Lisa's Culinary Atrocities

Ah Sonoma and Napa, let us taste the fruit of your wondrous land.

I am so excited for today as we will spend the majority of it visiting vineyards and experiencing their bounty. Car roof down and hair-a-flailing we work our way to our first stop of the morning (ok…late morning): ZD Wines in Napa.

In the last 5 years, ZD Wines have received 373 medals, 108 of which were Gold Medals with 17 Double Gold and 8 Best of Class!   Unfortunately, my favorite wine was $125 a bottle.  This appears to be one of the problems with doing wine tours…once you taste your way to the top it’s hard to go back.

Next, Bottega Ristorante in Yountville, owned by Chef Michael Chiarello and one of the top 20 and Zagat rated restaurants in the country.  We decided to wait for a table on the patio so in the interim we spent some time next door in Mr. Chiarello’s store, Napa Style.  Ut-oh…all the stuff I never knew I needed!  They had some large steel containers of olive oil to taste, all of which were good, but the most delicious was their Sicilian unfiltered olive oil.  We did not purchase any (wish I would have had I known I couldn’t find it on their website) but I did purchase some Cabernet Pasta (or Pasta Caberneti Penne) that is made from dried and milled grape skins.  I am really excited to do some food and wine pairing taste-tests on this in the near future.

Finally sitting on the beautiful Bottega patio, enveloped in the deep red from the sun shining through the patio tent, we munched on some of the best bread we’ve had.  It was exceptionally crunchy on the outside and soft-n-chewy on the inside, so good in fact, I heard my Father make yummy noises (doesn’t happen often).  For our meals we both had the Crispy Potato Gnocchi with english pea & tallegio fonduta, early spring vegetables and prosciutto crisp, paired with a Frank Family Chardonnay.

The gnocchi was some of the best gnocchi I’ve ever layed my tongue upon.  Lightly browned on the bottom with a gentle balance of flavors and textures. The prosciutto crisp added just enough salt and crunch to take the meal from very good to exceptional.  The portion was perfect as a light meal and to help renew the palette for more wine tastings to come. *grin*

After lunch, we went across the street to Hope and Grace Wines which was recommended, and most unfortunately not as memorable as the painting they had on the wall, which I am quite fond of.  It is titled “Angry Girl”.  I anguish at even adding this part except for the fact that I really like the painting.

From there, with rows and rows of vineyards flying by and the sun twirling her long fingers through our hair, we headed to Calistoga for a specific Calistoga water that they ended up not having.  Bummer. 

We then remembered being wooed by the Castle in the distance: Castello di Amorosa.  We had seen this castle from afar a few years ago while on the tram at Sterling Vineyards and became curious.  We attempted to find it that year, but by the time we did, it was closed.  This year we decided to make it a point to visit! It was a very fun experience, exploring the nooks and cranny’s, seeing the paintings and ancient furniture, and working our way to the dungeon where the wine tastings were held.  Read more about them here.

Finally back in Sonoma, the smells of roasting and croissants lure us to the farmer’s market.  I was kindly offered a fig and it’s flowered pink innards filled my mouth with its sweet offering.  Here is a great post on how to pick a ripe fig. I do loove fresh figs.

Remembering how much we liked it during our last visit, we ended up at Della Santina’s, just a block west of the square in Sonoma.  I had Ravioli alla Lucchese (kip and spinach filled pasta in a meat and porcini mushroom sauce) and my Father had the Penne Contadina (penne with italian sausage and pear tomatoes).  We shared a really nice bottle of Alma 2007 Red Table Wine from Sonoma (a red Bordeaux blend) that was kindly suggested as an off menu selection.

The food was very good, but not quite as good as we had remembered.  Could be because our palettes were overwhelmed from the day, so I would still highly recommend them.  The wine was lovely and paired perfectly with our meals

So…another successful day.  Tomorrow we head through Anderson Valley towards Mendocino.  More wine to come!

     I recently came across this article about culinary trends in ice cream.  A timely find as this post is going to be, in part, about ice cream!  On our recent holiday we had two unusual ice cream experiences, only one of which I will write about now. The other is riddled with sadness and despair.  How’s that for a teaser?
     After leaving Monterey, we headed north towards Napa to begin our wine and food tour.  On the way we stopped at Garlic World in Gilroy, CA, the garlic capital of the World.  My mission?  To find the most unusual garlic product in the store.  I was disappointed at the lack of unusual items but I DID find garlic ice cream! They had chocolate and vanilla and I purchased two vanilla.  In retrospect I should have purchased one of each.  Shazbat.  I eagerly took it outside to present it to my Father, who was a little pensive but willing to give it a try (that’s why I love him so).  I pulled open the lid of the mysterious black-magic concoction, fully expecting an intrusive waft of garlic, but was met with the smell of sweet sweet vanilla…hmmm…nothing unusual.

Letting my Father take the first taste…you know, in case it was poisonous, I recorded his reaction and watched for signs of asphyxiation (sorry Daddy…and sorry for the photo too)
     He liked it!  (Hey Mikey!)  As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this reaction on his dear face before.  I now have a visual memory in which to base all further questions I ask of my Father.  Then, I tried it, and liked it too!  Wow!  Who knew garlic in ice cream could be so delicious.  The garlic and vanilla meshed together in a sweet creamy sensation.  It was not biting, but rather sweet—garlic must have been roasted.  It was most interesting and I would have it again.

Before we left we had to be garlic bulbs.  My Father is such a good sport :)

Not too much later, back in the car, we discovered the lingering effect.  Food was in order to quench the gastro-garlic.  I had never been to an In-N-Out (apparently a fast food favorite à la numerous famous culinarians), and we had been talking about it since I arrived 5 days ago, so our next destination was just that:

So, I liked that too!  Not too shabby for a burger, although I must say, if you’re going to have a fast food burger, I will always opt for Burgerville—Why?  Delicious, sustainable, commitment to communities, fresh, local, collaborative, farm raised, conscious, oh and delicious.  They also have veggie burgers that are truly sensational…  When at home I always opt for that.

     After lunch, destination Andretti Winery was set on the GPS; how could any car person NOT go to Andretti Winery first?  We eventually came upon the beautiful rows of grapes and I got excited.  Heck-a-roni, I am excited now just thinking about it.  We arrive and it is just how I remember: rustic, inviting, warm, colorful, … pure Italiano.  Another tradition of mine, tasting a grape off the vine:

Happy from the vino, we head to to Sonoma, check into the hotel and make our way to the square.  Where to eat, where to eat?   We decided to have a cocktail and think about it.  Went to The Girl and the Fig where I had a fig concoction made with house-made fig liqueur, Finlandia blueberry infused vodka, orange juice, lime, ginger and simple syrup:

It was mighty tasty but think I would prefer it without the simple syrup.  Even though it was too sweet for me, it was incredibly delicious and a liiiiittle to easy to drink, so I had to reason myself out of a second.

     We finally decided on dinner at the El Dorado Kitchen, which is part of the El Dorado Hotel (and consistently voted ‘The Best Restaurant in Sonoma’).  Well they are not kidding!!  I blathered on about this sensational gastronomic experience in this post here…read it…go on!  Are you reading it? 

The entire day was a culinary success in all possible ways.  Back at the hotel, fluffy pillows welcomed my spinny head and I drifted off to a parallel la la land. Mmm. 

Tomorrow….more……………..wiiine………………………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.