Hello, hello!

Sorry for losing y’all there for a day but things have just been crazy as I’ve closed up shop in San Francisco and moved up to Sonoma County.

We had an awesome blog reader get together at the cutest little cafe ever yesterday morning!! I didn’t eat though since I was meeting another friend for brunch just a little later…it was so fun to meet everyone though!!

Then, the BEST brunch ever at Zuni.

I loooooved this menu and everything was seasonal and local…it was a dream!

I ordered the crostini with heirloom tomatoes and poached eggs. OMG!

This seriously might have been one of the best brunches I’ve ever had in my entire life!

Iced coffee to drink:

Real SF sourdough bread to nibble on:

Delicious.

Around 2:30, Adam picked me up from Beth’s house, where all my worldly belongings were being stored at (thanks, Beth!!) and we made the trip back up to wine country. Stopped at a few absolutely breathtaking spots along the way for some photos!

Adam tried his first Amazing Grass bar and loved it, obviously.

I kept having to pinch myself….it was the first time I’ve ever seen the Pacific ocean!

We stopped at a great little Italian restaurant, Pazzo, in Petaluma for an early dinner because Adam said this place had the best lobster bisque he’s ever had. It was pretty delicious!

And for my entree, I chose shrimp scampi, my favorite. Also had an unpictured glass of pinot noir. Mmmmmm

Phew! Long post!!! Now that I’m *almost* settled, things will start to get back to normal. It might take me a few days though so please continue to bear with me!! I’m racing out the door to go see an apartment that I’m hoping to rent…wish me luck!!!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 84 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Good morning!

I feel SO much better this morning…..I finally got some SLEEP! 7 1/2 hours of sleep, exactly, and it made all the difference in the world.

Somehow the night started off like this:

And ended like this:

And you know the sad thing? We got in bed at 9:30. We were SO tired!

To back up a little bit, the BlogHer Cocktail Party was as picturesque as can be, on top of the terrace at the St. Regis.

Kath and I immediately took advantage of the open bar and got COSMOS!

I drank mine and half of Kath’s because she decided she would rather be a true southerner and get bourbon (gross!). Here’s what I thought of her drink:

There was food but it was more like VERY light appetizers…..we didn’t want to spend any more money by going to dinner though, so we just grabbed whatever we could and made the best of it.

Spicy butternut squash bisque (I had two of these):

mini french onion sliders (had two of these also):

Braised beef with mushrooms:

TOMATO SOUP CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING! (I had three of these!!!):

These were totally the hit of the evening……I swear, they tasted just like mini spice cakes….SO delicious!

After the cocktail party, we hightailed it to ANOTHER after party so we could be among the first 150 in the door to get the free gift! And let me tell you, it was soooo worth it. Check out the GIFT!

This bag is stuffed FULL of absolutely amazing kitchen stuff…….great knives, kitchen timers, spatulas, dishclothes…heck, even a meat tenderizer. This couldn’t have worked out any better since I’m moving and don’t have anything for my new place! We were giddy with excitement!

And then we crashed at 9:30. Awesome. The hotel we are staying at is really cute but they were sold out of rooms with two beds so the three of us had to make do….poor Tina got the floor!

And then we were all up at 5:15! Our bodies are still on east coast time and Tina had to get to the airport ridiculously early. So, Kath and I made coffee and sat in bed to blog. For some reason this is incredibly funny to me: food bloggers in bed together….blogging.

I’m so lucky to have met such amazing friends through the blog! Kath and I have now traveled to Chicago, Boston and San Francisco together…..where to next?! Last night when we were all standing rooftop, sipping cocktails and looking out over San Francisco as the sun set, I couldn’t help but think this was pretty darn awesome. I LOVE this city!!!!!

Today is going to be hopefully quite relaxing! I’m meeting my cousin’s best friend, Tara, for brunch at Zuni at 11 and then heading back to BethT’s house to gather all my suitcases! Adam is picking me up there early this afternoon and then we are heading back up to Santa Rosa together since I’m sort of crashing his guest room for the next week until I move into my apartment. Thankfully I have some really good friends in the area already who are being so kind to take me in when I’m homeless!

Let the adventure continue!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 59 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dessert, Dinner, Snack, traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

And now a little humor for your Saturday…..

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Blogging live from BlogHer Food 09!

Everything is really, really interesting….especially all the photography workshops! It really makes me want to take the dslr plunge, that’s for sure. Now I just need an extra $700. Hah. I’ll also say though that today is completely overwhelming for me. I had a few moments where I had to sort of step aside because there’s just SO many people, so much stuff, so much food….and I have about a million and one thoughts racing through my head and…oh wait, I moved across the country yesterday. I need to sleeeeeeep!

