Food and Wine Events

CANCELLED: Daniel Patterson and Mandy Aftel - The Art of Flavor (San Francisco)

Saturday, December 9, 2017 - 12:30pm

Tickets: $120 per person (includes meal & book)
Alta, San Francisco

Please note: this event has been cancelled.

Two masters of composition - a chef and a perfumer - present a revolutionary new approach to creating delicious food.

Michelin three-star chef Daniel Patterson and celebrated natural perfumer Mandy Aftel are experts at orchestrating ingredients. Yet in a world awash in cooking shows and food blogs, they noticed, home cooks get little guidance in the art of flavor. In this trailblazing guide, they share the secrets to making the most of your ingredients via an indispensable set of tools and principles:

  • The Four Rules for creating flavor
  • A Flavor Compass that points the way to transformative combinations
  • "Locking," "burying," and other aspects of cooking alchemy
  • The flavor-heightening effects of cooking methods
  • The Seven Dials that let you fine-tune a dish

With more than eighty recipes that demonstrate each concept and put it into practice, The Art of Flavor is food for the imagination that will help cooks at any level to become flavor virtuosos.

Daniel Patterson founded San Francisco's Michelin three-star Coi and several other Bay Area restaurants; most recently, he cofounded the acclaimed "revolutionary fast food" venture LocoL. His awards include Food & Wine's Best New Chef and a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the West. Patterson is the author of two previous books, and his essays have appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Financial Times, San Francisco Magazine, and Lucky Peach.

Mandy Aftel is an internationally known artisan perfumer and award-winning author, most recently of Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent. She has participated in many exhibitions, panels, and conferences on scent and food, and regularly collaborates with chefs and mixologists. She and her work have been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Elle, on CNN, and in countless blogs. Aftel lives in Berkeley, California.

Event tickets include the meal, wine, tip, tax, and a signed copy of the book.

 

Alta
1420 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Literary Luncheon: Janet Fitch - Revolution of Marina M. (Corte Madera)

Friday, November 10, 2017 - 12:00pm

Tickets: $55 (includes lunch & signed book)

From Janet Fitch -- the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black -- comes The Revolution of Marina M., a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of one young woman.

St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn.

As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.

Janet Fitch's first novel, White Oleander, a #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection, has been translated into 24 languages and was made into a feature film. Her most recent novel, Paint It Black, hit bestseller lists across the country and has also been made into a film. She lives in Los Angeles.

 

51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA 94925

Cooks with Books: David Tanis - David Tanis Market Cooking (Larkspur)

Monday, November 13, 2017 - 6:30pm

Left Bank Restaurant, Larkspur
Tickets: $115 per person; $180 per couple (one book)

David Tanis returns to Left Bank to discuss David Tanis Market Cooking. Tanis describes how to shop for the best ingredients at the market with tips on how to discern the best quality of each, and the ideal recipes. He offers over 200 recipes and 300 color photographs with each chapter organized by ingredients. Tanis worked as a professional chef for over 3 decades including chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, is the author of several highly acclaimed cookbooks and currently writes for the food section in the New York Times.

 

 

Left Bank Restaurant
507 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, CA 94939

POSTPONED: Cooks with Books: Thomas Keller & Roland G. Henin - Roland G. Henin (Yountville)

Saturday, November 4, 2017 - 3:00pm

Finesse, The Store; Yountville
Tickets: $90 per person (includes signed book)

This is a signing/reception only with bites and bubbles

Please note: this event has been postponed. We look forward to announcing a rescheduled date shortly.

Join us for a rare chance to meet two culinary greats, Chef Roland G. Henin and Chef Thomas Keller, mentor and mentee.

In Chef Henin’s new memoir, Roland G. Henin: 50 Years of Mentoring Great American Chefs, he shares anecdotes through dozens of interviews with his mentees and describes behind the scenes glimpses of the culinary world.

Join us for an afternoon reception to celebrate the life and legacy of Roland Henin, a Certified Master Chef who was among the first European chefs to cross the Atlantic to bring classic cuisine to the US.

