A Runner’s Travels: Leaving My Heart in Vancouver

As many of you have gathered, I’ve been MIA these last two weeks, traveling to such places as San Francisco, Sonoma and Napa Valleys, and Vancouver. In each of these destinations, I was able to experience a tiny bit of the local life through visiting the sites and tasting the amazing foods each city had to offer.

One of the things I loved about my time away, was that each city had it’s own spectacular views and equally spectacular places to run.  San Francisco offered a coastal path along Fisherman’s Wharf, with amazing shopping sites just a few blocks away. Napa provided a much needed peaceful run through, what seemed like, a sleepy bedroom town surrounded by green and gold vines. And finally, Vancouver…I have so much to say about running in Vancouver and most of it revolves around the beautiful Stanley Park. On three separate occasions, I was able to run from my hotel through Stanley Park. Each time I would nearly gasp in wonder at the beauty of the mountain-lined harbor, the fall foliage at its peak, and the pristine surroundings that are famous in the Pacific Northwest.

Unlike most people who judge a city by the sites, restaurants, and atmosphere, I find myself forming an opinion of the city based on my running experiences there. I have to admit, of all the places I’ve run outside of Chicago – and there have been MANY – Vancouver is, by far, my favorite.

I can quite honestly say, I left my heart, and running shoes, in Vancouver.

Destination Running

Like many people, before I travel I think of all of the sites I want to see, all of the restaurants I want to try, and the best places for shopping. In addition to these things, I also think about where I will run. I know I’m a little odd when it comes to running, but it’s true. When I’m out of town, finding new, fun places to run is just as exciting as finding a cool new bistro.

In my many years of running, I’ve run in 8 countries, not including the US, and have run in 22 of the 50 United States. I’ve had so many wonderful running experiences – running along old and winding streets in Ireland, past Gaudi’s legacy in Barcelona, by totem polls in Vancouver, and right up to the gates of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. All of these places are reminders of wonderful trips and wonderful runs. However, I would not consider any my favorite.

In September, I was fortunate enough to be able to run my favorite route – a route I haven’t run in years – the Chicago lakefront path. If you’ve ever been to Chicago’s lakefront, you will know that the path goes on and on for miles. On one side of the path, you run with beautiful views of the Chicago skyline on the horizon. On the other side is the calming shoreline of Lake Michigan.

Years ago, when I worked and lived downtown, I would take my running clothes to work. After work, I would change and run home along the path, starting from Navy Pier and finally turning into the Lakeview neighborhood near Belmont Harbor. It was such an amazing feeling to combine my 45-minute commute with a strong running workout, something I’ve greatly missed while being in the suburbs. On days that I was not able to run home from work, I would get up extra early to run the lakefront. Rain, snow, or shine, I pounded that beautiful pavement with hundreds of other athletes, yet somehow, felt completely lost in my own thoughts and in my own world.

Each time I go back to the lakefront for a run, I have a slight melancholy feeling. I’m so happy that I’m running my favorite path, but sad – almost like not knowing when I will be reunited with an old friend. And when I do return, the path seems to say, “it’s been way too long my friend, way too long.”

Where is your favorite place to run?

Headin’ Up To San Francisco

In less than 48 hours, I will be in beautiful San Francisco. As you may recall, I was in San Fran briefly last week, as a stopover on my way to Sacramento. I was there so briefly that the only place I actually set foot in was the airport, otherwise I was in a car.

But on this trip, I will be spending four lovely days in San Francisco. Although I will be quite busy with writing assignments, I am hoping that I actually see some of the sites around the city, as well as the trendy restaurants. Maybe I’ll even meet up with a few blogger friends!!

Aside from work and site-seeing, I am also hoping to go for a few runs – naturally. It is true that before I head out on a trip I research my destination like CRAZY – just ask my husband. I almost become obsessed with finding the coolest restaurants, shopping, sites, etc. But I also love to plan out my runs! I go to great lengths to map out routes, plan scheduled runs for my light work days, etc. Knowing that I am keeping to my scheduled runs gives me a sense of familiarity in a new place and helps to keep some kind of calm in my, otherwise, crazy schedule.

And I do mean crazy schedule! San Francisco is just the first leg of my trip. From there, I will head to Napa for a few days, then onto Vancouver until November 3. So, when everything is over, I will have been away from home for 12 days. My stomach hurts just thinking about being gone for that long – especially since Scott and the kids will NOT be coming with me. Oh the things we do for work!

Thank goodness for iPhone Facetime!

Touring California Walnut Country

I recently had the great pleasure of touring California’s walnut county on behalf of the California Walnut Commission. The tour was quite an adventure that spanned two days – two days of learning about walnut harvesting and processing, as well as the many great benefits that walnuts hold.

