Didn't end up eating another English muffin yesterday for breakfast. Instead, we went back to Sweetie Pies and had scones and tea (for me, coffee for Hagan). We had our first meeting of the day at 11 with the COO (chief operations officer) of Oxbow Public Market, Bart. He told us all about how he got involved with Oxbow (he and a friend started it), and answered all of our questions and more. Over the course of our chat he recommended that we stop specifically at the fish stand, a company called Konaloa, to talk to them about their sustainable fishing practices.
We talked to this guy, Kevin, for close to half an hour about how outrageously dedicated the company is to sustainable fishing His spiel: using huge trawling nets means that fishermen catch much more than just a particular type of fish. They catch sea turtles, sharks, and lots of fish that are really too young to be harvested, ether because of their size or because they're pregnant. Because of this indiscriminate fishing, the young fish are being wiped out along with older fish, so the population of fish that are left behind isn't enough to sustain the numbers that we're used to. Fish populations are dwindling. So Konaloa is dedicated to using sustainable fishing practices; TEDIOUS, time-consuming practices, but ones that ensure that there are fish left to make more fish. They do line fishing and harpoon fishing, ensuring that they're only bringing in the exact type and size of fish that they intend to. Additionally, they only catch "to order," meaning that their fish isn't sitting around in warehouses, waiting to be purchased; we're talking FRESH FISH. They pride themselves on the personal relationships that have formed between fishermen and the company itself, and they're dedicated to paying fair wages to fishermen (to the extent that they'll pay more per pound of fish to companies that will provide health insurance and guarantee a living wage to fishermen in places as far flung as Vietnam). He was totally passionate about the company that he's working for, and it carried over to what he was saying. The company is, like, the ultimate in green. Their fishing boats are required to bring back waste (like the boxes that carry bait) to be recycled, all of their shipping boxes are made of recycled paper printed with non-chemical ink, they don't use ice for packaging and shipping ice, and instead use food-grade gel freezer packs to keep fish cold. Fish that's being shipped from around the world is being shipped on commercial flights to ensure that they aren't adding to their carbon footprint by having private shipping, and a lot of their fishing is done in the Marshall Islands, so the fish is coming from the same waters that Japanese fish are coming from (AKA it's the bet quality fish that money can buy). Bottom Line: incredible quality fish, socially just business practices, sustainable methods, for, admittedly, higher priced fish. Cost, understandably, increases as value increases. Still a pretty cool business.
Sorry for that rant, but it was really cool.
We had a meeting with Laddie at Long Meadow Ranch at 2, and that was great, too. From what it sounds like, she and her husband just up and decided that they'd like to have a vineyard, so they bought 650 acres of land in the Valley back in the 80s as a summer home. They started with grapes and then found a whole grove of olive trees that they didn't know existed until they literally stumbled across them while out riding horseback on their property one day (the horse tripped). So they expanded their market to include olive oil. From there, they expanded to produce. They had a roadside market for people to stop in and purchase, but they had too much food to sell for that to remain a viable way to sell their whole crop. With all the natural abundance of their land, they decided to open a restaurant that would use their own grown products. That restaurant, called Farmstead, does just that. After chatting with Laddie for a good long while, we went in to sample this farm-fresh food for ourselves (she was super cool; we tried to convince her to sit and eat with us, but she had things to prepare for a presentation on local produce at the hospital today). It was nearly 3:30 by the time we went in to the restaurant, so it was pretty empty. Laddie asked the chef, Seamus, to come out to meet with us; he's from Arkansas (Fayetteville), so we chatted for a little while with him too. Also super cool.
Then we started to eat. And eat. And eat. Had cheese biscuits and honey butter, and asparagus covered in ricotta cheese and lemon to start with. Then progressed to gnocchi with lamb ragu (for Hagan), and a cheeseburger with rosemary roasted fries (for me). Add to the mix the Sauvignon Blanc that we enjoyed throughout, and it was a GREAT meal. Favorite, I think, in the time I was in Napa (Morimoto was AWESOME, but I could just see myself returning to Farmstead. It's more my kinda place; blue jeans welcomed).
After lunch we took the long way home. Which led us past a sign to Sonoma. Hagan decided I would be missing out if we didn't stop by, so we went and checked out some gorgeous, gorgeous homes. Then we were driving and he decided that it would be awful if I didn't get to see San Francisco, especially since we were already going in the right direction, so we went! We stopped at Baker Beach and had beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and took a nice long walk (I was still feeling full). Then into the city itself, where I got to see streetcars, Fisherman's Wharf (we stopped to buy some sourdough bread at Boudin), and the harbor Sea Lions. I was still stuffed (seriously) from dinner by the time we left around quarter to 9, so Hagan just munched on sourdough and some cheese that I had bought at Oxbow in the morning. Back to the House of Hagans, and to bed to read for a while before passing out.
