use real butter

I’m back in California! But this time it’s Southern California. It’s been a while since we’ve been back to see good friends, eat at favorite restaurants, visit old haunts, and hike local trails. We had a couple of days before Jeremy’s conference began. Because today (Monday) marks 18 years that we’ve been together here’s a sampling of the shenanigans we’ve been getting into for the past 48 hours.

a glorious sunrise from denver international airport

at the huntington: north vista lawn

in the rose hills foundation conservatory

a favorite of mine: horsetail plant (equisetum)

sundial

the grandeur of oak trees

I have always referred to The Huntington as The Huntington Gardens, but it is The Huntington Library. For me, it’s easy to get excited about the plants and overlook the art and library collections and exhibitions. After wandering the grounds and marveling at various plants, we popped by to see the “Beautiful Science” exhibit in the Library West Hall. It highlights astronomy, natural history, medicine, and light with original books from the Huntington’s collection – some as old as 400 years!

following the progression of astronomical ideas

galileo discusses earth-centered vs. sun-centered systems

my favorite was the light exhibit

optical fibers

james maxwell: the father of electromagnetism

old filament designs

We also visited the Long Beach Aquarium in which we spent the morning petting sharks and rays, watching sea otters and sea lions frolick, and marveling at colorful fishes and other sea critters.

jellies are so beautiful

little kid completely fascinated by the big tank of predators

more foofie frilly beautiful jellies

scratching his teeth on the glass (that’s what the marks are from)

i also love sea anemones

awesome little sea dragon

The weather was mercifully mild over the weekend although it began warming up today. Taking advantage of that cooler weather, we hiked into the Angeles National Forest – our former backyard.

the san gabriel mountains

a few flowers still in bloom

the shady parts of the trail

What a great way to work up an appetite! So far we’ve had Chinese, Thai, Sushi, and Vietnamese. I don’t actually know where a good Vietnamese restaurant is in So Cal. I only know of a great couple who make amazing Viet food. A White on Rice Couple, to be precise. I think they need to charge admission to their garden. It’s better than The Huntington!

chinese buddhist vegetarian food

thai: mee krob

thai: sizzling beef with spinach and cucumber

sushi: toro sashimi

sushi: hamachi sashimi

fresh veggies from the garden (okay, except the asparagus)

cooking our lunch *sizzle*

oh wow! all those persimmons on one tree!

and pomegranates?! this is truly paradise

And the added bonus was that we got to spend time with Sierra and Dante. Dante is a sweet boy, but he’s more interested in snacks. Sierra likes the attention and she is a huge goofball. Sierra is our pup away from home. We love her! We think Sierra and Kaweah would make a great pair of friends.

sierra puppy

I promise a recipe in the next post. The schedule is just too jam-packed right now to keep up with it all, but I hope you enjoyed some of the photos. Happy 18 years, Jeremy! xo

Recipe: meatball sandwich

On our quick 2-day trip in California’s glorious wine country, our first stop was Jordan Vineyard and Winery just over a mile north of Healdsburg off of beautiful Alexander Valley Road. I had met Jordan’s director of communications, Lisa Mattson, at IFBC in Seattle this past summer. Lisa was spunky and hilarious company during dinner. When she gave me her card, I only registered that Jordan was in California.

the lovely grounds at jordan winery

old oaks grace the patio

A couple of weeks before I left for BlogHer Food, I tweeted that we’d be spending a few days near Healdsburg after the conference. Lisa tweeted back that I should visit Jordan – perhaps attend their Harvest Lunch. The dates and locations all matched up, except that Lisa was going to be away on travel the day we arrived. But she made sure we were in good hands. Laura greeted us and walked our group through the stunning grounds to the incredible Harvest Lunch spread that their resident chef created. It was like being transported back to summer (California does that to you).

our table for harvest lunch

What I noticed and loved about Jordan was how all of their employees came in from the fields, the buildings, and gathered at the tables across the lawn to share lunch. Every day, Jordan’s chef prepares lunch for everyone at the winery to eat. There was a nice family feel to it. Laura told me she was excited about the mac and cheese (it was deliciously fancy mac and cheese) they were serving at lunch, but I was completely enamored with the vegetables – most of them straight from the garden, bursting with flavors of summer. Our lunch was served with Jordan’s crisp and bright Chardonnay. The winery is known for two types of wines: Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Chardonnay grapes are harvested from the Russian River Valley, but the Cab grapes are harvested in Alexander Valley.

tomatoes picked from their gardens that morning – still warm from the sun!

just a fraction of the beautiful dishes on offer

jordan chardonnay on ice

During lunch, we learned that Jordan was founded in 1972 by the Jordans – two petrologists who moved from Colorado to California. Petrologists are a flavor of geologist and so I was delighted to hear that the winery recently began incorporating soil mapping into how they grow their grapes. The property itself spans over 1,500 acres of rolling hills adorned with majestic California oaks and 75% of that is left natural and wild. As Laura led us down to see the chef’s garden after lunch, she explained Jordan’s commitment to sustainability and ecological balance of their land. The business is certified carbon-neutral and they implement several policies to minimize their impact on the environment. The garden was an enormous plot with tomatillos, all manner of herbs, precious heirloom tomatoes, several varieties of peppers, strawberries, figs, beans, onions, corn.

