Between her global culinary adventures, stellar cooking skills, townhouse in SoHo (bought before the boutiques moved in) and healthy family life, it would be easy to hate Colette Rossant if she weren’t as likeable as she is. Moving to New York City from her native France in 1955, Rossant tries her hand at teaching French and covering the United Nations for a Belgian publication before the new flavors in her adopted hometown draw her into the kitchen as well as the nether regions of the city, including a growing Chinatown. This eventually leads to cooking demos on the Hudson River, a PBS series on cooking with kids, restaurant reviews for New York Magazine, several cookbooks and many other culinary pursuits. Rossant chronicles these adventures in her latest book, The World in My Kitchen: The Adventures of a (Mostly) French Woman in New York (Atria, $22, 224 pages, ISBN 0743490282). As with Apricots on the Nile, a book describing her colorful childhood in Egypt, and Return to Paris, Rossant finishes each chapter of The World in My Kitchen with recipes reflecting the events and places she describes with such warmth and humor. By the time we reach the present day, Rossant has learned to bake bread with a solar oven in Tanzania, eaten grilled grubs in the Australian outback and impressed VIP Japanese guests at the French Embassy in Tokyo with her fusion cooking. The only problem with this book is, in fact, that the sheer breadth of material covered makes it difficult to get too deep and the real meat of the story sometimes seems tantalizingly out of reach.

Dylan Schaffer knows how to hook a reader. Not really a surprise, given that his previous two books were mysteries. But his latest book, Life, Death &andamp; Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story, is a departure from the legal thriller genre; it is instead a memoir focused on dysfunctional parents, midlife reconciliations and making crusty artisan bread.

Schaffer sets up his premise quickly, in a three-page prologue: His dad, who walked out on Schaffer and his mom 30 years ago, calls him and proposes that the two attend a week-long bread-making class at a top New York culinary school. What is never mentioned during the phone call is that his father has end-stage lung and bladder cancer and according to the doctors, long before [my dad] can discover the secrets of baking beautiful and distinctive artisan breads, he will be dead. Amazingly, Schaffer’s father, Flip, survives to attend the class at the French Culinary Institute. The book tracks their seven days of learning the intricacies of yeast, starters, kneading, shaping and baking. It also documents their nights together eating, walking the city and attempting to come to terms with their pasts. Schaffer is clearly on a mission to gain information from his father, mainly an explanation for how his father could abandon him to the care of his mother, who was mentally unwell. Flip is also on a mission, to say goodbye to his son, as well as finally learn to make his favorite bialy.

Schaffer’s lively writing and sense of humor (often black) keep Life, Death &andamp; Bialys from becoming maudlin. But the second half of the book bogs down when he abandons the framing device of the baking class and focuses almost entirely on the psychological underpinnings of his relationship with his parents. Most of the classmates so colorfully described in the beginning of the book, as well as the baking instruction, are pushed to the back burner as Dylan’s anger and barbed wit take over. Although uncomfortable to read at times, this is a book that offers a realistic glimpse at coming to terms with a parent’s death. Lisa Waddle is a pastry baker in Nashville who knows her bialys from her bagels.

As might be guessed from the title, The Sommelier’s Guide to Wine: A Primer for Selecting, Serving and Savoring Wine, by Culinary Institute of America professor Brian H. Smith, has a much less chatty style. Smith tries to cover a lot of territory in a smallish book, offering a basic guide for both professionals and amateurs, and it’s a little awkward for beginning oenophiles who have to sort through the advice on setting up wine lists and summarizing wine regions down to micro-climates in California. Still, it’s not heavy going. In fact, Smith’s attitude is generally reassuring: He’s working on the premise that if you can figure out what it is you like in wines, you can use that preference as a way of discovering similar wines. And his straightforward explanation of tasting values, which is comprehensive without being pompous, is particularly good. It’s a book to grow into.

Eve Zibart is a restaurant critic for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

Those who find themselves wincing at the thought of spending another holiday dinner politely complimenting their father-in-law’s unfortunate wine selection (are Chardonnays supposed to be sweet?) should consider a gift that will be appreciated at family gatherings for years to come a wine selection guide. Here are some of the season’s best.

