When people ask me why I moved from Paris to San Francisco, I never know what to say, or should I say, I never had the guts to say: Because it’s one of the only place in the world where you can go taste freshly pulled out of the water oysters, go wine tasting, buy the meat at the source, go on the beach for a picnic, watch cheese being made and later have a gourmet dinner in a fabulous restaurant, all in one day!

I could do all this in France, but it will take be days to travel from one region to the other.

This Saturday as I enjoyed my first weekend with the BF for the past 8 months, a trip up north just the two of us felt like something I had been waiting for.

We first went to Tomales to grab some sandwiches at the deli there and go to Dillon beach for lunch. Though it was a beautiful day it was still a bit windy. It was a great day for me to take a few pictures, I love the are, it’s nice green hills, seeing the caw and lambs walking around peacefully, while devouring the young green spring grass.

We made our way to Hog Island for a quick tasting, the Atlantic and the Kumamoto were so good and briny, tasting like the water they matured in. I would have sit there all days, shucking oysters I just had forgot my bottle of wine! So we bought 4 dozens of oysters and went on our way.

We stopped by the Marin Sun Farm butcher shop, near Marshall on Highway 1 and dreamed of the few meals we would do. We grabbed some sausage, a ribeye, a couple pork shop and a leg of lamb.

Then we continued our tour by stopping by the Cow girl creamery, looked at the new cheese being made and tasting a few of their selection. I have to say this is the only thing that bugs me as a French, it’s the price of cheese in America, even if you buy it at the source, with no importation, you still have to pay $18 for a small piece of cheese.

We finished our trip by visiting the Point Reyes Vineyard.

We came home with our hands filled with good products and our head refreshed by the beauty of the landscape. Dreaming about what we would do with all this ingredients!

Bon Appétit!