It started out as a simple trip to Napa to teach a cooking class at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in late July (which was an absolute blast and I hope to do it again). But I ended up getting an assignment to write about Sonoma County wine country—due to be in the October issue of Alaska Airlines Magazine—and my quiet couple of days turned into a wonderfully high-paced adventure. I visited dozens of wineries doing research, from north in Dry Creek Valley to the patio of sparkling wine maker Gloria Ferrer at the south tip of Sonoma Valley. This photo of Miss Moo-lot, a cow covered with Sonoma County wine corks, is from the Charles Creek Winery tasting room and gallery on the square in the town of Sonoma.

One of the biggest treats was getting to connect with a few Seattle friends who have transplanted to Sonoma. Mauny Kaseburg, who was KUOW’s Radio Gourmet among countless other hats she wore in Seattle, is now marketing director for the Russian River Valley Winegrowers, one of the viticultural areas within Sonoma County. She was an invaluable guide and cohort for the exploration.

We lunched with Steve Burns and Josh Heiser at their Glen Ellen home in Sonoma Valley. The Washington wine crowd was crushed to see Steve leave his post as executive director of the Washington Wine Commission, but he’s hardly left the wine industry. One client of note is the wineries of Western Australia. "Wines from Western Australia?" you say. Hey, they used to say “Wines from Washington?” rather incredulously as well, and don’t any more, thanks in part to Steve’s influence. Steve and Josh are both busy with a range of clients and projects, mad about their new home and living the good life in Sonoma.

Last but not least, we ate very well at two establishments owned by a couple of former Seattleites. Duskie Estes and John Stewart met and worked together at Etta's Seafood before moving to Santa Rosa a few years ago. Their first restaurant, Zazu in Santa Rosa, is a sort of upscale roadhouse right in the midst of vineyards. Duskie handed us a bellini made with local sparking wine and peaches brought in by the farmer that afternoon, the beginning of an outstanding meal that included pan-fried sand dabs and outstanding fattoush (a salad of sumac flat bread, herbs, feta and pomegranate vinaigrette). John spends most of his time in nearby Healdsburg where they opened Bovolo, a more casual cafe/wine bar where you must try his housemade salumi, a wood-fired pizza and that decadent pork cheek sandwich with salsa verde.

It’s a little mean of me to go to a new restaurant within the first week of opening. But sometimes I just can’t help myself: curiosity and impatience get the best of me. The latest example was dinner recently at Tilth, the new restaurant opened by Maria Hines, previously chef at Earth & Ocean in Seattle’s W Hotel. Her new venture is in the Wallingford neighborhood, taking the bungalow-turned-restaurant space vacated by Mandalay Café.

Not content to just have a go at being her own boss and running the show (in the restaurant biz, already a many-layered challenge), Maria has opened the state’s second certified organic restaurant. None of this “organic when possible” footnote on her menus, at least 95% of what she serves—from salt to short ribs—has been certified organic. There is a footnote, but it points out that wild foods have no organic certification (though by their very nature, they are certainly organic, no?), as if to apologize for not being precisely 100% organic.

Our meal was outstanding, thankfully five of us dined together so we were able to sample many selections. I loved the King's Garden Melon Salad with Feta Cheese, Mint and Sel Gris, refreshing and savory and delightfully different. A corn soup with a garnish of fried pork belly was the popular daily soup, and baby romaine was dressed with Green Goddess dressing, hazelnuts and parmesan for a couple others.

The Mini Duck Burgers are the funnest surprise on the menu, served on homemade baby buns with arugula and homemade heirloom ketchup, a little pile of the most darling fingerling potato chips alongside. She'll have to start selling those as a side, too good to not have on every trip. Can't wait to get back to try more of the menu. It's great yet again to see what a talented, driven, passionate chef does when she breaks out to plot her own course. Seattle's fortunate to have so many such chef-owners in our midst of late.

We're on the verge of my favorite season and this soup serves as a great entree to autumn, with its vivid orange color and evocative, gingery aroma. It's from the Rover's cookbook I wrote with Thierry Rautureau, but don't let the elegance of that restaurant scare you away. This a surprisingly simple recipe, one that is amazingly elegant and flavorful in its simplicity.

I fell in love with the roasted cauliflower garnish when I tested this recipe at home and have since recreated that element countless times for a dinnertime side dish. Sometimes I'll sprinkle cumin or curry powder over the cauliflower for some added flavor, but even roasted with no more than salt and pepper, it's a delicious change of pace.

Consider a weekend in the woods over on Lake Quinault in October. It will be the height of wild mushroom season and the Lake Quinault Lodge will be hosting a wild mushroom festival October 20-21. I'll be there Friday evening for the reception, and teaching a cooking demonstration with recipes from my Wild Mushroom cookbook the next day, before attendees head off for their mushroom foraging trip.

I’ve been getting a lot of use out of my library card lately. The batch of books I just picked up, as it turns out, all happen to have some connection to drinking, for academic pursuit of course. Gin is a longtime favorite spirit (vodka martini--as if!) in which I’ve taken a deeper interest in lately. One book, called Gin: the Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva, chronicles the 18th century gin craze in Europe, primarily in and around London. Another is Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties, to get a taste of that roaring, live-for-the-moment era and how gin may have helped fuel the flamboyant spirit of that age. The 1920s, both in the States and in Paris, have always held a fascination for me.

Working on that Sonoma County wine country article, I came across a great quote from Jack London, who had a large ranch near Glen Ellen that included vineyard acreage. The quote was from his book John Barleycorn, which I just finished reading (my first London book, at that). The volume is subtitled "alcoholic memoirs" -- and he does devote a lot of reflection to his own introduction to and developing relationship with alcohol. Apparently even among the oyster pirates on San Francisco Bay (a band in which he was a rather successful member for a spell in his youth), social drinking has its customs and manners. But drop the adjective, and the memoir element alone makes this an engaging read. And one I'm sure I'd likely never have picked up were it not for Sonoma County wine!