lucylou95816
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Posts posted by lucylou95816
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I'm really enjoying your blog, Steph! I especially liked seeing the consumed bottles of wine at Thanksgiving. My husband was walking by and said "they drink like we do"
Thank you. That can be scary and good.
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I am really enjoying your blog! Umm..what's durkee sauce?
Thank you, looks like Sandy beat me to the durkee sauce. It actually has quite a high carb count, I think like 8 grams per serving, which is probably no more than 2 tbsp.
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This is so nice to catch up on late at night, after guests have departed and the dishwasher is the only sound in the house.
I'm not a wine person, but just the colors and shadows and the gleam of the bottles---lovely photos. And your Thanksgiving dinner!!! Everything from that gorgeous table (I AM a burgundy person, though not the bottled one) to the beautifully presented dinner itself---just wonderful.
I love your pets and their charming little personalities, especially Riley---he's quite a suave one---I'll bet he's a smooooth talker, too.
Oh, by the way---my ketchup says that your ketchup wants you to turn it rightside up---they live on their lids, you know. On the bottom shelf. It's the law.
Rachel, thanks for the message. I am glad that you are enjoying the blog. Yes, Riley can be a smooth talker. He actually knows how to say I love you. He'll say something the effect of Aww Wuu Wuu. Sometimes is sounds really close. I'll fix that ketchup right away.
Thanks again for reading! -
Hello, we just got back from dinner. Before I get into that, I'll give you a recap of the food we ate today. Mark got up and made us scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon.
For some reason, I was only able to eat a few bites. Eggs haven't been sitting well with me lately. So later in the day, I had a couple of pieces of gruyere cheese, which tided me over until dinner. Mark made some tuna salad.
Tuna
The stuff he put into it
And the final plate. He wasn't as hungry as I was at dinner.
For dinner, we went to 55 Degrees
This place is located near the Captial. Dinner was good, not the BEST meal ever, but good none the less. I did have a small cheat, they had warm bread with really good butter. Warm bread, which seems like you don't see very often is hard to pass up. Just one piece though.The picture quality is not the best since I didn't want to use the flash.
Kara and I started off with the Belguim Endive Salad
Kara's husband had the crab cake, which I also had as a second course. They were very good. More meat inside, with a slight dusting of corn meal that was a nice crunchy crust to it. The sauce beneath it was okay, but needed a little more spice.
Mark had the sweetbreads. They were okay, too chewy for my taste. There is another place in town that makes them, and they are done very well.
For main courses, Mark had the mussels (The 55 degree method on the menu) and they came with frites. The frites, which I had about 15 of were really good.
Kara had the scallops, which were very good, just a puny portion.
Her husband had the Mahi Mahi
I had the steak, and asked to substitute the frites for sauteed spinach. The spinach needed some seasoning, but the steak was good.
We enjoyed this wine from our "good" cellar area
I actually don't mind paying a corkage, since it seems that wines are so overpriced. I also knew that they wouldn't have this on their list. Here's our good wine cellar storage
So no dessert, but a good dinner with good friends.
I can't believe that tomorrow is the end of the blog, and the end of my extended weekend.
But don't go away yet, we got more stuff coming up tomorrow. If I get motivated, I'll get up and go to the only decent farmers market and get some pictures of that for you. I already have a shopping list for tomorrow's dinner, that I will actually cook and I'll take you to another one of my favorite grocery stores, that I have gotten permission to take pictures of on the inside. I am hoping that they have Cardoni, which I guess is the stalk of the artichoke plant, that some people were talking about yesterday, and I'd like to try it.So have a good night and we'll catch up with you tomorrow.
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Loving your blog. I confess that Atkins ultimately did not agree with my system, but if it's working for you, more power to you. After all, everyone's system and situation is different and unique. My only suggestions would be to keep monitoring your general energy level, and make sure you keep up on the water/fluids requirement to keep all those ketones etc. flushing out of your system okay.
Your critters are adorable. Especially the shots of the kitties entwined.
Thank you. I agree, what works for some works for others. I have read your blogs and your success that you have had. I do agree with the water thing. You have to keep drinking it. Thanks for reading!
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If you can't find that recipe for the potatoes, I will be putting the step by step pictures up on our recipe website that is noted by name when I have finished this blog.
Thanks for your prompt and informative responses!
With regard to the potato gratin recipe, I found it while you were answering my questions. Here's a link to Potato Gratin with Porcini Mushrooms and Mascarpone Cheese, on Epicurious.com. Thanks again!
Thanks for posting that link. It's really good. We decided that with all the running around we did this week, today it was in order for us to catch up on the tivo and stay at home, so we'll be fresh for dinner tonight. Right now I am having a snack of gruyere cheese.
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Now that I'm catching up from our Thanksgiving runaround, I have a few comments and questions.