Right now, I'm at the Sacramento airport, getting ready to leave, and our flight is boarding, so I'm going to do today's itinerary in a separate post (hopefully Phoenix has free wi-fi and I can post from there). See ya in Phoenix!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Culmination: Morimoto
Yesterday was extremely successful, I would say. Day started off with us heading back to Oxbow to try out the world's best english muffins (as rated by foodies on the Travel channel, so I'm taking their word for it) at the Model Bakery. The breakfast sandwich (scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, cheddar cheese on the world's best english muffin!) was just... awesome. Muffins were worth the hype. They were thick and gooey and yumm. Also had a really great cup of chai tea which was just beautiful. Since we were there, we trolled around the market for the second time in as many days, and spent a chunk of time at Whole Spice again, this time to purchase some spices for ourselves. Hagan and I both bought some of this Napa Valley Rub, and he bought some other chili bbq rubs that I stayed far away from (the girl working said they were HOT. Not my cuppa tea). We left the market and walked down the street a bit (not even a full block, really) to the Copia co-op garden. It's this big community garden that's rented out by a bunch of local restaurants so that they can serve fresh grown, fresh picked local produce.
Around that time it started to rain, so, back we went to the car, this time to head "up-valley." We were making our way up to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and the Beringer Winery (oldest continuously running winery in Napa). We stopped along the way at Dean & Deluca's, a winery and also store that sold all kinds of locally produced foodie things. Think artisan jams, cheeses, chocolates, plus local produce and wines. They had a pretty neat selection of cooking ware, including these large pink salt slabs. Hagan and I had been wondering aloud what a person would DO with such a salt slab (besides feed it to your horse or local deer), when the butcher (I forgot, locally raised meat products, too) came up and informed us: generally people use it as a serving tool. The salt maintains its temperature really well, apparently, so you can use it as a heat source or a cold source depending on what you're serving (hot pad to keep warm food, warm; cold pad to keep cold food, cold (like sushi)). Apparently salt is naturally anti-microbial, so you only have to wipe it down with a cool cloth to maintain it ("just," he said, "don't stick it in the dishwasher." He was serious. I wonder how many people pay for those and do that very thing, only to have their salt slab melt away. Silly people). Anyway, that was kinda cool. I bought some farm fresh raspberries that were dying to be eaten and literally just melted in my mouth (they didn't make it out of the car), and some chocolate covered cherries that I've been trying to hold off on eating... we'll see if they make it back to Arkansas.
Left Dean & Delucas and made it up to Beringer Winery. It's on this BEAUTIFUL property, and claims to own 2,000 of the 45,000 acres of land used in the valley to grow grapes. Pretty big deal considering there are wineries everywhere you turn. We passed a bunch of big names on our way, including Sutter Home and Robert Mondavi Winery (apparently he's the biggest name in wine around here. Maybe around everywhere. I dunno, I'm not a wino), and then arrived at the beautiful Beringer Estate. You need to see pictures of this house. So many around here are Victorians, but this one was just... wow. We did a little self-guided tour of part of the property, and were luckily inside when the next wave of rain hit, this time accompanied by hail. It was doing that all day; rain lightly, stop, rain heavily/hail, stop, drizzle, stop, etc. And it was especially confusing because the "stop" points were sunny and beautiful. Strange weather. We left during a dry spell and continued up the highway to the CIA. Yet another beautiful building (though not as beautiful as the Rhine House at Beringer). We went into the little visitors area and checked out all of these old cork screws (cork screws have changed over time, and the grips can be pretttty weird. Like the one made from a goat's foot. Or the one shaped like a human foot. Or the large collection made from various types of animal horn), and then spent a good deal of time in the store admiring all of the tools. Holy cow. It was making us salivate. About that time we realized it was 2:30 and probably past time for lunch (though we did have a late breakfast), so onwards we went.
Hagan worked at this hoity toity resort in the summer, called Meadowood, so we went there for lunch. When we were arriving, we turned down this unmarked road going through a vineyard. I was looking at Hagan like he had three heads and asked why we were going down a shady little side road, wouldn't there be a sign saying "Meadowood?" He laughed and informed me that such a sign would go against all that Meadowood stands for (mainly, privacy and peace for its clientele). We had to pause at a gatekeeper's house before being allowed on the property (only pause because Hagan knows the guy from having worked there in the summer), and up we went. It's BEAUTIFUL. Tucked up in the foothills on the side of the Valley, it has all those great foresty, woodsy, damp smells. We passed two pools, a spa and multiple tennis courts before reaching the grill. At Meadowood, there's a grill (where we ate) and a restaurant (that has 3 Michelin stars, one of 2 restaurants in the American West that has so many; where we did NOT eat). Grill looks out over the golf course and croquet lawn (yeah, my thoughts exactly). I got to meet a bunch of Hagan's former co-workers, and we had a wonderful lunch in a nearly empty grill with a beautiful view. I had some tasssty fish and chips (though the batter could've used some more flavor. I'm being picky, though, because I was spoiled last semester). I had exactly 12 french fries. They were uniform in size, and were stacked Jenga-style in the corner of my plate. I am not making this up. Each level had been salted before the next row was added. Yeah.
