Kathleen Hill: Palooza at the ballpark, French flea market and more

French food at flea market

Chateau Sonoma presents its French Flea Market this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, May 26 and 27, around the Sunset outdoor test kitchen at Cornerstone.

You might remember this flea market from owner Sarah Anderson's original Chateau Sonoma location, the tin building on West Napa Street that currently houses SmashMallow. Now that Chateau Sonoma is thoroughly ensconced at Cornerstone, so is the French Flea Market.

Many of the nearly 25 dealers coming import French antiques themselves.

If you aren't interested in antiques or just browsing through interesting home accessories, go for the food.

'Le Trolley,' aka Tips Tri-Tips Trolley, will offer grilled sausages on buns (and somehow they taste French), skinny fresh baguette sandwiches with ham and butter or ham and cheese, and an asparagus, veggie and cheese puff pastry. Sweet Scoops will bring its ice cream cart loaded with refreshing treats, and Café Scooteria will offer coffee drinks.

Ramekins Culinary Center will serve rosé wine, Champagne, French beer and local wines as well. French bartender Jeremy will serve French 75s (Champagne, gin, lemon juice and simple syrup). And Prohibition Spirits will make a special French-inspired cocktail, bound to be delicious. Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 23588 Arnold Drive, Sonoma. 935-8553.

And more Frenchie food...

Watch for chefs Liz Payne and Sarah Pinkin to open their super Frenchie food shop to the public next Thursday, May 31.

They have popped-up their food cart occasionally in front of the store at 521 Broaway. Great salad, French sandwiches, and lots of imported goodies.

Brennan cancels

Georgeanne Brennan has had to cancel her appearance and potluck in Readers' Books' Reading Garden next Wednesday. The Last Wednesday Food Group will take a summer break and re-group in the fall. Let Readers' Books or me know your ideas for future guests and format.

Sonoma Portworks at Petaluma Drinks

Surely Petaluma residents do drink adult beverages, but now they are inviting the rest of us to join them at an event called Petaluma Drinks on Saturday and Sunday, June 2 and 3.

Caryn and Bill Reading, 30-year Sonoma residents, own Sonoma Portworks, which is now located in Petaluma. They make wonderful ports and Sonomic Almost Vinegar, loaded with chocolate flavors. (We accidentally broke a bottle of Sonomic on our Mexican tile floor and wondered whether to spread it around the kitchen to enjoy the aroma or mop it up.)

During Petaluma Drinks the Readings will pour their ports and offer samples of the Sonomic Almost Vinegar, which is available at Sonoma Market. Currently their ports are poured at the Girl & the Fig, Harvest Moon Café, and Salt & Stone in Kenwood.

Meanwhile, the many craft beverage producers of Petaluma have formed the Petaluma Drinks weekend tasting festival featuring wine, beer, spirits, cider and bitters producers, many of which are not usually open to the public.

Info and maps at info@petalumadrinks.com. Petalumadrinks.com.

Carniceria tour June 8

Join me to visit the Springs' best carnicerias, Mexican butchers and markets, a local Mexican ice cream maker, bakery and tortilleria and Flowery Elementary School's salsa garden to experience lots of new tastes, walls of spices, learn about inexpensive new meat cuts, and go home tired and satiated.

Tour begins at 10 .m. with Sonoma-made Mexican breakfast pastries and coffee at Ramekins Culinary Center. We then move on to carnicerias, a sit-down lunch in a colorful local Mexican restaurant, hear about the salsa garden, and finish the day off licking fabulous new flavors of handmade Mexican ice cream. Breakfast pastries, lunch and ice cream included. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 450 W. Napa St., Sonoma. Sign up at 933-0450 or ramekins.com.

Lobster in the Vineyards

'Lobster in the Vineyards' will be held Saturday, July 14 (Bastille Day) at the estate of Les and Judy Vadasz. Lombardi's Catering of Petaluma, owned by lifetime Sonomans, will cater the lobster feast under the trees and in the vineyards against the western slope of Sonoma Valley. All of this benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley.

