Winding Down

so here we are in our last few days in northern california. yesterday we toured the city on foot. we've had beautiful weather this whole time- the bay area is known to be quite chilly, even this time of year, so we came equipped w/ warm clothes, but it's been sunny and hot the whole time. so yesterday, we first went to blue bottle coffee cafe- a sort of out of the way locals-only cafe known for their fancy slow drip, crazy good organic coffees- we shared among us an espresso, a mocha, a hot chocolate (local grown ingredients, naturally), and a few iced coffees. it was STRONG and good. a great way to start the day.

from coffee we headed toward the MOMA (museum of modern art) to see a frida kahlo exhibition. she's one of my favorite artists and i've seen a pretty comprehensive collection of her works before in new york, but this was especially saucesome since there were many photographs of her, really showing her life along side her work. very cool. if you've never seen her stuff, check it out for your ownself.

then we went to ghirardelli square for some nummies....a local treat....and then we wandered more around fisherman's wharf and found a famous bread company called "boudin" where we watched the bakery assembly line for a hot minute.

then we headed down to the haight-ashbury district ("the haight") to see what all the hype is about and to buy a cool jacket for my husband. this area was, back in the day, THE PLACE for hippies and beatniks alike...the dead and janis joplin and many others called this musically home.

then my husband, in his fabulous new mr. rogers hipster sweater/jacket and i went to the "it" vegetarian restaurant in the city called "millenium." the food and drinks were amazing- such as wilted spinach salad w/ smoked tofu, carmelized onions, potatoes and figs with fig mustard dressing....blackberry infused gin....etc, etc.

today- to berkeley to check it out- took BART (bay area rapid transit) to awesome pizza place called gioia for no doubt the greatest pizza i've ever had- the sauce, the cheese, the crust, all of it- amazing. then we walked forever to the scharffen berger chocolate factory for a tour and tasting.....also, quite an awesome experience. and we got to wear hair nets, which is always a plus.

one last day tomorrow.....have had such an awesome time, but ready to get back to home and dog...and studying.....grrr...

Rockin' at the Clink or Clinkin' at The Rock?

woke up in this gorgeous city today and went promptly to the pier to take a ferry out to angel island and alcatraz island. i popped a dramamine to get through my potential boat motion sickness and so for our whole tour of angel island i was in a pleasantly numb groggy state. (i totally understand and fear addictions to benzodiazepines- i hear that they give you a similar chilled out feeling- but i'm such a light weight- 1 dramamine takes a little more than the edge off of me so i can't imagine what a xanax would do) and in said state, i stared out at the ocean and reflected on how excited i am for my future, my career and my life- which is good because last night i had nightmares about totally botching my first few days on the job and failing my exam and eeeeeeekkkkkk......so anyway, relaxed and not nauseous, we proceeded with our tour. the island is beautiful itself and offers incredible views of the golden gate bridge, bay bridge and the city. angel island was a military fort for many years and then an internment camp for chinese immigrants who were being shut out of the US when populations controls were being enforced. so there's much history there.




then the ferry took us to alcatraz. which is pretty intense. i get uncomfortable in places with such clear echoes of human suffering- so i laid back a little from actually going into the cells, checking out the morgue, etc. but the audio tour was cool. guards and inmates from when the prison was open (1933-1963) are interviewed and it really gives you a feel of what it would be like to live/work there. families of guards lived on the island, too. the infamy of many of the fellons was something to hear (robert "birdman" stroud who, before coming to alcatraz, allegedly kept birds in his cell in a previous prison to mask the smell of moonshine being made, george "machine gun" kelly, of course al capone, the baby faced mobster who went crazy from tertiary syphilis, among many others)...and learning of the escape attempts, about which many famous movies have been made, was also pretty impressive. there's one where 3 guys successfully got away by making fake heads for themselves out of soap and yarn and stuff and tucking them into their cots so the guards didn't notice their absence until morning.



then we walked around fisherman's wharf and got awesome clam chowder in a bread bowl, clams, oysters and fancy bloody mary's....and saw the beach bathing sea lions en masse.



then walked, well, really crawled on hands and knees the 15 blocks DIRECTLY UP to get back to our hotel. this is a very hilly city, in case you haven't heard...and my dear, we found the tallest mountain route. when we got back to our hotel, my parents and i relaxed, my insane husband ran 7 1/2 miles for his marathon training (i should really check HIM for tertiary syphilis). then we got delicious pizza (uncle vito's across the street- brocolli/mushroom/garlic) and drank one of our many bottles of wine. we did not check out the show below, but as we walked past, did find ourselves wondering exactly what makes the show world famous..... :)



all in all, a great day. to shopping and chocolating tomorrow.....trala!

