Visiting Long Grove

Visiting Long Grove

Every year, we like to visit Long Grove at least once. The biggest reason is for the brown bag apple pie from Apple Haus. It’s everything we want in an apple pie: flaky, buttery crust with a slight crunch, fresh apple chunks, not too sweet.

Raspberry Wine Chocolate Cup

But before Apple Haus, we stopped by the Glunz Family Winery tasting room and I had this shot of raspberry wine in a chocolate cup. What a great idea for a party opener…

Apple Haus!

So many things to look at in Apple Haus. Just around the corner are the display cases with…

Baby Apple Pie

…pies! This cutey says it serves 1 or 2, but the lady behind the counter said it was good for one.

Weird Mr. Egg dish scraper

This is not a great picture of me at all. I was trying to make a “Mr. Egg” face. Talk about cute dish scraper. I ended up buying it and the kids played with it for a few days afterwards.

Muddling

We do like going to the different stores around Long Grove, especially The Tuscan Table. Eastman is definitely scaring me with the muddler here.

Tired after Long Grove

They were so tired after walking around and having an apple donut and apple cider snack. It’s really amazing how much they look like each other. They’re so sweet.

Back at home with the pie

At last, at home with our brown bag apple pie. There’s actually a good chance we’ll be attending the apple festival later this week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Bachelorette Party Cookies

I was inspired by a friend and thought these would be a great addition to my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party. The first pair are probably my favorites. Black patent leather via gel icing, and the pink one is my attempt at funky lace.

Black patent leather set bachelorette party cookiesBachelorette party cookiesVariety of bachelorette party cookiesGlittery bachelorette party cookies

These yellow ones are really fun. Just get creative with royal icing, or ready-made icing and gel icing from the grocery store. I tried to use a few sprinkles here and there, too.

Sisters-in-law partying

Needless to say, they were well received, and they tasted pretty good too!

Visiting Bittersweet in Danville

Bittersweet Cafe

This is my last post about our yummy stops in California. So, here we are satisfying another chocolate craving. We had a great lunch with my aunt, uncle and cousins and on the way back to Vacaville we stopped by Bittersweet: the Chocolate Cafe in Danville. Not only was this place cute and quaint, but the chocolate they stock is impressive! You walk in and the chocolaty aroma just swallows you up… so delicious and luxurious. Mmmm.

Chocolate from all overMore chocolate at Bittersweet

Placing our orders

What lured us in was our cousins telling us this place has THE BEST hot chocolate. So thick it’ll knock you out. You know how they make it? With chocolate ganache! Brilliant!! You just choose the kind of milk you want: skim, 1%, whole, etc. Abby chose skim, and still, it was rich, but not overly so. Perfect for her.

Tasting the desserts

We also took the opportunity to try their desserts. Unfortunately for me and Ollie, there were a lot of good looking pastries but with nuts.

Homemade raspberry marshmallow

This was my choice to go with the hot chocolate ganache: homemade raspberry marshmallow. Seriously, it makes me want to make my own. Why buy the white styrofoam-ish nuggets when you can have fluffy clouds that melt in your mouth…

A discerning palette

Finding THE Donut Shop – Dynamo Donut

We were really thrilled to find Dynamo Donut and Coffee in San Francisco. And it’s all because of the Apple Maple Bacon Donut. I don’t know who was more excited, me or my husband? The kids had fallen asleep while we were driving around half-aimlessly (we had a GPS in the car) in completely unknown territory. I felt like we were in the Pacific Northwest, not sure if it was because of the artsy storefronts, the small kitschy-ness of the vendors in the area. I don’t know. All I know is that I really liked it.

Across the street from Dynamo

So, we’re driving, and the GPS is beeping at us telling us we were at our destination, and I look around totally confused. Then my husband says something like, “There it is!”

“Where?!”

“There!! The green awning!”

Dynamo Donut - The front awning

“Cool!” We pull in and then we figure out how many donuts we should buy. How goofball am I for standing out there taking pictures of the facade like a starstruck fan?

Waiting in Line

As I’m waiting my turn at the counter, I realize they don’t have the bacon donut. All out! Hmm. So I strike up a conversation with the man behind the counter, who is really funny in a subdued sort of way, and he tells me not to hold it against them that they’ve run out. “There are plenty of tasty donuts here still!” and I believed him, of course. What’s not to love about donuts that are made by hand, cut by hand, fried in a small fryer by a person… it’s all good.

I mentioned that we saw them on Food Network (again) and he said, “Oh, man, ever since that airing, it’s been nuts around here, ” and with a grin he says, “Man, I wish people would leave us alone.”

Dynamo Donuts - yum

Even though we didn’t get to sample the bacon donut, we did walk away with a green tea and a half dozen donuts: cherry buttermilk, monte cristo (complete with ham bits!), and chocolate rose. I could only imagine what they might have tasted like fresh out of the kitchen, but they were still delicious. Crisp, nice flavors, fluffy on the inside, not too sugary sweet… I’ll definitely be looking for more handmade/homemade donuts around the Chicago area.

At a foodie destination in San Francisco

Oh my goodness, one and a half days without internet access from home is brutal. We rely on it so much! Looking up recipes, sending e-mail, reading the news, reading my favorite blogs… Even our little one was suffering withdrawal from not being able to log onto The Disney Channel’s webpage. Anyhow, after an hour the cable technician was able to diagnose some loose cables outside our house and he found a nick in the cable that comes from the main line. Apparently he put in an order for the line to get replaced. Who knows when that will actually happen.

But what I really wanted to write about is The Ferry Building. I really don’t know if we have something similar to this in Chicago, so you can only imagine how excited I was to walk into this place with all these specialty food shops! My husband spent $50.00 within 30 minutes… it was so easy to do. I did visit some plant/garden/gift shops, too, but our main focus was on the eats.

Walking into the Ferry Bldg.

For the mushroom fans, Far West Fungi. It was strange that no one seemed to be working there at the time… kind of eerie. Unfortunately, we didn’t really visit too long, but it was neat storefront.

Far East Fungi

Imperial Tea Court had a great selection of loose teas, but what we were really looking for was…

Imperial Tea Court

…this place! Boccalone! Their tag line reads, “Tasty salted pig parts”. How awesome is that? This place was featured on Food Network recently, and we just had to try the salumi cone. Deliciously salty and fatty. It can’t possibly be good for you. We did bring home some nduja, spreadable salami, along with some cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. A $20 grab bag of cheese and a little cheese knife.

Boccalone

Salumi Cone

Special of the Day

Scharffen Berger chocolate… oh my dark chocolate goodness. The kids were so good in the store. You’d think they might go nuts in a place that has samples at every turn, but no, they were very well behaved and Abby really impressed the staff with her taste for 60%-70% dark chocolate. “Your daughter has a surprisingly mature palate.” Why, yes, thank you very much.

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker

We ended our little foodie excursion with dinner at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, a casual diner but with some upscale diner meals. We caught up with my college roommate (daughter’s godmother) and her new husband of one year (happy anniversary!!). I tried the Ahi Burger and we also ordered the Grilled Mahi Tacos. Fresh, delicious, light… mmmm. I’m sure the beef burgers were great, but we definitely wanted to try the seafood.

Taylor's Refresher

I think this pretty much sums up the day. My kids are such troopers when it comes to their dad and me dragging them to all these specialty groceries and food markets.

Eating Again, but where?

The pictures of food never stop, do they? Even Abby is getting into it. She loves taking close-up shots and she’s getting better every time. We were running errands and stopped for a snack… can you guess what this is and where it was taken?

Delicious

Not that this is any help, but here’s another view. We love visiting this neighborhood place, which isn’t in our immediate suburb.

A better look

More California journals coming. They’re in the works along with more projects, too.

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