those three special words

I love you.  Those are three words that everyone wants to hear.  Some people wait lifetimes to hear them, some kill to hear them and some sacrifice everything to hear them.  Those three special words.  I love hearing them, don’t get me wrong, but I have a more favorite triad in the English language.  Oh yes, friends.  You and I both know that few words get me as excited as these: Food and Wine.  What a glorious combination of syllables.  So simple and yet, so very satisfying.

I am a fan of pretty much any kind of festival.  In my family, we are “festival people.”  A sort of snooty carnie, if you will.  We like to hang around food people, we really like to hang around wine people, and when the day is done, who isn’t thankful for a bit of art and music on the side (those are regular pairings with the magic three, don’t you know).  So, when my big sister from my sorority (are you really surprised that I’m a sorority girl?) told me that she would be participating in the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon and wanted to do the Wine and Food Fest the next day, I agreed to attend pretty much immediately.

Fast forward several months.  Lindsay ran and it was very exciting.  It was her first half marathon and she absolutely killed it.  She had been eating very healthfully for about two weeks prior, so to celebrate, the day of the race, we prepared and bought wine, cheese, desserts and crackers from The Fresh Market, parked on the couch until the 10pm race was to start, and relaxed.  As we were too tired to actually eat the cheese at 2am after the race finished, we decided it would be the perfect and most appropriate breakfast for our F&W day.

After a healthy dose of lactose and alcohol, we set off to Epcot to journey around the world and taste the many delicacies they offered.  Before eating, however, we decided to check out a few of the “rides” at the park to have a full Disney experience.  I have to say, one of my favorite things about Epcot is the wonderful irony of it all.  This park was supposed to be the focal point of Disney World in Orlando (thanks, Magic Kingdom, for killing the dreams of the big golf ball), and was intended to be a permanent Worlds Fair, with the main part of the park as a sort of “future world.”  What is so fantastic about Epcot is how outdated everything is.  The rides and attractions talk about the “future” that we are supposed to have and it reads a bit more like a ’70s science fiction novel than it does an accurate depiction of the future as we now think it will be.  But it is awesome.  I just love rides that haven’t changed since the late ’80s.  Really makes you wonder what they’re spending all of their money on…

After lots of laughs and sarcastic/snarky comments, we went to try all of the delicious food.  With two cash cards loaded and in hand, we went to Hawaii to taste the pork slider with pineapple chutney and the tuna poke with seaweed salad and a taro root chip.  I have to say, this was a great way to start off the day.  The slider was delicious; the pork was tender, the pineapple wasn’t too sweet, and it was on a sweet Hawaiian-style roll (go figure…) which was to die for.  The tuna poke was also very tasty.  The taro chip was a bit of a miss for me, but the tuna was fresh and cool and the seaweed salad was a great salty compliment.  Feeling good and ready for more, we went to Argentina for the beef empanada–also delicious.  The ropa vieja from the Caribbean tent was pretty good (although the rice was not very well cooked), and the mahi with coconut lime sauce and hearts of palm over rice from Brasil was surprisingly tasty.

We were on a roll.  Next was Mexico for the shrimp tacos for Lindsay which she loved, and the Swedish meatballs from Scandinavia (for me) which were just ok.  The sauce was not as flavorful as it should have been, the lingonberries were incorporated with the sauce, thus not really impacting the dish, and the meat was fine.  A let down, but I still ate them.  Linds and I shared the rice pudding and it was bizarrely unevenly cooked.  I don’t really understand how they accomplished crunchy rice pudding, but they did it.  Wanting to cleanse our palates of these let downs, we decided that a visit to the cheese tent was a must.  They had an Artisan cheese plate and another dish, a cheese fondue, which I was pretty pumped about.  Linds saw the Germany tent across the way, so while she went to go get some apfel strudel, I waited for the cheese.  When I went to place my order, I was very distressed to learn that they had run out of Artisian cheese and would not be replenishing their stock for another 15 minutes.  I proceeded with ordering the fondue and found Lindsay and the glorious looking strudel.  The strudel did not disappoint.  It was just as it should have been.  The fondue, however…well, it was weird.  They just didn’t cook it long enough.  The wine hadn’t burnt off its alcohol and the cheese was still in warm shreds.  Nothing had incorporated together to form a sauce.  It was thrown out.  And that’s saying something, because I will eat pretty much anything.  Really, I will.  This was just not worth the stomach space.  And you might be surprised, but space was running low.  We were hitting a wall and we were only about halfway through.  We also had spent about $15 each.  Who knew that it was so inexpensive to gorge yourself at Disney World?