After lunch we had to scoot without dessert because of a last-minute meeting that we had set up in the morning. A woman from the St. Helena Farmer's Market (St. Helena is another town in the valley, where French Laundry and Chef Keller's other restaurants are located) had emailed Hagan in the morning, agreeing to meet with us. So off we went to the Napa Valley Roasting Company to meet with Amanda over coffee (more chai tea in my case). She was pretty great, and we had a nice time chatting with her. We were telling her about meetings we have set up for today and she was saying how they would be able to give us really good info of the sort we seem to be looking for. So that was encouraging.
After our meeting, Hagan and I were both wiped. We had been doing a lot of driving and standing, and so we headed back to the House of Hagans around 5. We played with doggies and ate that ganache from the previous night (tassssstyyyyyy, but a little dry. We probably should've eaten it the night before). Then we chilled out. I read books and Hagan did, too. He also made dinner reservations at Morimoto, a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar owned by Iron Chef Morimoto. HO-LY COW.
I cannot rave enough about the meal we ate. We sat at the sushi bar, first of all, so the whole time we were eating, we were watching these guys preparing sushi right in front of us. We started off with some edimame (soy beans, I think they're steamed, and served salted in their pods), and then each of us ordered sushi. I had the chef's combination, so I was presented with 10 pieces of whatever sushi the sushi chef felt like preparing for me, plus a barbecue eel roll. We finished with desserts; I had chocolate and banana fried ice cream, and I could have died on my chair and been content. This ball of banana ice cream had been dipped in chocolate that was then rolled in rice crispies and then deep fried. It was served on a bed of bananas sauteed in what I would guess was brandy, and the server brought out a little pitcher of warmed caramel to pour over it. Next to it was a little pile of chocolate (think the consistency of boxed chocolates that have the gooey chocolate center), topped with a little fried cookie. I repeat: HOLY COW. The only other way you're going to understand my joy is if you had been there and seen the blissed out faces I was making while eating this food. The fish melted in your mouth. Like, MELTED. And the dessert. UGH. SO GOOD. Besides the food, the service was phenomenal Our waiter was so friendly and easy to ask questions of, which was nice since maybe a quarter of the menu was fish we hadn't heard of. GREAT food experience.
Back to Hagan's and back to reading before heading to bed. Now it's about time to head out. It looks like today is going to be a rain all day situation, not an on and off deal, so I need to get myself prepared. And anyway, my belly is about ready for another whack at the world's best english muffin :)
Around that time it started to rain, so, back we went to the car, this time to head "up-valley." We were making our way up to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and the Beringer Winery (oldest continuously running winery in Napa). We stopped along the way at Dean & Deluca's, a winery and also store that sold all kinds of locally produced foodie things. Think artisan jams, cheeses, chocolates, plus local produce and wines. They had a pretty neat selection of cooking ware, including these large pink salt slabs. Hagan and I had been wondering aloud what a person would DO with such a salt slab (besides feed it to your horse or local deer), when the butcher (I forgot, locally raised meat products, too) came up and informed us: generally people use it as a serving tool. The salt maintains its temperature really well, apparently, so you can use it as a heat source or a cold source depending on what you're serving (hot pad to keep warm food, warm; cold pad to keep cold food, cold (like sushi)). Apparently salt is naturally anti-microbial, so you only have to wipe it down with a cool cloth to maintain it ("just," he said, "don't stick it in the dishwasher." He was serious. I wonder how many people pay for those and do that very thing, only to have their salt slab melt away. Silly people). Anyway, that was kinda cool. I bought some farm fresh raspberries that were dying to be eaten and literally just melted in my mouth (they didn't make it out of the car), and some chocolate covered cherries that I've been trying to hold off on eating... we'll see if they make it back to Arkansas.