First, THANK YOU for showing the source of your potato mushroom recipe. That does look to die for, and I'll be looking around to see if I can get that magazine and/or the recipe. Perhaps it's on Bon Appetit's web site.
Second, I want to congratulate you on being able to type at all, much less post so coherently and with such lovely photos. If I'd helped polish off that many bottles of wine, I'd have a hangover the size of Tennessee 2 days later. It sure looked like fun, though, and the table setting was gorgeous.
You keep talking about ketosis and wanting to stay in it. This is something I've read before about Atkins, and it puzzles me. Back in my first-responder days, ketosis (there may have been a modifying term that I've forgotten) was a clue that somebody's body chemistry was way out of whack - like they were going into shock, or pushing the envelope of a diabetic problem, or - I've forgotten what it meant except that it was really very NOT good. And I could smell it on the victim's breath. Yet ketosis seems to be what you're shooting for with Atkins. How are the two phenomena different? Do you know?
We're toying with the idea of adding a kitchen island for the sake of counter space. Yours looks great. My question is whether I'll be sorry to forever have something I have to go around; right now we have an open floor. You noted that you love the counter space. What's your take on the island vs. floor space tradeoff?
Fridge shots and animal shots - oh, my! What a happy lot you seem to have around! And I'm glad you didn't try to clean out the fridge first. Those shots give me an inferiority complex.
Finally: was that bottle of Davis Bynum wine I saw peeking out in one of the drawers? I love their stuff.
Thanks for the message and the kind words. Yes, yesterday was a little rough going, but after having a few cocktails, the world was once again a happy place.
Ketosis--I do know that it can be associated with diabetics, in fact some of the strips that we've had monitor both ketones and glucose. In which case, I don't think it is good for someone that is diabetic to go into ketosis. I'm not much of a science person. I think that wiki will give you the best source of info on ketosis. You'll see on there that ketoacidosis is different than what Ketosis is and that is the dangerous one to worry about. You do get ketosis breath, I feel more like its dry mouth than anything. We also tend to not keep consistent body temperatures, especially at bed time. You may get really cold, and then really hot. Hope that helps.
As for the island, I like it, especially since we do a lot of entertaining and I can use it for a buffet, or a bar or whatever. I do have slightly limited space by the fridge area, and eventually I'd like to get a bigger fridge, since that one is so small, so that will be a consideration.
I probably shouldn't admit this, but I did do a slight clean out of the fridge of some stuff that has been in there for a while. Oh well.
If you can't find that recipe for the potatoes, I will be putting the step by step pictures up on our recipe website that is noted by name when I have finished this blog.
Actually that wine is David Girard, who is a local winery up in El Dorado County. I've never tried the one you mentioned, I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
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Stephanie - I don't know anyone at the Raven. It's probably been 25 years since I've been in there and any memories of bartenders/owners have been dissolved in alcohol mists. Sounds like it's still a fun place and we'll have to check it out. I'm interested in the new Junior League cookbook, I'll have to try it. I have the one from about 20 years ago and it was great.
Jackie,
Thanks for the message. The current owners have had the Raven for about 37 years now. I understand about the alcohol mists. The cookbook should be great, I can't wait to get mine.
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Since I have some time, I thought that I would post about our dinner club that we are in. About a year and half ago, Mark and I decided to start a club up with people who were perfect strangers. We were interested in making new friends and expanding our culinary experiences. I put some notices on Craig's List and on the Cooking Light message board and got about 12 people interested. There are still about 5 original people not including us that are still involved. Over time, I have put up more notices and have gained some new members. We meet once a month, rotating homes of the members. The host picks the theme and does the main course. Everyone signs up to bring the other courses/wine. It's been great. We have a website that I post the pictures of the food, and then the recipes if people send them to me. That way, someone could go back and recreate something that they've had at one of the parties. Our last dinner was a week ago today, so I thought that I would share what we had. It was an appetizer party, to get everyone in the mood for holiday entertaining. Here are some of the things that we had.
I made Meatball Slider sandwiches. They turned out pretty good. I had the rolls specially made for me by a bakery that is actually a cupcake bakery. She said that she could make them, and they turned out great.
I do have step by step pictures that I can put up if anyone is interested. I'll eventually have them on my recipe site that is at the bottom of my posts.
These are yankee doodles that my friend made. I think they are a midwest thing. Basically rye toasts with seasoned ground meat that is then topped with durkee sauce and broiled until cooked through. They were a big hit.
These are rib eye steak tacos with an onion jam and horseradish cream sauce.
These are aspargus wrapped in parmesan cheese and prosciutto and phyllo
These are ahi tuna with two types of sauce, a mango habanero and an avocado
Some chocolate cheesecake brownies
This was very interesting. A special type of gouda with milk chocolate and honey. If you try the cheese first, then go with the cheese and honey, then try the cheese honey and chocolate, you got three completely different flavors. It was really good.
