New Orleans Wine & Food Experience

It is that time of year again. Memorial Day Weekend May 23 - 27, 2007

Last May was our first time to attend the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience & we had a blast. We knew we would be back down for the event this year, where 15,000 glasses of wine will be poured from 1,000 different wines from 200 different wine makers. That is a lot of juice......oh, and the food. You can't even mention the NOWFE without salivating. There will be 100 local Crescent City eateries stepping up to show off their best stuff.

The five day event kicks off Wednesday night, May 23rd with the Vintner's Dinner, where chefs from premiere New Orleans' restaurants partner up with featured winmakers & create tasting menus pairing each course to a wine picked by the winery's winemaker.

The festivities continue on Thursday afternoon with a new event to the NOWFE, the The 1st Annual “Vinola”. Muriel’s Jackson Square, will host 30 winemakers pouring their most revered and highly rated wines. This tasting is a rare opportunity for 150 wine enthusiasts to mingle with notable winemakers, while sampling up to 120 elite wines from around the world.

Later on that night the Royal Street Stroll kicks off on Royal Street where you can meander & view rare antiques, fine art, live jazz and historic architecture with outstanding wines being poured in your glass.

Friday & continuing into Saturday are many food & wine seminars that cover topics from Rosé to local Louisiana Gulf caught shrimp to the wines of Sonoma County. Last year we thouroughly enjoyed the duck seminar at Galatoire's.

Friday & Saturday night after getting your fill of food & wine knowledge at the seminars The Grand Tastings kick off with a wide array of wines from around the world & food being offered by the cities best restaurants. It is best to hit these tastings with a plan because there is so much to choose from.

Sunday if you still have room for more food & libations there is the Bubbles & Brunch a traditional New Orleans Champagne brunch featuring Perrier Jouet Champagne.

We will be there blogging from the event & are so excited. If you want to check out our coverage from last year check it out here.

For more info on the NOWFE visit their website at www.nowfe.com.

Wanderlust

It is good to be back home...sorta'.

Over the last month we have been gone for two weeks, on two different trips, covering over 4,500 miles & three countries. Using almost every form of transportation, automobile, airplane, a train, light rail, cruise ship & of course our own two feet. Like I said it is sorta' good to be home but sometimes I feel we could spend months traveling, exploring new places, eating & drinking new delights, but right now we are enjoying relaxing (even though there has not been much relaxing going on).

The week before Christmas we spent a week visiting friends in Denver & Winter Park, CO. The whole time we were hoping we would get to see some snow fall & we got our wish when one of the worst blizzards in history hit the state. We were in Winter Park snowboarding during the blizzard & later got trapped. If you ask me there was no better place to be trapped. We made it back to Denver courtesy of Amtrak & barely made it back home in time to have our holiday celebration with our families. It was a great time despite the stress of trying to get home on time (we were only 4 hours behind schedule).






After thawing out & enjoying Christmas with the family we had to get ready to go on a cruise with my family. It was just what we needed. Some tropical weather & sunshine. We had a great time with my parents, aunt & uncle & little brother & his wife. We ate (too much), drank (too much) & visited Honduras, Mexico (twice), & Belize. This was one of the best vacations we have been on & we are not cruise people. What I mean by that is,we like to get off the beaten path away from the 'touristas'. We managed to do so on our days at shore & had a great time on the boat eating, drinking & being merry with the Fam.

Some of the epicurean highlights include, two wine tastings on the boat, an 18 course Italian dinner with a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape, fresh lobster in Roatan, Honduras, fresh snapper in Mahuhaul, Mexico, fresh snapper prepared Tikin Xic style ( a Mayan recipe) in Cozumel, Mexico, along with dollar beers in Cozumel & copius amounts of other food & wine for an entire week. I gained 5 pounds in seven days & I have a metabolism like Barney Fife.

Our 18 course, glutinous feast.


Sunrise en route to Roatan, Honduras.


Lunch in Honduras.


Best lunch spot in West End Roatan, The Red Chile.


