Bybee Farm blueberries

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle by mszerwo

Nearly 9 lbs of delicious

Every August Brandon and I make the trek to North Bend to pick blueberries at Bybee-Nims Farm. It’s one of my favorite (and most delicious) traditions of ours. We also try to pick raspberries at Harvold Farms in Carnation, but missed it with Brandon’s big test and my busy work schedule this year.

Bybee Farms: the best blueberry picking in town

Blueberries cost $1.95/lb and the smallest bucket they offer fills up around 5 lbs. Brandon and I picked for an hour and a half and ended up with almost 9 lbs. We’ve given some out to our neighbors and friends. If you want to visit Bybee, make sure you check their website to make sure they’re open before you head out. We learned that one the hard way one year…

Blueberries, blueberries, everywhere!

Blueberry picking

Visiting Bybee Farm is a two-part tradition. The other part is a visit to Scott’s Dairy Freeze. The SDF is stuck in time. It’s like Dick’s, but better. We always get burgers, shakes, and fried foods (fries or onion rings). SDF also has excellent chocolate-vanilla swirled soft serve ice cream.

Scott’s Dairy Freeze: YUM!

Speaking of ice cream, here is the pie Brandon made with our blueberries.

Yummmm…. Pie….

In case you were wondering, here is the filling recipe we used this time, derived from Food & Wine’s 2008 Annual Cookbook:

2.5 lbs of blueberries
3/4 c granulated sugar
1/3 c + 1 T cornstarch (We used tapioca instead…)
2 T lemon juice
1/2 t lemon zest
Pinch of salt

I love blueberry season! Have a great rest of the week and happy Wine Wednesday!

6Aug2014

{Wine Wednesday} Happy Washington Wine Month!

Posted in Drinky drinky, Exploring Seattle, Wine Wednesdays by mszerwo

August is Washington Wine Month and you know I’m going to celebrate!

We started off our Washington Wine Month with a bottle of the 2011 Sundance red blend from Soos Creek Wine Cellars (Columbia Valley). Here’s the blend: 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 15% Syrah, and and 13% Cabernet Franc. Delicious. And only $20 per bottle.

To continue the celebrations, Brandon and I are headed to Woodinville to taste some fine Washington wines and this next weekend. (I love Woodinville! Read more here, here, here and more!)

Here are some of our favorite Woodinville wineries, in alphabetical order so no feelings get hurt. Maybe I’ll see you over in Woodinville this weekend?!

Davenport Cellars

We love all of their wines — both reds, whites and roses! Go! Taste! And tell Jeff & Sheila hello for us!

Efeste

Ditto with Davenport. Their wines are great and the tasting room is a work of art. Enjoy!

Pomum Cellars

These Spanish-style wines are spicy and wonderful. We like the Shya Red and the riesling.

Robert Ramsay Cellars

We discovered this winery through a Living Social deal and we have gone back every time since! Their spicy Rhone-style wines are right up my alley and definitely don’t disappoint!

Silver Lake Winery

The Roza Red blend is one of my favorites! It’s only $12/bottle.

Two Vintners

The same wine makers as Covington Cellars, Two Vintners makes great wines, especially their Zin, my favorite!

Cheers to Washington wines! (Yes, that’s a working wood-fired oven in the background!!)

6Jun2014

Happy Doughnut Day!

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle, Food by mszerwo

It’s doughnut WEEK on the blog, with Sunday’s post on Top Pot Doughnuts and Wednesday’s doughnut cocktail post, all leading up to National Doughnut Day — a day our household will for sure be celebrating.

If you’re in the Seattle area, I want to help you out with some tips to make sure you celebrate doughnuts (or donuts) today!

Top Pot Doughnuts

Top Pot Doughnuts have locations everywhere, including representation at most QFC grocery stores. Find a full list of Top Pot locations here. And a list of their offerings here. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I hear their Ovaltine mocha is a must-have. So order one of those alongside your doughnut! (Please note: QFC has a wide variety of Top Pot Doughnuts, but not all of them. If you want some of the more-specialized doughnuts, I’d recommend hitting up a Top Pot cafe.) Read about my recent tour of Top Pot here.

