Briefs: Wasco tomato seminar

Wasco Nursery & Garden Center will have a seminar on ways to make use of a large tomato harvest from 6 to 8 tonight at 41W781 Route 64, west of St. Charles. The seminar features Country Garden Cuisine Cooking School owner Penny Newkirk, who will demonstrate how to cook several tomato dishes and offer tastes of a variety of tomatoes. Admission is a suggested $5 donation to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Call (630) 584-4424.

Meet the Democrats:

The Kane County Democratic Party is holding a fundraiser for candidates Tom Sandor for auditor, Ed Nendick for clerk of the circuit court, Frank Craig for recorder and Stan Hickrod for coroner. The event is from 6 to 10 tonight at the Elgin VFW Hall, 1601 Weld Road. A donation of $30 per person or $40 for a family is requested. Call (630) 897-4330.

Spock to land in Elgin:

Leonard Nimoy, TV and film's favorite Vulcan, will narrate Holst's "The Planets" alongside the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. He'll be in town Sept. 20 for the symphony's season opening gala. He will narrate a program of music that also includes many other space-inspired pieces such as Beethoven's "Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus," "Hymn to the Sun" by Rimsky-Korsakov and the opening fanfare of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," which was featured in the film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." The show will be accompanied by images of space from NASA, projected on a big screen above the stage at the Hemmens Cultural Center. The Elgin Children's Chorus is also on the program. The 6 p.m. concert will be preceded by a champagne toast at 5:30 p.m. The Adler Planetarium will also provide telescopes for concertgoers to take a look at the night sky. For tickets, log on to www.elginsymphony.org or call the box office at (847) 888-4000.

Aurora rental rules delayed

Aurora aldermen again delayed discussing or approving the four-ordinance Crime Free Housing Initiative plan to increase the city's partnership with local landlords. Alderman Michael Saville said city attorneys still need to review legal concerns raised by area Realtors and landlords. "I'd rather wait two more weeks and get it right, than rush it and get it wrong," Saville said this week.

Violence counseling offered:

The Community Crisis Center in Elgin provides domestic violence counseling services for northwestern Kane County. A licensed counselor and is available to adult and adolescent females, and services are free. Experts say one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime and an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. All calls to (847) 697-2380 are confidential.