strawberries down at the chef’s garden

Because it was the harvest, we could see large stainless steel containers being loaded with hand-picked grapes and then transported up to the winery. We watched the operations as each container was tipped and emptied of its contents. The grapes fell into the hopper and then moved via conveyor belt past inspectors who removed debris and lesser-quality grapes before speeding into the building to be processed further. Meanwhile, the stems and leaves that were separated were trucked out to their compost (I love that!). The sheer volume was mind-blowing.

petit verdot grapes pouring into the hopper to remove stems and leaves

sooooo many grapes!

picking out burned grapes and other plant matter

On the way back to the reception area, I couldn’t help but admire the architecture and all of the trees and plants growing in courtyards and on the structures. Grand walls were blanketed in ivy which helps to keep the buildings cool from that hot hot sun. It’s the kind of place – with all those idyllic little nooks in the shade – that makes you want to grab a book, some cheese and bread, a glass of wine and go sit down and forget about everything else. Our sincerest thanks to Lisa and Laura for such a special visit at Jordan Vineyard and Winery.

persimmons ripening

a quiet courtyard with a statue of bacchus, roman god of wine

Full disclosure: Our group of four received complimentary harvest lunches and tours from Jordan Winery with no obligations.

It’s a small world, you know. When I was photographing lunch at Jordan, Laura asked me if I knew Matt Armendariz because he had been there not too long ago for a photo shoot. Are you kidding me? I love that guy! I just hugged his adorable self at BlogHer Food not five days ago… Food connects everyone in some form or another, but food and the interwebs bind us all like The One Ring. Not long before I flew to San Francisco, Jeremy informed me that the first year graduate students in his department gathered and took turns cooking for each other every weekend. He told me that the coming weekend they were going to make my recipe for Italian meatballs. Somehow, someone found my blog. I asked Jeremy if he thought it was weird to have these separate worlds colliding. He shrugged. I don’t think it phases him anymore. Okay, but where was I going with all of this? Those meatballs are not *my* recipe, they are Lorna’s recipe and when I saw her at the Queen Anne farmers market last month, I promised her I had another post on those meatballs coming.

i made meatball sandwiches

I must confess that I have always had a problem with meatball sandwiches. I began to discuss this with Jeremy because I had never had one before and he asked me why not. I’ll tell you why not. Because meatballs are spherical and they don’t stack nicely between two planar surfaces, that’s why not. Who the hell thought up such horrendous design mechanics of a sandwich? Also, they are discreet spheres rather than a continuous filling in the sandwich space. Ultimately, you know what this means, don’t you?

*inherent structural instability*

**Jump for more butter**

It’s been over a week since I landed in San Francisco and I’m still noodling about the area, busy with a lot of other business which I’ll share with you as I plow through the photos. But, given the choice between living life and blogging about it, I think you already know which one takes priority for me. However, the camera rarely leaves my side. That’s a good thing otherwise I’d have forgotten what I did just ten minutes ago!

Chuck, Anita, and I left the BlogHer Food after party as things were starting to crank up. We ran around hugging people good-bye – most of whom said, “But I just got here! You can’t be leaving NOW?!” I’ll see those good folks again, I’m sure of it. But Hungry Bear was preparing a wonderful dinner for us at their lovely home, we were meeting Anita’s husband, Mike (so neat to now call him her husband instead of boyfriend!), and we were running quite late. While I loved seeing so many of my friends in one place at the after party with, alas – great food, I felt like I could relax and enjoy a pleasant and more personal dinner with a handful of close friends. I really needed that decompression.

we started with gorgeous shrimp egg custard appetizers

chuck models his latest tee

wonderful and wholesome roasted japanese eggplant

hungry bear and chuck at the dinner table

Even after Anita and Mike left, Hungry Bear, Chuck, and I were up pretty late talking. That’s what happens when parents aren’t around to yell at you to get to bed. In the morning, before it got too hot (did I mention it was hot in San Francisco the whole weekend? Well it was – ass hot for San Francisco and it was snowing in my backyard at home) we went out for a walk around the bougie bougie neighborhoods then down to the Presidio. I felt so California!

along the beach

fog lifts over the golden gate bridge

We met up with Lisa at the Sports Basement. At first, I didn’t hear the name of the store and Hungry Bear told me it was a toy store. Then Chuck added, “It’s an adult toy store.” Well, okay! Turns out it’s an outdoor sporting goods store with great deals on all manner of gear… except for tele gear. I suppose that’s not so much a California thing. Since it was nearly Sunday noon, we opted for lunch at Nopalito.

some sort of roasted nut or legume

gorditas campechanas (braised beef in fried corn tortillas)

ceviche verde de pescado y calamari

tamal empipianado de puerco

carnitas

little cookie bites

The food was terrific, although I felt the carnitas missed the point. The point is to maximize the surface area of the caramelized bits of pork and that’s hard to do with giant hunks of pork. We were all in agreement there. Back at Hungry Bear and Chuck’s place, Lisa helped me gather my stuff as I unloaded much swag (mostly chocolate). During BlogHer Food 2010, Chuck was distributing some slick FoodGawker swag which I hope those who attended were able to score. Lisa and I each got a shirt too. The photo is a little blurry, but Nikons weren’t really designed with bears in mind (especially a Hungry Bear).

lisa and i sport the foodgawker bling

**Jump for more butter**