Une Tomate Surprise

Tomate surprise is a dish I associate with my childhood and recreated it a few days ago for dinner. The "surprise" is tuna inside a tomato...not that astonishing, but fun nonetheless. I mixed the tuna with mayonnaise, lemon juice, and some salad herb blend herbs. Carve out your tomato and put the guts into the tuna mixture. Stuff la tomate, et voila! Play with your food and never grow up...

Mediterranean Meal

Cadiz hit Santa Barbara's restaurant scene a few weeks ago and all I have heard is positive. So I went to check out the situation myself. One walks into a breezy, high ceilinged dining room with reflecting lanterns projecting beautiful images onto the walls and giant palms in the corners adding a bit of movement (though I am usually not for giant indoor plants). We arrived a bit early and the managers, waiters, and designer were chatting up a storm with each other and looked like they were doing some business as well amongst themselves. 

Promptly after being seated, our vivacious waitress flowed over to us wondering if we would like something to drink. We told her the usual, that we needed to choose what to eat before knowing which bottle we would like. She came back about 2 times wondering the same thing and we finally had something to tell her the fourth time she came over. 

First course - Grilled baby octopus, shelling beans, kale, blood orange, meyer lemon oil. This was a lovely dish with fresh, tender octopus. Lovely combo of flavors. I am not quite sure why they put that romaine lettuce on top. The color contrast is awesome, but the lettuce was not dressed and old looking.

My friend enjoyed the - Flash-cooked Mount Cook Alpine Salmon, celery, horseradish, lemon vinaigrette. This dish was super delicate and delicious.

I enjoyed the seabass for my main course which was accompanied by carrots and lemon brown butter and olive paste dots. The fish was cooked to perfection, which is not surprising with Chef John Pettitt in the kitchen.

Marinated asparagus with a poached egg and bacon.

The wine. Mediterranean white - isn't that funny?? I wonder how many varietals this means...

One of the best dessert ideas ever - housemade yogurt, fresh guava, sangria reduction. I adored this dish. The yogurt was fresh, fresh, fresh and with the guava and reduction just was my idea of a perfect dessert!

Ricotta panna-cota, pistachio wafers, blueberry marmalade. Also quite good, but did not top the yogurt!

All in all, this was a very pleasant experience. The quality of the food was lovely and the choices were interesting and unique. The atmosphere was just like being in some Mediterranean villa, though I have a feeling that when the place fills up the tile floors are going to create quite a loud space. Aside from our overly attentive waitress and managers wondering how everything was, we enjoyed ourselves and so did our stomachs.

Cadiz is located at 509 State Street in Santa Barbara. Phone: 805.770.2760

Weekend Outing

Eating lunch at Trattoria Grappolo, in Santa Ynez, is like taking a mini-trip to Italy. The waiters are dancing around, speaking in Italian and all the dishes are true Italian goodies.

Beef Carpaccio with Arugula and shaved Parmesan.

Seafood Linguini with fresh, tender seafood and a tomato white wine garlic sauce. Bravissimo!

Spaghetti Carbonara prepared with egg, Speck, and Parmesan cheese.

After lunch we went in search of a new brewery in the area called Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company. The sampler was a lot of fun and served with pretzels and mustard. My favorite was the Red Lager - full of flavor and smooth.

On the way home, we took a detour and drove out to Jalama. Jalama is a favorite spot on the coast for surfers and campers. It's basically in the middle of nowhere so you truly feel like you actually escaped "real" life especially because there is no cell service there and people have to use a payphone to communicate with the outside world. Seen below are a few shots of the beach and coast.

Inspired by our outing, we had a few friends over to share 3 growlers of beer we had purchased - one red lager, one stout, and one IPA. And to keep with the spirit of things, I decided to whip up some pretzels. Having never made them before, it was really fun to discover this new recipe!

After rolling out and shaping the pretzels, you boil them in boiling water and baking soda and they puff up a bit. A little egg yolk and salt and into the oven they go...

...and voila! Pretzels! Really fun to make. And now I can get creative and add things like garlic to jazz things up. Don't forget the strong, spicy mustard to dip the pretzels in!!

Raving About Radishes

On this gorgeous, 70 degree sunshiney day I strolled through Santa Barbara's lovely Farmer's Market. Touches of Lilac, warm strawberries, and sweet peas floated through the air pleasing my nose. All the wonderful signs of Spring arriving shone in bright arrays of colors on all the food and flower stands. One color that caught my eye was the magenta pink of a gorgeous pile of organic radishes. $1.75 later, a little bunch of radishes sat neatly tucked in my laptop bag as I headed home anticipating my first crunchy bite.

