Bitch Please

Sometimes all it takes for me to try a new wine is an interesting label in pretty colors. I know the photos suck, but you'll just have to trust me that it's a pretty shade of pink.

I knew I was going to blog about this wine when I bought it at my new favorite wine store Total Wine. I couldn't wait to use the title. ;-) Here is the space where I had hoped to write, "I'd like some more Bitch please." Except that the wine, much like my photos, kinda sucked. Even after being poured through my trusty Vinturi, the wine tasted thin and acidic. How an earlier vintage rated highly is beyond me. At least it was under $10.

What I really should be bitching about is Verizon's internet service. It is consistently hit-or-miss between the hours of roughly 8pm until 10pm. Their tech support has never been able to figure out why. While not ideal, this usually this works out alright for me. I have use of the computer from the time I get home until dinner, which is usually around 8. Then Eddie gets to play his computer games while the internet is spotty. But due to an busy evening and poor planning on my part, I never found a good time to post yesterday. I kept getting kicked off. Which means I failed NBPM of day 3. Day 3 people! Just call me loser.

It's a GTG!

What is a GTG? It's an afternoon of food, laughter, cute dogs and cool women all getting together to hang out and have a good time. Yesterday, 10Years welcomed the ladies of OC, LA and the IE into her home for a fun-filled time. WeezerMonkey documented the day with many pictures, but left out a photo of one of the best parts of the day: live entertainment by the talented Monkey!

I couldn't figure out what type of food item to bring, so I arrived with a pitcher of sangria instead. I used to refer to it as Cha Cha Cha Sangria, since the recipe was inspired by the featured drink served at Cha Cha Cha. But at the suggestion of Marshmalo, I might refer to it as Memory Inhibiting Sangria in the future.

You will need:

• 1 bottle dry white wine (I use a sauvignon blanc with fruity notes)
• 1 bottle red wine (preferably a beaujolais)
• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 1 cup of sugar
• assorted fruits (I always use red grapes and strawberries)
• 1-2 ounces of brandy (optional)

1. In a large non-metal bowl, mix the wines together, along with the cup of sugar. Stir for a few minutes.
2. Slice the orange and lemon into thin slices (1/8 - 1/4 of an inch). Add to the wine and stir.
3. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
4. In the morning, add in your other fruits and the brandy. Stir again, pour into a pitcher and chill until it's time to party!

This sangria goes down so easy you may forget you're drinking alcohol. Plan accordingly. ;-) On the rare occasion you have some leftover, skim out the fruit and store the rest in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

A Coastal Getaway

In what is starting to become a tradition, Eddie and I escaped to the coast for our anniversary getaway. Last year we had a great spa weekend at the Surf and Sand Resort in Laguna Beach. This year we traveled a bit farther, up to the Central Coast. After a later-than-planned start last Friday, we arrived in Cambria just in time for our dinner reservation at Robin's restaurant.

Even though the night was a bit chilly we opted to sit out on the covered patio, with a heat lamp nearby. We started off by sharing the Crispy Vietnamese Lumpia with house-made kimchee and sweet chili sauce. The lumpia was fine, but the real standout was the kimchee. They should bottle some and sell it. We'd buy it.

Eddie had Porcini Pappardelle Pasta with squash fonduta, roasted wild mushrooms, toasted pepitas and crispy sage. I almost ordered this, but chose not to in an effort to avoid carbs. The joke was on us though because the pasta was a spelt or multigrain version. Not exactly Eddie's preference, but I thought it was yummy. The fantastic mushrooms made it up for him.

I had Pork Osso Buco with celery root-potato puree, braised greens, cranberry-port demi glace and crispy parsnip. Everything was delicious, but the braised greens were outstanding. I wish I had the recipe.

For dessert we had mango sorbet and tiramisu. The sorbet was light and obviously used fresh fruit. The tiramisu was good too.

