A rainy day experiment at central market

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Ingredients, Places and tagged with Lancaster, Lancaster Central Market, Vegetables August 28, 2011

I went down to central market really late yesterday. I don’t really like going later in the day because a lot of the items I want are sold out. However, sometimes going late pays off and you get a bunch of good deals. Some of the vendors will throw a few extra veggies in your market bag because they want to get rid of things before they pack up and head home. You often get half price bread if there is a lot left and it is nearing 2pm. You can talk to the stand holders a little bit longer because they are not as busy. I guess it is pretty nice and relaxing to show up late sometimes.

Yesterday was dreary and rainy so there was still a lot left at market by the time I arrived. Hurricane Irene was moving up the coast and I think many of the regular market goers stayed in. I did notice a surprising amount of hustle and bustle in the market area even though it was pouring outside. Millersville University has been bringing their new freshman class into the city the weekend before school begins for the past two years. There were MU tour groups entering and leaving market getting a glimpse of downtown Lancaster. I enjoy seeing them out in the city. I actually really wish they brought me in to town when I first arrived at Millersville. It took me a while before I discovered the greatness of downtown Lancaster. Venturing out of campus wasn’t really encouraged or advertised when I attended school as an undergrad. I’m happy they are making more of an effort to introduce new people to downtown. It is a great place to visit and spend your time. I like it so much I decided to call it home.

I was really pleased with my shopping trip. I didn’t buy a ton of stuff but I went home feeling like I got a great amount of veggies for a great price. I feel like that every week when I buy lemons and limes that are 3 for $1.00 and then I see then in the grocery store at crazy prices, like lemons for $.89 each!

I decided to have a sandwich for lunch from Delgiorno’s Italian Specialties.

I chose the “Laundry List” sandwich. I also picked up an iced Chai from Mean Cup and was lucky enough to find a table to sit at and eat.

As I sat and enjoyed my lunch, I wondered how much all of my veggies would cost at the grocery store. Was I really saving money by shopping at market? I certainly know that the veggies are higher quality. Even if I wasn’t saving that much money, I knew that I was getting better, mostly organic, homegrown stuff. I would probably pay more for it anyway. I decided to figure out the math and see if I was really saving money.

Here’s what I got:

From Sweet Annie Produce: small red onions, cucumber, parsley, and a little piece of thyme (all homegrown, organic) – Total $5.00

From Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative: Bok Choy, yellow wax beans, green heirloom beans, purple pepper (all homegrown, organic) – Total $7.50

From Meck’s Produce stand: red, yellow, and green peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, jalapenos (all homegrown), cilantro, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, sweet onion (not homegrown) – Total $11.20

My grand total from market was $23.70!

I went to Giant to price the veggies. The total for all of these veggies if I purchased them at the local grocery: $30.97!

So it was a comparable difference. I definitely think I am getting a way better bargain at market. This was kind of a light shopping trip for me this week. I usually purchase a lot more things like eggs, bread, and tomatoes. I will probably do another comparison with some of those items next time.

I would also like to add that I did notice that Giant was carrying some local produce. As you walked in the door, they were advertising tomatoes, zucchini, and green peppers that were all from Lancaster county – nice to see!

Stirred Up Caprese Salad… With Shrimp!

Posted by marisa rosemellia in quick and easy, Recipes and tagged with basil, quick and easy, shrimp, tomatoes August 25, 2011

This is super easy!

1/2 lb. medium sized shrimp, cleaned and deveined

4 tbsp. olive oil

12 large basil leaves

1 large ball of fresh mozzarella

8 oz. heirloom cherry or grape tomatoes

1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

You don’t have to use heirloom tomatoes but I love the colors! If you want to plant some in your garden, look for a variety of grape tomatoes called Isis Candy. They are sweet and the plants that I had the last few years produced tomatoes that were all different colors all on the same plant!

Cut the tomatoes in half, cube the mozzarella into similar size chunks, and chiffonade the basil. I used purple basil this time because I found it at market the other day and I love the color. It was so aromatic that the smell traveled out of my market bag and up to my nose the whole walk home.

