Wine Tasting in Caves and Bodegas

        

Our second day started with a nice breakfast at our B&B.  We were scheduled for two winery tours and lunch at a local restaurant. Since we had some time before our first wine tour, we opted to do some more exploring in the walled town.  As you walk down each pathway you just imagine the history of the city and wonder what it was like to walk the paths a 1,000 years ago. You imagine yourself living behind the sand stone walls, and what life would be like.  You see the amount of work and dedication to build this beautiful village.  This is evident at the Church of Santa Maria de Los Royes.  The intricate architect that is just around the doorway of the church.  You sit in aww, and amazement of the detail of the work.  You can see that time has taken a bit of a toll on the walled city and the church. You appreciate how the current generation is proud of their city and doing what they can to restoring the village, but hold on to the history and the charm of the village.  As you walk outside the walls of the village, in any direction you have an amazing view of the valley below.   

Our first wine tour was inside the village called Bodega El Fabulista.  Underneath the walled town run a labyrinth of caves or underground tunnels.  Back in the Middle Ages these were used for food storage and place of refuge for the villagers when the village was under siege.  Today they are used to store and age wine.  They provide a tour of the upper half of the winery, where the grapes come and get crushed.  Then you begin your decent down to the wine caves.  Where hundreds of wooden barrels of wine sit and rest in the dark, cool caves.  You wind through the caves listening to the history and the making of the wines.  You eventually end up in a fairly lit area of the cave with tables where you begin your wine tasting.  It is not every day that you wine test in a cave.  Definitely an experience I recommend you do if in the area.

After surfacing, we headed to our lunch at Amelibia restaurant. The restaurant is across the street from the main gate entrance.  It has great views of the valley and vineyards below.  The lunch was much bigger and heavier than most of the meals I have eaten so far.  Up to this point we mostly were eating tapas.  After lunch it was siesta time.  I love Spain and their siestas! 

Refreshed from our siesta, we went to our next winery tour at Bodegas Campillo.  This winery is on a much larger scale than  Bodega El Fabulista, and not quite as interesting as storing wine in underground caves.  However, the wine tasting at the end of the tour was quite good and the cured meats that accompanied even better.   Another well-known winery not too far away just nearby is Bodega Ysios.  It may be better known for the architecture of the bodega.  The building is quite stunning.  It can be seen from outside the walls of Laguardia.  We did not go inside, just admired the outside.  Marques de Riscal winery is the oldest winery in the region. This is just about a 5 minute drive from Laguardia.  It is probably more well-known now thanks to hotel that was built as part of the winery by Frank Geary.  The modern structure does stick out a bit in the Rioja hills, but still an amazing structure.  If you visit follow the road that goes along the side of the building.  You will drive behind the winery and up a little up in the hills.  You get an amazing view of the Marques de Riscal  and Laguardia in the distance.

I wish we could have stayed longer in Laguardia and explored the region a little longer.  We really enjoyed the village of Laguardia and the people we met there.  I hope that I am able to come back again someday, stay a little longer and enjoy more great food and wine. 

Adjusting to International Traveling: Missing Eggs and Bacon in Scandinavia

When we are at home we become accustomed to our surroundings, belongings, and routine. You take for granted the little things that are at your disposal every day.  When you travel, this all gets disrupted. The surroundings, the culture, what you know is different.  We may pack some of these comforts and bring them with us on our travels, but you cannot take everything.  Traveling is adapting to your surroundings, embracing it, and making adjustments along the way.  My first visit abroad, I had hard time living by this motto.  However, each journey I make, I have to stop and remember I am not home and I just need to go with the flow and make the best of the situation.  You make not always like it, but you do it.  Here are a few of my stories about making these adjustments:

Scandinavia and Breakfast Items

When I was 24 I spent a month in Norway.  During my time there, I traveled across Scandinavia to Russia. This was my first trip abroad.  I was quickly introduced to entirely different culture than what I was used to.  The whole country did not shut down when it snowed, in fact they thrived in it.  There is like 20 feet of snow outside and I am outside driving in it.  CRAZY!  However, the biggest adjustment for me was the food.  It wasn’t that it was radically different, it is just was it was different.  Condiments came in a tube, there was some strange brown butter that did not taste like butter, and they did not have hot dog buns. Although there were these differences, I enjoyed every meal that was prepared for me.  The biggest struggle I had was the breakfast meal.  It is not like every day for breakfast I am eating eggs, pancakes and bacon.  I guess when it isn’t an option, it becomes something you obsess about.

