Mouthful: Weekend events around Sonoma County

Steelhead Festival: On Saturday, February 7, rain or shine, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Milt Brandt Visitors Center at Lake Sonoma (3288 Skaggs Springs Rd., Geyserville) hosts the Lake Sonoma Wild Steelhead Festival.

This free family event celebrates the annual return of steelhead salmon to the Don Clausen Fish Hatchery, where they will spawn and launch their next generation.

Forty exhibitors will participate this year, with hands-on activities, educational opportunities, art projects, a casting pond, food, beer and wine, live music and a silent auction that benefits Friends of Lake Sonoma.

Among the vendors are Ultimate Souvlaki, Chicago Hot Dogs, The Bun Slinger, Quivira Winery, Martorana Family Winery and many others.

There will be tours of the hatchery throughout the day. If you’ve never watched steelhead climb the fish ladder, leaping as they climb, it’s a riveting sight for both adults and kids.

For more information, visit lakesonoma.org.

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Loving Your Laguna: On Saturday, February 7, form 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Laguna de Santa Rosa Environmental Center (900 Sanford Rd., Santa Rosa) hosts a special workshop with Ane Carla Rovetta.

The hands-on workshop explores how humans have created art for millennia using soil, soot, sap, milks and other natural materials. Students will use a variety of techniques, including grinding and mixing, and historic recipes to make paints, chalks and charcoal, some of which can be taken home.

Preregistration is required and if you want to join in, hurry! Cost is $65 for the general public and $60 for members of the Laguna Foundation. The price includes most workshop materials, along with hot beverages and light snacks.

Rovetta is a local science illustrator, field biologist, teacher, storyteller and artist.

To register for the class, visit lagunafoundation.org.

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Valentine’s Dinners at Dierk’s: If you want to test your romantic luck, how about a delicious dinner at either Dierk’s Parkside Cafe (404 Santa Rosa Ave., Santa Rosa, 573-5955) or Dierk’s Midtown Cafe (1422 4th St., Santa Rosa, 545-2233), on Friday, February 13?

These dinners have become a popular annual tradition so if you want to join in, make your reservations by calling or stopping by soon.

The menus will not be finalized until the day of the dinners so that whatever fresh ingredients arrive that morning can be incorporated.

At Dierk’s Parkside, there will be a first course followed by a pear, walnut and watercress salad. Next comes a choice of ribeye steak, salmon or Shannon Ranch leg of lamb. A yummy dessert wraps things up.

At Dierk’s Midtown, dinner gets started with butter-poached lobster with butternut squash timbale, followed by a salad of fresh greens, blood oranges, pecans, beets and baked goat cheese.

For an entree, you’ll choose between roasted beef filet with wild mushrooms, potatoes pave and Bérnaise; salmon sauté with spicy lentils, roasted vegetables and tapenade and seared duck breast with wild rice pancakes and cranberry-fig chutney. Dessert is chocolate Bouchon, almond cake and creme Anglaise.

Cost at both locations is $130 per couple, plus tax, 20 percent gratuity and beverages. As always, there is no corkage fee at either Dierk’s so feel free to bring a special wine for the occasion.

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Girl Rising: On Sunday, February 8, Virginia Reuter and the San Francisco Chapter of Room To Read present a special screening of “Girl Rising” at the Raven Film Center (415 Center St., Healdsburg) at noon. Admission is $18 and as of press time there were nearly 70 tickets available.

A post-movie benefit dinner at the Healdsburg Bar and Grill is sold out.

The film explores the right of every girl in the world to receive an education and to reach her full potential, as she sees it.

Tickets are available at eventbrite.com.

For more information, email SanFrancisco@roomtoread.org or call Virginia Reuter at 326-0584.

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Estero Cafe Opens: Samantha and Ryan Ramey of Northwest Catering have taken over what was Route 1 Diner in Valley Ford, rechristened it Estero Cafe (14450 Highway 1, 876-1974) and now serve breakfast and lunch daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The menu, served all day, focuses on classic American breakfast and lunch dishes, using locally-sourced and organic ingredients. Beef is from either Twisted Horn Ranch or Freestone Ranch, pork is from True Grass Farms and Sonoma Meat Company and the deep fryer if filled with local pork fat.

Menu items include corned beef hash with eggs, biscuits and country gravy, cinnamon French toast, omelets, Bodega Bay Dungeness crab chowder, salads, sandwiches (including a very popular tuna melt made with fresh-caught albacore), burgers, fish and chips and more.

For dessert, there are root beer floats and milk shakes.

Beverages include local wine, local beer, coffee, tea, juices and sodas.

If you attend the Bodega Bay Farmers Market, you’ll probably recognize Samantha and Ryan Ramey, as they have served delicious breakfast and lunch foods at the market since it first opened. Samantha Ryan has served as the market’s co-manager, as well.

To stay in touch with happenings at the new cafe, which opened on December 5, visit Estero Cafe’s Facebook page.

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Taco Tuesday: If you haven’t been out to Duncans Mills (25300 Steelhead Blvd.) in a while, how about a road trip for Taco Tuesday at the Blue Heron Restaurant and Tavern? The menu is simple: Three soft tacos (beef, chicken or fish) for $10.

If tacos aren’t motivating enough, how about pizza? Monday is Pizza Night, with several specials.

The historic tavern first opened in the late 1800s and has gone through several incarnations. Currently, it is open nightly for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. Lunch is served on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and there is live music in the full bar five nights a week. Come summer, barbecued oysters will be served on the patio on Sunday afternoons.

For more information, call 865-2261 or visit blueheronresturant.com

Michele Anna Jordan has written 19 books to date, including the new “More Than Meatballs.” Email Jordan at michele@saladdresser.com. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.