In Leslie Sbrocco’s Wine for Women: A Guide to Buying, Pairing, and Sharing Wine, PBS personality Sbrocco gets a little cutesy talking about “building a wine wardrobe” with Chardonnay as the basic black dress, etc., but beyond the fluffy title and occasional women’s-mag tone, it’s actually a useful tool for those admittedly more often women who are less interested in pounding the platinum card balance at the restaurant than enjoying wine at home without spending too much time on it. In fact, statistics show women do most of the wine buying and drinking in this country, so playing up menu pairings and general home-bar improvements is a fair approach. This smartly designed book offers a mix of label hints, regional tips, recipes and flavor descriptions.

Eve Zibart is a restaurant critic for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

Michael Pollan rates America's dinner menu

Delving deep into the murky underwaters of the modern agricultural complex, The Omnivore's Dilemma is not the kind of book you'll want to read with a fast-food burger and fries in your hand. As the book traces the provenance of four meals industrial, industrial organic, pastoral organic and hunted/gathered you might not even feel comfortable with takeout from the local health food store.

How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu? asks best-selling author Michael Pollan in an introduction entitled, Our National Eating Disorder. Faced with a constant barrage of information and an increasingly large distance between the consumers and producers of food, most of us are able to choke down dinner only by willfully forgetting the latest headlines about cancer-causing chemicals or animal conditions at many super-sized farms.

In Pollan's personal quest to shake loose that fog of forgetfulness and lack of real information, he does everything from buying his own cow to helping with the open-air slaughter of pasture-raised chickens to hunting morels in Northern California. This is not a man who's afraid of getting his hands dirty in the quest for better understanding. Along with wonderfully descriptive writing and truly engaging stories and characters, there is a full helping of serious information on the way modern food is produced. This can, occasionally, be a little slow going, but that does not mean it's not worth the effort.

Pollan doesn't suggest that we hunt and gather our own food, the basis of his own (rather fancy) final, perfect meal, but he believes that, if we could see what lies on the far side of the increasingly high walls of our industrial agriculture, we would surely change the way we eat. Once we've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, we've bitten the apple of knowledge and we can only hope it was grown on the right kind of farm.

Trained chef Megan Brenn-White is the author of Bake Me a Cake (HarperCollins).

For a country, and a generation, accustomed to immediate gratification, the idea of waiting for wine either to understand it or to enjoy it is only beginning to take hold. Even with the growing availability of wines by the glass or tasting flights, most Americans still know few words of winespeak beyond “Cabernet” and “Chardonnay” and still think them synonymous with steak and seafood. And the concept of drinking wines that were bottled before the Bastille fell or the 19th century turned, as I’ve been lucky enough to do, strikes many casual and perfectly contented drinkers as sheer pretension. But for those who may be increasingly intrigued by the subtleties of the world’s wines, the Christmas season turns up several prime gift ideas.

Robert Parker is the 900-pound gorilla of wine criticism, and during the last few years has arguably become the industry guerrilla, as well. His own personal preferences and the undoubted power of his ratings, published monthly in the Wine Advocate, has clearly pressured many winemakers to alter their style. And his castigating of other wine writers who accept free samples is more than a little disingenuous (“I purchase more than 75 percent of the wines I taste, and though I have never requested samples, I do not feel it is unethical to accept unsolicited samples.”). Although the latest (the sixth) edition of Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide (hardcover, Simon ∧ Schuster, $60, 1,648 pages, ISBN 0743229312; paperback, Fireside, $30, 1,696 pages, ISBN 0743229320) occasionally falls prey to this sanctimony, it is yet another example of his thoroughness, bulldog bluntness and unexpected humor. His tongue-in-cheek translations of winemaker jargon are priceless, as are his comments on the distinction between consumers and mere “collectors.” Nor is he a price snob: His lists of regional best bargains under $12 or $15 should be bookmarked for quick reference. Still, this may not be the best choice for someone just setting out to make respectable choices from restaurant wine lists. Parker’s knowledge of seasonal affect, so to speak, may be more than many beginners need to know, although serious collectors will find his summaries of older vintages helpful. The book’s subtitle describes it as “The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Prices and Ratings for More than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions,” and one can well believe it.

Michael Broadbent has been a Master of Wine for more than 40 years and head of Christie’s wine department for 35 years. His Vintage Wine: Fifty Years of Tasting Three Centuries of Wines (Harcourt, $50, 560 pages, ISBN 0151007047) is an unobtrusively erudite mixture of history and anecdote with personal observation and characterization it has an unmistakably British sense of propriety and, well, good sportsmanship. Broadbent writes with a fine painterly palate, to force a pun, and a sometimes surprising sensual abandon that fully captures each wine. Again, however, this is a fairly compendious reference aimed at the serious drinker, or at least the platinum-card diner.

