Kathleen Hill: Food and wine news, June 15

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Divewalk Café pop-up Rancho Maria

Divewalk Café, the former brick-and-mortar pho and crêpe restaurant in the old Nicholas Turkey office building, puts on a pop-up Pho & Wine pairing dinner Saturday, June 16, at Rancho Maria Winery's back patio garden at their tasting room on First Street West.

Lorene says they will serve their pho, a small Asian salad, and a glass of Rancho Maria red or white wine.

To avoid the discouraging wait times guests experienced with their Springs Community Center pop-up, they are limiting space to 30 guests at this ticketed-only event so they know what to prepare. Seatings will be limited to one hour each at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m.

Lorene and Marc Sloop say, 'If you want to stay and hang out longer, owner Sebastian Juarez's front tasting room will be serving more wine and there will be a few seats available in the patio as well as plenty of standing and leaning space. We are hopeful that this format will also allow us to get out and mingle with our guests.' Tickets at squareup.com/market/divewalkcafe. 481 First St. W., Sonoma. 215-5000 tasting room.

Sonoma Market hiring?

Apparently Nugget has branched out. No wonder they are hiring so many chefs. A window poster shows them hiring for jobs at Nugget Markets, Sonoma Market and Glen Ellen Market, Fork Lift, and Food 4 Less.

Kate Stille, vice president of marketing and communications for Nugget Markets, confirmed by email that the family owns Fork Lift by Nugget Markets in Cameron Park, a Food 4 Less in Woodland, and 12 Nugget Markets in Marin County and the Greater Sacramento Valley, plus Sonoma and Glen Ellen markets in Sonoma Valley.

Applications are available for all stores at nuggetmarket.com/careers.

Anthony Bourdain in Sonoma

Eleven years ago Readers' Books brought Anthony Bourdain to Sonoma. (We recall it was 11 years because he rushed back to New York on the red-eye to be there to learn the sex of his and his partner's unborn child. She is now 11.) Bourdain reportedly took his own life by hanging last week in Strasbourg, France.

Bourdain brought culinary culture from and to the world with his 'No Reservations' and 'Parts Unknown' Sunday evening shows on CNN.

When he came to Sonoma for the Readers' Books event, more than 300 people packed the Sonoma Community Center's Andrews Hall to hear the author of 'Kitchen Confidential,' although Readers' co-owner Lilla Weinberger remembers that this tour was to promote another one of his books, 'A Cook's Tour.' There were many more locals outside who couldn't get into the Community Center.

Paula Wolfert and I attended together and many of us who were there remember him almost boasting of drug use and womanizing. It was almost as if he was competing with Mario Batali and Brit Marco Pierre White for the title of Baddest Bad Boy of the culinary world. Wolfert remembers him signing her book 'with respect,' which she loved.

Apparently shiatsu practitioners Gary and Laura Dee-Ruiz contacted Bourdain and offered him a treatment.

Laura said: 'Everyone wanted to know where he ate while he was in Sonoma. He was having fun with not telling. Also while he was getting his shiatsu, his handler and I made tobacco prayer ties for his health to improve. The soup he ate was called 10 Thing Asia Soup … he loved it and asked for a second bowl.'

She said that the soup included '30 cloves of garlic, a whole chicken and a special herb packet I get in Chinatown. The herbs transform the broth to a rich bone marrow-like potion.'

Laura continued, 'We talked and shared before he went to attend his book signing event. I remember he was so excited to return home. He and his partner were to discover the sex of his then-unborn child.

'His big snarky New York attitude will be missed.'

Paul Vieyra left the building

Truly sad news that Sonoma and the world lost Paul Vieyra this week. A native of South Africa, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon, acted with Sir Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, and then became an architect. He earned his master's degree in architecture at Columbia University, where he met his love and eventual husband, Stanley Abercrombie. After he designed many New York and Mexico financial buildings, Paul and Stanley moved to Sonoma, giving a substantial part of their enormous art book library to Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.

Four years ago when then-SVMA Executive Director Kate Eilertsen, Margie Maynard and I were planning the exhibition of the Kathleen Hill Culinary Collection, it took several lunches at Bob Rice's Breakaway Café to lure Stanley and Paul into designing the exhibition, which they did beautifully with mobiles of egg beaters, flour sifters, cheese graters, menus and much more.

And anyone who had the pleasure of dining in the home they designed for themselves at the ranch will remember Paul's coq au vin. Amen.

Sunflower Caffé's new specials

Sunflower Caffé has added some new specials including cold brew coffee on tap, cold brewed for 12 hours and pumped through the system using 'nitro,' which gives a creamy consistency and frothy head as you would get from a Guinness beer. Sunflower recently installed a new tap system that spouts beer and cocktails such as sangria made with Chanamé Rose, dry Curaçao, and apples, oranges, peaches, mango and pineapple. 421 First St. W., Sonoma. 996-6645.

Sweet Suite D pop-ups coming

All-American dinner fans pay attention: Sunday, June 24's Sunday Supper at Suite D includes a wedge salad of iceberg lettuce, housemade bacon, radish, scallions and blue cheese dressing.

Next comes a Santa Maria tri-tip with ranch beans, mac & cheese and house salsa. In Santa Maria shopping center parking lots and at many corners professional and home chefs barbecue tri-tip beef with their own super-secret rubs. While they claim they only use salt and pepper, Santa Maria tri-tips in Santa Maria sure taste like they have added more than salt and pepper.

At Suite D you receive a dessert of chocolate pots de crème with whipped cream, not served in Santa Maria parking lots. See you at this one. 5:30 p.m. $38 or $32.30 for Suite D members. $5 corkage per bottle, free for members. 21800 Schellville Road, Sonoma. Tickets at therhoneroom.com/shop/events.

Corner 103 presents its third annual Bacon Dinner at Suite D on June 23. The evening starts with 'bacon teasers' of passed hors d'oeuvres of bacon rillettes, bacon twice-baked potato and crispy fried bacon with apricot mostarda, and proceeds with a salad of bacon panzanella with arugula, bacon aioli and heirloom tomatoes. Then comes a bacon-wrapped scallop with corn-bacon purée, crispy shallots, and bacon crumbles.

Just to sweeten up your cholesterol level, enjoy a grilled New York steak with bacon béarnaise sauce, lardons, and watercress, followed by dessert of cannoli with housemade ricotta, candied bacon, and bacon chocolate sauce. Everything is paired with Corner 103 wines. $85 or $72.25 for Suite D and 103 wine club members. No outside wines. 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., 21800 Schellville Road, Sonoma. therhoneroom.com/shop/events .Corner 103: 931-6141.

Nibs & Sips

El Dorado Hotel is pairing with Sonoma Springs Brewing Co. to support 'the growing craft beer movement happening here.'

Candystore.com predicts that spicy Mexican candy is selling like hot cakes and that we should be watching for mango and lime flavored red hots and other candies. On my carniceria tour last Friday, a woman from Denver bought some chili flavored dried mango and we all needed more and more tastes it was so good.

Sushinoma makes all of the sushi at the new Frenchie Picnics & Provisions on upper Broadway. Now if Sushinoma could just find a sit-down restaurant space...

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