January is California Restaurant Month: El Dorado epicurean adventure starting

January is California Restaurant Month here in Sacramento and in the regional surrounding areas. In fact, the El Dorado Epicurean is taking place next week. It's a week-long celebration of local cuisine that runs from January 22-29, 2012.

Check out some of the adventures such as The El Dorado Hills Adventure, The Surf and Tuf Adventure, The Placerville Adventure, the Crab Lover's Culinary Adventure, The Around Town Adventure, The Fair Play Adventure, and The Pleasant Valley Adventure. All these adventures involve several courses of food, with each course served at a different location. For example, The Around the Town Adventure in Placerville ends at Heyday Cafe on Main St. with a delicously warm triple fudge brownie topped with vanilla gelato.

Want more before? Experience the El Dorado Art & Wine Festival on January 21, 2012 6-9 pm. It's at the Mark D. Formi Building, El Dorado Fairgrounds. If you want tickets to the January 21 festival, the tickets are available at Carl Hagen Insurance, Minuteman Press or MORE: 399 Placerville Dr.

The January 22-29th California Restaurant Month Adventure

Then from January 22-29th experience The California Restaurant Month activities with a four-course dinner as each course is served at a different location. This is a different food activity from the El Dorado Art & Wine Festival.

The California Restaurant Month food festival starts on January 22, 2012. And The California Restaurant Month activities end on Sunday, January 29th with a progressive dinner.

At the progressive dinner marking the end of the month on Jan. 29th, there will be seven different itineraries presented that includes a four-course dinner. And each course is served at a different location.

Each of the seven adventures is a unique culinary experience available in El Dorado County, near Sacramento. Dinners move leisurely from one location to another. The appetizers are served as a first course from 4 to 5:30 pm. The second course is either soup or salad served from 5 pm to 6:30 pm.

The entree is the third course served from 6 to 7:30. Finally the dessert, which is the fourth course, is served from 7 to 8:30 p.m. That gives you time to digest each course somewhat so you don't have to wolf down everything quickly to get to the dessert.

The adventures will be listed. Just choose the one you want. Buy your tickets. If you come early, at least you've got a better chance of having a spot. The cost is $55 per person. Beverages and gratuity are not included. Make your reservations at the web site Visit-Eldorado.com.

There's a phone number on the website. Or purchase tickets in person at the El Dorado Chamber of Commerce, 542 Main St. in Placerville.

Honoring California Restaurant Month with a week long celebration of our local cuisine. The grand finale is an extraordinary county wide progressive dinner for culinary adventurers being held on January 29th, according to its website.

“The El Dorado Epicurean” is a week long celebration of our local cuisine from January 22- 29. Download dozens of delectable deals, exclusive offers and special discounts on food, wine, lodging available throughout the week. The grand finale is a county wide progressive dinner for culinary adventurers being held on January 29th.

Download the El Dorado Epicurean VIP card to receive exclusive discounts and special offers at participating El Dorado County businesses.

Enter their sweepstakes to win tickets to the El Dorado Epicurean Event. Fill in your name and email. Copy and paste the note below into the comments field:

A restaurant experience in El Dorado County can be as diverse and unique as the myriad recreational and visitor opportunities offered in the area. Whether you are in the mood for leisurely dining on French cuisine, a down-home BBQ, or possibly an evening in a Mexican Cantina, or a sampling of foods of the Orient, you can find it in El Dorado County.

Let your palette do the searching or search by community.

Enter the El Dorado Epicurean Event. Enter NOW.

Health tips for people sensitive to cooking smoke

Even though nobody may be smoking in any given eatery, the smoke from the fire pit, oven, or BBQ stove may be in the air or the scent of frying food. Are you sensitive to those odors?

Before you choose any given restaurant and order food, check out the air quality in the eatery by how easily you can breathe in the atmosphere there. Does the air from the baking, frying, cooking, or BBQ smoke in any given restaurant burn your tongue, eyes, or bronchial tubes--even though obviously you can't see any smoke in the air?

A note about restaurants anywhere if you have allergies or asthma and are super-sensitive to the smokey air.

Sometimes odors waft into the seating areas of some restaurants that have open fires such as various pizza fire pit ovens and BBQ or similar areas where the fire that burns and bakes the meat or pizza and other foods

The smells could reach you where you sit and start to burn your throat or eyes or makes it hard to breathe for some people who can detect a tiny bit of smoke in the air of a restaurant or other cooking smells and smoke that the majority of people can't detect. First ask whether you can change your seat. If not, there's no sense in ordering food where you're seated, unless you want to order take-out.

Older people with lung sensitivities might be bothered by the smoke that is too diluted for most young people to notice. If this is your problem, you're better off eating away from where the pizza is being baked or the BBQ meats are being sizzled. Some people sit outside as long as the smoke doesn't waft in your direction sitting on a patio. Others can wait outside for take-out.

It all depends on whether sitting for slow-service in a smokey restaurant from the cooking, even if it's a no-smoking restaurant gives you the shakes, makes you feel panicky, or otherwise experience an adverse reaction or sensitivity to any odors or smoky air. Just tell the server you have to leave because you can't breathe comfortably in that place indoors.

Check out your reaction to the air inside some restaurants where the smoky scent of frying pancakes, BBQ'd meats, or baking pizza crusts might irritate your lungs if you're sensitive. You might feel a burning on your tongue or fight it difficult to take a deep breath or might feel panicky, shaky, or your eyes may feel a burning sensation from the slight smoke in the air. Before you commit to a given restaurant, check out the air as well as the ambiance and the food before you order any meals.

Some other people sensitive to WiFi may be bothered by the WiFi in some eateries. Just check out the places you want to patronize, especially when bringing guests so you don't find yourself waiting for exceptionally slow service only to begin to feel that burning sensation in your eyes and throat from smoky air in some areas of any given eatery. This experience has happened in an enclosed restaurant in winter with no open windows where for example pizzas were being baked, even though the party sat far away from the fire pit.

So please consider this situation in any given eatery before you order your food. It helps to prepare you for environments that you'd never expect when entering a place to eat, such as the quality of the air where you're sitting.