Delicious breakfast from our hotel this morning ( that never happens!). A decent spattering of wine tasting around the valley. Awesome snack at the culinary institute. Wine and cheese picnic, and some bocce and pool time back at the hotel.
There often comes a time when a person says to themselves, “Did that just happen?”. This day was filled with these moments, and I think the day warrants a little more detail than the previous couple posts.
The day started out pretty unassuming. We checked out of our vomit-smelling room in Santa Cruz, and went on search for breakfast. We ended up finding a goldmine when we walked into a cafe bakery called Buttery. We ordered a croissant sandwich and a Croque Monsieur and picked up some bakery items for Mark and David who we were on our way to pick up from the San Francisco Airport.
The airport pickup when fairly smoothly. Our next stop on the map was Yountville, CA, Just a few miles north of Napa in wine country. About ten miles out the general concensus was that we were hungry and wanted a taco, so we pulled off the highway and found immediately found a taco truck. We also found that David’s wallet had gone missing sometime between the time he ordered a bloody mary on the plane and getting in our car. After a lot of phone calls, and a drive back to the airport, the wallet still hasn’t turned up. So now david is our child for a few days while we wait for his roommate to next day air his passport from New York.
After the a little while of wallet hunting, we headed north towards Napa. We decided it would be a good idea to calm our nerves with a drink, so we pulled off the highway again and found a small dive bar named “Town House” for a cold one. This is where we met Marco. Marco greeted us with a flamboyand “Hey boys” and shortly after serving our drinks brought over four shots of “hot Sex” on the house. Lady Gaga was plugged into the jukebox and then another man at the bar bought us a round of drinks. It was about this time that I realized that we were at a gay bar and they were pretty excited to see new customers that were both A) not locals and B) younger than 50. I believe we actually paid for about one drink each, but got four or five, as well as a bowl of microwave popcorn. Walking out of this place definatley left us with “did that just happen?”
We arrived in Yountville and found the Napa Valley Lodge where we’re staying. I won’t go into detail on this, just believe me when I say it’s beautiful.
We went for a walk down the street, ate some oysters, and strolled past the French Laundry Gardens. On the way back, we decided to pick up a bottle of wine to take back to the hotel drink while playing a game of Bocce ball. What we got when we walked in was far from what we expected. The store owners and workers and a couple of locals were circled around the desk doing a wine-tasting with themselves. Our new friends started chatting it up with us, and placed a glass and six bottles of wine in front of us and offered us to help ourselves. They had clearly started their wine tasting quite some time ago. We made some friends and got some good tips about where to go tomorrow, but the best thing that came out of this stop can be seen in the video below.
We got a tip that the chefs at the French Laundry really appreciate it when a customer brings in a pack of cold beer for them, so Alyssa and I stopped in at a market on the walk home and got five 750ml bottles of really good beer. The unfortunate part of this story was that on the walk home, both handles of the paper bag they were nestled in broke off in my hand, and four of the bottles came crashing down on the sidewalk in front of a fine dining restaurant. Perhaps one of the saddest sights I’ve ever seen.
After some low-key time at our hotel resting up and playing a couple games of Bocce Ball, we suited up on our jackets and ties and walked back down the the
French Laundry for a meal like no other meal. This is a seriously classy joint, and although each plate is a tiny, perfectly plated piece of art, after nine or ten of them and a few glasses of wine, we were all in food coma.
Top 5:
1. Coffee and quiche in Carmel by the Sea.
2. Lunch at Nepenthe, up on the cliffs of Big Sur.
3. Racing the surf to get to Hidden Beach and losing=wet feet.
4. Hiking the cliffs at Pfeiffer State Park.
5. Listening to our playlists driving the cliffs of Big Sur-so beautiful!!!
Our first day of west coast adventure went great! No disasters and no injuries!
Top 5 of today:
Well, It’s the evening before we fly 
out. Alyssa and I are all packed and ready to wake up early for a 9am flight to start our road trip from San Francisco to Vancouver. I’ll spare you all the details since they’ll unfold themselves a little at a time over the next few weeks. We don’t have a solid route, we plan on playing most of it by ear, but to the right is a general idea of where we plan on driving. We’ll be spending about a week in San Francisco area, where Mark and David will be joining us for a few days, then we pick up our “wicked camper van” and hit the highway headed north.
