WHEN Robert and Jeannie Hidey went to Bachelor Gulch in Colorado three years ago, they figured they would ski five days and see their daughter who attended college nearby. The last thing they expected to do was to buy a second home.

It was their first time at the ski resort, and they liked what they saw: slopes free of thousands of other skiers, plenty of things do off the mountain and close proximity to Vail and Aspen.

So when they walked by a sales office at the Ritz-Carlton hotel where they were staying, they decided to go in. Ritz-Carlton was selling fractional shares of its 54 residences next door.

For $280,000, the Hideys bought a 12th share in a two-bedroom residence, which includes daily housekeeping service and lift tickets, for three weeks a year. If they cannot make it one year, they may exchange their time for stays at one of Ritz’s three other fractional properties in places like Jupiter, Fla., or the Virgin Islands.

“We could not afford to buy a home there for all the time. It would be a waste of our investment money,” said Ms. Hidey, 50, whose primary home is in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. “This is a long-term investment that we can pass on to our two daughters.”

Fractional real estate, or shared ownership, is growing rapidly, increasing to $1.65 billion in sales last year for the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, up more than 30 percent from 2005.

Such properties appeal to buyers who want exclusive getaways but who may be unwilling or unable to purchase a second home they will use for only a few weeks a year.

Unlike time shares, fractionals carry a title of ownership and are marketed as high-end vacation homes, typically costing an average of 10 times as much as a time share.

“The younger generation of buyers is viewing it as an alternative to full ownership because of the ease. You’re not paying for when the property is vacant,” said John Melicharek, head of the tourism industry practice at the law firm of Baker Hostetler in Orlando, Fla. “It’s become a convenient way to own a second home without all of the problems.”

As of January, there were 249 fractional developments in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, a 39 percent increase from 2005, according to NorthCourse Leisure Real Estate Solutions, a consulting group in Parsippany, N.J. According to Ragatz Associates, a consulting and market research firm in Eugene, Ore., that tracks the resort industry, 40,000 households, or about 1 percent of all households in the country that earn over $200,000 a year, have purchased fractionals.

Although sales of fractionals have declined in some areas, the overall housing slowdown doesn’t seem to have had much impact on sales of fractionals in North America. (The market is still small compared with time-share sales, which were approximately $10 billion last year, up from $8.6 billion in 2005, according to the American Resort Development Association.)

When buyers purchase fractionals, which are typically marketed to people who make at least $200,000, they are buying a portion of a condominium, a town house or a house and receive a deed to the property. A time share, by contrast, is shared among as many as 50 buyers, who pay for specific blocks of time and typically do not own a share of the property. Time is bought by the week and often costs between $10,000 and $30,000.

Shares in fractionals typically range from a quarter to a 13th, and buyers get as much as three months in their units. Depending on the project, owners get multiple weeks that are either fixed or rotate among owners. The units come furnished and carry annual dues, which can be as high as $18,000, for maintenance, insurance, utilities and property taxes.

FRACTIONALS are now found from Midtown Manhattan to Colorado ski resorts to the Arizona desert. They often come with expensive appliances, finishes and furniture and have a staff who can stock refrigerators, tune skis and place owners’ personal gear in their units before they arrive.

“When you’re selling these things, you don’t want it to look, smell or act like a time share,” said Douglas O’Reilly, vice president for advisory services at NorthCourse.

Large hotel operators, like Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International, Wyndam Worldwide and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts have taken note and rolled out dozens of new fractional projects the last four years under their own names or as Ritz-Carltons and St. Regises. In the process, they have added a greater sense of legitimacy to fractional ownership, said Bill Lerner, senior gambling and lodging analyst at Deutsche Bank in Las Vegas. In Manhattan, for instance, Starwood has turned two floors of the St. Regis Hotel on 55th Street at Fifth Avenue into fractionals that sell for $300,000 to $750,000. Owners can stay in the 22 units, which range in size from studios to two-bedrooms, for up to 28 days a year.

