I'll have a writeup of things later, but for now, here's the pictures!

So we started out the day somewhat slowly. As everyone worked on waking up and showering, I drove over to Napa Valley Coffee Roastery and picked up caffeine for all of us addicts. We were joined shortly afterwards by rasslor, brophey, and shadowolf. Lunch was the first item on the day's agenda, so being that this was many of our group's first time in California, we had to stop by a restaurant that had the seal of approval of both Alton Brown and Anthony Bourdain: In-n-Out Burger, conveniently located just a few miles away from our rental house.

It was...well, it was a fast food restaurant. I'm thinking that my order would need a little tweaking to find what on their menu really appealed to me; the burger with everything included a monstrously huge slab of onion that unfortunately made it seem like an onion sandwich with a side of burger. The fries were quite tasty, though, even if I didn't order them "Animal style".

After lunch we drove up California Route 29 to St. Helena to the Culinary Institute of America - Greystone. The huge, imposing building was beautiful! I was also amused at the trees that were heavy with lemons just outside the entrance. Inside, we browsed through their gift shop and I got a latte as we killed time before the cooking demonstration. We spent an hour watching the chef make a Valentine chocolate torte with a raspberry coulis. I'll admit I didn't learn much new, but it was fun to see some of the techniques I'm familiar with and hear the chef touch on some of my favorite authors (like Harold McGee!). After the demonstration everyone got to try the torte, and it was rather tasty.

After the demonstration there was more browsing through the gift shop (and, I admit, making notes for later Amazon purchases) and admiring the herb gardens. Then it was time to hit a few wineries. Since it was right across the street, we decided to make Charles Krug Winery. After tasting several wines, we picked up a Sauvignon Blanc, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Zinfandel. On the recommendation of the Krug staff, our next stop was Peju Winery. This was a fantastic experience - we had a good group of people doing the tasting with us, and the guy pouring the wines not only knew his stuff, he knew how to keep things entertaining. Paul, Brendan, Bob and I tasted six different wines, and he even did a small vertical tasting to allow us to compare some of the wines. We picked up a bottle of Provence (a nice red/white blend), two vintages of Syrah (including a 2003 that Brendan thinks may have been their last bottle) and a Cabernet Sauvignon. (During the tasting, Lydia relaxed in the car and Dan, Mike, and Ray hung out and enjoyed the lovely weather.

After the tasting, we were all pretty tired (and some of us a wee bit tipsy), so we returned to the rental house. We dispatched Paul, Mike, and Ray to pick up munchies while Bob and I walked the two blocks to the Foothill Grille to get a copy of their menu to see what we could order for carryout. Once we got everyone back, we called in a rather complex eight-entree order that they nailed precisely, and we had a great evening of chatting, noshing, and killing two bottles of wine :-) It was a fantastic evening and I had a blast.

More to come tomorrow!