Kathleen Hill: City Party, Suite D, Lunch at Edge and more

This year’s Sonoma City Party mobs Sonoma Plaza next Thursday, July 28, with four big music acts and several food acts, it being a picnic and all that.

Sonoma Market and Glen Ellen Village Market and the girl & the fig will all provide foods to pick up and take to the Plaza with advance reservations. Sonoma Market’s “lovingly curated picnic menu” includes sandwiches, salads, and sweets. The girl & the fig’s picnic menu includes a salad, entrée, side dish, small cheese platter, sliced baguette and sweets.

There will be food trucks and booths. This is not a farmers market night. Watch for the girl & the fig’s “fig rig” food truck (I’m hoping to try their fried green tomato BLT), Tips Tri-Tip Trolley, Croques & Toques, Aunt Betty’s corn dogs, E-Saan Thai food, El Brinquito’s food truck, Rocket’s take out, and Uberspud. Krave Jerky and Vella Cheese will also be available.

Native Sons of the Golden West, which is working to help construct the monument of General Vallejo in the Plaza, will pour and sell donated Lagunitas Brewing Company’s brews.

Circulating through this annual crowd, my observation is that lots of people buy picnic foods at Sonoma Market and Whole Foods or make lovely dishes themselves to share. We might also consider dining at the Plaza restaurants whose business could be hindered by the crowds and parking problems.

Divewalk Café new menu

Divewalk Café offers some new summer dishes including a Peachy Keen salad of peaches with shaved Parmesan and balsamic over a bed of baby arugula. To their Hanoi Taco line they’ve added a chili-cumin pulled pork with shredded iceberg lettuce, cilantro-lime sauce and cheddar cheese on a Jalisco Tortilleria y Tacqeria corn tortilla. Lorraine and Marc Sloop highly recommend cooling off at Sonoma Springs Brewery next door and they will bring your Divewalk food there. 19449 Riverside Drive, Sonoma 334-3175. Divewalkcafe.com.

Cornerstone weekend foods

Cornerstone features new yummy food outdoors on Saturdays and Sundays including sausage sandwiches and hot dogs grilled on the Sunset Outdoor Kitchen grills, truffle chips, and lemonade. Plus, the Sweet Scoops cart will sell ice cream cones every summer weekend. Great way to dodge Sweet Scoops’ long lines on First Street East. Have a casual lunch, tour the Sunset gardens and shop. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“Grape Escape” passport to five Sonoma wineries

Cellarpass and Yelp have joined together to offer a special one-time only “Grape Escape” wine flight tasting and food pairing day on Sunday, July 31 to benefit Sonoma’s no-kill shelter, Pets Lifeline. Participating wineries include Benziger Family Winery, Imagery Winery, Jacuzzi Family Vineyards and Buena Vista.

This is a real deal for $20 or $10 for a designated driver. But it’s only available to Yelp members, and you can register for free at yelp.com.

Cellarpass puts together winery, distillery, and brewery tours and tasting reservations.

Suite D marries bacon to wine

Lloyd Davis of Corner 103 sponsored “The Marriage of Wine and Bacon” dinner and poured his wines at Suite D last weekend. The sold-out event started with passed crispy fried pork belly, mini quiche Lorraines, and maple chili bacon bites with Davis’ sparkling rosé, followed by a crispy charshu salad and Davis’ Sauvignon Blanc.

Next came a clam and hickory smoked bacon bourride with chardonnay, braised Applewood smoked bacon with farro and pinot noir, New York steak with bacon ratatouille and bacon jus with Davis’ zinfandel and bacon chocolate cake with peanut butter ice cream and bourbon bacon caramel with a port from Davis’ private cellar.

Davis will pour his Corner 103 wines at Pizza & Pinot next Tuesday at the General’s Daughter starting at 5:30 p.m.

Next opportunity to try Executive Chef John Toulze’s cuisine will be at Suite D’s Campovida Wine Dinner on Thursday, Aug. 4, when winemaker Sebastian Donoso and owners Gary and Anna of Hopland’s Campovida will bring their third annual wine pairing dinner to Suite D.

Enjoy lavender honey toasts, smoked salmon crepes and watermelon skewers with feta and mint for appetizers. Dinner starts with grilled stone fruit (without pits), saffron corn consommé with summer corn panna cotta and flower petals, smoked salmon with fresh horseradish and squash blossoms, crispy pork confit with seared heirloom peppers, and roasted figs, house mascarpone and pine nut biscotti, all accompanied by Campovida wines. $85 public, $75 for Suite D club or Campovida wine club members. 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. 21800 Schellville Road, Sonoma.

Edge update

Edge dining room, in the small Victorian next to Della Santina’s and across East Napa Street from Café LaHaye, has opened to the public for lunch on Fridays.

Edge provides a unique dining experience with award-winning Stone Edge Farm’s culinary director and cookbook author John McReynolds personally cooking everything you eat. Usually the dining room is only open to Stone Edge’s wine “Collectors Club.”

On a recent evening, Philippe Thibaut guided guests through a first and possibly only vertical tasting of all Stone Edge Farm cabernet sauvignons starting with the 2006, of which only 200 cases were made.

McReynolds’ canapés ranged from acorn flour toasts with butter and caviar to Stone Edge Farm potato squares that melted in the mouth. Dinner started with a simple bouillabaisse Provençal with a scallop, squid, and mussels and garlic crispy toast, a sformatino of gorgonzola, charred leeks and arugula, a sliced Painted Hills porterhouse grilled in the parking lot with potato gnocchi and summer bean and Swiss chard ragout, followed by artisanal cheeses and peach compote selected by Peruvian native chef de cuisine Fiorella Butron.

Friday lunches will consist of three courses, all crafted on the spot by McReynolds, with wines to accompany each serving included. Reservations required. $125. 12:30 to 2 p.m. 139 E. Napa St., Sonoma. Reserve via Larry Nadeau at larry@stoneedgefarm.com.

Taylor Maid Farms sold

InHouse Ventures of Healdsburg has purchased Taylor Maid Farms of Sebastopol. Taylor Maid opened its first coffee and tea retail outlet on West Napa Street. where we have also seen Homegrown Bagels and the Epicurean Connection. The space currently houses Tasca Tasca.

Taylor Maid’s problem here was simply that they did not get a permit to serve tea or coffee and hoped to make it just with retail sales. They learned from that experience and opened at The Barlow in Sebastopol, which itself seems to be for sale.

Chris and Terri Marin started in 1993 with 100 acres on Taylor Lane in Occidental and started to roast great organic coffee beans in their barn. It’s now available in 200 locations in the Bay Area.