For food, I highly recommend Sunshine Foods in downtown St Helena, right where Pope St meets Main. Napa Valley College, the venue for the event this year, was about a half mile away on Pope Street. My wife and I bought some California rolls for lunch there. We also returned that evening to look for something for a light dinner, and we received the best customer service I think I've had in my life from the two young men working the deli counter.
Sometimes in a place like the Wine Country my wife and I can feel a bit invisible, being a boring middle-aged couple amongst people who seem like they might be Hollywood celebrities or Silicon Valley movers and shakers. Yet during a pretty busy time at the grocery, one of the deli guys asked if we needed help, and when we admitted our indecisiveness, suggested salami and cheese to go with a special bottle of wine we had been saving to help celebrate our 24th anniversary.
He let us taste samples of various grades of salami, and then suggested a special prosciutto that was his favorite. After we tasted it, he told us it was $100 a pound, and we shouldn't feel obligated to buy it, but he could cut it thin, and a few slices would be less that $5 total. He told us it was made from wild boar in Spain that feed mainly on acorns, and it has a unique nutty flavor. We went for it, along with a few slices of the $27 a pound salami.
Then his friend at the deli suggested some cheese that would go well with it, a manchego-like cheese called Campo de Montalban. Of course he offered taste samples, and when we couldn't decide between the Montalban and another similar cheese, he offered to cut the wrapped packages in half so we could buy both for a reasonable price.
Okay, see what happens once you get me started...