Pretty, Yummy, Fun Squared

my family was dismayed that i neglected to mention in my blog yesterday that yesterday we also went to a petrified forest up in the mountains of napa. i was less than plussed by those giant tree/stones but apparently they're a wonder of the world, blah, blah, blah. :) so there you go. are you happy? now you know that we wandered among the old, undead trees.

today was a long day and i'm tired. morning we ran over to mumm's winery to try their sparkling wines. we did a tasting menu of their dries and my parents did a tasting menu of their 'best of' and all were quite lovely. i also tried a sparkling pinot noir, which was fun. my husband's never been much of a wine drinker, but this trip he's sort of been enjoying it- and he definitely decided he likes sparkling wines the best. mumm's is also known for its beautiful view over a valley.

we did lunch on the terrace at a beautiful restaurant called auberge du soleil. also known for its view. it was pretty fancy- see pics of some of our dishes below. and we tried a sparkling wine called blanc de blancs by schramberg that we actually liked more than any of the mumm's wines. this vineyard's sparkling wine was on recommendation from my brother-in-law- we weren't able to schedule a tasting at their winery, so were glad to have a chance to try one of their products elsewhere.

we stopped at a laundromat to refresh our clothing supply, then went to the franciscan winery for a tasting tour where we did a blind taste test of some of their larger international company's wines. it was fun- we're all pretty amateurish, but it was interesting trying to guess at grape types and all that.

then we headed back to san francisco ("the city") and we'll be here for the rest of the trip. we went to china town for dinner and it was awesome. my husband said "china is the coolest country in the world" as he bought a t-shirt for $2.99...a block later the same shirt was $1.88. :)

now to bed as i'm exhausted and we have alcatraz in the morning....

Another Day in Paradise

-the aftermath of wine tasting at robert mondavi-

...so while many of my peers sweated over a 6 hour exam today, i went to 2 more wineries and drove over a mountain. we had a beautiful day getting sunburned with the convertible top down. had a late start this morning and then went on a wild goose chase for a wine from this area that my dad had in a pub at home a while ago and that no one 'round here seems to know anything about. it's called pinot meunier and is a special grape that very few vineyards grow and only a few bottle on its own and not in a mix...so our track for this holy grape grail took us to a tiny little winery called august briggs out in calistoga. they only sell something like 5,000 cases/year total and are not very commercial....so we felt especially cool enjoying and purchasing their lake county 2005 petit syrah and 2006 dijon clones pinot noir. they did NOT have the one we were searching for available, so we'll have to keep trying elsewhere. our old camera crapped out, so i have no pics of that lovely little winery.

so we went to santa rosa (a large city in the area- 160,000 population w/ all the big box stores) to best buy to buy a new camera (it's awesome!)....so we have TONS of pics from our tour to robert mondavi vineyard in oakville. we got a great private tour (i don't know how to put this-but we're kind of a big deal) including peeking at the grapes about to be harvested, checking out the presses, the barrels, and the fermenting tanks- they use french oak HUGE barrels instead of the stainless steel tanks we've seen in most other places- and lastly, doing an extensive tasting. it was a great time and i fell in love (and bought) their estate-only 2006 PNX carneros pinot noir.

Healthy Hearts, Happy Minds

i say, if one small glass of red wine a day can prevent a heart attack, then 15 glasses in a day can make me live forever!

first stop- beringer vineyard. gorgeous grounds and a quick tour of their "caves" where they store some of their cabernet or something as it ages...this is a big, old vineyard- founded in the 1870's and one of only 3 or 4 that survived prohibition (1919-1933) by making condoned wines for churches and medicinal purposes. it's a huge winery and is very commercial- it ships something like 1 million cases of wine a year. (by the by- a normal bottle is 750 mls and a case is 12 bottles. one of those barrels shown below holds 59 gallons, or 300 bottles of wine in it). we took just a brief touristy tour w/ a flock of other tourists and got a 'splash' sample of 3 of their wines- i didn't take notes on these because they were all pretty ecky in their own way- but we had a chardonnay, a petit syrah, and a sparkling white zinfandel. they may have all been their 'estate' brands, meaning you can't buy them in stores and can only get them on property. but still- not my bag, baby. i did buy the world's most awesome and hard core corkscrew, so if anyone needs a bottle opened or someone killed, just let me know.