Banks have also started offering specialized loans for fractionals in the last year, so buyers do not have to rely on home-equity loans, sell stocks or bonds, or cash in their bank accounts. Such loans can be more difficult to get than ones for primary residences, however. First Fractional Funding of Greenwood Village, Colo., for example, requires a minimum credit score of 700, said Scott Christian, its president.

It is difficult, however, to determine long-term appreciation in the fractional market. Sales histories are spotty because fractionals have been widely sold only the last four years.

In expensive ski towns, like Aspen and Vail, sales and prices have remained strong because there is little developable land and demand remains high. But in Florida, Las Vegas and Mammoth Lakes, Calif., prices appear to have stagnated and some projects have been canceled.

“In many markets, fractionals have slowed down like full ownership, at the same rate,” said Wallace M. Hobson, managing director for the Americas at NorthCourse.

One of the most successful shared-ownership projects has been the Residences at the Little Nell, a private residence club across from the Silver Queen gondola in Aspen. The project’s developer has increased prices 13 times for its three- and four-bedroom units since sales began in July 2005. An eighth share in a three-bedroom unit now costs $1.5 million, and four bedrooms, which are sold out, are $3 million.

For the Timbers Resorts, a developer in Carbondale, Colo., fractional sales have been steady at its six projects in Mexico, Italy and the United States because it is selective about location and offers a mix of hotel rooms, fractionals and full-ownership units, said David Burden, the president. At its newest development, in Steamboat Springs, Colo., the company has sold all 38 of its full-ownership homes and 40 percent of the 336 fractional shares in 42 other residences since October.

But Joe DeSilva, a real estate agent at the Luxury Real Estate Group International in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., said there are fewer fractional buyers in his area because prices for wholly owned houses have dropped. Three of his resale listings in Ritz-Carlton’s development in nearby Jupiter have been reduced by about $5,000 since they went on the market last year. One of them is a four-bedroom house with up to 35 days of use a year for $305,000 that has been for sale since September.

Last year, Storied Places, a division of Intrawest that builds private residence clubs, halted two projects because of construction costs and lackluster sales. At its Altis development in Mammoth Lakes, the developer was unable to get a guaranteed construction price, a spokeswoman said. And at La Scala in Henderson, Nev., it sold only 30 of the 120 fractional shares it was offering in presales.

Many buyers purchase fractionals not as an investment but as a vacation alternative.

Chris Roden, an investment manager in Miami Beach, bought a fractional in Colorado from Timbers because, he said, he was fed up with expensive rentals that were far from the ski lifts.

Five years ago, he bought a three-bedroom fractional at the Timbers Club at Snowmass for $280,000 so he could be right on the mountain. A year later, he bought another three-bedroom fractional for the same price at the company’s Rocks Luxury Residence Club in Scottsdale. He said the units are a way for his family to vacation in million-dollar homes without having to buy one.

“This is a way to have that lifestyle without the price,” Mr. Roden, 44, said.

THE Hideys seem to agree. Last year, they bought a wholly owned two-bedroom residence and a similar-size fractional for $1.8 million and $280,000, respectively, at a Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. They plan to use the fully owned unit as a second home and let guests and clients of Mr. Hidey’s architecture firm use the fractional.

“With the Ritz, you just know you’re always going to have that same level of quality,” Ms. Hidey said. “We want that Ritz-Carlton type of service.”

CALL it the ultimate wine-country fantasy: Buy a weekend retreat in Napa Valley and swaddle the house in cabernet vines, then start bottling the yield into vintages good enough to attract the praise of the finicky wine news media. Well, Randy and Lisa Lynch did just that that five years ago. The Lynches, who own an advertising agency in San Ramon, Calif., bought a three-bedroom vacation home in Calistoga, in Napa’s far north, and planted 12 acres of cabernet, merlot and petit verdot grapes.