At a lobster feed you get to wear a bib, let butter and goo drip down your arms after you dip your lobster, corn, potatoes, French bread, or artichoke leaves into cups of melted butter. This is a hands-on and hands-in-it dinner and loads of fun. All of this while gazing at the Vadasz' lake that makes one want to hop in the row boat and take off. Beer, fine wines and soft drinks included. Address given upon registration. $175. 5 p.m. 938-8544.

Stompers partner with Palooza

Palooza Brewery & Gastropub of Kenwood will bring its fresh lobster rolls, garlic fries, Brussels sprouts, and pita bread with hummus to Arnold Field this baseball season. Mary's Slice Shack, Barking Dog Roasters and Stompers owner Jon Sebastiani's food distribution brands such as SmashMallow, Dang, Krave jerky, Aquakola and U Gottabee Nutz will all be available.

In the 'luxury seating' Leese-Fitch Wine Lounge, fans can enjoy catered Palooza food and Leese-Fitch wines, another Sebastiani family brand.

With 'partnering' often come naming rights, as is the case here. The football and baseball field known as Arnold Field will become known as Palooza Park at Arnold Field during Stompers games.

Opening day at home for the Stompers will be Tuesday, June 5. For tickets call 938-7277 or email info@stompersbaseball.com.

Palooza is also partnering with NorCal Beer Geeks to stage a beer festival on July 4. After the game attendees can watch Sonoma's fireworks from the outfield.

Nibs & Sips

Sondra Bernstein, proprietor of the Girl & the Fig, the Fig Café, Girl & the Fig Caters, and the Rhône Room, was named one of 14 Women in Business honorees for 2018 by North Bay Business Journal. All of these women will be recognized at an awards dinner at the Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country Hotel in Santa Rosa on Thursday, June 28. For tickets ($90) call Annette Wirick at 521-3274 or try nbbj.news/wib18.

Sunee Petprasert has sold her Bangkok 9 restaurant near Whole Foods in the Marketplace Shopping Center to her brother, Terapot Petprasert, for whom this is his first restaurant management experience. Their other sister, Sutisa Petprasert and her husband, Setsan Suwansap, own E-Saan Thai House across from Mary's Pizza Shack on Highway 12.

A corner restaurant at First Street West and West Napa Street? What about parking? Does anyone else remember when the chef and restaurant designer Pat Kuleto was turned down by the City of Sonoma for a restaurant because the parking lot was one space short?

Kuleto wanted to put a fine restaurant where Bank of Marin is now, with the full parking lot available. He was denied a permit because he needed one more parking place for the volume the city said he would draw.

The building where the New York company wants to install a restaurant and wine lounge has no parking spaces at all. Neither does the one-story building that houses Sigh, Tasca Tasca, Perlé, and Outdora.

Koerner Rombauer

When Sondra Bernstein and her staff and this writer sorted thousands of cookbooks for our free giveaway to fire victims, we were struck at how many people were willing to sacrifice their 'Joy of Cooking' cookbooks to give to others who had lost their homes in the October fires.

We had a whole huge stack of Irma Rombauer's 'Joy of Cooking.' Some people requested specific editions, presumably the one they or a family member lost. And they were the first cookbooks to be scooped up on giveaway day, followed closely by Julia Child books.

Rombauer Vineyards also sold scads of Irma Rombauer's cookbooks, which were a central focus of the tasting room at the winery founded by Irma's great nephew Koerner Rombauer.

A native of Escondido, Koerner Rombauer founded Rombauer Vineyards near St. Helena after serving as a pilot with the California Air National Guard and then as a commercial pilot with Braniff Airlines. He and wife Joan and family moved to Napa Valley in 1972.

After learning as much as he could at Conn Creek Winery, he and his family founded Rombauer Vineyards in the Stags Leap area in 1980.

Rombauer and his wife Joan, who died from pancreatic cancer, started the Rombauer Pancreatic Cancer Research fund at UCSF. Locally in Napa he served on the boards of the Napa Airport Advisory Board Committee, as chair of the 2011 Auction Napa Valley, was a longtime supporter of the St. Helena High School FFA, and a driver of Rep. Mike Thompson in Calistoga's Fourth of July parade.

After a long, blusterous and kind career and life, Rombauer passed away May 10 at 83.