Daily Dozen Doughnut Company | Seattle, WA

If you’re downtown and craving a smaller portion of doughnut, Daily Dozen Doughnuts is the place to be. Daily Dozen Doughnuts offer mini doughnuts in the following options: plain, cinnamon-sugar, powder-sugared, frosted (with sprinkles!), and their newest, more limited options: maple and maple-bacon. You can order them by the half or full dozen and I highly recommend the “assorted” option, with several of each variety. If you want a maple or maple bacon, be sure to specify as they aren’t normally included in the assorted option. Bring cash, as Daily Dozen Doughnuts doesn’t accept any other form of payment. And be sure to tip, their sign tells you to. For location and more information, visit their Facebook page.

Mighty-O Donuts

If you think doughnuts are too unhealthy to celebrate, you should visit Mighty-O Donuts in the Green Lake area. These vegan donuts are made without: chemical preservatives, hydrogenated oils (trans fat), coloring or artificial flavors, and animal derived ingredients, which make them cholesterol free, and they still taste good! Normally I go for the sprinkle options, but my favorite at Mighty-O is the lemon poppy donut. For location and more information, visit their website. Enjoy!

Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme is not a favorite of mine anymore (they were when they first opened), but they’re classic and tasty and offering free doughnuts today. Go get some at a location near you!

1Jun2014

Top Pot Doughnuts: fresh from the fryer

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle, Food by mszerwo

Ta-da! Top Pot co-founder Mark shares his fresh chocolate, creme-filled doughnuts

Brandon and I recently had the pleasure of attending a private tour of one of Seattle’s hottest doughnut-teries (like a bakery, but solely for doughnuts): Top Pot Doughnuts.

Brandon loves, loves, loves doughnuts and we make it a point to visit well-know doughnut shops when we’re out of town, on vacation. Some examples include: VooDoo and Blue Star in Portland, Gourdoughs in Austin, and Doughnut Plant when we were in New York City for our honeymoon. We record food and travel network shows about doughnuts and doughnuts often grace our breakfast table.

I’m less of a doughnut fanatic (rather than a sweet tooth, I have more of a savory tooth) but I can’t say no to a good maple bar or frosted doughnut with sprinkles.

Top Pot Doughnuts opened in Seattle in 2002 and they currently have 16 locations here. (Plus a newly-opened shop in Dallas. If you’re reading from Dallas, you should go check them out!) One of the locations is very close to my day job and I’m lucky enough to have doughnuts grace the office kitchen once every couple of weeks. They have many varieties of doughnuts, with the classics and several seasonal favorites. In fact, I just saw on Facebook that the blueberry cake doughnut made its seasonal debut. I’ll have to pick some of those up soon.

Mark Klebeck and I met through my day job and the more I spoke to him, the more excited I was to share his glowing personality and doughnut knowledge with Brandon. Mark and his brother are true entrepreneurs and I was so excited to hear how they started this and so many other businesses.

Mark met my Dad, Brandon and I at the Top Pot flagship store on 5th Ave in Seattle. (It’s kind-of famous, thanks to a former Seahawk with a sweet tooth.) This location makes 3,000 dozen doughnuts each day to supply doughnuts for the greater Seattle area (that’s 36,000 daily) and runs pretty much around the clock, shutting down for a mere 4 hours each early morning. We stepped behind the counter and into the back to a world of hand-forged doughnut delight.

Mark and his brother, Michael, created a cookbook for their doughnuts and you can find their dough recipes in there.

Yeast doughnut dough at Top Pot

The doughnuts rise 300 percent, so they start off much smaller than you think they’re going to… Like these maple bars being punched out. Doughnut making at Top Pot is an incredibly manual process (truly hand-forged) and the dough above gets rolled flat, perforated and then run through an old-fashioned press that punches out yeast-raised doughnuts like these:

Maple bars: the early stages

Nothing gets wasted in this process. The leftover yeast dough scraps from the bar and circle doughnuts gets combined together to form Top Pot’s famous apple fritters. (One of Brandon’s favorites.)