second stop- sequoia grove winery. this was kind of on a whim. my dad had done a sampling of theirs at some point back home and had a hat w/ their name on it, so he felt a kindred spirit with them and we had to check it out. it was smallish and we only saw the show room/tasting room- which was built to resemble a log cabin. it was beautiful. and the wine pourer lady (there is a word for that, i know) was charming and british. and i LOVED the chardonnay. it was amazing. i am a red wine drinker (typically shiraz/syrah/chianti/pinot noir) and have found very few whites that i can tolerate. so part of my mission on this trip was to find a white that i like enough to add it to my little wine repertoire. in the past, i've found most chardonnays to have sort of a urine-y aftertaste which surprisingly, i find somewhat unpleasant (why do i know what urine tastes like you ask? it was a long, cold winter...just kidding...but seriously...). so i was thrilled to taste sequoia grove's carnero's 2006 napa valley chardonnay. it is cheapish (there $25/bottle) and is made 100% of chardonnay grapes. the way my amateur self described it in my notes (using my wine magazine cheat sheet) was "medium bodied with pleasant acidity and pleasant tannins" and then instead of describing what fruits/flowers i smelled/tasted in it (the website says "the aroma on this wine is tropical, with a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon in the back ground. Some orange blossom and fresh lemon lime shine through. On the palate, there are citrus and lemon zest flavors and the creamy length is refreshing yet rich.") i simply wrote on the side of my notes, "doesn't have annoying chard taste- es good!" i will be buying more of that in the future. for sho'. the others there we sampled were also good, but nothing else really stood out to me. we had their stage coach syrah, their new rebellious red, and their rutherford bench reserve 2004 (which my dad really liked) and their regular house cab.



**here we stopped for a lunch break at a cool place called mustard's grill just north of napa. it's described as upscale truckstop food. and i would say it's a really fancy (white table cloths, $30 entrees) american diner. it was great. the onion rings w/ chives and apple ketchup were delicious.

third stop- we had scheduled a private wine tasting out in carneros at a vineyard called cuvaison winery. they are known for their chardonnays and pinot noirs. they ship about 60,000 cases/year, so it's considered about a medium sized winery for the area. we saw the vines, the presses, the barrels, the bottling machines, the temperature control towers, all of it. it was a great tour. and the wine expert lady (again, there's a word for this i'm sure) was very friendly and helpful, answering all of our idiot questions without hesitation. the views in every direction were breathtaking. it's sort of on a hill looking down at a lake and up at mountains, out over fields and other vineyards. gorgeous. the tasting was lengthy- we tried 6-8 wines. i absolutely loved their 2006 carneros syrah which had a lot of peppery spice to it and was a really beautiful dark purple. i also loved (and we brought some home w/ us-trala!) the 2006
block F5 pinot noir- the "f5" part of it indicates that it is not a blend of grapes from different regions of their property- it is 100% syrah grapes from a certain strain in a segment on their 400 acres labeled f5. it was medium colored, very smooth and pleasant. i ALSO liked their 2006 carneros pinot noir a lot- it was light in color, with a very cherry nose/palate. my parents also bought some of their cab. they don't use grapes from other vineyards, they're all their own- and a lot of what we bought can only be purchased on site.



then we went into napa and went shopping and i bought a yellow scarf to go w/ my oversized sun glasses to go with the convertible we're traipsing around in. :) all in all, a very good day. thanks for indulging me- i don't know if all this gab is interesting to anyone but me and my posterity of this trip.

and as far as the whole PA world goes- i'm getting constant calls/emails from my classmates who are all taking their licensing exam this week. they're scared but prepared. which i will be in another few weeks. for now, not thinking about it. just drinking some vino in honor of my homies.

I Will Never Recover from This Food Coma

meal today. i can hardly type straight right now i'm so full and a little happy tipsy. the "french laundry" is listed in some sources as the 3rd best restaurant in the world. people come from places far and wide to dine here and it takes some 10 months to get a reservation usually. because we have someone 'on the inside' we were able to get in while we're here. our meal lasted 4 1/2 hours with a small break where we wandered around their impressive gardens between the 3rd and 4th courses. it is tre expensive....but you get a lot of major bang for your buck. all 9 courses plus complimentary appetizers and desserts plus coffees plus tip for $240 per person. and then the bottles of wine ranged from around $100 to $9,200. PER BOTTLE! they also had wine by the glass, 1/2 bottle, carafe, and a full bar.

it was amazing. it's set in a beautiful stone building. actually a former laundry house. very unassuming from the outside. inside it is a relaxing and simple but elegant atmosphere with impeccable service.

the wine list was some 20 pages long and included an amazing variety or local, other american, and all kinds of italian and french wines. we chose 2. we had a full bottle of the 'sea smoke southing' pinot noir that was really light and fruity with lovely legs and a half bottle of the 'peay' syrah- which was much darker and bolder. (do i sound like a stooge? you'll tell me if i sound like a stooge, right?).

the food....the food! there were 2 menus available to choose from, each with 9 courses. one was the "chef's tasting menu" and the other was the "tasting of vegetables." since i eat seafood but no other meats, i had kind of a combination of them both. and because the portions are basically just small (beautifully designed) tastes, we aren't overwhelmingly full. very satisfied, but not sickly full.

when we got there, they gave us each a glass of complimentary champagne called "veuve clicquot." it's lovely and we've had it at home before.

for the rest of our meal, here were my courses, in order:

