A foody celebration

I've had some time on my hands. Two and a half weeks before going back to work, to be precise. So what better way to use it than to plan a little tea party. And since we'd been to America (duh), I decided to theme it on the US of A.

Which mainly meant lots of red, white and blue and a large dose of sugary, fatty food. Nom nom, etc. Here's the most part of the spread.

Yup, my apron has my name on it.

And that bunting? It goes all along the length of the other wall and it took me a few hours to make. But it was worth it when a lovely friend said it was the neatest bunting she'd ever seen. I didn't have enough time to sew proper bunting (I started it the day before the party, whoops), so I made it out of coloured card and punched holes to thread string through. Easy peasy.

When it comes to cooking, I'm no chef. I can handle one-pot dishes and a roast dinner but that's about your lot.

Baking, however. That's my thang. I follow the recipe to the T and - huzzah! - the cakes come out almost like the picture in book. That's the sort of cooking I like. So I made cakes. Many many cakes. So many that we had some left over (YAYS).

And when I say I like baking, I also like the glory that comes with it. There was a little surprise when I cut into that rather large (and slightly wonky) beast of a cake your saw above...

EEK, IT'S AN AMERICAN RAINBOW CAKE!! There were gasps of delight all around and I was very chuffed indeed. It tasted pretty dang good, too. The cupcakes were either red velvet, white or blue vanilla, too, but I couldn't have told you that earlier or I'd have ruined the surprise.

Other tasty American-style treats included (but not all in the pic above) these stinky corndogs, pastrami sandwiches, pepperjack cheese sandwiches, beef and veggie slider burgers, pretzels, cheese puffs and pickles. Mmm.

Oh, and this incredible American flag pie made by Adam's fair hands - arguably even more impressive than the rainbow cake. I'd like to take credit for finding the picture of the pie and the recipe on the interweb (it's my party and I'll boast if I want to!) but credit where credit's due: the boy done good.

Here's a close-up of the cherry and blueberry delight.

It went down a treat with some squirty cream.

Altogether a successful little party. Oh, and in case you're wondering, there were actual real people in attendance. We just didn't have the camera out because we were too busy stuffing our faces.

Can you blame us?

LA: revisited

Venice Beach gave us a pretty nice 'welcome back' in the form of this beautiful sunset.

As crazy and lively as the beach is in the daytime, I think it comes to life most in the evening when the masses depart and the beach can speak for itself.

Pretty huh? I got a bit creative with the next one, and used my sunglasses as a filter. Artiste? Moi?

Those footprints belong to Ad's big hoofs. But let's pretend they're The Hoff's. Some of Baywatch was filmed here, after all.

So that was Wednesday evening. Thursday was a bit of a write-off. We slept in, left at lunchtime to go to Newport Beach, drove around trying to find anything that looked like The OC and then gave up, sat on the beach to eat a soggy tuna sandwich (Whole Foods let us down this one time), then drove two hours back through rush hour traffic on the freeway and that was that. The evening, however, was better with a little trip to a Santa Monica cinema to see Thor. FYI, Milk Duds rule.

Friday was more eventful. Universal Studios!

First thing we did was take the Studio Tour, on a big trolley. That's our tour guide.

Dur-da....dur-da....dur-da-dur-da-dur-da-dur-da...DUR-DA! Argh.

This is us getting ready to be be thrown around, 3D style, by King Kong. Excitements. (PS, where's my tan?)

Then we found out about some unlikely neighbours. That's Wisteria Lane, home to Desperate Housewives...

...right next door to Whoville (from How The Grinch Stole Christmas)...

 ...oh, and there's Bates Motel from Psycho. What a nice little community.

The tour continued past cars on fire, impromptu floods and New York streets. And then finished up near this big blue screen. In front of it is the (currently dry) lake where they film water/lake/sea screens, like the one from Pirates Of The Caribbean where Cap'ain Jack is floating in a little row boat. Kinda take the Hollywood wonder away...but cool all the same.

That night, our last in America, we went to an awesome Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica called Lula Cocina. De-lish. I had fish tacos and a mojito (I meant to order a margarita but got confused). Muchos tequila and cool paper decorations. On a par with the Taco Joint in Chicago, I'd say. Well, nearly.

On the way back to Venice, we passed this. I've no idea what it represents or why it lives on a pharmacy's outside wall, but I thought it summed up this part of LA pretty well.

So there you have it. America, we had a blast and we'll see you soon.

YEE-HAW.

We're back!

