Cheese + Wine Tasting

We live extremely close to Whole Foods, shop there often for cheese and wine, and attend as many informational sessions as we can with them. We used to attend their $10 wine tastings every month with a friend, and more recently, we've been attending their free cheese classes (on gouda, cheddar, etc). This time, they combined both of our favorite classes for a lesson on pairing wine and cheese. 

We learned that a California cabernet sauvignon paired really well with a two year aged cheddar cheese. We normally go for dry red wines and aren't too into chardonnays, especially the overly oaky ones. However, they had a lovely chardonnay and paired it with a wonderful manchego and it was so delicious. Another great combination was a pleasing sauvignon blanc for summer paired with a semi-firm goat cheese with a wine-soaked rind. That was a crowd pleaser. Of course, these free events are such genius marketing because we always buy some cheese after our cheese class, and this time we bought two bottles of wine. It was a night of learning and enjoying wine and cheese.

This past weekend I didn't bring my camera around with me to the fun shops we went to, but I still want to share! We spent Saturday on the street lined with antique shops near my museum and went into a shop that sells all mid-century furniture. We were looking for any table top that we could use, and even though there was a great sale, nothing was perfect. We then walked in the heat to the large antique shop on that street and it turns out it closed down! It was replaced with some awful consignment clothing store with nothing interesting in the windows. On our way back to the car, we saw a new shop, a tiny closet of a curiosities shop. It didn't open for a little while, so we killed time in the area until we could go in. We saw a mongoose hanging from the ceiling, so naturally, we stuck around.

In the meantime we enjoyed ice cream cones at the tiny shop next door. Mine was a cone with Nutella on the inside and chocolate and vanilla ice cream swirled. Every bite of Nutella goodness was so delicious! When we finally got into the small closet of a shop, filled to the ceiling with book shelves perpendicular to the wall, full of knick knacks. We love tchotches and searching for the perfect little pre-loved treasures. We looked around and the only item that really called out to us was an old opium pipe that was out of our price range. But it was still great to see, like a museum piece.