Not wanting to lose momentum, we went to the Werther’s caramel store in Germany and each bought a dessert.  I ate mine promptly (a brownie with caramel sauce drizzled on top).  Lindsay judged me and said she wanted to “hold off.”  Not cool.  Next was Poland for the kielbasa with pierogi.  So good, and so heavy.  I would have eaten a full serving of that any day, though.  Doesn’t get much better than potato-filled noodles.  Then we went to Singapore to try the shrimp cake on a sugarcane skewer with Singapore noodles.  This dish was just not tasty.  The shrimp cake was way too shrimpy (although, in defense of the dish I really don’t care for shrimp so much) and the noodles were altogether bland and oddly flavored.  We even tried to chomp on the sugarcane as a little treat but the shrimp cake had permeated the flavor of the cane and it was just not a good situation.  So we got a snow cone to make up for the loss.

It was around this time that we decided to not eat anything more, save for the fisherman’s pie in Ireland, which Lindsay had been planning for since we’d read the menu (so about 48 hours).  Deciding not to eat anymore is not as easy as it sounds.  Because we passed Belgium and couldn’t resist the waffles with berry compote and a chocolate truffle.  The waffles were actually delicious, and the mussels they were serving looked awesome too.  When we finally rolled our way over to Ireland, I was fairly certain I’d never eat again.  But Lindsay had really been looking forward to the fisherman’s pie (with lobster and scallops, and a mashed potato top), so I put on a brave face and dug in.  I’m glad I did, because this was absolutely the stand out dish of the day for me.  I was surprised at how much I liked the combination of seafood with tomato cream sauce and mashed potatoes.  Bravo, Ireland!  Thanks for ending our day on a high note.

We made a quick pit stop to taste some of the sodas from around the world before departing and heading our separate ways.  Overall, we had a wonderful day.  Nothing says true friendship like letting someone watch you consume more calories than you did the entire month prior.  And all for a pretty decent price.  Epcot, I will be back.  Just maybe with a more discerning eye…

❤ Amy

you make me sing (nashville)

Starting the day out with Frothy Monkey is a must when in Nashville. It’s this hip little coffeehouse/café with good food, great brew, and cool clientele. This being my fourth trip to Nashville in a year, I always make sure to stop in here. It also helps that it’s super close to Cindy and Kate’s house. (Which, by the way, sits across from a Sara Lee bakery…so awesome.) Cindy joined us for breakfast before heading to work. She ordered the special breakfast wrap, filled with Tasso ham, an over medium egg, avocado, spinach, and cheese. Amy and I both ordered the Plain Jane – scrambled eggs on everything bagels with Swiss and tomato. I, of course, added sprouts and avocado…Amy did not. This was our first outing together in Nashville and I think Amy (much like myself during my first visit a year ago) was surprised about the people and the environment. People tend to associate Nashville with NashVegas, country music, and neon lights, but the benefits of being a cool college town aren’t boasted about as much as the former.

After our (late) breakfast, Cindy headed off to work and we headed off to Grimey’s Record Store. I had been here before – it’s hard to resist a great record store that’s only a couple of miles from their house. I had a growing list of CD’s I wanted to get – some from ACL, some new releases. I was able to find everything I wanted (and more). Amy spent quite a while perusing the holiday vinyl. She was thrilled to walk away with a Frank Sinatra Christmas album and an Elvis one.

All of that shopping really wiped us out and we decided to treat ourselves to some mid-afternoon pajamas and a movie. We rented Bridesmaids and laughed a lot. I had seen this in the theatre, but I forgot how funny it was. Amy had not seen it and I enjoyed hearing her laugh through the movie. After the movie we decided we were not done with the lounging and we settled in for some Cheetos, peanut butter/Southern Oregon homemade fluff sandwiches, and Modern Family. Amy is still trying to make it through Season 1 to catch up with me. We watched about 7 episodes back-to-back (I fell asleep and missed 1) before we had to get ready for the evening. Our hosts were returning to their home and we had wonderful dinner plans in store.

