8.27.2007

going back to cali

Tomorrow I will be heading out to California. Spending one day in San Francisco, one on the water (deep sea fishing), and the rest in Sonoma and Napa, it is sure to tempt the buds of taste on several levels.
San Francisco, and more specifically fisherman's wharf is known for its dungeness crab. This particular type of crab is fairly big measuring up to 10" wide. I am very excited for this experience because I have never had the pleasure of eating dungeness crab. A lot of my family is from the east coast (Chesapeake bay area) where blue crab is the crab of choice. I have been eating blue crab since I was old enough to walk and absolutely love it. I am curious to see the differences in the two meats. From what I understand, if I venture down to Pier 39 I will find vendors selling cups of dungeness crab meat. I have been told that the way to eat this meat is to drip some hot sauce on it, grab a cold beer and head to the water to enjoy. Let me tell you, that sounds like a little piece of heaven to me. I guess I will find out tomorrow night.
The second day of the trip, I am heading out to sea. We will be fishing for king Salomon in the cold waters of the Pacific, off the coast of Sausalito. I think that we get to keep anything over 40". I will be making to trip with some buddies so there will be plenty of people to potentially land a large enough fish to cook for dinner. I will be sure to take a lot of photos so that you can see what we actually end up catching and hopefully cooking.
The rest of the trip will be spent cruising the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa. I know we have some tours set up at Robert Mondovi and a tasting at Opus One. We wanted to get in at Dominus, however no tours are offered. Maybe a glimpse from the street will be afforded. I would also like to try Girard, Hess, and maybe Gessup cellars. If anyone has any suggestions on good tours or even just good wine that we owe it to ourselves to taste, please let me know.

Anyway, off to Cali I go.

No comments: