I pick it up every now and then. I havn't played it vanilla in a while, almost always using at a minimum the lazy newb pack releases that include dwarf therapist, soundsense, custom tile sets, and DFHack.
I also tend to "cheat" a bit given how may hours I have spent when starting a new map/location where-in I will setup an expedition designed mainly to fail, just with a bunch of dwarves trained specifically for mining and smoothing/engraving/digging the basics of a fort and send with them just some minimum food/supplies but lots of durable things like tools, weapons, cages. Then I just have them dig/smooth away until they start to starve and end the expedition. I then send the "real" expedition to the same exact place and pickup right where they left off, but this time, I already have a fortress started (and the tools/items they had are scattered about), and I only have one or two dwarves trained for mining/woodworking, but I have dwarves trained for brewing, crafting, farming, and a doctor. And I bring a barrel of just about every kind with me, as well as turkeys (2 hens, one male), and cows (2 females, 1 male), 2 cats, and 2 dogs and lots of seeds of just about everything I can get.
I will immediately start 1-2 farm plots, so I can start up brewing.
I will make 2 nests for the turkeys and lock the door to them so that dwarves will let them be for the beginning until the first generation of eggs hatch (when I will then have them cage up all the new chicks, separating the males from the females, and repeat locking the door to the nests). Once the second group of eggs hatch, I can then start setting up additional nests, usually 8-12, and bring out the females from the first group that hatched and they will soon be adults to get turkey production really going, at which point I will allow some of the males to be slaughterd/cooked and the new eggs to also be collected and cooked (meaning plenty of meat and food, both for our use and for trade). Just be sure to keep some spare turkeys in a cage in a safe location, both female and male so that if something really bad ever happens, you can quickly get production going again.
I will simillarly start up with the cows for milk, and cheese making. Cheese will let you feed ~10 dwarves for each animal with just 2 plot tiles (for farming). This will also get you some bonuses for having a variety of foods (eggs, turkey meat, milk, cheese, booze cheese biscuits, and eventually meat from slaughtered male cows that get born). You will also start getting a supply of leather for making things by skinning the cows that you slaughter.
But a lot of that is very hard to setup without first having dug out your fortress since you may not be able to protect the animals while creating your initial home. I also highly advise taking some time on the initial plans for the home, since there are some design elements essential for long term well being that can not be easily retrofit into an existing fortress after the fact. You absolutely want your dwarves to go down a main stairwell to their sleeping quarters as well as have the dining hall on a different level than the sleeping quarters. You want that main stairwell to be such that it runs immediately next to a waterfall with a grate on the floor, creating a mist generator on each level of the stairs that the dwarves all need to use constantly. This gives a big boost in happiness levels and keeps you from having dwarves go nuts and start attacking people (well, other than when you don't have the appropriate crafting station and materials for when a dwarf gets inspired, as they go insane if they can't make their inspiration within a certain timeframe). Just make sure you read up a little on this since you don't want to drown your dwarves by flooding your fortress, and you also don't want to have a path for monsters to get in.