VenerableBede

For us, there are a handful of benefits: 1) free tastings. since most wineries seem to charge a fee for tasting, one of the perks of being in a wine club is free tastings. that was one of our primary draws of joing the J wine club (along with a magnum of their sparkling every november), especially since their tastings came with a food pairing and cost $20 a person. sadly, they did away with the food pairing, so away went our wine club membership, since we could buy nearly every other bottle either at the store or at the winery if we really wanted it. 2) ability to do things with the winery/winemaker. alot of wineries off wine club only dinners and luncheons and whatnot at the winery that are unavailable to the public. we belong to the Sunce wine club, which allows us, once a year, to do the bottling with the winemaker- as a reward for doing it, everyone gets to take home a case of the bottled wine, as well as a substantial discount for that day only on all other wine for sale. 3) access to wines unavailable to others. we really haven't used this perk all that much, although for deloach, they do offer some wine club only wines as part of their pick-ups, and others like Chateau Felice and August Briggs allow access to library wines. 4) trying new stuff. it allows us a chance to try a wine we wouldn't ordinarily try, such as merlot. i won't beat that horse, but in situations where we love a cab or a zin or something, having a wine club that allows to try another varietal from the winery allows us to sample something we might not otherwise try. we have friends that are part of the castoro wine club, and they get a large variety of wines that they would not have otherwise tried.

the plum tree is nearly past its blossoming phase, and turning to green leaves. . .the dwarf meyer lemon tree has put out 2 lemons (those began over the winter) with 10 more to come. the lavender had a great winter, despite being nearly overrun with weeds (see below). a batch of gerbera's that my wife thought she had pulled and tossed out from two planters have poked their heads out of the planters. . so that's a nice surprise. otherwise, having to do some grass re-seeding: winter storms brought out the weeds which took some of the grass and overran our two garden beds. the english thyme and rosemary though survived the onslaught. haven't decided what the plant when we clear it. . .the tomatoes and squash took well to the beds. have snail issues though.

i don't know if this is one better or not, but i ask for my salads plain. . .yep, no salad dressing at all. in college, we'd go to outback steakhouse (it was a small town) and the steak comes with a salad- i would ask the waiter what was in the salad, then proceed to ask that it not come with some of the things, like tomatoes and cucumbers, and no dressing. my friend would ask if he could replace some of the veggies in the salad with snow peas. . .so, if he did not want tomatoes and cucumbers, he would ask for a double helping of snow peas. we were weird in college.

second the target suggestion. can get alot of good basic supplies there. after that, crate and barrel and williams-sonoma should suffice. macy's for your waterford and china.

i don't know you, do i? i do that mainly because there was a period of time when i was 16 and 17 years old where the only chinese food that i could keep down was chicken fried rice- so that's all i get at chinese restaurants, even today. at the time, it may have been an msg thing, but based on what i know about myself now, i think i've narrowed it down to some type of soy allergy- not all soy products, just some soy products.

anyone notice that the sous chef the Rathbun Brothers brought along was Tre from last season's Top Chef???

i freely admit that mine is probably more OCD related than food related. . .and yes, i also only eat one thing at a time. that is, as my wife has remarked to me, i start with the protein, or main item on the plate, eat that item until finished or done, then move on to each side item on the plate, one at a time. if i'm at a plated reception, if the food is egregiously touching, i'll use my fork or knife to create space, then i'll eat the items one at a time. my main problem with plated receptions is that the salads often come pre-salad dressinged, and i hate salad dressing. it's funny when i'm cooking for people and i do this plating stuff for everyone, then when i sit down at my plate, the one i stacked and did all this stuff to, i'll take it apart, move the items so they don't touch, and eat one thing at a time. i've never considered it as a call for attention, rather, it just seemed more logical to me to eat things that way. i don't think i've ever asked for another plate and re-made a plate, unless there was a sauce (which is another story) on the plate that made it impossible for me to continue. my wife's sister, on the other hand, claims not to like the taste of meat, even though she has freely admitted that 1) the way meat had been prepared when she was growing up was probably not the best example of how to prepare meat and 2) she is actually more afraid of the physical pains associated with reintroducing meat into her diet than the taste of meat. there are other issues, obviously, but those are to what she admits. edited to add- by the way, i just had to put in my view on waffles: i cut mine up first, then add the syrup (i do the same thing with pancakes), and no butter. ooooooh. . . . .

put me in with the eat one thing at a time, nothing touches crowd. apparently, i'm not the only one in my family (on my mom's side at least as i have 2 uncles, 1 cousin and apparently a grandfather that were all the same way). i have a friend that will only eat pizza with a knife and a fork because if he picks up a food (any food) he can't put it down until he finishes it.

there was an episode of good eats devoted to tenderloin trimmings. . .he did 4 meals, including a carpaccio and made cheese steaks . . .

having been to vancouver once when i was 14 as part of a family vacation, the vancouver episode simply solidified my own desire to go back, not to mention grabbing my wife's attention as well. as much as we would all like it to be a food show, it's more than that now. all that being said, i cannot wait for DirecTV to make Travel Channel HD available, which would mean No Reservations in HD.