1. gruyere puff pastries (house appetizer- nutty creamy hot cheese in tiny pastry)
2. salmon tartar cornets (house appetizer little ice cream cornmeal cones w/ red onion and cream fraiche and silky salmon tartar)
3. cauliflower panna cotta (really creamy, totally blended chilled cauliflower gelatin with oyster glaze and white sturgeon caviar over top)
4. salad of french laundry garden tomatoes- compressed watermelon, jicama ribbons, avocado coulis and lime basil (this may have been my favorite- the lime basil was a meal by itself- so much flavor in tiny little leaves- and kind of a spicy sauce)
5. santa barbara sea urchin-hearts of palm, green apple, sesame tofu, thinly sliced radish, and scallions
6. sauteed pave of kindai tuna w/ sunchokes, broccolini, hazelnuts, and green orange sauce
7. new bedford scallop w/ frog hollow peaches, turnips, sugar snap peas, nicoise olice oil and garden thyme
8. fricassee of hand-rolled russet potato gnocchi w/ bluefoot mushrooms, golden corn, and lovage
9. rogue creamery oregon blue cheese w/ transparent apples, belgian, endive, toasted pecans
10. jacobsen's farm yellow nectarine sorbet w/ andante dairy yogurt and puffed quinoa
11. armando manni olice oil madeleine w/ almond glaze, bing cherries and marcona almond-olive oil sorbet
12. espressos and lattes
13. "mignardises"- a complimentary selection of tiny little chocolates (w/ different fillings- banana cream, peanut butter, praline, passion fruit, berry, etc) and a bunch of other little desserts like white chocolate and tupelo honey bar, almond toffee something, lemon meringue, chili chocolate truffle, cocoa and black sesame truffle, etc.

amazing. i'm so happy and satisfied and relaxed. a true celebration.

later tonight we're going to the little town near here to watch a new movie w/ alan rickman about the foundation of the american wine industry- "bottle shock."

the gardens of the "french laundry":



my husband's dessert- bitter amedei chocolate pave w/ banana tempura, peanut butter mousse and chocolate powder, frozen chocolate shavings:



my mom's dessert- delice au chocolat et a la menthe w/ amedei chuao chocolate-mint parfait and mint syrup:

First Day Vacation Awesomeness

we arrived in san francisco at about noon. (evidently you're supposed to call it "the city" not "frisco" or "san fran" or you'll mark yourself an obvious tourist). our flight was direct and went very smoothly. i got some studying done (GUILTILY did bring some work with me) and started reading "middlesex" by jeffrey eugenides (a friend recommended "the virgin suicides" by the same author- i'll get to that one after i finish this one) and i'm loving it so far. i also bought "wideacre" by philippa gregory who wrote "the other boleyn girl" which i enjoyed. i've learned that i like historical fiction- especially about kings and queens and such. according to what i've read, their lives were like american celebrities' but SO much more scandalous and crazy. i also enjoyed"marie antoinette" by antonia fraser. (both those books were made into bad movies- for the record, i read the books first and not because they were connected to their cinematic counterparts- herumph!).

we didn't spend much time in the city, but i made a few observations. firstly, there are a lot of environmental awareness signs around like "only use what you need" on the paper towel dispenser in the airport bathroom. and the homeless people digging in the trash cans in front of starbucks look more like young hippies i know than the sad, aging, addicts i'm accustomed to seeing on the sides of streets in my part of the world.

it's a beautiful city from what we saw- the houses on the hill sides floored me. the ocean, the fog hanging over and moving QUICKLY up and down the hills. it's really enchanting. i can't wait to go back and see more of it.

we rented a gold chrysler sebring convertible (WOO!) to drive around in and it's roomy enough for all of us and stylish enough for a california getaway (HOO!). we crossed the golden gate bridge to head north to muir woods (http://www.visitmuirwoods.com/), a famous preserved redwood forest just northeast of the city. we walked on a "moderate" trail about 4.5 miles round trip and it was breathtaking and amazing to see the sheer size of these trees, the vastness of the woods. the trail was a little challenging for those of us in sandals- but was a good workout and a lot of fun.

we then headed over to napa valley. it's everything i expected and more. gorgeous hills and valleys, fields of grape leaves as far as you can see. and the villas that mark each vineyard are magnificent- sprawling, amazing architecture. i'll get more pics as we go. the bed and breakfast we're staying in is old and gorgeous. an elvis movie was filmed here back in the day, apparently. so i'm hoping for a peanut butter and banana sandwich at some point. :) we sat under the stars last night and drank a parallel rows petit sirah (2005, by 'the blue horse wine and cattle company') that was very "berry forward and light in tannins." (see? i'm practicing). today we're off to eat at the best local restaurant..."the french laundry" (http://www.frenchlaundry.com/). it's somewhere between 5 and 9 courses and is promised to be incredible. many more wine and food tales to come....