Sun, Nov 30 - Napa Valley

11.30am - breakfast at Bouchon Bakery : a delicious grilled veggie sandwich (jardinier or whatever they called it), Ritesh's double espresso macchiato, and my green tea, which turned out to be black tea, ah well.11.34am - I know, I know, I should have moved in closer. But honestly, I'm a lot less taken with the quality of Bouchon Bakery's pastries than I am with that of their adorable little courtyard. On the right is a pain au chocolat, which was entirely unremarkable, next to a pistachio citrus brioche w/ some dried cherries, which was a little on the dry side but at least gets points for the originality of its ingredients. That's all we got, the rest of the pastries didn't even look appealing - just the standard monster sized versions of croissants etc. Considering the respect Bouchon seem to have in general for French cuisine, and how well they pull off the savory stuff, it's a little odd that this doesn't translate to their pastries.

Hiking in Bothe Natural Park south of Calistoga, all the way up to Coyote Peak. Beautiful, just what we needed after all the stress. I grew up around a lot of forest and have many fond memories of childhood summers spent playing in the woods with my best friend and our dogs. Nowadays, still, I get ridiculously happy whenever I'm surrounded by trees - it almost makes me giddy with joy. So giddy, in fact, that I am known to start running with excitement as soon as there are some woods in sight, like my dog used to do when she was let off the leash. Part of this is cultural (Germans LOVE their forests), but then again, I don't see many Germans jumping up and down with joy at the sight of their forests when I'm over there, so it must have something to do with being deprived of my natural habitat living in LA, and then being overwhelmed with emotion upon returning to it...

Fairy Tale Forest

3.19pm - at Taylor's Automatic Refresher, a St. Helena institution. In front, my reasonably wholesome seared Ahi burger w/ ginger-wasabi coleslaw (fantastic! I'd eat another one right now if I could) and spicy sweet potato fries, in the back Ritesh's killer Western burger w/ blue cheese, bacon and an onion ring (on the burger) as well as his chili-cheese fries. He has since asked me to intervene if he is ever ordering this kind of stuff again...

4.05pm - a very disappointing $6.25 coconut-lemongrass cupcake from Dean&Deluca, as we're about to hit the road to drive back to LA. In case you're wondering, there was not the slightest hint of lemongrass flavor to this thing, and it was so heavy and buttery I couldn't eat it. I mean, whatever happened to cupcakes being light and airy? I don't like to toss food, but this one was just nasty. What a rip off.

8.42pm - somewhere on the I-5, stuck in traffic and fog on the way back home

8.53pm - an apple galette, also from Dean&Deluca. Better than the cupcake, but really nothing to write home about

10.38pm - tuna sandwich from Dean&Deluca, shared with Ritesh - this one was great, and much enjoyed. It seems like we pretty much liked every savory thing we had this weekend, and none of the sweet stuff. Maybe it's us... don't they say one loses one's taste for sweet flavors as one gets older? I never thought I'd say this, but if I were to never eat another piece of cake again, I don't really think I'd care very much...

Oh, and by the way, we didn't get home until after 1am. Took us more than 9 hours from Yountville to LA, instead of the 7 we expected.