"Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast"

I would quote Katy Perry.

I know I'm crazy slow/behind on this, but I've been majorly busy this past week. School's ending so my tutoring hours are up and the Dbacks are in the middle of a pretty big homestand, which means lots of hours on my part.

And it's hard to believe that April is GONE already! It feels like it was just my birthday yesterday... or three weeks ago. As quickly as that came and went, my sister and her boyfriend paid a visit to Arizona and we hung out for a long weekend. Doing a lot of this:

and also some of this on the side:

I'll spare you the gory details, but know that I am on a bit of a booze detox as we speak ;) Oh, the baseball is still raging though, seeing as how that's my job and all!

It just so worked out that my sister planned her flight home the same day I was considering going home for Easter! We took the same flight home and I had a few days to hang out with old friends and family. You know I spent my first night in the Bay Area attending an Oakland A's baseball game.

Then on Wednesday, I kept in contact with Courtney (Pancakes and Postcards) and we finally met up! It made sense seeing as how she just moved to San Francisco and I've called its suburbs home for the past 25 years.

We met up at La Mar Cebicheria, an interesting Peruvian restaurant on Pier 1.5. Due to a lack of planning on our part -- seriously though, how is anything in a big city closed after 6 p.m. on a weekday?! -- we had to settle for seating at the bar area. What's funny is how much we have in common, from where our families grew up to living abroad, to hating to take pictures of our food and only doing so with an iPhone. It was awesome and reminded me of how much I still miss California.

In case you're wondering, I had the ensalada tiradito, which consisted of the following: thinly sliced Tombo Tuna with mixed greens, green papaya, cilantro, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, fried wontons and onions with a sesame passionfruit vinaigrette. Although my liver wasn't adventurous enough to try a the house Pisco sour, Courtney was. I opted for a milder, chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc instead.

On Thursday, my travels took me to the South Bay where I had lunch at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino and then met up with a friend in San Jose. I'll start with Apple: that place is amazing and efficient I'd imagine. The lunch buffet was fresh and varied, but more importantly, delicious. I guess it pays to keep your employees happy and healthy over a long period of time, doesn't it?! ;)

Salad bar and fresh-squeezed fruit and veggie juice, so good!

Oh and now I am the proud new owner of a pretty phone case à la Kate Spade.

Apple is pretty close to where one of my friends lives so we met up and hung out for a few hours in San Jose until my dad could pick me up and take me home after work. We headed straight to Santana Row for -- you guessed it -- cocktails (and lunch for Brian). After a quick stop at a Mexican restaurant, it was off to this cute little wine bar where I found myself ordering champagne cocktails. A great idea if you ask me!!

Then in the tradition of our friendship, we took silly pictures in stores. No this was not alcohol-induced; we'd done this many times during work lunches when I still lived in Stockton. Now you know a little more about how odd I am :)

Killing our last hour of time to end the day, we snuck around on the Winchester Mystery House grounds and took a "free" tour. Brian had never been before, and I think I went back when I was in Girl Scouts. It's pretty freakin' weird/creepy. I mean, the residence of any woman who's possessed enough to believe that continually adding on to her mansion so the haunted ghosts don't kill her but dies anyways sounds like a great museum/tourist attraction, right?! (Read here if I just sparked your curiosity). Plus, it's got a door to nowhere and I think that's neat:

But they really have done a beautiful job of restoring the mansion since the late 1800s.

There, now you're all caught up to my infamous first wine tasting trip to Sonoma :) Easter was spent up in the Sacramento area with family, stuffing our faces and looking for money-stuffed plastic eggs! Until the early evening, when I had to fly back to Arizona.

It was a much-needed break to go home and visit with friends and family! I can't wait until my next trip home... Hopefully there'll be some of that familiar California sun next time. Although, the 80-90 degree weather here in Arizona sure makes up for my week of rain and fog :)

Week 16: Wine Tasting in Sonoma

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 16th post in the series, when I went wine tasting in Sonoma, California, with my family. Here you can find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

While I lived in California for nearly 25 years, I don't think I've ever been wine tasting in Sonoma. I've sampled wines in Lodi, Santa Barbara, Livermore and of course, Napa. But never the neighboring city of Sonoma! Not to mention all the wines I've sipped in Europe ;)

So during my second-to-last day here in California, my family and I did just that!