Leftover dough = apple fritters

Apple fritters before the fryer and glaze

Once the doughnuts are in their shape, they need to rise. Top Pot has a walk-in proof box where the doughnuts go to rest and grow. This process takes less than an hour. Once they’re plumped up, it’s off to the fryer! All of Top Pot’s doughnuts are fried and we were able to watch cake doughnuts, yeast-raised doughnuts and apple fritters get fried all at once, in separate vats.

For the cake doughnuts, this machine plops the ring of dough in the oil. As it cooks, the doughnut rises. Here is a batch that are almost ready for their glaze!

Doughnuts in the fryer

Once they’re all cooked and floating, the metal tray that is hiding at the bottom of the fryer is lifted out and the doughnuts get cooled:

Hot doughnuts, comin’ through

Once cooled, many of the doughnuts (fritters, old-fashioned, etc…) get glazed. The glaze-r is so cool. The doughnuts are placed in a single layer on their wire rack and the whole rack makes its way to the glaze table. Then this trough gets filled with glaze and the doughnut maker covers the whole rack in a swift motion:

Well-glazed glazed doughnuts

Here is Mark walking us through the process. Brandon was really intrigued and was hoping for a sample.

Mark & Brandon: Best buds at Top Pot Seattle

Lucky for him, Mark is generous and Brandon was able to eat his favorite, still warm, doughnut, an apple fritter! He was happier than a kid at a candy shop. Or a kid at a doughnut shop. Same thing, I guess.

Fresh doughnut? Yes, please.

Our tour finished with more sampling and more learning about the doughnut business and coffee bean roasting business, the profitable side of Top Pot Doughnuts that Brandon and I, the only two Seattle-ites who don’t drink coffee, have very little experience with.

My Top Pot favorites: frosted doughnuts! (Not pictured: my other favorites: the maple bar)

And Mark was nice enough to autograph our Top Pot cookbook…

Autographing our Top Pot Doughnuts cookbook

…and pose for a photo with us!

Brandon, Mark, and Megan | Top Pot Doughnuts, Seattle, WA

Top Pot is really invested in their community and they have partnered with Northwest Harvest to sell raffle tickets to the Seahawks/49’ers re-match in San Francisco over Thanksgiving weekend. Buy your tickets at any Top Pot location and know that each ticket purchased provides 45 meals. More info can be found here. The drawing is held on June 6.

Thank you to Mark and Top Pot for a wonderful, fascinating, and tasty tour and we look forward to continuing our adventures and trying every doughnut variety you produce!

Oh, National Doughnut Day is on June 6. I know I’ll be celebrating and I hope you do too… perhaps with a visit to Top Pot? Maybe I’ll see you there!

28May2014

{Wine Wednesday} Fancy dinner at the London Plane

Posted in Drinky drinky, Exploring Seattle, Food, Wine Wednesdays by mszerwo

A warm welcome from Matt Dillon

Yes, you read that right: dinner. If you’re not totally hooked up, like I am, then you’ve likely never indulged in dinner at the London Plane. Don’t feel bad, not many have. This event was the first time ever that the London Plane hads served dinner! Thankfully, I’m one of the lucky few, so I’ll share my fun adventure with you. Do you remember our fancy chef dinner at the Whale Wins last year? This was another awesome chef meet-greet-and-dine through the Alaska Airline Signature Visa cardholder program. We attended both dinners with some good friends of ours and we’ve decided to make it an annual tradition. Why? Because these dinners are good. And fun. A lot of fun.

Dutcher Crossing wines

The London Plane is one of Matt Dillon’s new restaurants in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle. It’s a shop, cafe, bakery, wine shop, bar, and events space that offers breakfast and lunch and all sorts of goodies in between. This event featured Dutcher Crossing Winery, out of Sonoma. Both the winemaker and the winery owner were at the event, schmoozing and telling us about the wines we were enjoying. Our first chance to enjoy was right when we entered the event – we were instantly handed a glass of the Dutcher Crossing 2013 Sauvignon Blanc and several passed appetizers:

Spiced nuts and puglian olives
Ham-wrapped dates stuffed with romanesco
Rye crackers with tuna pate and radish
Deep fried leeks with tahini sauce
Smoked trout and cucumber with creme fraiche