Left Dean & Delucas and made it up to Beringer Winery. It's on this BEAUTIFUL property, and claims to own 2,000 of the 45,000 acres of land used in the valley to grow grapes. Pretty big deal considering there are wineries everywhere you turn. We passed a bunch of big names on our way, including Sutter Home and Robert Mondavi Winery (apparently he's the biggest name in wine around here. Maybe around everywhere. I dunno, I'm not a wino), and then arrived at the beautiful Beringer Estate. You need to see pictures of this house. So many around here are Victorians, but this one was just... wow. We did a little self-guided tour of part of the property, and were luckily inside when the next wave of rain hit, this time accompanied by hail. It was doing that all day; rain lightly, stop, rain heavily/hail, stop, drizzle, stop, etc. And it was especially confusing because the "stop" points were sunny and beautiful. Strange weather. We left during a dry spell and continued up the highway to the CIA. Yet another beautiful building (though not as beautiful as the Rhine House at Beringer). We went into the little visitors area and checked out all of these old cork screws (cork screws have changed over time, and the grips can be pretttty weird. Like the one made from a goat's foot. Or the one shaped like a human foot. Or the large collection made from various types of animal horn), and then spent a good deal of time in the store admiring all of the tools. Holy cow. It was making us salivate. About that time we realized it was 2:30 and probably past time for lunch (though we did have a late breakfast), so onwards we went.
Hagan worked at this hoity toity resort in the summer, called Meadowood, so we went there for lunch. When we were arriving, we turned down this unmarked road going through a vineyard. I was looking at Hagan like he had three heads and asked why we were going down a shady little side road, wouldn't there be a sign saying "Meadowood?" He laughed and informed me that such a sign would go against all that Meadowood stands for (mainly, privacy and peace for its clientele). We had to pause at a gatekeeper's house before being allowed on the property (only pause because Hagan knows the guy from having worked there in the summer), and up we went. It's BEAUTIFUL. Tucked up in the foothills on the side of the Valley, it has all those great foresty, woodsy, damp smells. We passed two pools, a spa and multiple tennis courts before reaching the grill. At Meadowood, there's a grill (where we ate) and a restaurant (that has 3 Michelin stars, one of 2 restaurants in the American West that has so many; where we did NOT eat). Grill looks out over the golf course and croquet lawn (yeah, my thoughts exactly). I got to meet a bunch of Hagan's former co-workers, and we had a wonderful lunch in a nearly empty grill with a beautiful view. I had some tasssty fish and chips (though the batter could've used some more flavor. I'm being picky, though, because I was spoiled last semester). I had exactly 12 french fries. They were uniform in size, and were stacked Jenga-style in the corner of my plate. I am not making this up. Each level had been salted before the next row was added. Yeah.
After lunch we had to scoot without dessert because of a last-minute meeting that we had set up in the morning. A woman from the St. Helena Farmer's Market (St. Helena is another town in the valley, where French Laundry and Chef Keller's other restaurants are located) had emailed Hagan in the morning, agreeing to meet with us. So off we went to the Napa Valley Roasting Company to meet with Amanda over coffee (more chai tea in my case). She was pretty great, and we had a nice time chatting with her. We were telling her about meetings we have set up for today and she was saying how they would be able to give us really good info of the sort we seem to be looking for. So that was encouraging.
After our meeting, Hagan and I were both wiped. We had been doing a lot of driving and standing, and so we headed back to the House of Hagans around 5. We played with doggies and ate that ganache from the previous night (tassssstyyyyyy, but a little dry. We probably should've eaten it the night before). Then we chilled out. I read books and Hagan did, too. He also made dinner reservations at Morimoto, a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar owned by Iron Chef Morimoto. HO-LY COW.
I cannot rave enough about the meal we ate. We sat at the sushi bar, first of all, so the whole time we were eating, we were watching these guys preparing sushi right in front of us. We started off with some edimame (soy beans, I think they're steamed, and served salted in their pods), and then each of us ordered sushi. I had the chef's combination, so I was presented with 10 pieces of whatever sushi the sushi chef felt like preparing for me, plus a barbecue eel roll. We finished with desserts; I had chocolate and banana fried ice cream, and I could have died on my chair and been content. This ball of banana ice cream had been dipped in chocolate that was then rolled in rice crispies and then deep fried. It was served on a bed of bananas sauteed in what I would guess was brandy, and the server brought out a little pitcher of warmed caramel to pour over it. Next to it was a little pile of chocolate (think the consistency of boxed chocolates that have the gooey chocolate center), topped with a little fried cookie. I repeat: HOLY COW. The only other way you're going to understand my joy is if you had been there and seen the blissed out faces I was making while eating this food. The fish melted in your mouth. Like, MELTED. And the dessert. UGH. SO GOOD. Besides the food, the service was phenomenal Our waiter was so friendly and easy to ask questions of, which was nice since maybe a quarter of the menu was fish we hadn't heard of. GREAT food experience.
