Napa and the CIA

          Spencer and I just got back from a quick trip to Napa. NO we were not wine tasting but this was a very food related trip. The reason for the trip was so Spencer could attend an open house for the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

          We left Tuesday late afternoon when Spencer got off of work and drove to his grandparents house in the bay area. We made  aside trip to Gilroy and bought a few things, of course! WE then drove to the grandparents house and slept on a twin air mattress together.
** Funny side note. - Spencer rold me to pick up the air mattress from his parents house before we left. I went over there and his mom handed me a mattress in a bag. when we got there and filled it with air it was so small. We laughed about it and AFTER the trip we asked his mom why she gave us the small one. She didn't know it was the small one but his dad told us that the large one was already at Grandma's house in the same room we slept in. haha O well

          The next morning we had to be at the open house at 9:30 and it was still another hour drive from the bay area.  The school was so beautiful.

The school was an old winery.

WE then  got a complimentary breakfast of muffins and fruit and we we went into a large conference room/ kitchen demo area.

WE got front row seats

a view at the other seats looking up

Spencer watching the intro video about the CIA 

In this room an admin person gave us the background information about the school and it was opened for questions. then we had to chefs, one from the culinary side and one from the baking and pastry side, give us some demos. 

The first chef gave us a mini class on taste vs flavor. How taste is just what your taste buds do and how flovor is more of an experience on taste and smell and the combination of different things together. She said there are 4 basic tastes; sweet, sour, bitter, salty. We all had a mat in front of us with a cantaloupe wedge and a red lettuce leaf called redicio. Then we had on the side some sugar, salt, lime, and cayenne pepper. 

She had us add different combinations of these things to see hoe it affected the flavor.

After her mini class we had another chef come out and make peanut brittle and answer questions about the pastry bakery program. He talked about his life in this career. It was  cool. We all got some samples of the brittle too. Amazing!

These Tv allowed us to watch what he was doing

He is stretching the candy

After this we went on a guided tour of the school with a current student.

This was the view right when you entered the school.

This was a classroom where we saw students studying different types of lettuce leafs. So cool

Those white trays had the different lettuce leafs on them 

This was one of the student kitchens

another view of the same kitchen

The chocolate room where they make cakes and chocolates

The student store

A hall where they hold events

The large Student kitxchen. They said they can have up to 4 classes going on in here at the same time

The bakery kitchen

The student herb garden

It was so cool!

They even have a student run restaurant where the student spend 12 weeks  doing all of the jobs in a restaurant including designing and king the menu. 

After the tour we went to italian cafe in the town and split a yummy panini and fries ( the fries came with a delicious basil pesto to dip it in...yummmmmy) and then we had some gillato. We hit the road back home and came across the Jelly Belly factory!

So we had to stop and go on the free tour! It was really cool to see such a huge factory for something so small like a jelly bean!

As we were leaving the factory we saw a sign that said Olive Oil Tasting, so we followed the signs until we found a small shop near the Jelly Belly factory they sold fancy olive oils and balsamic vintagers. We talked with the owner and told her how Spencer is planning on going to culinary school and she pulled out this large tray with tons of different grades and flavors of olive oil. They talked to us about the different health benefits while we sampled the oils and then the vinegars. yummy. 

It was a lot of fun. Then we headed home through the rolling hills of Napa! Beautiful. 

It was such a fun trip.We loved the school we HOPE he can be accepted. The application is done and the transcripts are sent. Now we wait.