The small but wide-ranging Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide 2003 (Harcourt, $14, 320 pages, ISBN 0151008760) is disappointing only because the limited space allotted each entry Clarke covers regions, specific wineries and varietals alphabetically forces him to omit the pungent thumbnail witticisms that are his trademark. But it would be a fine volume to keep in the car’s glove compartment for unexpected buying sprees. The revised version of Clarke’s New Wine Atlas (Harcourt, $60, 336 pages, ISBN 0151009139), on the other hand, is very nearly what it sounds like a collection of maps but its glossy photos and labels and cut-to-the-chase intelligence are just the things to remove a budding connoisseur’s terror of terrior.

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher have made their career, and marriage, drinking as unabashed ordinary people, and their Friday “Tastings” column in the Wall Street Journal is democratically aimed at casual wine clubs and amateur collectors. The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine (Broadway, $26, 304 pages, ISBN 0767908147) is ideal for novice wine drinkers, focusing on the basic flavors of various wines basic in description, too, which may reassure less experienced readers put off by “hints of tobacco” or “musty bookbindings.” It’s not a comprehensive guide, and is sometimes too conversational (“Whoa! the first blind flight of these [New Zealand sauvignon blancs] blew us away!”), but it would make a good gift for a neighbor you’d like to swap Friday dinners with. Eve Zibart is a writer for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

For a country, and a generation, accustomed to immediate gratification, the idea of waiting for wine either to understand it or to enjoy it is only beginning to take hold. Even with the growing availability of wines by the glass or tasting flights, most Americans still know few words of winespeak beyond “Cabernet” and “Chardonnay” and still think them synonymous with steak and seafood. And the concept of drinking wines that were bottled before the Bastille fell or the 19th century turned, as I’ve been lucky enough to do, strikes many casual and perfectly contented drinkers as sheer pretension. But for those who may be increasingly intrigued by the subtleties of the world’s wines, the Christmas season turns up several prime gift ideas.

Robert Parker is the 900-pound gorilla of wine criticism, and during the last few years has arguably become the industry guerrilla, as well. His own personal preferences and the undoubted power of his ratings, published monthly in the Wine Advocate, has clearly pressured many winemakers to alter their style. And his castigating of other wine writers who accept free samples is more than a little disingenuous (“I purchase more than 75 percent of the wines I taste, and though I have never requested samples, I do not feel it is unethical to accept unsolicited samples.”). Although the latest (the sixth) edition of Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide (hardcover, Simon ∧ Schuster, $60, 1,648 pages, ISBN 0743229312; paperback, Fireside, $30, 1,696 pages, ISBN 0743229320) occasionally falls prey to this sanctimony, it is yet another example of his thoroughness, bulldog bluntness and unexpected humor. His tongue-in-cheek translations of winemaker jargon are priceless, as are his comments on the distinction between consumers and mere “collectors.” Nor is he a price snob: His lists of regional best bargains under $12 or $15 should be bookmarked for quick reference. Still, this may not be the best choice for someone just setting out to make respectable choices from restaurant wine lists. Parker’s knowledge of seasonal affect, so to speak, may be more than many beginners need to know, although serious collectors will find his summaries of older vintages helpful. The book’s subtitle describes it as “The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Prices and Ratings for More than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions,” and one can well believe it.

Michael Broadbent has been a Master of Wine for more than 40 years and head of Christie’s wine department for 35 years. His Vintage Wine: Fifty Years of Tasting Three Centuries of Wines (Harcourt, $50, 560 pages, ISBN 0151007047) is an unobtrusively erudite mixture of history and anecdote with personal observation and characterization it has an unmistakably British sense of propriety and, well, good sportsmanship. Broadbent writes with a fine painterly palate, to force a pun, and a sometimes surprising sensual abandon that fully captures each wine. Again, however, this is a fairly compendious reference aimed at the serious drinker, or at least the platinum-card diner.

The small but wide-ranging Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide 2003 (Harcourt, $14, 320 pages, ISBN 0151008760) is disappointing only because the limited space allotted each entry Clarke covers regions, specific wineries and varietals alphabetically forces him to omit the pungent thumbnail witticisms that are his trademark. But it would be a fine volume to keep in the car’s glove compartment for unexpected buying sprees. The revised version of Clarke’s New Wine Atlas (Harcourt, $60, 336 pages, ISBN 0151009139), on the other hand, is very nearly what it sounds like a collection of maps but its glossy photos and labels and cut-to-the-chase intelligence are just the things to remove a budding connoisseur’s terror of terrior.

