Travelling Lore

On our Presidents' Day off we decided to fit in a couple of winery visits before the snow hit our area.  With the snow fall projected to start around 3 pm, we opted to go to those a little closer to home than all that way at the top of Loudoun County. Our first stop was 8 Chains North Winery .  I was enticed by the mention of their 2010 wines on their website as 2010 was a great vintage for Northern Virginia.  Unfortunately, they'd already sold out of those bottles otherwise I probably would have bought one or two!  We still enjoyed our tasting, though, and our Tasting Associate, Sean, was very amiable and knowledgeable about the wines as well as the ins and outs of the winery. Currently they have five wines on their tasting menu for an $8 tasting fee: 2012 LoCo Vino (Vidal Blanc, Traminette, and Sauvignon Blanc blend); 2013 Chardonnay; 2013 Herencia Altes Garnatxa; 2013 Syrah; and a 2013 Tempranillo.  The LoCo Vino and Chardonnay are made from Virgi...

I found this delicious recipe for Nutella truffles with Frangelico on My Baking Addiction 's blog a couple of weeks ago.  I had hoped to post this for Valentine's Day dessert inspiration, but didn't have the time to make them until the day of.  Valentine's Day or not, these homemade truffles are rich, nutty, and perfect for any time of the year. This recipe calls for toasted hazelnuts.  The grocery store had none in stock, so I bought raw hazelnuts instead and toasted them at home.  Raw hazelnuts have a dark skin, which you can choose to remove before toasting them or not.  I chose to remove the skins and followed a very helpful tip on how to peel hazelnuts .  It's incredibly easy to do and all you need is boiling water and baking soda. Bring two cups of water to boil, add 3 tablespoons of baking soda (the water will foam up), and put the hazelnuts in the boiling solution for 4 minutes.  The water will turn black from the pigment in the haz...

A couple of weeks ago a friend shared a recipe for this Butternut Squash and Beef Stew .  If you follow the paleo diet (which I do not), this recipe is perfect for you.  If you don't follow the paleo diet, this recipe is still perfect for you.  The directions call for the use of a crock pot, but since I don't own one I made stew the old fashioned way: in a regular pot. The first time I made beef stew (using this recipe , more or less) I didn't have the time to let the meat stew for a couple of hours; so while the flavor was great, the meat was still rather tough.  This time I let the whole kit and caboodle stew in a pot for 2.5 hours on low and voila, beautifully tender stew meat! After gathering the ingredients for the stew (see recipe ), lightly brown the stew meat on medium heat. Next add all of the remaining ingredients except for the mushrooms and spinach.  If you're using a crock pot, set it to low and let it cook for six hours.  If ...

Yesterday my boyfriend and some friends spent our afternoon at Fauquier County's Wine Tasting and Competition at Airlie .  It was a wonderful change to have some of the local wineries all in one place instead of driving around to each one.  Out of the 10 wineries at the event I'd only been to one in person.  Since there are already so many wineries "near" us in Loudoun County, whose wineries I'm currently trying to cross off, I had never really taken the time to drive out to Fauquier County's wineries. Despite this being the first year for Fauquier County's Wine Tasting and Competition, there wa, unsurprisingly, a large turnout.  While at the event we were told that currently a lot of Virginia's wineries send their wines off to out-of-state competitions in order to receive accolades.  Aside from the Virginia Governor's Cup, there aren't really any other well known state competitions.  Hopefully now that those in charge have seen res...

Aside from eating (a lot), being tourists, and hiking around San Diego we also visited a brewery and a couple of wineries.  After our hike at Mission Trails Regional Park we went to Stone Brewing Company's World Bistro and Gardens for lunch.  Little did we know how epic this place would be. Stone Brewing Co.'s World Bistro and Gardens location near Point Loma is the biggest beer garden I've been to hands down.  The restaurant and gardens encompass 23,500 square feet of real estate and incorporate an "industrial meets organic" feel by featuring metal, concrete, wood, water features, and plant life.  This particular location is where Stone Brewing experiments with new brews.  As a result this beer garden offers some exclusive brews that aren't offered at any of their other breweries.  I was very impressed by their variety of beers. Oddly enough I really liked their Baird/Ishii/Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA (10.1% ABV) despite disliking (and thus ...

I know I still owe a "San Diego Part 2" detailing my brewery and winery adventures in SoCal.  But sometimes Virginia wine has to come first!  A friend alerted me to this great Amazon Local deal where you can buy a Virginia Wine Pass for Two to over 80 wineries in Virginia for $29, a $60.99 value.   Virginia Wine Pass is a program that wineries elect to participate in to provide special discounts to those who are in the program.  It can vary from two free tastings or two for one wine tastings to a certain percentage off of bottle purchases or buy one get one bottle deals.  You can find a list of the participating wineries here . Tastings in Virginia wineries can be anywhere from $6-$12 depending on location and popularity, so the Virginia Wine Pass pays for itself after just a couple of winery visits.  And considering just how many wineries there are in Virginia, this could save you a fair chunk of change.  Not to mention Greenhill Winery and V...

Last weekend we decided more or less at the last minute to make a spontaneous trip to San Diego.  I'd never been to the west coast, we were tired of the cold, we had a long weekend, and most importantly we had some friends we'd been meaning to visit.  So we said goodbye to winter in Virginia and hello to the sweet, sunny 70's in southern California! We used Booking.com to find a hotel to stay in for our first two nights in San Diego before staying with our friend in Irvine.  I love historic hotels and when we saw the Horton Grand Hotel listed with its gorgeous courtyard and right in the Gaslamp Quarter we decided to treat ourselves.  They also conveniently have the Palace Bar in the hotel, which boasts 500 whiskeys and scotches. Our first day in San Diego was a long one as we had a 3:30 AM EST wake up, a 5:00 AM EST flight, and didn't go to sleep until about 1:30 AM EST the next day.  However, this meant we had a full day on California time to ...