Beekeeping School

I start Beekeeping School on Friday and I am so excited to wear this cute bee necklace I bought at Nordstrom a few weeks ago in preparation of beekeeping season.  Lets all cross our fingers that beekeeping 2009 will be more productive than beekeeping 2008.  Necklace from Dogeared Jewels and Gifts.  

Favorite Finds From The Fancy Food Show

I love going to the Fancy Food Show and seeing all the new creative companies in the food industry. Here are a few of my favorites...top three are women owned by the way.......

Sables

Gourmet Cookie Dough

They package ready to slice and bake cookie dough in the same way as the pilsbury dough you buy at the local Walmart but the packaging is beautiful and the flavors are amazing Ginger Spiced Almond, Orange Pecan are just two of the six flavors they offer.

Caroline's Desserts

This company has taken the classic Rice Crispy Treat up a notch. They cover the rice crispy treats with toasted marshmallows, peppermint bark, caramel and coffee beans. I think the packaging is so elegant.

Butter

This is a company from Canada. They had a display of the most beautiful handcrafted marshmallows. The marshmallows were offered in vanilla, strawberry, mint, matcha tea, coffee, raspberry, coffee and toasted coconut. This company is run by a mother daughter duo and they really seem to have it all together. Their handouts, web site and retail store all looked beautifully put together.

Bee Raw Honey

I love this company!

They have all sorts of varietal honeys that they source from individual beekeepers around the country. The honey is made from raw, unfiltered honey from a single flower variety. It is offered in the following flavors- basswood, blueberry, buckwheat, cranberry, orange blossom, sage, sourwood, star thistle, sweet yellow clover and wild raspberry. It is amazing the wide range of flavors honey can have depending on the flower it comes from. I love that they are supporting small time beekeepers..

Busy Weekend

I had such a fun weekend-

Friday night my friend April got tickets to the final meet for the University of Utah ladies gymnastics.  I called Kaycie and we drove to SLC to spend the night with April and "T".  We went to the Pie Pizzeria for dinner and then off to the meet.  I was surprised by how many people were there.  The stadium was almost totally full.  

They passed out these glowing red sticks.  They turned out all of the lights and everyone waved these red sticks and there were also fireworks as they introduced the team.

Who would have known a gymnastics meet would be so much fun?  I loved it.  It is totally on my list of things to do next year.  Thanks for the tickets April!

On Sunday afternoon I picked up Riley and we drove to SLC  go to Mickey and Minney On Ice.  Ever since Riley came back from Disneyland in October he calls me Mickey Mouse I guess because it is so close to my name who knows but I love it.  So when I saw that this was coming to town I knew I had to take him. 

It was so much fun.....and expensive $10 for a snow cone.....really?   But I just could not say no.

We left Disney on Ice a little bit early and rode traxx for a couple of stops and I think this might have been his favorite part of the adventure in the big ....and it was free. 

Fancy Food Show 2009 San Francisco

Here is the deal I love going to San Francisco just for the food.  So get ready for a post where I just ramble on about what I ate.

Friday

Friday night I met up with my cousin Shelly, who lives in SF and is totally in the know on all the hip, exciting places to eat in the city.  She has yet to disappoint. We had dinner at Farina in the Mission district.  It was a beautiful restaurant with fantastic light fixtures and beautiful white marble counter tops.  We sat in the bar and watched the pasta chef make fresh pasta and foccacia. My favorite thing I ate here was the antipasti. It is called Prosciutto Di San Daniele E Burrata Su Focaccina. Which was a slice of focaccia bread topped with burrata cheese and prosciutto.  What is Burrata cheese? I had no idea so I looked it up......I found out that burrata cheese is fresh mozzarella cheese with cream on the inside.  Yumm.  It was so good. I had some sort of ravioli with truffles. It was ok I guess I don't really remember it so well so it must not have been that great. Shelly had tortalinni with a pesto sauce made with walnuts.  I remember this dish because it was really good. I think I would get the pesto next time

We stopped by Tartine so I could get a couple of pastries for breakfast the next day. Then we walked up to the Bi-Rite Creamery. 

They make ice cream in small batches using organic milk and organic flavorings and fruits.  I had the salted caramel and roasted banana ice cream. Delicious. I spent most of the rest of the trip trying to figure out how to get back to this ice cream shop..taxi? bus? tram? who knows I will need to figure that out for the next trip.

Saturday

Lunch at Whole Foods. I love this place.  Why is there not one near my house?...I should think about moving.

