You Shouldn’t Have

The oh-so-many things we won’t let you buy

By Gretchen Giles

You no longer have the time to dream about such light-hearted holidays as the Fourth of July, that gentle, inclusive little day demanding nothing more of its merry-makers than that they enjoy chocolate cake and beer while clad in bathing suits. The winter holidays are a slam on the head, rolling the terrible demands of the IRS, a wedding anniversary, your closest someone’s birthday, and a nephew’s twelve-noon Superbowl Sunday bar mitzvah all into one shrill demand: Show up and gift up.

In deep reverse sympathy, we herewith offer a full list of things that no one should ever wish to see winking out from beneath the Hanukkah bush, the green fir, or the dusty plastic pine. In further evidence of our own holiday effusion, we kindly submit that even should your best beloveds desire such items, you resolutely not supply them.

Feng This!

You can set the bar of taste in your own immediate vicinity by first denying to lay plastic to cash register over any green twisty branch of that damnable plant currently known as “Lucky Bamboo.” Of the genus Dracaena, this stretch of leaf is less related to the bamboo family than you are to the House of Lords, actually being a parlor plant previously favored by the Victorians because it requires a meteor hitting the earth in order to fully kill it.

Hyped as a feng shui method of both greening one’s home (moneymoneymoney!) and helping to release stagnant energies, this living stalk of hooey-hooey is indeed lucky to those who sell great big buckets full of the stuff. Less lucky is the likelihood that it will curl about in a milky vase until the fluoride in your drinking water eventually browns it to a mush. This is your fine holiday legacy? We think not.

Flambé Huckleberry Mist

After the anguished shout of “Are we now a nation of Abe Lincolns, studiously bent over the fatted wick?” has died down, we sort of get the candle thing–their light can make that nut loaf look like real, bloodless meat in the dim of a winter meal and shave 10 pounds and three wrinkles off when bedside.

But what’s this scented candle thing all about? Is your gift recipient’s gracious home really so stinky that it would be truly enhanced by a small, burning blast of cranberry orange mint with just an undertone of vanilla lavender peach? Do you know how carcinogenic those scented candles are? You may just as well urge Uncle Norm to take up cigars to complement his cigarette habit and sprinkle some asbestos atop as give him and Aunt Vi a thoughtful scented candle column.

Are there any other questions need be asked here? Be your own Surgeon General and don’t do it for their health.

Pinky Rings of Enology

Should you be hovering in indecision over purchasing a pricey piece of wine-related “jewelry,” allow us to step lightly in for an intervention. Don’t do it. There are people who care–very, very bossy people who write for local papers. The only thing that should possibly ring a wine bottle’s lip is the leftover cosmetics of that guest who finally gave in and chugged the silty remnants.

Same too for the glasses. They may be smashed in the fireplace, spilled all over the antique linen tablecloth, or humbly broken in the sink, but they may not–they must not–sport a little jingle-jangling thing that looks as though it broke off of Cher’s last manicure. And should you even have considered a butler’s tuxedo front or a French maid’s apron for a gift-giving addition to the bottle necks of a respected friend’s wine cellar, please stand over in that corner, yes that one over there, for five minutes of shameful reflection. We can wait.

Three Hundred Sixty-five Is a Big Number

Surely a tasteful calendar is both a thoughtful and a helpful item to give as the old year flees in white-bearded haste and the New Year approaches with gaudy virility. This good friend will never forget a lunch date with you again! That parent can surely track his or her bail bond payments for you with this lovely kitten cal!

Sorry, friend. The likelihood that you can guess what another person can stand to stare at some 365 times is very small. But she loves the Beatles! We all love the Beatles, but Ringo’s nose–did you notice it in the August shot? August is a very long, actually quite a terrifically long, month. Why couldn’t his proboscis have been better featured in February, on a leap year? You simply don’t have the time to delve into such existentialist questions. Buy everyone candy instead.

No Thing Badda-bing

The restrictions on Sopranos-related gifts are severe indeed, leaving just one option: You may only purchase a Sopranos soundtrack CD, provided that your honored recipient is over 14 years of age. That’s it.