I describe breakfast in Scandinavia a like a combination of a continental breakfast and a Subway. There are breads, jams, what I think of as deli meats/cold cuts, cheeses, fresh vegetables, 1,3,5,10

minute hard boiled eggs.  Before this journey I didn’t even realize there was a variety of hard boiled eggs.  In my world, there was one time of hard-boiled egg.  We also scrambled eggs too, and they are very tasty this way.  This was harder option to find.  Perhaps because they were too busy boiling the eggs. Now there are Norwegian/Swedish pancakes.  These are more like crepes, and served with delicious jams.  These pancakes are not served for breakfast.  They are considered more of a dessert item.  There are delicious potatoes from Denmark, that taste better than Idaho potatoes.  I don't know why, but  they just do.  For some reason, potatoes are not served for breakfast only dinner.  Each new Scandinavia city we visited, I hoped there might be scrambled eggs and bacon, but there never was.  When we took a ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, we paid for the fancy breakfast buffet.  I was scraping by on the money, so this was big expense for me. Although I had just won a pocketful of rubles in the slot machine, but this wasn't going to buy me a pig and chicken. I just knew when I walked into the fancy breakfast buffet there would be mounds of pancakes, eggs, and bacon piled high. It would be like walking into Denny’s. Cue the heavenly music.

Well my dreams were quickly dashed.  The extra money I spent bought more variety of hard boiled eggs, some fancy fish and caviar, more variety of deli meats, veggies, and cheese, but none of the breakfast items that I dreamed of.  Don't get me wrong, the food was good. When you get your head and heart get stuck on this idea of something, then you do not get it, then it is just a disappointment. 

It is interesting how I became so obsessed on breakfast foods. I am not sure if it was because it was my first time abroad, and I was just homesick. Eggs and bacon were my security blanket.  If  I could cover myself up a little, I would just taste a little bit of home, and would not be so homesick.

I can tell you, after a long journey home, I went straight to Beth’s café in Seattle and had their 12 egg omelet, hash browns and bacon for dinner.  It felt so good to be home.

Stay tuned for more of my travel adjustment stories.  Missing Washcloths in Amsterdam.

Sideways Snow, Truck Stops and the State Meal of Oklahoma

I will admit that most of the time I am a bit of a food snob.  I will drive by some eating establishments that look a little sketchy and wonder who would eat at a place like this.  However, I do know there are some of these sketchy places/greasy spoons that end up having some pretty decent food. Perhaps not 5 stars or Michelin stars, but still pretty good food.  Sometimes you just need to get over the food snobbery and give that place a try.

Over the holidays, I visited my parents in Albert Lea, MN.  For those of you not familiar with the area, Albert Lea is located at the interchange of Interstate 90 (East-West) and Interstate 35 (North –-South).  Needless to say it sees a lot of drivers, cars and 18 wheelers that drive these roads.  Like any good American highway driving, you will always find a truck stop along the way.  Truck stops can be a haven for weary drivers, especially truck drivers on long hauls.  They offer a lot of services; food, showers, restrooms, and a place to stretch your legs.  I would have never considered the truck stop restaurant a go to restaurant, until my recent visit to Albert Lea.

I probably had not been in the car for more than 30 minutes after dad picked us up at the airport, when he began talking about the chicken fried steak at Petro (the local truck stop).  He goes on and on about how good it is, and that he and my mom have been out several times just to have it.  He then suggests we should go out there for dinner during our stay.

