You have to love a state with such a slogan... Tennessee sounds good to me. Oh, yes. So very good. I spent the other weekend outside of Nashville at the Tennessee Heritage BBQ Festival at the Sam Davis Home in Symrna, TN.  I never knew that BBQ had such a following... sure, I enjoy a nice pulled pork sandwich or some BBQ ribs, but the folks at the BBQ festival are passionate about cooking (and eating) BBQ.  Living in New York, it is hard to find good BBQ (although, there's a new place on 23rd street called righteouos urban barbecue... r.u.b.... that is rather tasty), but I had enough BBQ in one weekend to last me until I can find my way back to Tennessee (that will be in August, actually).  Let me tell you... the RVs, homes, grills, tents, campers, etc. that the BBQ cooks set up for the weekend are more than impressive.  A sight to be seen. The BBQ green beans were my favorite dish of the weekend, but the meat wasn't so bad either.  I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking because I'm getting hungry.

Karaoke... it's a dirty word to me. I just watched the movie, my best friend's wedding, over the weekend -- yes, for like the zillionth time. hmm. I'm not much of a numbers person. Is zillion a real number? I might have to look that up.  Anyhow, my best friend's wedding... yes, I know, it's a guilty pleasure movie and, okay, it is a little cheesy, but I still like it.  I don't have much in common with Cameron Diaz, but the scene in the karaoke bar totally hits home. I despise karaoke with a passion. Not going to lie, I hate it.  I'd rather stand in front of a room of people in my swim suit (oy vey!) than sing along to a cheesy song in front of a room of people.  I don't know what my problem is, but I have a major fear of karaoke (and bridges, but I can save that for another blog).  The other month, my company decided to have a bachelorette party for one of my colleagues (Duval)... the theme, you ask? A karaoke party. Ugh! I was totally in pain and was so thankful that I work with a bunch of microphone hores (sorry for such language).  I stayed out of the spotlight, so I had a great time.  I can't be the only one with this dislike (okay, hate) of karaoke. No offense to those who enjoy a good karaoke session (please, enjoy!), but it's not for me.  and, that's about all I have to say about that...   

After Sean & I visited three business schools, we decided to head up to wine country (Sonoma, to be exact) for a relaxing weekend.   We enjoyed the drive from Palo Alto to Sonoma and only got lost among the grapevines for a few minutes (I'd like to blame it on the Yahoo! directions we printed out, but it was probably just human error).  Our hotel -- the Lodge at Sonoma -- was lovely.  We picked it because I'm a sucker for Marriot Rewards and it received decent reviews on my favorite travel advice website (http://www.tripadvisor.com/).  The first night, we decided to try the "Cellar" on the hotel premises, which was a vineyard cooperative... three or four smaller vineyards joined forces to offer tastings since they don't have the space or staff to host tastings at their small winery.  We didn't know what we were doing.  Sure, we drink wine and enjoy drinking wine, but we don't "taste" wine.  It was a tad pretentious for our liking, but we laughed and played along and pretended like we knew how to "taste" wine.  Sean really liked tasting the tannins, but I think he actually just enjoyed saying the word, "tannin".  We bought a bottle of wine and watched the movie, Sideways, in the hotel room - rather appropriate, huh? I still don't understand what is wrong with Merlot, but I didn't want to be laughed at in wine country, so I avoided it and stuck with the Pinots <grin>. On Saturday, we agreed that we needed to find the winery for beginners; we did want to learn something during our trip to wine country. So, our hotel concierge directed us to the Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen (http://www.benziger.com/), which turned out to be the Disney World of wineries (yes, that was a good thing for us).  They offered a tram tour through the vineyard and caves, which lasted 45 minutes and ended with the wine tasting. It was fun and we learned a few things -- I'd recommend it to anyone that is looking for a fun, beginner, laid-back and unpretentious wine country experience. The tour guide was entertaining and the wine was great (we brought a few bottles back with us).  We drove to Napa and enjoyed the views out of the window and a few deals at the outlet shopping mall. On the way back to Sonoma, we stopped into another winery, Domaine Carneros, and tasted their sparkling wine, which was fun.  Again, we were suckers and brought back a few bottles with us, too. Good times! Check out the photos... the area is beautiful. Oh, and we had a fabulous dinner at Mustard's Grill in Yountville. Several people recommended the restaurant and it was absolutely delicious. We'd recommend it to other folks, too(http://www.mustardsgrill.com/). Yum!

my boyfriend, sean, and i just returned from the west coast biz school circuit... we checked out ucla (anderson), berkeley (haas) and, of course, stanford (gsb). after 5 years in new york city, i have to admit that the idea of living in california for two years is very appealing to me. don't get me wrong, i love new york -- but it's hard to resist the palm trees, blue skies and sunshine that the west coast has to offer. we had a great chat with the admissions folks at anderson school of management... if i'm going to get an MBA, which i'd like to do, it might make sense for sean and i to go to school at the same time. of course, that means we have to get into the same school OR we have to get into schools in the same area. yikes! we'll see what happens... all i know is that i need to get cracking on studying for the gmat. we fell in love with stanford... how could you not? the campus is absolutely stunning. also, we sat in on a class and were absolutely impressed by the students... everyone had a different experience, a different perspective, which added to the energy in the class... it seemed like students learn as much from the experiences of their peers as they do from the professors. i can see why so many people want to attend the gsb at stanford... even the admissions representative said, "everyone needs a stretch school."  i think she's right... so, we'll give it a try in a few years!