Mouthful: Party in The Barlow

Santa Rosa's Community Market (1899 Mendocino Ave.) quietly opened a second location a few weeks ago, in a highly visible part of The Barlow, at the corner of Highway 12 and Morris St.

Now that the new store has gotten its sea legs, it's hosting a grand opening fete on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

There will be nonstop entertainment throughout the day, with appearances by the Hubbub Club, Free Peoples, Lazyman, Mr. December, The Chelsea Set, JD Limelight, Kyle Martin Band, The Orchid Killers and the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. There will be qigong, belly dancing, art exhibits and fun activities for kids.

Community organizations will join in with education forums and demonstrations.

There will, of course, be food, beverage and product samples and an opportunity to hang out in the beer and wine garden.

The Sebastopol store is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Santa Rosa store is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

For more information about the not-for-profit market, visit srcommunitymarket.com.

From California to Italy and back again: A few months again, two young women, Michelle Lee Freeborn and Danielle Caponi Bolla, opened a sweet little shop, Vita Casalinga ("life of the homemaker"), off the square in Healdsburg, at 135 Matheson St. The store specializes in Italian housewares, including hand-pounded copper pots, outdoor bruschetta grills, handmade kitchen linens, ceramics, cookware, cooking implements and so much more, including a line of body products made with organic olive oil.

The story of how the store came about is as sweet as the store itself.

Freeborn, who was born in Santa Rosa, and Bolla, who was born in San Francisco, both went to Italy to study for a semester. Neither returned when the semester concluded. Bolla stayed 10 years, returning when her husband, Federico Bolla, an Italian computer programmer, accepted a job with Disney and George Lucas. Freeborn married architect Paolo Caggiano and raised a family near Florence.

Two years ago, the women met for the first time, introduced by Paul Ferrari of A. G. Ferrari Foods, which specializes in premium Italian products from small farmers, ranchers and artisans.

It appears to have been a match made in heaven and the offspring is this little shop.

Freeborn and Caggiano remain in Italy and help with procurement of merchandise. The Bollas live in Petaluma and Federico now manages the e-commerce part of the business. He's often in the store, chatting with his wife in Italian, sharing family recipes and inviting customers to dinner.

The store is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit vitacasalinga.com.

Music for your weekend: It's a long weekend -#8212; Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day -#8212; and there is plenty to do, no matter your inclinations. Whatever you do, keep in mind that Winter Wineland takes place on Saturday and Sunday and could influence traffic, especially in the northern part of the county.

Big-name performers -#8212; Roy Rogers and David Lindley, for example -#8212; are playing at larger venues but smaller clubs are offering good music, too, often without a cover charge.

You might kick off the weekend with The Cork Pullers, who will perform at Murphy's Irish Pub (464 First St. E.) in Sonoma on Friday night from 8 to 10 p.m. The band calls its mostly-acoustic music "Sonomacana" and specializes in unique covers of a wide range of songs.

You can wrap up the long weekend on Monday with the breezy aloha tunes of Da Puna Bruddahs, performing at Sweet T's (2097 Stagecoach Road, Santa Rosa) from 4 to 7 p.m. They appear again at the French Garden Restaurant (8050 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol) on Saturday, Jan. 25, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Calling all beer lovers: The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone is welcoming beer drinkers and wanna-be beer drinkers into the fold, with "Grain, Water and Hops: The Basics of Beer."

The first session of this two-and-a-half hour class takes place on Saturday, Jan. 25, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Cost is $95. A second session is scheduled for May 10.

Topics to be covered include basic brewing, the differences between ale, lager, stout and more, and the fundamentals of pairing beer with food. Participants will taste a range of domestic and imported brews.

If you can't tell a pilsner from a pale ale but are curious about it, this may be the class for you.

To sign up, call 800-888-7850 or visit ciachef.edu and click on the "Food and Wine Enthusiast Courses" link.

Bistro 29 Mid-Week Menus: On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Bistro 29, one of Sonoma County's "frenchiest" restaurants, offers a special prix fixe menu with three courses for $29.

There's always an amuse-bouche -#8212; this week it was a shot of celery root and parsnip soup with cinnamon brown butter -#8212; followed by a first course, a second course and dessert.

Wine pairings are offered for an additional $11.

The week's menus are not announced in time for us to offer them in this column, but you can check the website at bistro29.com or simply take your chances. Proprietor and chef Brian Anderson, a life-long Santa Rosan, is an excellent chef who knows his way around Breton cuisine, the restaurant's specialty. He met his wife, Fran?ise, in Brittany in 1990.

Every time we walk into the little jewel box of a restaurant, we feel transported to France. And we've never tasted crepes this good, except, well, you know where.

Bistro 29 is located at 620 Fifth St., Santa Rosa. For reservations, call 546-2929 or visit the website at bistro29.com.

San Francisco Restaurant Week: If you've been eager for a trip to San Francisco, you might consider heading across the Golden Gate during "Dine About Town San Francisco," which began on Wednesday and continues through Jan. 31, making it more than a week, obviously.

Here's how it works. More than a hundred restaurants offer special two- or three-course lunch menus for $18.95 and three-course dinner menus for $36.95.

Not all restaurants offer both lunch and dinner and not all participate each day of the event. For all the details and to make reservations, visit dineabouttown.com.

Sonoma County Restaurant Week takes place March 10 to 16.