Place the cleaned shrimp in a bowl with 1 tbsp of olive oil, half of the basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir it up until all of the shrimp are coated in olive oil. Heat you pan to medium-high heat. Place the shrimp into the pan in a single layer. Cook the shrimp until it turns pink and it is opaque all the way through. Try not to over cook it or you’ll end up with rubbery shrimp. Place your shrimp in a shallow dish and let it cool for a few minutes.

Add the halved cherry tomatoes, basil, and cubed mozzarella to the dish. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar and remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil over the salad and season with salt and pepper. Mix everything together to be sure everything is coated with the vinegar and oil.

This is a simple salad but it will impress your guests! We had it the other night along side the cool cucumber soup.

Crispy Prosciutto and Cherry Tomato Pasta

Posted by marisa rosemellia in quick and easy, Recipes and tagged with basil, cheese, italian, mozzarella, olive oil, pasta, prosciutto, tomatoes August 24, 2011

I had a great dinner with Dan out on the back deck last night. The weather was breezy and cool outside, it reminded me of a nice fall day. It is still the last bit of summer and the tomatoes are still flowing so I made another pasta dish with raw tomatoes.

I got these really nice heirloom cherry tomatoes from Sweet Annie Produce at Central Market this week. They were dark in color almost looking forest green on top. If you want to find them, the variety is called black cherry. It’s supposed to be easy to grow and have a sweet smoky flavor. I think they are great for pasta dishes because they are pretty hearty and hold up to some bolder italian flavors. Good tomatoes are such a bargain this time of year and we are eating a lot of them. I feel like I should eat my fill because come October they will start to disappear.

Fun fact I learned from the Today Show on Monday: Tomatoes can help prevent sunburn… because of the phytochemical lycopene! I wrote a whole paper on lycopene for my nutrition class in college. I think phytochemicals are pretty neat <insert dork comment here>. You could also build up your lycopene by eating ketchup. Lycopene actually intensifies when it is cooked!

Here’s the recipe for this fabulous pasta, it’s simple, quick and easy:

Crispy Prosciutto and Cherry Tomato Pasta

6-8 slices of prosciutto, sliced thin

12 oz. farfalle (or your pasta of choice)

2 large balls of fresh mozzarella

1 quart black cherry tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 large vidalia onion, chopped

a big handful of purple basil leaves

a big handful of parsley leaves

Lay the slices of prosciutto on an aluminum foil or parchment covered baking sheet. Place it in the oven at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes (depending on how thick your slices are). The prosciutto will turn crispy and brittle and look kind of like bacon. Let it cool before handling it, it will be hot! When it cools you should be able to crumble it into small pieces. It is so much better than bacon! Once you try making this you’ll have a hard time going back to bacon crumbles for your salads. You can use the crispy prosciutto on anything! It is great with eggs, salads, sandwiches, and pasta. Try putting it in potato salad, yum!

Just a note* these slices were a little small so I used extra, I think they were cuts from the end of the piece of prosciutto so they were not as long as slices of prosciutto usually are. This filled up a medium sized baking sheet in a single layer. Use however much you want, it really depends on how much you like it!

Cook your pasta to Al dente and prepare your other ingredients.

Slice the black cherry tomatoes in half. If you can not find heirloom cherry tomatoes, use any kind of good cherry or grape tomatoes.

Cube the fresh mozzarella, chiffonade the basil and chop the parsley.

Mix these ingredients together and season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. You could eat it just like this too, it makes excellent tomato basil salad!

Saute the onions and garlic until the onions begin to turn translucent. Mix the onions and garlic into your tomatoes and mozzarella mixture, add in your pasta and crispy prosciutto and drizzle with a little more olive oil.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and you are done, easy! I had a little white peach sangria with this dish and enjoyed a great dinner on the deck.

Vacation Eats – The Epic San Luis Obispo Farmers’ Market

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Travel and tagged with california, farmer's market, food cart, food truck, noodles, san luis obsipo, street food August 24, 2011

Since returning from vacation, I’ve already visited my local farmers’ market in Lancaster twice. I have stocked up on fresh summer veggies and have been having some amazing salads and pasta dishes. I wanted to tell you about a farmers’ market that Janeen and I discovered in California that you must not miss if you are driving on the west coast.

After our adventure in Morro Bay, we drive back inland to San Luis Obispo for the Farmers’ Market that was advertised to happen ever Thursday night from 5-9pm.

