Someday I plan to travel on a book adventure tour.  You know the ones that follow Jane Austen through the English countryside,  Daphne du Maurier in Cornwall, James Joyce or Oscar Wilde in Dublin.  When I read Julia Child’s My Life in France, I wondered if I could find the restaurants she frequented when she wasn’t cooking.

Cookbooks don’t usual inspire my wanderlust, but Nancy Oakes and Pamela Mazzola visited my hometown to do a cooking demonstration.  I ate their food, bought their cookbook, and took notes on their tips:

• Without consulting a recipe, you should be able to whip out something that thrills families and guests (for me, that’s brownies)
• Don’t cook with wine you wouldn’t consider drinking (for me, that’s trying not to finish the wine as I cook)
• Know the difference between “packaged in Italy” and “product of Italy” – olive oil packaged in Italy can have olives from anywhere (read the label)
• Be the best you can, no matter what you’re cooking!

Now it’s my turn to find the real Boulevard in San Francisco.  I have a reservation tonight – my warm up meal to more eating on this trip: dim sum in Chinatown, and French Laundry in Yountsville.

I can already taste the squash blossoms.

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