Neighbors

When your husband is a chef, and your neighbor is a chef, you can always run next door when you run out of something. Today my neighbor came over to borrow sesame oil for tuna tar-tar. I gave him the sesame oil, and some of Scott's BBQ brisket we told him about. A little while later, the neighbor kids come over to return the sesame oil and gave me this:

Bob's Tuna Tar-Tar

Love having awesome neighbors! And get this, the guy moving in to the townhouse on the other side of us is also a chef...haven't met him yet, but I am foreseeing an iron chef style cook-off this summer!

Another Napa Post?

I didn't take this photo, but this is what the vineyards look like this time of the year....mustard in full bloom! This is infront of Frog's Leap.

Now that Nicole (Scripps!) lives in SF, we have gotten together quite a bit, starting with music festivals at Golden Gate Park last summer, to dinners in the City, to concerts at the Fillmore. I am so excited that she lives nearby. So last weekend, her boyfriend, Carlin, was in town visiting, and so of course we had to take them to Napa (as if we really needed an excuse to go!) We celebrated Nicole's birthday a week early, since she has that horrible fellows schedule, and had to work on her real birthday (boo...she was supposed to meet us at a concert!). Oh, and get this bit of trivia: Nicole and my little brother Max both share Feb. 20th as their birthday; and Nicole's brother and I share Dec. 27th. Weird.

Scott and I were really excited to meet Carlin, as he and Scott both share a love of anything and everything PHISH. So of course you have a good time when you mix good music, good friends, and good wine!

Usually, our Napa trips consists of stops at our favorite wineries, but this trip we decided to try a new one (gasp!). At the Food for Heart event, we met the hospitality director of Peju Provence winery, and after a little chatting, he told us to stop by the winery and he'd give us a tour. So that was our first stop. A beautiful modern winery, good wines, and we got a tour of the kitchen, where we got chocolate dipped long stemmed strawberries...yum! Did I mention it was Valentine's Day?

Cookbooks and wine (they were probably talking Phish-talk here)

Our next stop was Miner, where we all bought bottles of our fave Viogner. We had to represent Scripps at Miner! And then on to lunch at Taylor's Automatic Refresher, where the line was so long that Scott had to bring Nicole and I wine in line to make it bearable. But a seared ahi burger makes everything better! Our last stop was St Supery, where we lounged upstairs and sipped my favorite sauv blanc (Dollarhide Ranch).

Waiting for our burgers at Taylor's (were drinking Miner Sangiovese)

Perfect day...love Napa! And just so we don't get Napa withdrawls, we're going back this week with Scott's father (ok, so maybe we didn't move up here for better career opportunities and family...maybe it was really Napa!)

Food From the Heart

Food from the Heart 2010 With cupid in the air, fall in love with your favorite Napa Valley wines when the Napa Valley Vintners partners up with Slow Food San Francisco and San Francisco Ferry Building to bring you Food from the Heart. Get into the Valentine's Day spirit by strolling through the candlelit Grand Nave of the Ferry Building Marketplace as the 7th annual "Food From the Heart" kicks off on Friday, February 12th, with a benefit for Slow Food San Francisco. (ferrybuildingmarketplace.com)

Another Friday night Scott and I got to spend together, so this time we enjoyed Food from the Heart at the Ferry Building. We have a lot of date nights to catch up now that Scott is actually available some Friday and Saturday nights! Apparently, this is what it is like being married (and I thought for the past 1 1/2 years that marriage meant weekends without your spouse!)
Anyway, this was a wonderful event. We purchased tickets, which were spent on wine and food tastings. Most of the Ferry Building vendors set up stations in the main hall, offering up delicious bites of food in exchange for tickets. Wineries from Napa also joined the mix, pouring their best wines.
Our favorite station of the night was Hog Island Oyster Co's oyster station, where they had oysters on the half shell for 1 ticket. We continued our food and wine stroll, and later ended up at Hog Island's oyster bar in their restaurant for a dozen oysters and champagne. A perfect evening of food and wine!
Some pictures from our evening:

Oysters!

A chocolatier making chocolate artwork tiles

Meat cones from Boccalone...delicious!

Check out all the mushrooms at Far West Funghi

Proof that I was actually out with my husband on a Friday night =)

WHOLE Foods

This week, we decided to eat WHOLE foods, not meaning food purchased from the pricey grocery store, but rather homemade food with wholesome ingredients. It was a lot of work and required a lot of kitchen time, but we felt so good not putting any processed foods into our body all week.
I began the endeavor by baking a loaf of whole wheat bread, while Scott roasted off an organic turkey breast. We used the bread for toast and sandwiches all week. We also used the roasted turkey on our sandwiches, rather than our usual deli meat.
The goal was to cook once on the weekend and make the food last for the week. We did pretty well on this...here is what we ate:
Monday: Roasted turkey, pine-nut rice pilaf, roasted cauliflower (purchased from the farmer's market infront of my school)
Tuesday: Turkey Cobb Salad with homemade croutons (from the bread I baked, and we used our homemade pickled eggs in the salad...more on this later!)
Wednesday: Turkey-Pepper Papparadelle (the noodles were made from the homemade pasta dough that we found in the freezer)
Thursday: Roasted carrots & meatloaf (ok, we were tired of turkey!)
Friday: I actually went out with my husband on a Friday night!!! (gotta love his new schedule)
Saturday morning: Soft scrambled organic eggs with chives and creme fraiche on toast (chives from our garden, homemade creme fraiche, and homemade toast!)
It really means a lot to us to actually know exactly where our food is from and what is in it. Maybe part of this is watching too many food documentaries...if you're interested in learning about our food industry I highly recommend watching Food Inc. and The Future of Food. We really have power with our forks!

Turkey-Pepper Papardelle

Whole Wheat Toast