We did not know what we were in for… this farmers’ market was epic! It happens every week… I couldn’t believe it. It was five blocks long – they shut down five blocks and the side streets in the busiest part of town for the whole evening!

There were a ton of different vendors selling anything you wanted. There were vegetable stands, local goods like honey, jelly, and canned veggies. There were crafty vendors and a vendor selling shoes. There were A LOT of food options… everything from Korean BBQ to American BBQ 🙂 and plenty of dessert options. There were performers at ever cross street; including rock bands, street performers, and this guy:

We got lemonades from F. McLintocks. There was a line that stretched well past the block where their barbecue stand stood. I wanted to see if it was really worth it but I was starving and not sure if I could wait an hour for food. They do have a restaurant right there that is open as well, so you could try their food anytime. I think the barbecue might be a special for the farmers’ market because they were smoking it right there on the street. Luckily, the lemonade was in the express line. Check out the giant specialty-built box they use to contain the lemonade.

We decided to try the noodle bowls from Mee Heng Low Noodle House. I have had this hunger for some kind of noodles the whole time I was in LA, so I think that’s why I gravitated towards this choice. The name was pretty funny too… I didn’t really notice until the second time we walked by.

Here’s our noodle bowl:

I got the chicken and veggie. It had cabbage, red peppers, scallions, carrots and mushrooms all mixed up in noodles similar to Udon noodles. There was a thin brown sauce coating everything. I thought it was good, but not awesome. It definitely satisfied me but it didn’t really stand out as something special. I think I might be able to do better at home, I think that my bowl just had way too much sauce because it pooled down on the bottom. Next time, I am going to stand in line at the barbecue place, or the Korean barbecue place..

We also made sure we had dessert! As we walked around, we couldn’t help bu notice this mini doughnut machine:

It was retro and oh-so-cool! The silver funnel held the batter and dispensed it in perfectly shaped mini doughnut rings. They took a float in the long fryer and this little scooper flipped them over half way down the line. If you look at the picture above, you’ll see half of the little doughnuts look cooked and the other half look very light colored – that’s right before they get flipped over. The doughnuts are dumped in the pan at the end and then coated with sugar.

And they are oh-so-awesome! A delicious treat… I would love to own one of these mini-doughnut makers. What a fun thing to have for a party. I guess they got started with a mini doughnut truck in Denver, Colorado and now have a spot in California. It’s a great idea, the doughnuts are great street food.

There was a really nice park with a creek and pretty flowers right behind the street where the farmer’s market is located. The restaurants all had decks and outside seating along the creek. It was a very nice spot to hang out and have a drink. The temperature outside was cool and refreshing. Right across from that was the old mission of San Luis Obispo.

Right before we ended our walk around town we remembered a touristy attraction that we read about and wanted to have a look for ourselves at the weirdness that is called Bubble Gum Alley. People have been sticking their chewed up gum all over this little alley’s walls for over forty years!

I didn’t think I would be grossed out by this but it was pretty disgusting. I definitely did not want to touch it.

Vacation Eats – Morro Bay Adventure

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, Travel and tagged with beer, california, fish, french fries, morro bay, resturants, travel August 19, 2011

Vacation Eats – Tar Pits and Hitting the Road

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, dessert, Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with beer, california, dessert, gelato, hot dogs, La Brea, Los Angeles, Montecito, Pink's Hot Dogs, places, restaurants, sandwiches, Santa Barbra, travel, vacation August 18, 2011

Back to the California trip… It’s about time for a famous eatery stop. So on Wednesday (August 3rd) we had hot dogs for breakfast.

We choose Pink’s Famous Hot Dog Stand on LaBrea Avenue in Hollywood. Pinks has dozens of condiments and topping combinations on their famous dogs. The specials are named after famous stars, chefs, TV personalities and landmarks.

I chose the Emeril BAM! Dog. Emeril has a new show called The Originals that featured Pinks on one of the episodes about LA. It airs on the Cooking channel if you’re interested in finding it.

This special dog had cheese, jalapenos, mustard, onions, bacon, and cole slaw. I had to take a lot of the jalapenos off because there were so many they were falling out of the bun. I also am not a huge fan of pickled jalapenos, or bacon for that matter, but the cole slaw pulled me into picking this dog. The combination overall was BAM good, I would get it again!