Chef Keller has written the foreword and is the award-winning chef/proprietor at 6 restaurants and 5 bakeries, author of numerous cookbooks and owner of Finesse, The Store.

 

 

 

 

Finessee, The Store
6540 Washington Street
Yountville, CA 94599

Book Club - Special Brunch (Corte Madera)

Sunday, September 17, 2017 - 12:00pm

Tickets: $25 (includes brunch buffet)

*Registration now closed*

Special Event for Book Clubs and those interested in Book Clubs. In addition to a buffet brunch with Mimosas, we will be sharing ideas and suggestions for books to consider for your reading and discussions.

Wendy Pearl of Penguin Books and Jenn Ramage of Knopf Books will be on hand to tell us about the best upcoming titles as well as book club favorites coming in paperback. They are often inclined to give out free copies of books they recommend.

Elaine and our Book Passage reading mavens will present their favorite books, both fiction and non-fiction, for your consideration. We want the focus of this gathering to be on well-written books that will also engender spirited group discussions.

**limited seating**

51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA 94925

Cooks with Books: Gail Simmons - Bringing It Home (Larkspur)

Thursday, November 2, 2017 - 6:30pm

Left Bank, Larkspur
Tickets: $115 per person; $175 per couple (includes meal & book)

Bringing it Home is the long-awaited cookbook from the well-loved judge on Bravo’s popular food show Top Chef. In her book, Gail Simmons shares her best recipes and experiences from her travels and from her Top Chef culinary adventures. She has taken some of the best dishes you’ve seen cooked on TV and presented them in a way for viewers to make at home. These are smart, simple cooking techniques for both family meals and easy entertaining.

From Bloody Mary eggs to Singapore Style Hokkien Noodles to Fish Tacos with Soy Lime Crema, all her recipes are made from accessible ingredients to help make family meals healthy and quick.

Simmons was head critic on Top Chef Duels and host of Top Chef Desserts as well as a frequent guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and more.

Event tickets include the meal, wine, tip, tax, and a signed copy of the book.

 

Left Bank Restaurant
507 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, CA 94939

Cooks with Books: Jacques Pépin - A Grandfather's Lessons (Peju Winery)

Saturday, April 14, 2018 - 6:30pm

Peju Winery, Rutherford
Tickets: $145 per person (includes meal & book)

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Please Note: This event is sold out. For waitlist availability, please call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1.

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The grand master of cooking has a new apprentice in the kitchen: his granddaughter.

Jacques Pépin is one of the nation’s most famous cooking teachers, renowned for his knife skills. Ever since she was very young, his granddaughter, Shorey, has loved “helping” him in the kitchen. Now that she is twelve, Jacques gives his charismatic pupil a short course on preparing “food that is plain, but elegant, and more than anything, fun.” In the process, he proves himself as inspiring to her as he is to the country’s greatest chefs. Curly hot dogs, spinach with croutons, sushi salmon cakes, skillet bread and homemade butter, raspberry cake: These recipes will become irresistible new classics for kids. In A Grandfather's Lessons, Jacques also imparts lessons in kitchen etiquette, from how to set a table to how to fold a napkin properly—even how to load a dishwasher. And perhaps the most important lesson of all: that the best meals are the ones shared at home with family.

The winner of sixteen James Beard Awards and author of twenty-nine cookbooks, including Jacques Pépin Heart & Soul in the Kitchen and Essential Pépin, Jacques Pépin has starred in twelve acclaimed PBS cooking series. He was awarded France's highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.

Event tickets include the meal, wine, tip, tax, and a signed copy of the book.

 

Peju Province Winery
8466 St. Helena Hwy
Rutherford, CA 94573

Cooks with Books: Jacques Pépin - A Grandfather's Lessons (Left Bank)

Thursday, April 19, 2018 - 6:30pm

Left Bank, Larkspur
Tickets: $145 per person (includes meal & book)

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Note: Ticketholders for the original Oct. 20 date do not need to purchase tickets again. Staff will contact you regarding the new date.

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**Registration closed, for waitlist please call 415 927-0960 ext. #1**

The grand master of cooking has a new apprentice in the kitchen: his granddaughter.