In previous post, I have written about growing up in Oklahoma.  According to Wikipedia, “chicken fried steak is among numerous popular dishes which make up the official state meal of Oklahoma added to the list in 1988.” I don’t need Wikipedia to tell me this.  I grew up eating chicken fried steak.  This is my comfort foods, and one of the few dishes I MUST eat when I visit Oklahoma.  I’m sure any kid from Oklahoma probably says this, but my grandmother made the best chicken fried state.  My mom and I tried to learn how to how make it, but it never turned out or tasted as good.  I can never get the crust right or the gravy never turns out right. Granted the preparation is the same, finding that restaurant that makes the perfect chicken steak is very important.  Even then  it will not taste as good as my grandmothers, but it is close as I am going to get. This is why I have given up ordering country fried steak outside of the state of Oklahoma.  It is never cooked right, the gravy is bland, and I end up disappointed. So now you can see why I was a little dubious about my father’s positive reviews of the chicken fried steak at the local truck stop.  Minnesota + Chicken Fried Steak = I don’t think so!  I attempted not to take his recommendation for dinner at Petro seriously, and thought it just might get forgotten.  However, on Monday afternoon when I ask my mother what we are doing for dinner, her response was “Petro, your dad said you wanted to try the chicken fried steak…Don’t you?”.  I was now fully realizing I was going to be eating chicken fried steak, in Minnesota, at a truck stop.

So most of Monday it snowed, and there were moments were it came down pretty hard.  Now if we were in Seattle with this weather, I would for sure have a definite out.  No one ventures out in the snow in Seattle.  However, in Minnesota you venture out no matter whatever the weather is.  10 inches of snow..ahh… that is nothing.  Snow blowing sideways…ahhh… don’t worry about it. A little snow never stopped anyone!

So Monday night, my parents and my husband jump into the SUV, and head out into the frozen tundra, through the blowing snow, and head to the truck stop.  We pull into the parking lot, and my parents remark how empty it seems.  I think to myself this is because all the sane people stayed indoors, out of the snow to be warm and safe.  Although the good thing about this, is we got a parking spot right by the door.  So my trek through the snow to the door was not so frozen.
As you walk into the establishment you are greeted by grand Viking and his shield maiden.  I’m pretty certain I just did not just enter Valhalla.  We make our way back to the bar area to sit at a table
there.  Although I am not clear why we did not sit in the dining area, the bar did make for more of a colorful dining experience.

The menu reads like a typical diner; burgers, pastas, chicken, ribs etc. My dinner had already been decided, so there was no need to study the menu. However, if you are vegetarian, vegan, watching your figure, have high cholesterol and/or blood pressure then this is not the place for you.  The food is supposed to fuel the drivers and trucker patrons to allow them to carry on to their final destination. All I can say once I finished my meal, I was ready for nap and not for driving 200 miles.

Orders are placed, so now it is just sit back wait and listen to some interesting conversations at the bar.  There were probably about 7-9 what I assume to be truckers sitting at the bar.  Conversations ranged from NASCAR, the boss telling him not to sleep in his truck, one complaining about the size of his cab for sleeping (his belly hit the roof), and hearing the waitress being called sweetheart a handful of times.

Finally dinner arrived.  The infamous truck stop chicken fried steak had arrived!  At first look it didn’t look bad.  It was definitely generous portion of steak and potatoes.  Now for any chicken fried steak connoisseur, like myself, what really makes the steak is the crust and the gravy.  At first glance, the steak seemed to have a nice coating and looked good and crispy. The gravy was a white and thick, which is also a good sign.  You would think I was a Top Chef Judge, as I sat and analyzed the presentation, and was silent for my first couple of bites as I savored the flavors in my mouth to make my judgments about this fine steak I was consuming. My critique, was the crust was a little over seasoned with salt and pepper for my taste, whereas the gravy was a little under seasoned. All in all, for a steak in the Northern frozen tundra, it was not all that bad.  I have definitely had worse.  I least enjoyed the meal, and was not disgusted with it.  I can tell you I was a little surprised.  My expectations were a little on the low side, but I managed to be a little impressed.  Now does this mean I will be running out to my local truck stop to eat chicken fried streak??  UMMM..NO!  I can guess though I will be going back to the truck stop on my next visit home, and I am good with that.  Makes for some interesting storytelling.

Dinner is over, my belly full and pretty happy.  The family treks out into the freezing temperatures, the blowing snow, and begin our short journey home.  I’m just thankful we are going 5 miles instead of 200 miles.  As we pass an 18 wheeler struggling to make the hill in the snow, my day is cheerfully says see wasn’t that worth the trip out to tonight?