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Another holiday weekend, another cousin safely married off. I think we're off the hook for a while now.
Daniel and I were in Napa this weekend for the wedding of one of his cousins. Strange to say, in all our years of living this close to Napa, we hadn't visited before. I think we never really realized how close it is.
In addition to attending the wedding, this trip afforded us kids a chance to make good on a promise we'd made to Daniel's mom on her 60th birthday to take her to the French Laundry. The meal lasted 4 hours, contained 9 courses, and contained at least one food I'd never even heard of, much less eaten before. ("Mountain caviar", which, if I recall the waiter's description correctly, comes from the seed pod of a cypress tree that grows on mountains in Japan.)
(Apparently, I do recall correctly. Here is a blog post with some more info on mountain caviar.)
We also took some time to visit COPIA, which is a sort of wine and food museum. I wouldn't travel to Napa just to visit it, but it is worth a stop. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit of photos from the book Hungry Planet. A photographer traveled the world and photographed families surrounded by a week's worth of food. There was also a hilarious film from 1964 detailing the kitchen "of the future", the future being 2000. Most of us don't have kitchen computers, or food storage compartments capable of keeping food fresh by storing it in carbon dioxide, but the film did show a floor-cleaning device that looked eerily like a Roomba.
I got to spend some time with my nephew, who is possibly the only person in the world who stops crying when I sing to them. I need to review my repertoire, though, because the only songs I could remember well enough to sing to him were "Hush Little Baby," "London Bridge is Falling Down," and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Nephews=babies you can give back when you're tired of them. Brilliant.
The wedding was wonderful, especially after the sun went down and it stopped being so hot out (we were outdoors the whole time), and the bride and groom's friends told lots of funny stories about them. Which I won't repeat here.
Daniel and I were in Napa this weekend for the wedding of one of his cousins. Strange to say, in all our years of living this close to Napa, we hadn't visited before. I think we never really realized how close it is.
In addition to attending the wedding, this trip afforded us kids a chance to make good on a promise we'd made to Daniel's mom on her 60th birthday to take her to the French Laundry. The meal lasted 4 hours, contained 9 courses, and contained at least one food I'd never even heard of, much less eaten before. ("Mountain caviar", which, if I recall the waiter's description correctly, comes from the seed pod of a cypress tree that grows on mountains in Japan.)
(Apparently, I do recall correctly. Here is a blog post with some more info on mountain caviar.)
We also took some time to visit COPIA, which is a sort of wine and food museum. I wouldn't travel to Napa just to visit it, but it is worth a stop. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit of photos from the book Hungry Planet. A photographer traveled the world and photographed families surrounded by a week's worth of food. There was also a hilarious film from 1964 detailing the kitchen "of the future", the future being 2000. Most of us don't have kitchen computers, or food storage compartments capable of keeping food fresh by storing it in carbon dioxide, but the film did show a floor-cleaning device that looked eerily like a Roomba.
I got to spend some time with my nephew, who is possibly the only person in the world who stops crying when I sing to them. I need to review my repertoire, though, because the only songs I could remember well enough to sing to him were "Hush Little Baby," "London Bridge is Falling Down," and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Nephews=babies you can give back when you're tired of them. Brilliant.
The wedding was wonderful, especially after the sun went down and it stopped being so hot out (we were outdoors the whole time), and the bride and groom's friends told lots of funny stories about them. Which I won't repeat here.
