Read a book recently that I meant to tell you about – The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman. Let me stress that it is not a business book, but more of a sociology book of sorts. It is thought provoking and pretty insightful as to how many people in the States pretty much contradict themselves in terms of how they perceive Wal-Mart. Anyway read it and tell us your thoughts as Marc and I both read the book.
So Marc and I had about 3 days to recover from Hurricane Sally before we headed down to Sonoma and Napa for Memorial Day weekend. For Marc's birthday, we took a class at the CIA (no, not that CIA but at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone (Napa Valley)) that focused on Food and Wine pairing. OK before the abuse starts along the lines of "Jill, this sounds like the equivalent of a guy buying lingerie for his wife or girlfriend", I get it and will admit that I definitely benefitted from this gift. There, I admitted it. Done. That being said, Marc and I both learned a lot and I'll let him share his thoughts on the 2-day class.
As for me, it was a tiring class! For 2-days, you are constantly being asked to consider the validity of different food and wine combinations by actually tasting it all. I'm not saying that the class was so tiring that I would have preferred to be back at work, but here is an example of one of the exercises:
You have 4 different wines – Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. And the chefs brought out chicken prepared 5 or 6 different ways – poached, baked, grilled, braised, smoked, and some other way I can't remember. That leads to 24 different combinations to taste and analyze….. in 15 minutes! You have to pace yourself about ensuring you spit out some of the wine (otherwise you would be wasted by 11am – I'll have to talk about Marc's early wine tasting days and the impact of him not spitting out wine when he tried about 15-20 glasses at a charity event). You have to ensure that you do not let the previous flavor combination impact the next one you taste.
All in all, it was great fun and we learned a lot. Most importantly, we met a number of really cool people in the class who were all taking the class for different reasons. They all had some great perspectives to share. 
While we were in Napa, we had the pleasure of dining at Auberge du Soleil (Marc went for the tasting menu!! And it was a fabulous meal with perfect weather – see picture above), Bouchon (Always excellent; the pistachio pot de crème was awesome, and the dessert wines sent out courtesy of the bartender were really nice!) and Terra (Loved the foie
gras ravioli – YUM). Take a look at the picture on the right – you'll notice that Marc was stuck putting on chef pants at Terra since the dress code does not allow for men to wear shorts, but oddly enough they allowed me to wear my baseball cap.
I'll pass the baton to Marc to discuss the Sonoma part of our trip as well as his thoughts from the class. Mr. WaterClown – you're on! J