“We were searching for agricultural property, but what drew us to this area was its beauty,” said Mr. Lynch, who said the place cost a few million dollars but declined to be more specific. He then took weekend wine recreation to a new level when he bought an existing winery, Bennett Lane, and started producing cabernet sauvignon and red and white blends.

Life in Napa Valley is about relishing, well, the good life. Enjoying the outdoors, eating well and, of course, savoring a glass or two of wine are all part of the lure for the tourists who flock to this Northern California enclave as well as the second-home owners who put down weekend roots.

The valley, even with its agricultural economy, still carries an air of elitism. This is, after all, where so-called cult wineries have waiting lists of people clamoring to shell out $300 for a single bottle of cabernet, Thomas Keller serves nine-course $240 tasting menus at the French Laundry, and an acre of good vineyard land can bring more than $275,000.

But Napa Valley isn’t just a stomping ground for rich wine buffs. Calistoga has long had a reputation as a spa town, attracting visitors who want to soak in its natural hot springs or sink into a vat of heated mud at one of the spas that line Lincoln Avenue downtown. While other Napa Valley towns, like Yountville and St. Helena, have atmospheres that lean toward wine-country quaint, Calistoga is less polished.

“It’s less chi-chi than other towns,” said Mike Silvas, an owner of Morgan Lane Real Estate, which has five offices in Napa Valley. “For a long time, it was the cowboy town. It has moved away a bit from that. Now there are paved sidewalks. There used to be wooden walkways not so long ago.”

The Scene

Calistoga has its roots in water. Literally. The town’s natural hot springs have attracted visitors to its spas since the 19th century. But this is Napa, after all, so weekend life is also about the wine. Rental bikes have padded carrying bags for wine, and restaurants that don’t have full liquor licenses might serve margaritas made with agave wine.

Lincoln Avenue, the main street downtown, is lined with small hotels, restaurants and clothing stores. There are older Craftsman-style bungalows on the side streets that radiate off Lincoln, convenient for grabbing breakfast in town and walking to the Saturday farmers market.

Because it is at the top of the valley, Calistoga still has a more rugged and rural feel than other valley towns. “When I have buyers looking for a charming, self-contained village feel, we head for Yountville,” said Cyd Greer, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley in neighboring St. Helena. “For those craving a connection to the land, a more natural ambiance, we head north to Calistoga.”

Elaine Jennings bought a 1,200-square-foot two-bedroom house for $340,000 in 2001, and estimates that it would bring more than $500,000 today. “I’ve always been fascinated with Calistoga, since I live in San Francisco,” she said. “It’s the perfect getaway.”

Ms. Jennings can often be found on one of the bike trails or on Grant Street and Tubbs Lane in town, although she avoids Highway 29, because the traffic is so heavy.

Biking and hiking trails also run through Robert Louis Stevenson State Park and Bothe-Napa Valley State Park. Summers in Calistoga can be toasty, with days over 100 degrees, but the nights are cool, which is how the grapes like it. There are also arts festivals and a host of events to promote the wine industry, even when vines are bare.

Pros

Compared with other desirable Napa Valley towns like St. Helena and Yountville, Calistoga offers more for your dollar. “Calistoga affords buyers about 20 percent more bang for their buck relative to St. Helena,” Ms. Greer said, noting that average square footage costs for a home in Calistoga run just under $500 contrasted with $625 a square foot in St. Helena.

Cons

Since Calistoga is the northernmost town in Napa Valley, getting there on weekends means contending with traffic congestion caused by all the other weekenders. The drive on a Saturday up Highway 29 can be slow in summer and in the fall harvest season, which draws tourists and means more activity at wineries. Calistoga installed a new water system a few years ago, so homeowners pay more for their water than other towns in wine country.