sorry if this is too late. . . before i moved out to s.f., me, my wife and some friends came for a visit and used reserve wine tours. ran into dan, the driver, recently at a winery and said that he does do pick-ups in s.f. he's also really good at planning and making itineraries with you. i know my wife had several email conversations with him about wineries and what types of wine we were interested in. also, i would avoid doing bus tours, since alot of wineries do not allow buses, you tend to only go to large wineries.

have been looking forward to this. . .tony and queens of the stone age in christmas sweaters. . .

thanks for the photos and blurbs about the small wineries. . .have added them to my list of places to check out in napa, since i seem to go up there every month.

i believe that chick-fil-a has been doing breakfast chicken biscuits for some time now. hardees still has/used to have a pork cutlet breakfast biscuit as well. my regular hardees breakfast was always biscuits and gravy, so i cannot comment on the pork cutlet biscuit.

my two favorites are both regional (Wolf Brand Chili and Dennison's). So, barring ordering them online somewhere, I would probably go with Campbell's.

i live in the inner sunset area of san francisco, and there's a place called san tung (irving, between 11th and 12th, i think) that is always busy. . .plus, i think it's run by the chinese mafia. the people on yelp seem to like them.

in college, this was one of our late night snacks: melt a slab of velveeta, add can of rotel. . .cheese dip heaven. i remember growing up, my mom would make velveeta grilled cheese sandwiches. . .i can't say that i've really had purpose to eat velveeta since then, except to make said cheese dip.

sorry if this was referenced somewhere else, but thought it appropriate for this thread. slate wrote a piece about last february about how sysco is everywhere.

just wanted to add my two cents- i used the "cake bible" when we made our friends' wedding cake. . .the recipes turned out great, it was the building that we had a few problems with.

two of the 4 tomato plants (1 early girl and one roma) have overtaken over 1/2 of the garden space, and are beginning to climb up the wall behind it. that have also overwhelmed the rosemary and sage that we had planted close to it. all four tomato plants, including the cherry that was ravaged early on by some insect, will bear alot of fruit. in front of the stunted cherry plant is a cilantro. . .bush. it's like 3 feet tall with lots of flowers. . .i suppose i should cut that back. . . on the other side of the yard, the butternut squash vine has extended beyond the garden wall and is well over a foot into the yard. . .and it's trying to extend backwards towards the property wall. have 1 green bean pod hanging from what i had hoped would be a resurgent green bean vine. . .not yet at least. also have one nearly full sized bell pepper on the pepper plants. . .the other 6 all have buds and i hope to have quite a few anaheims and bells. the meyer lemon tree. . . . . i think we messed up in our original location, and have since moved it to another part of the yard. . .there's one lemon that is beginning to grow. . . the plum tree has exhausted its supply. . .it was a wonderful surprise to have. so far, it does not appear to be too bad of a first try at growing in san francisco. . .

I have run across a Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin Donuts/Togo's triple store before. . .the quality of the Togo's sandwich was substantially sub-par from what I remember growing up in the Bay Area. However, since coming back to California, it seems that it was not simply being part of this triple play, but more from being bought out by a larger company (for example, I remember Togo's having alot more options than what is available today; the 26 used to have 25 different sandwich combinations before it, now it has maybe 8, I can't remember off the top of my head). Course, I ran into this Togo's in Virginia. . .in March. . .so the avocados may not have been the best selection at the time (but the bread tasted differently in any event).

so, am in san francisco (inner sunset if you are familiar) and ground is very sandy. moved in last year, a tree in the backyard, thought nothing of it since it didn't do anything last year and the backyard had been neglected for who knows how long. cleared the back yard, and this spring the tree blossomed with what looked like cherry blossoms (used to live in d.c., so that's my only reference). for the garden, tried several starts and planted them, only things to have taken in the backyard are onions, squash, thyme and cilantro. replaced everything else, and tried again. this time the 4 tomato plants are taking off (cherry, roma, early girl and something else), but the peppers (red bells and anaheim) are having a tough time of it. back to the tree. . .after 2 months or so, we notice green fruits starting to show on the tree, all over the place. couldn't figure out what it was. . apricots? plums?? something else??? over the past 2-3 weeks, the fruits changed color to reveal themselves as plums. they are much smaller than plums i'm used to, and are beginning to fall off the tree. so, i'm shooting to start picking this week.

None of the Taco Bells in my area are open at breakfast time, nor have they ever been open at breakfast time. Were you in a test-market area, perhaps? ← sometime in the early 90s, there were a handful of taco bells where i lived (san jose, ca) that had 24 hour taco bells that would serve breakfast. mainly breakfast burritos, if i remember correctly. don't know when they stopped though.

well, there is an in-n-out in santa rosa (well, rohnert park, but close enough), so what else does one need???

without taking this too off-track, i can say that i have not had the ability to really go out and check out the santa cruz mountain wineries, other than the ones i mentioned above-i'm trying to use the passport days to take on the other cupertino/saratoga wineries (especially kathryn kennedy and cinnabar). . .i think bonny doon may have to be a special trip. my sister loved thomas fogarty, both the wine and the property, for what it's worth.