Lunch at Naramata Inn
My muffin top has transformed this week into a full-on three-tiered wedding cake-top. (With me playing the girl bursting out of the top of the cake, if you can envision it – or at least bursting out of my capris.) But each tier is so totally worth it.
To refresh your memory, I’m at the Okanagan Food and Wine Writers’ Workshop – the first annual – a small group of 11 attendees plus a handful of presenters (me, Taryn, Michele and Craille) and Food Girl (Wonder Woman`s culinary cousin), who pulled this all together. The food is sublime. I mean truly-not just some of it, all of it, with wine always following close behind. (And before. And during. And after.) I’m going to crash head-on into food withdrawl tomorrow at around lunchtime. I’ve also just realized I haven’t made dinner in over a week. So not complaining.
Forgive me for backtracking here, but I just can’t keep up, and have to linger a bit over each venue to avoid diluting them all. Let me preface this by expressing publicly how IDIOTIC I am to have driven through the Okanagan approximately once a year for I don’t know, MY ENTIRE LIFE and not once curled around the bottom of the Okanagan Lake and paid a visit to Naramata.
Lunch today was received on the backyard patio of the century-old Naramata Inn, at the end of main street Naramata. (If you`ve never been, it`s a town totally worth poking around – they have a general store where you can procure fantastic local wines and a bag of sour gummy worms, and there`s a small grassy park and beach a few blocks away.) The tiny hotel itself, which back in its day was a girls`school, is something out of an old American sitcom or romantic comedy- the idyllic quaint-country-inn setting of a couple`s first weekend away together, where hilarity (or drama, or romantic angst) ensues.
For lunch they brought out warm rock oven-baked focaccia with olive oil and salt, with platters of local tomatoes, plums, trocedero melons, chantrelle mushrooms, purple basil from their garden, Poplar Grove double cream camembert, dry cured bison, shinkenspeck, bruleed chicken pate and duck rillette. We drank house-made sparkling cider and an `07 Reserve Chardonnay from Joie. Then two of us shared crispy chicken under a brick (served on polenta, with cubes of sweet potato) and a roasted squash and chicken pizza topped with fresh basil.
Dinner was at Township 7, but seeing as it`s five to one in the morning, you`ll have to wait for that installment. I can`t rush this one.
And also? I dropped $100 today on 8 bottles of vinegar. Don`t tell Mike.
September 20 2009 12:04 am | eating out
thepinkpeppercorn on 20 Sep 2009 at 5:45 am #
Food looks SO good!!! And well hey, wedding cakes are more valuable than cupcakes or muffins!!!!! I don’t think that sounds quite the way I want it to, but you get the idea. And well, yesterday when you said you spent $100 on vinegar, I thought you meant only 1 bottle. Hey at least it’s on 8 bottles!!!!
pauline on 20 Sep 2009 at 6:00 am #
Not a word Julie, us girls stick together.
Erica B. on 20 Sep 2009 at 9:35 am #
my lips are sealed
Natalie (Georgia) on 20 Sep 2009 at 4:38 pm #
You are too funny.
I knew you weren’t going to like Vegas. You are just too classy. So much more fun to read about these delightful places. It reminds me of the wonderful food we found (and beautiful setting) in the English countryside. My husband ordered mushrooms as a side. I am not a huge mushroom fan, BUT these mushrooms were almost as good as chocolate. They were THAT good. I think I ate most of them. And the cheese….. oh, so delightful.
Carol SB on 20 Sep 2009 at 6:48 pm #
I Love the idea of crispy chicken under a brick. I love the NAME of crispy chicken under a brick. I also love the photo… How in the world would you go about making it? Wouldn’t it be fun to invite folks over to my house to enjoy this; can you imagine being able to ask, “Hey, can I pass you some crispy chicken under a brick?”
Seriously, this looks some delicious. Is it possible that some really good $12.50/ bottle vinegar (Which is VERY reasonable, and a good way of stimulating the local economy besides) could be used in the making of this? Would you be willing to pick some up, for research purposes?
{kiss my spatula} on 20 Sep 2009 at 9:35 pm #
lovely post – the photos are just incredible. i want to be there!
Barb on 21 Sep 2009 at 6:05 am #
It’s not only the travelling but knowing where to stop and, once you do, what to order. You have the knack. Right down to making the best of the bad choices!
Cheryl Arkison on 21 Sep 2009 at 7:18 am #
Mike may have noticed the box taking up space in the car…
Evelyn on 21 Sep 2009 at 9:23 pm #
Mmm, Poplar Grove Harvest Moon cheese. I wish they’d ship that stuff into Alberta.
And I think that with food that fresh and grown locally, it can’t add to anyone’s muffintop. Except maybe the creamy cheeses. And perhaps the quantity that I’m capable of eating. And the wine. Right, that can’t be good. Good for you, I mean. It all looks mighty good.