Indulge in Napa Valley Restaurant Month

The Napa Valley is an oasis of culinary delight and fine wine exploration. There is no better place to uncover a plethora of flavors setting your taste buds on a delectable adventure through the valley’s amazing restaurants.

As some of the Napa Valley's finest eateries re-vamp in January 2015, Napa Valley Restaurant Month has moved to February, and with it comes an incredible selection of special culinary offerings that reflect the season and only happen once a year. Come sip, sup and savor the valley's finest cuisine and wines throughout February 2015.

The Napa Valley offers more Michelin-star rated restaurants per capita than any other wine region in the world and Napa Valley Restaurant Month offers are available up and down the valley. More than 30 of the valley's celebrated restaurants and resorts will showcase artisanal foods and the creativity of the area's renowned chefs with special multi-course Restaurant Month menus and offers. Dining offers often include optional wine pairings for a perfect marriage of wine and food that can only be found in the Napa Valley.

Valentine's weekend, February 13 – 16, 2015, is excluded from most offers and visitors are encouraged to review any date or other restrictions within each offer.

Napa Valley Restaurant Month highlights include:

  • Chef Tyler Rodde of acclaimed Oenotri offers a tour of Italy each week featuring a three-course dinner highlighting a specific Italian region. Each dinner will include a salad, pasta and dessert for $39 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity.

  • The Boonfly Café at the Carneros Inn features a three-course dinner for $29 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity, featuring cuisine that is based on the agricultural heritage of the region.

  • The Thomas at Fagiani's offers Michelin-starred chef Brad Farmerie's three-course dinner for $35 per person with an optional "$20.15" beverage pairing, exclusive of tax and gratuity.

  • Chef Victor Scargle of Lucy Restaurant & Bar at Bardessono offers a two-course lunch for $25 per person with an optional wine pairing, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Lucy Restaurant & Bar features fresh, innovative garden-inspired cuisine that embodies the Bardessono modern aesthetic and eco-spirit. Offer available Monday through Saturday.

  • In the same spirit of late night dining in France, Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bistro offers a "Late Night Dine & Drink," featuring three classic dishes appropriately paired with beverages each night between 9 and 11 p.m. Offers include Croque Madame & White Apron Ale for $20 per person, Duck Confit & Vin de Carafe for $25 per person, and Steak Frites & Vin de Carafe for $40 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity.

  • For those who cannot wait until February, the city of St. Helena offers a Napa Valley Restaurant Month preview night on January 24, 2015 with "Celebrate St. Helena...A Restaurant Roulette." Guests will enjoy a sparkling wine reception at Caldwell Snyder Gallery and at the end of the reception, will participate in a drawing to discover the restaurant where they will dine that evening. After-parties follow at Caldwell Snyder Gallery and Goose & Gander restaurant. Participating restaurants include Archetype, Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch, Tra Vigne, Press, The Culinary Institute of America's Conservatory, Market, Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, Goose & Gander, Cook St Helena, La Condesa, The Grill at Meadowood and Farmer & The Fox.

  • Michelin star Chef Robert Curry of the Restaurant at Auberge du Soleil offers a two-course prix fixe lunch menu for $29 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity, Monday through Friday.

  • Renowned Chef Larry Forgione's Conservatory Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone offers a "Freshly Foraged 4-Course Dinner" for $47 per person, with an additional $20 per person wine pairing, exclusive of tax and gratuity designed by Master Sommelier Robert Bath.

  • The Grill at Meadowood Napa Valley offers a two-course lunch for $30 per person, or a three-course dinner for $50 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Both are available with a wine pairing option.

  • At Solbar at Solage, Michelin star Chef Brandon Sharp will feature weekday specials Sunday through Thursday. Offers change daily and include 50 percent off Club Solage member wines, oysters shucked to order, a lounge menu by the bocce courts and Chef's special fried chicken.

  • During the month of February 2015 Hotel d'Amici Ristorante will offer its special Thursday night Menu Fisso nightly. Every week will focus on a different Italian region and the four-course meal includes antipasti, primi, secondi and dolce for $38 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity.

Napa Valley's gracious hoteliers and cozy Bed & Breakfast Inns have made it easier to stay a little longer for even more legendary culinary experiences with "dine-and-stay" lodging packages, offering comfort and pampering after a day exploring the valley during "Cabernet Season." A highlight of offers include:

  • The Napa River Inn offers a "Dinner is on us!" package, which includes $100 dining credit at nearby restaurants for each night's stay.