Janeen got the Pastrami Reuben Dog, not named after any celebrity but I think it was famous all by itself. it was loaded with sauerkraut, pastrami, swiss cheese, and mustard. I tried it and it was a mouthful of meat. there was so much pastrami on it, it was falling all over the place. It was a fine dog.

With our bellies full of hot dogs we drove through Miracle Mile and into the La Brea Tar Pits. I’m kind of a science nerd so I thought this stop was great. The Page Museum held a lot of the fossils they excavated from the tar pits. There are also open sites that they are working on that you could observe.

We drove back across Hollywood into Echo Park to eat a late lunch at The Park restaurant, which the wonderful Erin caters to the lunch time crowd. Janeen and I had an identical lunch today. We both got Lucifer Ale, a nice light Belgian with hints of apple.

The Park has sandwich specials that all looked so good it made it really hard to choose just one. I went with some thing kind of light because I ate the hotdog for breakfast… I enjoyed the avocado and Gruyère sandwich piled high with avocado, Gruyère cheese, tomato, and lettuce. I added crispy onions, as per Erin’s recomendtion and spread some Dijon on the grilled whole wheat sourdough bread.

It was nice light and delicious, perfect after a morning of looking at gas bubble out of pits of black asphalt smelling pits.

So we headed out late that afternoon to drive up the coast. We had one perfect stop as we made our way North. I was reading “taste of Santa Barbara” magazine in the car and telling Janeen about this amazing looking Gelato in Montecito. A little bit later she noticed that we were passing Montecito on the highway and said “wasn’t something in Montecito? oh yea, isn’t the Gelato place there?” So I checked the magazine and yes! So we pulled off the exit and 2 minutes down the road we were stopping at Here’s the Scoop for a Gelato dinner.

This place it definitely worth the stop! They let you try any flavor you want and they make everything with local ingredients. Yes, I realize I keep writing about these places using local, organic ingredients, but I am drawn to that so I am either a sucker for people writing local on everything or I just pick really awesome places… probably a little bit of both. Anyway… The gelato and sorbet are out of this world awesome at this place.

I tasted the lavender lemon flavor which was crisp and refreshing but I ultimately decided on one scoop coconut, one scoop chocolate strawberry in a waffle cone. Janeen got Italian chocolate chip (which tasted like cannoli filling) and espresso in a chocolate waffle cone. All flavors got my stamp of approval and left me wanting more.

Vacation Eats – Santa Monica and Venice Beach

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Restaurants, Travel and tagged with bloody marys, breakfast, california, eggs, frozen yogurt, Los Angeles, restaurants, santa monica, vacation, venice beach August 12, 2011

On our Tuesday (August 2) in California, we headed down to the beach towns. We strolled along the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica in the morning to window shop and have brunch. We chose a little french cafe in the middle of the promenade called Monsieur Marcel. We sat outside watching passer-bys. I ordered the Benedict Marcel- poached eggs atop a buttery croissant with smoked ham and Hollandaise sauce.

It was good, a solid take on eggs Benedict, but not the best I have ever had… Janeen asked me where the best eggs Benedict was and I immediately replied two places… The Nodding Head Brewery in Philadelphia (they have sunday brunch with excellent bloody marys) and this little shack (can’t remember the name of it) beside a river in Connectitcut that I stopped at on the way back from cape cod.

Janeen had the souffle french toast. I tried it – it was super-good! It was so good I wished I had gotten in. It was soft, fluffy, buttery and it had a slight citrusy taste to it. French perfection, that’s what I would call it. If you ever find yourself eating brunch in Santa Monica, I highly recommend it.

We checked out the pier and rode the ferris wheel to get a birds eye view of everything.

Then we took a tip from Erin’s friend and went to The Lobster for a large bloody mary with a giant prawn and olive attached to it. It was a good bloody mary, kind of mild but really impressive looking. It was a nice break from the sun and we got some post cards written.

We rented bikes and rode the sandy bike trail down to the complete spectacle that is Venice beach. We locked the bikes by the skate park where skaters were zooming around the concrete learning tricks. The two headed turtle was out in front of the freak show and it seemed all the usual buskers were out.