Next Saturday, we are hosting a Christmas party here for our friends. Right now nearly 40 people are going to be coming....
We are making carnitas with salsa and guacamole and cupcakes. Other people will bring some appetizers to go along with it. So if this is not really a dinner, more like a stand up eat type of thing, how many pounds of pork should I get? That is my dilemma right now. If anyone has any ideas, that would be great. This will be the cocktail of the evening, along with probably some beer, wine and a few bottles of random boozy type things. This is going to my 8th annual holiday party and every year, I also ask people to bring toys or diapers that get donated to a local charity. -
Thanks for the message. Those dogs are pretty popular, my dad was usually a Lab kind of guy, but this little guy has him wrapped around his paw
My Harley is a wire-hair dachshund!!
Dachshunds love food. Does Riley?
Riley is funny. Whenever you offer him anything (which is rare, I don't feed them a lot of people food), he has to sniff it to see if it's something he'd like. Lucy doesn't care at all, she'll eat anything. I give them both a flax seed capsule with their meals, since Lucy had some bad skin allergies. She'll eat the capsule no problem. Riley will leave it in his bowl, so I generally have to puncture it, squeeze it out into his food and then even moisten his food slightly, since sometimes it seems too hard for him.
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Hi Everyone,
Hope your Saturday is finding you well. I have pictures of dinner from last night, but first, I should probably get the kitchen/fridge stuff in, since I know you have been waiting for this. Here is my kitchen
That is pretty much what sold me on this house was the size of the kitchen and the counter space.
Here's looking at the stove:
Here's our recipe book/wine storage (one of several) and big serving bowl area:
The big black binder is full of recipes from magazines/newspapers.
Ok, here is our spice pantry
We have two cupboards below that is also pantry type stuff.
Here is the freezer. As you can see tons of meat, there's some chicken, I think that the two bags on top may be chili that Mark made this week. Ice, since the ice maker isn't hooked up. There is also a bottle of homemade limoncello.
Here's the freezer door. Frozen bottles of water, that I will take to work with me when it's hot, since I am in the car all day, and around 3pm, they'll be melted enough to drink. Some coconut ice cream that we had from a dinner party a few weeks ago. Some pine nuts and other random things like galanga for thai cooking, some curry stuff.
Here is the fridge door:
The usual stuff, ketchup, Lea and Perrins, Butter, different types of hot sauce, some bacon that was cooked up in the ziplock bag, Mark's pace picante sauce. Some Dove Sugar Free Chocolates, so when I have to have a sweet treat, they are fairly low in carbs.
Here's the top shelf
Sour cream, mayo, the orange container is the leftovers from last night. Some pickles that we canned over the summer, heavy cream, bunch of different mustards, cream cheese, marscapone cheese, leftover cauliflower from the other night. Ranch dressing, some leftover chili for Mark.
Here's the bottom shelf:
A couple of beers, the nasty costco cheese sticks, Buttermilk, Maple Syrup, Miracle Whip (Mark's, I don't like it), bacon that he's cooking right now. Vegetables in varying stages of life..we won't go into great detail there.
Here's picture of the whole thing, including the middle shelf that just has eggs, some leftover steak, 1/2 of an avocado, leftover cheesecake from Thanksgiving. The drawer is filled with all kinds of cheese, probably needs to be inventoried to see what's in there.
Ok, I think that covers the kitchen and the fridge. On to last night's dinner. Sausage and Peppers.
Here are the ingredients
Only stuff not pictured are the butter, wine that went into it and the parm cheese.
Veggies ready to go
After the sausage is cooked up, add the veggies in:
Then add some wine
We used Sam's Whitemore Wine Company Barbera. It got the Peabody two paws up
(Please don't think that we get our cat drunk every night, it's literally a drop on a finger.)All ingredients mixed together with some chopped basil
Simmers away for a bit
Add some butter to the pan
Serve it up with a little parm. cheese
Here you go
Good over pasta, but we didn't have any of that. This was some really awesome kick ass sausage and peppers. He did a great job on it. After dinner, I decided to have a small piece of cheesecake:
And then I was very tired, much like these two after their trip to Grandpa's and Cousin Harley's house.
Mark also made stock out of the turkey carcass. Here's what he did
Basic stuff, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, rosemary, turkey bones, peppercorns, covered in water and simmer for as long as possible
He's restarted simmering it this morning. Then we'll strain it, get any fat off and probably freeze for soup at some point.
A few other things I thought that I would show you. Here is some of our wine storage area. It's kind of all over the place, so we have to get creative.
pardon the dust.This house has a built in hutch in the dining room, so we use a couple of the drawers to house some wine:
I forgot some of the stuff that we had in there.Lastly, here's the latest member of the family. He's only food related, since he picks up all the crumbs that get left behind:
His name is Persuval, The Roomba. These things rock! I highly recommend them. Ok, Mark is going to make us some breakfast I think, and we may go up to Amador to pick up some wine futures that are ready and we're going out to dinner tonight with Kara and her husband. I will be back in a bit, with some other cooking related things.
