These hectic days, I don’t get much time to just sit down for hours with a book.

So, when I do, it better be a darn good read. Or else.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentices” (Free Press) is just that.

It’s a riveting read — and the best non-fiction book I came across last year.

Author Lisa Abend, Time magazine’s correspondent in Spain, received unprecedented access to the fabled El Bulli restaurant in Roses, Spain before its Chef-Proprietor Ferran Adria closed it to much fanfare last year. The result is a book that immerses you in the behind-the-scenes awe, tension, strain and exhilaration experienced by the stagiares or apprentices who worked in the kitchen there.

Unlike other restaurants, where kitchen apprentices usually are culinary school students or recent graduates, the stagiares at El Bulli were the experienced cream of the crop, having already worked their way up at such stellar establishments as the French Laundry in Yountville, Per Se in New York, Alinea in Chicago and the Fat Duck in the United Kingdom.

If you thought trying to snag a reservation at El Bulli was impossible, the odds of attaining an apprenticeship there were even more astronomical. In the last years it was open, the restaurant would routinely field 3,000 applications annually for just 32 available intern positions.

And those that garnered the golden ticket that allowed them to work in what was generally regarded as the best restaurant in the world? They paid their own way to Spain to spend six months toiling 14 hours a day on their feet — for no pay.

With beautifully detailed prose, Abend really gets inside the heads of these chosen few to show exactly what it’s like to be an apprentice in this highly demanding, pioneering kitchen. Some of the revelations will definitely surprise — such as the fact that the interns, who labored day after day to create painstakingly complex components, never get to taste any of the completed dishes they work on. Or the fact that one of the first tasks these skilled and talented chefs are assigned is to clean, one by one, all the rocks that make up the pathway to the restaurant.

For anyone who has ever wanted to dine at El Bulli or wondered what it takes to work at a restaurant of that caliber, this book is a must-read that you won’t be able to put down.

Contest: The paperback version of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentices” goes on sale Feb. 7. But one Food Gal reader will get a chance to win a free copy of the book. Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight Feb. 4. Winner will be announced Feb. 6.

How to win?

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You don’t expect to find a glam, contemporary Indian restaurant in a strip mall off El Camino Real in Sunnyvale.

But Arka, named for the sun, has risen in what was once a Spoons coffee shop.

Opened just six weeks ago, Arka serves up the flavors of various regions throughout India, but particularly the south. Step inside and you’re immediately transported to somewhere besides the congested thoroughfare right outside the door. Jewel colors of crimson, gold, eggplant and lime green offer a warm welcome, along with some of the snazziest light fixtures around, including drum lights that hide a cityscape of New York. How cool is that?

A lunch menu is offered daily. But dinner is where you can really sit back and enjoy. That definitely means indulging in some of the fun bar offerings, including beer flights ($9 each), and a farmers’ market cocktail ($8) blended with seasonal fruit and herbs.

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“Wine and Wishes” Tasting and Gala Dinner

More than 50 restaurants and wineries will join together Feb. 4 for the 11th annual “Wine and Wishes,” a benefit for the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The extravaganza, a fund-raiser for the organization that grants wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses, will take place at City View at the Metreon in downtown San Francisco.

The evening kicks off at 5 p.m. with a “Gourmet Food & Wine Tasting,” where attendees can sample a slew of hors d’oeuvres and wines from from 23 restaurants and 26 wineries, including the Slanted Door in San Francisco, Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco and Cakebread Cellars.

At 7:30 p.m., nine local executive chefs — including Roland Passot of La Folie in San Francisco, Gerald Hirigoyen of Piperade in San Francisco and Arnold Eric Wong of E&O Trading Company in San Francisco — will prepare a four-course dinner, pairing each course with select wines.

Tickets for the “Gourmet Tasting” are $150 per person. Tickets for the dinner range from $350 to $1,000 per person, which includes admission to the” Gourmet Tasting.”

Time for “Martinis & Manicures”

Grab an after-work cocktail — and get your nails done. How’s that for the ultimate pampering?

Indulge in that two-fer, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Feb. 7 and March 6, at the Hotel Valencia at Santana Row in San Jose.

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It wasn’t long ago that the notion of a restaurant operating inside a hotel doomed it to second-tier status.

While that no longer holds true, the idea of a fine-dining restaurant inside a grocery store still prompts some disbelief.

But when Viognier opened inside the gourmet market, Draeger’s in San Mateo 15 years ago, it made a convincing case that unlikely scenario could work.

After all, the restaurant was opened by none other than Chef Gary Danko, who later left to open his own eponymous restaurant in San Francisco. He was followed by Chef Scott Giambastiani, who is now an executive chef at Google. Chef Preston Dishman, former chef-partner of the General’s Daughter in Sonoma, took over the restaurant, named for the aromatic grape varietal from the Northern Rhone region of France, in 2008.

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Executive Chef Staffan Terje of San Francisco’s Perbacco and Chef Tony Mantuano of Chicago’s famed Spiaggia have shared a kinship ever since Terje’s elegant Italian establishment opened in 2006.

So much so, that the two chefs have sent their cooks to the other’s restaurant regularly to hone their skills even more.

Saturday night, Mantuano was only too happy to partner with Terje in a special dinner at Perbacco, “Inverno in Piemonte,” a fund-raiser for the James Beard Foundation’s scholarship program for culinary students.

“Staffan is a great friend and a great chef,” Mantuano, a former competitor on “Top Chef Masters,” told the crowd. “And this is one of the places in the world I always look forward to going to.”

Yours truly was honored to be an invited guest at the 60-seat event, where every seat was taken.

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