I finally met the voice behind the Mushroom Channel, Jessi!

Kath and I write mushroom recipes for The Mushroom Channel monthly. Yay mushrooms!

Lunch was HUGE….had no idea it was a sit-down event and there was WINE!

I drank the sauvignon blanc….twas good! Both of the reds were too big for me but I liked the white!

Bertolli catered lunch today and Rocco DiSpirito made a guest appearance!

It was just okay. I’m not a big fan of heavy pasta at lunch and this sure was heavy. Lots of cream sauces and meat. I took tastes of each course though and ate all my salad!

Tina and I shared dessert!

So far I’ve attended: Developing Your Visual Voice with Heidi Swanson, Principles of Photography, and The Meaning of Identity and the Value of Voice in a Crowded Foodblogging World. We have little over an hour left here and then Kath, Tina and I are racing back to our hotel, doing a quick wardrobe change and then heading back to the St. Regis for the cocktail party followed by another after party later this evening. ahhhhh!

I’m strictly running on fumes right now and can’t wait until tomorrow afternoon when I can head back up to Sonoma and relax a little bit.

Lots more pictures to come….plus a vlog, perhaps?!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 29 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lunch, traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Hello!

I can’t believe I’m here!!!!!!!!!!

How weird to say goodbye to Florida and the whole east coast….I’ve lived in Florida for the past 17 years and have been on the east coast my entire life. Incredibly excited for this new adventure out west…. Thanks for coming along with me for the ride!

It was bittersweet saying goodbye to my parents yesterday morning…..here’s my dad and I in front of my new car right before heading to the airport!

My parents are packing up my car to the gills this weekend and then on Monday it’s being shipped off to the west coast. Crazy.

I waited until I was on the plane to eat a banana and then later in my flight I tried this new Amazing Grass bar + a honeycrisp apple:

ohmygosh this bar was soooooo good!!!!!! 12 grams of protein and absolutely delicious. Probably one of the best protein bars I’ve tried and I love the simple, easy to read ingredient list. These were just released at Whole Foods so look for them there….seriously delicious.

One of my friends from yoga made me this amaaaaazing mix tape for my journey. Think iron & wine, bon iver, the national, nico stai, tiny vipers and more. Very “chill” airplane music. He also gave me a book of inspiring life quotations by Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist. This one really hit me this morning as I was reading as my flight was taking off

whenever we need

to make a very important decision,

it is best to trust to impulse, to passion,

because reason usually tries

to remove us from our dream,

saying that the time is not yet right.

reason is afraid of defeat,

but intuition enjoys life and its challenges

Isn’t that awesome? I love this little book because I’m a quotation freak.

I made it to San Francisco right on time, changed my clothes and immediately got together with the fabulous BethT, who actually brought me CHAMPAGNE, chocolates, hummus and carrot sticks!!!

At the airport, I ate a veggie burrito the size of my head……..I was sooooooooo hungry!!!!!!

And then Kath and Tina arrived and we were off!!!! First stop to Beth’s house to drop off my whole life in suitcases and then we headed straight to Healdsburg and Michel Schlumberger!

I can’t believe I work here!!!

We totally got spoiled……right when we got there, us four girls were whisked away to taste some totally delicious Michel Schlumberger wines. I loved them all (and there were many!) and we took a total tour of the estate. Seriously one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been in my whole life. I feel like I’m on vacation and have to remind myself that I actually get to wake up and go here every day for work.

On Fridays there’s live music outside so after our tour we just sat, ate some delicious cheese and drank MORE wine!

Loved these cheeses……it was pretty much heaven on earth and everyone was so nice!

And, I got reunited with my Murphy-Goode friends!!!!!!!! It’s just so crazy to be back. Feels like just yesterday we were all meeting for the first time in July.

It’s so funny because now five of us live here out of the original top ten. Slowly but surely we are all trickling back in….I guess Sonoma does that to you; once it gets under you skin you never want to leave! I’m still pinching myself……I CAN’T BELIEVE I LIVE HERE!

As for dinner, we ate at Zin, which was totally fabulous. I love the whole concept of this restaurant—-everything on the menu is seasonal and all the produce is grown on the restaurant’s farm! Since everything looks so good, we just decided to order every one of the appetizers (hehe), split two more bottles of vino and I ordered a bowl of the butternut squash apple soup.

Everything was SO GOOD! I was so busy enjoying it all and catching up with friends that I really didn’t shoot as many food pictures as I should have….bad food blogger! Those little rolls are “figs in a blanket”, basically figs wrapped up in puff pastry……melted in my mouth.