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Stephanie, how does wine get figured in to the total carb intake on your diet?
Michael, thanks for the message. As for how wine fits in, I think I may have touched on it earlier, but if we followed this diet to a T, we'd probably have better results. The wine will slow down the weight loss, and you should count the carbs (4 grams per 4 oz glass). It hasn't kicked me out of ketosis, in fact Thanksgiving dinner hasn't yet either. I don't plan on weighing myself again until next Friday, so I am sure that I have gone up a pound or so. After this weekend, I am going to really watch the wine intake, since it seems that we've been drinking a ton of it lately, and that may not be helping me. If you were to follow Atkins the right way, you move up these "rungs" and wine and alcohol are on there, either the third or fourth rung, and that is when it would be acceptable to drink it.
Your Thanksgiving dinner looked to die for....I have a Harley dog too.
I also made some doctored up stove top for the Seniors on Canadian Thanksgiving. They loved it!!
Thanks for the message. Those dogs are pretty popular, my dad was usually a Lab kind of guy, but this little guy has him wrapped around his paw.
The doctored up stove top was great, especially using chicken stock instead of water.
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Hi Everyone, We're back after a much needed hair of the dog....why is that the key to getting a hangover to go away? Probably, because you start your next buzz and you forget? I don't know, anyway, currently uploading tons of pictures for your viewing pleasure. As a prelude to tonight's dinner, Mark (who seems to be doing most of the cooking on this blog) is going to make sausage and peppers and also a stock out of the carcass from last night's dinner, that we'll use at a future date, probably some chicken non-tortilla soup. Honest, I do cook, and you'll see that in this post as well as Sunday's post.
So I mentioned cooking for a homeless shelter. I am a member of the Junior League of Sacramento, and we had commited to making a Thanksgiving Dinner for St. John's Shelter for Women and Children. I signed up to make stuffing. After contemplating my week, I decided that I'll take some Stove Top stuffing and (please god don't strike me down) Sandra Lee it. (I don't condone that woman, personal opinion.) Any who, I started off with chopping some onions and celery:
Then sauteed them in a little butter/olive oil
Got the rest of my ingredients together:
Got the broth going. Instead of water, I used the chicken broth, added the sauteed veggies a little thyme and sage
After fluffing it with a fork, put it in a foil pan and delivered it
It actually tasted quite good.
For those of you that don't know, the Junior League raises money to help disadvantaged women and children. One of the ways we do that is to sell cookbooks. Here's a link if you'd like to buy a soon to be newly released cookbook as a Christmas gift. If that isn't appropriate to put here, please let me know. They should be shipped by Christmas.
Then after that was finished, I started my potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh my god, where these good. Here's the source where the recipe came from. They were worth every gram of carbs!
Here are the ingredients
I started by soaking the mushrooms in hot water. The recipe called for porcinis, but the store was out, so I used chanterrells.
After that, I sauteed them in butter/olive oil until brown
Since we were a few hours out from dinner, I put them in a storage container and put in the fridge.
Next, I whipped the marscapone cheese, whipping cream, parmesaen cheese, garlic and nutmeg together
season with salt and pepper
I also put this into a container and in the fridge. When we arrived at our destination, we sliced up the potatoes with a mandoline, and layered one layer of potatoes, one layer of mushrooms, one layer of potatoes, 1/2 of the cheese mixture, one layer of potatoes, more mushrooms, more potatoes, rest of cheese mix, potatoes and then sprinkled parmesaen cheese on top. Baked at 325 for about a hour and viola:
They did NOT suck.
Before I get to the rest of the meal, I should introduce, a special guest star of this blog, Harley, who is my Dad's dog
He is probably the most spoiled dog in all of the world, and I thought my dogs were spoiled.
Here is the beautiful table set by my Dad's girlfriend, Beth.
We started off with some cheese and wine (1st of way too many bottles)
The white cheese had some sort of dried cranberries in it. I never got the name of it, but it was pretty tasty. The other was a sort of cheddar with chive.
A barbera from Lodi.
This wine was from grapes that grew on my dad's girlfriend's daughter's property in Hopland, before they sold it. She (the daughter) is a CEO of a major favorite (not be named) kitchen type store.
Then we started with dinner:
The obligatory pickles and olive tray
The salad; a wedge of ice berg with blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing, which was very good, but some of the portions were way too big, and we couldn't eat it all
The main event; the Turkey
Stuffing, which was really good.
Roasted smashed squash, again really good
Creamed onions, really really good
cranberry sauce, I didn't get a chance to try it, but it looked good.
Gravy
and you saw the potatoes.
