Pair It! iPhone App
Pair It! is a very nifty iPhone application that contains a large database of wine and food pairings so you can make an educated choice when choosing either a wine or a food dish. The major feature list is found at the Pair It! home page so I don't want to bore you with all the descriptions of the modes, so I'll touch on what I really like feature-wise. First, the wine descriptions and pronunciations of wine varietals (so I can fake being cultured). Secondly, the Swirl feature where the application will pick a pairing for you. Finally, it allows you to take notes on all the wines, foods and pairings along with saving your favorite pairings for future reference. Of course, it also allows you to search for a wine based on a food or search for a food based on a wine. For $2.99 (regularly $4.99), the application is well worth it and it might even expand the types of wines you'll try.
Baking an Apple Pie
I was in the mood to make something yesterday and decided I'd make use of the Apple Pie Filling recipe in my fancy new cookbook... mainly because the apple pie filling calls for absinthe and any dessert with alcohol in it has to be good stuff. However, I also need to come up with a pie crust and topping. For the topping I decided to use the same topping used in the Peach Cobbler in the cookbook, but the crust was going to have to be different. I didn't want to do the whole pre-made crust way so I looked around for a low-carb pie crust recipe that would fit in with the apple pie filling and the topping which were both pretty light on the sugar (relatively speaking). I ended up finding a pie crust recipe that used almond flour and flaxseed meal as the base and when used in a 9" pie tin was only about 2 carbs per slice. The crust recipe can be found here.
For the filling I went with the pie filling recipe in the cookbook I bought recently (and as I stated earlier in the post). To make it fill the entire pie crust I doubled the recipe in the book. Finally, for the topping of the pie, I used the topping used by the cobbler in the same cookbook, but multiplied it by 8 (and then forgot to add the butter until later). I let the pie bake for about 45 minutes and 375F and I have to say it turned out wonderfully.
Day Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten of the California Trip
Thursday started out like the past few days have started out, eating breakfast in Allison's under-furnitured apartment then later on in the day, dropped our dad off at SFO and then came back to the apartment to find something good to eat. Using the wonderful website of Yelp, we decided on luch at Sweet Basil in Foster City, just a few blocks from her apartment (like most everything in Foster City from what I can tell). I had their curry and it was very good curry, although I should have asked for it to be a little more spice and heat.
A few hours later I was waiting waiting my friend, Michael at Coupa Cafe where I had their tasty Mayan Hot Chocolate. However, a few minutes after I ordered it, Michael showed up and we head out to Lake Tahoe. The trip was pretty good other than the multiple wrecks that seemed to get in the way of what was a nice fast trip. Once arriving in Tahoe we ate at T's Mesquite Rotisserie, which was a combination of Mexican food and BBQ. All the sides were typical mexican food sides like Spanish rice, black beans and tortillas and then the BBQ was pretty tasty, although not a very Texan-BBQ. After eating, we found the hotel and turned in for the night getting ready for the a day of hiking. I watched the first hour of the movie Tampopo (but I needed to go to bed, to get ready for the day of hiking).
Friday, started with a little more sleeping in and ate at Rosie's Cafe which was a few blocks away from the hotel. I had one of their "Three Egg Omlets" and some hashbrowns and toast. After breakfast we head out to Squaw Valley around 9:30am only to find out they don't really get rolling until 10:40ish-am. Once we rode up the cable car, we went right to work hiking to Squaw Peak (a good 2000 ft and 2.x miles away) from the high camp. The views from the high camp were great and even better once we got to Squaw Peak. From there you can see Lake Tahoe and the high camp. Of course, at Squaw Peak, you had watch out since there was a radiation source (aka RADAR for the FAA). Hiking back down to the main camp we then swam at the High Camp swimming pool which was cool but I couldn't swim as much because the water depth was only 4ft and I could only stay in for 30 minutes thanks to my fake pancreas. Finally, we rode down the tram back to the lower camp and took off looking for some food. Again, using the power of Yelp, we decided on Fasta Pasta since it was a 4.5/5. After eating it, I'd say it is what it is and for $10 for two people to eat, it fits the 4.5/5 score given to it on Yelp.
And, if you think the day was over after that, you'd be wrong. Since Tahoe basically shuts down after the ski places close down we drove around looking for things to do and decided to drive the perimeter of Lake Tahoe. We stopped at two state parks and a vista point. At the vista point I took some pictures of the sunset over Lake Tahoe, it was pretty although it wasn't as pretty as I had hoped since the fog (or maybe smoke from the LA fires) was hanging in the air blocking the sun as it fell below the mountains. Once the sunset was over and we got back to the hotel, we decided to walk around some and see what Tahoe had. Right next door we found a Wine Bar called Corkscrews. While there I tried a few different red wines and cheeses and ended up receiving a dessert wine from my friend for a birthday present. I suppose I'll have to try it out when I get back to Austin.
The day finally wound down with me watching the movie Tampopo. A noodle western from a Japanese director. What it had to do with westerns, I don't quite know because the movie often went completely off-topic to do some random scene (often very funny). I'll have to look for this film in the future.
