50 Shades of Delicious: 2 Chewsy for the Catwalk

Photo courtesy of The Willows Inn What were you doing with your life at age 26?  We recently met one of the most impressive young chefs who has created the most incredible dining experience at a small inn on little known Lummi Island (it rhymes with yummy), WA.  Lummi ( to see map click here ) is a very serene, quiet island almost untouched by tourists that visit the more famous San Juan islands.  That under the radar status is quickly changing thanks to the boy wonder chef (aka Chef Blaine Wetzel).  Blaine has taken up the Executive Chef helm at the Willows Inn. The New York Times put the Willows Inn on their 10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride list (for article click here ).  Just announced, The Willows Inn made Lonely Planet's Top 10 US Travel Destinations for 2013.   And lucky for us, it's only a car and boat ride away.  Besides putting a tiny island on the world culinary map (people travel from all over the globe to check this off thei...

The hills are alive....with flowing vino! Just kidding we know that isn't the lyrics, but wouldn't it be awesome? As most of you know by now we stayed in Umbria, which if you look at a map of Italy, is the only region located within the "boot shaft" that is completely land locked.  The area is mostly rural and abundantly blessed with beautiful landscapes and towns built on the tops of the surrounding hills.  The closet hill town to us was Orvieto, which we visited a few days out of the week mostly because it was the closet place we could get wi-fi (we had to have a little data fix).  You can read more about Umbria in our previous blog  here . How big is this  hill town? Later in the week we were anxious to stretch our wings and go a little beyond our immediate little town and surroundings.  We took the advice of our hostess Cecilia and a newlywed couple staying at the vineyard in a different cottage.  They both highly recommende...