I wanted to share a few food photos from my family’s recent vacation to sunny Southern California. I feel extremely lucky that we were able to escape the east coast’s brutal winter for a few days and run away to the glorious and golden west coast. I went from feeling wan (lack of sunlight), itchy (dry skin situation), and forlorn (the ice pack surrounding my house is never going to melt), to feeling like I could break into a Katy Perry song after my first day of basking in the warm, bright, sea air. For this much-needed transformation, I can thank my in-laws, who have the consideration to snowbird in California every winter so that we can then visit them. Here is their friend and fellow snowbirder from Minnesota, Dan Ivory, greeting me my first night with one of his infamous killer margaritas. Kind of says it all.
Besides drinking margaritas all day and hoarding vitamin D, I never fail to eat very well when I’m in California, and this trip took me to both the San Diego area and Los Angeles, so I feasted on everything from mahi mahi fish tacos and animal-style double cheeseburgers at In & Out Burger (see photo up top), to omakase, fresh date shakes, and avocado toast…
There is always one outlier meal on our California sojourns (a few years ago it was discovering that one of the best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten was prepared ironically at the local aquarium). This year it was the discovery of a ramen restaurant in Legoland! After I spied it at the park in the beginning of the day, it was all I could think about as we traipsed from ride to ride, “we’re getting ramen for lunch!” My family may not have been as excited about this discovery as I was, but once we sat down to our bowls of noodles and broth and plates of chicken teriyaki, I think they’d agree that it was worth the lengthy backtracking through Miniland USA to find it. When I looked around to see who the other customers were happily slurping their bowls of ramen instead of eating chicken fingers, I realized it was mostly Asian families or hipster-type parents (not to stereotype but let’s just say they were more Kinfolk than Land’s End). We are neither but I think we could all agree that our lunch was better than what they were serving at Fun Town Hot Dog.
My other must-visit whenever I’m in the San Diego area is to The Vegetable Shop run by the Chino family in Rancho Santa Fe. Here is an Instagram pic of my haul:
I’ve written about this unique farm stand before, but it never ceases to awe me. What makes their fruits and vegetables superior from any other is not only that they are able grow so many unique varieties with their extended growing season, but also the fact that they do not pick their crops until the vegetables are at their peak (versus days before they ripen so they can be transported to a supermarket). They are also smaller than normal industrial-sized vegetables and pack a lot more flavor.
This is Tom Chino who summoned a tray of their frais de bois strawberries from the fields for me to try, it was a generous treat because their crop was devastated during rain storms the week prior…
Tom, as always, was also very generous and gave me two big bags of heirloom vegetables to take home, basically one of everything I tasted. There are always new things that I have never seen before, like this peppery red edible flower used to give heat to soy sauce served with sashimi (see in yellow bowl below)…
There were purple cauliflowers and violet-skinned radishes (see below and on the avocado toast up top)…
And this purple kale and brussel sprout hybrid that was fantastic…
There was also this beautiful and delicate variety of rapini that I took home and sauteed with lots of garlic and tossed with eggs and prosciutto for breakfast…
At one point, Tom started opening up these clear little boxes for me to taste, full of different varieties of microgreens, something I never find out here in the mid-Atlantic region. When I got home, I literally showered everything I ate with these tiny leaves of arugula, cilantro and whatever else Tom gave me, including nasturium, which makes any salad look like fairies made it.
OK, enough vegetables. There was also a Rubio’s run for fish tacos. Why there is not a Rubio’s on the east coast. I don’t know. After In & Out Burger, I think it’s is arguably the best fast food place in the country…
The BIG event of the trip was taking the kids to Disneyland for the first time. I have only ever been to Disneyland, never Disneyworld, so I can’t compare, but it really is an amazing place. I mean, can it be any cleaner? And everyone who works there is just so into it. No matter if they’re dressed as a monster on a pogo stick or Snow White, there is never any “wink-wink” irony. Everyone is ALL in, so you kind of can’t help but get swept up in it all and before you know it, you want to wear a hat with mouse ears on it like everyone else. I was particularly impressed with the area made up to look like Cars the movie. We stopped at just the right time, at dusk, and I honestly began to feel like I was on an animated Route 66 in southwestern dessert and that pick-up trucks could talk.
We had lunch at Ariel’s Grotto (my friend Sujin told me they made the best margaritas there and it’s TRUE…I’m now realizing there was a margarita theme to this trip), so that Belle could meet the princess brigade. Since she is at the tail-end of that part of her childhood that is still into this kind of fantasy, I figured we should do it right, and get the full treatment. She met them all: Ariel, Aurora, Belle (get it?). Conor actually blushed scarlet when Show White cooed hello in his ear. I thought the best part of the lunch foodwise were the children’s lilliputian desserts…
From San Diego I headed north to Los Angeles to film the Home & Family tv segment and stay with my lovely friend Suze, who is about to open up the first drop-in mediation studio of it’s kind. It’s called Unplug and if you’re in L.A. you must go and center yourself in this beautiful and serene space. One day for lunch we walked from her studio to the famed Sushi Sasabune (logo: “No California rolls. Trust us!”) and I had the omasake lunch to end all omasake lunches.
It was all so fresh, the rice the perfect warmish temperature, each piece of sashimi brushed with it’s own magical sauce or topped with a translucent slice of cucumber. Although they don’t do California rolls, to end my lunch I was given a blue crab roll that was simply nori, stuffed with rice and fresh blue crab meat… it was so simple and perfect.
I can’t wait for my next trip to California, but until then, I’ll dream of spring and maybe ask Dan for his margarita recipe. I also watched the new show Doll & Em last night, have you seen it? I feel like it totally captures that certain feeling and vibe of L.A., from the houses and hedges to the conversations and people you meet at parties. Check it out!
