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Champagne Brunch, Anyone?

I have the next 9 days off from work (woo hoo!) and am planning to use my free time to revamp this site. Stay tuned for the "new and improved" (exciting, right?) Kitty Deschanel: A Sexy (Nerd) Humor & Lifestyle Blog. Or is it Kitty Deschanel: A Sexy (Nerd) Lifestyle & Humor Blog? I can never remember which order to use. Perhaps that's one of the things I should work on. In the meantime, here is a super-relevant and nifty archived post that received almost no traffic initially. Show it some bloggy love, my bloggy friends! It features hipster chipmunk art.

Oh, and for my readers in the USA, please have a safe 4th of July. SN and I have made plans to spend the week paranoid, diligently protecting our new mountain dream home from burning to the ground. Fireworks are banned here, but there are a lot of idiots around...

Which reminds me, a few years ago, a guy playing with fireworks did start a fire here. I'd been his babysitter back when he was the cutest 2-year old ever. Yes, I'm old. And now I really should stop rambling and get to that archived blog post. At this rate, I could have (should have) just written a brand-new article.

Champagne Brunch at The Blake in Taos, NM

Remember the great time we had at the Taos Summer Wine Festival? That was only our first day! After partying it up with new friends in the lovely Taos Ski Valley, we got to bed nice and early, ready to continue the fun in the morning.

Did someone say champagne brunch? We arrived early, hoping to nab a table for 2. You know how antisocial we are.

brunch at The Blake in Taos, NM
Success! We even had a lovely view of a bubbling stream right outside the window. Luxury condos too, which led to a potentially expensive discussion about real estate investments we should be making. Apparently, we're going to buy a vacation rental in Taos one day. I feel like I'm going to look back on this decision in a few years and wonder if it was influenced by alcohol.

Yes, future me, it was. Don't do it!

fresh croissants
Shortly after being seated, we were brought a tray of some of the tastiest pastries I've ever had in my life. Even better than in Paris? Absolutely! There was a flaky cinnamon roll and the homemade croissants you see here contained shreds of fresh orange. I may have eaten 3 of the 4 while my husband gazed outside at the view, certain more were coming.

More were not coming. (Sorry, my love!) It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep from eating his only pastry.

a carafe of water is a nice touch after a day of drinking
After a day of drinking, followed by even more drinking, we greatly appreciated the carafe of water.

We placed our orders. At the recommendation of our server, SN requested a ribeye sandwich. I'd already known what I was going to order days in advance. At home in Albuquerque, I'd pulled up the event menu online and been captivated by the following:

Pecan Waffle Mountain 
Fresh Berries, Bananas, Toasted Pecans, Whipped cream, Blueberry Coulis

(It sounds amazing, right?)

Our food arrived. It looked and smelled delicious...but I was sad.

Look at this waffle!
One waffle. One waffle is not a mountain.

He chose a sandwich.
If there were a mountain in front of me, you would not be able to see SN's food. I stifled my disappointment, drank another glass of champagne, and dug into my meager serving of brunch.

Yes, lots of complaining. And, yes...

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.
...I was too full to finish all of my too small waffle. Touché, Taos Wine Fest.

Cheers to Taos, NM
Now, you know it's not my style to get through a fancy champagne brunch in a beautiful restaurant without having at least one embarrassing moment. A nice woman came over to refill our glasses and we waved her away, babbling that we'd already had too much to drink. She insisted and we all had a laugh, beaming at each other as my champagne glass was topped off again.

I felt very fancy. I wanted to sit up a little straighter in my booth seat, sipping my champagne in the most elegant way I could muster. I pressed my feet against the table to push myself up.

And nearly sent the entire table, champagne and all, toppling over with a loud scrape I'm certain was heard throughout the restaurant.

Orange juice suddenly appeared!
(And no more champagne!)

how to make a mimosa
Well, maybe just a little more champagne. I wanted to make a mimosa! As I mixed my drinks together, SN lectured me that I was going to like the champagne better on its own and like the orange juice better on its own.

I hate when he's right.

melted ice cream for breakfast
Our meal ended with a strange dessert called The Chocolate Red Chile Soup, which we were told has won several awards for the chef. I've actually made this exact same thing before at home quite a few times. It's easy. You just scoop some chocolate ice cream into a bowl and let it melt.

Okay, that's not very nice of me. We actually did have the best time ever at the Taos Wine Festival champagne brunch. It was the highlight of our weekend! And that's really saying something because every little part of the weekend was absolutely fabulous.

Have I mentioned there's also a Taos Winter Wine Festival? We'll be there with bells on, assuming we come into some money between now and then. The Taos Winter Wine Festival costs about a million dollars more than the Taos Summer Wine Festival. In the winter, you pay for each individual meal and event, whereas this one is an all-inclusive rate. I guess they figure people are already there spending a lot to ski, so what's a little more? SN and I don't ski.

After our meal, uncomfortably stuffed and tipsy, we ventured out to find more of the Taos, NM charm we'd heard so much about. We didn't have to look very far. Check out the wallpaper from the women's restroom of 192 at the Blake:

hologram deer wallpaper
Deer holograms! Where can I buy this? Where should I install it?

Here are a few more photos from our weekend getaway:

electric vehicle charging in taos, nm
Free plug-in parking for our Volt! We heart Taos. The dirty Volt already plugged in was a nice touch too, as it made our not-so-clean car look gorgeous by comparison.

rottenstone pottery taos nm
Rottenstone Pottery in Arroyo Seco, NM

arroyo seco mercantile
This was a very dangerous shop for us to visit with a house under construction. (And a luxury Taos ski condo investment in the works.) Pretty much everything they were selling was perfect for our new home. I don't know how we have any money left at all.

taos summer wine festival review

We loved the Taos Summer Wine Festival so much, I decided to try my hand at designing the event poster for 2018. Let me know what you think.

taos summer wine festival poster 2017
Official poster of the Taos Summer Wine Festival, 2017, above.
(Hmmm...I maybe shouldn't have placed my URL on this image.)

Official (well, maybe one day) poster of the Taos Summer Wine Festival, 2018, below.

Mind you, I worked very hard on this...

taos summer wine festival poster 2018
You knew those wild chipmunks would make at least one more appearance on my blog, didn't you?

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