Angie & Stu
We met teaching skiing & quickly discovered food was a conduit to what we enjoyed. Our first trip to Moab was not like most other new relationships. We planned our hike out to Delicate Arch via the food & wine we would enjoy when we got there. Like everyone else, we did the hour long trek in, but when we got there, we set up a picnic of fine cheeses, olives, imported salami & of course, a Pinot Noir. Looking around at the other people eating their granola bars (probably wishing they had done what we did and some of them saying so!), we savored the sunset with our amazing bounty.
That set the stage for our life together. Within the first year, Angie made her first trip to Australia, flying into Melbourne where we experienced a lot of my friends’ restaurants, and I flew to San Fran for a long weekend of wine tasting up at St Helena & Napa. It was true love and worth the long distance romance for a while.
Food, Wine & Travel play an integral part in our lives. We not only enjoy dining out, we both enjoy cooking too, me just “winging it” & Angie enjoying recipes, from friends or books, so we’re not cooking compatible. One of us usually watches while the other prepares dinner, because our differing styles drive each other nuts. 🙂 What we both agree on in the kitchen is how much fun it can be trying to reproduce food from our travels, so we can keep enjoying the trips and bring more flavor to our memories.
For the sake of what are we starting this blog?
We enjoy sharing the foods & memories of our travels with friends over dinners, and inevitably, they would be going or have friends going to those places and ask for our recommendations. We’ve written a lot of emails and texts sharing our favs from places we’ve been! So we decided to just collect and share our lists in a blog so anyone can share and enjoy them, whether you are traveling to that country, or just want to see it thru our eyes, and palates. (That’s for you, Mom & Dad since you say you don’t want to go to some of the places we do!).
It’s funny, and like the Alannis Morisette song, isn’t it ironic that we can go to SugarFish in LA with their iconic warm rice sushi and the waiter greets us as if we live down the street, and even remembers what wine we usually drink? When he found out we don’t live down the road but in Utah, he was amazed, laughed, and said we’re welcome anytime. While we like to try new places, when we find one we really like, we’re loyal.
And that leads to a word of warning: Last year on a layover in Amsterdam, we walked into a restaurant we had really enjoyed the year before. The decor had changed: the racy nude paintings was gone. The chairs were different. The giant Christmas tree was not there, even though it was early December. We knew it felt different, but we were hungry (almost hangry), so we sat down anyway. The menu was different, which is not necessarily unusual. But while the restaurant had the same name on the outside, everything was different inside, with different owners. It just wasn’t the same quality of food and service as the year before: the mussels were slightly bland, the waiter forgot our salad and water, and we will not be going back next time.
As we write this, we’re sipping a glass of wine, watching the sun set over the beautiful Park City hills. If you’ve been somewhere we suggest, but you’re not feeling it, politely walk out and find somewhere else. And, if it’s still good, tell us. Because food and travel are best when shared.
Cheers
Angie & Stu
(Guess i’m gonna have to do an LA blog now, because everyone should try warm sushi rice…)