Back to Hagan's and back to reading before heading to bed. Now it's about time to head out. It looks like today is going to be a rain all day situation, not an on and off deal, so I need to get myself prepared. And anyway, my belly is about ready for another whack at the world's best english muffin :)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Cooking with Julie
So here I am in Napa! Our flights were pretty uneventful. Flew through Las Vegas and were delayed about 50 minutes (to be expected. At this point I only expect my flights to both be on time about 50% of the time. I say "both" because I've also discovered that I can't fly direct practically anywhere I ever want to go unless it's to London or within Europe. That's just my life.), so that was pretty boring. Gambling age in Vegas is 21, so no drinking AND no gambling which left me with the same boring layover that I would've had to deal with in any other airport. We got in to Sacramento around 11:20 and Hagan's dad and brother, Kevin, picked us up. I was out of it for most of the trip to Napa, but tried to participate in conversation when possible; I had completely ignored the fact that we were going to be changing time zones by 2 hours this time (leaving me 3 hours from home time, 2 from Hendrix time), and I'm not exactly a giant bowl of fun by the time 2 in the morning rolls around normally, let alone after I've been chilling in airports for hours. Arrived safely at Hagan's house (AKA the House of Hagans as my friends at school have been calling it), met the doggies and then went promptly to bed.
Woke up early yesterday morning to get to our cooking class with plenty of time. Left the house a few mins after 8 and went to a bakery called Sweetie Pies that was delicious. I had a lemon poppy seed scone that had a lemon glaze over it and it was so, so good. Then we were off to the Oxbow Public Market to meet up with Julie, our cooking teacher. Oxbow is the local farmer's market, I guess, but it's way fancier than just that. The vendors have permanent stores set up inside with all kinds of delicious things to eat, and we visited most of them to buy supplies for the meal we would be cooking with Julie Logue-Riordan. Started off at the Cheese vendor and sampled a bunch of locally produced cheeses, some from cow milk, others from goat milk, and basically just fell back in love with cheese (I did at least). From there, The Fatted Calf to buy prosciutto and a cured bacon. Then back inside for produce: asparagus, nectarines, artichokes. On to the Five Dot Ranch stand just to admire the cuts of beef on display (we didn't buy any, but I WANTED TO), and then across the way to the spice stand. I guess I'm just a simple girl, but I always thought that there was only one kind of salt. Two if we want to count sea salt as a separate thing. Boy, was I wrong. There were black salts and white salts and pink salts and grey salts, bright red salts, blueish salts, purple salts. Salts made with truffles, salts made with hibiscus. It was mind blowing (don't even get me started on the 2394823596234 varieties of curry). We bought some Black Cypruss salt, a flaky black salt that looked kinda like flakes of obsidian to me, and some red hibiscus salt that was more powdery (finer grains, I guess) than your average kosher salt. Visited Annette's, the chocolatier at Oxbow, and tried to not give in to my desire to buy the ridiculously expensive chocolate covered almonds. I was successful... for now. Stopped at the Olive Press, an olive oil company, and talked to the lady about their various types of oil. One of them, Mission, is pressed from a local olive. It was originally a European variety, but it has mutated and spliced with other local plants over time and become its own local variety (pretty neat).
Anyway, successful trip to Oxbow. We left around 10:30 to head over to Groth's Winery for our wine tasting. We sampled two white wines and two red, plus had a sampling of the foods we bought at Oxbow to see which wines best paired with them (some of the cheese, prosciutto, and two types of chocolate). Whites were Saugivnon Blanc, Chardonnay, Reds were both Cabernet Sauvignons mixed with Merlot (two different percentages and vintages). I've decided that I'm a white wine drinker.
After the tasting, we headed to Julie's house to start cooking! Rachel and Susan, the mother/daughter duo that was also in our cooking class, were from suburban New York. Total Jews, as Hagan put it (he's allowed, since he's also Jewish). Though Hagan also seems to think that every person who lives in New York is Jewish. I digress.
Menu:
Herb Salad with Tangerines
Frico Baskets
Vanilla Vinaigrette
Fresh Egg Pasta
Sauce with Asparagus, Lemon and Cream
Queen of Napa cake
We started out by taking a tour of Julie's garden and gathering leafy things for the salad and for garnish. Got lemons, chives, plus all the salad greens straight from her garden. Then we moved on to making our egg pasta dough as a group, and then broke up to make the individual dishes. Hagan and I were on cake and pasta sauce duty, while Susan and Rachel had salad and dressing, as well as finishing the pasta prep (rolling it out and cutting into pasta shape). Alicia, the cooking helper, prepped most of the ingredients/implements of destruction (or construction? or instruction?) and was on duty for wine refills. She was so sweet and nice and wonderful. She was flitting around the whole time taking pictures in between taking care of all our dirty cooking implements, and started doing videos after I mentioned our Cooking Local project. She got so excited about it, and really took the time to focus on Hagan and me, along with the promise that she would email the pictures and videos to me. Kick ass!
