Weekend recap

I have a love/hate relationships with winter.  I am not a big fan of cold, ice, coats - all things that come with winter.  But, the last couple of weekends have been great to just kind of hunker down and spend some good time at home.

Friday night, after long days at work for both of us, we stayed in, opened a great bottle of wine, had soup for dinner and cozied on the couch with a movie.  We finally got around to watching The Help!

I read the book in the summer and it was absolutely one of my favorite books.  I've had a hard time picking up another one since then, because I know it just won't be as good.  I've started a couple, but just can't seem to get into anything...suggestions welcomed!  The movie was very good - not quite as great as the book, but still good.  I'm so glad we finally watched it!

Saturday we got a little ice and snow around the DC area.  We got up early and went to Wegmans, and then got a ton of things done around the house...all of those little things you put off for months that just suck out time...those things.  But it felt so great to get the grocery shopping, good workouts, and other chores finished!

Saturday night we headed over to Clarendon and met one of our favorite couples for dinner at Eventide.  It's on the same block as Liberty Tavern.  The lounge on the first floor is a great spot, and I've been several times.  We hadn't been to dinner there, so we were excited to try it.

The main dining room is on the second floor and is just stunning.  We were totally not expecting the gorgeous, 2 story room when we walked up the stairs.  Long, navy velvet curtains, bench couches at booths and other tables and chairs are placed around the room.  It's very spacious and elegant.

The food and wine was fantastic.  We had the 2004 Burgess Napa Valley Syrah, which was great.  I had the braised short rib, and I wanted to lick the plate - I only used my knife for the broccolini, the meat was so tender I didn't need one.  Everyone raved about their dinners, we will certainly go back.  We were so glad we decided to finally try it for dinner!

Sunday I met up with a girlfriend of mine for brunch at Chef Geoff's in Tysons.  It was great to catch up and have a delicious, leisurely brunch.  We both had veggie omelets, and they were very good. The steamed milk for our coffees was a great touch!

Sunday afternoon was spent watching football, doing more chores around the house, cooking a delicious and healthy dinner of skinny salisbury steak, and getting ready for the week.

As much as we like to travel and be active and busy on the weekends, it's amazing how refreshing it is to stay home, spend time together, and be productive!

What did you do over the weekend?



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Final day in Napa

Sunday morning in Napa Valley was another cool, foggy morning.  We wanted to get another good walk in after all of the rich food we'd eaten the night before at Redd.  This time I took my camera as we were walking through Yountville and past some beautiful vineyards.  

I love this one - huge, fully grown, wild Cabernet vines next to brand new ones.

After a delicious Masion Fleurie breakfast, we made 1 winery stop before our brunch reservations.  We stopped into Raymond for a tasting.  Their tastings are typical Napa style - 3 different tastings of 4 wines at 3 (expensive) prices - $15, $20, and $25.  We picked the middle one with several Syrah options.  The expensive one was for the 'Crystal Room' which is this totally funky, club like room.  While the sales pressure was a little much, the guy was pretty nice.  The wines we tasted were $40 each, and after a $20 (not refunded with purchase) tasting fee, that made their bottles pretty pricey.

Napa was definitely busy that day!  We'd never seen traffic like this...

We headed back into Yountville for brunch at Ad Hoc.  Our favorite west coasters, good family friends who live in Sausalito, drove up to join us.  It was so fun to see them!  As always, we shared good winery and restaurant finds, talked about our parents, and enjoyed catching up.

Brunch was just fantastic, of course!  Everything is served family style on large beautiful trays and pans.  The salad was crisp and fresh.  The steak and eggs - oh man.  Mushrooms, potatoes, delicious steak and scrambled eggs.  We all wanted to lick the pan.  And the carrot cupcakes.  I'm not a big carrot cake fan but let me tell you.  We all thought about eating the paper just to get every last crumb.

After saying goodbye to the Pierces, we went to our last winery of the trip, The Terraces.  It was a wonderful spot to end the amazing trip.  Nate, one of the winemakers, was our guide and he was fantastic.

