An entire dinner built around mushrooms sounds a little redundant; perhaps even boring to any one who has not attended the Annual Wild Mushroom, Truffle & Pinot Noir Dinner at Parcel 104 in Santa Clara.

But such a thought is banished when eyes and nose meet a basket of the mushrooms headed for the kitchen; a colorful assortment of yellow, white, black and cream colored wild mushrooms, then come to rest on a pair of fresh-from-the-ground truffles — one black, one white.

In the kitchen, executive chef Bart Hosmer and his team turn those mushrooms into menu superstars, making them into soup, sauces, conserves, salads and some of the most heavenly potatoes on the face of the earth. Even pastry chef Carlos Sanchez joins the fun, turning porcini and chanterelle mushrooms into appetizer muffins, then using red candy cap mushrooms to make the most heavenly ice cream — the candy caps have a sweetness that tastes a lot like maple.

What makes a dinner like this, the 4th Annual Mushroom, Truffle and Pinot Noir Dinner, so much fun to attend is knowing that for this meal, the chefs are turned loose in terms of creativity.

Their assignment is simply to come up with something wonderful and delicious using some of the most rare and delicious foods on earth.

“You will taste a variety of mushrooms tonight that are very rare,” Randy Bertao, the restaurant’s master sommelier, explains to the dinner guests. “The candy cap mushrooms are available in late November only… it’s a bright red mushroom that tastes like maple syrup.”

That the chefs enjoy such creative freedom is apparent with each dish that emerges from the kitchen. Sweet bits of smoked trout are tossed with frisee and chanterelles for a salad course. Tender, silky slices of buttermilk poached chicken are laid on top of truffle cream, then topped with the most delicate slivers of crunchy beauregard yam and leek.

Perhaps the most aromatic dish of the evening were slices of veal topped with melting slivers of white truffle.

Spotlighting the food are a selection of pinot noirs, each with a personality unique to the vineyard. From the Sonoma Valley was a $70-per-bottle pinot from Iron Horse Thomas Road Vineyard that was just bright enough and acidic enough to complement the somewhat rich porcini pasta dish. Other pinots hailed from Carneros; the Santa Lucia Highlands, east of Monterey; and Arroyo Grande, near Santa Barbara.

For many, the biggest surprise came at the end, in the form of a luscious mushroom dessert. After appetizers that included mushroom flatbread and a goat milk-truffle “cappucino,” followed by four courses, diners were not exactly hungry.

But not a single guest at our table could resist dessert.

The oval-shaped plates included a crepe filled with apple-chanterelle conserve, a spoonful of the sweet candy cap mushroom ice cream described above and a shard of a crisp, salty, porcini-flavored bark. The dessert was sweet, salty, textural and aromatic — a great finish to a meal that will not soon be forgotten.

Post Script: One of the things I love about going to Parcel 104 is the service, which is perfectly choreographed. Servers arrive at each table in unison, delivering plates to the entire table at once, removing plates on cue, and catering to every need of every guest.

As courses unfold, servers scan the room, not hovering, but noticing details. They keep wine glasses filled at just the right level for each guest — they seem to know who likes a little more, who likes a little less.

The servers even manage smiles and great service under pressure: Last week’s dinner guests included a table of 14 guests from Dublin, neighbors who decided the $150-per-person dinner was the perfect opportunity to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays.

Keeping glasses full for the onslaught of toasts offered throughout the evening was no small task — especially when a nearby table joined in the fun, at one point performing a celebratory “wave” at the table.

Response from the wait staff? They politely worked around it, Miss Manners-style, as if it never happened. Seamless.

– Jolene Thym

The standard for most top shelf, high-end vodkas is to be a colorless, odorless liquid as devoid of flavor as possible. Vodka is to be a blank canvas, without personality.

For this reason, I take little interest in vodka. I’ve tried potato vodka and grain vodka. I’ve tried super-distilled vodka and vodka from every corner of the world. Side-by-side there are miniscule differences in flavor. But they’re all vodka.

But a few weeks back, an e-mail press release about the new Idol vodka made from wine grapes caught my interest. The news bite suggested this was a vodka specifically for wine drinkers — that’s me! — and that it’s a vodka with personality. The vodka, the release claimed, was a reflection of terroir — of Burgundy, France to be exact.

Grapes? Terroir? Now this is the kind of talk that wine drinkers understand. First off, I couldn’t shake the idea of wasting perfectly good wine grapes on vodka. The idea of making a vodka with actual flavor was even more bizarre. I decided I needed to 1) taste the vodka, and 2) talk to these people about their crazy, nonvodka approach to vodka-making.

First, the taste: I poured a smidge into a a large wine glass and added a chunk of ice to open the spirit. I smelled it, then tasted it. It was distinctly different from many vodkas I’ve tried. It has a long taste; fuller, sweeter and smoother than any grain vodka.

The next day, I got Jean-Charles Boisset, head of Boisset America, on the phone. He explained that the vodka is made from a 50-50 mix of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, the very same grapes from which French Champagne is made. The grapes are made into wine, which is then distilled seven times.

Boisset, who is also a winemaker not only in Burgundy, but also in the Russian River Valley — he owns De Loach Vineyards — says the idea for making an ultrapremium vodka from grapes first occured to him seven years ago.

“I do not like spirits that burn my tongue and my throat. They make me feel like my breath will start a fire,” he says.

