Fire, Wine and Sunshine

Outside it is pouring rain again in Brooklyn, as I am sorting through my recent vacation photos. Over the past few weeks/months design business has been good. Steadily increasing and so good in fact, that I am moving my little operation out of the house and into a studio/office here in Brooklyn in just a few weeks. I can't wait! But that's a topic for another time. Business has been so good that I desperately needed a vacation.

Brad and I headed out to San Fransisco, home of Amanda, for a camping, wine drinking, sunny, adventure filled week. We also marked out 2 year wedding anniversary while we were there, but that too is a conversation for another time. We flew out Thursday night and on Friday morning, after stocking up with more food, beer and wine than we would ever consume, we headed to Big Sur with Amanda and her gang of friends. Over the next three days a music festival took place at the Fernwood camp ground where we stayed, but we didn't pay much attention to that. We were too busy playing, feasting, drinking, hanging by the fire, doing yoga on the beach, hiking and enjoying the epic scenery of Big Sur to stop and listen to the music. It was a fantastic weekend.


After we returned to San Francisco on Sunday night, Brad and I unpacked, repacked and headed out the next morning to wine county. But not before loading up on pastries and espresso at Tartin, mmmmmmmmm. Over the next two days as we traveled through beautiful, sunny Napa and Sonoma valleys, the stress of my Brooklyn life could not have been farther away. We spent the days going from vineyard to winery to vineyard, having a blast collecting a case, bottle by bottle, of our favorite wines to bring home. In between the drinking, we ate! The first day we had lunch at Mustard's Grill and then dinner at Cyrus (thanks to a reservation from John Holdredge, who also entertained us and shared his delicious wines earlier that evening) before falling asleep with very full bellies at a bed and breakfast in Healdsburg. The second day we picnicked on deliciously local, gourmet sandwiches while looking out over Lake Sonoma as we made our way through Dry Creek and the Russian River Valley on the recommendations of our new wine country friends. We hit a farmer's market in Sonoma and treated ourselves to some Tamales en route back to the city. That night we gathered Amanda and headed to Berkeley for a wonderful dinner at Chez Panisse. A most memorable finale for a really great trip.


Did I mention we had breakfast at Tartin AGAIN, before heading to the airport Wednesday morning? (WATCH THIS VIDEO!) Yes we ate a scone.

We finally returned to find this article in the Times, after trying to spotlight Organic and Biodynamic wine makers for out own collection. Fantastic!

You can view all the trip photos on my flickr stream HERE!