We kind of stopped at the bottom of the Sonoma County wineries trail and made our way up to the plaza in downtown Sonoma. First up, Cline Cellars and Jacuzzi Family Vineyards. Two wineries across the street and owned by the same people.

Earlier in the morning, I voiced my opinion to hit up some places with sparkling wine, so we drove a few feet up the road to Gloria Ferrer Winery. Once there, all five of us split five different flutes of sparkling wine, peppered salami and a demi-baguette. Since seating was so limited (or should I say since everyone and their mom decided to go wine tasting today!), we made friends with a couple from Colorado who invited us to sit at their empty table.

It was at this point when I couldn't help but make comparisions to my wine tasting trip to Provence with my dad back in April of 2008 -- when we both lived in France. We visited Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Orange and Avignon, eating our way around the pays. That was one of my favorite birthday presents :) I'll share this year's goodies with you all in an upcoming post.

Back to the Sonoma trip. After sampling sparkling wine -- whose bottles contained 40,000 bubbles! -- we drove across the street and stopped at Cornerstone, an collection of wine tasting, restaurants, boutiques, art collections and gardens. Oh yeah, and a sweet giant chair I wanted to take pictures on immediately.

This was the result of an inside joke between my sister, her boyfriend and myself. Can we say, new Facebook picture?! Way too much fun.

After playing around on the Cornerstone grounds, we left for the plaza to grab some lunch, and of course, more vino. We ate lunch at the Plaza Bistro, my mom and I split moules-frites (mussels and fries) and salmon poached crepes with saffron creme and poached asparagus.

After lunch, the exploring began. And I you should be proud to learn I FINALLY caved and bought pastry bags/tips. Be prepeared for some baking to take place once I'm back in Arizona! ;)

Lastly, I snapped some pictures of the mission in Sonoma (that took me back to elementary school when I had to build a replica of Mission San Luis Obispo in fourth grade), City Hall and some cute little ducks :)

It was so worth it to make the hour drive up to wine country with my family! In my opinion, Sonoma wineries are much more fun than their Napa counterparts. And hardly any of the wineries in Sonoma charge for tasting. Way more my style.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some packing to do. Easter with the family tomorrow and then they ship me back off to the land of 90-degree temperatures. Happy Easter :)

Caketini Cupcakes!

It's no secret I have a raging sweet tooth. And it's no secret I freakin' looooove cupcakes -- who doesn't (see here and here for starters)?!

Why it took me eight months to learn there is an amazing cupcake bakery just around the corner is beyond me. I've tried two bakeries/coffee shops in my town on different occasions and have had mixed feelings. The all cupcake place was a flop. And the coffee shop whose owner won on Cupcake Wars had much better scones and drinks than its limited selection of 'cakes.

Now you understand why I haven't really been buying cupcakes like they're going out of style here. But now I'm not sure I can continue saying that.

Nestled on the outskirts of a cute outdoor mall sits family-owned Caketini. The cupcake display will draw you in and the flavors (and possibly Espresso bar) will keep you coming back! I'm not joking when I say this was one of the best, cupcakes I've sunk my teeth into in a very long time. It certainly takes the cake (ha) for the best tasting cupcakes in the area!

Alright so what is all this fuss about?! For starters, the Key Lime Pie cupcake. I was stuck between two flavors (that or the Orange Blossom) and the girl working the cash register told me I should hands down go for the Key Lime.

Bless her little heart.

For J.D. I picked up the Cookies 'n' Cream cupcake, which had a buttercream frosting that literally tasted like the inside of an Oreo cookie, with cookie crumbs and a simple chocolate cake.

Back to me. I mean, my cupcake.

Not only was I pleasantly surprised with the cake inside, but the frosting also blew me over. You see, it wasn't your typical flavored frosting with a boring chocolate/vanilla cake base. The actual cake tasted of lime, it was light and zesty and delicious.

And surprisingly green!

The buttercream frosting hid most of the tartiness. As J.D. pointed out, they played with the traditional meringue topping via the frosting and turned it into a tart but rich addition to adorn the cupcake. And let's not forget about the graham cracker lined "crust."

Perfection. But will I be going back for another $3.75 cupcake?!