The wine was exceptional — it was an un-Seattle-like hot spring day and the London Plane didn’t have AC — and the Sauvignon Blanc really hit the spot. It was very crisp and refreshing, with hints of pear. All of the appetizers were also good and my favorite by far was the deep fried leek with tahini sauce. It was a grown-up, fancy cousin of an onion ring. At a small, bite-sized portion, I could have eaten an entire meal of deep-fried leeks. Thankfully, the waitstaff didn’t bring them around all that often. Once we drank all of the Sauvignon Blanc and made a dent in the appetizers, we took our seats. Brandon and I sat upstairs, with our friends and several others, at a long table overlooking all of the action.

The menu at the London Plane

The second wine pairing was poured a few minutes before the second course was served. Thankfully they were very generous with their pours and I was able to enjoy the wine both alone and paired with the course, as was the case with each course. We enjoyed the 2012 Chardonnay Stuhlmuler Vineyard with an asparagus, spring onion and pea tendril salad with bacon and tarragon. While I’m not really into Chardonnay, this one wasn’t that bad. (We much preferred the Sauv Blanc to it, however.) The salad was great. The flavors were so fresh and bacon makes everything better.

Course two: a delicious salad

The third course, one half of a roasted quail, beets and rhubarb with crispy emmer, pistachios and mint was paired with the 2012 Zinfandel Maple Vineyard. The Zin was good, but it wasn’t my favorite. Brandon, however, really enjoyed it.

Course three: Quail

The fourth course, anchovy and oregano rubbed leg of lamb with potatoes, braised turnips and walnut sauce, was my favorite course of the night. (Beyond those fried leeks!) This course was paired with the 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Taylor Reserve, also my favorite of the night.

Course four: lamb

The fifth course (finally!) was a chocolate caramel tart with soft cream and a glass (well, two…) of the 2008 Port Dry Creek Valley. A great port and chocolate dessert are definitely the way to get Brandon’s seal of approval.

Course five: dessert

All in all, it was another amazing feast brought together by Alaska Airlines and Visa Signature. We’ll definitely be back to the London Plane and to another one of these fun dinners!

A few of our empties

Happy wine Wednesday!

23Apr2014

Kelsey Creek Farm

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle by mszerwo

Did you know that there is a farm in Bellevue, WA, just minutes from Megan’s Island?! I didn’t. But now, I do. And you do too.

A few weeks ago some girlfriends and I were looking for a scenic walking location somewhat near Bellevue. I did some quick Google-ing and discovered Kelsey Creek Farm. This place looked pretty online, so I was excited to check it out in person.

Side note: I have a thing for barns and farms. I have a goal in life of owning a nearby barn/farm and renting it out for weddings. I think I’d make a killing and have a lot of fun. That’s on the bucket list. More details at some point, although it’s many years away. In the meantime, I pin ideas to my “Dream Barn” board on Pinterest. I love Pinterest.

I digress. Back to the Kelsey Creek Farm. The Farm is run by the City of Bellevue and is open everyday from 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. We stopped in on a Sunday mid-morning and were the only people there. It’s free to walk through (donations are gladly accepted) and you can “meet” lots of fun farm animals: sheep, goats, chickens, bunnies, horses, pigs, and a cow.

Here are some of our new friends:

Sheep at Kelsey Creek Farm

Cow at Kelsey Creek Farm

Bunny at Kelsey Creek Farm

Goat at Kelsey Creek Farm

Fluffy chicken at Kelsey Creek Farm

Kelsey Creek Farm offers group farm tours, farm classes (for kids 2-6 years old) and day camps (for kids 4-7 years old). It also can be rented out for birthday parties. Occasionally, it holds special events that adults might enjoy too. In fact, one of them is coming up this next Saturday (4/26/14, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.). What is it? Sheep shearing! Here is the description from the web site:

Watch the sheep being shorn of their winter coats. Enjoy spinning demonstrations, children’s crafts, tractor/wagon rides, pony rides, food, animal viewing areas and more. No pets allowed in the barnyard areas. Free shuttle service available from Wilburton Park and Ride, 720 114 Ave SE and Bannerwood Sports Park, 1630 132nd Ave SE. No entrance fees. Costs vary for food and activities. No ATM on site and we cannot accept charge cards. Go here for more info.