Unless you or your beloveds can convincingly lisp “anti-pahst” to a member of the Gotti family, you are prohibited from buying one of the millions of Sopranos-related cookbooks available. Sadly, this prohibition extends to the many biographies, T-shirts, bobble-heads, and other promotional detritus extending from the show like the rings of an oil spill.

Have no fear–you may continue to watch the program in the privacy of your own home; that is unrelated to the season of giving. This fictional family, intriguing and interesting as we all invariably find them, is Mafioso. They kill, deal, rig, and steal for money. Please remember that you do not admire these qualities; they are not holiday qualities. Please repeat that you do not support these ethics. Please remind yourself that this is just a TV show. Your own family may not have the cookbooks. As for the soundtracks . . . Hey, well yeah–it’s damned good music!

The Short List

Nothing monogrammed, unless you’re a Biff and she’s a Muffy. People go from née to missus, from Brenda to Shoshana, and from Frank to Ravenwolf way too quickly to embroider any one moniker down.

No TV sets for a tweenager’s bedroom unless you’re thoroughly sick of raising him or her yourself and would prefer that, say, Tony Soprano (see “kill, deal, rig, and steal,” above) did it for you.

No hand-held electronic devices that will be $9,000 cheaper in February for anyone under 18.

So what can you give? Shucks, that’s easy: everything else. Oh–and your love.

From the December 12-18, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Presents of Mind

A short list of clutterless–and dustless–gift ideas

So here’s the problem. It’s the afternoon of Christmas Day–or any other annual observance in which the giving of gifts is a piece of the action–and your floor is littered with shredded wrapping and a dozen different holiday offerings. All these gifts share one thing in common: You instantly know that you don’t want them. Or maybe you do want them. What the hell. But even if you do, even if you actually plan to display them all over your house, there’s no escaping the fact that this stuff is gonna be collecting a whole lot of dust.

And that’s just not healthy.

Dust, after all, is one of the major causes of allergy in this country, and if you keep all that stuff at your feet, you’re facing a runny nose from here to next September. Now consider all of the potential dust collectors you were planning to distribute to the many Loved Ones on your Christmas list this year. Do you really want to be the cause of aggravated sniffles and irritated sinuses? Of course not.

Fortunately for you, and for your friends and relations, there are numerous gifts on the market that are completely–or almost completely–dustless and noncluttering, because these gifts do not technically exist. They exist, but not in the same way that your brand-new wooden beaver exists.

The energetic shopper will find a vast array of such clutterless gifts, from stars that can be named after your Uncle Pete to an authentic ordination for your sister through the famous we’ll-ordain-anyone Universal Life Church.

We like those ideas. Here are a few others we like even better.

Stock Stuffers

Your Loved Ones don’t have to be practicing scripophiles to appreciate a gift of well-chosen company stock. Once engaged in a bit of holiday scripophily, however (scripophily, by the way, is the act of collecting stock certificates), they may just end up becoming hardened collectors of the highly abstract stuff. The cool thing about stock is that, with even a single share, a person will suddenly feel linked to an entire industry or organized activity.

There is a company in San Francisco that has cleverly co-opted the idea of giving single shares of stock as gifts. OneShare.com will sell just that–a solitary item of stock from one of dozens of your Loved One’s favorite companies, including Walt Disney, Toys “R” Us, Anheuser Busch, Pixar studios, Harley-Davidson, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, and, just for yuks, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.

Using the convenient website, it’ll cost you about $30 to $40, depending on the stock you choose. If your L.O. would appreciate tactile proof of your generosity, you can gift wrap the actual stock certificates, which in many cases are pretty cool looking and come framed in a variety of styles and prices (though we really don’t encourage that sort of thing because, hey, even a framed stock certificate is one more thing to dust).

For folks who’d like to own a piece of the past, you can even give a share of authentic–if slightly late–stock in the RMS Titanic Corporation. The website is the best way to order, but you can also order by phone at 888.777.6919.

Dolphin Love

Who doesn’t love dolphins, and who hasn’t always secretly wanted to have one? Well, over in Scotland, on the rocky coast of Moray Firth, there is a whole clan of dolphins–Lightning, Whisky, Jigsaw, and Sundance, to name a few–who are just waiting to be adopted in the name of someone on your shopping list.