The Real Estate Market

Calistoga real estate falls toward the bottom of Napa Valley prices. But don’t expect to find a bargain. Mixed in with the older in-town bungalows there are more secluded, and wallet-stunning wine country spreads like a $15,995,000 nine-bedroom house on 153 acres, and a three-bedroom house complete with a wine cellar and a tasting room of $6.800 million. There are options, though, for buyers seeking a more modest dwelling.

“There are still quite a few fixer-uppers,” said Sharon Carone, a co-owner of Calistoga Realty. A bungalow in town, ideal for someone who wants to park the car and walk to lunch or dinner, starts at $600,000. A similar home that needs work might be closer to $500,000, she said.

These smaller homes can fly off the market. Earlier this year, a listing for a two-bedroom Craftsman bungalow, under 1,000 square feet, went into contract within a week of going on the market at $545,000. “Those kinds of properties get picked up very quickly,” Mr. Silvas said. Buyers in Calistoga can also find bigger parcels. Some 40 percent of transactions last year were for properties of more than an acre, a larger percentage than in neighboring St. Helena.

Annual real estate sales generally involved around 60 properties, but those numbers could rise with new construction. New permits for hookups to the town’s sewer system for all development ceased until capacity could be increased. But in 2004, the town started to grant a limited number of permits each year. Last year, eight new homes hit the market.

On the luxury end, there is another alternative. Calistoga Ranch, a hotel off the Silverado Trail operated by Auberge Resorts, has 10th shares of two-bedroom homes, complete with an outdoor living area centered around a grand fireplace. Susan and Bill Bazinett, from Danville, Calif., bought a share for $425,000 in 2005 after looking at full-ownership homes in other Napa Valley towns at higher prices.

“There was absolutely nothing you would want to stay in,” Ms. Bazinett said. “For the type of house comparable to the lodge at Calistoga Ranch, you would really have to be a $2 million-plus buyer.”

Their share entitles them to a minimum of three weeks of stays a year at the home, where they ride bikes and hike through the property, attend wine tastings and store their wine in the resort’s wine cave, which is carved into the side of a hill.

PEOPLE ask me, more often than any other question by far, where to go to learn about wine.

Usually I tell them to go home.

No kidding. The best place to learn about wine is at home, particularly if you stop off at a good wine shop on the way.

What I’m about to propose is a do-it-yourself method that has a lot to offer to just about anybody who loves wine, or wants to learn about it. In fact, if you’ll join in with me, we will take this home wine class together and be the better for it. Let me explain.

Wine classes are best if you already know a little something and have decided that you are enthusiastic enough to pursue a passion. But for beginners they can be daunting, and they tend to teach more about how to describe wines rather than helping you learn what you like.

Books can be inspiring and entertaining, and at some point they are essential. But they pose similar problems for beginners. Do you think you can learn to play golf by reading a book? Of course not. You have to get out there and struggle, for years most likely.

Learning about wine is far more pleasant. All you have to do — almost — is drink it.

My approach does require a little thought and a modest bit of work, though, because you will learn only if you pursue wine systematically.

First, identify a good wine shop near you. If the answer isn’t obvious, ask a wine-obsessed friend for some recommendations. Second, find somebody at the shop with whom you seem to have a rapport and who is passionate about wine. Certain clues will help you gauge the passion. For example, if a salesperson tries to entice you by quoting scores from a consumer magazine, forget it. But if the salesperson explains why he or she loves a particular wine, it’s a very good sign.

Now you are ready to get down to business. Ask the salesperson for a mixed case — six red, six white — and give the shop a spending limit. You don’t need to be extravagant, but it’s not a time to stint, either. I suggest $250, give or take $50.

If the shop is a good one, you will be taking home a guide to the diverse and wonderful forms wine takes around the world. Some you will love, others you may detest. Either way, tasting a range is essential to learning about wine and about your own tastes.

Now comes the fun. Every night, or however often seems right, open one of the bottles with dinner. This is important. You want to drink a wine with food for the full experience.

