Flying is so relaxing?

I love me some vacation time with my family.  My husband, Jon and I love to travel alone but there is a different kind of fun had when traveling with the whole fam and this time that includes my parents as well!  It has been a blast.  I loved watching my son on the plane (his second time flying).  The flight from Minneapolis to L.A. is 3 hours so I knew his antics would be fun to watch.  He ended up mimicking mommy and asked for my neck pillow and eye pillow put his head phones in and zoned out.  Love it!!

My son pretending to be a woman sipping tea but he really DID ask for my neck pilllow on the plane!

At LAX airport...Time to:

Re:Play

Re:Juvenate

On our shuttle ride to the Embassy Suites South in Anaheim we met Missy from Pittsburgh.  She rocked! She was so friendly and we discussed travel and food, both of which she loves as much as us.  I gave her my blog address so enjoy Missy! (Now you're famous LOL)  Anywho, I love hearing different perspectives on traveling and she was a great conversation partner for just that.  We talked about LA not having as huge a downtown as we thought it might.  Then that led us to our own theories.  Well, mine anyway.  I always have an opinion.  I figured NYC was full of high rises and skyscrapers because they were the first "big city" in US history growing up smack dab in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.  Growing man-made structures was the name of the game.  By the time we went west and settled California and created LA we were interested in space and land and urban sprawl.  So, downtown didn't get as huge and had skycrapers more out of necessity than design interest.  So, there you have it, my theory and everyone else thought it sounded good so we kind of ended the conversation there. HA.  I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts or even facts but theories are good for now.

The Grey Plume

We had a new dining experience last weekend at The Grey Plume in Omaha's new Midtown Crossing.
When you walk in it appears small and European in nature.  Like a bistro in Italy.  The windows are tall and let  the daylight or dusk in.  The art on the walls is local and contemporary with an organic feel and theme.  The table settings and serving platters are also locally handmade.  For instance, the bread plates are made from melted down wine bottles.  The staff are happy to give you the card of the artist in case you want to have your empty favorite bottle of wine melted down into bread plates.  The serving platter for the Charcuterie board and some main courses are ceramic and also made by a local artist.  These platters are for sale, literally from table to bag to home.  After dinner when you try their delicious French Press coffee you will see on the dessert menu that their coffee is also for sale.  In this way, we took home a piece of our experience.  For the shopping, art, ceramics, and coffee lover in me, this was a splendid fit for me.  On to the food...



They start you with a palate cleanser of ginger and asparagus.  Then the Sommelier arrived at the table to offer a wine pairing or cocktail for the appetizer or entree of your pick.  We told her the wine we were in the mood for, an old vine Zin and she described a few wines they had on hand that might come close to what we like about the old vine Zins.  She nailed it AND gave us each a glass from a bottle they weren't even offering the whole restaurant that night as they only had one sample bottle staff was to try.  We were in a sense their guinea pig which we were fine with.

Next was the appetizer, we picked the Charcuterie Board and Diver Scallops that melted in your mouth.  The Board had a variety of meats and cheeses such that I have actually never tasted before.  How many ways can you cure meat or make cheese?! Evidently, an infinite number of ways in my experience anyway.  The Foie Gras and Duck Proscuitto were Jon's favorites.  The local goat's cheese melted in your mouth and paired with honey...it was a dream!  The Diver Scallops were a different story.  With the Scallops being well prepared their accompaniments were too prolific and melded tastes that shouldn't have comingled in our opinion anyway.  Jon wanted to dip his Scallops into one drizzle of sumptious flavor and he couldn't do so without running his Scallop chunk through a different flavor mixing the two in an unfavorable way.


Dinner for Jon unfortunately was a similar experience to the Bay Scallops.  His salmon came with shitaki mushrooms a favorite of his, but when comingled with pickled rhubarb took on the flavor of vinegar killing the shitaki mushroom flavor.  The salmon by itself, was well done however.  My Wagyu was good but not much to right home about.

Alas, our dessert was much like Jon's entree, overdone with flavor.  Too much of a good thing I guess can be a bad thing.

I do appreciate the farm to table idea, the Green certification this restaurant has, the knowledgable staff, the Sommelier and the atmosphere so all in all I would recommend and try this restaurant again.