A few weeks ago I packed up my car and took a road trip with Gina to Martha’s Vineyard. I had never been to Martha’s Vineyard before so I was pumped to check out the sites, eat delicious food and hang out with amazing friends. Plus I got to attend the Martha’s Vineyard Wine Festival. It was the perfect kick off to summer.

Day one:

After successfully packing a thousand snacks and duffle bags into my car we were off! The drive to MV wasn’t bad and I found myself thinking “gee, if I were rich I would totally weekend to MV.” But I’m not rich so that is probably never happening. The ferry ride was nice but very chilly. I could have spent the time hanging out inside but it was family fun time near the snack booth and I was in no mood to listen to all of that. So instead Gina and I sat outside in the freezing sea air. It was cold but refreshing. So there is that.

When we arrived on MV we checked into the Vineyard Square Hotel (soooooo nice!) , relaxed and then eventually got ready for our night out on the town! First up was the welcome reception at Atria where I ate too many chicken drumsticks to be considered dainty and fell in in love with their mini hamburgers. If it were socially acceptable I would have asked for a whole hamburger just to myself. But we are in MV and I have a feeling people (ladies…) don’t do that.

After the reception I got to head out to a private dinner at the Charlotte Inn. I was dining that night with Howard from Frog’s Leap Winery and not only had excellent company but got to ask as many annoying wine questions I could think of. I was sitting with a wine expert. Why wouldn’t I take advantage of that? Although he did seem offended when I mentioned I love sangria. Sangria is my summertime love. I will never give up on that.

Never.

Day two:

After a restful night of sleep, that involved me staying up WAY too late to watching bad Lifetime movies and The Golden Girls, I met up with Gina and Nelly and headed out to the Chilmark Coffee Company. We hung out with Todd (the owner) and got to try several different coffee experiments and got to watch him roast up a batch of coffee. Each coffee tasted wildly different than the next. It was the first time in my life that I tasted coffee that didn’t just taste like coffee. I realize that probably makes no sense but it was if his coffee has a flavor of it’s own. I swear the first coffee I tried I could taste strawberry. No, not artificial strawberry flavoring (he doesn’t do that) it was the natural flavor of the coffee.  It was amazing to finally give coffee a try that is just not just plain old coffee. By the way, that strawberry coffee would be kick ass to drink iced in the summer.

After getting hyped up on coffee we headed out the door and and made our way to The Grey Barn and Farm. We walked into their tiny little farm stand and I about freaked out over the fact they had adorable bottles of raw milk just waiting to be purchased. I’m a total raw milk freak (it’s sooooo good!) so I didn’t pass up the opportunity to buy a bottle. Plus Gina had never tasted raw milk before so I knew we had to make it happen. So I threw all that nonsense about milk “needing to be pasteurized” to the wind and bought a bottle. You know what makes me love Martha’s Vineyard even more? The farm store was unattended with just a ledger and box full of money. Write down what you bought and leave the money. It reminded me of the farm stands in Ohio. Often times you just left money in a box and took what you wanted. It’s amazing how many people will follow the honor system if they are not being watched.

Finally we left the farm storm and headed back into Edgartown to hit up Not Your Sugar Mamas. They make raw, naturally sweetened chocolate bars. They are also GMO free, gluten free and most of their products (with the exception of 2 bars) are vegan. Let me just tell you a little bit about their chocolate – heaven. Pure chocolate heaven. Their Be Local bar was hands down my favorite and melted in your mouth like liquid chocolate gold. While I’m typing this my mouth is salivating at it’s deliciousness.

At this point I was hopped up on coffee, raw milk purchases and chocolate. So what does a girl do at this point? Well, she goes to lunch at the Atlantic and eats a delicious cheese burger and steals 45 bites of her friends lobster mac and cheese. Because, lobster.

With all that delicious food in my stomach I knew it was time for a nap so I napped and woke up just in time to get ready for another night of eating and drinking. I would be attending the King of Cabernet dinner with Nelly and my food friend Patti. You maybe remember me mentioned Patti around the time I was getting married. She is amazing stationary designer who can do just about anything you want with paper. I had yet to meet her in real life so I was pumped to be able to not only met her but to spend a whole evening with her! The dinner was amazing and the wine was even more amazing. At one point they pulled out a bottle that was so big I think I heard someone say it was equivalent to 12 bottles of wine! Needless to say I would never have a bottle of wine that big in my house. It takes me days to finish a regular bottle of wine. A big bottle like that would last me a lifetime. And turn into vinegar before I could even make a dent.