We stopped into a cafe that was set back a little from the boardwalk. They advertised Peach Chai, which sounded good, so we decided to try it. Not really that great, it was ok but I would def not go there again. Janeen got an iced vanilla latte that was so sweet she didn’t even really drink it. I can not remember the name at all but I don’t think I’ll be going back.

We walked the whole ocean front, headed back to our bikes, and rode back to Santa Monica. On our way out, we knew there was going to be a lot of traffic and it was going to take a long time to get back, so we got a snack. We sampled the frozen yogurt at PinkBerry. It is all fat free and made with ultra fresh ingredients.

We both got waffle cones. I tasted the salted caramel, a great little bite but a bit too rich to eat a whole cone. I went with pomegranate and mango swirl with strawberries in the bottom of the come. Janeen stuck with the strawberries and got chocolate and original side-by-side in her waffle cone. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I know some people love Pinkberry and some people don’t. It is a chain that I usually only see in big cities, I think they have a good business plan. I thought it was tasty, but wait until you read what we had on Wednesday…

We had to rush once we got back to Erin’s place because we were going to her comedy show in Downtown LA and we didn’t have much time. Erin was nice enough to make us dinner. Arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette with little cukes and avocado slices.

She even cut up some pickled cauliflower (from giardiniera) and added slivered almonds. Great salad Erin! We also had pasta with olive sauce that we got at Global Gardens on our wine tasting adventure.

Erin’s comedy show was great! It was at a theater called the Downtown Independent. Finally a place with some Sierra Nevada! Good beer, good laughs. Thank you Erin for a wonderful evening!

NOLA Eats – Red Beans and Rice

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Recipes, Travel and tagged with beans, cajun, creole, New Orleans, recipes, rice, travel August 9, 2011

It’s Monday! I got here really late last night and there was a crazy lightning storm so we hung out in side for a while. I haven’t had time or internet to post the rest of my California adventure. I did keep writing about it so I will post those throughout the week as I have time.

Dan had this great idea that we should try to make red beans and rice while we are here. It is a traditional Monday thing to do in Louisiana (or so I read in the New Orleans cookbook this morning). So it’s Monday afternoon and we are simmering red beans and rice right now.

We kind of put a bunch or recipes that we read together and made up our own thing…

…for the Red Beans:

1 lb. dried red kidney beans

1 medium onion

5 stalks celery

1 green bell pepper

5 coves of garlic, minced

1 lb. pickled pork

1/4 lb. bacon (about 4 strips)

3 Cajun sausages (Andouille)

2 tbsp. Cajun seasoning

2 bay leaves

salt and pepper

…for the Rice:

3 cups long grain rice

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

6 cups water or chicken stock

Soak the red beans in a pot completely covered in water overnight. drain and rinse them in the morning, cover with water again and boil for 1 hour.

Chop the onion, celery, and bell pepper small – they call this the Trinity – a popular base for a lot of cooking Creole dishes.

Chop the pickled pork and bacon into small pieces. In a large dutch oven, saute the bacon to render the fat. Add the Trinity and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent. Add the pickled pork and cook for a few minutes.Season with salt and pepper and add the Cajun seasoning. Add the beans and cooking liquid to the dutch oven and stir. Let it simmer for about two hours, stirring occasionally.

Cook the rice by bringing the water, salt and olive oil to a boil. Stir in the rice, cover and turn the heat down to low. Allow to cook for about 20 minutes, turn off the heat and let sit for about 20 minutes.

This makes a lot of red beans! It will serve 6-8 people or you can just eat it all week- which is why it is the traditional Monday dish.

I actually ate it with scrambled eggs on the side the next morning and it made a great breakfast.

Here’s our temporary cat for the week. She likes to sit and watch you cook. I can’t tell if she is waiting for food or waiting for attention.

Vacation Eats – Malibu and Jeff Goldblum

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with sandwiches, travel, vacation August 8, 2011

We have been having some jam-packed days here in LA! I have been so busy that I hardly have time to write. On Monday (August 1st), we headed to Malibu for some beauty and beach time.
We started off the day right with a good breakfast. We went to there’s no place like Home restaurant in Los Feliz. I went here once before when I was in California. Last time, I had the breakfast burrito. It was giant and really good. Erin got the breakfast burrito this time (I think it is her favorite). This place has a good deal on breakfast. There’s a special before 11am – $6.50 for any of the starred menu items – what a deal! And all the starred items looked like they were the best things on the menu to me.
I couldn’t decide what to get so I shared two things with Janeen. We ordered the California breakfast sandwich. It had eggs, two kinds of cheese, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, and chipotle mayo on sourdough bread. I ordered the side of fruit. It was fresh and full of watermelon, honeydew, blackberries, and cantaloupe.