Adopt a Dolphin (www.adoptadolphin.com) is a program sponsored by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, which applies all adoption fees to help protect and study the dolphins of Moray Firth and abroad. The website is set up for gift-giving adoptions. Recipients will receive information about their new dolphin and are even invited to visit whenever they are in the United Kingdom. That’s the best part of giving someone a dolphin–the thing stays in Scotland for someone else to worry about.

Flight Club

OK. So you want to give a gift that will really sweep ’em off their feet and impress the heck out of them while giving them the thrill of their lifetime? Well, for a mere $49, you can hand your Loved One a nice, unexpected Be a Pilot Introductory flight lesson. During the lesson, your Loved One will actually get to fly the airplane . . . in the sky . . . among the birds and the clouds and the little, lost birthday balloons.

Be a Pilot (www.beapilot.com) is a nonprofit educational effort sponsored by the General Aviation Industry as a way of introducing the public to the thrills and joys and satisfaction of what they like to call “personal flying.” The service provides inexpensive introductory flight lessons at over 1,800 certified flight schools around the Northern Hemisphere, from Peoria to Petaluma, from Saskatchewan to San Jose. Each lesson is conducted by an FAA-licensed flight instructor. You can register for a certificate on the website (and print the thing out right there on your computer) or by calling 888.BE.A.PILOT.

Playing Cards

Gift certificates may be a thinly disguised way of saying “I couldn’t be bothered to figure out what you want or who you are as a person, so I’m giving you this gift certificate so you can go out and do the footwork yourself,” but whatever they say, they’re effective. Gift cards, pretty much a glorified plastic version of a gift certificate, have a certain flexibility that makes them more personalized than a hunk of paper from Sears or the Wherehouse. Besides, they fit in your wallet better.

Does your Loved One like coffee? Most coffee companies will sell you a card in any dollar amount you name. Your L.O. can use it like a credit card, with the amount of each latte being deducted from the remaining value of the card. (Some coffee places, such as Deaf Dog in Petaluma, have a charmingly low-tech version of this, using wooden chips instead of the card, once chip per espresso drink–simple but effective.)

Gradually, more and more goods and activities–from doughnuts to miniature golf to Lazer Tag games–are being offered through these kinds of gift cards, and in some cases, a card will be accepted at more than one company. With a Dinnerguest card, for example (www.dinnerguest.com), your Loved Ones can enjoy a lavish meal at any restaurant that accepts Visa cards, depending on how much cash you choose to place on their Dinnerguest card, which they can carry with them until the opportunity arises to use it.

Chances are good they’ll do so long before the thing has a chance to gather any dust

From the December 12-18, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Try the Chicken: Quicksilver Mine Co. is a sure thing for art-minded gifters. Shown: ‘Free Range Chicken with Leaf Blower’ by Robin Eschner.

Close to Home

Gifts that are made in the North Bay are the best gifts

Picks by Davina Baum (DB), Sara Bir (SB), Greg Cahill (GC), Gretchen Giles (GG), and M. V. Wood (MW).

Great Aunt Millicent and little nephew Brice both have very different needs. But who says you have to leave the North Bay to satiate them? Words like wealth, bounty, and cornucopia don’t even begin to describe what lies just outside your door: try it and see.

Art-Smart

That George Foreman grill is so last year. This year, you want to give something fantastic and rare–the kind of object that bespeaks not only your gift recipient’s high importance in your life but also whispers of your own heady good taste. In short, you want art, and, fortunately, the North Bay is lousy with handcrafted items.

You may foolishly have suffered guilt pangs from that unrecycled ARTrails guide that’s still lying around. Now pat yourself on the back for having cannily saved it, as this roster of mediums and phone numbers is one of your heady-good-taste lifesavers. The artists featured therein are pleased to receive off-Trails phone calls hunting

Between the Lines

The flap copy of Sonoma County author Sandro Meallet‘s novel Edgewater Angels reads, “With original rifflike prose, Meallet gives us a unique story that is serious yet playful, daring in aim, and absolutely captivating.” His narrative is studded with self-made compound words like freedomfeel and frustratedangry, and is used to weave together snapshots of street-smart kids’ life in the projects of San Pedro. It’s out now in paperback from Vintage Books ($13), and that original, rifflike prose reads with the rhythmic gait of a homeboy beatnik.

