Yosemite

Farmer Jeff and I are safely home after having spent a heavenly 3 nights/4 days in Yosemite at the Ahwahnee Hotel for the “Chef’s Holidays” series. There was very little snow on the ground when we arrived but then it snowed on Wednesday during the day. It melted right away, but it was pretty magnificent to be standing in the “great room” next to my honey as he was demonstrating…and see it snowing through the very tall windows. It was not until that very moment that I realized I didn’t bring the camera with me!!!

It snowed through Wednesday night and when we awoke the next morning it was snowy…and sunny! We took a 2 hour hike in the snow to Mirror Lake, but must have taken 60 pictures in the 2 hours! It was breath-taking!


The great surprise for me was discovering that we would see my best friend from cooking school (whom I have not seen for 20 years!), Jerry Traunfeld! He is a now famous chef at a place just outside of Seattle, the Herbfarm. He has just published his 2nd book and has quite the following.


One of the other highlights: we were able to meet and hang out with Sondra (from the girl and the fig in Sonoma) and John McReynolds of Café LaHaye in Sonoma and his sweet German wife, Brigitta. We all had dinner together on Wednesday and swapped stories. I discovered connections to both Sondra and John. Too funny!

We drove home through the Central Valley, childhood home of Farmer Jeff, and we able to swing by a Mexican market to pick up some wonderful pork tamales! Once we arrived home we gobbled up the tamales and Farmer Jeff became Carpenter Jeff! I had given him the “go-ahead” to tear up the closet in our bedroom…which he started with gusto!

As I told the folks in Yosemite…Farmer Jeff never stops! Well, maybe every once in a while!