We survived flying on the day that the world was supposed to end, which was nice, so now to deal with the inevitable burden of post-holiday unpacking and washing.

I'll be back with another couple of posts from the last days of our trip once I'm through with this...

...and this.

Wish me luck.

A mini-break in a mini adventure

Wine country. We almost missed it. We almost spent four days driving on the interstate instead. I'm very glad we didn't.

After sweating our butts off in Death Valley (I think I neglected to blog on that: it was 98 degrees Fahrenheit and Badwater Basin was salty, Adam licked it to be sure), driving a bazillion miles to get around the closed road to Yosemite, which we would then hike, we decided that we deserved a little holiday. Yeah, yeah, we're already on holiday. But this mini adventuring is tiring and we wanted some down time. And where better than Wine Country in the 90 degree heat. Mmmm.
 

We spent three hot and sunny days in the glorious Healdsburg (thanks to Sian's recommendation), which is in North Sonoma Valley. I've not been to Napa but I'd say this is just as good. Hell, it's probably even better.

As you know from my previous post, we stayed in a Best Western. I had rather biased views on the place after reading Dave Gorman's America Unchained. He despised the place, and everything it stands for in coprporate America. And while he had good reason to, I had good reason to love it. For a start, it wasn't a tent. Also, it had two beds (I like an extra bed to use as a dressing table, so sue me). And it had a pool - an essential element for a holiday in the sun. Sorry, Dave. But I'm sold. As was Adam, evidently.

We were in Healdsbug for three nights. And by the end of it, I didn't want to leave. Our Best Western was on the side of a main road so we were a little concerned that this was all the town had to offer but once we had found the central plaza we were really in love. I could seriously live here. And mainly because of this independent book shop.

Copperfield's Books, a place that we showed good custom three days running. God knows how much money and time I could've spent in there if we had stayed in Healdsburg for longer.

Don't worry. We found some time for wine, too. There were a lot of winerys to choose from.

But Sian had also recommended an incredible winery, Quivira, so we headed straight there on our first full day.

It's not just any winery. This one is certified Biodynamic and "uses the energies that create and maintain life to establish a rich, healthy, self-sustaining biodiversity". Here are the beautiful gardens where there are beds and beds of vegetables and leaves, a 'prep tower', bee hives, fruit trees and a flowform water feature.

Once we'd taken in the gardens (soundtracked by the content chickens in their 1/3 arce coop), we went to the tasting room. Oh, there it is.

We didn't get any pictures of the actual tasting but we made our way through some Zinfandels, a Syrah and two Sauvignon Blancs. I have to admit, I struggled to tell the difference between the reds, apart from that one of them tasted of parma violets (or a floral palette of lilac and violet) but I could tell taste the difference between the Sauvignon Blancs. One was born in a stainless steel barrel and was consequently light, bright and crisp. While the other came from a wooden barrel - the depth of the wood was really evident.

Aside from visiting Quivera, we spent our time chilling by the pool and in the jacuzzi...

...exploring the town centre, relaxing in the lovely central plaza and cruising past other vineyards in the area.

 After we'd checked out, we headed south to Calistoga and the Old Faithful Geyser of California. It wasn't as big as usual but it was erupting every five to 10 minutes, as opposed to every 40.

There was also a petting zoo. I think Adam was more interested in the goats than the geyser.

Some of them were Tennessee Fainting Goats. He was trying to psyche them out. It didn't work.

From here we travelled south to Santa Rosa where we had booked a Days Inn off of one of the highways. The least nice place we've stayed yet, which made us want to head right back to Healdsburg. But it was cheap, close to Point Reyes National Seashore (BEAUTIFUL, post coming up) and on the way to San Francisco, which is our next stop. Whoop!

Byee.

Previous mini(er) American adventures

We've been to the States a few times, both separately and together....

In 2005, I flew solo via Fort Lauderdale, Florida en route to the Bahamas for a week of hippy healing from wild dolphins with Wildquest: one of the best things I've ever done (thanks Hols!). Here's the view from my room at the Sheraton Yankee Trader hotel in Fort Lauderdale.

Excuse the blueness; I had white balance issues. What I should've done was take a picture of the bed which was approximately EIGHT FOOT SQUARE.

Ad was sent to Disney World in Orlando for a week in December 2008 with work to photograph the possibly-last holiday of a brave little girl called Hannah Jones. A place where dreams come true... and all the food comes covered in cheese.

Then we hit New York for four nights in October 2009. Frickin' love that place, rain or shine.

 

Just two weeks to go and it's 'hello again, America'. Alllriiight.