More Roatan Honduras.




Best beer in Honduras.


Mahuhaul, Mexico.


Lunch in Mahuhaul, Mexico.


Belizean wildlife. Watch out, he will pee on you.


More wildlife in Belize, sipping fresh coconut juice.


More Belize.




Cozumel, Mexico.


Lunch in Cozumel, Mexico.
Ceviche.


Tikin Xic.


Life at sea.












It was the fastest seven days of our lives & I think I speak for everyone. It was a blast & hopefully the first trip of many more to come.


**Personal update**
I no longer work for Buster's Wines & Liquors. I was asked to remove a negative blurb from the regarding The Beauty Shop, Yellowtail Wine (even though I never said anything really negative about Yellowtail) & was asked to watch my language. I felt strongly about not changing any of my honest opinions & I sure as hell am not going to write in a voice other than my own, so my professional relationship with Buster's Wines & Liquors is over & that is OK, the 12+ hour days were killing me.

Meals From The Road: Pismo Beach, CA

This is the first post of many more to come, about the food we ate on vacation. Starting with The Splash Cafe & The Cracked Crab. Why defy a chronological order by starting this series of posts in Pismo Beach? Because I am jonesing for some fresh seafood like a junkie craves a hit.

For our anniversary dinner, which turned out to be a multi-dinner, cross country extravaganza, we went to The Cracked Crab in Pismo Beach, just south of Avila Beach on US 101. We knew before we got there what we wanted, the big bucket for two. The "Big Bucket" is, well...a big bucket full of enough crustaceans, potatoes, corn & sausage to feed two hungry souls. First we split a bowl of Crab Bisque, that was touted to have "made them famous". It was only mediocre & it tasted heavily of chicken broth. When it came time to order our "Big Bucket" we opted for rock crab, slip lobster & dungenese crab.

We brought an indigenous bottle of wine with us that we had picked up earlier. It was a 2005 Zaca Mesa Viognier. It was outstanding & went perfectly with the assortment of sea dwellers with its lively acidity & floral notes.

After a glass of Viognier with our bisque it wasn't long before the attentive staff emerged with our implements of destruction, a mallet, some crab crackers, a couple of chop sticks (for picking the hard to reach meat out) & some small forks. But what they brought out next caught us off guard & all we could do was laugh. Two CC staffers, at the same time, tied big bibs with giant crabs on them, around our necks. Good thing too. After we emerged from the restaurant we had crab bits in our hair, but not on our shirts.

The shellfish was outstanding. It was so fresh & plentiful. When the bucket was dumped out on the table, my jaw hit the table. It was no small task but we devoured it all, minus a few pieces of sausage & corn. If you are in the area & love seafood, we highly recommend The Cracked Crab.


The other seafood joint we ate at in Pismo Beach was The Splash Cafe, famous for their clam chowder. It was so good we went back a couple days after our first visit. With our clam chowder we also enjoyed am order of steamers. Both times we at The Splash Cafe we sat in the window & enjoyed some prime people watching. The little town was full of vacationing families, surfers & four-wheelers, all enjoying the summer. It was delicious both times, really affordable & comes with our recommendation as well.


There is a lot to cover when it comes to the food & wine we enjoyed on our 16 day trek, so stay tuned for more recaps.

Road Trip: More Photos From The Road

Baby grape cluster.


Blackjack Winery.
This was our first stop at a winery (in Solvang we only went to tasting rooms). We stopped here on our way to Avila Beach via Solvang & Los Olivos. Black jack had some great wines. A few were what I call 'knock-your-sox-off' wines. I particularly liked their 777 Pinot Noir, Chardonnay Wilkening Vineyard Reserve & their Bordeaux blend, Allusion, which made the "take a bottle home list".


La swirling at Alexander & Wayne in Los Olivos.

We tasted at a handful of other tasting rooms in Los Olivos, on two separate days & both days missed out on the Tri-tip at 'R' Country Store (which I hear is excellent). I guess we gotta head back real soon.