Saturday was a lazy morning since we found out all the other hiking spots in the various resorts around Lake Tahoe were all shut down and hiking Squaw Valley again would be sort of boring since we had already hiked most of it the day before. We got out of Tahoe around 10am and took a scenic route to Terre Rouge Wineries. Along the way we stopped at Caples Lake around Carson Pass and took a few pictures of the lake. It wasn't near as clear as Lake Tahoe, but it was still very pretty (and the only pictures I took on Saturday). We finally made it into Terre Rouge Wineries around 2pm and did their wine tasting -- the main reason we came to this winery was their dessert wine we had at Chez TJ was very good and Michael noticed they were on the way back to San Francisco (albeit a little detour was needed). I bought a bottle of their Mourvèdre and Michael got a bottle of their Noir and we both split a case of their dessert wine (it is that good). I also purchased a container to allow me to take the wine as checked luggage on the airplane. Once on the road again we set our sites on China Village Restaurant in Berkeley in order to get some tasty Schezuan-style food and we ate a lot of it. My personal favorites of MaPo Tofu and water-boiled beef (or sometimes called Spicy Beef Fillet) were had along with a few other dishes I forgot the name of (but also tasty). This meal more than made up for missing lunch.
Finally, we made it back to Allison's apartment which is now filled with boxes and some furniture (more than the high class outdoor furniture that was there initially). I was tasked with setting up her wireless router with the Comcast service she has in her apartment. Since I'm writing about it, you know it can't be as easy as one would hope. After an hour and a half or so I ended up having to reset her router and set it up from scratch. Of course, the next step was to get the wine ready to be checked baggage (which seems a lot harder than I first thought). I placed every bottle of wine in a gallon ziploc container, then wrapped them in packing paper, then finally placed them into the aforementioned packing container. And right now I'm watching Chelsea Lately on E!, which is really damn funny and probably worth watching.. more so than the things on the main networks.
Now, in a bit of premonition, I am going to guess on what my tenth day of the trip is going to be... getting up, eating breakfast, getting to the airport, going through the lines at SFO and finally hopping onto and off of the plane a few hours later. At which point I'll be able to get all my luggage and be ready to go home and get some sleep.
Day Six of the California Trip
Allison finally got internet and cable in her apartment yesterday, however, I haven't had much luck getting my computer working with her network so I'm now borrowing her computer to do all my internet browsing. Today, I visited The Winchester Mystery House (ooooo, scary!) and after touring the 110 of the 160 rooms and touring the grounds, I don't see anything mysterious or scary about it. There were no ghosts or spirits as much as I had hoped for them. 
The mansion and the grounds however were truly nice and I've decided Sarah Winchester built it the way she did because she could.
Afterwards consisted of getting ready for the trip to Tahoe tomorrow and then a nice meal at Chez TJ with an old friend for dinner. Chez TJ had quite the menu and the food presentation reminded me of the intro credits to the movie American Psycho. It was very, very tasty but I wouldn't be eating at a place like this every night. After the meal and a half bottle of red wine, white wine and a dessert wine, my friend and I decided to check out the book stores in downtown Mountain View. We stopped in at this little used book store (whose name escapes me now) and I found a book called 'The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense,' I bought it on the name alone so I'm hoping the name of the book lives up to the contents...
On tap for tomorrow is preparing for and traveling to Lake Tahoe for Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday.
Days Four and Five in California
On Monday we got up and headed out toward Hearst Castle, on the way we stopped off on some vista points on Highway 1. At the vista point I saw an Albatross resting on the ocean and got a few very nice pictures of it, then we turned into Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle (as it is called by everyone but Hearst himself, who called it a ranch) is about five miles from the visitor center where the tour starts. We chose the first tour that showed a floor of one of the guest houses and main floor of the main house. Hearst Castle's guest houses were a small 2500 to 4500 square feet compared to the main house's 17000 square feet. The grounds around the buildings were covered in ancient sculptures and columns and the houses and grounds were designed around the art. Words can't describe the opulence of the main building, even the guest houses leave you floored, the you see the main building and can't believe just what it looks like. Needless to say, I was very impressed and now need to go check out The Biltmore Estate.
After finishing up at Hearst Castle we hopped back onto The Pacific Coast Highway to make our way to Foster City. I was hoping to eat at Nepenthe on the PCH, however two problems occurred. First, the GPS unit had the restaurant marked wrong by about eight miles. Secondly, Nepenthe was completely packed and there didn't seem to be a parking spot for a good mile in either direction. So, we kept going onto the next destination, a beach in Carmel, Ca. Of course, much like Nepenthe, we had the same problem. The turn off for the beach was backed up a very, very long ways and my need for food was overcoming my need to see the beach. As such, we headed someplace to get some gasoline and eat some food. I chose Isidro's Taco Shop, a small family run shop that made some very good burritos and chimichangas.
After eating we started back out on the highway and after many, many hours and trips we finally made it to Allison's apartment. It felt nice to actually sleep in a home as to a hotel. However, the house lacked Internet (which was fixed before the trip to Muir Woods) so it felt funny to not be able to check email or cruise the Internet. I felt incomplete without my Internet .
