Good Living in the Napa Valley

Even Italy can get pretty cold in January, so instead I went to California's Napa Valley to celebrate my mmph-mmphth birthday. It had vineyards, cypress trees, and even a faux Tuscan castle. And, oh yes, amazing food. I think I ate my body weight. We ate out every lunch and dinner, and I have to say my digestive system handled it a lot better than I thought it would--perhaps because the food is so fresh and local.

Grits with egg, whipped goat cheese and "bacon" at Ubuntu. I just wish this hadn't come last because it was so delicious and we were kind of full at that point.


Spiced sirloin steak with trumpet mushrooms and quinoa with carrots at Ad Hoc. What does it mean when one restaurant stands out among a group of amazing restaurants? Something good.



Lunch at Bottega courtesy of my aunt and uncle. After a tough morning of wine tasting, we were momentarily dismayed by the sight of my uncle toting a bottle of Champagne and two bottles of wine--but we quickly recovered and did ourselves proud.

In an attempt to work off some of the food, we took a quick walk in the Bothe-Napa Valley State Forest. I guess in California green = winter.





There were also mud baths, massages, and a dip in an Olympic-sized pool heated by geysers. When can I go back?

Here's one of the few photos from Rome I have access to (most are locked up in an ancient laptop with a cracked screen--getting them off there has been on my to-do list for a while). This is taken from the Piazza del Campidoglio, possibly the most architecturally pleasing piazza in the world. That's the horrible Vittorio Emannuele monument on the far left (it's just behind the piazza), the extremely ancient church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in the middle, and Palazzo Nuovo on the right. (You can also see the back of one of the statues of the Dioscuri.)

Palazzo Nuovo is one of three buildings around the square that house the Capitoline Museums, which is worth a visit if you are at all interested in ancient sculpture. They own well-known pieces like the Dying Gaul (if you duck you can see his cheesy mustache) and the Colossus of Constantine. However, I was most charmed by a room full of anonymous busts of men and women. Detached from any sort of pressure to appreciate historical and aesthetic significance, the life of a young woman with a gravity-defying hairdo seems much less remote.

new year's day

I was pretty happy with my New Year's Day brunch get-together. I gave a nod to Italian and French cuisine by making a prosciutto and goat cheese strata, Sicilian orange and fennel salad, and crepes (chocolate or lemon and sugar). The strata is assembled ahead of time, and crepes are easy. Knowing I'd have little time to cook much else thanks to work, I bought some frozen potato pancakes at Trader Joe's, which are actually really good (and so much easier than ricing and squeezing tons of potatoes!), and croissants. For drinks we had mimosas with both Champagne (well, sparkling wine) and prosecco. A friend brought some Hoppin' John so we even had black-eyed peas for good luck and prosperity. Another friend bought an absolutely amazing coffee cake filled with sweet cheese, which I am slowly, very slowly, nibbling away at. It was a good group of friends both old and new, although as always when hostessing I was sorry I didn't get to talk to people at length.

In further imitation of Italo-French culture, I am now attempting to eat like a little European bird to offset the holiday binging as well as the creeping on of poundage thanks to my desk job. My assistant in this endeavor is an iPhone app called Lose It! I'm soon off to to the Napa Valley for a weekend of wine and food, so the next couple weeks really have to be lean.

My phrase for 2010 is "faith"--not in the religious sense, but rather to have faith in myself, in other people, and that things will work out somehow (and if not entirely to my liking, to have faith that I can accept them).

waspy

An abandoned wasps' nest in a tree. Or maybe they're just sleeping 'til summer.