Everyone should have a casual restaurant in their life — a place where you feel comfortable. You go in, you slide into your seat and you order exactly what you always order — no menu necessary. These sorts of places are usually the greasy spoon spots of the world. The 24-hour, one-in-every-town places where you always know exactly what you’re going to get.

At least until they screw things up by tampering with the menu.

And this leads me to the shock of my comfort dining life.

On Saturday night I eased into a booth at Denny’s and didn’t even bother to crack open the menu. I KNEW what I was going to get. I had been craving it for hours. It was the same thing I always get at Denny’s: A patty melt with fries.

But when I gave my order to the waitress, she gave me a puzzled look. She said something like “What? We don’t have that,” and all hell broke loose.

“You don’t have patty melts anymore?” I stammered unbelievingly? “That’s the only reason I came here!”

To add insult to injury, her next act bordered on unforgivable. In an attempt to assist me in my shock, she pointed me toward a possible substitute: A Philly cheese sandwich. With ROAST BEEF!

OK, yes, roast beef does come from the same animal as beef, but come on! A Philly cheese sandwich does not a patty melt make. Not even close.

In a last-ditch effort to salvage my meal, I asked if they had rye bread. Nope. No rye bread.

This is a travesty of American family chain restaurant justice. No rye bread! So when Mr. Jones in Omaha, Neb., goes to order his morning eggs, the toast offerings are what — white, wheat or focaccia?

Being as it was — 10:30 p.m. and out of restaurant options — I settled for a mushroom swiss burger.

I was sorely disappointed. The untoasted soft sesame bun seemed like a weakling 90-pounder on the beach compared to the crisply toasted slices of buttered rye bread that cradle a well-made patty melt.

The mushrooms were lackluster and the burger slightly dry. It was cluttered with needless romaine, pickles and red onion.

I noticed that grilled onions, the piece de resistance of any patty melt, didn’t appear on any of the new fangled burgers on Denny’s modernized menu. Red onions were on everything.

Now I have nothing against red onions. They are perfectly lovely on a sandwich or in a salad. But a heap of grilled yellow or white onions are a staple of the American diner scene.

I left with a bittersweet feeling. Denny’s was the go-to place of my midwestern childhood. In high school it was the only place we felt comfortable — or could afford. In college it was open late enough for post-bar cravings, and many a greasy meal was devoured into the wee hours.

In recent years, it was a place we looked forward to eating at with the kids during long road trips — when we needed somewhere where we could be sure of what we’d get.

RIP: Denny’s patty melt. I’ll never stop for the yellow sign again.

– Kari Hulac

I don’t particularly care what anyone else has to say about Rachael Ray. I’m not a particular fan of hers — I’ve never seen her show, never met her in person. But the fact is that in my kitchen, Rachael Ray is two for two. I’ve tried two recipes from her new book “Rachael Ray: 365, No Repeats,” and both were stellar meals, worth adding to my repertoire. I am not sure I would have liked either one if I had actually followed the recipe, but a little tweaking is all her recipes seem to need. First, I made her shepherd’s pie. I opted to use roasted turkey breast chunks in place of ground turkey. It just sounded better to me. I doubled up on the carrots and onions she calls for, pulled back on the peas, and used only half the bacon she suggested. But her idea of using a bit of chipotle powder to accent the smoky flavors in the sauce and veggie mixture is truly inspired. I delivered the dish to one family who loved it, served it to my own family and brought it to a potluck. Smiles all around. I gave Rachael the credit and vowed to open her book again soon.

A week later, I was staring at a small bag of polenta cornmeal, a bag of black beans and a butternut squash, all of which I had purchased from the People’s Grocery truck in West Oakland. I wasn’t in particular need of groceries, but it’s such an incredible program that I wanted to support it.

Convinced that all of these foods might make a meal, I opened Rachael’s book and searched. I found a recipe for polenta with black beans and chorizo. I don’t have any chorizo, but I most certainly have in stock a few links of andouille. Different, yes, but equally as tasty.