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher have made their career, and marriage, drinking as unabashed ordinary people, and their Friday “Tastings” column in the Wall Street Journal is democratically aimed at casual wine clubs and amateur collectors. The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine is ideal for novice wine drinkers, focusing on the basic flavors of various wines basic in description, too, which may reassure less experienced readers put off by “hints of tobacco” or “musty bookbindings.” It’s not a comprehensive guide, and is sometimes too conversational (“Whoa! the first blind flight of these [New Zealand sauvignon blancs] blew us away!”), but it would make a good gift for a neighbor you’d like to swap Friday dinners with. Eve Zibart is a writer for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

For a country, and a generation, accustomed to immediate gratification, the idea of waiting for wine either to understand it or to enjoy it is only beginning to take hold. Even with the growing availability of wines by the glass or tasting flights, most Americans still know few words of winespeak beyond “Cabernet” and “Chardonnay” and still think them synonymous with steak and seafood. And the concept of drinking wines that were bottled before the Bastille fell or the 19th century turned, as I’ve been lucky enough to do, strikes many casual and perfectly contented drinkers as sheer pretension. But for those who may be increasingly intrigued by the subtleties of the world’s wines, the Christmas season turns up several prime gift ideas.

Robert Parker is the 900-pound gorilla of wine criticism, and during the last few years has arguably become the industry guerrilla, as well. His own personal preferences and the undoubted power of his ratings, published monthly in the Wine Advocate, has clearly pressured many winemakers to alter their style. And his castigating of other wine writers who accept free samples is more than a little disingenuous (“I purchase more than 75 percent of the wines I taste, and though I have never requested samples, I do not feel it is unethical to accept unsolicited samples.”). Although the latest (the sixth) edition of Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide (hardcover, Simon &and Schuster, $60, 1,648 pages, ISBN 0743229312; paperback, Fireside, $30, 1,696 pages, ISBN 0743229320) occasionally falls prey to this sanctimony, it is yet another example of his thoroughness, bulldog bluntness and unexpected humor. His tongue-in-cheek translations of winemaker jargon are priceless, as are his comments on the distinction between consumers and mere “collectors.” Nor is he a price snob: His lists of regional best bargains under $12 or $15 should be bookmarked for quick reference. Still, this may not be the best choice for someone just setting out to make respectable choices from restaurant wine lists. Parker’s knowledge of seasonal affect, so to speak, may be more than many beginners need to know, although serious collectors will find his summaries of older vintages helpful. The book’s subtitle describes it as “The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Prices and Ratings for More than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions,” and one can well believe it.

Michael Broadbent has been a Master of Wine for more than 40 years and head of Christie’s wine department for 35 years. His Vintage Wine: Fifty Years of Tasting Three Centuries of Wines (Harcourt, $50, 560 pages, ISBN 0151007047) is an unobtrusively erudite mixture of history and anecdote with personal observation and characterization it has an unmistakably British sense of propriety and, well, good sportsmanship. Broadbent writes with a fine painterly palate, to force a pun, and a sometimes surprising sensual abandon that fully captures each wine. Again, however, this is a fairly compendious reference aimed at the serious drinker, or at least the platinum-card diner.

The small but wide-ranging Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide 2003 is disappointing only because the limited space allotted each entry Clarke covers regions, specific wineries and varietals alphabetically forces him to omit the pungent thumbnail witticisms that are his trademark. But it would be a fine volume to keep in the car’s glove compartment for unexpected buying sprees. The revised version of Clarke’s New Wine Atlas (Harcourt, $60, 336 pages, ISBN 0151009139), on the other hand, is very nearly what it sounds like a collection of maps but its glossy photos and labels and cut-to-the-chase intelligence are just the things to remove a budding connoisseur’s terror of terrior.

