Fall is one of my favorite seasons! As soon as the weather turns chilly I light a fire in my fireplace, think about what kind of soups and stews I want to make and plan dinner parties with friends and family. My new cookbook, Wine Country Cooking (Ten Speed Press, 2008), features some really great fall recipes like Wild Mushroom and Blue Cheese Crostini, which I make as soon as I find wild mushrooms at the farmer’s market. The earthiness of the warm mushrooms and melted blue and fontina cheeses is fantastic. Your guests will love it - I promise!

Speaking of my new book, Wine Country Cooking, I want to invite you to come to the launch party on Friday, December 5th in San Francisco. Given the wine focus of my book we decided to hold the party at Crushpad, a San Francisco-based custom winemaking facility for wine enthusiasts. There will be delicious food from the book paired with wines made by Crushpad citizen winemakers. I will be signing books and we will be pre-screening episodes from the second season of “Joanne Weir’s Cooking Class”, which begins airing nationally on public television in January 2009.

Come join me and raise a glass to Wine Country Cooking on Friday, December 5th! Space is limited. Please RSVP to the party here.

p.s. For those who can’t make it to SF, you can participate virtually by logging on to Crushpadwine.com. Click on the Crushpad Cam link to watch the event live.