The next day, the Comcast person showed up and got Allison some Internets (and TV, but who cares about that anyway). We then visited In and Out Burger since I wanted some cheap California-centric fast food before heading out to Muir Woods. Muir Woods is just on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge and is home to an enormous amount of Redwoods (not the really large, drive your car through them type) on a mountain that you can walk multiple paths toward the top and even get a view of the Pacific Ocean when the weather is nice and the fog hasn't rolled in. On this day however, we didn't get to see the Pacific Ocean since the fog rolled in. Instead we enjoyed the trek around the park and I enjoyed the views of the forest and took a lot of pictures again (you should be seeing a pattern with me and pictures at this point).
I met up with a friend for dinner and had in his opinion the best Ramen noodles in the Bay Area at Maru Ichi in Mountain View. After the meal, I have to concur that they were very damn good.
Now, it is time for some sleep and getting ready for another fun-filled day of adventure tomorrow.
Three days into the trip to California
Well, I've finally got some time to write about the trip so far. We left for the great state of California dark and early on Friday at 4:00am. We took the cross-country route through Texas into Roswell, New Mexico. On the way we saw a large amount of wind turbines all over west Texas and a whole lot of nothing when we got into New Mexico.
Once in Roswell, NM, my dad and I first ate at El Toro Brovo (a tasty Mexican food restaurant, I highly recommend the Stuffed sopaipillas) then visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center. The UFO museum wasn't near as interesting as I had expected, but it was one of the only things to do in Roswell, besides the art museum -- which I recommend. The museum has some very interesting pieces of art with a very American Indian vibe. After taking some pictures at the museums we headed out to Gallup, NM. The trip to Gallup was once again a long trip of nothing. We luckily made it in around dinner time and ate at the Olympic Kitchen around I-40 and historic Route 66. Olympic Kitchen had a very eclectic mix of food; it has selections of Greek, American, Navajo and Mexican. I had their Gyro plate which wasn't the best I've had, but it also wasn't the worst. New Mexico is very interesting in that all the cities we went through, they all seemed very, very poor. I saw multiple places that I would consider shanty towns like you see in movies. Hopefully in the larger cities it isn't that bad.
The second day started early, we took off at 7am so that we could make it The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest when it opened at 7am (in Arizona). The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest is what I'd consider a large park but is actually only a small section of the actual petrified forest area in Arizona. In the span of 28 miles there are multiple points to view the desert and petrified wood. To see everything, you really need to be in a walking mood, there are multiple places where the walking trail covers at least 1 mile and a few cover up to 3 miles. Unfortunately, it began to rain and we didn't get a chance to finish off the last two exhibits in The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.
After leaving, we headed towards The Grand Canyon (only a mere 200 miles away). Much like Arizona, New Mexico has a lot of nothing through many places. However, Flagstaff is a very, very pretty place and if I had to live in Arizona, I'd live in Flagstaff, it had great trees and climate that was very livable. When we got to The Grand Canyon, some people had told me you might just think it is a big hole in the ground. After seeing it, it is s0oo much more and it is completely worth seeing. It is something that I think you'd have to spend a few days to truly appreciate the enormity of it and the time it took nature to create it. Another interesting thing about The Grand Canyon is I heard more foreign languages than English in the few hours spent there. We finally left The Grand Canyon around 7pm and began the trip to Henderson, Nevada (Henderson is a suburb of Las Vegas).
Driving to Henderson we managed to see Hoover Dam at night. I really didn't think Hoover Dam was going to be impressive, but just like the other things I saw, Hoover Dam is truly amazing. Seeing at night I think made it even more impressive. There was construction being done around Hoover Dam and all of the lights lighting up the dam, the construction and the surrounding rock walls made it seem very majestic. After snapping many pictures of the Dam, we drove onto Vegas. Vegas night time should really just be Vegas daytime with all the lights. Luckily, we finally made it to the hotel close to midnight and settled down for the night after mapping out some wineries to hit the next day. This day was the very best for one reason alone: McDonald's for every meal.
Today, Sunday, we took off at a decent time and managed to get to some wineries in the Paso Robles area of California. I had found three that seemed to be worth visiting, so we first visited Tobin James Cellars. At Tobin James, we attended the wine tasting and met Tobin James himself. We ordered a case-worth of wine and had it shopped home (yea wine!). The next winery on the list was Martin & Weyrich, however, when we arrived it appeared that they weren't open. So, with that, we proceeded to the third winery on the list: Wild Coyote Winery. Wild Coyote Winery specializes in unfiltered red wines and their tasting consisted of four wines and a choice of either a port or another dessert wine. I got to try all six since my dad and I split the last two wines (we also got some wines from Wild Coyote as well). After all the wine tasting, we checked into the hotel and asked for a pizza place to eat at. They suggested Marv's Original Pizza company, we tried it, and it comes with my recommendation as a tasty place to get a pizza.
Now, it is time to get ready for tomorrow which means starting out the day visiting Hearst Castle.