Now, I’m recently reunited with seafood. I have been a pescatarian for 11 years, and then gave up seafood a little over a year ago. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed sushi most of all. I love veggie sushi, but I love some good spicy tuna as well. Well, tonight it was going to happen for me. We went to Virago, Cindy and Kate’s favorite sushi place. The earliest reservation we could wrangle was 9pm. We got there a little early and got seated a little early (lesson for us: being early can pay off). We started the meal with some edamame. All salty and warm, yum. We then decided to share some small plates. Virago is a very trendy sushi spot. The small plates we ordered were lobster friend rice, robata grilled pork belly and tofu, and sake steamed Brussels sprouts. For me the clear winner was the Brussels sprouts dish. Steamed al dente, browned in a sauté pan, and finished with a touch of truffle oil and a sliver of Parmesan. I absolutely loved these and I would say they are in the Top 10 Best Dishes of the Road Trip (a list soon to come). Our sushi orders were modest, with one roll each. Cindy got The Bomb (tempura shrimp, avocado and asparagus on the inside, baked jumbo lump crab and spicy mayo on top with a touch of unagi sauce and scallions), Kate got the Crunchy California Roll (crab, avocado, cucumber, tempura crumbs, spicy mayo and honey fire sauce), and Amy and I shared the Spicy Strawberry Maki (tuna, avocado, asparagus, mango and jalapeño wrapped in avocado and strawberries with honey fire sauce and strawberry sriracha) and the Sake Sunrise (crab, asparagus and avocado wrapped with seared smoked salmon). I enjoyed all of them very much. We’ll call it a four-way tie since I liked each of them for a different reason. This dinner was a great way to celebrate both the end of our road trip and Cindy’s birthday, as well as show our appreciation to C & K for allowing us to takeover their guest quarters.

Overall, I would say we had a wonderful day.

 

Joellen

 

higher ground

Starting your day with a hearty meal is important. Starting your day with a home-cooked meal from Amy is a total treat. She cooked a wonderful breakfast (read: brunch) of poached eggs, spinach, and an English muffin topped with a delicious cheese sauce (an unexpected improvisation for unsuccessful hollandaise – turned out to be a happy accident). Add a side of wonderful oven-roasted potatoes and I couldn’t have been happier. I can’t wait to be the recipient of many future cooking successes and failures. After the enjoyable meal and lengthy clean-up session we headed upstairs to pack and ready ourselves for the road that was awaiting us. We said goodbye to Alana and Steve (thanks for everything), hopped in the newly organized and cleaned car, and headed for Kanab, UT.

Admittedly, I have a Slurpee addiction. Since living in Kentucky does not afford me the luxury of this treat, it was imperative to me to start the next leg with one of in hand. I’m happy to say it was a success. It only takes about 10 minutes to leave the lights of Vegas behind. And from there, it’s nothing but amazing. The views were stunning and it made the 5-hour drive seem like only 3. We lost an hour due to the time change, but I guess that was to be expected. We made it to Kanab around 9:30pm and checked in to the Quail Park Lodge. During the planning phase of the road trip (i.e. my unemployed days) I found Kanab – a small town that would allow us enough time to mosey out of Vegas and sleep in before the drive to Four Corners National Monument. The accommodations were a retro style motel with a neon sign. Check in was so pleasant that I had a feeling that I had made a good choice. The attendant was helpful and suggested a restaurant for us. Utah closes early; he advised us to head there sooner than later. I’m thankful we took his advice. Rocking V Café was a pleasant surprise (I think Kanab was too). We were delighted by the menu options and had a really nice meal there. We started with the polenta cakes that were topped with green chili sauce. The polenta was really nice and tasty – the cakes even got a little crispy on the outside (as they should be). The sauce was just ok for me, but we had no problem finishing them both. Next course was the soup that came with the main course. I got the tomato-basil soup and Amy got the Tuscan bean soup. Both good, but I liked mine better. (That being said, no tomato soup will ever compare to my mom’s.) The table bread was a soft rosemary focaccia with a balsamic dressing spread – interesting, but I preferred it dipped in the soup (apu). Four my main course I ordered the black bean and corn tacos (only because they used mole in the mixture and I am a complete sucker for mole done right). Oh, and the jicama slaw was a huge selling point. I was so excited to have more than a couple vegetarian options in a small Utah town. Amy got the buffalo meatloaf special. It was wrapped in bacon and topped with their chili con queso and baby heirloom tomatoes, and rested upon mashed potatoes and a garlic sour cream. She really enjoyed her meal as well. We ordered their award-winning key lime pie (I know what your thinking, KLP in Utah?) to go.

We got back to our quaint lodge and settled in for a movie and relaxation (and key lime pie). We hadn’t turned on a television since our departure and it was nice to enjoy the entertainment in the comfort of our suite at the Quail Park Lodge. The key lime pie was fair-to-good. The movie (Away We Go) was great.

Kanab was a treasure. We did a lot of research on the city while we were at dinner and in our room. Turns out Kanab is home to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and draws dog and cat lovers galore. I’m so glad that we made this a stop on the trip!

Joellen

 

vegas: most relaxing city award?

I know it seems that every other post we talk about how we “revamped” and “really needed it;” we talk about our friends who graciously let us use laundry facilities and how we reorganized the car and how whichever city was a godsend.  It is not untrue that Seattle and LA offered us relaxation, each in their own ways (cough cough, laundry), but Vegas has been a different beast altogether.  We’ve been staying with my friend Alana and her boyfriend Steve who have offered us unlimited laundry use and cold drinks galore.  And even though we have ‘reorganized’ before, yesterday we actually got to clean out the car.  I mean, everything was out and we threw things away and vacuumed and Windex-ed and Armor All-ed and it felt so good.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me start at the beginning of our day:

We woke up late, apu (as per usual), and had a leisurely morning before heading to the Bellagio, where both Alana and Steve work.  Alana is a stage manager for Cirque du Soleil’s O (it is amazing, you must go see it) and Steve is an acrobat in the show.  They are a pretty awesome couple.  They keep interesting hours, but manage to be more energetic than we could ever dream of being.  So, we went to the Bellagio to have lunch at a restaurant that Alana has really been wanting to try: Todd English’s Olives.  I must admit, when I first read the menu, I thought a lot of the items were tired.  But when we arrived and tasted the food, my mind quickly turned.  I had a Bellini (when in Rome…) while Joellen stuck with water and Alana had a raspberry lemonade.  We ate some bread with different olive tapenades and tried to decide on what to order for our main courses.  It took me an unusually long time, since it’s Vegas Restaurant Week and there were so many options.

Alana had the Boston Bibb Salad and the Sea Scallops, Joellen had the Portobello Flatbread and I had the Caesar Salad (with anchovy fillets) and the Sea Scallop dish as well.  Alana really enjoyed the salad and scallops and Joellen’s flatbread was delicious.  Made with fontina cheese and white truffle oil, it was aromatic, slightly salty and really well-balanced.  My salad was so tasty (it was also nice to have something fresh and green…it’s been a while…), and the anchovy added a great amount of salt and depth of flavor.  The sea scallops were absolutely fantastic.  I mean really, really stellar.  Paired with a whipped yukon gold mash, fava bean puree, roasted beets and frisee, I was floored at how well balanced the flavors were.  The beets were, in my opinion, what made the dish.  The scallops were, for the most part, seared nicely, and who wouldn’t love mashed potatoes?  And the fava bean puree was just divine.  For a restaurant I was none too excited for, Olives really delivered.  The server even remembered to get me lemons for my Diet Coke (I might have had three drinks in front of me…caffeine, alcohol, hydration; they’re all key)–hooray for nice, attentive servers (to the server from Park Grill, you could take a few notes from Olives guy).

After lunch, Joellen and I headed back to Alana’s house, but not before stopping for me to get a manicure at a wonderful 24-hour salon , having a Starbucks break (very necessary) and seeing someone get arrested…for stealing from CVS…really?!  We went back and had the massive car cleaning session, which was just so fantastic and really cathartic.

Afterwards, we got cleaned up and decided that we would again stay in; after all, we’re in Vegas!  We sat outside sipping on our respective drinks of choice, enjoying the nice change in weather, reading.  Or at least I was reading.  Joellen was doing something on her computer.  We got hungry and so we decided to eat two of the tamales that we purchased in Grants Pass at the farmer’s market.  The girl who sold them to us said that re-steaming them was the best way to enjoy them, but that a microwave would also suffice.  I decided to MacGyver a steamer using a deep skillet to simmer the water, a large metal bowl to catch the steam, and a cooling rack to hold the tamales.  I was pretty impressed with myself.  It might have taken almost an hour, but the results were delicious.  Everything a tamale should be.  Alana came home and we had another drink with her before everyone turned in for the night.

So this might not have been the Vegas experience everyone dreams of, but it was truly blissful for us.  Being in the car for the bulk of our days is pretty tiring and having a nice soft bed and a washer-dryer is all we need to make us happy.  Now on to touch multiple states at once!

❤ Amy

adios, portlandia

The day we left Portland started out as so many do–with us rushing to leave the hotel in time for check-out.  I really love the calls that they give you right before you’re supposed to leave asking if you need more time.  It’s one of the more polite ways that hotel people ask you to get the hell out.

We went downtown for one more time to meet Lo and Henry for breakfast at Mother’s Bistro and Bar.  We originally thought that we would just stay at the hotel and eat at one of the many McMenamin’s  restaurants, but Lo suggested that we check out Mother’s, and once we looked at the menu, we couldn’t resist one more jaunt to the City Center for what promised to be a spectacular meal.

I am occasionally skeptical when menus look too good to be true, because more often than not, they are.  Somehow, Mother’s got everything right (or at least everything that we tried).  We shared the pierogi as a table and I think we were all left wanting more.  They were so light and the caramelized onions topping the pierogi were perfectly seasoned.  In fact, I think that I can speak for our whole party in saying that everything on the table was superbly seasoned.  It is extremely rare that I eat a meal and don’t add salt, pepper, or both, especially with breakfast foods.  Bravo, Mother’s, for knowing the proper salt-to-food ratio.  For our main meals, Joellen and I shared the portabella, spinach and asiago scramble and the migas.  Lo had the Mikes’ Special Scramble and Henry had the migas as well (good call, Henry).  The portabella was so much tastier than I could have imagined.  The mushrooms were marinated in garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and were sliced thin.  The spinach was well cooked and again, well-seasoned (I am just going to stop mentioned the well-seasoned-ness of each plate since I’ve already talked about it ad nauseum; let’s assume that I mean to apply it to each plate description unless I state otherwise).  The eggs were lovely and fluffy.  The migas, a scrambled egg dish with corn tortillas, sautéed onions, cheese, avocado, chipotle sour cream and salsa were so good–definitely my favorite of the lot.  Lo seemed to enjoy her scramble, which was full of prosciutto, roasted garlic, tomatoes, basil and provolone cheese; Henry also enjoyed the migas (who wouldn’t?).  Oh, and I guess I should mention that I ordered bacon.  You know, because there wasn’t enough on the table.  Not as good as I’d hoped, especially since it was supposed to be “honey glazed,” but it was still great (there really are so few ways that you can ruin bacon).  There was also this awesome jam that all of us devoured atop our toast.  We debated for a good time about what kind of jam it was, and finally decided that it was blackberry.  Definitely blackberry.  We were wrong.  Apparently it was marionberry (okay, so we were only half wrong), and it was really delish.

We bid our adieus to Portland and our friends and made the easy journey to Grands Pass, OR.  We stayed at a great hotel, The Lodge at Riverside, and after helping ourselves to two warm, homemade cookies from the lobby, settled in to the room for the rest of the night.  We were both pretty beat, so we relaxed at had a car-sans-car meal of cheese, crackers, pb&j (we split one) and some fruit.  A great end to a great day.  Thanks for all you had to offer, Portland.  Now off to California.

❤ Amy