The Girls of YML find their happy place

One bottle of Langhe Nebbiolo Doc (cheers Alberto!) + an assortment of breads with fresh olive oil sprinkled with black pepper accompanied by whole milk mozzarella cheese made by hand at the moment ordered (Mozzarella Fatta Al Minuto--aka "obscene cheese"). Organic green garlic and asparagus soup with morel mushroom brown butter (Zuppa Di Asparagie Aglio En Erba). Garden greens house made red wine vinegar, pears, walnuts and point reyes blue cheese (Insalata Mista). Then for Sly: Wide pasta with braised rabbit ragu, wild mushrooms, fresh sage and parmesan (Pappardelle Con Sugo Di Coniglio--aka THE EASTER BUNNY). For me: Smoked and braised beef short ribs with soft polenta, natural jus and horseradish gremolata (Costata Di Bue Con Polenta). All followed by three bites of the most heavenly Tiramisu you can imagine, times 1000.

That, my friends, is a meal served from the fluffy heights of Cloud Number Nine. Short of actually going to Italy, the Tra Vigne restaurant in St. Helena (Sonoma area) tops any restaurant I have ever been to in my life. Ever. Sly and I made sounds during dinner that Meg Ryan would be proud of and only with much restraint resisted the urge to throw our heads back and howl in ecstasy. Be sure to click any photo in this post to see the picture gallery.

I had found this restaurant a few years back while traipsing through wine country with another girlfriend and I've been trying to make my way back each Macworld, but it never happens. The place is an hour and 20 minutes from downtown and that requires planning + free half day + rental car. Happily, Sly is now hooked so when the two of us disappear for an entire day next January under the guise of "shopping", you'll know where to find us :)


This fabulous meal was preceded by a beautiful drive up to the O'Reilly Media offices where I had a fun preso showing off the iStockphoto site and selected Photoshop tips & tricks. We trotted out to the apple orchard (which happened to be in full bloom), and the famous Marsee and I got our photo near the O'Reilly animal sculpture (during SPE in Miami I met the lady responsible for those animals--hi Edie!--but more on that in another post). I also got a few photography tips from Derrick Story, photographer and O'Reilly evangelist.

From there we took a super windy road over to Sonoma county and Sterling Vinyards, where we hopped aboard a gondola ride to the top of a big hill (the movie lives here). Two hours and several tastings later, we descend from said gondola (that movie lives here) quite giggly and members of the Sterling wine club :)