Pumpkin and Spice

Friday morning, Kyle went into work for a couple hours to get a few last things done before our weekend, which was okay, because I had a salon appointment. I barely beat Kyle home, and then ran around the house like a crazy woman trying to pack. (Yeah, I should probably have packed earlier. I'm a busy Pumpkin... it's hard to find enough time in the day!)

Finally, I was ready to go, so we got in the car, and Kyle asked if I had my Disney annual pass. Of course, I did not, so I got back out and ran into the apartment to get it. Once I got back in the car, we really left.

We arrived at our hotel, Disney's Coronado Springs and checked in, then headed to our room. (Our room faced out to a courtyard- very tranquil!) We dropped off our bags, then quickly consulted the park schedules to plan our evening. We had dinner reservations at The Hollywood Brown Derby at the Disney Hollywood Studios, plus we hadn't done the new Toy Story Mania attraction there, so we hopped on the bus and headed to Studios.

Since we wanted to be sure to get to do Toy Story Mania, we did that first. It was very fun- kind of a 3-D arcade-style game. You're in a car with a pull-string cannon that you use to shoot at targets in five little mini-games. Each mini-game is hosted by a different Toy Story character. It's cute and funny and very fast paced. It's hard to explain... The link above takes you to a page with videos and images.

Once we did that, we wandered around and eventually went on The Great Movie Ride. I have to take a moment to say that The Great Movie Ride holds a very special place in my heart- when I first moved to Orlando and got hired at Disney World, my very first role was as a tour guide on The Great Movie Ride. I worked many places at Disney after that, but it has a lot of happy memories for me. I can even still remember most of the spiel (you try reciting it 10+ times a day, five days a week, and see if you don't still remember it five years later!)... Anyway, after that, we rode Star Tours, and then it was time for our dinner reservation! Yay, food!

We had dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby, which is a recreation of the iconic Brown Derby in Hollywood, CA that used to be a popular hang-out for the stars. (It no longer exists).

Dinner was delish! I started with a crimini mushroom and chevre raviolo in a veal broth (below, left), and Kyle had a seared scallop with roasted corn risotto and English peas (below, right). I always love anything with lots of mushrooms in it, and this was no exception- the mushrooms combined with the goat cheese were creamy and earthy and tangy. Yum! Kyle let me taste his scallop, which was so tender, you could cut it with the fork. It was smoky and crisp on the edges but soft in the center- very good, for a scallop. (I really don't much care for scallops- I generally find the texture... icky and squishy. I probably could have eaten this whole scallop, though.)

For mains, I had the salmon with mascarpone and gorgonzola polenta and a balsamic reduction (left). Kyle had the pork tenderloin with white cheddar spatzel and apple cider glaze (right). The salmon was cooked to a perfect medium, and was very moist. The cheese polenta was so good that I wanted to curl up in it and go to sleep. Kyle's pork was also perfectly cooked, and very moist (I need to work on my pork cooking skills... I always over-cook it...) and the spatzel was a fun twist on mac 'n' cheese.

We skipped dessert, as we were planning on eating dessert at the hotel later.

After dinner, we walked to Epcot (it's about a 1mile walk from Studios to the World Showcase entrance to Epcot.) We rode Soarin', then decided we were tuckered out, and took the bus back to the hotel. We stopped by the bakery and bought a piece of cheesecake and a piece of chocolate coconut cake, which we brought back to the room. (It was a long walk back to the room- I accidentally took us the loooong way around the lake... oops.) We immediately changed into comfy pjs, and settled in to enjoy our dessert. We brought from home a bottle of "our" wine- Two Princes Riesling.

At the very first Epcot Food and Wine Festival we went to when we were dating, we went to a German wine tasting. One of the wines was Two Princes Riesling, and we both agreed that it was our favorite of the group. Sadly, at the time, the wine wasn't available for sale, so we started a long, fruitless search for it... almost a year and a half later, my mother-in-law finds it on the shelves of a local specialty food shop, and we've always had a bottle in the house since.

 We don't drink it all the time- we usually save it for special times, just because it has some special memories for us. (We even shared a bottle the night Kyle proposed.) It's a nice riesling- sweet, but not too sweet, with bright, crisp apple flavors and a mineral earthiness to it. It makes me think of fall in an apple orchard- apples, and that cool, moist smell of dirt and dried leaves. It makes me happy. (It's also a pretty affordable wine- our shop sells it for about $15.)

 After wine and dessert, we decided to call in a night and tucked ourselves into bed to get ready for our busy day at the Food and Wine Festival on Saturday!