If you can’t afford an $80 plate or tile from muralist Carlo Marchiori‘s gallery Ca’Toga, you can always buy his estate. Marchiori leads tours of his elaborately decorated Calistoga villa from May to October, and in Festa Veneziana a Ca’Toga (Ten Speed Press; $35), a book of the lavish coffee-table variety, the tour’s even more intimate, with lovely photos of Venetian expat Marchiori’s strikingly whimsical artwork.

The warm reaction to Pascale Le Draoulec‘s cross-country, piecentric road trip odyssey American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America’s Back Roads (HarperCollins; $23.95) only serves to indicate how many people in the world are obsessed with the lore of good American pie. Four years ago, Le Draoulec was the food writer at the Marin Independent Journal. When she accepted a job as restaurant critic for the New York Daily News, she crisscrossed back roads and took the blue-highway route to her new home, making serious pit stops for pie all the way. This is a vital volume for the pie lover in your life.

Thumbing through Outdoor Sculpture in San Francisco: A Heritage of Public Art (Helsham Press; $28.95) is like taking a walking tour of discovery, only much easier on the feet. More than 100 pieces of sculpture beautify the landscape within the city limits alone–and many of the best ones are the lesser-known. Sea Ranch couple Warren and Georgia Radford‘s well-researched and thoroughly illustrated overview presents the city’s sculpture from past to present, with works by Marisol, Henry Moore, Jim Dine, and many overlooked or forgotten sculptors. (SB)

Joy to the Ears

Typically, it’s not the people living in a popular tourist destination who buy travel guides, but a good guide can provide a ton of intriguing background detailing places you see and hear about all of the time but forget to investigate. TravelBrains Napa Valley Expedition Guide ($24.95)–a guidebook, CD-ROM, and flexible, self-guided audio tour–fills in all of the intriguing nooks and crannies of Napa Valley culture and history that we regular residents tend to overlook. Written and narrated by St. Helena author Antonia Allegra (founding editor of Appellation magazine and author of Napa Valley: The Ultimate Winery Guide), the audio tour makes for entertaining and educational listening, even if you’re doing regular driving and not following one of the four tours outlined. The set is available through www.travelbrains.com and at many local bookstores.

The Velvet Teen have come a long way, baby, and they’ve done it with amazing speed and alacrity. The band’s songwriting prowess shines even in its early material, as the recently reissued Plus, Minus, Equals (Slowdance; $8) proves. A packaging of their Comasynthesis and The Great Beast February EPs, Plus, Minus, Equals inspired online indie rag Pitchfork to say, “The vast, aimless compositions and iron-fisted emotional pomp that hamstrung their debut are in their embryonic stages here but haven’t yet become the crushing dead weight they later would.” Geez, they’re just a band that plays gorgeous pop songs! The ones on Plus, Minus, Equals are amazingly good, and range from the hook-heavy gem “Naked Girl” to the electronic balladry of “Your Cell.” Check www.slowdance.com, or the Last Record Store in Santa Rosa and Backdoor Disc and Tape in Cotati.

For studying, house cleaning, mail checking, or alternate video-game soundtrack music, you can’t beat the self-titled Little Cat (Pandacide Records; $10). The Nintendo-rific electronic project of Petaluman Devon Rumrill, the album was recorded on a VCR in Rumrill’s own little home and will please techno-geeks and technophobes alike with its Atari-retro charm. Available through www.pandacide.com, or at Red Devil Records in Petaluma, Harmonics and the Last Record Store in Santa Rosa, and Backdoor Disc and Tape in Cotati.

Bring the pop-punk home with Ukiah-based Loose Change, who chewed through three drummers just to put out their EP God Save the Scene ($7) on Sonoma’s very own teeny-weeny label Out of Step records. And while you’re at it, get Out of Step‘s ultrabargain, punk-packed, $3 Bottled Violence compilation of 30 songs (just 10 cents a song!) from the likes of Tsunami Bomb and a whole bunch of other bands, local and not, that have probably broken up since the comp came out in early 2001. It’s a fun CD nonetheless. Visit www.oosrecords.com.