My adventure started at the beautiful Citizen Hotel in downtown Sacramento where I joined a group of 20-25 other journalists and walnut experts for an elegant dinner. Prior to dinner, we watched cookbook author Mollie Katzen and Chef Michael Tuohy from Grange restaurant whip up some very easy pesto.

We all proceeded to get our hands a little dirty making Chef Tuohy’s own version of white walnut pesto. This was, by far, the best pesto I have ever tasted and not just because I made it. I am not a huge fan of pine nuts or basil in pesto, which are standard ingredients for many restaurant pestos. But Chef Tuohy’s white pesto was made with a base of cheddar, olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, and, best of all, ground walnuts! Again – the best pesto I have every tasted! Don’t worry, I do plan on posting the recipe in a few days!

Our cooking demo was followed by a three-course dinner, with walnuts playing a starring role. We also were very fortunate to hear award-winning researcher and author Dr. Brian Wansink discuss some of the pitfalls to American eating, much of which was discussed in his book, Mindless Eating.

The next morning, we were treated to a walnut-studded breakfast at Old Soul Co. in Sacramento, which included walnut scones, banana walnut sweet bread, and even spinach and goat cheese quiche with walnuts.

After breakfast, we headed to the main event – a tour of the walnut trees at Fedora Farms in Meridian, CA. Here we learned about the varieties of walnuts, how they are shaken from the tree and collected, and how they are hulled and dried before being sent to the processing plant. What I was impressed by most about Fedora Farms was how much time and care they put into harvesting quality walnuts – it really is a great source of pride for the Fedora family and for walnut growers in general. Like Fedora Farms, most walnut farms/orchards are experiencing a fantastic harvest this year. According to the California Walnut Board, California will produce a record harvest in 2010, estimated at 17% larger than that seen in 2009.

Lunch was a gourmet meal underneath the walnut trees provided by Chef Patrick Mulvaney, owner of Culinary Specialists Catering. Chef Mulvaney prepared a first-class lunch for our tour, right in the middle of the walnut orchard – very classy! Oh, and did I mention the menu included 4 uses for walnuts, including the chocolate pudding!

After lunch, we headed to Yuba City to visit the Sacramento Valley Walnut Growers, where they process, package, and distribute the walnut grown in the area. What surprised me most about the processing and packaging of the walnuts was how many steps are in the quality control process – I counted at least four but I’m sure there were more!

For dinner, we headed back to downtown Sacramento to The Kitchen Restaurant, touted as one of “the most entertaining and distinctive dining destinations in Sacramento.” This meal and whole experience truly lived up to the hype. Not only was the atmosphere like no other that I had experienced (when do you ever get to go into the kitchen of a restaurant and just hang out?) but the food was unbelievable! Granted, I did not eat all of the 6 courses because they included seafood and beef, but the presentations were extremely entertaining and amazing looking!

Aside from the highly interactive dinner preparations, I was really impressed with the fact that each dish could be, and was in my case, tailored to fit each guest’s likes/dislikes. Don’t care for frog legs? No problem! They will just replace them with tender breaded chicken made to look like frog legs – so  you don’t feel completely left out! Furthermore, as a testament to the Chef’s creative genius, 5 of the 6 courses included walnuts. After my 5-hour culinary experience, I was quite full and ready to fall into a deep, walnut-induced food coma.

Overall, the California Walnut Harvest gave me a new perspective about the growth, harvesting, and processing of walnuts. It’s not every day that I get to see a food that I love go from the tree to the table. And, although I have written about the many health benefits of walnuts before, this tour reinforced how healthy these little nuts are and how incorporating them into any meal is possible and easy.

If you don’t know by now, walnuts are one of the best, if not the best, nuts in regard to nutritional value. Don’t believe me? Check out the California Walnut Commission to see the full details!

Interview with Iron Chef Cat Cora and Cookbook Giveaway!

The Chicago Gourmet held last weekend played host to many of Chicago’s famous chefs, including Rick Bayless and Jimmy Bannos, Sr. But the event also brought in other, more international chefs, including one Iron Chef – Cat Cora. During this event, I had the pleasure of chatting with Cat Cora about her latest book, how she gets her kids to eat new dishes, and about her new show on OWN – the Oprah Winfrey Network.

5 Minutes and 5 Questions with Iron Chef Cat Cora

1) When you’re not doing cooking shows and book tours, what’s a typical day like for you?

I get up with my kids (four boys under age 6), we eat breakfast together, get lunches ready for school, get everybody dressed, then wrangle everybody together to head to school. After that, I go to work in my home office. I also try to get in a workout, maybe a little yoga. Then we end up back at home and done with everything by 5 PM to eat dinner and spend some quality time together.