My coworkers have arrived and they want to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Union Square.  I ordered my favorite avacado eggrolls and decide to step out of the comfort zone and get something I have never ordered.  I am not really sure why but I decide on the famous cheesecake factory meatloaf.......did not love it!  I should stick with the tried and true favs.  I tried the Lemoncello Cream Torte which might be my new favorite.

Sunday

Spent all day eating cheese, olives, cookies, candy and green olives at the Fancy Food Show.  Sunday evening one of our vendors took us to dinner.  We ate a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, postrio.  It was a fancy looking place. Our server was totally into his job.  as he was telling us about the menu he circled the table and waved his hands in the air as he described each dish saying things like  " we take a ravioli and deconstruct it" and "the pork lion and the potatoes represent the ying and the yang of the pork".......wow such passion for your job.  I had the bacon wrapped sea scallops the first time I have ever ordered scallops and I loved them.

This is a photo of my dessert...I can not remember what it was but I know it was great and had salted vanilla ice cream. It was sure good I wish I could remember what it was.....

This is the dessert my coworked ordered.  It was some sort of chocolate cake, toasted marshmallow cube, ice cream and a garnish of caramel popcorn.  

Monday

Buba Gump's at the warf. No comment. I hate chains. But the peeps I ate dinner with seemed to like it so whatever. 

 

Help Wanted

Does anyone need a little extra cash?
I am working on a small project for this little company and need a little extra help the weekend of Easter.
Let me know if you are interested.

A Sunday Filled with Music

Yesterday was a busy musical entertainment filled day. We started the afternoon with our Broadway in Utah performance of Ain't Misbehavin' staring Ruben Studdard . Yes that is Ruben Studdard of American Idol fame. I must say it was not my favorite show. Lots of songs/ no plot. Oh well Wicked is up next.

The evening ended with the Celine Dion concert which was amazing. I would not count myself as a serious, crazy Celine fan, and after last night I realize there are a lot of those, but I thought it would be a fun show to go to and when she canceled in November and rescheduled on a Sunday I knew we could get great tickets. She was as dramatic and over the top as I thought she would be but I loved it. We sat around some very serious Celine fans and the highlight of the show, for them, was the last song of the night, the theme from the Titanic they went crazy. There were 6 outfit changes and all of the dresses she wore were stunning! She is super tiny and has tons of energy.

As you can see from this photo were we were part of the very first to arrive. We had really good seats. There were two ramps that went up the sides and one was right by us so we had a great view.

When she sang the Titanic song all of these chandeliers with candles came down from the ceiling. It was both really cool and sappy at the same time. I liked it.

I don't know maybe after last night I have become one of the crazy Celine fans...

Valentine's Day Weekend

I spent the weekend with Jake, Kaycie and Riley.  Friday night Kaycie and I picked up Riley from his babysitters house and went to the grocery store to buy ingredients to make Heather C's fantastic sugar cookies and a few snacks.  We got home and baked the cookies.  I think Riley had a hard time baking with us because he is a total clean freak and Kaycie and I are proud to be very messy.  Whenever Riley would get flour on his hands he would shake his hands and then wipe them on his stomach and then look at the spot where Kaycie was working and shake his head and say - messy, messy,messy. 

 

Do you think Riley is telling Kaycie not to be so Messy? 

Check out all the flour on her pants.  I think Angie may find flour in her house for the next few months....sorry!

I did not have any heart shaped cookie cutters so we used 4 different dog cookie cutters.

Saturday

The next morning I left at 5 am, yes 5 am, to go the retail store and dip 500 lbs of strawberries in chocolate.  How I love Valentine's Day.   I waited at the retail store until 5  for Jake to get back from snowboarding and then we drove home.  That night we each made our own pizzas, decorated cookies and went to bed early.  

Riley decorating the traditional symbol of Valentine's Day....a white Scottie Dog. 

Kaycie did Riley's hair Saturday morning.  I think it looks awesome.

Sunday

Sunday was spent getting caught up on past episodes of American Idol and some skateboarding show on MTV that Jake loves.  Jake, Kaycie and Riley also spent some time at the farm helping my dad feed the new baby lambs.  

Monday

I took Riley and Kaycie to my parents house so I could go to work in the afternoon.  As we were getting into the car Kaycie said with tear filled eyes - so I guess this is where we say goodbye I said well I am going to Grandmas with you for a while then she said - well I guess we will save our goodbyes until then.