home from Hazon

In a few words: the Hazon Food Conference, at UC Davis, was AMAZING. I wish I could say that it was life changing, but I feel more that it was comforting and affirming. I can care about what food I choose to buy, eat, and serve to others and commingle those ideas with being Jewish; making those choices even MORE meaningful!

I wish I had taken photos at the conference, but I didn’t. Even though my camera had barely enough batteries to take maybe 15 photos. Oh well. Here’s a photo from our honeymoon, 10 months ago in Northern California.

grapes, taken on our honeymoon in Napa/Sonoma

Before the conference, I stayed with some former Boulderites and good friends, Katie and Peter (AKA The Bears), in Orinda, CA. Their (rented) house in the hills is beautiful, their puppy is super well trained and adorable, and they have LEMON TREES. Seriously people, meyer lemon trees, and orange, and grapefruit. There’s an apple tree too, but I’ve seen those before. Plus, Katie let me add 2 hours to our trip up to Davis to stop at Hagafen Cellars for a tasting and I purchased a case of wine and had it shipped back to Boulder. Yum! If you can get it, their 2009 Chardonnay is unoaked amazing grapey liquid gold in a glass.

Oh, and to add to the awesome vibe of warm fuzzies I’ve been feeling lately: Juliet has written about some of the various ways in which Colorado is awesome.

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domestic honeymoon bliss

We took WAY too many photos to upload them here, so please check them out at:

http://ducksandbooks.irave.com/honeymoon

**UPDATE**

iRave seems to have fallen off the face of the planet, our honeymoon photos can now be found on Flickr.

Part 1: Denver -> Salt Lake City  on Amtrak

Part 2: Salt Lake City to Emeryvill/Oakland, California on Amtrak AND San Francisco -> Vallejo on the ferry

Part 3: Sonoma and Napa Valleys, California

Itinerary:

Tuesday,8:05 AM Amtrak from Denver -> Salt Lake City arr. 10:30 PM

Wednesday & Thursday, explore SLC (see photos, they’re self explanatory)

Thursday night, overnight train, 11:30 PM Amtrak Salt Lake City -> Emeryville, CA arr. 3 PM

Friday, ice cream after getting picked up at the train station with M. Barrere, take the BART into San Francisco, check into hotel, dinner with M. Coblenz and L. Chikofsky

Saturday, 10:30 AM ferry to Vallejo, pickup rental car, wander into the city of Sonoma and do arts and crafts at the art museum, and check into the hotel where we were upgraded to the Elite Concierge section of the hotel so we got free breakfast, wine & appetizers in the afternoon, and dessert in the evening (which we turned into dinner).

Sunday, visit wineries! SLEEEEEEEEEEEP, tasting Andretti, tasting and binge buying at Hagafen Cellers, lunch at Filippi’s Pizza Grotto, dessert at Three Twins in the Oxbow Market, wandering downtown Napa (which, btw, is mostly closed on Sundays), then we were blobs in the hot tub and ate leftovers and hotel dessert back in our room.

Monday, SLEEEEEEEEEEEP, winery tour and tasting at Valley of the Moon Winery, tasting B. R. Cohn Vineyards and Olive Oils (he’s the manager of the Doobie Brothers band), back to Sonoma to hang out in an indie bookstore and have dinner at Sunflower Cafe.

Tuesday, Jelly Belly factory tour, we missed getting into the Travis AFB Museum by 5 minutes, then we took the Budwiser factory tour just to see what it was about. We tried to order Chinese delivery, but no one delivers in Napa! More dinner out of appetizers, wine and dessert/pears at the hotel.

Wednesday, we picked up a picnic lunch at Whole Foods before heading out to a tasting and self-guided tour at St. Supery, picnicked by the pygmy animals and wandering the grounds before sharing a tasting at Raymond Vineyards, hung out for a few hours to watch the sun set from the Calastoga Hot Springs and Spa (daypasses = amazing deal!), and had  dinner at the Calistoga Inn

giant wine bottles @ Raymond

Thursday, ferry back to San Francisco, lunch at Gott’s Roadside in the Ferry Building (we snuck in a Maui Brewing Co CoCoNut Porter to split, it was the PERFECT accent to poke tacos and an ahi burger), took the BART to SFO, saw Air Force One, and flew back to Denver! (I left my awesome black hat -see above- on the plane, sad times.)

Friday, groceries and furniture shopping (no, we didn’t buy anything), breakfast for dinner (sweet potato hash, tofurky breakfast links, and an egg each)

Saturday, BLOBS with nothing to report other than fewer things to catchup with online. Ben made butternut squash soup for dinner.

Sunday, more furniture shopping, Ben went to work for 4 hours while I worked on cover letters. I made a sauteed veggie/quinoa thing for dinner. It was OK.

Now, Ben’s back at work and my job is back to applying for jobs and trying to keep the house from getting too messy. No more wedding planning/management other than working out the final budget (it’s looking like we’re WAY under our allowed amount) and writing 2/3 of the thank you notes (Ben volunteered to write them to his family members). I hate job hunting.

grapes, take on our honeymoon in Napa/Sonoma, CA

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