Grass Valley Wine Company on Mill Street, Grass Valley is a tasting room for three local wineries, Pilot Peak Winery, Solune Wine Growers and Bent Metal Winery.  Stop by a tasting, a flight or wine by the glass.  Live music every Friday and Saturday, click here for their calendar of talented musicians.  Now open seven days week, stop by and sample the Barbera, Tempranillo or Viognier.  Grass Valley Wine Company has offered one lucky InnSide Nevada City blog reader a free glass of wine, please post a comment on this blog post on your favorite type of wine and I’ll draw the winner on Friday, July 6th.

© 2012 InnSide Nevada City

HAALo, Health Alternatives for All Locals, recently opened their community herb shop in a new location at 412 Commercial St, Nevada City.  The shop provides Nevada County with medicinal herbs and herbal body care products made from Nevada City herbalists.  Almost all of their products are local, including ingredients from 30 nearby farms growing over 100 varieties of herbs. Taya Malakian, from Floracopeia, recently gave a free educational class about how to make natural skin care products using natural oils.  Floracopeia is a local business that works with small distillers around the world to provide high quality essential oils through fair trade exchange. You can sample Floracopeia products at HAALo or sit in on one of the free classes, Wednesdays from 1-1:30. These weekly classes offer fun and practical suggestions on the wide range of uses of essential oils and aromatherapy.  To celebrate … Read More »

Looking for a nice place to sit outside and enjoy some great Thai food?  Check out Sopa Thai on the corner of Commercial and York Street in downtown Nevada City.  Open 7 days for both lunch and dinner.  My favorite is the Pad Thai and Thai Ice tea, do you have a favorite dish?

Every year the Nevada County Farm Bureau organizes a tour to showcase some of the local agriculture in our community.  This year the tour included Forster Herb Garden, Cone & Hill Christmas Tree Farm and Naggiar Vineyards and special guest speaker Nevada County Free Range Beef’s Jim Gates.  Everyone agreeed that supporting our local farmers is benefical on many different levels, from fire prevention, quality of food to creating jobs.  While all the farmers agreed that it is extremely difficult to be a farmer, Jim Gates sumed it up well when he said he loves his job “every day is a new adventure.”  Support your local farmers, either by shopping at a farmer’s market, subscribing to a CSA or buying locally grown products at Briar Patch, California Organics or SPD.  You can access the Nevada County Farm … Read More »

Every year, Outside Magazine puts out an issue that features the best towns to live in if you’re an outdoorsy, active person. The list usually includes a lot of the usual suspects: Boulder, Colorado, Burlington, Vermont, Bozeman, Montana, and Bend, Oregon, often make the top 10. But this year, there’s a new town up for voting. That’s right: Our very own Nevada City.

My sister, Megan Michelson, a former editor at Outside Magazine and a Nevada City native, has a unique perspective on this. She has been in the editorial meetings at Outside’s Santa Fe, New Mexico, headquarters when the editors are debating the merits of one town versus another.  She recounted some of the previous debates:

“Boulder has the best road cycling in the country,” one person would say.

“But Boulder has … Read More »

Sushi in the Raw in downtown Nevada City is truly in a class of its own.  If you haven’t been or it’s been awhile since you were there last, make a reservation and treat yourself, we promise you wont be disappointed.  The best thing I can recommend is to ask your server to come up with the menu, the photos speak for themselves, I couldn’t tell you what we ate, but every last bite was amazing and we were sad when it was all gone.  Do you have a favorite dish?  Post a comment and share.  And the winner from last week’s giveaway to Kitkitdizzi is Ingrid Nelson.

© 2012 InnSide Nevada City

Last week I hosted a Lunch & Learn at Sierra Commons about blogging.  One of the giveaways from the session was a v-blog about a local business and a profile on the InnSide Nevada City blog.  Suzette Paisley was the winner.  She has recently moved to the area and is excited about bringing her elder care coaching services to Nevada County and beyond.  Paisley Coaching offers emergency and long term elder care planning, support services for care givers and receivers and can be help family members who are learning the ropes on the bonus years.  Suzette’s ready to share her knowledge and passion about helping with others, feel free to contact her for more information.  Plus, keep an eye out for her new blog all about elder care, she’s got a lot of great ideas and the Sierra Commons Lunch … Read More »

The 52nd Nevada City Classic Bicycle Race took place today in and around downtown Nevada City.  The well established race is the second oldest cycling in the US and the oldest in the West.  Crowds came out, despite the heat, to cheer on the cyclists.  Congrats to Leece-Cal, English and Hutcheson, the top three finalists from the Men’s Pro race and Nash, Oliviera and Thornquist for their top three in the Women’s Pro.  Cody Kaiser took home the top spot for the Men’s 3/4th and the junior top three were Taylor, Ortenblad and Schaupp.  Congrats!  The Outside Inn was bestowed the honor of the 2012 Aleacha Tobiassen Outstanding Volunteer for our continued support of the event.  We thought it was the free lemonade & cookies that won over the judges, but I think years of donating prems for the cyclists and keeping … Read More »

The second annual Nevada City Soapbox Derby took over Nimrod Street in Nevada City as a fundraiser for Pioneer Park.  Plenty of fans, activities for kids and food vendors all made a warm welcome to the local businesses who participated.  We can’t wait for next year’s event.  For a complete list of this year’s winners click here, for the fun photos from the event click on their Facebook page and if you want to see more of the Outside Inn’s photos click here.  Did you have a favorite?  Post a comment and share, I’d love to hear who you were rooting for at this year’s Soapbox Derby.

© 2012 InnSide Nevada City

It’s hot in Nevada City and if you can’t make it the South Yuba River for a dip why not cool down with a smoothie from Treats.  Thirsty Thursday, 50 cents off all drinks.  My recommendation would either be Katie’s Special or the Mango Smoothie.

© 2012 InnSide Nevada City