Friday, November 28, 2008
Moving On and a Happy (and Lazy) Thanksgiving...
I had almost two full weeks in Santa Barbara but, especially as my flight back to Portland approached, that time moved incredibly fast. Santa Barbara still feels so much like home to me. I really enjoyed my life there, and every time I go back to visit it breaks my heart a little bit to leave. I know I'll have an awesome time in Boston and I'm excited about that, but for several months before I left Melbourne I thought I would be moving back to Santa Barbara rather than to Boston, which I think made the nostalgia hit me extra-hard this trip when the time came to leave. I know I'll be back to visit in the future, but still... sigh...
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Thus, on Monday night we needed to find a way to drink both an amazing white wine and a big hearty red. For an appetizer, we decided to throw together a white pizza to eat with the Cotes de Tablas Blanc. We topped the crust with ricotta, thyme, roasted red pepper, smoked ham, and goat cheese before baking, then topped it off with fresh baby arugula. With a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, this turned out to be pretty delicious and was a nice accompaniment to a wine that I cannot find words to properly express the awesomeness of...
After one last lunch at Super Cucas on Wednesday (I ordered the totally awesome Chile Rellenos but was too excited about eating my kick-ass lunch to remember to take a picture), I headed back to lab for a few goodbyes. I sat through the crazy 101S traffic (Santa Barbarans panic when it rains (as it did my last two days there) which combined with Thanksgiving traffic to make for lots of sitting in gridlock during my last two days in town) to get back to Steph's so we could say our goodbyes before she headed off to see her parents and I headed out to the airport.
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Bottomless Bloody Marys, a Rock Star, and a Band Geek...
Sunday turned out to be a pretty darn good day. We started out over at Madison's for some football-watching. We each ordered a Bloody Mary, only to find out that for a mere $2 more we could make them "bottomless." It's sort of brilliant, in that the more you drink the better the deal becomes... This deal is not recommended, however, if you want to do anything remotely productive with the rest of your morning...
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Food, Wine, and the Joys of Spontaneity
On Saturday Steph and I decided to drive up to Santa Ynez to do a bit of wine tasting in my old stomping grounds. Unlike our usual method, in which we pack a picnic and plan out where exactly we want to go over the course of the day, this time we decided to go with a more spontaneous approach. I've been trying to embrace this "spontaneity" thing lately (which seems to have become much easier for me after my time in Malaysia and Thailand), and on Saturday it worked out quite nicely indeed. We didn't even know what we would be making for dinner when we set out in the morning (this would normally stress me out), but even that portion of the day ended up being awesome.
We decided this was enough wine tasting for the day and headed back down the mountain to grab some groceries and cook up some yummy food. (Attempt at capturing the sunset behind us in the rear view mirror below...)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Totally Awesome Awesomeness
I don't plan to start reviewing movies here, but I feel compelled to post about the movie we watched last night (which also gives me an excuse to post a picture of our awesome dinner)...
For those of you who don't know, Center Stage is one of the greatest movies ever made. For a couple years when we were housemates, Steph and I had each seen bits and pieces of this movie on TV and thought it seemed cheesy and fun, but it wasn't until we rented the DVD (including extended dance sequences!) that we realized how totally and completely awesome it really is. I would guess we've each seen this movie over 50 times, and I'm still not even close to being tired of it. Needless to say, we were both pretty psyched to hear that a sequel (Center Stage: Turn It Up) was being released. We won't be able to get the DVD until late January, but Oxygen aired a slightly edited version last week which Steph was wise enough to record on her DVR, so last night we got a sneak preview.
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Speaking of dancing, the movie finished up just in time for Dancing with the Stars, a show that I'd never seen before but had been curious about ever since I heard that my beloved Warren Sapp had joined the cast. I've gotta say, it warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart to see Sapp out there dancing his ass off and charming the heck out of the crowd. I suspect he's over-matched by Lance Bass, but I'm holding out hope that he can win...
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Monday, November 17, 2008
Emily's Totally Awesome 3-Day Weekend...
One great thing about being a woman of leisure is that you don't need to wait for a holiday to go on an exciting 3-day weekend, although it does help to have friends who are willing to take a day off of work and come with you on your adventure. When I lived in Santa Barbara, Steph and I (and assorted friends, varying from year to year) would go on annual 3-day weekend wine-tasting trips to Paso Robles. Since I'm not sure when I'll make it back to Santa Barbara, this visit seemed like a good time to go on one more Paso trip. Apologies in advance for the length of this post, which I anticipate will be somewhat excessive...
Friday: Remembering How Much I Love Syrah
On Friday morning we packed up the rental car and left the smoke-filled air of Santa Barbara to head 2 hours north to Paso Robles. Our traditional first stop (Mastantuono) no longer exists, so we went up to another that we usually enjoy to get things started. I'm won't mention the name here because the wine was pretty underwhelming on this trip. I was actually a little worried that 2 months traveling and not having any great wine had messed up my palate, but our second stop of the day, Booker Vineyards, proved me wrong. This is a small-production (1200-case) winery with absolutely spectacular Rhones. I met a Syrah there (which now resides in my cellar) that reminded me why I love Syrah so much.
Saturday: A Reunion and the Quest for Something Good
On Saturday morning Mel came down from the Bay area to join us for our second day of tasting. I hadn't seen her in 2 years, so it was a lot of fun to hang out again, and by the end of the day it was feeling just the good old days when the three of us lived in the same city...
Sunday: Pub Food and Football...
My original plan on this trip was to wake up crazy-early on Sunday and make it back to Santa Barbara in time for the Bucs-Vikings game. As we lounged around enjoying great food and wine Saturday night, however, this plan began to seem deeply stupid. We made some calls and found that Downtown Brewing Company would be showing my game on a big ol' HD TV and decided that a liesurely morning featuring brekky with Mel before she headed back up north made much more sense.
I won't get into the details of the game again, but the pub breakfast was pretty decent and it ended up being a fun morning. The pub is only open for breakfast on weekends, so the only two menu options were an egg sandwich:
Steph and I stopped at Avila Beach (pictured below) near Pismo on the way home and picked up a gorgeous hunk of Ahi from a fisherman at the pier there, which will be our dinner tonight...
Friday, November 14, 2008
A Bit of Excitement and Some Kick-Ass Food...
I came down to Santa Barbara yesterday, and things ended up being a bit more exciting than I had anticipated.... The afternoon started tamely enough, as we picked up the rental car and went to get some good picnicking groceries for our trip to Paso Robles today. We were driving our separate cars downtown to Steph's apartment, and I noticed as soon as I turned onto Carillo that there was a pretty big fire on the side of the mountain in front of us. (Somehow Steph failed to notice this, even as she listened to the radio in her car reporting on said fire.)
Our immediate concern when we saw the power going out all around us as we drove to get dinner was that Super Cuca's might lose power and thus not be able to provide us with delicious trashy Mexican food, which would have been tragic (though not on the scale of a massive wildfire). Luckily, the power outages didn't reach that neighborhood and we were able to order our traditional Emily's-first-night-in-Santa-Barbara dinner...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sweet, Sweet Kennedy School...
This can by no means be considered an "adventure," given that on each trip to Portland it's never more than a few days before I head over there, but I had lunch yesterday at the Kennedy School McMenamins and figured I'd go ahead and post about it. The service was some of the worst I've ever had there and they changed the recipe on my favorite menu item to make it not as good as it once was, but the beer is still fantastic and I can't help but love this place.
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