Totally charmed by this bunch of radishes, I photographed them on the cutting block I had left them on upon arriving home and then felt artsy and took a shot of them on the blue countertop. Well done Nature!

All prepped for eating I bit into the first one and boy was it radish-y with a nice kick to go along with it. I ate the rest in French fashion with butter and salt...technically I needed bread, but had no fresh baguette.

 The aftermath...

Delicious. I highly recommend heading to the next Farmer's Market and purchasing these little beauties. You will not be disappointed...

Oh, Ojai

On this rather gloomy morning, my friend and I drove to Ojai, only a little under an hour away from Santa Barbara, if you take the scenic route on 150. It was market day and Spring has sprung in our neck of the woods. Aren't these sweet peas amazing? And they smelled it too.

 The wisteria was out in full bloom...

 Found a GIANT nest with three eggs (made from rocks)...isn't it beautiful? Very creative indeed.

We enjoyed lunch at Suzanne's Kitchen on their patio. Seen below is a knockwurst sandwich with sauerkraut, thin red onions, Dijon, and Emmental cheese. The baguette was fresh and crunchy and all the ingredients were great together. Though it was a fine meal, it wasn't a delicious as we had anticipated. It's still a place you should go though, for the patio on a sunny day...

As we were leaving, I noticed a sign with children's handwriting saying: Mark and Maddie's eggs $4 and found a stack of these beautifully prepared boxes of a dozen farm fresh eggs below it. Hard to resist!

Delighted again!

As I impatiently await my 2 year contract with AT&T to reach its 2 years, photos taken with my iPhone will be unbearably dull and fuzzy. If I were to purchase the new iPhone now, it would cost me several cases of Champagne's worth or half a plane ticket to Paris and therefore, will have to wait. Plus, there will probably be a new phone again by then! I forgot my camera when I dined at Julienne this past week and you will find these photos to be dark and blurry, but I think that one still sees how delectable the food looks anyhow. I find Julienne to be on of the most gastronomically interesting restaurants in Santa Barbara. 
First course - Smoked Mussels, Tiny Market Lettuces, Grilled Flatbread, Lemon-Garlic Aioli. The mussels were so ever delicately smokey. The balance of the acidity of the aioli paired with the mussels and the flatbreads was spectacular. It's for dishes like these that I dine out.

Second course - Braised Wild Boar Shoulder, Broad Noodles, Shaved Brussels Sprouts, Garlic, Chili Flakes, Boar Braising Jus. You would think this dish would be too rich, but boy was it just awesome. I am drooling just thinking about it. The pasta had that perfect fresh pasta texture and the braised boar was full of flavor and tender. This is one of those dishes you end up craving.

Thrid course - Duck Duo, duck sausage, duck breast. Oh, duck, how I love thee.

Dessert - Housemade strawberry sorbet and coffee ice cream. That coffee ice cream = yum. And how they made such a strawberry-ey strawberry sorbet out of season, who knows, but bravo. 

We enjoyed this meal with wine pairings which ranged from French, to Italian, to local winery wines, all of which were perfectly matched with the dishes. Tom, our waiter, was wonderful and perfect as usual. He is always charming and aware of timing and the entire dining experience. Emma - co-owner with her husband (and the Chef) Justin - is always smiling and professional. Julienne really is a gem.

Sitting here with a glass of Stella and some salted sunflower seeds, I try to find that ephemeral Muse that dances around my head taunting me with inspirations, making them hard to grasp and hold in my hand. I went to see Ruth Reichl speak today. She was the food critic for the LA Times and then the New York Times as well as the editor of Gourmet magazine and writer of several books around food. I feel all inspired and motivated, yet totally blocked.

On another note, the weather was lovely this morning when I set out for a very long beach walk on Hendry's Beach. The shore has taken quite a beating from the recent storms and the sand has been washed away revealing jagged, horizontal lines of rock jabbing out of the ground. Normally this is athe dog friendly side of the beach full of bouncing balls of fur, but now there is just too much rock protruding and nowhere to run after a tennis ball. Makes for a beautiful landscape, however. We'll see if the tides bring in the sand again to cover up the rocks.

Photo taken with the Instagram application on the iPhone.