Get an eclectic grab bag of indie music from all over the Golden State with translation.music 2, a dirt-cheap CD ($6) that plays with the lavished-over track selection of a personalized mix tape rather than the random hodgepodge of a compilation. Here you can discover little-known treats from locals Namesake, an amazing collaboration between the Velvet Teen’s Judah Nagler and Life in Braille’s Daniel Walker, and the Rum Diary, plus an excellent track from once-locals Desert City Soundtrack. Look for it at the Last Record Store and Backdoor Disc and Tape.

The title of Sonoma County poet Jennie Orvino’s Make Love, Not War CD ($20) may sound like a bunch of hippie hoo-haw, but it’s actually a very well put together spoken word-musical collaboration. Orvino’s readings are warm and rife with sensual energy (“Reaching for you is like / reaching to pick a ripe mission fig / and finding gluttonous bees already there / eating out caves in your sweetness”) that’s explicit but never cheesy or dirty. This CD is perfect for the Sensuality Shoppe crowd. You can read poems, hear tracks, and order the CD from Orvino’s site, www.soundofpoetry.com. (SB)

Johnny Otis is a national treasure. A legendary vibraphonist, bandleader, record producer, and talent scout, this longtime Sebastopol resident rose in the 1940s out of Los Angeles’ famed Central Avenue jazz and R&B scene with the hit single “Harlem Nocturne.” He discovered such luminous singers as Etta James, Big Mama Thornton, Little Esther Phillips, and the woefully underrated Marie Adams. He produced some of the biggest early R&B and rock hits. He wrote and recorded “Willie and the Hand Jive” (later covered by Eric Clapton and a hundred others). He earned a place in both the Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blues halls of fame, and garnered a 1994 Grammy nomination for his album Spirit of the Black Territory Bands (Arhoolie). And he’s a helluva good cook. In fact (sorry about this), he really cooks on Food for Life (JT), his newly released album. This scintillating set of swing standards and originals hits all the right notes, with Otis providing the vibes (both musical and spiritual) while leading a tight-knit band that includes a talented horn section and a rhythm section comprised of younger generation Otises Nicky (drums) and Lucky (bass). Jump, jive, and wail this holiday season. (GC)

Holiday Stress Reliever: A gift certificate to Osmosis Baths means that you love someone a lot.

Certificates of Excellence

As the happy, harried daze of the winter holiday season bears down with its Santa-adorned death grip, many of us rush in ecstatic relief to the universal solution of the gift certificate. Any of us who have ever given or received a gift certificate are well aware of the usual round of book and music opportunities, the big department store cards, and even those certs to a favored toy store.

But you dream large, and you’re looking for something a bit beyond the fringe. Come with us, kind stranger, as we explore gift certificate ideas slightly off the beaten . . . you know.

The mundane little surprises of ordinary life just keep coming, some of them every 3,000 miles, others each April 15th. Give an oil change gift certificate to your love-bunny or a tax preparation session to your closest citizen. Your favorite felon might enjoy a certificate to a one-hour attorney consultation; no need to say why you chose it. House cleaners, rat catchers, plumbers, clutter specialists, and even Sufi monks can be prepaid to one day clean, catch, rout, clear, or bless your recipient’s residence.

Most of us tend to eat. Grocery stores–particularly high-end ones like Fiesta Market, the Oakville Grocery, Oliver’s Market, Sonoma Market, and Petaluma Market–are delighted to draw up food certificates. Similarly, restaurants will honor gift certs for fancy meals, provided that the tip comes as cash. Specialty butchers might agree to keep a prepurchased side of beef on hand for your best beloved.

The body, being a temple, loves having pure cash lavishly burned for it. Those of us with active keratin levels might enjoy initiation in the “mani/pedi” girl code. Others might need a massage or appreciate having their eyelashes dyed. Offer a Brazilian bikini wax to a special someone, if only to find out later how much it hurt.

If that Lotto win you’ve been counting on has finally come in, gift a night’s stay at a swank hostelry like the Hotel Healdsburg or a flying lesson in Sonoma or a full day spa treatment at the Osmosis Enzyme Baths in Freestone. Private cooking instruction or an 11-day French painting retreat with artist Carole Watanabe is bound to earn emotion-drenched thank-you notes.