The first wine with dinner was
Silver Oak. I have been purchasing the new release since the 1997 release. We haven't had a special enough occasion to try the latest, so we picked this one to do so. It was pretty good and I am sure over time it will mature nicely, so it will be fun to try it again in a few years. This is the last of the wine pictures of the individual bottles, since things just got dicey from there. We got a picture of the whole lot consumed, and there might have been a few more after that. Yes, it was alot.
For dessert, as if we could eat anything else, was my pumpkin cheese cake that I made for the most part, low carb, with the exception of a small graham cracker crust. There was also an apple pie, which didn't get eaten.
The leaves are covering a crack that happened in the cooling process.
And that was Thanksgiving 07 for us. I hope yours was filled with good food, wine and time with family. Mark is busy in the kitchen with his stock and tonight's dinner. I see lots of flashes coming out of the kitchen, so I am sure we'll have tons of pictures of that for you later. See you soon.
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Hello, we are back from the Bay Area. We had a great Thanksgiving, hope you all did as well. Very soon, I'll post up all the pictures from the big feast and go into some details on some of the cooking that we did. However, first, we must wander over to the Raven and get a MUCH needed hair of the dog. Between the six of us, but more like really four of us, we consumed much too much red wine last night. I believe that I have some pictures of the numerous bottles that we drank. Seeing that we didn't have any breakfast today, as we were driving home, a billboard spoke to us: In and Out burger. I had a double double protein style, Mark had a double double with the poisonous bun. He figured that since his carbs yesterday were really low, he deserved it. I feel that since my carbs were really high, I am back on the strict horse again. It was the first step to helping this hangover. See you all soon.
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Thank you, and thank you for the gorgeous pet photos!
I think someone remarked on the prevalence of animal lovers in the eG foodblogs -- cat and/or dog shots are as ubiquitous as the obligatory fridge shot, which I note you have yet to provide *hmph*, and love of food and love of pets do seem to go together.
Your cats and your dogs are all precious!
Now I have to go back to checking on the mashed potatoes and getting the squash casserole ready.
Thank you. Yes, the fridge shot is coming. I was going to try and clean it up a bit, but have decided to just show it like it is. I am awaiting on the camera battery to recharge, and you shall see it all in it's present beauty.
Happy to see the dogs. I'm glad you have your wine to help you with the Atkins deal. Like your husband, I lost more weight than my wife when we did Atkins. I must say, I lost weight, but I felt like crap. All meat and fat made me feel not well at all.As a baker, I tried all the low carb baking methods, none of them tasted good to me. The THOUGHT of soy flour makes me sick to this day.
I know there are folks who thrive on it, but any long term Atkins diet is, I feel, not healthy.
Having said that, it does make the weight go away
Thanks for your message. I don't feel like crap usually, but I also don't seem to have this abundance of energy that everyone talks about. I can make it through the day without caffeine, so maybe that's saying something. Soy flour is interesting, I've tried making fried zucchini with it, and it wasn't the best. I think that when we get to our weightloss goals, we'll just be more cautious with the carbs that we eat.
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Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Just wanted to say hi, I've been busy this morning making some potatoes (today is a cheat day) for tonight and stuffing for a homeless shelter. We got to get on the road, so hopefully I can update with pictures tonight or else it will be tomorrow.
Have a wonderful time with family and friends!
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The welsh rarebit sauce sounds great. What's in it?
Love the winery pics, and the dogs, and the food.......
Blog on !
Thanks! From what I remember, its cheddar cheese and beer. It's very thick and kind of congealed like, but not totally. I just remember asking them if it had flour and cornstarch and they said no. On their lunch menu, they show serving the sauce with an english muffin. We asked Kara to give that a try sometime and get back to us. Have a great day.
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Lucy, I am in love with your blog in many ways, and I love how you, like me, debunk the myth that cats and dogs hate each other. I have an autistic son, and I have trained my purebred German Shepherd in the art of Shutzhund, personal protection, which includes my two cats. He loves them, and they love him back.
When they come home from wandering outside, he checks to see if they are ok.
What I wanted to ask was do you do the tuna salad in low carb pita? That kept me on the low carb diet for weeks. I would do the tuna in spring water, mixed with the various pickles, celery, onion, mayo, sometimes olives, with lettuce and tomato.
That would keep me full for hours. It was my jump start into the low carb eating.
Also, I'd be remiss if I did not mention that a huge part of losing weight was because I'm a single mom, owner of my home, and I do all my own, lawn mowing, gardening, snow, shoveling, raking the leaves. I'm in the mid-west Of Ohio.