After dinner we checked in to our room at the Moonstone Landing Inn. Our room was spacious and comfortable, with a balcony and fireplace. We also had a fantastic view. This is what I woke up to last Saturday morning:

After a light breakfast provided by the Inn and watching the surfers for a while, we drove to Hearst Castle for a tour. We opted for the Experience Tour, which is recommended for first-time visitors to the Castle. We fit the bill. After arriving at the visitor center we got on to a shuttle bus for the winding 5-mile trip up the hill.

The tour started with admiring the exterior of one of the guesthouses:

Even guests had a marvelous view.

We then moved on to view the Roman pool. The piece on the left was actually imported from Rome. The other columns and statues were custom built to fit the theme. The pool has always had the capability to be heated, which was quite a big deal back in the day.

This is just a sample of one of the rooms in the primary guesthouse.

This is the exterior of the main house. William Hearst's theme for the main house was "Catholic Church" even though he was not Catholic. I think he accomplished his goal.

The fireplace of the main sitting room where guests would mingle over cocktails before dinner. William Hearst had a lot of famous friends including stars of screen and stage, artists, oil barons, writers and even Einstein.

The north end of the sitting room. Really, a point-and-shoot cannot do the Castle justice. The opulence, artwork and attention to detail was astounding. According to our guide, William Hearst made an average of $50,000 a day. That's a lot of money by current standards and a phenomenal amount of money for the 1920s-40s. The Castle truly reflects that.

Despite his wealth, it is said that William Hearst was a down-to-earth man who didn't like pretentiousness. Hence the table setting with plain old ketchup and mustard right on the table in their respective bottles.

Our final stop was the indoor Neptune pool. There are four tours available at the Castle. Each one covers approximately 25% of the property, but every tour ends at the Neptune pool.

The tilework in the pool area features 24K gold.

After a quick lunch at the visitor's center, we drove north on PCH to the elephant seal vista point.

At this time of year females who have just given birth and young seals dominate the population.

There were a few male seals around trying to get their groove on early. Mating season is still a few weeks away.

This pup's mom needed some alone time; she had moved 20-25 feet away. Her pup was determined to catch up though.

Finally! Back with mama.

I think this is the closest that seals get to a dogpile.

We headed back to our hotel and crossed the street over to Moonstone Beach.

Eddie's the adventurer. My feet were (somewhat) firmly on the ground.

The ground was not sandy, but was covered in smooth pebbles instead. There were quite a few people searching through the rocks for additions to their collections. Since it was low tide, we were able to wade fairly far into the water.

After picking up complimentary snacks and drinks from the Inn's lobby we watched the sunset from our balcony.

Going ...

going ......

gone.

Saturday night's dinner was at The Sow's Ear. Dinner here was just okay, especially since we had enjoyed Robin's so much the evening before.

There was a lot of pig kitsch around, but this little piggy chef tucked away in the corner was my favorite.

We started with Herb Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms broiled in lemon garlic butter and white wine.

Eddie had Chicken Fried Steak with country sausage gravy.

I had Coffee Crusted Kobe Steak with a port wine glaze and blue cheese. The steak seemed a little underseasoned. I think I should have gone with my initial ordering instinct instead, which was the Lobster Pot Pie. I ended up having several bites of Eddie's dish after abandoning mine.

For dessert Eddie had the Ollalieberry Granita. He said it tasted a little syrupy. I had the Warm Cinnamon Bread Pudding. It was nothing like the great bread puddings I had in NOLA. Boo.

The town of Cambria gets quiet early, especially in an off-season month. After dinner we got the fireplace going in our room and watched What Happens in Vegas, which we had picked up from the Inn's DVD library.