2) In your latest book, Cat Cora’s Classics With A Twist, you have a variety of flavor combinations and ethnic foods. How do you get your kids or kids in general to eat these ethnic foods and try different things? My kids don’t eat everything that I cook for them in this new book. There are some things that they’re just not ready for. It’s about getting them involved in meal planning and mealtimes, gearing the food toward them and actually getting them invested in the meal. If you get kids invested in the meal, they tend to eat more and eat more often, and they feel empowered because they can help make decisions about the meal. And this whole discussion with kids should be a 5-minute conversation not a two hour negotiation – give them two options and have them pick one.

3) How do you decide if/when a new recipe will be added to your restaurant menu?

You need to decide who your audience is first, which helps narrow things down. Then, you need to think about the style of restaurant you have and your concept. When we started the restaurant at Disney, we really had to look at things that were familiar to people. We couldn’t get too crazy or too out-of-the box because it is Disney. You get people from all over the world and there are a lot of different things that they like to eat. We’re about to open a sexy lounge with small plates at the Virgin America terminal at the San Francisco airport. That’s a whole different dynamic and a whole different audience.

4) If you weren’t a chef, what would you be doing?

I definitely know that I would want to perform. I would have definitey tried to go into acting of some kind. I also love to write, so maybe a novelist – and I can still do that, it’s in the future plans!

5) What’s on the horizon for Cat Cora?

I have a new show coming out in January 2011 on Oprah’s network – OWN (which stands for Oprah Winfrey Network). It’s an hour-long show, once a week. We can’t announce what it is or what the name is just yet, but it’s really about bringing families together about food and solving people’s dilemmas in the kitchen – very similar to an intervention show. I’m super excited about it.

Cookbook Giveaway

In keeping with the chef/cooking theme, I’m giving away a brand new book by another notable chef and author Jennifer Chandler. Her book Simply Suppers features homestyle comfort foods, such as potato soup and enchiladas, with a southern flair.

To enter the giveaway, you can either…

  1. Leave a comment on this post about who your favorite celebrity chef is and why OR
  2. Tweet/Retweet this post

You have until Tuesday, October 5 at 9 PM Eastern to enter. Good luck!

Chicago Gourmet – Take Two!

Just a few more photos from Chicago Gourmet 2010 – Enjoy the photo tour!

Chicago Gourmet: Wine, Dine, and Lines

For the third consecutive year, the Illinois Restaurant Association hosted the highly anticipated Chicago Gourmet. And for the third year, the attendees, including yours truly, seemed to leave with mixed emotions about the event.

On Saturday, I received my first taste of the event in the form of an hour-long check-in line. Unfortunately, this was not the only line I would encounter throughout the weekend. Luckily, as a corresponding writer for Foodbuzz, I was able to bypass the first queue and get right down to business – drinking wine and eating fancy food. However, within no time at all, I realized that I would be doing quite a bit more drinking than eating. Of the more than 150 food and wine vendors present, wine, beer, and liquor tents easily out-numbered food tents 2 to 1, or at least that is what it seemed like.

Due to this imbalance in food v. alcohol, most of the food tents had lines, albeit many were fast-moving. Reminiscent of the first two years, the lines for the more popular restaurants, ie. Frontera and Gibson’s, snaked around so far that it was hard to tell where they ended. When I did finally work my way up to the front of the line (and I did wait – no line jumping for me!), I was a little surprised at how heavily focused the dishes were on meat and seafood. This, of course, is a man’s dream, but for someone who does not eat meat or who is a vegan, finding food beyond dessert was challenging at best.

Sunday proved an even greater challenge when those lucky enough to score a Groupon discount arrived for their fair share. I am sorry to report that their fair share included even longer lines and even less food, with some vendors even running out of food.

In spite of the lines and limited vegetarian options, there were a number of highlights that deserve a mention. The plentiful seating included a mix of tables with umbrellas and plush chairs and lounge stools – very relaxing and trés chic. The seating combined with the sporadic live jazz interspersed with piped-in music from all decades created an ambience of an upscale outdoor wedding, perfect for a crisp fall day. Furthermore, the long lines for popular restaurants often left much shorter lines at others, especially in the dessert tents.  These were definitely the hidden gems of the event and where I was able to try some fantastic treats, including pumpkin bread pudding, tiramisu, pumpkin and sugar cookie gelato, and sticky toffee pudding.

For wine and alcohol enthusiasts, Chicago Gourmet was a virtual dream come true. The wine and other spirits flowed freely and merchants weren’t hesitant about filling and refilling glasses. And, just like the chefs who were present, the wine merchants were passionate about their wineries and their products which made for enjoyable conversation.