Christine, Thank you for your message. Aren't animals the greatest? They offer such warmth and compassion, and they don't talk back (well usually). I am happy that your son finds such comfort with them. As for tuna, I am not a big fan of tuna, Mark is however and he eats it all the time. I haven't tried low carb pita bread either, for the fear of getting knocked out of ketosis. We bought some low carb tortillas a few weeks back and made fajitas. I was sure to count them in my counts for the day,and bam out of ketosis. I threw those things out. I just find after being on this diet for a while, you usually aren't hungry. It's very interesting how that works. Your activity level certaintly would be an asset to losing weight as well. Sadly, I don't excercise as much as I should, but slightly in my defense, my job is not sendentary. I am walking around all day, carrying things, standing, moving around. It's the not greatest form of excercise, but it's better than sitting in cube all day. Also, at home, we walk alot to different places, since they are all in walking distance. Thanks for the message and have a great Thanksgiving!
What a cool tour! I would NOT have guessed that Lodi grapes contribute to some of the Napa or Sonoma wines.Thanks! - even though I've now got John Fogerty's voice stuck in my head. Again. Oh, Lord.
I found it really interesting too. I should say that if I remember correctly, Sam said that Sonoma and Napa wineries that produce over 70,000 or 80,000 cases a year, they use some grapes from Lodi. Gus said something like 80% of wineries use Lodi grapes, but he had a really thick accent that sometimes was hard to follow. I did use to have a co-worker who lives in between Galt and Lodi, where her and her husband grew grapes and she said that they sold them to Kendall Jackson, so that also backs up this story. I honestly think that for some places in Napa, that are high end, if they say Napa Valley, I want to say that a certain percentage has to come from that region/appellation. Otherwise they'd really be ripping the consumer off.
I'm sorry about the song..its stuck in my head too. Happy Turkey day!
Oooohhhhh! I wish you had blogged two summers ago! I was in Stockton for a couple of weeks, and had I known of all the wineries in Lodi, I might have borrowed (or rented) car to take myself there. As it was, I had a very disappointing visit to Napa (it wasn't disappointing because of the wines, but because of my traveling companions, who really weren't all that interested in wine or food).I hope to see more kitty pictures out there! I was a bit surprised that Lucy doesn't much care for cats. Most lab-types I know get along relatively well with cats, or are at least indifferent to them. (My cat doesn't like any other animals, but she tolerates their presence quite well, and only gets into trouble when provoked.)
Prasantrin, Thanks for the message. You were so close. I agree that wine tasting isn't that fun with people that aren't that interested. Kara's husband doesn't drink, so when we do a big all day deal, he'll drive us, which is great, but he seems to always find some kind of fun conversation with people, and doesn't appear to be bored or always ready to leave, which is nice. Saturday, we are toying with the idea of going up to Amador, since we have some futures to pick up, in which case is a whole other area for tasting that is great. The sacrifices for Egullet that we must make.
More kitty pictures, coming right up....in fact these were taken last night, and I just couldn't resist:
If I said that Lucy doesn't like the cats, that would be a mistake. Riley at this point is tolerant of them, but could care less about them when we first got them. In fact, Lucy was very protective over them. We have a dog door that goes outside and one day, Lucy was going nuts outside, I went out to see what the problem was, and Peabody had gotten out the doggie door (he was really little then) and she was telling us that he had gotten out. Another day, she kept bugging Mark at the computer and he kept shooing her away, but she kept coming back, again, Peabody got out again. She also used to snuggle up with them too. That is why its so funny that she'll allow Mr. Pickles to stand next to her while she eats, since Riley would get all alpha dog on anyone of them if they got within 3 feet. They are funny that way. Have a great day!
All the chiles look so beautiful, and the photo looks like a piece of art. I love your loaded up chili. Oh avocados
Hmm never had them on chili but I will now! Lodi, and wine. LOL I posted this without refreshing it from yesterday. 
I loved Iggy the rescue dog, and the wines. Funny enough I didn't appreciate wine until I moved away from California. I finally had time to enjoy wine, and I lucked out and moved to the wine region on germany. But I am amazed that are wonderful wineries in Lodi. I will have to check them out the next time I get to california. Thank you so very much. I learn something new everyday!Edited because I didn't see the rest of the winery post before replying.
Milgwimper, thank you so much for the message. Like I mentioned above, Saturday, we'll take you to another wine region, the Amador area, which is great with zinfandels that are on 150 year old vines. This was only the second time we've been to Lodi, and it was a great experience.
I just really like the avocado on the chili, can't explain it, but it's great and a couple of years ago, I couldn't stand avocados and now I love them, and they are low carb friendly.
Enjoy your day today.
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I have a few questions for you...
* Is Mark a Gemini? I only ask because his chili ingredient layout was so symmetrical.
* What street is the Philly cheesesteak place on?
Riley sent me some doggy ESP messages; he thinks he looks quite dapper in his smoking jacket.
Hi Jensen
No, Mark is not a Gemini, he's a Pisces. Not sure what that will reveal.
The Philly cheesesteak place is located on Folsom Blvd near Watt.
Riley has that affect on the ladies. He has many girlfriends
Thanks for the message!
