Relish Culinary Adventures is the roving culinary experience operator of Sonoma County, founded in 2003 by Donna del Rey, a Slow Food Snail of Approval recipient and Les Dames d'Escoffier member, who built a culinary education company without a fixed kitchen because Sonoma's food story doesn't live in a single building. Classes pop up at vineyards, farms, and food producer locations across the county. Wild mushroom foraging in winter, vineyard-side cheesemaking in spring, farm-to-table dinners through summer and harvest. The format is the editorial differentiator: every Relish class is rooted in the actual place its ingredients come from.
Donna del Rey's twenty-plus year operating history has built deep relationships with the producers who host her classes: the cheese makers at Bellwether and Pennyroyal, the farmers at McEvoy Ranch and Tara Firma, the winemakers across the Russian River and Alexander Valley. The standard formats are Public Pop-Up Classes (open registration), Custom Corporate Events (private bookings for offsites and team-building), and seasonal specialties like the Wild Mushroom Foraging adventures with a Sonoma County mycologist guide. The company also runs Culinary Tours that travel a region for a half-day, stopping at three or four producers with tastings at each. Pricing varies by format. The Slow Food Snail of Approval signals the operating philosophy: local, seasonal, ethically sourced, no exceptions.