Sunday morning was just as gorgeous as the previous day. I took a leisurely stroll along the boardwalk. How can you distinguish the locals from the visitors? The locals say hello to everyone they encounter along the path. When you live in such a lovely location I guess it's easy to be warm and friendly. As much of a city girl as I am, I could totally live in a low-key beach town. We couldn't go all the way up to the Central Coast without heading to a few wineries in Paso Robles. Well, okay, I couldn't head all the way up there without going to a winery or two. Our first stop was Opolo, which I had thoroughly enjoyed visiting last May.

We were the only visitors on a Sunday morning, but this adorable little ball of fluff generated a lot of conversation between us and the pourer. Layla was thrilled to have a couple new adorers.

Our next stop was Jada, where I neglected to take any photos. What makes the tasting unique at this winery is that they pair a cheese with each pour. I wish they sold some of the cheeses they use for pairing. If anyone knows where I can find a cocoa-dusted goat cheese, shoot me a message.

The final winery we visited was Dover Canyon. Rebel Rose greeted us at the car door and showed us the way to the tasting room. This was the smallest winery we visited, but the staff was extremely friendly. The reggae music in the background gave the tasting room a kickback vibe.

Of course she got a reward for a job well done!

By this point I was pretty boozy, so I handed the keys over to Eddie before we drove to lunch. After a leisurely lunch at McPhee's Grill, it was time to leave the mellow coast behind and start the long haul home.

We already have next year's beach getaway planned. More details in the months ahead, but I seriously can't wait. :-)

Christmas in the City

So the week prior to Christmas, Big Bad came down to my new office location to tell me exactly how much I suck as an attorney during my annual evaluation. He even wrote an oh-so-lovely page expressing his true feelings about me. Despite his scathing comments, I still received my final raise and final step approval. All things considered it was a little Christmas miracle. But miracles aside, I was so.very.happy to have a week off for our holiday trip to San Francisco.

Driving conditions were good and we had a beautiful drive through the Grapevine. As you can tell in my previous post, we made a short stop to play in the snow.

Our first destination was actually Napa in order to visit Eddie's sister and her husband. J&W recently got a puppy, Riley, and were also dogsitting another dog, Yorkie. With each other to play with, Jack and Riley were in heaven. Yorkie decided the youngsters were too wild and crazy and hid out under the table.

Sunday night we had dinner at Elements. There is a wall of wine in the restaurant, held in place by a series of open racks. Why am I mentioning this? Because I unknowingly brushed against a bottle and knocked it clear off the wall. It was just mere luck that I didn't cause a chain reaction and take out the entire bottom row of wine. So embarrassing. I didn't take pictures of our food, but if you ever check it out you must try the tuna carpaccio with nicoise garnishes, either the black cod or the salmon and the semolina cake with meyer lemon mascarpone. And is you are a Pinkberry fan you will love the apple tart with greek yogurt sorbet.

The next day W suggested that we take a tour of the Castello di Amarosa winery. It was a great tour for both wine drinkers (such as me and W) and non-wine drinkers (Eddie). Built by Dario Sattui of V. Sattui fame, the winery is modeled after an old European castle. Many of the materials were imported from Italy and Austria, with some of the bricks having been used in other castles. There was even a replica of a dungeon with all sorts of cool torture implements. Here is the dining hall.

Much of the castle is used for wine storage and aging. Overall, I preferred the Castello wines over the V. Sattui wines. There were a few misses, such as the merlot, but I walked out with three bottles (dry gewurtztraminer, chardonnay and the blended red "Il Brigante"). Even though there are over 100 rooms and several events are hosted throughout the year, the winery has no plans for on-site lodging.

My battery started dying on the tour and during the tasting, so I made sure to save my last shot for the exterior of the winery.

Monday afternoon we drove to my family's home in San Francisco and spent some quality time with my folks. The next afternoon I met up with some of my old PCX friends for lunch. I should have been at home resting since I had (and still have) the most miserable cold ever, but it had been way too long since I had seen my friends. We went to a casual sandwich and salad shop in the FiDi.

The food was quite good. But I completely forgot to take pictures since the three of us started gabbing right away and never stopped until we parted ways. I miss these flower named girls.

After lunch I set out for an annual holiday tradition. Along the way I caught glimpses of some SF landmarks. This is what I used to see every morning walking out of the BART station.

I took this picture to prove a point for tourists. You do not need to stand in the middle of the intersection in order to take a picture of the Chinatown gate. Repeat: do not stand in the middle of a busy downtown intersection for pictures.

Finally I reached my destination. For every year as long as I can remember, I have gone to Union Square to see the Christmas tree, the windows at Macy's and the ginormous tree at Neiman-Marcus.

When I was a kid, the windows at Macy's had the most elaborate displays. In recent years they have downscaled the decor for a very good cause. Partnering with the SF SPCA, the store now features adoptable shelter animals in its windows. There is always SPCA staff on hand inside to take care of all the animals' needs, as well as staff outside to collect donations for the no-kill organization. The doggie and kitty condos are all well decorated and stocked with toys and other comforts.

You can see Neiman's tree through the windows. The base is on the first floor and the tree goes up all the way to the glass topped Rotunda.

As much fun as I had on Tuesday, I paid the price for it that night. My cold got a lot worse. Blech. But I just reminded myself that being sick on vacation was still TONS better than being at work.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fairly low key. Most of the time was spent with family, old family friends or curled up on the sofa. I needed to conserve my limited energy for Friday. In what has become a holiday tradition for me and Claire, we went to the Embarcadero Center for a little ice skating.

The rink is set up from November through January. I love skating outdoors.

The rink was crowded, the ice was bad and it was too early for the Bay Bridge and Embarcadero Tower lights to come on, but can one really complain about this? Winter in California rocks.

After skating we walked across to the Ferry Building & Marketplace. We picked up a gingerbread cupcake to share from Miette and stopped by Peet's for a cup of coffee. As we enjoyed our goodies at one of the communal tables in the building, we were highly entertained by the 50-ish woman at our table who was trying to pick up on a 60-ish married man. Her M.O. was to offer him her cookies. I kid you not.

By the time we finished our coffee it was time to meet FogCityDweller for our annual BFF holiday dinner. A few years ago we decided that spending time with each other over a good meal would be better than gift we could exchange with each other. This year we went to Beretta, a new restaurant that has taken over the location of one of our old favorites. RIP Last Supper Club. :-(

The restaurant was actually bustling, but we were the first party of the evening to be seated in the downstairs dining room.

Beretta has a creative cocktail list. On the left is FogCityDweller's Spiced Sazerac with spice infused apple brandy, sugar and orange bitters. On the right is my Acadian with rye, sloe gin, lemon, honey, absinthe and rosemary.

The antipasti dishes are definitely meant to be shared by no more than two people. Tiny but tasty. It's a good thing the three of us share so well. We started off with the meatballs in spicy tomato sauce. We also had zucchini parmigiana but I spaced out on taking a photo of it.

We shared the saffron risotto with osso buco. Delish. This was my favorite dish of the evening.

We ordered the spicy italian sausage pizza. The sausage was definitely spicy and the pizza tasted good, but Mozza's definitely has the edge.

We also ordered the mushroom and fontina pizza. This was a bland, boring disappointment.

Even more disappointing was the dessert menu. There wasn't a single thing that sounded appealing to any of us. And we love our sweets! Most of the offerings featured gelato or sorbetti which seemed so out of place for the season. Did not compute.

The remainder of the weekend flew by, filled with visits to more family friends. Eddie received a rapid introduction into the world of Indian hospitality. We had to have chai and snacks at every house we went to. Saying "no thank you" is simply not allowed. I was a bad wife and forgot to (a) forewarn him and (b) explain how to pace oneself for chai madness.

I could have easily spent another week in SF. There never seems to be enough time to see all the people I would like to see or to do some the activities I can only do in the City.

A final bit of SF randomness on our way out of town. Get it? :-)