“The Biggest Loser 30-Day Jump Start”

All these ingredients are available at Vallerga’s Market at Redwood Plaza in Napa.

When you write about food and wine, you often get invited to dinners. You arrive, drink a little wine, schmooze, and sit down at a table artfully arranged with flowers, fine linens, china and more wine glasses. A menu is waiting for you and, one by one, the tantalizing dishes begin to appear from an invisible kitchen.

Pearl Restaurant is cooking up a St. Patrick’s Day special to day: For $15, diners will be served house-brined Five Dot Ranch brisket, with savoy cabbage, red creamer potatoes, and horseradish, and ABC bakery soda bread.

Chef Thomas Keller’s casual Napa Valley restaurants are featuring special dinners this month to celebrate the coming of spring.

Panevino owners Mimi and David Katz pride themselves on making everything from their duck confit to house-cured pancetta from scratch — but to enjoy these you need to find your way to one of the dinners they cater. Another of their homemade products, however, has just become available commercially and it’s getting an enthusiastic reception.

Last week I got a call from a Marine recruiter. He was actually looking for my son, but since Sam is off at college, the man ended up talking to me, which provided an opportunity to talk about boot camps. I was curious to find out if, by chance, Marine training could be any harder than the Napafit Bikini Boot Camp to which I’ve made a three-month commitment.

Register Staff Writer

Mimi and David Katz

Entry blanks and tickets are now available for Fair Housing Napa Valley’s first annual “Pasta Sauce Cook-Off” competition and dinner to be held at 6 p.m. Friday, April 24, at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 1226 Salvador Ave., Napa.

Mimi and David Katz

Finally, it’s spring! The sun is shining, and thanks to daylight savings, the days are suddenly much longer.

We’re smack dab in the middle of cold season, and if you’re lucky, you haven’t yet succumbed to a cough, sneeze or sniffle.