Sitting on some incredible real estate on Silverado Trail, tucked behind an very unassuming gate, Terraces winery is an amazing place full of cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel vines.  Nate put us into their utility golf car and we headed off to check out some vines and views - just look at this one!  It's amazing - you can almost see all of Napa Valley from the top of their property.

We were literally riding through the vines.  It was great!  Along the ride, we stopped in one of their stone buildings dating back to the 1880s.  This one houses their balsamic vinegar barrels.  The lesson in balsamic aging was super cool, and we got to taste it straight out of a few barrels, tasting the difference. It was really interesting to see how it's aged in the different size and wood type barrels.

See how the size is graduated?  After 1 year, they go in and use the smaller one to fill up the larger one to replace what's evaporated.  Then they cover them with the cheesecloth and wait another year.  Each barrel is made from different wood type, and they have a significantly different taste between the different types.

Then we went back into their 'tasting room' which doubles as a guest house above their wine making facility.  We tried several of their wines, and really enjoyed our time chatting with Nate.  He showed us different blending options, and how really simple wine making can be.  A splash of this, a splash of that...swirl, drink sip.  We had a great time with him, and could have hung out with him all day.  If they come out with a fifty-fifty-fifty blend, that was all us :)

We hated to say goodbye to Nate and to Napa, but it was time to head south to SF to fly home.  The view out the plane window of the fog over the city was amazing - the fog rolling in over the city was ridiculous.  You could see it swirling from the air!

We love California wine country.  Some people go to the beach, we go to California.  It refreshes us, and we love to learn about new restaurants, wineries, winemakers, and try new things.  This was our 5th trip in 4 years, so please, if you're heading there don't hesitate to contact me with questions about places to go and see.  I love to talk about Sonoma and Napa, and would love to help you find great places to visit! 

And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog posts...

Saturday night in Yountville

Saturday night we had reservations at one of the Yountville restaurants we hadn't tried yet, Redd.  But first - we went to my favorite, Ad Hoc, for a quick drink.

We ate at Ad Hoc on one of our trips last year, and it's just amazing.  It's one of Thomas Keller's restaurants - he's the acclaimed chef of The French Laundry, Bouchon in Napa, NY and Vegas, and Per Se in NY.

We snagged a spot at the bar and each enjoyed a glass of wine.  Ad Hoc was originally just a temporary restaurant that was to be changed to something else, but it was so popular when it opened, they kept it.  It's a set menu each night, and they don't announce the menu until the day of.

After soaking up some of the atmosphere from Ad Hoc, we walked next door to Redd.

This restaurant I feel gets a little overshadowed by all of the other restaurants in Yountville.  This little town in the heart of Napa Valley is just full of incredible restaurants by highly acclaimed chefs.  Redd was really wonderful, I'm so glad we put it on our list.

The food was so delicious.  We talked with the sommelier, Garret, who was fantastic.  He was really nice and stood and chatted with us for a while, and kept checking back to see how everything was.  

We started with Sashimi of hamachi, sticky rice, edamame, lime ginger sauce.  It was amazing.  We also had the appetizer size of the lamb bolognese.  It was comfort in a bowl - I wanted to crawl into it!

Then we had the special - it was salmon with an olive compote and artichoke puree, I think - it's of course not on the menu so I can't just go copy it like the others...but it was REALLY good.  We shared everything, and it was all amazing.

At the end of the night, Garret came over to say goodbye, and saw that I had tried to pull the label off the wine bottle.  I collect them...and this one just wouldn't come off.  He vanished with the bottle and came back a few minutes later, carrying the label.  It was so sweet that he'd taken the time and effort to get the label off for me - it was just a perfect note to end our evening on.

I highly recommend Redd, and hope to get back there on our next Napa trip.  We headed back to the hotel to get packed up and ready for our last day in California.

To Napa we go!

Over the mountain and through the woods, to Napa we go!

We packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel and made the long drive over the mountain to the other side of wine country, Napa Valley.  Our style tends to be more of the Sonoma way, but our last few trips we've been better about spending at least one day in Napa, and have found some wonderful wineries.  Also, the restaurants in Yountville are just amazing. 

First things first - lunch.  Now, it may seem a little odd to do lunch first...but we had to work for it.

In an attempt to do something new and different on this trip, we signed up for a CIA Enthusiasts cooking class at the Culinary Institue of America Greystone, right in the heart of Napa Valley.  We decided on the Bold Flavors from Tuscany class, and were so excited to go.

Little did we know it was an emersion class....

We got there and the group sat around this big table in an enormous, beautifully clean kitchen.  Then the chef, fully dressed in her chef outfit, came and chatted for a few minutes, handing out a packet of recipes.  Then we were directed to select a station, and informed that we should get going because we'd be eating in an hour and 10 minutes.  Eating what we'd cooked...on our own. 

Our recipes were potato gnocchi and radichio and onion crostini. 

Have you ever made gnocchi from scratch before?

Yeah, me either. 

It was a crazy hour and a half by the time we got everything plated, but super fun.  I'm so glad we picked something more challenging because we were able to ask some questions and received guidance along the way.  Gnocchi isn't something I would have attempted at home, but it was really not that tough and soooo good...

Especially with the brown butter and sage sauce that we made.  Mmmm.

I think my favorite line of the day was husband shouting that he was 'in the weeds' and felt like he was on Top Chef...while he tried to saute onions and top some crostinis with cheese and the onions...while I attempted to kneed, roll, cut, and boil gnocchi. We both felt like we were on Top Chef with the race of the clock, and I was channeling my inner Fabio with my gnocchi!

We all shared our dishes with the rest of the class and spread them out on a huge counter buffet style.

Everything was really delicious, and we had a great time trying the different dishes! 

Completely stuffed and slightly exhausted from the 'class' we raced off to our first wine appointment. 

WAY up on a hill mountain, we pulled up in front of a beautiful rustic gate at Outpost Winery. Iyla was our host, and she was wonderful.  We tried their Grenache, Zinfandel and Cabernet wines.  She gave us a great tour all around the property, through the newly (that week) finished guest house(s) and out into the vineyard.  The wines were delicious and views one of a kind.  She's from Pittsburgh, so we shared some east coast stories.

The white grape bins are everywhere, just waiting to be filled when Harvest comes!

Leaving Outpost, we worked our way back down a little bit and stopped at Ladera.  Ladera is a beautiful, small Napa winery, mostly focused on estate Cabernets. 

Their Cabs were nice, but we typically don't drink too many cabernets.  But we did snag a bottle of their Sauvignon Blanc to take home!

One more stop for Saturday, and it was at Failla Wines.  Jeff, affectionately called Honey Badger by the folks at Outpost, was a great host.  We all got a good laugh when we called him Honey Badger, as we'd been instructed to do...apparently there's a youtube video that explains it all!

Jeff was very knowledgable about the wines and the Failla story - it was great to listen to him.  We really enjoyed our visit!  It's a beautiful setting tucked back in, and they have a big table set up for people sit around during the tasting.  There were 3 other couples there and we did the tasting together.  It was interesting to share stories about other places in Napa with the couples.

 

After saying goodbye, we headed down to Yountville to check into our inn for the night.  We discovered the Four Sisters Inns on our first wine country trip, and fell in love.  We've stayed in several of them, and this was our second time at Masion Fleurie. 

It can be expensive to stay in some of the fancier suites, and our less expensive room is tiny, but it's still lovely. It's wonderful to walk to the restaurants and cafes in Yountville, and their homemade breakfasts at the inn are amazing.  I'm not sure I could stay more than a couple of days in this room, and the bathroom's mini-sized, but it's still really nice. 

Drinks at my favorite, Ad Hoc, and dinner at Redd awaited us on Saturday night!  We freshened up, changed clothes and walked the couple of blocks to the main part of town.  It was a beautiful night and every restaurant was just a buzz with people out on the town!