SUMMER SUPPER: People in other places can get a little jealous over California's year-round fine weather, and while their assumptions are mostly true, we who live here know that if things are going to happen that involve a) the outside and b) nighttime, it is best that they happen during the traditional warmer weather months. Sure, you can have dining strolls in January in a lot of Golden State towns, just as long as attendees don't mind tying a windbreaker around their waist. Summertime is the time, in short, which is why we're hurriedly getting in all the supper-focused strolls we can before evening falls earlier and earlier (we know, it has been for two months). Downtown Napa's Culinary Crawl is one such event that should be taken advantaged of, if only because it features a few of the areas best eat places. And the next one, which is up on Thursday, Aug. 30? Definitely tempts.
A TRIO OF PLACES: Fish Story, purecru -- think NV wines -- and Eiko's are on the Aug. 30 roster; the meet-up is at Fish Story at 4 p.m. Cost? Forty five bucks at the door but thirty if you nab your ticket in advance.
AND JUST AHEAD... In Downtown Napa is Fork It Over, on Saturday, Sept. 8. Merchants from the Oxbow Public Market will be behind the four-course meal that benefits the Napa Valley Food Bank.