And my soup, with lemon creme fraiche and bacon. This was divine. Y’all will have to refer to Kath and Tina’s blogs for more food pictures…they were much better at photo taking last night…!

At about 10:15 after all this delicious food and wine, we started to crash. Fast. What a whirlwind day!! The alarm this morning went off at 5:50 and we raced to get ready, head back to SF and make it to BlogHer Food 09 on time. Grabbed some quick breakfast at the hotel before jumping back in the car.

Banana, yogurt, hard boiled egg and peanut butter toast. I should have drank more water….feeling very dehydrated right now!

Finally……BlogHer Food 09!!!!!!!!

This is my first BlogHer conference and I am super impressed so far…..everything is so nice (obviously, since it’s at the St.Regis!) and I’m about to listen to my first session on developing your visual voice. Later, I’m attending a session on photography that I’m really excited about as well! Fun!

I ate a big plate of fresh fruit first thing:

Got to jet for the time being….laptop is about to die! Full BlogHer recap later!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 40 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Breakfast, dessert, Dinner, dinner out, friends, Lunch, musings, Snack, traveling, wine

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I made it!!!!!!!!! Reunited with Murphy-Goode friends and have had the most awesome afternoon and evening full of amazing food and wine. So, so, so tired now since I’ve been up for like 22 hours so please bear with me!

Up at 6:00 to drive back to San Francisco for BlogHer Food…….muuuuuch longer food and wine update to come tomorrow!

goodnight moon

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 41 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

This is what spending hours at the Honda dealership does to a girl:

But……in the end I bought my first car and on Monday it’s being shipped straight to Santa Rosa, FULL of my worldly belongings! wooooahhhhhhhhh

Okay, I’m just going to say it: I feel like a real adult now! I can’t believe I just BOUGHT my first car and am moving across the country tomorrow morning. My life! This actually works out really well though because I’m packing the car FULL of books, kitchen stuff, CLOTHES, shoes…heck, even a bedside table and bookshelf. Saves a lot of money to ship stuff and I’m killing two birds with one stone. I’m hoping to get my car by next Friday so keep your fingers crossed! She’s a brand new white honda civic…..Abby! How very “california” of me.

I snacked on this bar while I was at Honda all afternoon:

Drank some coconut water to rehydrate!

And when I finally got home tonight my parents and I FINALLY uncorked my precious bottle of Cambria, which I have been coveting ever since I took the trip down to the Cambria Estate last July! When I was there, I was told I could pick any bottle I wanted to take home with me and I’ve been just staring at this gorgeous pinot noir for months now, waiting for the right time to finally open it…….well, tonight was the night!

Was it ever good. This might have been one of the BEST pinot noirs I’ve ever had. The three of us each had a *large* glass and toasted to my new adventure! I totally got the “go seize life” pep talk from the parents and can’t believe I’m about to embark out on my own for the first real time. I feel like in the past six months I’ve grown up soooo much and can’t even believe that, actually, five months today my brother passed away. I’m here to tell you that life can change in a very instant! Never in a million years could I have predicted this but I’m hanging on for dear life and taking it as it comes….life is meant to be experienced and I have to think my brother would think me moving to California would be pretty darn cool. I’ll admit, I’ve always had a pretty comfortable life with my parents living nearby to catch me if I fall….and I had the privilege of moving back in with them last month and living rent free for awhile. Well, friends, no more. If my food is less exciting, that’s because I might be dirt poor and picking vegetables from the garden. I also might be homesick laying on my floor drinking wine but it’s all good. And hopefully first I can actually FIND a home because as of right now I’m just staying with friends until the apartment thing pulls through, which it hopefully will next week. Sometimes I feel like my life is a country song, no?

Anyways, for dinner I requested my favorite meal—linguine with escarole and brie from Bon Appetit!

I’m still packing and packing up my car to be shipped but here’s how tomorrow will go down:

Flight leaves Tampa at 6:50 am

Get into Houston at 9 am

Get into San Francisco (!!!!) at 11 am

Meet Kath, Tina and the fabulous BethT at the airport and Beth is driving us straight to Healdsburg (new home!) where our destination will be my new place of employment, Michel Schlumberger! We are meeting Jim (new boss!) there and he is giving us a total tour the winery and vineyards….plus lots of tasting. There’s live music at the winery in the early evening and we have a 7:30 dinner reservation at Zin! We are staying the night in Healdsburg tomorrow night and then getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and driving back to San Francisco for BlogHer food!

