Nap(a)

As in, I needed a three hour nap after a day in Napa. Today's field trip can be described many ways, but I'll just go with "interesting." Overall, it was a fun day, but 95 degree weather, bus rides, loud/bad music, and wine drinking is a disastrous mix.

The many stories from between and after the vineyards, i.e., the bus rides, shouldn't be repeated in a food blog. Let's just say I was really glad that I had Roxy on the trip, a fellow anthropology student and co-worker. I think we felt like the only students who were going to make it back to San Jose with any shred of dignity.

Nevertheless, there were many highlights to my day. The itinerary was pretty straightforward. The wine class met at 7:45. As a reward for getting the highest grade on the midterm I got a mimosa on the bus ride out of San Jose...at 8:30 in the morning...after 2 hours of sleep. It took about two hours by bus to get to our first winery, Mumm Napa. After Mumm, we headed to Bell Wine Cellars, where we had lunch delivered from a local grocery store/deli. Then, we finished our day at Rutherford Hill.

Mumm was okay, they specialize in sparkling wine and Carlos Santana has a wine with them. I thought it was funny that they sell Carlos Santana stuff in the winery store, so if you need some Santana bongos...



Bell was the really impressive part of the day. Owner and hands-on winemaker Anthony Bell gave our group a thorough tour of the place, from the vines to the barreling process. Originally from South Africa, Bell grew up on a vineyard and had also made wine in Europe before he moved to America. He was really passionate and honest about his work and I probably learned more from listening to him speak than I've learned in class all semester. So, if you see some Bell on a shelf or a menu, you can feel good that there's a humble and hardworking guy behind the label.



At Bell we also got to go into the wine bottling truck. This is not how I imagined that wine is bottled. This truck is like the equivalent of a blood mobile or a book mobile, it pulls up and does it's business for the day. They fill the bottles, cork them, and label them right in this fairly small truck right in front of the building.

Our last stop, Rutherford Hill, was most impressive for it's caves. That's where we did most of the tasting. They do a great port and chocolate covered blueberry combo during their tasting.

Napa was actually not what I expected, but I would definitely like to go back someday. I think I always imagined it to have vineyards sort of hidden in the hills but in reality the wineries are right next to each other, Opus One and Mondavi are right across the street from each other. It's just like neighborhoods upon neighborhoods of grapes, I even saw some homes that opted for grapes instead of grass.

A couple of final thoughts, 1) I think all of the money is in growing your own oak forests for barrels rather than in wine-making, and 2) I think I should get an A in this class for making it through this bus ride, which can be briefly sampled here:

Burgundy, France

One of my classes this semester is Wine Appreciation in the Hospitality and Recreation Management department. It's got to be one of the funner classes in the CSU system (besides surfing and the one where you camp in national parks) and I've actually learned quite a bit about wine. We do blind tastings on 2-3 new wines every week and learn how to describe what we're smelling and tasting.

We had to do a group project about geographic locations and the wines they produce. I was in the Burgundy group and I was hoping to include a photo of Ron Burgundy in the PowerPoint but it didn't work out. I did learn a lot about burgundy though.

One of the more challenging aspects of the project was pairing food with the burgundy. We chose to do vegetarian pairings and that made it more difficult. With the white burgundy (Chardonnay) we did mushroom quiche and with the red burgundy (Pinot Noir) we did French pasta salad as the food was supposed to match the region. I made the pasta salad before class and it was kind of nerve-racking. It consisted of rotini pasta, french shallots, french baby green beans, french goat cheese (see the theme?), roasted bell peppers, toasted hazelnuts, and a dijon vinaigrette.

I chose this salad mainly because I thought the goat cheese would be complementary and because Dijon is the capital of Burgundy, hence the vinaigrette. I thought it tasted awesome but I don't think our sommelier-lecturer was much of a fan, although I think he's just a meat-guy and wasn't into the idea of vegetarian wine pairing. Tomorrow the class is going to Napa Valley for a day-long field trip so it will probably be back-to-back wine entries.

I thought this was kind of cool, I accidentally dropped the remote on my wine glass this weekend and it broke in the perfect spot (and showed me that I need to vacuum between the chairs.)

Anniversary Weekend

I feel like this title could be longer, "Anniversary Weekend for a couple who have evolved from people who didn't cook to people whose relationship is based around cooking together." Or maybe not...

John and I had our third anniversary last weekend and celebrated true to form--we ate and drank some good food. We also both got each other cookbooks as gifts. (Go figure!) I got "500 Cupcakes" which has recipes like Eggplant Caviar Muffins and Rhubarb and Ginger Cupcakes along with some more conventional ones. I got John, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Bittman has never let us down with How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, so it should be good. He is a food journalist who I respect as much as any chef, you can check out his column in The New York Times and he's also in Spain: On the Road Again on PBS.org.

Saturday we tried a new downtown eatery- the Silk Road Bistro. The name is a clever reflection of the variety of food they offer, Indian, Mediterranean, and Pakistani. I had a samosa, naan, basmati rice, and some vegetable balls..that's the easiest way to describe them, they were like meatballs except they were made out of veggies, and they were excellent. They contained the best paneer I've ever had and it's worth going back just for the sauce. I'm not sure what was in it, but it was spicy and garlicky. This dish is called malai kofta on the menu, described as "mixed vegetable patties, cooked in a creamy gravy sauce." When I go back, I'd like to try their spicy chili naan and their paneer wrap.

Sunday we went back to the place where we had our first date, Trial's Pub. The beer was better than the food, but it was good beer so that's not a terrible thing. We had some Hoegaarden and Stella Artois and had a curry chips appetizer. I love these curry chips. I got the vegetable curry dinner because the Mediterranean plate isn't in season yet. John's dinner was better than mine, he got a shepherd's pie, which to me just seems like meaty gravy with mashed potatoes and cheese on top. I did a little research on shepherd's pie because I was curious about its origins. I figured it was just a peasant food that has retained popularity. That's pretty accurate, its origins are traced back to when potatoes became an affordable crop for the poor. Traditionally, the meat is leftovers that are turned into the base for the pie while the mashed potatoes become the crust.



Finally, we drank good wine all weekend. Saturday, we had some 7 Deadly Zins and Sunday we had Franciscan Cabernet. Good tip--you can get the 2005 Franciscan Cab at Target for $11.99-that's a steal for this caliber of wine. I'm going to get a couple of bottles and save them, it will be excellent through 2013. For dessert, John brought some cheesecake down from North Beach. Stella Pastry and Caffe on Columbus has the best cheesecake I've ever had. It's an event to eat this cheesecake. (It is a party in your mouth!) Saturday we split a piece of blueberry cheesecake and Sunday we had chocolate cheesecake with strawberries.
All in all, good eats and good company.