None of this is as simple as swanning into a book store and laying down $20, but there’s a pretty irresistible collaborative magic in providing someone an experience he or she must then choose how to use. And it’s so easy to wrap. (GG)

Give the gift of time . . . at a pottery studio. The cool thing about gift certificates ($20 and up) for decorate-it-yourself ceramics is that the difference between “tacky” and “artistic” is totally up to the whimsy of the recipient, for it’s they who make the choice between a simple and elegant platter or a set of pig-in-overalls salt and pepper shakers. Pottery Studio, 632 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.576.7102 or www.thepotterystudio.net.

It’s discouraging enough to shell out $9 to see a new release, but it’s especially infuriating to think that money is going to some big movie theater conglomerate, the same chains that show NASCAR-hosted Coca-Cola ads during previews. So take a stand and support independent theaters. Santa Rosa’s Rialto Cinemas Lakeside has brewer’s yeast as a popcorn topping, and no megaplex offers that. Stuff the stocking of your resident cinephiles with passes to their favorite theater. The Rialto offers gift certificates, or get a passport card for admission to five movies for just $30. Rialto Cinemas Lakeside, 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. 707.525.4840. Or give gift certificates to the Rafael Film Center, who offer many special programs with appearances by filmmakers. 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415.454.1222. (SB)

Oh, Right–the Kids

Petaluma sculptor David Furger has created a fanciful world filled with ceramic critters that act as tiny ocarinas. Brightly glazed and wonderfully whimsical, these affordable (mostly $20)–and interactive–sculptures are a real hit with kids. Splayed out on the table at Art in the Park at Petaluma’s Walnut Park, Furger’s musical menagerie looks like the casting call at the taping of Yellow Submarine. These imaginative one-of-a-kind knickknacks are a great way to fuel your kids’ imaginations while teaching them that fine art can be fun. For adults, Furger also offers a variety of sculptures–including clay, metals, wood, and stone–and custom pieces. 707.762.8916. (GC)

The British Toy and Hobby Association rank Superplexus as one of the top 10 hot family games for holiday gift giving, right up there with classics like Monopoly, Jenga, and Twister. Games magazine ranks it as one of the top 100 toys for 2003. But Superplexus creator Mike McGinnis of Santa Rosa still thinks of it as a high school art project gone mad. Superplexus ($21.99) is a three-dimensional maze within a clear, plastic sphere. The player twists and turns the sphere to move a small ball through about 100 different troughs, ramps, and pivoting pieces. McGinnis, an art instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College, got the idea for the game when he was a student in Ed Hairston’s art class in Casa Grande High School in Petaluma. He tried to sell his invention for 23 years. “That was a roller coaster ride,” he says. Hasbro finally picked it up and now Superplexus can be found at Target, Toys “R” Us, and other toy stores. (MW)

Holiday Face-Stuffing

Nothing says “I love you” more than a box of artisan cheeses. That port-wine cheese spread rolled in pecans is tasty and all, but it’s peanuts when stacked up against Cowgirl Creamery‘s divine, cultured creations. From their home at the Tomales Bay Foods Market in Point Reyes, the staff of Cowgirl Creamery turn out fresh batches of handmade, organic cheeses every day. Try the brielike Mt. Tam or the creamy and complex Pierce Point. The Cowgirl Creamery Collection ($75) has both, plus the earthy and robust Red Hawk and a redwood cheese board. You can also find Cowgirl cheeses at Whole Foods, Dean and Deluca, Oakville Grocery, and at www.cowgirlcreamery.com.

Support happy Sonoma County goats with cheeses from Sebastopol’s Redwood Hill Farm. They offer a variety of lovely soft and hard cheeses, but the sharp goat milk cheddar cheese is worth a gaggle of Velveeta loaves. A sample pack contains a cheese bonanza with feta, aged and smoked cheddars, crottin, and three types of cherve for $28. Visit www.redwoodhill.com.

