The Write Ingredients

A winery to visit,
a restaurant to avoid,
beautiful kabobs,
and a nature lesson.

A weekend up north at the in-laws was jammed pack with both adventure and culinary lessons.


It started with a trip to the very beautiful Chateau St. Croix Winery just north of St. Croix Falls. What a surprise. Based on a winery in France, this couple did a great job creating a vintage winery in the hills of western Wisconsin. We chose to do the free tasting (just three) and I went with the top three whites (Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Grand Reserve Chardonnay). The PG was nice, but a little short for my taste. The first chardonnay was a touch bland, but the GR Chardonnay blew me away. Just for the record, they do get most (95%) of their grapes from California, which is nice, because the upper midwest winters make it hard to grow grapes. After the tasting we browsed through the craft stalls, bought a beautiful metal turtle in honor the of In-laws snapping turtle population, and snacked on some limp, greasy fries. We rounded out the visit with a ver well done tour of the winery and learned many things, including the high price of oak barrels, and that their life span is only about five years.


After a bike ride through farm country, we cleaned up and went to dinner. We chose a much talked about restaurant in nearby Taylors falls, called, Tangled up in Blue. More like tangled up in confusion. I don;t have any photos, but you're really not missing anything. The food was very "safe" (AKA boring) and the service was downright inattentive (even though it started out quite promising). Onto better things.



Before a lunch of grilled shrimp kabobs, vegetable kabobs and more kababs, we headed over to the St Croix River for a quick kayak trip. Along the shore were dozens of clam shells opened and deserted by local Otters. I actually never knew there were freshwater clams, and that we would see them in the St. Croix.

From the kayak, I saw one of the clams, a large one, resting near the shore. Just before I picked it up, I asked the guys if these clams had a defense mechanism. I quickly figured it out. They squirt! Oops. Clam down.