Anyway, we cooked and ate all day and it was wonderful. Meal turned out fantastically, I learned how to blanch almonds (among other things), and I have a new appreciation for how a good knife can make SUCH a difference in prep time. We finished at Julies after 5 (LONG day for her), stuffed to the gills with delicious, local food.
After leaving, Hagan took me on a grand tour of the Valley. We went to his family's ranch (where his sister, Jen, lives and takes care of her horses and the many others that stable there), and then up to Yountville to drive by The French Laundry and Bouchon, two restaurants owned by Chef Thomas Keller. French Laundry has literally been ranked as the top restaurant in the world more than once, and is consistently rated as one of the top 10. Legit. We will not be dining there, as we would like to have money to pay for more than one meal in our time here, but we still checked it out. Awesome. Stopped by Bouchon's bakery before we left and bought a little chocolate ganache that we have yet to eat. Will give you an update once its deliciousness has crossed my lips.
Hagan's dad called right after we left Julie's house, asking us to dinner, so we eventually headed back down to the homestead to meet up with his dad and step mom. We went to a place called Norman Rose Tavern for a late dinner and ate some more tasty food. Unfortunately, the lead in to that food eating was preceded by nearly an hour wait to be seated. The servers were really nice about it, but their guesstimates for when we would be seated weren't so hot. Had a yummy blue cheeseburger made from Five Dot Ranch beef, with grilled onions on top, and some REALLY good fries. Johnny (Hagan's step mom) and I were joking about the fries while we were waiting to be seated, saying that if the fries were good, it would all have been worthwhile; it was worthwhile.
We arrived at the tavern around 7:30, were seated close to 8:30, were out and back at Hagan's house close to 10. I was wiped out, and Hagan seemed tired too, but we had promised his best friend, Andrew, that we'd be over to visit. So we headed out to Andrew's house and I met him, Angela and Rachel, three of Hagan's best friends from home. They were all so nice, but I kept falling asleep on the couch so we left and headed back to his house. STRAIGHT to bed, and had an awesome night's sleep.
While we were at the ranch, the rain that had been promised started up and continued up through to this morning. Hagan has ever-so-patiently been waiting for me to finish with this post before we leave for breakfast. Today is looking to be pretty unstructured. We're gonna go to another bakery for breakfast and then head to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) to check things out there and maybe talk with some people. We've got two meetings scheduled for tomorrow, but today is more about just roaming and visiting restaurants and talking to anyone who will talk to us about sustainable, local farming.
Food calls!
Woke up early yesterday morning to get to our cooking class with plenty of time. Left the house a few mins after 8 and went to a bakery called Sweetie Pies that was delicious. I had a lemon poppy seed scone that had a lemon glaze over it and it was so, so good. Then we were off to the Oxbow Public Market to meet up with Julie, our cooking teacher. Oxbow is the local farmer's market, I guess, but it's way fancier than just that. The vendors have permanent stores set up inside with all kinds of delicious things to eat, and we visited most of them to buy supplies for the meal we would be cooking with Julie Logue-Riordan. Started off at the Cheese vendor and sampled a bunch of locally produced cheeses, some from cow milk, others from goat milk, and basically just fell back in love with cheese (I did at least). From there, The Fatted Calf to buy prosciutto and a cured bacon. Then back inside for produce: asparagus, nectarines, artichokes. On to the Five Dot Ranch stand just to admire the cuts of beef on display (we didn't buy any, but I WANTED TO), and then across the way to the spice stand. I guess I'm just a simple girl, but I always thought that there was only one kind of salt. Two if we want to count sea salt as a separate thing. Boy, was I wrong. There were black salts and white salts and pink salts and grey salts, bright red salts, blueish salts, purple salts. Salts made with truffles, salts made with hibiscus. It was mind blowing (don't even get me started on the 2394823596234 varieties of curry). We bought some Black Cypruss salt, a flaky black salt that looked kinda like flakes of obsidian to me, and some red hibiscus salt that was more powdery (finer grains, I guess) than your average kosher salt. Visited Annette's, the chocolatier at Oxbow, and tried to not give in to my desire to buy the ridiculously expensive chocolate covered almonds. I was successful... for now. Stopped at the Olive Press, an olive oil company, and talked to the lady about their various types of oil. One of them, Mission, is pressed from a local olive. It was originally a European variety, but it has mutated and spliced with other local plants over time and become its own local variety (pretty neat).
Anyway, successful trip to Oxbow. We left around 10:30 to head over to Groth's Winery for our wine tasting. We sampled two white wines and two red, plus had a sampling of the foods we bought at Oxbow to see which wines best paired with them (some of the cheese, prosciutto, and two types of chocolate). Whites were Saugivnon Blanc, Chardonnay, Reds were both Cabernet Sauvignons mixed with Merlot (two different percentages and vintages). I've decided that I'm a white wine drinker.