Kelsey Creek Farm: Such beautiful terrain

We had a great time exploring on our walk and I wanted to share some of the opportunities at Kelsey Creek Farm beyond walking and making new critter friends.

They offer “adoption” of critters on the farm, which is a fun idea. I have a friend — and a husband — that I think need to “adopt” an animal or two. More information about critter adoption here. They also offer a picnic shelter event space for up to 50 people, for a mere $30 per day — actually,I’m not sure about that exactly. The three difference websites about the Kelsey Creek Farm aren’t clear on what you actually get for $30. I guess you have to email someone for more information. (Update: I found actual fees, after clicking through about 15 different pages. It’s much more than $30. More here.)

That leads me to my next point: Kelsey Creek Farm needs to streamline their websites! There are too many sites with too much out of date and/or confusing information. For example:

You can start in several places. I started with Google. There, I found http://www.farmerjayne.com/which directs to http://bellevue.com/happening.php?id=1036 (which appears to be a for-profit website highlighting events in Bellevue. Why would a city venue direct away from a city site? Seems counter-intuitive to me). I initially stumbled across the Kelsey Creek Farm through the “walk on in Bellevue” website. (Nice SEO!)

Thinking that there had to me more information somewhere, I Googled City of Bellevue and searched for “Kelsey Creek.” Only 2,600 page options came up. I started at the top and found this page with relatively no information and really mediocre photos http://www.bellevuewa.gov/kelsey_creek_park.htm. I eventually found this page which seems to have the most information: http://parkstrails.myparksandrecreation.com/Details.aspx?pid=23.

Normally I don’t have the patience to go on a wild goose chase like this for something fun to do. The Kelsey Creek Farm website (I can’t remember which one; there are too many) states that they have more than 250,000 visitors each year.

Anyway, there are some great links here about a great event this weekend at Kelsey Creek Farm. Grab your rain gear and head out to the Kelsey Creek Farm this Saturday. Maybe I’ll see you there?

25Mar2014

What a weekend!

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle, Food by mszerwo

Did you enjoy this past weekend as much as we did?! Brandon finished finals, which meant the end to a long, long quarter. So what’d we do? Celebrate!

We checked out Crumble & Flake, a new-to-us bakery in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

Crumble & Flake has received rave reviews, so we thought we’d check it out. I got the cheddar cheese and smoked paprika croissant and Brandon got the pistachio twice baked. My croissant was delicious and very interesting. In addition to being spread inside like a filling, the batter/dough was orange, as though the cheese and paprika were infused in it. There isn’t any seating at the bakery so we took our croissants to the University of Washington to eat them among the cherry blossoms.

Since we were so close, we opted for lunch in the University Village at Din Tai Fung. It’s a favorite of ours and we enjoyed our usuals: pork soup dumplings, garlic green beans and shrimp fried rice, along with something new: pork and vegetable steamed buns. Not unexpectedly, we loved them.

So full and ready for naps, we headed back to Megan’s Island where we powered through the sleepiness and got to work on spring cleaning the yard. We spent several hours pulling ivy, sweeping, leaf blowing, raking and packing many yard waste bags. Let me tell you… it looks good here. We’re absolutely ready for spring and for more sunshine.

I’ve got some great plans for both the yard and parties with the spring and summer. So looking forward to the longer days and warmer weather!

Now… onto this week. It’s going to be a doozy.

Me & B enjoying another year of cherry blossoms at UW

10Feb2014

Week 5: Seattle-themed eating

Posted in 2014 Themed eating, Exploring Seattle, Food by mszerwo

Cruciferous crunch from Trader Joe’s

On the week leading up to the Super Bowl, we decided to celebrate the spotlight on our city with a Seattle-themed week of food.

We had all sort of delicious items and Seattle week turned into more of a salmon week, which was ok for us too.

