Blog posts from Food & Drink

the perfect potstickers

I got a pound of ground pork from my CSA and I wanted to use it to make some dumplings. After a quick internet search, I came upon Alton Brown's recipe for the perfect potstickers. I vaguely...

Triangle Restaurant Week: Il Palio

Our final stop for Triangle Restaurant Week was Il Palio, located in The Siena Hotel in Chapel Hill. We have been wanting to try this place out more or less since we moved to NC and we figured now...

Triangle Restaurant Week: Solas

Last night we had our second Triangle Restaurant Week dining experience at Solas on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh. We've driven past this place a number of times and from the look of things, knew it...

how Amalah helped me perfect my patatas bravas

Last year Amy Storch (amalah.com) and her husband Jason (dcfoodies.com) appeared on an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay as judges. The challenge was moules frites and there are not many things...

Triangle Restaurant Week: Four Square

This week is Triangle Restaurant Week, where many local restaurants feature prix fixe menus in order to encourage people to try new places, so last night we visited Four Square in Durham. After...

The French Laundry

For those of you that know about The French Laundry, this post will probably cement the fact that you should go at least once in your lifetime and once you do, it will be clear that this experience...

Napa Valley Wineries

Wow. We had such a nice time tasting wines in Napa Valley, mostly in the St Helena and Yountville areas. Eric already mentioned the who, so now that I'm back in NC and can edit the photos... here...

San Francisco

Today we had a four-hour lunch - yes, 4 hours! - at the famous French Laundry in Napa Valley, then made our way back to San Francisco. View of downtown San Francisco from the 12th floor of the...

having a great time in napa

We arrived in San Francisco late last night, and made our way to St. Helena this morning. Today we tasted wines at Rombauer, lunch at Domaine Chandon, Jarvis, Silver Oak, and finally Beringer....

a good month so far…

We've been a bit lax with updates, in part because we post many of our quickie updates on Facebook, but so far we've had a great month. Some of the highlights: Had one of my UNC papers accepted to...

Loire wine tasting

Last night we attended a Loire wine tasting lead by Sheri Sauter-Morano at 3CUPS in Chapel Hill. Sheri is a certified Master of Wine who lead us on a geographic tasting tracing the Loire river...

where we dined in St Martin

With a number of bakeries on the island, we picked up pastries for breakfast each morning and some tasty French bread and cheeses for our lunches. That left dinner as the variable meal of the day......

Valentine’s Day, 1998

Three months into our relationship Leandra made me these cookies: How could I not be smitten?  Neither of us are big on Valentine's day, but we do like an excuse for a special meal. ToniteLeandra is...

a local restuarant, Revolution

Eric has been wanting to try Revolution for weeks and after a little scheduling drama and realizing on Thursday that we should probably make reservations for a Friday night, we finally made it over...

art reception at local wine shop

I will have some of my pastel paintings hanging at the Hope Valley Bottle Shop (4711 Hope Valley Rd in Durham, NC) for the next few months and tomorrow night (Tuesday) there will be an artist's...

a local restaurant, Toast

In the midst of throwing together my bags and papers before the flight yesterday, I met my friend at Toast in downtown Durham for lunch. The first time I attempted to eat here I was thwarted by a...

a local restaurant, Sono Sushi

On Saturday night we took a trip to Raleigh to eat at Sono Sushi. Leandra ate here back in October when she attended the NC Center for Non-profits conference nearby and liked the experience, and...

where we dined and drank in Oregon

A few general things we noticed while dining out in Oregon... people are generally very nice but not chatty. Three times we were greeted at the door and expected to follow the hostess into the...

Our Itinerary

2024 Trips

San Diego, CA (Jan)
Sarasota, FL (Feb)
Valencia, Spain (Mar)
Mallorca (Apr)
Croatia (May)
Faroe Islands (Aug)
London, UK (Sept)
Bari, Italy (Sept)
Rome, Italy (Oct)
Frankfurt, Germany (Oct)

2022 Trips

Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)