  • Villagio Inn & Spa offers a "Winterscape in Yountville" package, which includes two nights accommodations for two, "Chef's Choice" lunch for two at Michael Chiarello's Bottega Napa Valley, one autographed copy of one of Michael Chiarello cookbooks, two 50-minute wellness massages at Spa Villagio, daily Champagne breakfast and Afternoon Tea service, and a welcome bottle of wine. Rates start at $799 per night, exclusive of tax. Some restrictions apply.

  • St. Helena's Harvest Inn by Charlie Palmer offers a Max and Relax two-night experience and balance package for $859 per night, exclusive of tax, with a two-night minimum stay.

  • The Mount View Hotel & Spa in Calistoga offers a "Stay, Wine & Dine" package, which includes an overnight stay and a four-course pre fixe menu at Barolo Italian restaurant. Rates start at $249 per night, exclusive of tax and gratuity.

For more information on Napa Valley Restaurant Month, please visit http://www.VisitNapaValley.com.

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Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club

Gourmet cheese of the month clubs are one of the dozens of "of the Month" club memberships that are available. What better way could there be to discover delicious gourmet artisan cheeses from around the world. If you love cheese but aren't sure what makes a cheese "gourmet" or "artisan", a club membership is a perfect way to find out.

If you already belong to a club and have been appreciating handcrafted aged cheeses, you can share your love with friends and family by giving a gourmet cheese of the month club membership as a gift.

What is Gourmet?

Some cheese of the month clubs call themselves just that, a "cheese of the month club". Others have the name "gourmet cheese of the month club". In many cases the name doesn't mean anything, but just in case, you might want to become educated in exactly what a gourmet or "artisan" is to make sure you are getting what you want. Some of the differences between an artisan cheese and the typical cheeses purchased in the supermarket are:

1. Artisan cheeses are manufactured by hand using old and traditional techniques.

2. An important part of artisan cheese making is the aging and ripening. This is how the flavors develop as well as the texture and firmness that are associated with each cheese.

3. Mass-produced cheeses that are manufactured in big operations are packaged, shipped and sold almost immediately after production is completed.

4. These mass-produced cheeses have very mild flavors because they are not aged or ripened.

What Type of Cheeses Can You Experience?

Some of the gourmet clubs have gained a lot of experience at pairing cheeses with wine, food, and even the different sexes. Many of these clubs have experts choosing their cheese based on what they see at wine and cheese exhibits in which they participate. By observing who tastes what as visitors stop by their exhibit, some experts have observed that men seemed to enjoy cheese like the bold cheddars and Gouda, while women prefer the more delicately flavored cheeses.

With each month's shipment, some gourmet cheese clubs send out an assortment based on the type of wine they pair with or what kind of tastes they appeal to. Here are some examples.

· Cheese for Women - This group of cheese may include things like white Stilton flavored with different tastes like ginger or mango. Another might be a particularly creamy blue cheese or one of the varieties of "drunken" goat cheeses made in Spain that bathed in wine.

· Cheese for Merlots - California and the Bordeaux region of France grow most of the merlot grapes used in winemaking. Merlots are smooth and soft with a plummy taste. If a monthly shipment for your cheese of the month club contains cheeses best served with merlots, it may include:

o An aged Gouda. The aging develops the body of the cheese and gives it an intense flavor.

o Manchego - This is the most famous cheese that Spain makes and is made from sheep's milk. Its zesty taste comes from the variety of herbs added to the cheese.

· Cheese for Cabernet Sauvignon - These are some of the best wines in the world. Flavors associated with a Cabernet are deep cherry, currant, mint, and tobacco. Cheeses that pair well with Cabernets are:

o Smokey Blue Cheeses - This is similar to Roquefort and is smoked for 16 hours. The flavors of a cabernet are perfect with a smoked blue cheese.

o Aged Mimolette - This cheese is traditionally made in the Italian Alps. It has a fruitiness to it that comes from the milk of Alpine cows that feed on wild grasses.

These are just examples of the type of cheese you can get with your gourmet cheese of the month club membership.

What Do you Get with a Membership?

Most clubs have different levels of membership and let you choose different lengths of time that your membership lasts, normally 3, 6, 9 or 12 months. You will probably receive about ½-pound of three different cheeses each month.

A membership to a good club will often include a monthly newsletter with plenty of helpful information. It should explain the monthly selections you received, the origins of each cheese and how the diet of the animal and when the animal is milked can have an effect on the final product. The newsletter may also have tips on ways to cook with or serve each cheese and may even include recipes.