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher have made their career, and marriage, drinking as unabashed ordinary people, and their Friday “Tastings” column in the Wall Street Journal is democratically aimed at casual wine clubs and amateur collectors. The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine (Broadway, $26, 304 pages, ISBN 0767908147) is ideal for novice wine drinkers, focusing on the basic flavors of various wines basic in description, too, which may reassure less experienced readers put off by “hints of tobacco” or “musty bookbindings.” It’s not a comprehensive guide, and is sometimes too conversational (“Whoa! the first blind flight of these [New Zealand sauvignon blancs] blew us away!”), but it would make a good gift for a neighbor you’d like to swap Friday dinners with. Eve Zibart is a writer for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

For a country, and a generation, accustomed to immediate gratification, the idea of waiting for wine either to understand it or to enjoy it is only beginning to take hold. Even with the growing availability of wines by the glass or tasting flights, most Americans still know few words of winespeak beyond “Cabernet” and “Chardonnay” and still think them synonymous with steak and seafood. And the concept of drinking wines that were bottled before the Bastille fell or the 19th century turned, as I’ve been lucky enough to do, strikes many casual and perfectly contented drinkers as sheer pretension. But for those who may be increasingly intrigued by the subtleties of the world’s wines, the Christmas season turns up several prime gift ideas.

Robert Parker is the 900-pound gorilla of wine criticism, and during the last few years has arguably become the industry guerrilla, as well. His own personal preferences and the undoubted power of his ratings, published monthly in the Wine Advocate, has clearly pressured many winemakers to alter their style. And his castigating of other wine writers who accept free samples is more than a little disingenuous (“I purchase more than 75 percent of the wines I taste, and though I have never requested samples, I do not feel it is unethical to accept unsolicited samples.”). Although the latest (the sixth) edition of Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide (hardcover, Simon ∧ Schuster, $60, 1,648 pages, ISBN 0743229312; paperback, Fireside, $30, 1,696 pages, ISBN 0743229320) occasionally falls prey to this sanctimony, it is yet another example of his thoroughness, bulldog bluntness and unexpected humor. His tongue-in-cheek translations of winemaker jargon are priceless, as are his comments on the distinction between consumers and mere “collectors.” Nor is he a price snob: His lists of regional best bargains under $12 or $15 should be bookmarked for quick reference. Still, this may not be the best choice for someone just setting out to make respectable choices from restaurant wine lists. Parker’s knowledge of seasonal affect, so to speak, may be more than many beginners need to know, although serious collectors will find his summaries of older vintages helpful. The book’s subtitle describes it as “The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Prices and Ratings for More than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions,” and one can well believe it.

Michael Broadbent has been a Master of Wine for more than 40 years and head of Christie’s wine department for 35 years. His Vintage Wine: Fifty Years of Tasting Three Centuries of Wines is an unobtrusively erudite mixture of history and anecdote with personal observation and characterization it has an unmistakably British sense of propriety and, well, good sportsmanship. Broadbent writes with a fine painterly palate, to force a pun, and a sometimes surprising sensual abandon that fully captures each wine. Again, however, this is a fairly compendious reference aimed at the serious drinker, or at least the platinum-card diner.

The small but wide-ranging Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide 2003 (Harcourt, $14, 320 pages, ISBN 0151008760) is disappointing only because the limited space allotted each entry Clarke covers regions, specific wineries and varietals alphabetically forces him to omit the pungent thumbnail witticisms that are his trademark. But it would be a fine volume to keep in the car’s glove compartment for unexpected buying sprees. The revised version of Clarke’s New Wine Atlas (Harcourt, $60, 336 pages, ISBN 0151009139), on the other hand, is very nearly what it sounds like a collection of maps but its glossy photos and labels and cut-to-the-chase intelligence are just the things to remove a budding connoisseur’s terror of terrior.

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher have made their career, and marriage, drinking as unabashed ordinary people, and their Friday “Tastings” column in the Wall Street Journal is democratically aimed at casual wine clubs and amateur collectors. The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine (Broadway, $26, 304 pages, ISBN 0767908147) is ideal for novice wine drinkers, focusing on the basic flavors of various wines basic in description, too, which may reassure less experienced readers put off by “hints of tobacco” or “musty bookbindings.” It’s not a comprehensive guide, and is sometimes too conversational (“Whoa! the first blind flight of these [New Zealand sauvignon blancs] blew us away!”), but it would make a good gift for a neighbor you’d like to swap Friday dinners with. Eve Zibart is a writer for The Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

Was there ever a time when Betty Crocker wasn’t an American cultural touchstone? In the same class of advertising icons as Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, Betty Crocker epitomizes the desire of cooks to please their families with fresh-baked goodies. Susan Marks spent six years researching this cultural phenomenon, writing a master’s thesis, a documentary and Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America’s First Lady of Food.