Just the other night in a Spanish restaurant, I tasted a Rueda, a white wine made from the verdejo grape. On its own it was unexpectedly tart and pungent. With a bite of my shrimp-and-fig tapa, it was softer and more harmonious.

Over time you will gain a pretty good idea of which wines correspond with which foods. A really good wine shop may even have suggested general food pairings with the wines.

You will have to take some notes. Write down the name of the wine, the vintage, what you ate with it, and what you liked or didn’t like about it. It’s even easier than it sounds, especially if you don’t try to use the florid language of wine writers.

As you inhale the aromas and taste the flavors, think in general terms — was it sweet? Bitter? Did the aromas remind you of fruit, or maybe something else? Perhaps it didn’t taste like fruit at all, but like a beautiful sunset. Don’t know that I’ve had a sunset, but it’s evocative, at least.

The most important thing, though, is not how you describe the wine but whether you liked it or not, and whether you felt it enhanced what you ate or clashed with it. When you finish the case, return to the wine shop. Go over your list with the salesperson and, based on what you liked best, ask the shop to put together a second case of different bottles.

With this method you will gain a sense of what wines you like best. Eventually, if it’s fun, you may be motivated to find out even more.

That’s the time to buy a book or take a class, because now you have a context for organizing, understanding and digesting a blizzard of information. You may not be driving the ball 300 yards, or picking out Pomerols from Pommards, but you know what? Very few people do.

Now, as I said, I think this method is great not just for beginners but for anybody who wants to learn more about wine. So I’ve gone out and placed an order for a mixed case of wine on a $250 budget. In fact, I placed not just one order but two, from different shops, to see how the selection of the mixed case might differ and what that might mean.

For my first order, I called Lyle Fass at Chambers Street Wines in TriBeCa, an excellent, idiosyncratic shop that specializes in wines of the Loire, Burgundy and Piedmont. I know Lyle, and we share similar tastes for offbeat wines, so I asked him to please put together a case for me as he would for anybody else trying to learn about wine. It turns out that he gets a lot of requests like this.

“All the time,” he said. “It’s the funnest thing in the world.”

Out of curiosity, I also placed an order with a different sort of place, Sherry-Lehmann, the ultimate establishment wine shop. I spoke on the phone with Joy Land, a salesperson whom I didn’t know, but she knew exactly what I was after, and she quickly described her own palate.

“My background and my love is French wine,” Ms. Land said. “I like wines that are very elegant. I don’t like wines that are very big. I don’t like purple wines, or wines that stain your teeth.”

I’ll go along with that, though I do admit I kind of like purple.

I’ve now received both cases and they are similar conceptually, though they differ completely in the particulars. Both contain a Bordeaux, a red Burgundy and a white Burgundy. Both include a riesling and a zinfandel. Both include a sauvignon blanc, a Côtes du Rhône and a red from Italy. Both Lyle and Joy decided that one of the whites needed to be a Champagne.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, and I hope you’ll join me. I plan to keep you abreast of my progress on my blog, The Pour.

If you are newsprint-bound, check back here over the next couple of months and I’ll let you know what I’ve learned.

Homework

Your assignment: buy the following wines and drink them. Take notes. The lists were compiled by Lyle Fass of Chambers Street Wines in TriBeCa and Joy Land of Sherry-Lehmann.