Day 3:

Day 3 brings me to my favorite day. We woke up and headed down to the Harbor View for breakfast. I ordered the crabby eggs Benedict which was delicious but I was kicking myself in the ass after I saw Gina’s meal. She got this beautiful and totally amazing dish that involved fried chicken (the best salty fried skin EVER), waffles and eggs. Man I was jealous. After breakfast I rested up a bit (see a theme here?) and got ready for the Grand Tasting event. I knew I needed to stay hydrated so I made sure to drinks tons of water while at the festival. I tried a lot of different wines and have learned that I have a new love for rose wines. In my head I always judged them all as being whine zinfendel. Little did I know a good rose and white zin have NOTHING in common.

After trying a few different wines I headed over to the booze tables. I just about drank my weight in the Pavon sangria and am super bummed I can’t get it where I live. It’s a sweet muscat grape liqueur and it’s every bit as delicious as it sounds. Plus the sangria is mixed with fresh berries so it’s basically a health drink….right? Then I made my way over the Deep Eddy vodka tables and fell in love with the all natural cranberry flavored vodka. They had it mixed with a spicy ginger beer….oh man. I could have drank like 10 of those.

We ended up leaving the festival a little early because Gina and I had to get ready to eat at a private dinner. I was so excited about this dinner and had been looking forward to it the entire weekend. Fun side story: I was getting ready for dinner and my phone rings. I see it’s calling from a number in California so I pick up and say “hello.” After asking the person to repeat her name 3 different times it finally clicked that Tess Munster was calling me! If you’re not aware of who Tess Munster is she is an amazing plus size model. She started a “Eff Your Beauty Standards” campaign and I bought one of her shirts. When I purchased the shirt via PayPal I left a note saying I couldn’t wait to “rock the hell out of the shirt.” And she called me to say thank you for buying the shirt. I was floored.  I have been in many situations where I have talked with and been around celebrities (even the first lady!) and was not nervous or tongue tied. However, I’m pretty sure I sounded like a giddy school girl on the phone with Tess. Good lord was I nervous.

Ok, back to the dinner. Gina and I walked down the the Chappaquiddick ferry and met up with the awesome folks of Rombauer Wines. We started chatting about how the night was going to go and laughing at the 50 second ferry ride. Literally. The ferry ride is 50 seconds. I’m pretty sure I could swim over to Chappy if I wanted too. Which I would never want to do because that it gross and I refuse to swim in water where there might be fish who will nibble on my toes.

The house where we had dinner was amazing. Trust me, I’m not using that word lightly. The house was a total of 8,300 square feet, a guest house that I’m sure is triple the size of my current house and a garage that is probably double the size of my current house. What makes this house even more amazing is that they just got done picking it up and moving 245 away from a bluff. Talk about quite the haul! I’m sure it’s a lot of work to move a normal size house but a house that is 8,300 square feet? Not easy.

The dinner was amazing and we feasted on everything from grass fed beef to the most amazing squid ink pasta. The wine, of course, was absolutely amazing. I’m not going to lie when I say I was a tad tipsy by the end of the night. The best part was when we all shuffled down to the basement and went bowling. Yes, they have a private bowling alley in their house. After our bowling party we squeezed into taxi, hopped on the last ferry of the night, walked back to the Atlantic and bought a few overpriced gin and tonics. It was at that moment that I vowed to not buy myself another drink so I made nice with a lovely gentlemen and his partner who then bought Gina and I another drink. Hooray for free drinks and nice people!

Day 4:

At this point of the trip I was a little wined out. Don’t get me wrong, I love wine but I also love being hydrated. 3 full days of drinking TONS of wine is just about my limit.

That morning I met up with Gianne, the lovely lady behind the Organic Bath Co. She gave  me a few samples (swoooooon this stuff is amazing!) and was happier than a kid at Christmas. Then Gina, Patty, Nelly and I walked down to brunch at Detente. I downed my plate of short rib hash and and fell in love with those little fried rice balls in the left hand picture. So amazing.

After we ate we walked around Edgartown. We popped into little shops and I about fell in love with everything I saw. I knew my husband wouldn’t appreciate me buying out MV so I had to keep it under control. After all our shopping Gina and I packed up our bags and headed home. We had a beautiful ferry ride back to the mainland and a great trip home. We chatted, listened to cheesy 90’s music and stopped for ice cream. What could be better?

Don’t worry Martha’s Vineyard. I’m coming back soon. That’s a promise!