The road to St. Helena

Since I don't have more than a weekend off until Thanksgiving, 

I decided to take us on a little trip down vacation memory lane.

Join me on the journey The Cyclist and I took from Solage/Calistoga to St. Helena...

We took the back road and went by some vineyards....

... across a little bridge...

...and passed some more vineyards...

...while I took 100 photos of grapes, The Cyclist spotted this fig tree....

...and we proceeded to help ourselves to a big bag of figs....

...they were tasty in our salad for the rest of the week!

We were tired of wine and decided to stop at a brewery for lunch instead.I spotted this pretty flower on the way in...

...and we arrived at Silverado Brewing Co.

...it was in a neat old building...

...with a nice front patio...

...with a vineyard view...

...they were celebrating Oktoberfest...

...and had a special menu.I should have done a Yelp review, but I did not.  Now all I can remember is I had some German soup and the food was pretty good.Not much info for a review there.
After lunch we moseyed on down to the little town of St. Helena...


...I spotted this nifty old truck parked on the road...

...and then some, uh..."art" caught our eye's...

Yeah.

Confused, we wandered into this olive oil shop...

...they had lots of tasty stuff.  Including the arbequina olive oil that was on our caprese salad at Brannan's Grill.
Just down from Olivier was Woodhouse Chocolate...

....oh my....

...the delicious-ness.

Seventeen dollars of chocolate consumed in 5 minutes by The Cyclist and I was totally worth it.

Oh, and don't forget to check out their pretty chandelier...

Until my next vacation.....have a beautiful day!

Pizza Night!

Our friends, the F's are from New Mexico.  The first night they had us over for pizza night, they put New Mexico green chile's on the pizza.  Oh the delight!  My mouth caught fire and my nose ran but there was only one thing I could say "more!"  We later learned that the green chile's were a test - if we could handle them, they would keep us.  Thank you F fam for introducing us to the New Mexico green chile! 

We recently had a repeat of the original pizza night, oh the delight!  I know I already said that but it was delightful, repeat was therefore, necessary.

To start, there was some good stuff on hand....strawberries for the salad, home-made pesto and (of course!) beer!  We are all Racer 5 fans, super good IPA and great addition to pizza!

Mr. F started us with a tasty appetizer which I believe he made up on the fly....

Figs Wrapped in Prosciutto with Goat Cheese (YUM!)......

While Mr. F worked out the app's, Dr. F threw together this fabulous salad....

What could make this salad better?

Avocado of course!

While I strolled around the kitchen taking photos, I couldn't pass up a shot of these pretty heirloom tomatoes on a fancy plate.....

....or this watermelon!

....and, I'll take another appetizer please, thank you...

(this is actually The Cyclist's hand, not mine!)

OK, to Pizza!

Moving on with a theme, one pizza will have prosciutto, figs and goat cheese...

Mr. F started preparing the dough....

Meanwhile, Dr. F started caramelizing onions....

....and more work with the dough....

.....now we start Pizza #1 - pesto, squash & mushroom....

....into the oven she goes.....

....note the fancy wooden pizza pan made by Mr. F! 

Beautiful woodwork as usual.

And check out the finished product.....

Oh, my yummyness!  I love when the cheese gets a little brown like that!

Now on to Pizza #2 - sausage, mushroom, New Mexico Green Chile and caramelized onions!

The Cyclist started cooking the sausage....

Someone chopped some mushrooms.......

....and Mr. F started getting those New Mexico green chile's ready....

Note: from here my "picture story" is not as detailed because while Mr. F continued to prepare pizza's, the rest of us went to eat!

The finished product of Pizza #2...

....and finished product of Pizza #3 - figs, prosciutto & goat cheese....

Yum!  Cheese!  Yum!

I don't know which one was my favorite, they were all so different and all so good.  The spiciness of those New Mexico Chile's might beat all though. 

I should mention that while all of this was going on we were also having a dough contest.  I can't remember which dough was on which pizza, but, one dough was purchased from our local Italian grocer, Corti Brothers and the other was purchased from a really good local pizza spot One Speed.  Both were good, but the Corti Brother's dough won.  It had a nice chewiness to it.  I don't know the exact brand, so I'll have to find out and report back later.

Of course, with all of that pizza and beer we absolutely had room for dessert!

Enter Snickerdoodles!

As prepared by me and The Cyclist, recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook....

(dough balls)

And....Viola!

I used to always have a problem with these guys coming out flat, but it appears the new Kitchen Aid mixer has solved this problem.  These were (for the first time) nice and fluffy!

Thank you F's for another great Pizza Night!