LYLE'S CASE

Camille Savès Brut

Carte Blanche NV $36.99

Schäfer-Fröhlich

Nahe Halbtrocken 2005 $16.99

Picq Chablis Vieilles Vignes

2005 $19.99

Boulay Sancerre Chavignol

2005 $22.99

Pépière Muscadet sur Lie

2005 $9.99

Huet Vouvray Clos du Bourg

Demi-Sec 2002 $36.99

Maréchal Bourgogne Rouge

Cuvée Gravel 2005 $24.99

Paloumey Haut-Médoc

2004 $21.99

Sobon Estate Fiddletown

Lubenko Vineyard 2005 $19.99

Texier Côtes du Rhône

Brézème 2004 $15.99

Moris Morellino diScansano

2004 $15.99

Baudry Chinon Les Granges

2005 $14.99

JOY'S CASE

Deutz Brut NV $27.95

Selbach-Oster Zeltinger

Schlossberg Spätlese 2002 $22.95

Domaine Guy Roulot

Bourgogne Blanc

2004 $21.95

Villa Maria Private Bin

Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

2006 $12.95

Salomon-Undhof Kremstal

Hochterrassen Grüner Veltliner

2005 $9.95

Tablas Creek Paso Robles

Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc

2004 $29.95

Mommessin Gevrey-Chambertin

2003 $34.95

Croix de Beaucaillou Saint-Julien

2003 $31.95

Ridge Sonoma County

Three Valleys

2005 $19.95

Guigal Côtes du Rhône

2003 $10.95

Allegrini Palazzo della Torre IGT

2003 $16.95

Enrique Foster Mendoza Malbec

Ique 2004 $8.95

LONDON, April 10 — Should it be slithery or scrunchy, glutinous or grilled? The answer, British scientists say, may be divined by a formula: N = C + {fb(cm) . fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc . ta.

That is the scientific answer to the question: what makes the perfect bacon sandwich?

And, no, it is not April 1.

Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762).

For Britons, butties come in a variety of guises — chip butties (French fries between slices of bread), crisp butties (ditto with potato chips) or even sugar butties, which are self-explanatory. None are viewed as especially healthful.

There are some finer points in the language, if not the cuisine. A sandwich containing sausages, for instance, is likely to be referred as a sausage sarnie, while sausages served with mashed potatoes are called bangers and mash.

There is no easy explanation for this.

Even the bacon butty, though alliterative, is sometimes etymologically challenged, as in a recent posting on the Web site of The Yorkshire Post relating to the study at Leeds University.

“Perhaps another few minutes on research would have told them that a butty is a slice of buttered bread with a topping; a bacon sarnie is what they are describing,” said a contributor who signed himself Joey Pica.

But Graham Clayton, who led the research, said the endeavor had been an earnest attempt, commissioned by the Danish Bacon and Food Council, the British subsidiary of a Danish pig producers’ organization, to determine what degree of crispiness and crunchiness made the perfect sandwich.

The company’s announcement of the research last Sunday made no reference to other criteria like cholesterol, carbohydrates or other dietary attributes of the perfect butty. Chloe Joint, a spokeswoman for Danish Bacon’s public relations company, Porter Novelli, declined to say how much the study cost.

The research combined four types of cooking, using grills, pans and ovens, three kinds of oil and four types of bacon — smoked, unsmoked, streaky and thick cut — to establish the preferences of 50 tasters in such matters as the butty’s tactile and aural crunchiness. The study also considered a broad range of condiments (like ketchup and brown sauce) and spreads.

It concluded that the best bacon butties were made with crisply grilled, not-too-fat bacon between thick slices of white bread.

Eureka!

“We often think that it’s the taste and smell of bacon that consumers find most attractive,” Dr. Clayton said in a news release. “But our research proves that texture and sound is just, if not more, important.”

In a telephone interview, he also acknowledged that tasters made comments about fat. “If there was too much fat from the cooking process, that was a turnoff for people,” he said. Leathery bacon was a no-no, too, he added.

“We are programmed to avoid leathery food as old and not very good,” he said. That wisdom does not seem to prevail, however, among some of the more basic vendors of bacon butties at roadside halts or cafes known generically as greasy spoons to denote their customary modes of cooking and hygiene.

In the experiment, some of the tasters sampled between four and six bacon sandwiches a day for three or four days.

And so the formula evolved to establish the amount of force in the bite, expressed in newtons, and the level of noise, expressed in decibels, to make the perfect crunch.