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Hey Everyone,
Just got the pictures loaded from Lodi. There are a lot, so kick back, get a glass of wine (It's not a work day for most tomorrow) and enjoy. As I post, I decided I needed a beverage to enjoy and here it is, one of our purchases from today:
It even got a Peabody two paws up
I will touch more on this wine later.
We started off at Jewel Winery
Here we met Rustin, who is the Tasting Room Assistant Manager and Sam Whitmore (who we'll talk about in a minute), the Head Guru. Apparently, Jewel is one of the oldest wineries in Lodi, in fact, their main building that does alot of the magic is from 1901
This other building next to it used to be a distillery, but its not operational anymore. Sam said that at one time, brandys and other spirits were made there.
We spent some time in their tasting room, and Rustin talking us into the their wine club, which honestly can't be beat...6 times a year, $15 each time, you get one of their "library" wines and one of their everyday wines. The library wines are in the $25-39 range. Not a bad deal. I couldn't resist and signed up for their "gold club" where you get 6 bottles every 2 months for $43.98 plus tax and $10 shipping. Check out their site above for more information.
After that, Sam then took us on a tour, but not with out his faithful friend, Iggy.
Iggy is a rescue dog who Sam found and seems to have no problem hanging out with riff raff like ourselves
Sam, not only is the GM at Jewel, but a few years ago, decided to take on his own project and label. It's Whitmore Wine Company. One of the things that I really liked about Sam's new wines is not only the fun catchy names, but the fact that he supports children and animal charities. That alone gives him an A+ in my book.
After talking with Sam for a while, you can totally tell the passion that he has for making good wine. He's really looked into his demo's and knows who he wants to appeal to. I couldn't help but notice that his wine has screw caps
You can't see them in this picture, but I asked him about that. (We also got our bottles signed by him, which is very cool) He said that most people feel that the romance of a bottle of wine is opening the bottle,(which I totally agree with) in his opinion, the romance is what is in the bottle, and that can be ruined when you smell, for example, "barnyard" because the bottle is corked, and that is not romantic. I guess I can agree with that. He also said that after spending some time in France, that it is conceivable that someday we'll see high end wines in bags or boxes, since they are easier to store, and when you have large families that drink wine, they just make sense.
We also learned some interesting information from Sam and others today, that sort of answer a question from Smithy regarding the state of Lodi grapes. Well, hold on to your glasses, because apparently, some of the wine makers in Napa and Sonoma rely on Lodi to supply their grapes. Lodi growers have just in the last few years started becoming winemakers. Sam had mentioned that the winemakers sometimes have a tough time in Lodi, due to inexperience, and not having enough resources at their hands, so their wines from one year to another can range in consistency. Lodi, as I have known is wonderful for their Zinfandel, but they also have great Cabernet Sauvignon crops and other big reds as well, and not to exlude some whites from the delta areas as well. So when you shell out $60 bucks for a Silver Oak (Which we are planning on opening tomorrow), it could very well be Lodi grapes. Interesting.
I am going to send Sam the link to this blog, so please, feel free to correct anything I may have inaccurately said.
Here's some more pictures from their cellars and of Sam giving us the lowdown, and some barrel samples that did not suck!
Lastly, the other thing really cool about this place is their table wine. It's called, "Saturday Red" Here is an article about it. You buy the jug for $4.99 and then can take it to the winery for a refill for $2.99.
It's pretty damn tasty.
After all this great fun and information, we headed off to Vino Piazza. Watch the video, it's quick and gives you a good feel of what this place is. First here are some landscape pictures, of what a beautiful day it was:
This is right across the street.
another across the street.Here are some shots of the buildings themselves. We only found 3-4 wineries open today, which worked out fine, we needed to get home safely.
Unfortunately, today was almost like a ghost town. Kara, Mark's sister who came with us has been there before when there was a festival, or that kind of thing going on and said it was a lot of fun. We still had fun. We met Gus, who is the wine grower for Stama Winery.
Gus's family has been growing grapes in Greece for many generations, and he has for the last 22 years in Lodi. For the last two years he's (well, someone else is, but if he doesn't approve, it doesn't get bottled.) started making his own wine, as you saw earlier, it got a Peabody two paws up. We got that Cab for $70/case. Here are a couple more pics of Gus' wine.
His tasting room
This building used to house a big winery, as the video earlier said. I thought these pipes would make a cool picture, which in the circle, which was a window, is a shot of the mural on the outside wall, in another room, which in my opinion was very cool.
One more word about Gus. He was so nice. After being in his tasting room a bit, we decided to have a snack. We brought some cheeses and my "crackers" that were made out of sunflower seeds, thick and thin and water. Kara and Mark seemed to like them, I did if they had the cheese. We brought our "picnic ware" with us and as Gus walked by, he said, "Do you need some wine to go with that?", we say, "sure", so he tells Mark to bring in the glasses and he filled them up with one of his best Cabs. Gus does not suck!
