 4pm 

See PAC for more info.

Home for the Holidays — Fabulous Women Festival of Trees, Petaluma Hotel, Friday, Dec 6th 6-9pm, Saturday, Dec 7th, 3-9pm