Ideally, Danish Bacon said, 0.4 newtons should be applied to crunch the sandwich, creating 0.5 decibels of noise. The formula uses these values: N = force in newtons; fb is the function of the bacon type; fc is the function of the condiment or filling effect; Ts is the serving temperature; tc is cooking time; ta is the time taken to insert the condiment or filling; cm is the cooking method and C represents the breaking strain in newtons of uncooked bacon.

“It’s not a hoax,” Dr. Clayton said, acknowledging that, a few days ago — on April 1, to be precise — it might have been taken as one.

Nancy Silverton is rebelling a little later in life than most. At 52, the Los Angeles chef, who translated her training at Lenôtre into a widely respected career as a pastry chef, cook and business owner, has really gotten into prepared foods. “I’d forgotten how good V8 juice tastes!” said Silverton, who spent a year combing the aisles of supermarkets and specialty stores in search of kitchen catalysts for her seventh cookbook, “A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals With Ingredients From Jars, Cans, Bags and Boxes” (Knopf). “I’m waiting to get the phone call from Alice ... ,” she said of her mentor, the world-renowned food purist Alice Waters.

Silverton’s goal is to bring lapsed home cooks back into the kitchen to make fast meals with “love and care.” “The way people are eating at home,” she said, “they’re not cooking, not preparing, not even dumping out of a container!” Her book lures them to the stove with such gateway ingredients as olive-oil-packed tuna, cannellini beans and tapenade — items familiar to those who have dined at Campanile, the restaurant she owned with the chef Mark Peel, then her husband, or have browsed the tightly edited shelves at La Brea Bakery, which she and Peel opened in 1989 and sold for a reported $55 million in 2001 (although she still consults on how to bring their parbaked artisan-style bread to the masses). “A Twist of the Wrist” green-lights prewashed salad, canned peas, jarred mayonnaise, boneless chicken breasts and more — a gigantic leap for someone for whom a chicken sandwich always involved roasting a chicken and making a batch of mayonnaise.

The chef admits that she was not familiar with Rachael Ray’s “30 Minute Meals” when she started the project, or at least she’s too polite to say that hers are 30-minute meals that would make Thomas Keller say yummo: orzo with dried porcini mushrooms, radicchio and aged balsamic vinegar; white asparagus in brown butter topped with a fried egg and capers; key lime custards with crème fraîche. Some of the recipes came from fellow food professionals, like Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet magazine, whose recipe for blueberry pie calls for frozen berries and a store-bought crust. “You talk to a chef who works all day and comes home hungry, these are the things they make,” Silverton said. “You don’t come home and do a braise.”

Since December, Silverton has been too busy to open a jar. In partnership with Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, she opened Pizzeria Mozza, where until recently she could be seen in her clogs and red lipstick manning the pizza station seven days a week. (It will be joined this summer by Osteria Mozza.)

Silverton is known for taking haute peasant food to L.A. cognoscenti: she institutionalized Grilled Cheese Night at Campanile; after leaving the restaurant, she toted her chef’s kit to the restaurant Jar for Mozzarella Mondays and set up an antipasto table at La Terza on Tuesdays — both without a fee. At Pizzeria Mozza, she elevates the humble pie, topping the bubbly crust with fennel-sausage meatballs, whipped cream and fennel pollen; or braised bacon, burrata and escarole. “I love being around food, and I love pleasing people,” she said, explaining her return to the fire. “And the easiest way to please someone is to give them something they enjoy eating” — even if it isn’t made from scratch. “I know I’ll get that phone call,” she said of Waters. “But I’ll remind her that she uses jarred capers.”

The following recipes are adapted from “A Twist of the Wrist,” by Nancy Silverton.

Fennel, Treviso and Prosciutto Salad With Anchovy-Date Vinaigrette

8 large, soft medjool dates, pitted, smashed with the flat side of a knife and finely chopped

6 anchovy fillets, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

Grated zest of 2 medium oranges

Grated zest of 2 large lemons

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon red-wine vinegar

4 heads treviso (radicchio may be substituted)

1 large fennel bulb

8 thin slices (about 4 ounces total) prosciutto

Chunk of Parmesan cheese

Freshly ground black pepper.

