Drinking, Eating, and Running in Healdsburg

This past weekend, I flew down to California for the purpose of running a half marathon in Healdsburg with my mom. The weekend actually played out with importance placed on activities in the order listed in the title of this post. Drinking reigned, eating was secondary, and only tertiary was the pesky 13.1 miles.

My mom and I drove up to Healdsburg on Saturday morning, stopping at the Gary Farrell and Hop Kiln wineries on the way to Kendall Jackson where the packet pickup was held.

Gary Farrell (view from patio shown above) produces what are considered the premiere Pinot Noirs of California. My mom and I were very curious to see how they stacked up against Oregon Pinots. The wines were good, so good that I decided to join their wine club. I had motives other than the good wine, though; I want a reason to wine taste more in California, and joining a wine club is the perfect excuse to take a trip to wine country. I look forward to visiting Gary Farrell again.

Hop Kiln (which really did used to be a hop kiln, check out the picture above) makes mostly typical big jammy California reds. My mom and I were not impressed, but we were visiting Hop Kiln for more than just the wine. We were starving and needed a place that sold food. We picked up a round of Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk cheese and some crackers and feasted like fools. I hope no one was watching, because we attacked the cheese (cutting it with a nail file, I may add) like we hadn't eaten in weeks. 

We met up with my little sister in Healdsburg, did some more wine tasting at the tasting rooms around the town square, got a snack at Healdsburg Bar and Grill - where we drank some beer, then headed to our motel to change into some warmer clothes.  

Our dinner reservations weren't until 8 pm, but we headed back to the square to walk around and maybe do some more tasting.  I don't know how we decided to stop into Willi's Seafood and Raw Bar for some oysters and wine, but we did.  Because, you know, it wasn't enough that we were drinking to our hearts content the night before running a half marathon, we had to add raw oysters into the mix.

I had to take multiple pictures of my little sister before she approved this one for inclusion on PEP.

After feasting on oysters, it was off to Baci for pasta carb loading - finally a good pre-race activity - and more wine. Dinner was spectacular, but I forgot to take any pictures.

Despite all the drinking and eating that occurred on Saturday, my mom and I had a pretty good race. And in the words of one of my sisters friends: Why do we run a half marathon?  For the drinks after, of course!

An excellent weekend all around.

Bon appetit.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Not every night can be night of dinner from scratch, but every night needs to be a night of eating meat.  I have mentioned before that I am down to cuts that are a little harder to deal with... except for the ground beef.  A quick check of my cupboards confirmed that I had a jar of marinara and pasta, so spaghetti (well, angel hair) and meat sauce it was.

There is no recipe for this meal.  Okay, for those of you who REALLY don't know how to cook:

Brown the meat in a skillet, pour in the marinara, and stir.  Meanwhile, boil some water and cook the pasta according to the directions on the package.  Drain the pasta, put some on a plate, and put some sauce on top.  Sprinkle on grated parmesan cheese, and you're good to go.

Well, add a glass or two of red wine to accompany your meal, and you are ready to go.  For those of you that can get it, I highly recommend Andrew Rich wines.  Anything he makes is great, but his Pinot Noir is the best value of any Oregon Pinot I have seen.  And it's not only that they are a great value, they are really excellent wine.  Trust me on this.  I am a girl who has drank quite a bit of Oregon Pinot Noir.

Bon appetit.

Weekend with Mom - Wine Tasting and Olympic Provisions

My mom was in town this past weekend for a visit, and what a weekend of all weekends we had.  Lots of food, lots of drinking, lots of driving, and lots of walking.


Saturday was a lot of the first three of those "lots".  We went wine tasting, to the organic beer festival, and had a delicious dinner at Olympic Provisions.


We started our day with a breakfast at Bakery Bar, a coffee shop and bakery in my neighborhood.  They brew great coffee and have delicious pastries and breakfast items.  Then we set off for the Newberg/Carlton area for some wine tasting.


After visiting Lenne Vineyards and Carlton Winemakers Studios, we decided we should probably eat something, and stopped at Horseradish, a wine, cheese, and meats place in Carlton, for some food.  We tasted wine there as well, and packed up some treats to eat at our last stop-off, Penner-Ash.


The picture above is the view of Mt. Hood from the back patio at Penner-Ash, where we sat and enjoyed the gorgeous view, tasted their wine, and ate the platter of cheese and meat.  It was great.  With a trunk full of wine (seriously, between our club shipments and purchases, we had at least 2.5 cases of wine), we headed back to Portland.  Of course, we had to make a pit stop at Gonzales Mexican food and bakery for some Mexican pastries, but no pics of that.  


Back in Portland, after a quick stop at my house to drop off the wine, we were off to more drinking: the Organic Beer Festival.


Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at the Organic Beer Festival.  Some nice people sold us a coupon they had but didn't need, so we each got a cup and 9 tokens for $15 instead of a cup and 4 tokens for $20.  What a steal!  We intended to just have a couple tastes and save some tokens for Sunday, but we instead drank all 9 tokens-worth of beer each, sat in the grass and listened to hippie-music while watching hippie-folk, and enjoyed the sun.  My mom can't get over the fact that in the summer at 8pm it still looks like it's 2pm in Portland.  Honestly, neither can I.

Once we were out of tokens, it was time for the next segment of our day: dinner.  I guess I should have mentioned at the very beginning of this all that my mom doesn't really eat meat.  Or cheese.  Or, as far as I can tell, anything that didn't grow out of the ground or get fished out of water.  So the fact that on this day, she has already eaten cheese, salami, and cured beef (all part of the plate from Horseradish) is kind of incredible.  And Olympic Provisions is known for cured meats... 

The above is the charcuterie plate we started with (from bottom left corner, clockwise):  chorizo rioja (I think), a saucisson (don't remember which one), country style pork terrine with pistachios (again, I think), something (seriously, no idea what this is, but if I know my charuterie, it's sliced intestine), pickled cauliflower, pickled rhubarb, pickled asparagus.  And mustard, but you can tell can which that is.


My mom ate, no joke, half this plate.  Her contribution to eating dropped off rapidly soon after, but the fact she downed half this plate is incredible.  


Next came the veggies.  We had fried cardoons and roasted radicchio.  

I really wish the picture of the roasted radicchio was better, because my mom and I both agreed that it was the best dish of the night.  I don't really like radicchio.  It's a bit too bitter for my taste, and I never quite know what to do with it.  The last time my parents were in town, we had a radicchio salad at Nostrana, and it was incredibly NOT bitter.  We asked them about the lack of bitterness, and they told us that they soaked it in ice water to de-bitter it.  It was an absolutely delicious salad, yes, but radicchio IS bitter.  Instead of de-bittering the radicchio, Olympic Provisions embraced it, pared it with salty cheese, and roasted it for one of the most delicious plates I have had.  


Next was the meat and fish.

Pan roasted sturgeon, manilla clams, saffron broth and Roasted fresh chorizo, potato salad, grain mustard.  My mom informed me after the food arrived something that I should have remembered: she may or may not be allergic to clams.  So I ate all the clams.  We split the sturgeon, but I was mostly responsible for the chorizo.  Both dishes were good, but again, we were working our way through a bottle of wine...


I usually never order desert, but one of the offerings was dark chocolate “salami” with salt and pepper shortbread.  How can one pass that up?

That stuff that looks like salami?  It's dark chocolate with nuts and maybe other delicious things.  Who knows.  It was really good.  The orange marmalade accompaniment was great too.


That's about it for Saturday.  After our long day of eating and drinking, we were more than ready to go to sleep.


Bon appetit.