My favorite dish of the week were the salmon tacos that I put together on my own, based on a lot of flavors from the quinoa dish a few weeks ago. We used Tom Douglas (a Seattle legend)’s fish rub and grilled the salmon, adding some orange and lime juice and zest as the fish was resting. I added some cilantro and lime to some sour cream and added that with some steamed ‘cruciferous crunch’ veggies from Trader Joe’s: kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and green and red cabbage.

Citrus-y salmon tacos with cilantro

We steamed these veggies later in the week and they turned out really well. I plan on steaming some shredded Brussels spouts this week. It would be a first for me. Weird, right?

As I mentioned, it sort of turned into salmon week. We had smoked salmon pasta the following day, with shallots and peas in a light cream sauce.

Smoked salmon pasta in a light cream sauce

The last salmon dish of the week was a delicious chop salad from Juno that I plan on making again. This salad included baby arugula, cous cous, tomatoes, salmon lox, parmesan cheese, pumpkin seeds, black currants, dried sweet corn, pesto buttermilk dressing. It’ll be perfect in the summer, eaten out on the patio with either lox or grilled salmon and a crisp glass of Efeste’s Riesling. Yes, please.

Juno’s chop salad

To bring it back to Seattle week, I had the fun opportunity to enjoy one of Seattle’s newest and hottest restaurants: Din Tai Fung. There was a bit of a wait, but it was worth it. Everything we ordered at the dumpling house was fantastic and while we felt like we ate for hours, the bill was reasonable and we weren’t too full. We had soup dumplings, chicken fried noodles, the pork chop fried rice (hands down my favorite), sauteed green beans with garlic, and the rice and pork shao mai. Man, was it good. And re-writing it here makes me crave it even more. I visited Din Tai Fung with some girlfriends and I’m eager to take Brandon. I know he’d love it!

The Din Tai Fung spread. So delicious!

We capped off Seattle Week with a visit to Molly Moon’s. Seattle/Salmon week was a huge success. Up next week? “Winner, winner chicken dinner” in honor of the Superbowl. Our second favorite team won, so we’ll celebrate them. Besides, that way it’s the perfect set up with Seattle Week!

15Jan2014

{Wine Wednesday} A wine bachelorette

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle, Wine Wednesdays by mszerwo

I recently threw a really fun bachelorette party for one of my close friends, Jenny, who’s wedding I’ll be celebrating this weekend. We spent the whole weekend celebrating: watching the Huskies win on Saturday and then we were up bright and early for brunch and an afternoon of wine tasting on Sunday. I had some pretty great ideas that I wanted to share with you, the internet and my readers, in case you’d like to use any of them for a wine tasting party of your own!

First, the decorations.

I had a few bottles of wine on hand (thank you, Wine Wednesdays) that I soaked in big bucket of agitated warm water and OxiClean for several hours. If you’re lucky, the labels will float right off (House Wine) and if you’re not, you’ll have to peel the label and adhesive off of the bottle. Beyond the soaking time, I wasted an old sponge and about an hour making sure the bottles were clean. I thought about spraying them with chalkboard paint and using chalk to write a special message. Instead, I saved a step and used a gold paint pen to write “Soon-to-be Mrs. Fazioli” on the bottles. It didn’t look like much during brunch, but once the sun went down, the bottles looked so great!

I also have these great candle holders from Crate and Barrel (I would like to share them, but they are apparently discontinued. Bummer.). The great thing about these candle holders is that they are totally customize-able, but they’re also really pretty plain. For this party, I took some of my leftover corks (thank you, Wine Wednesday), cut them into thirds with a serrated knife and voila! instant wine decor for FREE. I also kept some corks full and displayed them in an oversize wine glass. It helped add some height to the table.

Side note: I like to spend a few bucks every season to add some flair to the house by decorating these candle holders: sweethearts around Valentine’s Day, candy corn around Halloween, and cranberries and fake snow for the holidays.

Next, the treats!

When I asked the bride what she wanted for snacks that afternoon, she replied “cheese.” So, I had some flexibility. I put together these adorable gift boxes for the guests, complete with gummy bears, Ghirardelli chocolates, Hi-chews, anti-spill wine pourers and customized mini-bottles of wine.

