Napa

This weekend Stacey and I went for a scenic drive up to wine country. We visited William Hill, Robert Sinskey, Clos du Val, and Rutherford Hill Wineries.

Outside tasting area at William Hill Winery

The views from William Hill Winery, overlooking the vineyard

We next stopped at Clos du Val for more beautiful scenery and lots of fall color.

We stopped in at Sunshine Foods in St Helena to grab some picnic lunch items, then headed up to Rutherford Hill Winery for a picnic in their olive grove. The weather was perfect for a leisurely lunch in the shade of the olive trees.

Finally, we stopped at Wine Country Chocolates in Glen Ellen for a box of the most delicious chocolates ever. We ended up with a box of pumpkin ganache, amaretto, coconut, and cinnamon + clover honey truffles. We ate them all before we could take a picture of them, so you'll have to use your imagination.

All of the photos from the day can be found here.

Pumpkin chocolate chip "breakfast" cookies

I got this recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from a friend of mine and decided to try them out.  They turned out surprisingly well!  The first bite is unexpectedly subtle, I think because you expect them to taste like old fashioned chocolate chip cookies.  But the pumpkin and spices are a nice surprise.


Recipe adapted from this one on Allrecipes.com.


Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 
  
• Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.  Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.  Enjoy with a tall glass of milk!

Montalvo Gardens

This past weekend we took a recommendation from two good friends and went to explore Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA. The trip is worth it just for the ridiculous mansions you pass on the way there, but the garden art installations and peaceful woodland setting make this one of our new favorite spots. It helped that on the day we visited, Oct 30, there were very few people there -- my guess was that most people were busy with Halloween activities. The little town of Saratoga seemed to be having a mid-afternoon trick-or-treat session for all the kids, with almost all of the shopkeepers on Main St handing out candy.  

We strolled through the woods briefly and then explored the grounds, stopping periodically on a shady bench to soak up the gorgeous fall day.  We'll be back soon for a picnic on the lawn (or maybe a concert at the amphitheater?), most definitely.

Plastic flower installation + Matt

Wishing Tree, by Yoko Ono 

(Some of the wishes were very sweet, some were hilarious -- one of the most memorable was a child who could barely write wishing for a MacBook Air.  Ah, Silicon Valley)

Birdhouse tree

We stopped to sit on one of these benches for a while.  We were the only ones in this section, and it was very quiet.  We watched the light and shadows on the persimmon trees.  

Persimmons are rather beautiful fruits, aren't they?

Fall leaves! This was the view looking up from our bench.

Oops, it's November...

And we haven't posted much lately. Granted, we did go to Yosemite and hike Half Dome. So, there's that. Also, Matt got a new job, and I traveled to Atlanta briefly and worked absolutely way too many hours in October.

We did manage to squeeze in some fun in the last month or so. For starters, we went to an awesome Bluegrass Festival in SF with friends, visited Harley Farms (again), spent a day picking pumpkins in Pescadero, planted some new veggies, and toured Montalvo Gardens in Saratoga. We also enjoyed lots of yummy autumn-themed food, which apparently is the only thing I've been taking photos of lately. Here's a sampling:

Matt and I went to our favorite pumpkin patch in Pescadero for pumpkins. Matt is also demonstrating inadvertently here that it is still in the 80s here on most days.

We've been roasting and eating a lot of chestnuts.

We discovered a new organic produce stand. 

Look at the amazing texture on those eggs!  The white ones were actually a very pale shade of blue.

Sweet potatoes have made a come-back in our diets lately.  Here's a rosemary potato dish I conjured up for last Saturday's brunch.

New additions to the garden - Kale!

Swiss chard!

English peas!

The peas are growing so fast they've climbed out of their anti-squirrel cage already. Time for another trip to the hardware store...