Vella Cheese Company has a small retail store off Sonoma’s square (315 Second St.), where in addition to the dry Jack they’re famous for, you can load up on fresh butter–all the better to bake those giftable pies. And Bellwether Farms in Valley Ford has convenient web ordering at www.bellwethercheese.com. (SB)

Doobie Brothers fans take note: BR Cohn Winery just put out a new wine called Doobie Red ($32 bottle), and the band played at the Glen Ellen winery a couple of months ago at the unveiling of their namesake. (Bruce Cohn, owner of the winery, was the band’s longtime manager.) All proceeds go to charity.

For those on your gift-giving list whose tastes run more toward the classical, try the classic Picholine olive oil, also by BR Cohn. This small, French variety of olive is grown on only 2 percent of California’s groves. It’s labor-intensive and costly to make, but according to some top food critics, the trouble is worth it–and, they say, so is the $60 a bottle price. “When people ask my husband why it costs $60 to buy it, he tells them it’s because it costs $70 to make it,” says Sharon Cohn. The wine and olive oil are available at the winery, the website, and over the phone. 15000 Sonoma Hwy., Glen Ellen. 707.938.4064 or www.brcohn.com.

If it looks like champagne and it tastes like champagne and it’s made like champagne, well, it’s probably champagne. But of course we can’t call it champagne, because the French get a bit snippy about that. Whatever you call it, it always makes the perfect gift, especially around New Year’s. Gloria Ferrer Champagne Cellars in Sonoma offers a lovely gift pack, which contains a bottle of their 1992 Royal Cuvee (Wine Spectator magazine gave it 93 out of 100 points), plus two hand-blown tulip flutes ($49.95).

Is there anything more decadent than chocolate? Well, yes. Chocolates filled with Gloria Ferrer champagne ($5.95 for a box of six; $11.95 for 10). More decadent than that? How about an entire bottle of champagne dipped in chocolate ($35). You can pour the bubbly and peel off the sweet stuff, all from the same bottle. “It’s not too messy,” says Skip Smith of the winery. “Anyway, it’s a good kind of messy.” All items are available at the winery, the website, and by phone. 23555 Carneros Hwy. 707.933.1917 or www.gloriaferrer.com.

Gourmet Mushrooms grows mushrooms for some of the world’s best restaurants, including local favorites the French Laundry, Aqua, and Postrio. But the Sebastopol-based enterprise can also send these exotic mushrooms to your family and friends. They offer an elegant gift basket filled with about two pounds of mushrooms such as shiitake, chanterelle, nameko, and others ($58).

Kids will get a kick out of Gourmet Mushrooms’ educational mushroom kits. Each kit comes with a log ready to burst out with mushrooms, and includes plenty of reading materials and even lesson plans for teachers or enthusiastic parents. All you need is water and about six inches by six inches of indoor space. A counter top or coffee table is fine. At the end, there are enough gourmet mushrooms for a special family treat. Kits range from $14.95 to $17.95. Call or order online, 800.789.9121 or www.gmushrooms.com. (MW)

Pretty Pictures and Nice Smells

Lavender is my favorite standby gift. I never make out a shopping list and actually write “lavender” next to anyone’s name, yet somehow everyone ends up getting some. Sonoma Lavender has a great selection of products, which can be found in gift shops throughout the North Bay. There’s a cute, little teddy bear stuffed with lavender, body lotions, and bath salts, and you can’t go wrong with such great-smelling soaps and candles. I tuck in little sachets of the stuff with gifts of clothing and stuffed animals. Prices vary depending on outlet. Call 707.523.4411 for the nearest retail locations, or shop online at www.sonomalavender.com and then link to “Uniquely California” or “Bathe.” (MW)

Though calendars may be one of the least exciting gifts, there’s no doubt that they are appreciated. After all, everyone needs a calendar (but you don’t need 10, and that’s so often the problem–calendaric overgifting). Robert Janover has a great one to offer, it’s full of images of Sonoma County just the way you like to remember it: stunning sunsets, swirling fog, and rushing waters. A number of local events are marked each month, things like the Celtic Festival and the Russian River Jazz Festival, saving you the trouble of writing them down yourself. It’s a colorful reminder of the wealth, bounty, and cornucopia right at your doorstep. Available at Copperfields Books and Sawyer’s News. (DB)

From the December 5-11, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.