For the mini bottles of wine, I used these wine stain images and Avery’s 5164 labels. I set up my design in InDesign, printed them and slapped them on the bottles. I used the wine stain images again and created the name tags for boxes, printed them on cardstock and cut them out with a punch. I attached them to the takeout boxes with some leftover silver elastic ribbon. Finally, I Googled “red wine glass” and found this image. I printed out a page of those on Avery’s 5293 labels. It was pretty easy to come up with some really nice customization for Jenny’s big day before the big day.

I also packed many cheese dishes for the bride: caprese skewers (tomato, fresh mozzerella and basil with balsamic vinegar on a toothpick), brie slices, Beecher’s Marco Polo cheese (a favorite of mine!) and a tray of cured meats. We busted them out at the second winery and they were all a huge hit! I also packed some pirates booty and additional wines for the bus. Delicious success.

Day of… We had quite the spread:

Hashbrown and egg casserole from Allrecipes.com (a favorite of our group of friends)
Tropical fruit salad with mangoes, pineapple and strawberries
Kiwis
Bagels and cream cheese
And…Mimosas! We enjoyed Cook’s champagne and tropical frozen juices

Next, we hopped on the party bus and headed to Woodinville. We tasted at Efeste (who was having a pizza release party!), Davenport Cellars, Robert Ramsay Cellars, Covington Cellars and Matthews Cellars. Phew. It was quite the day and we really enjoyed the wines!

Look at all those smiling faces!

20Nov2013

{Wine Wednesday} Robert Ramsay Cellars: Counoise

Posted in Drinky drinky, Exploring Seattle, Wine Wednesdays by mszerwo

2011 Robert Ramsay Counoise

A few years ago we bought a Living Social deal for tasting and a bottle of wine at a winery called Robert Ramsay Cellars near some of our favorite wineries in Woodinville. We bought it knowing we’d be in the area before it expired and we always enjoy trying a new winery. At that time Robert Ramsay was only making Rhone-style reds and we fell in love with most of their wines, especially the Mourvedre, a peppery, smooth and spicy wine blend.

We’ve visited Robert Ramsay nearly every time we go to Woodinville and we finally bit the bullet and joined their wine club after tasting their newest release: the 2011 Counoise and the 2011 Le Mien.

I preferred the Counoise and Brandon liked the Le Mien. Perfect since we got both bottles with our new wine club membership. Later tonight we’ll be drinking the Counoise with this gnocchi with turkey, squash and kale.

Here are the tasting notes for the Counoise. Looks like we’ll have to get another bottle or two to enjoy with a filet mignon:

With the grill fired up and the first glass accompanying the chef, you experience smells reminiscent of Syrah, deep, dark and musty. A taste of star anise confirms your thoughts but is followed by a meaty and chewy mouth feel, a thickness to go with your filet mignon and a peppery tone suggests the blending of Mourvedre into the mix. Has Bob combined a powerhouse of Syrah and Mourvedre together you ask? No. Counoise transcends them both and your steak has found the perfect partner. If you didn’t buy a second bottle, you may be disappointed.

Never heard of Counoise? The Rhone Rangers have more information about the grape itself:

Counoise may be an obscure grape in the United States, but it is a key component of many Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines. It is a deep purple-red, and has a rich spicy character, with flavors of anise, strawberries and blueberries. Counoise’s moderate alcohol and tannins make it a good complement for Syrah, balancing that grape’s characteristic intense spice, strong tannins and high alcohol.

Have you been to Robert Ramsay Cellars before? Next time you’re in the warehouse district of Woodinville, you should definitely check them out and let me know what your favorite wines are. Happy Wine Wednesday!

Megan's Island

Welcome to my island!

Category Archives: Exploring Seattle

Bybee Farm blueberries

{Wine Wednesday} Happy Washington Wine Month!

Happy Doughnut Day!

Top Pot Doughnuts: fresh from the fryer

{Wine Wednesday} Fancy dinner at the London Plane

Kelsey Creek Farm

What a weekend!

Week 5: Seattle-themed eating

{Wine Wednesday} A wine bachelorette

{Wine Wednesday} Robert Ramsay Cellars: Counoise