Betty’s mission was to address the homemaking and baking concerns of legions of Gold Medal Flour customers who wrote in by the thousands. Marks includes some of these letters in the book, as well as recipes and a selection of advertisements featuring Betty Crocker. Over the decades, Betty’s status as the First Lady of American Food grew as she saw America through the Depression, World War II and the 1950s with her penny-pinching recipes and radio programs, adapting to the needs of the dedicated homemaker. By the time the 1960s and ’70s rolled around, Betty was synonymous with cooking.

Just as Betty’s audience changed through the years, so did her appearance, as illustrated by a gallery of her ever-changing visage. From her first portrait in the 1930s (said to have been a composite of the women on the Gold Medal kitchen staff), Betty Crocker’s image has kept up with what her audience deems both authoritative and comforting. That almost no one makes cakes and pancakes from scratch anymore is a testament to the simplicity she preached. But Betty Crocker’s legacy extends beyond “just add water” mixes. We needed Betty to pour into our minds the idea that cooking wasn’t onerous, even for busy parents and working stiffs. Betty and her big red spoon logo meant that the recipes perfected in her test kitchens were guaranteed successes, and by extension, so were the women who made them at home. Kelly Koepke is the restaurant critic for the Albuquerque Journal.

<B>California drinkin'</B> California wine tourism isn’t exactly the next hot thing; it’s been a mainstay of West Coast travel for many years now. But with the boom in first-rate restaurants (most notably Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Yountville, La Toque in Rutherford and the Wine Spectator restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America-Greystone campus), trend-setting spas and luxurious B&andBs (Sonoma Mission Inn, Auberge du Soleil), the sun is definitely rising in the west. Among the newest guides to the region are <!–BPLINK=–>0679009183<B>Fodor’s Escape to the California Wine Country</B><!–ENDBPLINK–> and <!–BPLINK=–>0062772899<B>Access California Wine Country </B><!–ENDBPLINK–>.

Despite the rather general titles, these refer only to areas north of San Francisco: i.e. Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties. Given that limitation, however, these new books have many virtues, though they will better suit two different tourism desires. <B>Fodor’s Escape</B> is, as the name suggests, aimed at travelers as interested in the landscape and amenities as the wines themselves, and so is far slighter than the Access guide. Like the other books in this series, <B>Escape</B> is a sort of mini-coffee table book, filled with admittedly gorgeous color photographs and chapters that are more like lengthy captions. (The essential facts and phone numbers are concisely arranged, along with a bit of background, at the back of the book.) This would be a nice little bon voyage gift for two relatively affluent adults planning a full-body getaway, not just a self-directed wine seminar.

The Access guide is, as always, nearly comprehensive, with a mix of restaurant, museum, shopping and accommodation profiles along with the wineries. A lot of research is packed into these paragraph-long entries: names, dates, anecdotes, some entertaining trivia and asides, and enough menu detail from the major restaurants to suggest that the editorial staff did in-depth field studies.

<B>One for the road</B> Both vacationers and wine hounds should pick up one other book before they head to Wine World West: Andrea Immer’s <B>Wine Buying Guide for Everyone</B>, a slender paperback that succinctly but accessibly rates not 90-plus pointers but inexpensive and general-sales wines. Immer, a master sommelier who is dean of wine studies at the Culinary Institute and author of the indispensable <I>Great Wine Made Simple</I>, has also served as beverage director for the huge Starwood Hotels ∧ Resorts, as well as Restaurant Associates, and she never stoops to condescend to either inexperienced or budget-minded drinkers. In fact, one hilarious rating, the kitchen countertop/ refrigerator overnight survival test, is so clearly useful one wishes all wine critics would deign to adopt it. (I know not everyone finishes whole bottles at one sitting; I just don’t <I>know</I> anyone who doesn’t.) Her similarly helpful advice on savvy retail and online purchases and on navigating restaurant wine lists; her easy disregard of pretentiousness ( We in the trade find it funny . . . that guests shy away from the least expensive wines ); and her mini-tasting seminar are classics. And her equally democratic hit lists hip wines ( impress the date ), blue-chip wines ( impress the client ), wines to take to dinner, wines to buy for Thanksgiving, even labels that are safe to drink on airplanes, once again prove Immer a champion of the people. Buy a handful of these books and pass them around; you’ll never be afraid of the corner store again. <I>Eve Zibart is restaurant critic for the weekend section of </I>The Washington Post <I>and author of </I>The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.