bee kind

i know what you're thinking, "holy crap! 3 posts in 2 weeks?!? what is she on!?!". don't worry, i'm not taking blogging speed. interesting (well at least to me) things have been jumping into my lap lately!

so yesterday during lunch at the picnic tables at the winery, i heard roberto (our cellarmaster) give a faint yelp. i looked over and saw a swarm of insects. as our jaws dropped, the buzzing noise became very apparent. and in front of our eyes, what appeared to be a brown oval shape began forming in one of the trees on the treeline. as the swarm steadily decreased in size, we realized that there must be a new queen and the bees were swarming to protect her and to start building a new hive for her. this was amazing to me purely because i'd never witnessed anything like in my life...the start of a new beehive. after maybe 5 or 10 minutes, the swarm was gone and was nestled in the tree as you can see below... apparently there are beekeepers you can call in sonoma when you have a new swarm of bees. they will come and safely transport the swarm so as to start the new hive in a safe environment. interestingly enough, bill wiebalk (our director of sales) is one of these beekeepers, so he drove over in full beekeeper gear (that he apparently keeps in his car) to scoop the swarm up as you can see below...so there you have it, that's how a beehive gets started. now i wonder how the new queen gets nominated...

indulgence weekend

i haven't had one in a bit and it's a longshot from an actual vacation, but i'll take what i can get right now!

our 1st indulgence was to hike the dipsea trail (starting near downtown mill valley) and the sun trail to the german tourist club, which you can see below.the dipsea trail was quite a workout for my glutes and quads, but with every step, i reminded myself that there was beer at the end. the german tourist club overlooks muir woods and is open to the public on weekend afternoons (for the most part). we were rewarded with amazing views (a camera phone doesn't do justice to the views so i didn't even try) and awesome german beer (is there any other kind? don't worry belgium, my beer heart lies with you as well). you can bring your own food, so we made ourselves some fresh kielbasa sandwiches with mustard and cheese.

it was great to get in touch with my outdoorsy side again and hopefully i will be getting my fill of the wilderness in oregon.

the following day was our 2nd indulgence but of a very different kind. jon and i treated ourselves to sunday brunch at the top of the mark restaurant in san francisco. it's standard fare for sunday brunch and maybe only slightly better quality than any other sunday brunch, but the views...360 degree view of san francisco on an actually sunny sunday morning! but wait, there's more, part of the all-you-can-eat brunch is a caviar station. so as you can see from the photo below, we topped our blinis with a heavy-handed serving of caviar! ah, life...

no news is good news...

...it's funny. i didn't realize that it's been almost 6 months since i've put up a new post. funnier still is that the last post was titled "i heart portland" only because the decision has been officially made and i will be moving to portland in the middle of july! it's been great in california and at paul hobbs winery, but i've decided that i want to go back to the cellar so that's what i'm going to do at penner-ash winery this harvest. wish me luck and adios california!

i don't even know if anybody is still reading this thing or checking in on this thing, but there will most likely be more posts once i'm in my new "hometown".

please come back and join me on my new adventure in the rose city!

(in case anyone was wondering, yes, i'm still with jon [gasp!] and he'll be joining me in portland in the fall as he starts chiropractic college)

i'll just leave you with my delicious lobster from canada (eh) that was only $7.99/pound in a great chinese grocery store on clement street in san francisco...mmmm...fiesty lil' one...

i heart portland

so i just got back from another trip to portland...4th one...in fact, it's the most visited city that i've never lived in, which is rare since i usually like going to see new places. granted, each time i go, it's for a different reason where i see different people and different places. this time around, i went with jon so he could take a look at wscc's campus. this visit was also more of a exploration of portland and (since i'm with jon) an eating marathon. i hadn't really trolled around the different portland neighborhoods yet, so it was interesting to see them all. my conclusion (besides the obvious fact that i heart portland and i'll be moving up here soon)...portland has some of the most creative and interesting cocktails in its bars/restaurants/lounges. the best was from the teardrop lounge where i had a cocktail called "the freedonia", which is made up of foie gras infused armagnac, costa rican coffee, some other liqueur that i can't remember, and pistachio gastrique. strange, but so smooth. of late, i've been getting back into cocktails and even starting to like gin...maybe this past harvest kind of put the kibosh on beer and wine for me temporarily.

oh and did i mention the eating? we had a lot of good recommendations from a friend of jon's and we tried many of them and they were all quite tasty. our favorite restaurant was "pok pok", a thai restaurant, that we went to twice...couldn't get enough the first time around! you can see the bar in the background below...i didn't take many photos...it was basically grey and cold in portland...but please enjoy the one below of mt. shasta. you can also see my rubber duck collection in the corner. tom stransky gave me the red one randomly one day and just the other day, someone left the white one on my car windshield in san francisco...

gobble gobble gobble

happy turkey day...yeah, i know...it's december, but it's been incredibly busy at work and i'm just now getting around to posting a couple of photos from my thanksgiving. this year, i decided not to go home due to the expensive plane tickets and the possibility that i would have to work over the long weekend. instead, jon hosted a small gathering of friends and we cooked thanksgiving dinner. it was a great night where the drinking started in the afternoon and most everything went off without a hitch. i even rallied to go out to the elbo room for some dancing later that night.
paul hobbs winery provided me with a 17.6 lb willie's organic turkey...biggest thing i've ever tried to cook! but it was a beautiful turkey. we wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it for about 4 hours (an hour or so too long since we were distracted by our oysters on the half shell and champagne) before removing the foil, basting with herb butter, and baking for another 30 minutes. i thought it was quite tasty, but jon thought it was a bit dry. well at least it looked delicious as you can kind of see below...sadly the photo of our thanksgiving table as well as our guests didn't turn out quite light enough, but below is our side table with a view of the candy pumpkins and pumpkin pie. my 1st attempt at a pumpkin pie...i've never been a big fan because i always thought pumpkin pie was a little too heavy so i found a pumpkin-chiffon pie recipe where there was added honey and whipping cream...mmm...and i hadn't even added the honey-brandy whipping cream and candied pecans on top yet :) all in all, it was an awesome thanksgiving. i give thanks to my friends, family, jon, and the fact that we're going to have a democrat in office by next year...cheers to that!

trick or treat!

it's amazing...we received our last lot of grapes october 24th...chardonnay grapes, no less. there's still a lot of work to be done with the cabernets that are fermenting in tank. also, my work load in the lab is steadily increasing as i'm monitoring all the barrels with the 2008 pinots and chardonnays. but, this week will be my first week with 2 days off...in a row! i don't know what i'll do with myself. i do know that i'm starting to have the energy to call my friends again, many of whom i haven't talked to in ages.

well, winter is definitely approaching...even in california. it's certainly darker in the morning when i leave for work and a bit colder. today we got our first autumn rain and it was a chill-to-your-bone kind. i look forward to sweater and hot chocolate weather though. and after these few years in california, i still miss the first snowfall.

on that note, i leave you with the pumpkins that jon and i carved this week. it was great to be a kid again...hand inside the pumpkin tearing out pumpkin guts. and it was great to roast pumpkin seeds again...mmm...

every day is a wednesday...teetering on the hump

so i'm still in harvest. i have been since labor day. it's been an odd harvest. the heat at the beginning of september brought in our 1st wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it got colder. then it started warming up a bit more during the day, which led to the 2nd wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it threatened to rain, which brought in a bit more pinot, chardonnay, and our 1st cabernet. then it rained. so now we're in limbo...waiting for the grapes to dry a bit and regain equilibrium. then, i bet you, it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks.

i love my job...i love my job...i love my job...

well, at least that's what i say to myself every morning on my way to work. ah...i've lost track of what the actual day of the week it is. to me, every day feels like a wednesday. teetering on that hump day. unsure which way the see-saw will swing...back towards the beginning of the week or towards the end of the week where a faint light glows showing the way to the elusive "day off". although, to be honest, sometimes i'd rather not have a day off, then my body is constantly on adrenaline to keep going and going. when i come back from 1 day off, my body is just more tired than before. to fully recover, one needs 2 days off in a row. well, there's always december!

at least, my life is not filled with ugliness as you can see by the photo of our estate vineyard at 7am a week or so ago before the rains came.
and on a different note. i've done a piss-poor job trying to grow my dahlias that i had high hopes for back in the summer. too much sun...not enough sun...too much water...not enough water (kind of like this harvest). so imagine my surprise when i noticed that one of the plants did try to produce a flower...albeit a quite "special" looking flower as you can see below. but a flower nonetheless! you can understand the degree of suprisedness (yes that's a word in my world) when you see what the rest of the plant looks like next to the flower. reminds me to be optimistic again...maybe america's economy won't completely crash...maybe voters this year will actually do the right thing...