Flavors 518

I'm no good at waiting for gifts, and Scott's present would have been a lot more expensive to arrive on Valentine's Day. What is funny is that I talked about heart shaped whoopie pies in this post and that seemed to have given a hint. Before I get into all that, let me just say I love this blog, and check out her Valentine's jello mold . Here are some ideas from some museums that are and are not that great . And here are some other artsy, and pretty good ideas (suggesting  macarons and Macallan shows a good current understanding of the tastes of different genders, or at least in this couple). Without further ado, when I woke up this morning I was making coffee and Scott pretended to have to go get the recycling bin to put magazines in (he did say he was going to clean up the living room this weekend). He came back with a huge box. What could that be I wondered? They were featured in the New York Times . Martha Stewart said "These are the best who...

 For a few days on our honeymoon we had a string of pretty amazing dinners . But by the time we got to Santa Rosa, we were ready for something a little simpler. It would have been fine to go for something fancier if anything had looked interesting, but the food scene in Santa Rosa looked expensive without being thrilling (after Bouchon and Zuni Cafe it was easy to be underwhelmed). So we decided to take a little drive west to an old lumber town, Occidental, and try Negri's Italian Restaurant . I am a sucker for immigrant stories, ever since I worked at Ellis Island for a summer. I think that I am so interested in immigrant stories because they usually make me think about the improbability of people meeting and making a life somewhere, and how easy it is to lose one's way. It makes me think about the struggles gone through and sacrifices made by previous generations for their descendants. I think about the really poor people coming over from Italy with literally one small s...

So I am officially getting sick of the watermelon gazpacho I have been eating for lunch all summer, and my InStyle magazine that came yesterday got me drooling over riding boots and Tippi Hendren wool dresses and tweed suits all over again, so I would say summer is coming to a near close. Sure, you say, not quite sure yet, but I want to feel prepared. I want to appreciate it fully so that one day in the not so distant future when I am fighting my way up a mountain through an awful snowstorm, the first of many, I can remember flawless, dry summer days and remember that those will come again. This summer will be remember as the summer I got married, went on a honeymoon (finally getting to visit California, falling totally in love with the Pacific Northwest), and watched years 1990-1996 of Beverly Hills, 90210. It was also the summer we almost hit a grizzly bear with our car on our ten hour long drive from Napa to Portland, which was for some reason was very memorable to me (maybe beca...

 We just got back from our honeymoon this weekend. We did sort of a west coast tour which included a lot of winery visits. In Napa, we visited the Elyse winery where we tasted some really amazing wines , and a port that really impressed us. Previously, we had worried about tasting wines that seemed too expensive for us to purchase, but looking back it doesn't matter if you buy a bottle or not, you still get to enjoy your tasting (many places the tasty fee is waived with purchase of a bottle though so might as well if you really like it). The Elyse winery visits are by appointment only, partially they said to avoid drunken bachelorette parties and rowdy people in limos, but you can actually call that day and still get an appointment. Then, we visited Domaine Carneros which had some really nice sparkling wines. The tasting area is a bit of an over the top ostentatiously French looking set up, which is actually a very nice spot to enjoy some flights of bubbly.  In Sonoma, w...