Wendy and I got up and enjoyed the hotel breakfast downstairs. We both had some oatmeal with stuff from what Wendy called the Oatmeal Wheel, because all of the toppings were on a round tray. They offered to make us waffles, but we figured we'd eat enough during the day and declined.
Our first thought was to go to the furthest place and then backtrack to Napa, but for some reason, I forgot about a place that I wanted to go to which was farther than the others. Perhaps the fogginess of the morning also fogged my brain. Or, perhaps, I was still nutso after the previous night of Pellaness.
Our first stop was in St. Helena. Annabelle wanted us to turn to early, so we turned her off and went the way that Wendy remembered to go. No, we did not get lost. The places that we wanted to go to weren't open yet, so we went into a stationery store, where the lady there (and Wendy) almost convinced me to buy a charm necklace or bracelet, to commemorate my birthday. I somehow escaped the peer pressure...for now. I really like the ones that we saw there, so I brought home a brochure. Perhaps I'd treat myself to something else later.
We had spent enough time talking to the gal at the stationery store, so Woodhouse Chocolate was finally open for us to drool inside. Wendy and I have both been there before, and we try to go whenever we're in Napa. I bought a Brown Butter Ganache (not only does it sound yummy, but it's in the shape of a fleur-de-lis), as well as a Gianduja, which is made with hazelnut. I love me the hazelnut. I still haven't eaten them because they are meant to be appreciated and savored, and I've been eating a bunch of stuff that's sweet already.
Next door to Woodhouse is the St. Helena Olive Oil Company, where we had also planned to go. Oh, my goodness. I had never done Olive Oil testing before, and now all that stuff in the regular grocery store is going to be so boring to me! You can taste it either by little tasting spoons, like for ice cream, or by dipping some bread into the oil. I tried it both ways. My favorite olive oil was infused with basil. I need to buy some of that. I also tried different vinegars, my favorite of which is the 1985 Cask Red Wine Vinegar. It was delicious! It's pricey because it was aged in oak barrels for a long time just like wine, and I need to buy some of that, too. They had different types of salt, too, like fleur de sel and Pink Himalayan Salt. Both of those were good, but my favorite of all was the Truffle Sea Salt. That's right. TRUFFLES. I'm so totally going to buy that when I get home. I told Wendy that I could just eat a pinch of that every day when I get home (like I could place it by the door as if I was blessing myself with Holy Water), and I'd be a happy camper. They also had White Truffle Oil, which was very yummy, but it's more expensive than the salt, and I would use it on the same stuff. Well, the salt, I'd use just on air, it's that good. In the hallway to the back room, they had some lavender in jars and some aromatherapy drops. They also had some different flavors of honey, which I enjoyed. Then in the back room was the bath stuff, mostly made with lavender. I fell in love with the lavender sugar scrub, and bought some so that I could pamper myself on the birthday.
Afterward, we shopped in a couple of consignment shops for a little project that we were working on, but didn't find anything promising. We were hungry by this time, so we decided to go to Cafe Citti, where I had been wanting to return to since the Napa Trip with my friends a couple of years ago. We asked Annabelle how to get there, using the shortest route. She wanted us to go south. I thought we needed to go north. But my GPS agreed with Annabelle, so we followed. Oh, boy. Annabelle must have been pissed off at our turning her off earlier that she passive-aggressively took us through Oakville Grade, which is a winding road over the mountain for miles and miles. When we finally got to flat land, we rejoiced. Yes, the view was lovely from the mountain (although only one of us could enjoy it because the other one was driving and there were no turnouts), and yes, the fog lifted by the time we got to the top so that the downhill road wasn't treacherous, but really, Annabelle, that was crazy!
Cafe Citti was quite full, but we still got a table fairly quickly. I enjoyed the Very Garlicky Caesar Salad and Linguine with White Clam Sauce. Mmmmm....I was happy. So was Wendy, with her yummy sandwich. I ordered almond biscotti to go (freshly made every day), and we asked the guy at the register how best to get back to Napa without the winding road. He led us to the path of least resistance, and we happily drove back to our hotel.
Since our tummies were full, and we had leftovers from Cafe Citti, we didn't plan on eating dinner at any restaurant. Instead, we walked to downtown Napa to get some exercise and to do some shopping for our project. We also went back to the cupcake place that we had seen the day before. You see, we watched "Cupcake Wars" when we got home from the concert, and the winner that night was Sift in Napa, right next to the Opera House! So we went to Sift and I ordered the winning cupcake, the Battle Royale. It is an almond cake with blueberry tequila filling and blackberry cream frosting. Wendy bought the Pink Champagne cupcake, because they had run out of the one she wanted, the Limonatta.
We walked back to our hotel room and relaxed. Eventually, the hotel put out cookies for us to enjoy, but Wendy didn't want hers once she realized that there was coconut in it. She ate her cupcake instead, which was very sweet. I ate my own cupcake later and it was perfectly delectable, not too sweet, a wonderful flavor, and I would totally have it again.
The next day, we again had the hotel breakfast, but this time, we shared a waffle. We hung out in the room until checkout, and had lunch at Gott's Roadside, which used to be called Taylor's Automatic Refresher. When we walked in, a guy said, "Hello! We've been waiting for you!" A lady introduced herself to us. I was, like, "Wow, they're friendly here." We placed our orders and the guy said that we were all taken care of. Wendy tried to pay him and he said no, we were taken care of by the people that greeted us at the door, since we were part of the business meeting. Um, no. Wendy said to me later, "Do we *look* like restaurant owners?" I decided that we look like we know where to eat. I ordered the turkey burger, which came with lettuce and apple onion chutney and grilled onions, with cheddar cheese. Mmm, that was YUMMY! Wendy had the Miss Kentucky chicken sandwich, and we shared sweet potato fries. Ooh, our tummies and taste buds were very happy with our last meal in Napa.
We drove back to Sacramento and hung out together until it was time for me to board my flight to Portland.
Thanks for a great time, Wendy! I thoroughly enjoyed our Napa time together.
Rockapella and good food? What more could anyone ask for?
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