Posts Tagged ‘napa’

Shout Out: Chef Mackenzie

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

I just got back from a brief but wonderful visit with one of my oldest and best friends who now resides in Napa, California. Yes, that does mean I have an awesome excuse to visit the beautiful wine country just a short car ride away from Berkeley. She attends the Culinary Institute of America in Napa training to be a chef and baker! Yes, she is that cool.

She showed me the place where she gets to learn how to cook and make pastries at the CIA and I was a little jealous. It is so different from the life I am living at college here at UC Berkeley that it was refreshing and new.

It was so great seeing her because she is about to head out on an amazing adventure to Nantucket where she will be doing her externship. Though I will miss her dearly, I know she is going to have so much fun. I know our last little visit sure was fun, including chasing giant rabbits, walks on railroad tracks, long talks, awesome food, lots of laughs, and best of all swimming at night in a pool with all our clothes on! So here is my little ode to Macky. I miss you already and have a spectacular time in Nantucket.

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Travel Update: Napa Part 2

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Part two of our Napa adventure included the most amazing thing I saw all weekend was the Castello de Amorosa. We visited this castle out in the wine country was extraordinary.

My favorite part of the castle was not actually the structure, but the animals around it. Especially the sheep, they cracked me up and made it feel almost like we were back in time at a medieval castle.

It was so quaint and beautiful out there with all the animals. I really enjoyed the sheep but I also made a friend with the castle’s guardian, a little orange tabby cat. He was beautiful and was sitting in an olive tree outside the castle walls.

There were also an array of birds including peacocks and chickens.

It was a lot of fun exploring Napa with my mom and hope to do it again some time but for now the adventure in castles, food and wineries will have to do.

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Travel Update: Napa Part 1

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

My family and I went on a short trip up to Napa for my little brother’s road bike race called the Cherry Pie Criterium. Yes, the winners do get cherry pies, sadly not us though. This was my first trip to wine country and because I am not yet of drinking age we had to find some pretty awesome adventures other than wine tasting. First plan for adventure: visiting cool looking wineries and taking pictures of fields with flowers.

We visited one winery with really interesting statues around it and it was really beautiful. Not to mention the weather while we were p there, around 80 the whole time. Nice!

Just looking around Napa there is such beautiful architecture everywhere. I wish I could have taken photos of all of it. The other amazing part about Napa are the old trees. I love the trees there with their scraggly limbs and reaching arms.

Next item on the adventure agenda was food of course! You can’t go to Napa and not eat good food, I think it should be a crime not to get good food. Our food of choice was the CIA, not the federal scary secretive thing but the Culinary Institute of America.

It was really amazing. We got two samplers, the entrée samplers and then the dessert samplers. With a side of the best brussel sprouts I have ever eaten!

The case of the missing food, I went to the bathroom and lo and behold it was gone. What can I say? Next was the desert round!!

I loved the little cookie spoon in this panacotta, it was beyond adorable and fun to eat with.

That is all for part one of the Napa trip, tomorrow there will be more tales of our next exciting adventure. Heres a hint, it has to do with something medieval looking and many animals, stay tuned 🙂

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