Interesting San Fran Facts

Just traveled back from an awesome trip to San Fran and am recovering from sensory overload. My brain is still swimming in the memory of the views, the food, awesome Fall weather. As I get back into the swing of things as an Innkeeper this week, I'll start daydreaming about this city while I'm cleaning and doing laundry.

In the meantime, here are a few intersting tid bits I plan to hide in my factoid arsenal for the next round of Trivial Pursuit in downtown Mount Dora at the Goblin Market. I tweeted them yesterday for #TravelTuesday. In case you missed it ... enjoy!

#1: The crookedest street is not Lombard Street, it is Vermont Avenue between 22nd and 23rd.

#2 San Francisco cable cars are the only moving National Historic Landmark.

#3 Alcatraz means pelican in Spanish.

#4 Mission Dolores is the oldest building in San Francisco, built in 1791.

#5: The Chinese Fortune Cookie was invented by Makato Hagiwara whose family operated the Japanese Tea Garden.

#6: San Francisco is built on 43 hills.

#7: Irish coffee was invented in San Francisco. YUM!

#8: Denim jeans were invented in San Francisco for the Gold Rush miners.

#9: Coppola wrote large portions of The Godfather Trilogy in Caffe Trieste, the 1st San Fran coffee shop

And the Final and most HILARIOUS fact about San Fransisco ...

#10 ... it was originally called Yerba Buena Cove. Good Herb. Seriously! That phrase as a totally different meaning this day and age. LOL!

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Oregon Bounty

As much as I love a hot and steamy cup of joe ... it's time I end my relationship with coffee and move on to some smooth and seductive pinot noir.

I created a little video submission for Oregon Bounty's "Cuisine-ternship."

In it you'll learn a little about me, a little about my town, and hopefully drool over the finest glass (or two!) of wine I've had in awhile.

Enjoy! Forward along to your friends!

Fall Favorites

It's FALLLLLLL! The inner child in me just looked up at the sky, closed her eyes and fell back into pile of leaves as tall as she is ... creating a huge mess in the yard while smiling ear to ear. :o)

But I live in Florida. There are no leaves changing color and it's still hot and sticky outside. So the only way for me to tune in to my favorite season is to decorate the house, turn up the AC and start baking.

I've been giving my oven a workout ... and ... now I need to give myself a workout to burn off some of these calories I've been earning in the kitchen!

These are just a couple of the Fall Recipes I'll be posting on Inn The Kitchen this season ... and they happen to be my favorites.

Starting with the Autumn Sangria. This concoction for spirited sinfulness was given to me by my dear friend Maranda a couple of years ago when I had a group of girls over for a party. She brought over a big punch bowl of Autumn Sangria and immediately was everyone's favorite person in the room. The dangerous thing about this sangria is that it tastes so sweet and cinnamony (is that a word?) that you forget that it has lots of wine in it. An hour or two later you're all giggly and smiling wondering, "why the heck is everything so funny?!" It's just the merlot talkin.
Autumn Sangria

My next favorite recipe of this season is Christpher's Inn Own Bowl Pumpkin Bread. Although, I can never seem to get it all done in one bowl. But you could if you tried! It has nearly equal parts sugar to the flour ... so as you can imagine you'd probably be wanting to make a date with your dentist after a couple of slices of the moist and decedent pumpkin bread.

One Bowl Pumpkin Bread

And the final fall recipe shout-out for today is the Sweet Potato Muffins. This recipe was sent to me from the Beaufort Inn and is a healthy escape from the norm. They're sweet and every bit as fall flavored as the pumpkin bread with big chunks of orange sweet potato, cranberries and walnuts. But sweetened with honey and filling with fiber from flax seed, they'll be a little nicer to your waistline. It usually takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to whip these up, not including cook time. But I just did it in under 4 minutes on the show Daytime this week. Aaaaah, the magic of TV. Wish I could sprinkle some of that on my normal schedule!

Sweet Potato Muffins

Balancing Act

I don't know how Mom's do it. Divide their attention and love equally among their children. Seems like a tough balancing act. I have two blogs ... and I can't even split my attention between the two ... let alone add real children to the mix!

Inn The Kitchen has been receiving all the love while little ole Innside Story has been left cold in the corner. Small twinge of guilt. Mea Culpa.

I promise to be more diligent in spreading the love, and spending some time writing about things outside of the kitchen. PROMISE!