Even though turning good wine grapes into a relatively flavorless, colorless liquid seems a shame, Boisset says the wine community welcomes the idea, as it is a good solution to too many wine grapes.

“There are so many grapes that are used for other purposes. This is actually a great use for the excess,” he says, admitting that while the grapes that go into the vodka are good quality, they do not use grand cru grapes.

As if to prove he is indeed a wine person, Boisset went on to chat about how Idol is made from grapes that are sustainably farmed, tended by locals who handpick the grapes at just the right moment.

Boisset says his new vodka, $30 to $35 per bottle, is perfect for mixing with all things fruity, including orange juice, cranberry juice, and even sparkling wine.

– Jolene Thym

ZagatSurvey is a great resource for people who dine out. It gives consumer ratings about every detail for dozens of restaurants — including decor, food and price.

But what I don’t quite understand about this year’s guide are the zones. San Francisco restaurants include San Francisco restaurants. That makes sense. “North of San Francisco” includes restaurants from Larkspur to wine country, as far north as Gualala. It’s a bit of a drive for dinner, but do-able for a special event.

The area “South of San Francisco” encompasses Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, Pescadero over on the coast, and even as far south as Carmel, which would mean more than an hour in the car, yet within reason.

Next, we come to the “East of San Francisco” category, which includes Oakland, Berkeley and Hayward; Lafayette and Dublin and Truckee?? And South Lake Tahoe??? Excuse me?

As if the East Bay doesn’t suffer enough from being considered less than San Francisco. Do the editors of this guide really think that South Lake Tahoe or Truckee are a mere skip from the Bay Area? Do they honestly think that Tahoe is EAST BAY? I would venture to guess that a street survey in downtown Truckee posing such a question would elicit more than a few interesting comments. It takes at least four hours to drive ONE-WAY to Tahoe or Truckee. No one, NO ONE, drives to Lake Tahoe or Truckee for a meal, no matter how nice.

Surely, if the “East Bay” does extend across the California Valley, then up, up, up and over the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, then the South Bay should include Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and, of course, Las Vegas. Could it be that there were no restaurants there worthy of mention?

North Bay should certainly include Ashland and Portland in Oregon; Seattle, Washington, and maybe even Victoria, Canada. I hear that is the go-to place for Cantonese cuisine.

My suggestion to the ZagatSurvey editors: How about we meet for brunch in the East Bay — I’m thinking Paris, France — to chat about it?

– Jolene Thym

I’m a little wary of produce these days, wondering which food will be contaminated next. But since our family lives on fresh produce, I continue to buy and cook all things green, orange, red and yellow, hoping for the best. I admit that with each new contamination report, I eye the soap and bleach containers, wondering if I should REALLY wash, instead of just rinsing our fresh foods.

This is the reason why I was happy to stumble across a great idea. It’s a recipe for making my own produce wash. Here’s one from the Pennywise Newsletter:

MAKE-IT-YOURSELF PRODUCE WASH
2 cups plain tap water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon citric acid powder
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Few drops grapefruit oil

Citric acid powder is found in the canning section of the supermarket and is used in canning tomatoes. The alcohol in the lemon extract kills bacteria, the citrus oil is a cleaner as is the soda and citric acid.

Here’s another, even simpler idea from another Web site:

Fill a clean sink or large plastic bowl with cold water and 1/4 cup of vinegar (cider vinegar or lemon juice) and 1 teaspoon of salt. The vinegar will help clean the skins, while the salt draws out any critters. The wash doesn’t affect the flavor, and since it’s all edible, it’s 100 percent safe.

Note that plenty of people suggest that the best idea is to wash with fresh water only, since washing with anything else may either make your food taste funny or add to the whole food contamination problem.

Still, I love the idea of dunking my greens in salted vinegar water and watching the bugs float off the surface. — Jolene Thym

When I last visited Washington D.C., I could not get in to see the capitol, nor the Pentagon (I tried). But I did get to visit the Smithsonian Museums, where I languished in American history, soaking in the romance of times past, the heritage that is mine and yours too. I loved seeing the dishes, the serving ware, the dinner invitations and other bits from White House dinners.

Those bits of memorabilia danced in my imagination as I opened the book “Politics & Pot Roast,” ($24.95, Bright Sky Press) a delightful book by Sarah Hood Salomon.

Inside the covers are lots of favorite recipes of presidents and first ladies, but what I especially enjoy are the intimate tales of food and such that fill all of the pages in between. I got a kick out of “uncle jumbo’s” favorites, including a lemon pie; descriptions of Zachary Taylor, a disheveled-dresser who loved a big plate of jambalaya; and details about the financial matters of Calvin Coolidge, a thrifty president who opted to have breakfast instead of dinner meetings because they cost so much less.

There are stories about presidents who were control freaks and jealous husbands; and tales about President Franklin Pierce that will comfort mothers across the nation. This president was so messy that he had a hard time finding his mattress when he wanted to go to bed at night. Moms will also take comfort in stories about life in the White House during Theodore Roosevelt’s reign, when children surfed down the stairways on serving trays and roller-skated through the East Room.

Some of the recipes I may actually try include Eleanor Roosevelt’s chicken and almond soup, Mrs. Roosevelt’s squash biscuits, Herbert Hoover’s grandmothers’ orange jelly, Rosalynn Carter’s eggplant casserole, and Laura Bush’s smoked shrimp with mango salsa.

Whether the recipes turn out to be family favorites at our house or not, I count this book as one of my treasures.

– Jolene Thym