We also shared the Pomodoro Omelette. It was filled with tomatoes, basil and feta cheese. It also came with sourdough bread and a side of Spanish style home fries that were kind of like short french fries with peppers and onions. I haven’t eaten lunch or dinner here, but I give this restaurant a big thumbs up!

We took highway 101 to Malibu Canyon Road and drove through a deep cut canyon into Malibu. We stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies called Hows Market. Unfortunately, it is going out of business so I don’t know what will be there in the future but it was a deal for us because everything was 20% off. We packed a cooler with goodies and headed to the El Matador state beach.
You have to climb down the cliffs to get to the beach, but it is totally worth it! The beach is rocky and beautiful. There are large outcrops of rocks jutting up out of the water.

There were numerous professional (and unprofessional) photo shoots happening. We took a bunch of pictures and relaxed on the beach.

It became rather windy just as we decided to bust out our discount goods to eat. We made some salami and cheese sandwiches, and I mean SAND-wiches. We also noshed on olives, pickles, and Trader Joe’s black bean dip… awesome beach snacks.

We headed back down to LA after a great day on the beach. We didn’t have that much time to get dinner so we went to Leela Thai, right by Erin’s house in Silver Lake. There are countless Thai places in LA. There are probably two or more per block in some places! So I’m happy we had some since it is so abundant.
Leela Thai is a nice little restaurant with outside seating. I ordered a Thai Iced Tea. Thai Iced Tea is usually too sweet for me but this one was pretty good, it was sweet but not overly done. They also brought us our water in small metal cups that seemed to keep the water ice cold (with no ice in it) the entire time we were eating.

I had the Pad Thai with chicken. It was pretty standard but really good. It really hit the spot after a sunny beach day.

So… we went in to Hollywood for the evening and what we saw was pretty amazing. We walked into a guest only event at Cafe Was… The Jeff Goldblum jazz ensemble. yes, that is correct, Jeff Goldblum has a jazz band, and he plays piano. He is also extremely excited and animated while he is playing the piano.

One thing I noticed about Hollywood places is that they really don’t have a good beer selection. Either people don’t like good beer around here or they are just really into wine and cocktails (probably the latter). We did get to meet Jeff Goldblum at set break. He was pretty excited to take a picture with three hot girls. That was beautiful, yes, thank you…

Janeen had her first In-n-Out Burger experience after the show. We went to the location in Hollywood that was packed late at night. I thought it was pretty funny that we went when we were all dressed up!

We ordered a standard cheese burger with lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup and their In-n-Out Burger sauce. While I didn’t love it, it was definitely better than the Whopper/Big Mac. It at least had a real toasted bun and way better lettuce and tomato. People really love In-n-Out Burger here. I don’t know how often I would eat it but I have a feeling I would stop here more then McDonald’s or Burger King, it is way better than those two places. I think we might give it another shot while we are out here and try ordering from the “secret menu” next time.

Vacation Eats – Los Olivos Wine Adventure

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with beef, burritos, california, Los Angeles, mexican, sandwiches, travel, wine August 1, 2011

Today we woke up bright and early and decided to go north to wine country. Our pick was the tiny town of Los Olivos, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

We began the morning eating Mexican Breakfast at Tacos Delta in Silver Lake. We split two burritos between the three of us because they were pretty big. We got a bacon-potato-egg-rice-bean burrito and a potato-cheese-egg-rice-bean burrito. The salsa at this place was great! It was not too spicy and it had cilantro in it, a good addition to the burritos.

We grabbed a coffee at Casbah Cafe. I had an iced coffee (which was excellent). The shop was really colorful inside and all of the pastries and foods were carefully set up with care to look beautiful. I loved that they had nice brown hard boiled eggs on the counter top and fresh figs.

