Friday, October 8, 2010

City vs. Country

As a kid, I grew up in both the city and the country. We weren't so wealthy as to have two houses; we spent the first 5 years of my life in the city, moved to the country, then moved back to the city when I was 15. I have a complicated relationship with rural living. I am an extrovert. I love engaging with people and I get a surge of energy from any interaction. When we lived in the country, our nearest neighbours were a mile away (and they were a little weird, they kept a phone in their house that was reserved for conversations with God...) My only sibling is 5 years older than me and wasn't around much. Most days, I was lonely and bored.

On the flip side, I grew up with 3 acres of gardens, pigs, horses and generally some skills with country living. I can grow all sorts of things, pickle and put up preserves, and capture a chicken. I like putting on rubber boots and stomping around in the field. I have a great affection for this life. But, when we moved to the city, I felt like someone had flipped a switch. I couldn't get enough of being around people. I don't think I was alone for the first five years! I felt buzzy and happy.

It's funny how fundamental this all remains within me. On our travels, I was so happy in Napa. We were staying in Rutherford, a town of 500 people. It was pitch black at night, it was so quiet and pastoral, you could watch the mice skitter and the hawks circle. We travelled through vineyards and organic gardens and discussed ways to garden better. It was perfect.

Then, 2 days ago, we landed in San Francisco. As we drove in, the 2 hour drive, you could feel the shift starting to happen. Gradually, we were surrounded by more and more people. Then all of a sudden you're in 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic. Once we ditched the car and started walking and walking and walking, amidst thousands of people on the streets, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face! I felt buoyed by the energy of the city, I could feel it pulsating through me. My city girl came alive! We have been to as many parts of the city as we can cram in, met people in every place we've stopped, eaten some of the best food I've ever had, tried new cocktails, ridden street cars, jammed our days as full as possible. It makes me so happy!

And so, I love that I have these parts of me and they both get turns. Our son has lobbied hard for the past few years for some property in the country and this trip has clarified for me that this is a worthwhile investment. When we get home, we'll step up the hunt for someplace to be quiet, build tree forts, plant some vegetables and watch the stars. And then return to the city to get amped up again!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Napa valley

We're on our last day in Napa Valley. This has been a beautiful and educational three days. I feel like so lucky to have had the opportunity to meet all these amazing people and learn so much about wine and wine-making. The first day, we went to Joseph Phelps and had this VIP tour with a gentleman named Keith. I'm pretty sure he was actually Garrison Keillor. He spoke in this soothing midwest accent and told us stories about the property and the development of Napa and winemaking. I listened to him for two and a half hours and I could have stayed around for more.

After Phelps, we made our way to Quintessa. Phelps is an old well established winery. Quintessa are sort of the new kids on the block. I think they bought their land twenty years ago. Here we had a young woman named Kaitlyn take us on a hike through the property and sat on a hill drinking one of their sister wineries' sauvignon blanc, Illumination. Quintessa was hands down my favourite tour. They are bio-dynamic and after some gentle prodding, Kaitlyn opened up and gave us some really great information about how that works. I particularly like the use of animals to tend to the crops. Kaitlyn explained that some wineries are quiet about being bio-dynamic as it is considered flaky and can keep some 'serious' wine drinkers away. I have to say, I did notice an odd reluctance to discuss organics, bio-dynamics and the environmental impact of say, hundreds of thousands of new oak barrels, at other wineries. I was surprised.

Our final tour that day was Caymus. Caymus is a wine we've stocked for most of the time we've been open. This event was actually just a tasting, with some quick notes about the history of the business from the wine educator. The group had a very drunk couple from New York in it and that kind of made the dynamic a little wonky. In the end, it was the weakest event of the day.

Yesterday, we did Cakebread and Sequoia. Cakebread is a consistently fabulous wine that has always been a popular wine on our menu. It's pretty high end but when you see the production, it starts to make sense. Essentially, the winery tracks every barrel and mixes the barrels in specific lots to achieve a specific profile. It is painstaking. Once they have achieved the profile they are after, they then mix the same combination of barrels to create a run of a wine. The other wineries we met worked in a more 'batch' approach. They played with the chemistry but they didn't track each barrel from each lot. We had a very passionate tour guide at Cakebread, who had been a winemaker himself in Oregon, who clearly felt Cakebread was simply the best. He said that their 2007 Cab had such high ratings that they have pulled it from the tastings! He was also the least interested in talking about organics or the environmental impact of winemaking! Ironically, my favourite part of the tour was meeting with the Master Gardener and touring the organic gardens!

Sequoia is a beautiful winery right next door to Cakebread. Aptly named for the giant sequoias growing on the property, they are a teeny winery with some lovely wines. However by this point, I was pretty worn out and got distracted by a great cheese book from a collective cheese shop in Berkeley. The wine educator liked Alex so she poured him a lot of a big variety of reds, most of which we can't get because they only sell them from the winery. By the end of the tasting, Alex was pretty looped so we made our way to the Rutherford Grill and had a fantastic lunch.

Today, we are heading to Rubicon (Francis Ford Coppola's winery) and then to Boon Fly Cafe in Carneros. I love the name so hopefully we'll have fun! Tonight we head to San Francisco for a different type of fun and hopefully some night life!!

Finally, I just want to send a big thank you in Tina Jones' direction. I know that we buy a lot of wine from Banville & Jones and it makes sense that they would want to get us connected with the winemakers but Tina has gone above and beyond in taking care of this leg of our trip. She's pretty awesome and a great role model for business women in Winnipeg.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Travelling

About a year ago, Alex and I committed to trying to travel more. As young folk, we were very poor (can we buy a ladle this week? No? Ok, the coffee cup will work for another week... ) We had lots of fun and had dinner parties and went camping a lot. Then we bought a house at 23 and poured all our energy and spare money into renovating it. After that, we had kids. No time, no money, no energy.

So, here we are. We work like crazed people at the Bistro all the time. Most people don't know that we start dealing with stuff from home by about 9 am and usually don't leave work until midnight. I stay home with the kids during the day and we have our adventures in homeschooling. Generally life is very full and we really felt it was time to start travelling. It seems like a good way to unplug and recharge our batteries. Also, about two years ago, we figured out that our kids are fantastic travellers and they are all game for an adventure.

In the past year, we've been to Montreal, Toronto with the kids, Toronto without the kids, Vancouver with the kids (we are avid air miles collectors now!) This week, Alex and I are in Napa Valley and San Francisco. This trip was a gift from both our families to Alex for his fortieth birthday. We have talked about this trip, fantasized about this trip, since we were 18 years old. And now we are here!

Of course, all trips come with hiccups: our flight was delayed out of Calgary so we missed a bunch of stuff that we wanted to do in San Francisco yesterday. And, they lost my luggage. Which has meant not only am I without my things, we had to waste valuable time yesterday shopping for socks and underwear and a toothbrush for me. But we are here! And today we are going to go on 3 VIP wine tours that TIna Jones from Banville & Jones organized for us. I am just in awe of this whole experience. I plan to try to chronicle it as we go. But, who knows, I may just be eaten up by the moment.

I am very grateful that Alex and I have shifted away from buying things for each other and toward creating experiences. It also seems to be rubbing off on our kids: our son asked that no one give him any gifts for his birthday or Christmas. He asked for people to donate money instead. As a family, we decided to also pool our resources to send him on a trip to Vancouver to see his cousin and his buddy. I hope he has the adventure of a life time.