Jacques Pépin is one of the nation’s most famous cooking teachers, renowned for his knife skills. Ever since she was very young, his granddaughter, Shorey, has loved “helping” him in the kitchen. Now that she is twelve, Jacques gives his charismatic pupil a short course on preparing “food that is plain, but elegant, and more than anything, fun.” In the process, he proves himself as inspiring to her as he is to the country’s greatest chefs. Curly hot dogs, spinach with croutons, sushi salmon cakes, skillet bread and homemade butter, raspberry cake: These recipes will become irresistible new classics for kids. In A Grandfather's Lessons, Jacques also imparts lessons in kitchen etiquette, from how to set a table to how to fold a napkin properly—even how to load a dishwasher. And perhaps the most important lesson of all: that the best meals are the ones shared at home with family.

The winner of sixteen James Beard Awards and author of twenty-nine cookbooks, including Jacques Pépin Heart & Soul in the Kitchen and Essential Pépin, Jacques Pépin has starred in twelve acclaimed PBS cooking series. He was awarded France's highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.

Event tickets include the meal, wine, tip, tax, and a signed copy of the book.

 

Left Bank Restaurant
507 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, CA 94939

Cooks with Books: Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh - Sweet (San Anselmo)

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 - 12:00pm

Insalata's Restaurant, San Anselmo
Tickets: $135 per person (includes meal & book)

Please note: online registration is now closed. To inquire about waitlist availability, please call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1.

Yotam Ottolenghi is widely beloved in the food world for his beautiful, inspirational, and award-winning cookbooks, as well as his London delis and fine dining restaurant. And while he’s known for his savory and vegetarian dishes, he actually started out his cooking career as a pastry chef. Sweet is entirely filled with delicious baked goods, desserts, and confections starring Ottolenghi’s signature flavor profiles and ingredients including fig, rose petal, saffron, orange blossom, star anise, pistachio, almond, cardamom, and cinnamon. A baker’s dream, Sweet features simple treats such as Chocolate, Banana, and Pecan cookies and Rosemary Olive Oil Orange Cake, alongside recipes for showstopping confections such as Cinnamon Pavlova with Praline Cream and Fresh Figs and Flourless Chocolate Layer Cake with Coffee, Walnut, and Rosewater.

Ottolenghi is the author of Plenty and Plenty More, co-author with Ramael Scully of NOPI, and co-author with Sami Tamimi of Ottolenghi and Jerusalem, which was awarded Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and Best International Cookbook by the James Beard Foundation. All five books were New York Times bestsellers. He lives in London, where he owns an eponymous group of restaurants and a high-end restaurant, Nopi.

Helen Goh is a pastry chef, longtime Ottolenghi collaborator, and the Ottolenghi product developer.

Event tickets include the meal, wine, tip, tax, and a signed copy of the book.

 

Insalata's Restaurant
120 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
San Anselmo, CA 94960

Literary Luncheon: Nicole Krauss - Forest Dark (Corte Madera)

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 12:00pm

In conversation with Kelly Corrigan
Tickets: $55 (includes lunch & signed book)

Online sales are now closed. Tickets available at the door.

“A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration.” —Philip Roth

Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized personality have, for sixty-eight years, been a force to be reckoned with, is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the wake of his parents’ deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York legal firm where he was a partner, he’s felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate. With the last of his wealth, he travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents. In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David who insists that Epstein is part of that storied dynastic line. He also meets the rabbi’s beautiful daughter who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own project—a film about the life of David being shot in the desert—with life-changing consequences.

But Epstein isn’t the only seeker embarking on a metaphysical journey that dissolves his sense of self, place, and history. Leaving her family in Brooklyn, a young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton where she has stayed every year since birth. Troubled by writer’s block and a failing marriage, she hopes that the hotel can unlock a dimension of reality—and her own perception of life—that has been closed off to her. But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can’t turn down, she’s drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.

Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization—of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.

Nicole Krauss is the author of Great House, a finalist for the National Book Award; the New York Times bestseller The History of Love; and Man Walks into a Room. She was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007 and named to The New Yorker’s “Twenty Under Forty” list in 2010. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA 94925

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