The Last Eleven, #2 and #3: Tablas Creek Vineyard, Espirit de Tablas, Paso Robles 2016 and Mumm Napa
I freaking love apples in the fall. You can take the girl out of New England, but you certainly can't take the obsession with autumn out of the girl.
So when I went home to Connecticut in September, it only stood to reason that I'd go apple picking. I decided to bring back a ton (technically 14 pounds) of apples so that I could make all of my favorite fall apple desserts to share with my San Fransiscan friends because let's face it, California's apples can't hold a candle to New England's. I invited everyone from work and several others totaling about 20 people, hoping to spread the joy of real fresh fall apples as far as I could.
I spent the whole day baking. I made apple muffins, apple pie, apple frangipane tart, mulled apple cider, apple fritters, and kettle corn to really round out the state-fair theme. Somehow I still remember thinking that I wasn't sure there would be quite enough food, but I had run out of apples by then so it would have to do.
Luckily there was plenty! Because only 4 people showed up. Womp womp. But on the plus side, they were the best people I could have hoped for.
One of the friends that came brought a Champagne and this Paso Robles wine. This was despite the fact I had texted her earlier once everyone started cancelling to let her know that it was basically a dud of a party now and she didn't have to come. She said she wanted to anyway, and I'm glad she did. The Champagne was awesome and although we didn't get to the red, it's been sitting in my collection as a nice memento of the night that four wonderful people came through for me. One of my favorite things about baking is sharing my creations with others, and these people let me do that. I will love them forever for it.
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I ended up popping that bottle open a few days ago with two of my good friends/coworkers (including the one who brought me the bottle) and a couple of complete strangers. Or not really complete strangers because we had known them for few hours at this point, but I digress. It was a somm from another restaurant that had come by our bar towards the end of a Saturday night and his friends that joined him shortly after. They chatted us up and seemed like really cool people, so once we closed we met up with them at the bar around the corner. Eventually 2am rolled around so the bar closed, but we were having such a great time it seemed too early to call it a night. Luckily my roommates were all out of town for the weekend so I invited everyone back to my house. We opened the Espirit de Tablas as well as the Mumm Napa; I even snapped into hostess mode and threw together a batch of my famous homemade boozy hot cocoa as a nightcap.
We played some games and just hung out laughing until nearly 4am. A little crazy? Yes. Something I do regularly? Definitely not. Had a great time anyway? Damn right! Sometimes it's fun to just keep saying "yes" to see where it takes you--that's what your 20s are for, right? In this case, it took me to a delicious Paso Robles wine, a very average sparkling one, and two new friends. It doesn't get much better than that.