The wine tastings and cooking demonstrations, often led by Chicago’s top chefs, were more than informative and enjoyable. The demonstrations held on the main Bon Appetit stage made you feel as if you were actually watching a professional cooking show, while the smaller stages made for more intimate demos. No matter what demonstration you witnessed, the chefs and other presenters, including such top names at Iron Chef Cat Cora and Chicago’s own Rick Bayless, were more than willing to interact with the audience, take questions, and allow for photos.

Even with two years under its proverbial belt – not to mention Bon Appetit magazine as the title sponsor, Chicago Gourmet still had a few sticky spots – even beyond the decadently sticky toffee pudding I tried. That’s not to say it was all for naught. Most of the people I encountered seemed to be in good spirits – although maybe due to the alcohol – even those who had traveled quite a distance to get there.

Overall, Chicago Gourmet may not have lived up to its expectation, especially for foodie purists, but it still has great potential. Let’s hope that fourth time’s a charm.

Chicago Gourmet Teaser…

The weekend was full of wine, gourmet food, and chats with famous chefs – including this Iron Chef…

I’d love to give you a complete review of Chicago Gourmet, however, I’m still “digesting” my fabulous weekend – both mentally and physically. Check back for full details of my interviews with Iron Chef Cat Cora, Bon Appetit Editor-in-Chief Barbara Fairchild, as well as a review of Chicago Gourmet.

Travel Writing To Feature Walnuts, Grapes, and Gourmet Food

Grape Harvest

(Photo source)

As some of you know, I have many exciting trips planned, via writing assignments, from now until the end of the year. And now, I finally get to reveal a few of them!

Chicago Gourmet: This weekend, I will be attending Chicago Gourmet as an official Foodbuzz Correspondent. I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of the Foodbuzz community and to share my coverage of the event with Foodbuzz readers. One thing I am just dying to do is interview Cat Cora, aka the first female Iron Chef and Bon Appetit Executive Chef. Keep your fingers crossed that she can fit me into her schedule!

Walnut Harvest: Just a few weeks after Chicago Gourmet, I’ll be headed to California to cover the walnut harvest. I am a huge walnut fan, which makes it so much easier to say yes to trips like this. I am really looking forward to learning more about how walnuts are harvested, how to cook with them (beyond the typical cereal, oatmeal, granola, etc.), and about their health benefits. For someone who doesn’t eat fish – or seafood – at ALL, it’s extremely important to know that walnuts have as much or even more omega 3 fatty acids than fish. Thank goodness for that!

Grape Harvest (aka Crush): Exactly one week after the Walnut Harvest, I will be heading back to San Francisco, stopping off in Napa to cover the wine scene and the grape harvest. I’m also planning to review a very popular restaurant in Yountville – can you guess what it is?

Foodie Scene: After Napa, I travel up the coast to get a taste of the foodie/tourist scene in Vancouver. Vancouver is fresh off the Olympics and has so much to offer travelers. I can’t wait to explore the city and the sites in the fresh mountain air!

I’ll be planning full stories related to these trips for both RWC and Bistro Chic. You will definitely not want to miss them or the pictures – plus, you never know when I’ll throw in a giveaway!

And speaking of giveaways…

I just realized that I forgot to post who the winner of the Mighty Leaf Tea and Sympathy Giveaway is! The recipient of the giveaway, via random number generator, is…

Lisa Smith
Posted September 20, 2010 at 5:45 am | Permalink | Edit
I Love my green tea! I drink it most during the winter months the P.M.

Lisa – be sure to send me your address and I will send you the very relaxing tea package ASAP! Thank you all so much for entering the giveaway.

Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage of my cross-country adventures!

My New DSLR!

My wedding anniversary is just 8 days away. Some husbands get their wives jewelry for an anniversary, others buy clothes or go out to a fancy dinner. What did my husband buy? Take a look…

Yes, he bought me a brand spankin’ new DSLR – A Canon Rebel T2i to be exact. My husband is awesome! I won’t even begin to tell you how much this camera costs – with two lenses and a camera bag, but let’s just say it was NOT cheap.

If you recall, last year around this time, my husband lost our Canon point and shoot while camping. Within a few days, he surprised me with a brand new Canon, an even better one, but still a point and shoot. I really like my point and shoot – it’s super convenient and very easy to use. However, in the last few months, I feel like my photography needs are changing. With all of the travel I have planned in the next few months – San Francisco, Napa, Vancouver, Baltimore, etc. – it really seems like the right time to upgrade to a DSLR.

Now, the next issue is…I need to learn how to use it! Stay tuned for that adventure!