Cooking under a Sonoma sunset.

One of the reasons I rented a house in Sonoma (as opposed to booking a block of rooms at a hotel or bed and breakfast) is that I wanted us to be able to cook. We had a lot of talented cooks on the trip, and I thought it would be fun to work together in a big kitchen, looking out at the sun setting over the courtyard, and relaxing with cocktails while we chopped, peeled, sautéed and roasted.

As it turned out, that's what we did four nights out of seven - not a bad track record, if you ask me. We had a big bowl of spaghetti with raw tomato, basil and garlic sauce on our first night, Julia Child's boeuf bourgignon on our second, and my favorite grilled lamb on Wednesday. On Friday, my Aunt Cathi made a delicious chicken dish with bacon, figs, plums and garlic that matched the sunset pretty darn admirably.

Really, it's hard to decide which was prettier! Do you need some more help?