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| Cheers, Doristas, from Peachy Canyon! |
Last weekend, we went to visit Mary Hirsch in her snowbird home in Cambria. Her beautiful, spacious house sits right on top of Moonstone Beach. You can hear the waves and watch seabirds fly by all day long. We arrived on Friday night. After a good night’s rest and a leisurely breakfast, we headed east to the Zinfandel and Other Wild Wines Festival in Paso Robles. After a 20 minute drive through the beautiful, rolling hills, we arrived at Peachy Canyon where we liked everything we tasted. Mary couldn’t resist buying a bottle of Ms Behave!
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| Mary riding the tractor-pulled trailer to the top pf the hill at Opolo. |
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| Enjoying the summer weather in Paso! |
Then, we visited Tablas Creek, Halter Ranch, Adeleida, and Opolo. Most of them had delicious tapas and snacks to enjoy with their wines. Each of these wineries is top notch and you can’t go wrong choosing one of their wines. It was a perfect summer-like day and we had a wonderful time. After we drove back to Cambria, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the Sea Chest Restaurant. After another wonderful Dorista reunion, we made plans for next year, hugged Mary & headed for home with a trunk full of wine!
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| Scallops atop caramelized onions and bacon over puff pastry |
This week’s French Fridays With Dorie challenge is for Scallop and Onion Tartes Fines. I wish I could tell you how much we loved this dish but the truth is, we found it lacking in flavor. We like all of the components individually and really thought they could come together to create something delicious. It just didn’t work for us. The only change we made to the recipe was to cut the puff pastry into squares instead of circles.
The tartes looked a little blah when we took them out of the oven so we drizzled them with Garlic Olive Oil which made them a little better. I only wish we’d had the foresight to chop a bunch of fresh herbs to sprinkle on top of them.
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| We served the tartes with a hearty red butter lettuce salad with Lemon Olive Oil Vinaigrette. |
What we were thrilled with, though was the Cognac Caramel Apple Tart Tatin John made with the extra sheet of puff pastry!
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| The spoils of the day! |
I wish I could have crashed your party! Such fun!!! Sorry the tartes fell short….mine were yummy, but it was hard to convince any family members to partake.
Oh I am SO glad you included all these photos and the details about your visit to Mary- such fun !! And love that she bought a bottle of Ms Behave. Too funny 🙂 I have lived vicariously through your post. Now those tartes. I can’t handle raw or rawish seafood and don’t appreciate scallops enough on a good day to deserve these popular treats. My taste testers loved it all separately and together (though it was a bit unwieldy to eat and I am glad I have no pictures from that part of the post) but I think in the future I will probably just prepare the scallops separately and have the bacon/onion tartes on the side….
Hi Susan! Thanks so much for stopping by our tasting room over the weekend… So glad to hear you thoroughly enjoyed the vino! It’s such a pleasure to read about your experience in Paso Robles. And for what it’s worth, your tartes look quite promising in the photos — too bad they didn’t live up to their looks. Hopefully we’ll see you around Paso in the future.
Looks like you had a great time with Mary! 🙂 And I didn’t bother cutting my pastry into circles either – rectangles, so much easier!
Now that’s my kind of shopping trip! How fun to see two of our Doristas meeting up. Sounds like you had a great trip and the rest of us are surely jealous.
Looks like you had a great time with Mary! How nice that you could meet up for yet another visit. Is it 3 times so far? Sorry the tartes didn’t wow you. I do like your square shapes though. I think next time I would make the tarts with the onion/baking topping, but save the scallops for something else. Have a great weekend!
I would have bought that bottle of Ms. Behave too. I would have preferred a drizzle of garlic olive oil or chili olive oil or something. Something!
It sounds like such a wonderful visit and your wine haul looks amazing!
I wish I’d seared the scallops and served them separately, perhaps on a salad. They just weren’t at their best the way they were prepared in this dish. I love the sound of the apple tart, though.
What fun – and you brought home the spoils indeed, didn’t you?
We went with team square on the puff pastry too (and I would have absolutely enjoyed that tarte tatin with the leftover – go John!)
Who cares about the tart… looks like you had a wonderful time with Mary. Such a beautiful place to visit.
It’s been so much fun reading about and seeing your fun trip to see Mary! So very jealous (but in a good, happy way!). I didn’t get the recipe made this week, so well done for making yours. It seems that searing was the way to go based on what others came up with. Oh well, nothing on puff pastry is too bad – and besides, the apple tart sounds divine!
Oh my goodness, that is some serious loot! I’m so happy to “see” you ladies and John.
Nice to see that you and Mary had such a nice time together! Sounds like a beautiful place to visit, Susan!
Sorry this tarte was not for you…we actually enjoyed it! Happy weekend!
Sounds like a wonderful visit with Mary! I felt the same about the tarts; they were lacking a little something.
How cool that you got to meet Mary! Great photos of you all. Your scallop and onion tarts look very nice – although I wasn’t personally a fan of the scallops on top.
Enjoyed looking at all the photos, that’s a wonderful way to spend a weekend. Sorry the tarts didn’t work
for you.
Thank you for coming to spend the weekend and indulging me with your company for the Zin Fest. I couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it without you. (Oh, the pressure for next year.) I keep reliving last week-end (it’s 8:51pm and weren’t we heavy into the gin game and the Port by now??). Every smidgen of it was wonderful. I especially liked the chatter about books, television shows and travel. Your many cooking tips, ideas, and suggestions have already been put to use in my kitchen. In fact, I am planning an entire Post around those conversations. (Now you’re rethinking what you said, aren’t you?). It’s all good. Loved seeing you and having you here. Perfect guests. As for the scallops. Wish I had seared them first. The leftovers were fantastic in the pasta. Now off to sip a little Port, my dears, before hitting the sack in 6 minutes. (Incidentally, it’s taken me all week to catch up on my sleep.)
Wonderful post! Too bad about the tarts, at least the leftovers were good!