I write because I love to help people.

There is a Cheese of the Month Club waiting for you.

Food of the month club Go Gourmet

The first food of the month club, started decades ago, may have been the fruit of the month Club; the company sent a box containing various pieces of a different fruit every month-different types of apples, pears and more exotic fare. The idea caught on, and now many cafés, clubs and other clubs beer club food gourmet delight thousands of lucky recipients every month

Cheesecake of the Month Club features a different hand cheesecake, every month, manufactured and shipped by a variety of gastronomic bakeries around the recipients of United States can choose between three, six or twelve months subscription to the club or a number of other options. Cheesecakes sent in past include the famous New York club, as well as chocolate cheesecake, Blueberry and varieties of caramel.

For lovers of great beer, the beer of the Month club offers premium beers from any number of microbreweries. Each month, a dozen bottles of beer and arrive by mail, including anywhere from two to four different brands of beer. You will be able to sample the best beers in the United States and we will surely find some that will be your favorite.

The specialty food Club from Stonewall Kitchen does not merely a category of foods, but offers a variety of different foods. Available with or a subscription of three or six months, Stonewall Kitchen offers articles from every category of their thin line of gourmet foods and shoves a collection of recipe cards in selecting every month.

Selection of this January from Stonewall Kitchen is a wonderful welcome on a cold winter morning; their mix of pancake and waffle of farmhouse is accompanied by a container of maple syrup from Maine; their wild blueberry jam, also from Maine; and their only raspberry peach champagne jam spectacularly. Their selection of July has an Asian theme, with mustard, wasabi, wasabi Ginger Sauce, toasted sesame oil, mixture of five spices and Chinese Sesame ginger teriyaki sauce.

Beyond food-most interesting "of the month" Club

Imagine fresh flowers-Peruvian lilies, red roses, exotic birds of paradise-arriving each month from some of the world's best growers to brighten your home, summer, winter, or between; or a new, fun and challenging puzzles. Cigar Club, Club, Club tie also bring something different than you or a favorite friend or a family member all year.

Food of the month and other clubs bring some adventure in the lives of recipients, as they look forward to every new arrival. Is also a really creative way to show your love and affection often; your loved ones will remember you each time you receive such a special package in the mail.

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwest New Hampshire, who has written numerous articles for Internet and local and regional publications. She can be amfredenburg@yahoo.comreached.

Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club - Now You Can Buy Gourmet Cheese Online

Are you the type of person who loves cheese? We're not talking your run of the mill brick cheese, but the properly aged, hard to find cheeses that your grocery store doesn't carry. Do your Greek salads require only the best Feta Cheese that money can buy? The 'Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club' is one place where you can buy gourmet cheeses online for even those hard to find cheeses.

Normally, you would have to mail order for the finest cheeses, because they were made only in certain parts of the world that, as it works out, probably weren't your part of the world. So, maybe once or twice a year, you would pay outrageous prices to order cheeses from across the globe and save these luxuries for special occasions.

Now, however, you don't have to do that because you can buy gourmet cheese online and save a ton of money on them. Imagine how nice it would be to have new, fresh cheese delivered to your door every month and know that you're getting a truly gourmet creation at an affordable price.

As with all things, though, it's important to make sure that all your cheese comes from a reliable source and is made from only the freshest ingredients. Buying online can be tricky if you aren't certain that your supplier is a good reliable one. The 'Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club' has top quality gourmet cheeses that will delight month after month. You have the option of choosing what you want and you can even give wedding and gift memberships to those you love as well.

Why would you want to buy gourmet cheese online? Because it's one of the best ways to get the unique cheeses you crave, without the high cost of trying to track it down for yourself. With a cheese of the month club, you will get to sample tons of new cheese selections and still get some of your old favorites to enjoy.

Whether you're hosting a dinner party and want to offer something truly distinctive to your guests or you want to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary, a gourmet cheese is one of the easiest ways to do that. Take the time today to explore the selection and options that a cheese of the month club can offer you and start enjoying your selections.

Like what you taste? Keep it in mind and come back to order your favorite cheeses online anytime. Instead of going through a catalog or driving for hours searching for top of the line cheeses, you can buy gourmet cheese online and have it delivered right to your door.

Patricia Harris provides many food and cooking tips, including where to buy gourmet cheese online from places such as the Gourmet Monthly Cheese Club. Visit 'Cooking Any Style' cookinganystyle.com for all your culinary delights.