This week I had the fortune of traveling to Sacramento for the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. I spent most of my time networking and enjoying the various events, but I did get outside with my camera twice.
One morning on the way to breakfast, the sun was rising over the city and the Sacramento River. We stayed on a historic river boat called the Delta King. From 1927 to 1940 the steam boat ran from Sacramento to San Francisco through the San Joaquin River Delta. After Pearl Harbor, the Delta King and its sister ship the Delta Queen, were in Navy service as hospital transports. Since then the Delta King sank a couple times and starred in a movie. It’s been a hotel in old Sacramento since 1989.
We had a wonderful experience despite the charm of slanted floors. The views and the service were lovely.
Looking out on Old Sacramento at Sunrise
ship's deckmy favorite because of the lighthotel lobbylove the colorlife boatsSteamerDelta KingWalk the Plankspacific rail
Great ingredients make amazing tasting meals and cooking easy. This week I treated myself with a trip to the local (local being a relative term here as I had to drive 30 minutes) winter farmers’ market. Beautiful choices including local olive oils and cheese, root vegetables, greens, and citrus fruits I’d never seen before.
SebastopolLook at those grapefruits.
I ended up with a couple of blood oranges, golden potatoes, olive oil, sunflower sprouts, and a butternut squash. After reading about my friend Haley’s chicken eggs, I was hoping for a dozen local eggs, but I was out of luck – there were no chicken eggs to be had in this neck of the woods.
The blood oranges were beautiful inside. Like a striking sunset, the colors emanated orange, pinks, and red from its center. Unfortunately, these beauties tasted anything but sweet. They were sour, bitter, and painfully acidic.
Blood oranges
Spicy mustard, goat cheddar cheese, local salami, and some of the sunflower sprouts (spicy!) on a local ciabatta bread from the bakery in town made for a delicious sandwich this week. Do you have a local winter food source or farmers’ market?
I’m learning what winter means here in Northern California. I’ve been hearing for months “just wait, the rains will come.” “This is mist. Wait ’til it really rains. We need the rain. It’ll rain ’til March.”
Photo taken today.
It’s raining. Every day. Mostly sideways. When you walk outside you can’t avoid getting a wet face. Rain, rain, rain. Makes me want a new wardrobe and a drying rack for when I come home at the end of the day. I also have started dreaming of more tropical weather, regarding the palm trees around me as false advertisement. It’s not too bad. 40 degrees or so and wet around the clock. No thunder or lightning, just rain.
This wet cold reaches through to my bones and makes me crave soup, tea, and a good book. Simple and soothing I decided to make a corn chowder today. It was delicious. I served it (to myself) with cheesy bread: toasted ciabatta roll with melted cheese on top.
When cooking for one, ingredient quantities really become relative and more of a hit or miss, eye-ball it, learn as you go business. So, I’ll just include the list of ingredients below to-be customized. I wanted to share this recipe with you though, for the technique. Reading around today for a recipe that looked good I came across instructions that had me adding the flour to the butter with the onions in the pan. Not the typical roux then slowly add milk that I am used to for a creamy sauce or thickening agent. Long story short, it worked brilliantly and I made my thickest creamiest soup yet.
So check it out and happy cooking. Do you have a favorite chowder?
my corn chowderCORN CHOWDER
Olive oil
Yellow onion, chopped
Butter
Flour (equal parts butter and flour; I used 1 tablespoon for about 3 servings)
Salt and pepper
Dried herbs (I used taragon, would’ve preferred nutmeg)
Chicken stock
Boiling potatoes, peeled and diced
Corn kernels
Milk
In a pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and the butter and cook for 10 minutes (until onions are translucent). Stir in flour and dried herbs (depending on how salty your stock is – add salt and pepper here too). Continue stirring and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the potatoes and enough stock to just cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Poke the potatoes with a fork to check they are tender. Stir in corn and enough milk to create your preferred consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Quick, easy, and comforting. Enjoy!
Dinner. One, just me, at this lovely little Italian place up the road in Geyserville. I love how dining out by myself seems to heighten my senses. I’m much more aware of etiquette (I’m nervous). I debate between being in my own world and observing every little detail around me. Hopefully you’ll get a little of this and that tonight. Celebrating my first week back in California, you name it; I’m treating myself and my new journal and it feels good.
I’m sitting in a corner by the window. My back to the window – mostly because this side has the bench seat, but also because it has a view of the restaurant for the inevitable people watching. I’ve gotten right to it and ordered pizza margherita and the Peterson House Dego Red, Sonoma County. Local and on tap! 75% Carignane, 13% Syrah, 7% Grenache, 5% Petit Syrah. No vintage listed. And served in a collins glass. I miss the more easily attained aromas from a stemmed wine glass, but enjoy the flavor. Packs a punch.
Here’s the pizza. Swimming in oil with fresh basil on top. Delicious doesn’t cut it. Note to self: look up delicious in Italian – maybe that’ll roll better. It’s gotta be the ingredients, right? that make this so good. Maybe it’s the sauce. Is a sauce the make-it-or-break it factor for pizza?
When I sat down, the couple to my right was finishing their dinner and arguing over Christmas lights. Now they’re teasing each other about sagging tattoos. Their bottle of wine is empty.
Blond couple at my one o’clock. He’s wearing shorts (It’s 40 deg outside) and she’s boho-chic. Hair up, she’s currently leaned back on her phone. He’s seemingly given up leaning in towards her, and looks to the side at the painting on the wall. “Staring at the artwork looks smart” – that’s what I imagine he’s thinking. And now he’s leaned back in for more conversation, good man.
The table to my right is now free. And the bus boy is hot. Lovely evening. And the dipping oil just lit my mouth on fire. Screwed. Damn.
Blond couple left the restaurant arm in arm. It’s amaizng how far a compliment can get you. New couple to the right. Seem to know the waiter. That’s nice. I think they put parmesean on this pizza. Time to focus on dinner. Ciao.
Cow Joke: I found myself watching the first half of the Smurf movie the other night. “What do you get when you cross a smurf with a cow? Blue Cheese!”
Well there was no blue cheese to be had, but a couple weekends ago I visited friends in Antioch and we took a stroll through land that is jointly state park and pasture land. This time of year, the cows can smell and taste the grass seedlings (the rainy season has started here in Northern California; the ground is soaking it up and slowly turning green), so on our walk we passed many a cow.
I always find it a luxury to drive ten minutes from town and find yourself in a park with a little peace and quite, and a great view. So, I wanted to share with you here some of the views we had and a few portraits of the cows we passed by.
I love this picture of my nephew, excited on Christmas morning. Works for New Years, too. Happy 2012!
Hope you rang in the New Year in high spirits and with people you love. Cheers!
Irish Blessing for the New Year
May the new year bring
The warmth of home and hearth to you
The cheer and goodwill of friends to you,
The hope of a childlike heart to you.
The joy of a thousand angels to you,
The love of the Son and God’s peace to you.
This past week, after a wonderful Thanksgiving day and dinner (note the bird was deliciously marinated what I’m calling California-style – in Tequila and limes; people really like their tequila here), I did get to do a little sight seeing in the area. Destination: Muir Woods. My best friend and his wife traveled to California for their honeymoon this past spring, and came back talking about the amazing food and Muir Woods. Melissa’s post and especially Joel’s photo made me want to make sure I didn’t miss seeing these trees.
Turns out the place is enchanting. The rainy season, or winter, has started here in California. So it was a cool (in the 50s) afternoon, overcast and damp – mud on your shoes – kind of day.
This photo reminds me of paintings I've seen out West. Can't believe I took it with my camera.
Muir Woods is a national park located just north of San Francisco. One of the few redwood forests left in the Bay area (after the logging industry found California). This one protects old growth Coast Redwoods.
This is my favorite shot of the day. I love the contrast of the redwood and the greenery, and that you actually get a sense of being in the woods.
According to the nerds at wikipedia, redwoods can grow to 380 ft tall; however, the tallest in Muir Woods is 258 feet. Needless to say, they are giants, beautiful, and walking amongst them you spend most of your time looking up, daring and desperately trying to see the underside of their leaves. I did get one canopy shot:
More facts about redwoods – their seeds are about the same size as a tomato’s (talk about a growth spurt). The average age of the redwoods in Muir Woods is between 500 and 800 years old, with the oldest being at least 1,200 years old. And we have arrived at breath-taking: wow.
I drove down to Muir woods on Black Friday, expecting people to be in the malls and not in the woods. I was wrong. The place was packed; the tourists must not have heard about the deals. So, as Lenny put it we looked the for the paths “that the people who exercise” take, climbed a little higher and managed to find a little serenity and stranger-free photos.
This was the best day of my long weekend. Great walk in the woods. As we were pulling out of Muir Woods the sun was setting over the Pacific. We drove north on Route 1 for a while, hugging the coast and racing the sun. Beautiful.
Today I was tired when I woke up, but after hitting snooze twice I raced to get ready, threw some food in my cooler for breakfast and lunch and went to work wishing my eyes were closed. It was straight to the cellars, put on an extra sweat shirt, and get to the additions and pumpovers. Thanks to some help, I finished the pumpovers by noon, hung out at the lower crush pad, and then went to lunch. After lunch I had one rack to do, small tank, but I managed to fill my afternoon. Dirty rack of the pinot noir and then learned how to sanitize the tank. Apparently other people were looking for work as well because at one point we were four people staring at a tank being rinsed. Wahoo.
Looking forward to learning Spanish, thinking about learning French.
Key
extra sweat shirt = the cellars are kept at a pretty cool temp
pumpovers = like a drip coffee maker, but in this case, sucking juice from the bottom of the tank and sending it back up to the top and through a sprinkler over the grape skins.
crush pad = where we receive grapes and press them
rack = moving wine (or sometimes juice) from one tank to another. Dirty rack means you leave any solids and just take the clean stuff.
sanitizing = winery is a considered a food facility, and so a lot of the time in the cellars is cleaning in preparation to do something, or cleaning after you’ve done something. lots and lots of cleaning.
When I first arrived in Sonoma County this summer I had the opportunity to stay with a lovely couple, Cynthia and Gary. They took me for a tour around the area of Santa Rosa. Turns out just west of the city is a region well known for its apples. We went out one afternoon to pick wild blackberries, prep work for Cynthia’s world-famous jams (and other berry creations).
Turns out however, like with this year’s wine grapes, the harvest of wild blackberries was not ideal. We did our best, and tried to ignore the multitudes of thorns guarding each shiny gem of a berry. I kept wondering how bears do it, or perhaps rodents get most of the loot, waiting until the berries ripen and fall to the ground.
Some photos of what I’m calling the Brier Patch de Sebastopol:
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