When celebrated wine country chef Thomas Keller was casting about for a new pastry chef for his renowned French Laundry restaurant, he placed a number of want ads in publications on both sides of the Atlantic.

BarBersQ, the popular Memphis-style barbecue restaurant in Napa’s Bel Aire Shopping Center, is offering a weekly special prix fixe dinner from 5-9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.

When Sherry Yard came home to her wine country digs late one night to a message from a guy claiming to be “Wolfgang,” her first thought was that a friend had finally perfected his impersonations.

Throughout her new cookbook, “Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills — Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever,” author (and former wine country pastry chef) Sherry Yard offers home cooks valuable tips.

The actor-producer-director Henry Winkler stayed at Campton Place for a month while he was filming. Every night when he returned from the set, I sent up a plate of warm cookies. On his last day, I gave him a bag to take home. That night, I happened to be watching “The Tonight Show,” and there was Henry — giving the cookies to Jay Leno!

This elegant pudding, sprinkled with crystallized ginger and topped with whipped cream, is one of the simplest desserts you can make. The key to success is finding perfect mangoes; if that’s not possible, use frozen mango puree, preferably Boiron brand.

With only three ingredients, this has to be the easiest recipe in the book. Its simplicity, however, yields a surprisingly decadent, smooth and silky cream that will leave your dinner guests trying to guess how you made it.

I began my career as a pastry chef in 1984, working in the basement of the Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly. In many ways this was a baptism of fire. We would start at 8 a.m. and finish at some ungodly hour the following morning, working flat out in the old and worn-out confines of a kitchen that could have told many a story about its past. I dreaded the run-up to the weekend, when the hotel held its famous tea dances. We would slave away all week constructing the intricate, delicate and elegant pastries to give ourselves time to make, roll, cut and bake the vast quantity of scones on the day. I still visit the kitchens of the Ritz to see my good friend, John Williams, who is now head chef there. The kitchen has transformed to become modern and spanking new, but afternoon tea has remained as popular as ever — so popular that at weekends they start serving it at 11 a.m.

Although the meal remains affordable, menu items for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie and all the trimmings will cost more this year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.