Napa, California: Steve and Mary flew home Saturday night. Kathy and Woody started driving home Monday morning. We don't need to be in Eugene much before kick-off Saturday afternoon... so we are taking our time driving back to cold, wet Oregon. We decided to return to warm and sunny Napa and fill our bellies with delicious foods (and fill the basement of our motorhome with delicious wines).
Just after arriving yesterday, we went immediately to the Oxbow Market for tacos at C Casa:
The top taco in this photo is made with rotisserie duck, the lower taco is a potato taco made with fingerling potatoes. If you are interested, I have a delicious (and easy)potato taco recipe on this website.Then we went for a walk. Then a nap.
Dinner was pizza from Azzurro Pizza in downtown Napa. Our third visit and the third time with the same great server - Chelsea. We sat at the bar so we could watch Lenny's Redskins beat the Dallas Cowboys in overtime.
The Sicilian Pizza at Azzurro is loaded with anchovies, capers and olives. A salty, cheesy slab of heavenly pie. Wow. We also had a spinach salad. Eat your greens!After coffee and exercise this morning, we drove north to St. Helena for lunch at Archetype. This place does their own twist on American comfort food.
Like an open-faced Reuben with house-made sauerkraut and their own corned short rib. Yes, I said THEIR OWN CORNED SHORT RIB.Wow.
I was a good girl and did not eat the bread. There was a little side salad of dilled potato salad that I could have rolled in. Wonderful.
DT went to the Asian side of American comfort food by ordering a steamed bun stuffed with crispy duck, served with dried plum sauce, pickled bean sprouts and dirty fried rice... and by "dirty" they mean with duck liver.Too dirty for me, but My Driver loved his lunch.
Dave and I are so happy we decided to try this restaurant and highly recommend it to you all. The interior has won all sorts of awards and is so interesting - everything is painted a shade of cream - and so different for the area. The kitchen is open and most items are either grilled over a wood fire or finished/baked in their wood-fired oven and the prices are pretty reasonable - for California wine country. Our service was outstanding and the pours uber-generous.After lunch, we did something we very rarely do in Napa wine country - we went to a wine tasting. I know. I know. Tasting is the "thing" in Napa, but we most enjoy going to restaurants and rarely visit vineyards. Today we wanted to try wines from a popular bio-dynamic (beyond organic) vineyard not far from our RV resort - RSV: Robert Sinskey Vineyards.
The tasting room was very inviting and we had a vast variety of wines to try - all were organic and bio-dynamic. Our guide was a nice young man from Vermont, Lewen. He was quite interested in our Oregon pinots, but sold us a few bottles RSV wines - always good to branch-out from our usual Italian and Oregon wines.We spent the evening at the motorhome, watching the San Francisco Giants fail miserably against Kansas City, with our Canadian neighbors.
GO GIANTS! Tomorrow!
I have not cooked anything more ambitious than toast since Dave and I served our friends a steak dinner on the the first night of this trip, and I can't tell you how excited I am to prepare a pot of soup in the slow cooker for our trip north in the morning. Something tells me a steamy bowl of Santa Fe Chowder will be welcomed in the weather we are steering towards.
Until my next update, I remain, your California correspondent.
You may also like: In 2008, I toured Bonterra, one of the first bio-dynamic vineyards in America.
RV PARK: Napa Valley Expo RV Park. Our favorite campground in the area. Long paved full-service pull-through sites with 50 amp. Bathhouse, laundry, free wifi, lawn, picnic table. At the fairgrounds and just a short drive/walk to downtown Napa. We paid $45 per night, with a Good Sam discount.
