Mouthful: Get your French on during Bastille Day

Vive La France! Monday is Bastille Day and there are plenty of options for celebrating your inner Frenchman or French woman. By the end of the day, you could find yourself saying merci! instead of thank you and bonsoir instead of goodnight.

Start your day early, at Costeaux French Bakery (417 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg), when a violin soloist will accompany your espresso, pain au chocolate and croissants from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. You can try your hand at croissant shaping at 9:15 a.m., play sidewalk petanque from 9:45 to 11 a.m., decorate Eiffel Tower cookies from 10 to 11 a.m. and meet Marie Antoinette at 10:30 a.m. The fun continues with live entertainment, including the Ooh La La Can-Can Dancers and Due Zighi Baci, and a demonstration and tasting of a Croquembouche, a tower of filled cream puffs typically held together with caramelized sugar and melted chocolate.

If you’d like to celebrate at home with demi crossaints, demi pain au chocolate or eclairs, advance orders are highly recommended. Otherwise, all you need to do is show up with a smile and a “Bonjour!”

Monday evening, Bistro 29 (620 Fifth St., Santa Rosa) offers a prix fixe menu; for wine pairings with each course, add $28.

The menu includes an amuse bouche of chilled cucumber and tomato soup with tomatoes and croutons, with Veuve du Vernay Sparkling Brut Rose alongside, followed by a first course of salmon and asparagus roulade with sauce ravigote and house-made gaufrettes (a waffled potato wafer) alongside. The wine pairing is Triennes-Rosé 2013.

Next comes beef braised in red wine, onion and piment d’Esplette with Point Reyes Toma potatoes Aligot and haricots verts is pared with Villa Ponciago-Fleurie 2011 Beaujolais.

Moulin de la Gardette 2010 Gigondas accompanies a cheese course of Redwood Hill Goat Cheese custard with fresh figs, fig compote, greens and croutons. For dessert, it’s warm apricot clafoutis with lemon Chantilly, chocolate nougat glacé and cherry syrup, with coffee or tea.

Dinner will be served from 5 to 9 p.m. For reservations, call 546-2929 or visit bistro29.com.

In Sebastopol, K & L Bistro (119 South Main St.,) has a $29 prix fix menu that features butter lettuce salad with mustard-tarragon vinaigrette, traditional Coq au Vin (chicken braised in red wine) and creme brulee. If you’d like wine pairings, add $15. There will be live accordion music in the bar from 3 to 5 p.m.; happy hour, with $1.50 oysters, is from 3 to 6 p.m. For reservations, call 823-6614.

If you want to get an early start, we have it on good authority that Marie Antoinette may take over Dominique’s Sweets’ booth at the Sebastopol Farmers Market on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. You can be sure that Dominique Cortara herself will have special holiday treats available.

Fruit Tree Sale: On Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, the California Rare Fruit Growers Garden Club hosts its annual sale, which takes place at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market at 50 Mark West Springs Rd., immediately south of the new Sutter Hospital building.

The sale features heritage apple, plum and cherry trees for $20 each. The trees are about 15 inches tall and have been rooted in 5 gallon containers. They are grafted onto Geneva semi-dwarf rootstock, which typically produces trees about 12-feet tall at maturity, though it is fine to keep them pruned to half that height. This rootstock is highly drought tolerant, can tolerate high soil temperatures and adapts to both sandy and clay loam soils. These trees produce early and abundantly.

If 15 inches seems small for a tree, Keith Borglum, long-time club member, explains that these trees will out-pace larger bare-root trees within a couple of years.

Proceeds from the sale support the rescue of more rare fruit trees and help fund local agricultural scholarships.

For more information and to join the Redwood Chapter of this great organization, visit CRFG.org or call Maile Pieri at 595-5073.

Barlow Street Fair: On July 3, The Barlow kicked off its Thursday street fair, with live music, about twenty food vendors and throngs of eager celebrants waiting for Sebastopol’s fireworks display.

The street fair starts at 4 p.m. and continues until 8 p.m. on Thursdays through October 30. McKinley Ave. is closed off for the occasion and decked out with tables and chairs for comfy lingering.

In addition to food vendors, crafts vendors, service providers and others will participate. On July 17, the Coyote Club provides the entertainment and on July 24 it is the beloved Solid Air duo.

For a complete list of entertainment, visit thebarlow.net.

Parking can be an issue so try to carpool or, if you are nearby, walk or ride a bicycle.

Summer Aloha: Amphora Winery (4791 Amphora Winery, Healdsburg) is hosting its 7th Annual Amphora Luau on Saturday, July 19, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Martin Courtman, a talented chef who headed up the kitchen at Chateau Souverain in its final years, takes the helm in the kitchen and Kani ‘Olu provides their lovely Hawaiian music.

Guests are encouraged to wear their most beautiful or most outlandish Hawaiian attire to compete for prizes for both the best and worst outfits.

Cost is $45 per person for the general public and $30 for wine club members if reservations are made by Friday, July 11. After July 11, the cost is $50 for everyone. The price includes a buffet dinner, a glass of wine, entertainment, tax and gratuity. Additional wine will be available for purchase.

Carol Shelton Wines (3354 Coffey Lane, Santa Rosa) hosts a luau on July 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s Shelton’s third annual fete.

The menu includes kalua pig, short ribs, Shoyu chicken, mac salad, rice, haupia and, of course, spam, prepared by Patti and Friends Catering. Hawaiian attire is encouraged and there will be a contest for best hula dance.

Wine club members pay $15; cost for the general public is $30 in advance and $40 at the door. Guests must be 21 and older to attend. For tickets, email wines@carolsheltonwines.com or call 575-3441.

Big Q Time: On Saturday, the 4th Annual Country Big Q BBQ Festival and Competition takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. at Sonoma Mountain Village (1300 Valley House Dr., Rohnert Park, off Petaluma Hill Road)

General admission tickets are $45.

Attendees will sample authentic barbecue, taste local wines and brews and vote for their favorite tri-tip preparation and wine in the People’s Choice Awards.

There will also be a bean competition, a sauce competition, a “Bakin’ for Bacon” dessert competition and so much more, including live entertainment by AquaNett, a “hair metal” band, and Purple Haze, a Jimi Hendrix tribute band featuring Ralph Woodson.

This event sounds offers big food, big flavor, big sound and big fun. You have been warned.

For more information and for tickets, visit winecountrybigq.com.

Our Russian Heritage: The on-going series of walks and talks by the Bodega Land Trust continue this Saturday, July 12, with a special presentation by Hank Birnbaum, program manager for the Fort Ross Conservancy.

The talk, which will be followed by a short walk in Bodega, takes place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is co-presented by the Rancho Bodega Historical Society.

Cost is $10 per person and $5 for children 12 and under. For complete details, including where to meet, and to reserve a spot, email walks@bodegalandtrust.org.

(Michele Anna Jordan has written 17 books to date, including 'Vinaigrettes and Other Dressings.' You’ll find her blog, 'Eat This Now,' at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. Email Jordan at michele@saladdresser.com.)