1. Make the vinaigrette by stirring the dates, anchovies, garlic and orange and lemon zests together in a large bowl. Stir in the oil and vinegar.

2. Remove and discard the outer leaves of the treviso. Carve out and discard the cores. Separate the leaves and add them to the bowl with the vinaigrette. Cut the fennel lengthwise into quarters. Core, stem and cut lengthwise into 1/16 -inch-thick slices. Add the fennel to the bowl and toss to mix and coat with the vinaigrette.

3. Divide half of the salad evenly among 4 plates. Lay a slice of prosciutto over each salad, rumpling it so that it doesn’t completely cover the treviso. Grate a thin layer of Parmesan over the prosciutto. Pile the remaining leaves on the salads, reserving some of the tiniest leaves to place on top. Rumple another slice of prosciutto over each salad and grate another thin layer of cheese on top. Top with the remaining leaves and freshly ground black pepper. Serves 4.

Egg Pappardelle With Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg

For the pappardelle and bagna cauda:

1 stick ( ½ cup) unsalted butter

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

15 anchovy fillets, finely chopped

8 large garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

12 radicchio leaves, torn into small pieces

Grated zest and juice of half a lemon

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces egg pappardelle

For finishing the dish:

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 large eggs

Wedge of Parmesan cheese

Sea salt

1 heaping tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.

1. To make the bagna cauda, place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the butter, olive oil, anchovies and garlic and cook, breaking up the anchovies with a fork and stirring constantly, until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the parsley, radicchio and lemon zest and juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Prepare the pasta by bringing a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add enough kosher salt until the water tastes salty and return to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente.

3. To finish the dish, heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until the oil is almost smoking, about 2 minutes. Break 1 egg into a small bowl and pour into the skillet. When it just begins to set around the edges, break the second egg into the bowl and pour into the skillet. (By waiting a moment before adding the next egg, the eggs won’t stick together.) Repeat with the remaining 2 eggs. Cook until the edges are golden, the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.

4. Use tongs to lift the pasta out of the water and transfer it quickly, while it’s dripping with water, to the skillet with the bagna cauda. Place the skillet over high heat. Toss the pasta to combine the ingredients and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.

5. Using tongs, divide the pasta among 4 plates, twisting it into mounds. Grate a generous layer of cheese over each. Place an egg over the cheese and season with sea salt. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta and serve with more grated cheese and pepper. Serves 4.

For dessert: Caramelized Pears With Mascarpone Cream, Brandy-Raisin Brown Butter
and Biscotti

For the mascarpone cream:
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 vanilla bean (or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract)
8 canned pear halves, drained, at room temperature
1/3 cup raisins
1/4 cup brandy
8 biscotti.

1. Make the mascarpone cream: combine the mascarpone, cream and sugar in a medium bowl. Beat the egg in a liquid measuring cup, read the measure, and pour out half to obtain half an egg. Add to the mascarpone and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until it forms stiff peaks. Be careful not to overbeat.

2. Melt the butter with the sugar in a large skillet over high heat. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape the seeds into the skillet and stir to combine. (Alternatively, stir in the vanilla extract.) When the butter starts to bubble, add the pears, cut side down, and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until they're nicely browned. (The butter should brown but not burn. If necessary, lower the heat slightly.) Place 2 pear halves cut side up, side by side, on each of 4 soup or dessert plates, leaving the butter in the skillet.

3. Add the raisins and brandy to the skillet and simmer over low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until the raisins are plump and the sauce has thickened slightly.

4. Spoon a dollop of the mascarpone cream over each pear half. Spoon the butter-raisin sauce over the mascarpone and serve with a plateful of biscotti in the center of the table. Serves 4.