We started this site a couple years ago to document some of our dinners and cooking, but that project has sort of died down in the last year or two, so our new plan with this blog over the next few weeks is to be able to post notes, photos and videos to document how our trip is going. I’m sure if you keep checking in you’ll catch some photos from our dinner at the French Laundry in Yountville, our weekend apartment in San Francisco, hiking among the giants in the Redwood National Forest, artisan food truck lunches in Portland, fish tossing in Seattle, and river taxis in Vancouver. Plus lots of unexpected adventures I’m sure.
We’ll be updating from the airport tomorrow morning. Wish us luck!
Thick, Hearty and God-Damn Delicious
So I just finished making (and eating) what is probably the very best stew I’ve ever had in my life. I made this once last winter for an ice fishing trip, and after a year I was wondering if maybe my fond memories of the unbelievably delicious, hearty flavor were a figment of fading memories and associations with the fun times I enjoyed my last batch in. So I remade this recipe (which happens to be inspired by one of my favorite cookbook writers, Cresent DragonWagon) and the truth of the matter is that it really is as God-damn good as I remembered it being.
It’s not so easy to make a good hearty vegetarian stew, because typically the thick, rich liquid is made by the simmering of some sort of beef or fill-in-your-flesh-of choice and pulling out the juices. I’ll save you the details of the recipe, but the base of this one is made with veggie stock, tamari and red wine, with a little plum vinegar. Add some saitan and root vegetables an some time on the stove (and some secret ingredients!) and you’ve got yourself a dish that will warm up cold show-shoveling or car-window-scraping minnesotan.
The icing on the cake is that the wine that’s leftover from the recipe is naturally a perfect pairing for the finished dish
Swedish-y Meatballs: the grown up version of Gramma's delight. That sounded bad.
So, as 30 approaches, I am finally understanding what people mean when when they say, “I can’t eat like I used to.” It’s true! On one hand, I will NEVER sacrifice flavor for the sake of a smaller belt notch, but on the other hand I am realizing that I simply can’t expect to eat the richest, cheesiest, creamiest dishes every night of the week and not feel like wearing my pajama pants to work everyday. So, in the spirit of compromise, I am researching ways to mimic my favorite rich dishes in a more healthy, non-artery clogging, heart-stopping way. It’s a lesson in food science.
Tonight I made one of my favorites: Swedish Meatballs. Traditionally, this dish comes with a few cans of Cream of Mushroom soup. Instead of that, I used milk, veggie broth, butter and flour. Add some nutmeg and all-spice and when I closed my eyes I was almost back at Gramma’s house eating meatballs and being called a schiester while Grampa cheats at a game of cribbage. Ah family.
I also used ground turkey instead of ground beef or pork.
Meatballs:
2 slices whole wheat bread, in small pieces (soaked in 1/2 c. milk)
2 lbs. ground turkey
2 eggs
1/2 c. breadcrumbs
nutmeg and allspice
Sauce:
3 T blsp butter
1/4 c. flour
1 c. milk
3 c. veggie/chx broth
spinach
nutmeg and allspice
What says comfort food like chicken pot pie?!? Biggest Loser AND chicken pot pies!!! One of my favorite food-ventures lately has been the chicken pot pies Sarah and I made for TAT #2. As you can see, they were out of this world.
Chicken Pot Pie: Chicken, peas, carrots, celery and delicious gravy (snatch that gravy up!) baked inside of a buttery crispy crust. YUM!
The recipe can be found on one of my favorite blogs, smittenkitchen, here http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/11/chicken-pot-pie/.
After a few attempts at figuring out how to make and affix dough to a tin foil mini pie tin, we got it down and now have a freezer full of the homemade food version of a mom hug. Yay.
Alyssa and I just got back from a little road trip down to chicago to take part in Santacon. Picture 200+ santas waltzing downtown chicago chanting “HO, HO, HO” and crawling from bar to bar indulging in more than their fair share of Holiday Cheer. It was a sight to be seen.
The really great part was the reaction we got from everybody the group passed on the street. There were a lot of honks, high fives and numerous photos with children.
Steph was an awesome host, and we really really can’t wait to make it back to Chicago to see the city properly. It was kindof a whirlwind weekend tour that just made us wanting more. So we will be back…oh yes, we will be back.
Next year, I think the plan is to hit up Santacon NYC!
So last weekend was Dunchfest, my annual celebration of all things breakfast. This year was no let down. I think the highlight of my 20 course day-long meal was the mexican breakfast bake that Jenn brought, which had tons of cheese, eggs and cream of mushroom soup all together in a sloppy, delightful mess, and the mini-quiches on puff pastry made by yours truely. That’s not to mention, of course, the bloody mary bar and hot spiked cider, but that goes without saying.
Here are a few of the other highlights of the day…food wise:
