Hello from beautiful San Diego. I’m here with the fam for our annual visit with the in-laws. Like many Minnesotans, my husband’s parents escape the harsh Midwestern winter by snowbirding in this land of sun and surf. I have to say, I’ve never had a bad visit to California. When I’m here, dodging bad mergers on “the 5″, admiring the middle-aged surfers who hit the waves at the crack of dawn, buying fresh strawberries in March only inches from the field where they were grown, and being generally surrounded by the golden haze of west coast living, I ask myself…”Why don’t I live here again??”
I have been taking photos of some of my favorite food stops, as well as some new discoveries, so I can share them with you. 
Up top is a pic from Chino’s Vegetable Shop in Rancho Santa Fe–quite literally one of my most favorite places on the entire planet (they grow the most beautiful and interesting vegetables, fruits, and herbs 
and supply illustrious places like Alice Waters’ s Chez Panisse).
Here are some baby cauliflowers that come in gold, green and this shockingly electric purple (I bought one of each for roasting and tossing into pasta).
Above, an assortment of radishes, as tiny as pinballs.
Up and to the right, an assortment of these freakishly shaped mutant carrots. There were skinny yellow and white ones, fat carrots streaked pink and red, and stumpy orange ones the size of whacked golfballs. I peeled a bunch of these and tossed them with thin slices of the radishes, an assortment of lettuces, nice chunks of California goat cheese and almonds to make this beach salad lunch :
My daughter called it “the rainbow salad”.
Above are freshly shelled peas for dinner, also from Chino’s. I sauteed them alongside this flowery member of the broccoli family:
adding lots of lemon juice and garlic:
Tonight, for my mother-in-law’s birthday party, I think I’m going to make a pasta with some more peas, bacon, new spring onions, and of course another salad. Now my mother in law