After the tasting, we headed to Julie's house to start cooking! Rachel and Susan, the mother/daughter duo that was also in our cooking class, were from suburban New York. Total Jews, as Hagan put it (he's allowed, since he's also Jewish). Though Hagan also seems to think that every person who lives in New York is Jewish. I digress.
Menu:
Herb Salad with Tangerines
Frico Baskets
Vanilla Vinaigrette
Fresh Egg Pasta
Sauce with Asparagus, Lemon and Cream
Queen of Napa cake
We started out by taking a tour of Julie's garden and gathering leafy things for the salad and for garnish. Got lemons, chives, plus all the salad greens straight from her garden. Then we moved on to making our egg pasta dough as a group, and then broke up to make the individual dishes. Hagan and I were on cake and pasta sauce duty, while Susan and Rachel had salad and dressing, as well as finishing the pasta prep (rolling it out and cutting into pasta shape). Alicia, the cooking helper, prepped most of the ingredients/implements of destruction (or construction? or instruction?) and was on duty for wine refills. She was so sweet and nice and wonderful. She was flitting around the whole time taking pictures in between taking care of all our dirty cooking implements, and started doing videos after I mentioned our Cooking Local project. She got so excited about it, and really took the time to focus on Hagan and me, along with the promise that she would email the pictures and videos to me. Kick ass!
Anyway, we cooked and ate all day and it was wonderful. Meal turned out fantastically, I learned how to blanch almonds (among other things), and I have a new appreciation for how a good knife can make SUCH a difference in prep time. We finished at Julies after 5 (LONG day for her), stuffed to the gills with delicious, local food.
After leaving, Hagan took me on a grand tour of the Valley. We went to his family's ranch (where his sister, Jen, lives and takes care of her horses and the many others that stable there), and then up to Yountville to drive by The French Laundry and Bouchon, two restaurants owned by Chef Thomas Keller. French Laundry has literally been ranked as the top restaurant in the world more than once, and is consistently rated as one of the top 10. Legit. We will not be dining there, as we would like to have money to pay for more than one meal in our time here, but we still checked it out. Awesome. Stopped by Bouchon's bakery before we left and bought a little chocolate ganache that we have yet to eat. Will give you an update once its deliciousness has crossed my lips.
Hagan's dad called right after we left Julie's house, asking us to dinner, so we eventually headed back down to the homestead to meet up with his dad and step mom. We went to a place called Norman Rose Tavern for a late dinner and ate some more tasty food. Unfortunately, the lead in to that food eating was preceded by nearly an hour wait to be seated. The servers were really nice about it, but their guesstimates for when we would be seated weren't so hot. Had a yummy blue cheeseburger made from Five Dot Ranch beef, with grilled onions on top, and some REALLY good fries. Johnny (Hagan's step mom) and I were joking about the fries while we were waiting to be seated, saying that if the fries were good, it would all have been worthwhile; it was worthwhile.
We arrived at the tavern around 7:30, were seated close to 8:30, were out and back at Hagan's house close to 10. I was wiped out, and Hagan seemed tired too, but we had promised his best friend, Andrew, that we'd be over to visit. So we headed out to Andrew's house and I met him, Angela and Rachel, three of Hagan's best friends from home. They were all so nice, but I kept falling asleep on the couch so we left and headed back to his house. STRAIGHT to bed, and had an awesome night's sleep.
While we were at the ranch, the rain that had been promised started up and continued up through to this morning. Hagan has ever-so-patiently been waiting for me to finish with this post before we leave for breakfast. Today is looking to be pretty unstructured. We're gonna go to another bakery for breakfast and then head to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) to check things out there and maybe talk with some people. We've got two meetings scheduled for tomorrow, but today is more about just roaming and visiting restaurants and talking to anyone who will talk to us about sustainable, local farming.
Food calls!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...
The blog has been resuscitated. Revived. Imbued with new life. Good timing, considering it's Lent and all. Back by popular demand (really just M&D & Aunt Mares), I'm going to keep track of my spring break travels on this bad boy.
In case you didn't know, I'm headed out to Napa, California for spring break this year. My friend David Hagan (from here on out, "Hagan" only), lives there with his dad and brothers when he's not at Hendrix with me, and he had a brilliant idea for an Odyssey trip: head to Napa!
I don't recall if I ever explained the Odyssey concept during the London semester, but here's a brief summary: Hendrix College really wants its students to get their hands dirty with learning. To go out and experience things first hand, and to encourage us to spend time doing the things we're passionate about. So in the interest of encouraging that sort of "experiential learning," Hendrix has developed a program that it calls the Odyssey Program. Hendrix students are required to fulfill 3 Odysseys during their time here as students. There are 6 categories of projects, and students must fulfill Odysseys from three separate categories to receive credit. Those categories are (drum roll, I need to hear some cheers, I don't know if I can remember all six but here goesssss!): Artistic Creativity, Global Awareness, Service to the World, Undergraduate Research, Professional and Leadership Development and Special Projects. They can be as simple as taking a class (I got credit for taking an acting class) or participating in an activity (band, choir, athletic teams), or as onerously tricky and difficult as we want to make them (traveling to Cambodia to work in orphanages, working to save the sea turtles in Greece, studying abroad for a semester).
