My friend Sean Timberlake, founder of the beautiful Punk Domestics canning and preservation blog, has been leading hands-on culinary tours to Italy since 2012.  He has two coming up, 10/8/15–10/14/15 and 1/14/16–1/20/16, based out of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. These are can’t miss experiences for those of you who love diving deep into food
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My second post for Localwise’s blog went up last week. This one draws a fair bit from my recent visits to urban wineries Urban Legend and Jeff Cohn Cellars, with fellow wine writer Peter Nowack of Bung R. Cooper. Knowing there were a few other urban wineries in easy walking distance of the Jack London
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It’s been three weeks since I was invited to brunch at the Cavalier in downtown San Francisco, hosted by Tablehopper Marcia Gagliardi and the Food Should Taste Good (FSTG) snack food brand. It’s never too late to write about great food, right? The brunch was part of FSTG’s national promotional tour that’s been challenging star
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I stayed over in San Luis Obispo for a day after the end of the 2014 Wine Bloggers Conference—I needed the time just to decompress and organize my thoughts before heading all the way back home. And I apparently needed to take a tour of Mission San Luis Obispo for some inspiration. I love discovering
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I love murals. As with all art, however, I don’t understand the history or technique of what I’m gaping at, so I was excited when my friend invited me to check out the Precita Eyes Muralists tour with her. Precita Eyes is an association of artists who work with the San Francisco Mission community to
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My first visit to Sonoma took place a few days before Thanksgiving 2013. It was a quick jaunt into the winery-laden countryside not so far from San Francisco. The downtown area is very cute, full of alleyways and courtyards that hide a range of stores and tasting rooms. Of course, I managed to eat and
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It’s nearly six months later, but I’m finally finishing up my photo blogs for our Amelia Island trip last May. Because I’ve only had one short vacation since then, it doesn’t actually feel that long ago that Ben and I wandered the streets of downtown Fernandina Beach, though we live on the other coast now.
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Back in the fall, I spent a few days at TOPO Distillery’s facilities as part of the Terra VITA Sustainable Classroom. It was a strange sort of torture being so close to their organic, 99.6% local (more on that later) array of spirits that includes white whiskey, vodka, and gin. So I asked Esteban McMahan,
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One of my goals before we move is to hit up a few North Carolina heritage sights I’ve wanted to explore but have never gotten around to before now. One was checked off the list on Memorial Day when my friend Ellen invited us to join her at Bennett Place in Durham. What’s Bennett Place?
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After a great brunch, Ben and I decided to take a stroll around the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson also designed most of the notable architecture on the main campus, which is where we took that stroll. No official tour; we went where the pretty buildings and Ben’s Ingress portals called.
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