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Bloggy awards

November 15, 2009 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | No comments

Happy Sunday evening! I have a bunch of fun posts coming up this week including coverage of my upcoming trip to San Diego and my (hopefully!!!) visit to the San Diego Food & Wine Festival. I found out earlier today that I received a blog award from Chicago Marathon Val, and I am really excited to receive it and pass it on!!

Here is the award:

This award is bestowed upon blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to six bloggers who must choose six more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award. I will pass this award to some of my bloggy friends that I find exceedingly charming…

It is insanely hard to pass on to only 6 bloggers! Anyone reading this right now deserves an award for all of the hard work and creativity you put into your blogs and into being part of the community. I have been considering deleting my blog a LOT recently, but attending the Foodbuzz Festival last week made me realize that I would miss out on a lot if I stopped. So here I am. . .

And here are the blogs I am passing the award on to:

Chicago Marathon Val – Definitely the blogger I would want to most go running with! Val is full of kindness, and her devotion to inner city kids and ending violence is admirable and right up my social service alley!

Eat Live Travel Write – I had the pleasure of spending the Foodbuzz Fest weekend with Mardi, and she is awesome! Witty, fun, a complete world traveler, and her blog is full of deliciousness. I can’t wait to meet again to spend more time eating!

Simply Life – I loved meeting and having lunch with Gina at our Boston blogger meet up a few weeks ago. Her food photos are the real deal, and everything she and her husband cook looks amazing.

Tales from Two Cities – I met Kirsten at the Healthy Living Summit, and I am so happy she started her own blog, which beautifully covers her amazing travel experiences! We share a love of food and wine all around Boston in addition to a love of Ireland, and she is super fun to chat with!

She Wears a Red Sox Cap – Also got to meet Kelly at the Boston blogger meetup and can not wait to get together again! I love her writing style, workouts, food, and everything she does looks like a lot of fun! Except maybe the marathon of weddings. . . 😉

Live Laugh Eat – I have ALSO met Allie, at the Healthy Living Summit. Writing out these awards makes me realize how many bloggers I actually have met! Allie is a really energetic and fun blogger who makes great food and is mature beyond her years. She is definitely someone I can see doing great things in her future!

I met so many new bloggers last weekend that I would add to this list, along with probably a dozen other blogs that I have been reading for months. All of you write and provide value to your readers, and all of you readers provide support and perspective to bloggers! Have a great night!

Yountville

November 15, 2009 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 11 comments

After lunch in Geyserville, we started a slow drive into the Napa Valley. If you have been here before, you know that it is completely exciting and overwhelming to drive past so many vineyards whose wine you have tried or want to try. It is tempting to stop at every single one! We were tired and wanted to check into our hotel though, so we went straight to Yountville and the Yountville Inn. Check in was smooth, and before we knew it we were chillin in our massive hotel room.

It was so beautiful and big. The fireplace was not that necessary as it was around 65 degrees out, but we put it on anyway. After getting a bit of rest, we decided to walk over to Domaine Chandon. Yep, Domaine Chandon was within walking distance of our hotel. That’s how we roll 🙂

As you can see the property is absolutely stunning. It is beautifully landscaped and grand. The on site restaurant just received a Michelin star. We each enjoyed a glass of bubbly, and while it was of course lovely, I have to say that the vibe at this winery was perhaps my least favorite. Most likely because it is such a large and well known label, the tasting room was PACKED and a little chaotic. It was not like the other wineries where we were able to chat with the staff about terroir as we sipped. It was worth a visit just to see the space and because it was so close to our hotel, but I probably wouldn’t rush back. What can I say? Give me a dusty farm road dotted with tasting rooms in old houses or even warehouses, and I am a happy girl. I love it to be about the wine and the people! After Domaine Chandon, it was the moment we had been waiting for.

Trying to get reservations at any of Thomas Keller’s Yountville restaurants is a pretty big job. We gave up on The French Laundry and moved on to Bouchon. To my great surprise, I was able to book a reservation about a month before our trip on Open Table. Love that site. We were obviously very excited to eat at Bouchon. Upon being seated, we were brought a little dish of pistachios along with fresh baguettes from the Bouchon bakery and mouthwatering creamy butter.
Our first course was a half dozen oysters. Hoping for some more Hog Island or Kumamoto oysters from the West coast, I was more than a little disappointed when our server brought us Island Creek oysters from Duxbury, Massachusetts. I LOVE Island Creek oysters, but being on the completely other side of the country, I really wanted to eat local varieties. They were still good though 🙂 Served with a spicy cocktail sauce and mignonette, which went perfectly with the baguette.

For my entree I ordered Gnocchi a la Parisienne sautéed with garden vegetables and beurre noisette.

The gnocchi was very unique as it had an extremely slight crispiness to the outside of it, and soft fluffy centers. The gnocchi dough was made with mustard which came through delicately and gave the whole dish a subtle mustard flavor. The vegetables were very fresh and cooked just enough to be softened but still had a bit of bite in them. We were still a bit hungry after the entrees, so we perused the dessert menu and opted for the special, Bouchon brownies on valhrona chocolate with vanilla bean ice cream.

Yesssss. . . this was worth the trip to Yountville alone. The chocolate was such high quality, the brownies were crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside, and the ice cream created that perfect cold, creamy contrast to the richness of the chocolate. Overall our experience at Bouchon was good, and I am happy we were able to have the experience of eating at one of Thomas Keller’s restaurant. Next time in San Francisco, we need to hit up another Keller

Tags: Bouchon, champagne, Food, Napa, wine, wine country

What’s in the fridge?

November 14, 2009 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 7 comments

Sleepy day, eh? I was up early and out of the house to meet some Boston bloggers for a run. I met up with Alison, Elina, Ina, and Beth for a run on the Cambridge side of the Charles. I am SO glad Elina arranged the run and that we actually went out and did it because the weather was brutal at times. By the time we finished four miles, my shoes were full of water, and my clothes clung to me as though I went swimming in them. Still, I managed to drag my soggy self into Trader Joe’s to pick up some food for the week along with my Super Red Drink Powder to bring to San Diego with me this week. Must.stay.healthy. My office is split up into two areas by the reception area, and word on the street is that the other area is full of sick people at the mo. They should stay away. I am taking a short break from California posts just to break things up a little bit. I could seriously write about our trip for the next couple of weeks as I want to remember every second, but other stuff has gone on since we returned, and I don’t want to bore anyone with constant wine chatter.

We flew into Boston on a red eye and arrived a little before 7 am Wednesday. Virgin America just rocks. They got us in 40 minutes early with another perfectly smooth landing. On the four flights I have had with them so far, every landing has been like setting down on pillows. And landing normally terrifies me. The internet on Virgin America is also great and is free from now until after the holidays! Anyway, we headed home from the airport and pretty much the second we got in the door, I unpacked the laptop and logged into my office computer to greet the flood of emails that arrived when I was away. THIS is why I work on vacation. I would much prefer to handle a few things a day than be completely swamped and miserable my first day back. People yell at me all the time for working on days off, but for me it just works and not doing it this time made everything pretty bad. . . Working all day on no sleep meant no time to go grocery shopping. I wanted a healthy meal to detox from my 5 days of eating and drinking everything in sight, so I scrounged around to see what we had leftover from the week before.

A hearty butternut squash – I love how long it lasts!

Panko bread crumbs, thank you Kikkoman and Foodbuzz!
Trader Joe’s chicken apple sausage, so yum. (This recipe could be made with beans or tofu, very easily) I started by cutting and gutting the butternut squash.

The stuffing for the squash consisted of chopped sausage, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, a few dashes of cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and freshly ground black pepper.

Grenada nutmeg, love the travel memories it brings. . . The topping was topped off with grated Kerrygold Dubliner cheese.

I coated the butternut squash halves with olive oil and a bit of cayenne and popped them in the oven at 400 for about 25 minutes before I pulled them out and stuffed them. I returned them to the oven for about 20 more minutes, waiting until the flesh of the squash was able to be easily pierced with a fork.

Please ignore our ancient baking sheets 😉 This dish was easy, healthy, and actually a lot of fun to make and really, it could easily be vegetarian. I probably will make it with tofu next time. Being away from a kitchen for so long is always difficult for me. We have already talked about our next trip to California wine country and about maybe renting a little apartment or staying in a hotel that offers rooms with kitchens. Can you just imagine the wine and food pairings you could do in your own wine country kitchen? Travel Eat Love’s Wine Country Kitchen. . . I like the sound of it!