***

Wheeeeeeeeeewwwwww!!!!! Don’t worry, I’ll be twittering and blogging, of course…..plus there may be a little FlipCam action that has already started so stay tune for a VLOG as well!

Tons of loose ends to tie up…..I’ve gotta kiss Dexter about a million times because I think my parents are just going to bring him out to me when they come for Thanksgiving. ahh! I know he’s in good hands though and he soon will love California, too.

Bye,bye Florida…………Hello, California!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 124 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dinner, dinner by mom, Snack, traveling, wine

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Well guys, I can’t seem to keep this a secret for too much longer……I’ve been bursting at the seams here!!

I’m moving to California!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve accepted a position as Tasting Room and Tour Associate and Event Coordinator for Michel Schlumberger Wine Estate in Healdsburg and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Michel Schlumberger is a family run and all organic winery in the most gorgeous place on Earth that I know. I’m so excited to join their team and start this new adventure and I look forward to taking y’all along with me for the crazy ride!

And here’s the kicker: I move Friday…as in the day after tomorrow. Yep, going out to BlogHer Food 09 and not coming back. It’s sort of a huge leap of faith but I’m totally ready for it.

As you can imagine, things are a bit crazy around here as I pack my life into two suitcases:

And I’m shipping my books and kitchen appliances out there in a few weeks once I get settled.

Craziness. That’s all I have to say. And, there might be even MORE surprises especially for you guys coming soon

Fasten your seat belt…..it’s going to be an ADVENTURE!!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 374 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Hey y’all!!!

Sorry for being gone for so long but the past 24 hours has been SO busy and I haven’t gotten a chance to even crack open my laptop. I had SUCH a wonderful time though with my girlfriends at Deeper Still. Beth Moore was absolutely fantastic and so were Priscilla and Kay. It was awesome because each of the three of us felt like we got something very particular and special out of a certain talk that seemed just destined for our ears this weekend. I’m so thankful for my friends and for getting to attend such a positive event!

Of course we ate some awesome food as well!

There was a plethora of coffee:

Yesterday’s dinner was at Dandelion.…one of my very favorite Orlando veggie places that I used to frequent when I lived there. Naturally though, I got lost and Caitlin had to talk me through downtown Orlando! When we finally got there, I had a bowl of the veggie chili and one of these summer rolls—

The summer rolls are stuffed with all sorts of shredded veggies and served with some sort of almond butter ginger dipping sauce. Delicious!

Another awesome perk of the little trip was that, unknowingly, we scored a suite at The Sheraton! Sarah apparently had points or something and since all three of us girls were crashing in one room, it was so nice to have a little more space. I actually slept better last night than I’ve slept in a really long time. Maybe I just needed to get out of town??!

This morning we woke up and immediately headed to Panera to grab some breakfast that was cheaper than the hotel’s before the conference started again. I got my old school college favorite—a toasted whole grain bagel with low fat cream cheese. And hazelnut coffee. So good.

We say: Eat your bagels!!

There were 10,600 women attending the conference. It was INSANE! And a major estrogen fest. I’m in need of a sports bar or college football or something….haha

And look, Anne, I FOUND JOURNEY!!!!!!!!!

(Anne and I have this humorous ongoing joke about “finding Journey” since when at a bar in Tampa last month the band claimed they didn’t know “Don’t Stop Believing” and we were crushed beyond belief. What band doesn’t know Journey??!)

Oh y’all know how much I would love to go back and see AC DC and Journey in concert on Wednesday night. That would be incredible. And crazy. Anne, road trip?! hahaha

To save some $$, us girls packed our lunches and sat outside at the lake during a break to eat. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat and another fruit strip!

And a few hours later I totally ripped into my bar while Beth was teaching on stage.

+ a Vitamin water!

We decided to scoot out before the panel Q&A because, well, Orlando traffic is totally insane and especially when there are almost 11,000 women trying to get out of a parking garage at once. No thanks. We were SO happy we left a little early and were able to get home quickly.

My mom had dinner waiting for me!

Salad with goddess dressing and homemade tomato basil proscuitto lasagna from a reallyyyy old school Cooking Light issue! I actually went back for seconds because the lasagna was THAT good! Also, I had a small glass of Cabernet. It was lovely.

***

Currently watching some college football with my daddy. I’m just itching to go to a game this season but sadly I don’t think it’s in the cards. I LOVE college football games!

See you in the morning!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 37 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dinner, Faith, friends, girls night, Lunch, traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

We made it!! Had some twists and turns with lack of directions, crazy traffic, one-ways (don’t ask), no cash……but hey, I brought cookies so it was all okay in the end.

SO tired. Be back with a full update tomorrow!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Faith, girls nights, traveling

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh