Salted caramel ice cream churning - rich, sticky and gooey, gelato-like

Rosette of melting sugar - the beginnings of salted caramel ice cream

Caramel nut tart - Christmas 2009 dinner

Gorgeous, blue crisp sparkling 60F day in Napa Valley (from Freemark Abbey's patio, tasting 95 & 04 Sycamore Cab... So far)

Filtering 2009 Greenridge Meyer Limoncello

cinc sentits

Phenomenal tasting menu for lunch, with a little cava to start and a recently almost endangered white wine, godello. My fav so far was the Iberian pork belly with veloute of butternut squash; Thomas loves the scallops with jerusalem artichoke puree and ham chip. YUM.

dejeuner a La Mere Germain

Le soleil is finally out today-almost too much so out on this terrace! Avez-vous du creme solaire svp? The blackbirds flying through the sky en masse are incredible.

best dinner so far

Was ce soir at Hiely Lucullus in Avignon. Service was amazing, food was great esp the cheese selection, wine was fantastic and local-a cotes du rhone from Ch. d'Hughes near Orange. They kept giving us little amuses bouches as well incl a bit of fried chocolate (who'da thunk?) and a house-made marshmallow which Thomas declared tasted like a peep! (yet not quite so sweet or brightly colored of course)

Sat, Sep 9, 2006 at 3:51 PM: la vaca!

Awesome new addition to Napa Valley: La Vaca & BBQ. Centrally located in Oakville, too. Super authentic Mexican food - and reasonably priced. We pshaw the Oakville Grocery lemmings!

Falafel Palace

Actually it's Palffy Palace, in what is now a music conservatory and used to be a private residence. Gorgeous baroque sort of room, great meal.

snausages

 

Tra Vigne

Our night didn't end at Freemark; as we headed back down the valley, we decided to pop in to one of our favorite local restaurants for a nightcap. We tried Martini House first, but it was claustrophobically packed. So we skipped over to Tra Vigne, where there were no seats at the bar but at least the airy ceilings and respectful distance to the tables made it much more manageable.

winningest table

Thomas gave tips to everyone he could on how to ace the ring toss after he did it, and most people who followed his coaching returned with a bottle, including more than half of our tablemates; every bottle of wine on this table was originally in the ring toss formation!

ring toss for wine!

We each got 3 chances at the ring toss. Dead simple rules: get a ring around the neck of one of the bottles and it's yours! Thomas of course came back with a fine bottle, the 1999 Cab Bosche.

Freemark Abbey

Harvest party out on the lawn.

perfect day

The sun's still shining as the Freemark Abbey Harvest Party gets rolling with fresh shucked oysters and hors d'ouvres. Gorgeous and high 70's.

Bouchon

Lunch at Bouchon in Yountville on the way up the valley. A lovely bistro-style restaurant owned by Thomas Keller, who also owns French Laundry.

sunday brunch

Slow Club for Sunday brunch with Stewart and Lori, 2 of the utterly coolest people in the world.

our kind of tailgating!

Traffic getting into Infineon was SO much smoother than Laguna. And that included non-race traffic going to Vallejo, Sonoma, and Napa. So we made it up there and parked very close to one of the gates with minimum hassle, and proceeded to have a little pre-race snack: sushi and sauvignon blanc!

bye bye Eun Jin!

Eun Jin is moving to Pittsburgh-boo!!! We will miss her very much.  We managed to drown our sorrows at Bacar's happy hour.