With a menu full of hard decisions (see for yourself), including the best cupcake I may have ever tasted, you can bet my penny-pinching ass is coming back! :) Pardon my French.

After this life-changing experience, I think it's about time I get to working on baking gourmet cupcakes from scratch, and not out of a box...

Homemade Pulled Pork

Since moving to Arizona, the crock pot hasn't come out of hiding in over eight months! Thinking of this fact, and also my longing for some pulled pork, we bought some pork loin at Target last weekend. Slow-cooked pulled pork was in the near future.

Ingredients:

• A generous cut of pork loin/shoulder
• 12 oz. cola
• large white onion, quartered
• chopped carrots
• 1 T minced garlic
• 1 c water
• 2 bay leaves
• pepper and cumin for seasoning

Crock pot meals are the easiest things in the world. I basically seasoned the meat, placed it in the bottom of the slow cooker and put the remaining ingredients on top. With the lid in place, I set the concoction to medium and let it simmer away for about six hours.

When ready to prepare, strain the meat from the liquid (be careful to keep the entire cut of meat intact) and place on a large cutting board. Using two forks, shred or pull the pork into bite-sized pieces.

And that, my friends, is it! Now it is ready for whatever preparation you choose! Since you're here, I'll show you two of the ways we've eaten this pulled pork :)

Carnitas Nachos (for lunch & dinner)

...and BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches

To transform into BBQ pork, simply fill a pot with enough pork to prepare two sandwiches. Top with 1/4 of a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce and let it heat up together at your desired temperature/consistency.

Famous Dave's BBQ sauce is a personal favorite! For a sweet kick, try the Apricot Bourbon BBQ sauce. My mouth is watering thinking about it.

Easy, delicious and this yielded enough meat for at least four meals (for two people)! We're going to be eating pulled pork for days.

...Or until I leave for California on Tuesday. Then I'll probably have J.D. throw out whatever remains. And by "throw out" I don't mean into Woodstock's mouth.

I don't have much money, but boy if I did...

...I wouldn't buy a big house. That's just silly. Why do you ask? (Stick with it, I promise this is going somewhere fancy).

Do you watch Glee? I noticed last week that Season 1 was now streaming on Netflix and what do you think I did all weekend?! (Note, I started watching Glee during the Season 1 finale and into Season 2 because I am sort of in love with Idina Menzel)

Well, after watching nearly 20 episodes in a span of four-to-five days, I've become OBSESSED with one of the characters, Emma Pillsbury:

She's so cute and I loooooove her wardrobe. I literally want to revamp my closet and dress like her. Well, speaking of my closet, here are some sensible purchases I've made over the past month. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been doing some serious thrift shopping and New York & Co. had a major 50 percent off sale on the ENTIRE store. So no, I did not pay full price for the following items:

Merona Women's Artist V-Neck Cardigan Sweater - Grape Lollipop

Target, $24.99 full price

City Linen Flare Pant

New York & Company, $39.95 full price

Contrast Bandage Dress

Forever 21, $24.80 full price

Now let's play a fun game called if I had money to spend, these are things I would buy (aka Monique's fashion wishlist, which will probably never come to fruition, but it's fun to pretend!):

ANTHROPOLOGIE

Pinwheel Tank

Anthropologie, $68

Wrap Around Blouse

Anthropologie, $68

En Plein Air Dress

Anthropologie, $258

Sunny Soiree Dress

Anthropologie, $148

J CREW

Accordion Dress in Super 120s

J Crew, $250

KATE SPADE

Kati Pineapple Cardigan

Kate Spade, $195

Hearts and Flowers Grace Top

Kate Spade, $195

Sunny Kolette Skirt

Kate Spade, $295

All Wrapped Up Pearls Short Necklace

Kate Spade, $128

WHITE HOUSE | BLACK MARKET

Rose Print Full-Skirt Dress

WHBM, $158

Shell Full Skirt

WHBM, $84

Lightweight Ruffled Jacket

WHBM, $98

Floral Appliqued Cardigan

WHBM, $88

Faux-Patent Bow Espadrille Wedge

WHBM, $88

Many of these pieces/outfits I would NEVER have looked at before. It's a very librarian look, but I am literally obsessed and can't get enough! Thank you, Miss Pillsbury. Oh to have a full-time job and money to burn... :)