I jumped into action.

I cooked up the polenta — hers was quick-cook, mine was traditional, so I had to play with the cooking time a bit. She wanted me to open a can of cooked pumpkin and mix it into the polenta. That sounded gross, so I hacked my butternut squash into cubes, oiled it, salted it and put it in the oven to roast. Half-way through, I decided it need a little garlic and pepper as well, so I sprinkled and stirred the cubes and returned them to the oven. Rachael wanted me to add a dab of parmesan and a pinch of thyme to the polenta. I doubled up on both, but subbed out a little of the parmesan for asiago, then stirred in a little cream cheese for added creaminess. I also decided I’d rather have it baked and cut into strips, so I slipped that in the oven alongside the squash while I tended to the other details; roasting peppers, pressure cooking black beans, sauteeing onions and sausage.

After 1 1/2 hours of cooking, I began to assemble beautiful plates of food. Bright orange squash was spooned alongside pale yellow slices of polenta, and spoonfuls of black beans and sausage flecked with red and green peppers and topped with cilantro. One bite told me that even though I had tweaked this recipe as well, Rachael Ray has it going on in the kitchen. She knows flavor. The sweetness of the squash, the heat of the sausage, the creaminess of the beans and the polenta made for a memorable meal. Even better, I know that a meal that colorful is rich with an array of vitamins. I suspect that all those Rachael Ray bashers out there really need is a fork and a plate of food, Rachael-style.

–Jolene Thym

It’s 5 p.m. on a Sunday evening, and I’m staring at a raw chicken. It could become soup or stew or salad or pasta sauce. It could be roasted, braised, sauteed or Southern fried. But first, I need to know: Does it want to be an Italian chicken or a Chinese chicken? Does it want to be decadent or lean?

So many choices. Thankfully, the Sunset Wine Club has come to the rescue. Each month, the club sends out a pair of wines — with recipes to go with. Most of the time, making the recipes requires a little advance planning — or at least a trip to the store. But this time, I am thrilled to discover that not only do I have the chicken, but I also (sort of) (almost) have all of the other ingredients I need for Soy-Ginger Roast Chicken with Shiitake Mushrooms.

Sure, I am about 3/4 of a pound short of green onions the recipe called for. And I only have half the garlic — five cloves would have to do. And there is a tiny little mushroom problem — I have dried shiitakes, not fresh. But cooking is an art, right?

I pull out all of the ingredients for the brine and began to measure them — then realize that I don’t have the 4- to 12-hours to spare on this particular step of the recipe. Ooops. I set the brine ingredients aside and move to step 4, which involves lots of ginger, garlic and cilantro, all flavors I love. In minutes, my chicken is in the oven, and I am busy prepping a sweet-savory sauce of mushrooms and onions to be added to the pan along with the chicken.

As the chicken roasts, I reduce the sauce, throw on a pot of rice and open the wine selected to go with the flavors in this dish, a bottle of Adelheid Pinot Noir 2003 from Napa Valley. As I sip the wine before dinner, I am surprised how rich and fruity it is for a pinot. Sometimes, food is used to correct and enhance a wine. I don’t honestly think there’s anything about this wine that can be enhanced. It’s lovely as is.

About 30 minutes later, the chicken is carved and served along with the soy-ginger sauce. It’s delicious. It’s a recipe I will save and duplicate. Maybe I’ll even secure some fresh mushrooms next time. I try the wine and the food together, purposely concentrating on the task. After three bites and three sips, I conclude that the wine is great, the chicken is delicious. The two together are good, but not necessarily greater than the sum of their parts.

Before I can even complete the question in my mind — “What went awry?” — I laugh out loud. Do you think it could be a problem with the kitchen staff? Perhaps a little something to do with the ingredient swaps and omissions?

For the next Sunset Wine Club wine and recipe, I resolve to follow the recipe more closely. I am not sure I will, given that life is busy and full of speed bumps. But I am comforted to know that even if I do it all wrong, Sunset does it so right that I can at least look forward to a great meal.

– Jolene Thym

It’s diet season, especially in wine country apparently. Just today, I deleted at least ten e-mails about diets… only to open the mail and receive no less than three diet books.

I personally have no intention of dieting anytime soon, but I find it interesting that two of the three come from Northern California’s wine country, a mecca for those who consider a great meal and a glass of wine the nearest thing to heaven-on-earth.

Curious about the details of how food culture meets diet culture, I took a close look at the books to see if they had any secrets you need to know about.

I’ll start with the book with the prettiest cover, “The Sonoma Diet: Trimmer waist, better health in just 10 days,” (Meredith, $24.95.) The rolling hills of Sonoma vineyards washed in sunlight are enough to convince me to at least open the book. Inside, author Connie Gutterson, a registered dietician and doctor, suggests that the answer to weight loss is the Mediterranean diet.

I read. I agree. Nuts, veggies, whole grains, lean protein, tasty cheeses, even eggs. Great. But on page 63 Gutterson gets ridiculous. She tells me to throw out my bags of sugar. Hello? Baking? Does she know that I buy sugar 25 pounds at a time? Throw it OUT? I don’t think so. I also think the notion that I’m going to dip into the sugar bag for a binge is ludicrous. I’ve never done it. Not even the bag of brown sugar, and a bit of brown sugar does taste lovely.

Another little problem with this diet is that nearly half of the “power foods” recommended are out of season. Strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, summer squash can be found, but they aren’t going to taste good because they’re being shipped from the other side of the planet. Besides, there are plenty of winter substitutes packed with vitamins and antioxidants that are fresh and local. If I was going to do this diet, I would have to improvise.

The diet concept the author proposes is to make sure to use a plate that measures no more than 9 inches across, and to fill it with the right combination of protein, whole grains and vegetables, depending on the meal. Dinner is a 30-20-50 deal.

Besides some tasty recipes and a suggestion to write down everything that you eat, that’s about it for this diet plan. No counting, no measuring, no guilt. Just stick to good foods in the right proportions and don’t refill your plate and you’re guaranteed to lose, she says. I suspect she’s right. You can try that diet while I explore the second book, another wine country effort, “The California Wine Country Diet: The Indulgent Approach to Managing Your Weight,” (Quill Driver Books, $25) by Dr. Haven Logan and Sharon Stewart, a registered dietician. I’ll do my best to synop-size this book by early next week.

– Jolene Thym

This Christmas, I sat down to the most delicious meal in recent memory. The side dishes were great, but the meat — this was no ordinary piece of beef. It was rich, complex, tender, and more fully-flavored than any meat I’ve ever brought home from the grocery store. As I ate bite after bite, I realized it tasted like meat I had sampled from Lobel’s in New York.

But I knew this meat had come from the local Costco. Confused, I asked the chef — my sister — for her secret. She answered in two words: dry aged.

Generally speaking, fresh is best when it comes to food. Fresh picked vegetables and fruits, fresh flour, fresh herbs, fresh pasta. But when it comes to meat, old is better.

Transforming a nice cut of meat into an ethereal eating experience is utterly simple. Details can be found in the pages of “Steaks, Chops, Roasts and Ribs” by the Cook’s Illustrated team.

The toughest part is you have to purchase your meat well in advance, no less than four days for optimum flavor. At home, remove the meat from packaging and position it on a rack set on a tray in the fridge. Do not cover the meat with plastic, as the goal is to literally dry the meat.

As the meat ages, the enzymes in the meat break down the connective tissue and muscle fibers, making the meat more tender. Aging also literally dries the meat, which intensifies flavor.

When it is time to cook the meat, be sure to shave off the hard-dried surface. You’ll lose a tiny bit of volume in the aging and trimming process, but the added flavor in your meat is well worth the sacrifice, trust me. Me, I will never cook a meat straight out of the plastic again, especially if it’s an expensive cut.

– Jolene Thym