We got our coffees to-go and we started our journey north. We made it pretty far before we had to make a pit stop…

We stopped in a small beach town called Summerland and walked into a cafe with lots of lawn ornaments and a nice front porch called Cafe Luna. I am mentioning this place because I thought it was really cool that they had home-brewed Kombucha tea. There’s only one girl that knows how to brew it that works there. Unfortunately, she was on her own vacation and their Kombucha supply ran dry until she gets back. We all got their standard black iced tea. It had a nice clean and slightly sweet flavor (it was unsweetened though) and you didn’t have to add anything to it. It was perfect just how it was.

Next stop, Los Olivos. The drive up was mostly highway that ran through beautiful hills next to the coast then we had to turn inland. We drove amongst golden grassy hills with wiry oak trees that looked like they grew slightly tilted from the wind.

Los Olivos was quaint. It had one market, one coffee shop, and numerous wine tasting rooms from the surrounding vineyards and farms.

We stopped at Andrew Murray Vineyards, Blair Fox, and Kaena wine tasting rooms. I can’t even pretend to know exactly what I am talking about when it comes to wine. I do love tasting them though and I think I learned a lot about wine just in one day!

Andrew Murray wines were my favorite. I realized here that I actually like white wine. We tried a Viognier (which I have never had) that was delicious and fruity and seemed perfect for a hot day. I learned pretty quick that I really like the blended wines. I ended up getting one from here called Eleven, a blend of grenache, cabernet and syrah. It is a reference to Spinal Tap and the amplifier that can crank the volume to Eleven.

The one thing that really stuck out at Blair Fox vineyard is that their wine was very earthy. It was like you could taste the differences in the dirt the grapes were grown in. It made me notice different flavors and definitely remember them.

There was one white wine at Kaena that had a creamy, smooth, fruity flavor to it. It is called Hapa Blanc, a blend of grenache blanc and roussanne. I like it so much that I bought a bottle to take home with me. One thing that I will take away from this wine experience is that I learned I like good white wine. White wine (any kind) isn’t my favorite, but I now realize I was probably just drinking some very low quality ones.

Before we left the town center, we went to Global Gardens for an olive oil tasting! This was my favorite part of this little adventure. Yes, I like wine, but I love olive oil! We tasted a few olive oils from first pressings, blood orange infused olive oil, spice blends, olive spread, and infused vinegars. They gave you a really nice little bread roll to soak up all of the flavors and the woman that poured all of our tastings told you all about each one so it was really informative. Of course… I ended up joining the Olive Oil club (with some gentle pushing from Janeen and Erin). You get a shipment of their products four times a year for a pretty good price. I can’t wait to go home and try them out… my first one will be waiting for me when I get back! Here’s our tasting palate…

We also went to Buttonwood winery, a few miles down from all of the wine tasting rooms in Los Olivos center. Their wine was good but maybe not as good as some of the other places. This winery stop was all about the farm. They had chickens, pigs, goats, a horse, flower gardens, a peach orchard, and all kinds of places outside to sit and take it all in. It was beautiful. We had a really fun time taking pictures here…

We had to start heading back to LA after Buttonwood and we had to get some dinner. Tasting all that wine made us work up an appetite….

We tried to find this place called Cold Spring Tavern… and what a find it was! We took a winding desolate road for a while and just as we thought we went the wrong way, we see all cars lining the skinny roadway on both sides. This place was an oasis in the dry hills, and it was packed! It was part dining room, part biker bar, part BBQ pit, with shacks in the woods from the stage coach era. We went for the beef tri-tip sandwiches. You had to go in to the bar to purchase a ticket, then go outside to the BBQ pit to get your giant sandwiches from a big burly Mexican guy.

He took a giant hunk of meat off the grill and sliced it up for the three of us, placed it on grilled bread, handed over the sandwiches and told us to squish it all together. Erin asked him how he eats it and his reply was “horseradish and salsa.” I chose the barbeque sauce and horseradish sauce on mine.

It was so big, I couldn’t eat it all. I am definitely not used to eating that much meat all in one sitting. It filled me up for the rest of the night.

We made our way back to Los Angeles through stretches of traffic. We stopped in at a party at The Park restaurant, where Erin works. Then we headed into Hollywood for a comedy show. All-in-all a great day in CA!

marisa eats

Monthly Archives: August 2011