Grapevines.



More grapevines. These were at Peachy Canyon in Paso Robles, where they make some damn fine Zinfandels. We had the pleasure of meeting Doug Beckett, the owner of Peachy Canyons, in New Orleans at the NOWFE. He is a great guy & we enjoyed talking to him & we REALLY enjoyed the wines he was pouring. He offered to give us some barrel samples when we made it out. Regrettably, our time in Paso Robles was too limited.


Barrels in the winery made of hay...Claiborn & Churchill. They specialize in Alsatian whites, which were all fantastic, but their Pinot Noir made "the list"...but didn't make it home. We drank it on our anniversary.

Road Trip: California or Bust

After 3 nights in the Utah desert, it was time to pack up & head west. It was kind of sad. We knew we would miss our primo camping spot, but then again Cali was just five hours away & we needed to get out of the 105 degree heat.

We camped our first night at El Capitan State Beach just north of Santa Barbara. We set up camp soon after scoring the last camping spot available & then headed in to Buellton & Solvang. We went to Andersen's Pea Soup Restaurant got dinner & a glass of wine. We both had a bowl of pea soup & it was so good I forgot what we actually had for dinner after the soup. The billboards up & down the highway don't lie. The pea soup was great & the atmosphere was strange. I think it was the restaurant that time forgot. We love little eccentricies like that.

So after dinner we drove down the road to Solvang, the mock Danish village.

What we didn't know was the town closes at five o'clock...SHARP. (look at the time on the clock in the photo....D'OH!)



We managed to find a market open that sold wine so we got a few bottles & headed back to the campsite.

We took a bottle of 2004 Santa Barbara Winery Pinot Noir down to the beach to watch the sunset while dolphins played off shore right in front of us. Our first night rocked. If it had been a fairy tale it wouldn't have been any better.



The wine was good...not knock your sox off good, but...well, let's just say the wine only got better.



La enjoying our first sunset over the Pacific.

Road Trip: More Zion Photos

Stay tuned for the California leg of the trip. We have LOTS to talk about & a ton of photos to share.

Road Trip: Our Mobile Kitchen

Before I finish posting Zion photos, I wanted to show our mobile camping kitchen. We used our hitch rack as counter for the stove & the bike gear box was utilized as a nice prep area.



Mobile kitchen in action.



First camping dinner. Tuna, veggies & mashed potatoes, enjoyed on the bank of the Virgin River. Tasty.



Open the old school Coleman Steel Cooler.....



......& grab a refreshment.



This is how most of our dinners were prepared. They kept getting better & better too. Like when we bought a tuna steak on the pier in Port San Luis in California. More on that later.
Coming up.....More Zion...

Road Trip: Part One

Our first official stop was in Flagstaff, AZ. We originally stopped so we could eat (a real meal at a restaurant instead of road food) & then move on...but instead we decided to stay. As luck would have it, the Flagstaff Music Fest was happening Downtown. We got at a sidewalk table at a cafe across from the stage & ate lunch & listened to live bluegrass. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the festival atmosphere, shopping & of course, eating some more.
It was a well deserved stop after 1.5 days on the road.

The next morning we decided to hit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was a no go, due to wildfires. In the photo, the grey band that looks like fog is smoke over the Colorado River.


No big deal....Zion National Park was only an hour away at that point & the GC was just a bonus stop.

Zion was stunning as usual. We love Zion because it is a different kind of beautiful than say....the Rockies with it's 14k foot snow capped peaks & Moab with its canyons & red rock formations. Zion's beauty is striking. Behind every curve of the trail or road there are 3000+ foot cliffs, right on top of you, staring down at you.







We camped on BLM land at a nice secluded primitive campsite. We were alone in the Utah wilderness with the Virgin River literally 20 yards from our tent. This is were we would escape the midday heat. We would put our chairs in the river under a tree & just relax until it was cool enough to explore some more.

Behind our tent. The Virgin River.


Stay tuned for more Zion & the rest of the trip.