We also visited
and tasted a few wines. Alot of people were raving about a butterscotch wine. This is the place owned by the guy who started the whole Vino Piazza. Mark took a ton of pictures of the skeletons that were in the video, so I won't post them again here.After that, it was getting late, we, well some of us (not naming names), were getting buzzed and it was time to go home. We had a great time!
I just finished off a bowl of chili, a glass of wine and we may head over on foot to the Raven for a couple of after dinner cocktails. I hope tonight finds everyone well, and please stay tuned for tomorrow.
Tomorrow's plans. We are going to make a potato/mushroom thing out of Bon Appetit. We will also do some food for a homeless shelter (more info on that later). Then we'll (Mark, Me, Riley and Lucy) head to my dad's house in Martinez, about 1 1/2 hours away for dinner. Everything there will be documented, hopefully Dad has some wireless connection and I can upload tomorrow, if not, Friday when we get back. I can promise, some really good Napa (although maybe Lodi now) wine, good food and who knows what else. Stay tuned.......
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This is a really timely blog for me as I've just started low carbing again. Great job so far!
I'm really interested in hearing more about those Revolution Rolls. I've seen the recipe before but never quite believed they could work. Since you seem to make them regularly, do you have any tips for making them?
Thanks for the message. Good luck on your new venture to low carb. Trust me, if I can do it, ANYONE can do it. As for the revolution rolls, here's a recipe, even though you may not need one: recipe. As for any tips, when I make them, I make sure everything is room temperature. I really make sure the egg whites get really stiff and then fold in the other ingredients. Bake them until just browned. I then put them in a ziplock after they have cooled and then in the fridge. When I want to eat one, I put them in the oven (I have a toast option on my oven), toast it and then put butter, splenda and cinnamon. They aren't bread....but they are a good quick breakfast, at least for me. Good luck again, and if you need any other special recipes, be sure to ask, we may have something that will work.
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Hey Everyone,
We just got back from Lodi..we didn't get stuck there...bad pun from an old song. I have TONS of pictures to upload and some interesting information so stay tuned.
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This is so much fun to see a local blog. I haven't been inside the Raven in years.
Good blog and good work with the Atkins.
That's funny! Who do you know from the Raven, in terms of bartenders? Jimmy? Greg? You must know Joey, the owner. Thanks!
Riley is very handsome. I'm the mom of two dachsunds and I know they can get very testy!! I've never seen a dachsund/cocker mix though, he's adorable.Keep up the good work!!
Thank you. Riley is in need of a haircut, but he's still cute all the same. Thanks for reading!
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So we just got back from breakfast. We figured we go to The Fox and Goose Public House today, since the weekends are just crazy. Well, today was crazy as well. Parking downtown Sacramento, especially on a weekday just sucks, and that coupled with hungry and angry meter maids, well you either hike a long way or pay a big ticket. We met Mark's sister Kara and his neice Sophie for breakfast today. So let us introduce you to the Fox and Goose:
This place is a British style pub with lots of ales on tap. Sometimes for breakfast here, you may see a Senator or someone of equal importance, since its pretty close to the Capital. I didn't notice anyone "famous" today, but then I am not a big political guru either.
Here's the main dining room:
Take a quick look at the menu, I already know what I am going to have:
The Benedict Arnold please, no muffin and tomatoes. It's the welsh rarebit sauce that I really want. It's so good, and I know low carb friendly since the owners of the Fox and Goose were at the Club Raven one time (we were there earlier this week) and I was able to inquire.
Yes, that is a big mound of potatoes but I only had one or two bites and they weren't that good really..kinda dry. Which is why Kara recommends this:
Which I guess they slather the potatoes with chilis, cheese and sour cream. I guess they call it potato deluxe. I've never heard of that one before. Still, I was okay without them.
Here's Mark's breakfast, he got the same thing as me, but had canadian bacon and he even ate 1/2 of one english muffin.
A good start to the day. I also figured that I better introduce Riley, so he doesn't feel like he isn't loved:
He is a cocker spaniel/dauchsand mix. He'll be 11 this Sunday. We usually have the top of his hair in a mohawk, but the last the time he went to the groomers, they didn't do a very good job at it. I also don't usually advocate clothes for dogs, but since I get him groomed every few months, he gets a little shivery during the cold days.
Here is also another picture of Lucy:
Okay, we're waiting on Kara to come over and then we head to Lodi. See you when we get back.
Foodblog: Lucylou95816
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Thanks for putting up the information regarding durkee sauce. Yes, I do believe that the Junior League and Girl Scout Cookies should be in the same category. I guess the cool thing about Jr. League cookbooks from different regions of the US is that you would probably get a "regional" type of cookbook based on where the League is based out of.
Well, being that I am not a Miss Lee fan, I will probably pass on her book. Thanks for reading!