Hagan's idea falls somewhere in the middle of that range, closer to the tricky end than the simple end of the spectrum. Our proposed idea was to travel to Napa in order to study "Cooking Local;" how using locally grown products can impact the quality of cuisine. So we're traveling out to Cali to take a cooking class, meet with a bunch of world-class chefs (hopefully!) to talk about local produce, go to some vineyards to learn about how wine fits into all this, and eating a LOT of AMAZING food. Seriously. Some of the top restaurants in the world are housed in Napa. No McDonald's on this trip.
Our cooking class meets at the local farmer's market to buy the goods we'll be cooking with. Then, apparently, off to a local winery to choose a wine that will best compliment the meal we'll be cooking. From there, back to the kitchen to get our hands dirty (Hendrix will be SO proud!). That's tomorrow, Tuesday. Weds and Thursday we'll be gallivanting around meeting with chefs and eating their food. We may or may not do a quick trip to San Francisco (I would guess not because we're only arriving late tonight and leaving Friday afternoon, but we shall see).
I just did the weather check, and weather.com is calling for icky weather. Temps in the 50s all week, plus rain. Thank goodness we'll have food and wine to keep us warm :)
Flight is at 5:30 Arkansas time, arrival in Sacramento around 11 if memory serves (we're flying Southwest). Can't wait!!!!!!!
Will try to take lots of pics, but don't hold your breath for them going up until next week; I'm taking the netbook (read: mini-laptop), and it doesn't like to post pictures. My words, however, will be all yours for the perusal. Enjoy, dear readers.
In case you didn't know, I'm headed out to Napa, California for spring break this year. My friend David Hagan (from here on out, "Hagan" only), lives there with his dad and brothers when he's not at Hendrix with me, and he had a brilliant idea for an Odyssey trip: head to Napa!
I don't recall if I ever explained the Odyssey concept during the London semester, but here's a brief summary: Hendrix College really wants its students to get their hands dirty with learning. To go out and experience things first hand, and to encourage us to spend time doing the things we're passionate about. So in the interest of encouraging that sort of "experiential learning," Hendrix has developed a program that it calls the Odyssey Program. Hendrix students are required to fulfill 3 Odysseys during their time here as students. There are 6 categories of projects, and students must fulfill Odysseys from three separate categories to receive credit. Those categories are (drum roll, I need to hear some cheers, I don't know if I can remember all six but here goesssss!): Artistic Creativity, Global Awareness, Service to the World, Undergraduate Research, Professional and Leadership Development and Special Projects. They can be as simple as taking a class (I got credit for taking an acting class) or participating in an activity (band, choir, athletic teams), or as onerously tricky and difficult as we want to make them (traveling to Cambodia to work in orphanages, working to save the sea turtles in Greece, studying abroad for a semester).
Hagan's idea falls somewhere in the middle of that range, closer to the tricky end than the simple end of the spectrum. Our proposed idea was to travel to Napa in order to study "Cooking Local;" how using locally grown products can impact the quality of cuisine. So we're traveling out to Cali to take a cooking class, meet with a bunch of world-class chefs (hopefully!) to talk about local produce, go to some vineyards to learn about how wine fits into all this, and eating a LOT of AMAZING food. Seriously. Some of the top restaurants in the world are housed in Napa. No McDonald's on this trip.
Our cooking class meets at the local farmer's market to buy the goods we'll be cooking with. Then, apparently, off to a local winery to choose a wine that will best compliment the meal we'll be cooking. From there, back to the kitchen to get our hands dirty (Hendrix will be SO proud!). That's tomorrow, Tuesday. Weds and Thursday we'll be gallivanting around meeting with chefs and eating their food. We may or may not do a quick trip to San Francisco (I would guess not because we're only arriving late tonight and leaving Friday afternoon, but we shall see).
I just did the weather check, and weather.com is calling for icky weather. Temps in the 50s all week, plus rain. Thank goodness we'll have food and wine to keep us warm :)
Flight is at 5:30 Arkansas time, arrival in Sacramento around 11 if memory serves (we're flying Southwest). Can't wait!!!!!!!
Will try to take lots of pics, but don't hold your breath for them going up until next week; I'm taking the netbook (read: mini-laptop), and it doesn't like to post pictures. My words, however, will be all yours for the perusal. Enjoy, dear readers.
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