Care for some spinach?

The opportunity to cook with a Napa Valley chef can often be a big-ticket item. Visitors plans trips around a class, travel hundreds of miles and pay hundreds of dollars for a session.

Those not fortunate enough to be in Greg Cole’s cooking class at Napa Valley Language Academy will have an opportunity to work with the chef Oct. 28 at Copia when he discusses how to select a great steak.

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite the recent E. coli spinach outbreak, food may be safer now than at any other time in the last decade, with illness occurring at record-low rates, new federal statistics show.

Chef Greg Cole, Celadon, Cole’s Chop House

CONCORD, N.H.  — Love is looking for tractors. Endlessly.

Each Tuesday The Register reviews an area restaurant, with an emphasis on establishments where a couple can dine for $30 or less.  Reader suggestions are welcomed.

Jim Concannon has been in the wine industry his entire life. Literally. His family had been producing wine for 50 years when he was born.

To the delight of local carnivores, Copia has adopted “Steaks, Chops and Cabernet” as its theme and wine-and-food-pairing focus this month.

A number of references were made to the globalization of wine during the 15th annual Wine Industry Financial Symposium last week at the Meritage Resort — indeed, that was the theme of the meeting: “Growth and Profit Strategies in a Maturing Global Industry.” But none were as potentially provocative as one by Donny Sebastiani when he said wine appellations around the world are coming out with wines competitive with Napa’s at lower prices.

The annual “Diamonds in the Rough” dinner gala hosted by Diamond Creek Vineyards last weekend raised more than $200,000 for the Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale.