Napa Valley

While we were out in California, we went to Napa for a day.  We didn't have a plan in mind, just thought we would go and visit a winery or two, maybe have lunch.  It was a beautiful day and we were excited to be there.  This picture shows the main street running through Saint Helena.  We spent several hours here wandering through shops and tasting olive oil, only we could end up in the heart of the wine country and not taste any wine! Believe it or not, it is common to find shops that sell olive oil and little else.  We tasted many, from flavored ones to different presses. Citrus flavors are popular as are herbs.  Most often, they feature different blends and presses.  Many were too strong for me, I preferred the light blends.  My favorite item to taste was the vinegars.  Even though I am not fond of sour flavors, I preferred tasting vinegar to olive oil.  The balsamic vinegars were wonderful and so were the ones made from sherry.  In one store, they had vinegars made from cherries, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries.  Surprisingly enough, they were very palatable.   We also had the chance to sample wonderful flavored salts.  If it was left up to Darry, he would have bought every jar of truffle salt available, he couldn't get enough of it.

When we were on our honeymoon, many years ago, we went to Napa and one of the wineries we visited was Franciscan.  Whenever we are in the area, we always stop in for a quick visit and to see the grounds.  The garden in front of the winery is lined with rows of grapes.

This is a view of the gardens, the grapes line the path on both sides and at the end is a monstrous bench that we have taken many pictures of over the years.

We admit that we do watch some of the shows on the Food Network, not many though.  One of our favorites is Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.  We saw Taylor's Refresher on an episode and decided to stop in for lunch.  They had some of the best burgers we have ever had and the sweet potato fries are great too.  You may think that a burger isn't much to brag about but, these were very good and the price was very reasonable.  We were allowed to request a temperature for the burgers, something a lot of places will not do anymore.  They came to us simply dressed, lettuce, onions, pickles and the secret sauce but no tomatoes due to the salmonella scare.  The sauce is a mayonnaise based dressing that was very good and nothing else was needed.  The fried sweet potatoes are made from fresh raw sweet potatoes and they were nicely seasoned, I could have eaten two orders!  The grounds were nice, lots of picnic tables with umbrellas and a lot of space in between.  We would definitely go back, the burgers are worth the trip.  The full menu is on the website, click on the link above to see it.

Our last stop of the day was a quick visit to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.  It is an old winery that was converted to the school.  We were not able to take a tour but we did go to the gift shop where I signed some of my books, it was a trip to see them for sale at the CIA!