Christina Waters

You’re going to be very busy on August 24, what with the big fat Kitchen Tour lined up from noon to 4pm, and the UCSC Farm & Garden peak gardening workshop “Planting the Thanksgiving Feast” from 10am to 1pm.

The 1st annual Santa Cruz Literacy Program Kitchen Tour, will give you eye-popping access to nine luxury kitchens throughout the county - including the posh new remodel at the kitchen of craft’n'fitness queen Susan Karon. Sort of like YouTube, only live. The $15 tour tickets are currently on sale at good places like Bookshop SC, Capitola Book Cafe, Bookworks in Aptos, and a few more. Call 831/427-5077 for details - and be prepared to indulge your inner voyeur.

The lecture/demonstration up at the UCSC Farm, led by Trish Hildinger, will get you totally prepared for the fall gardening season - from soil prep, to seeding and transplanting. The workshop costs $15 for members of the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, $20 for the general public. No fuss - just show up with good shoes and some sunscreen. For details call 831/459-3240 or see the Center for Agroecology website.

Starting at 6pm on Friday, August 29, join winemakers David and Ann Moulton of Burrell School Vineyards at the Davenport Roadhouse, on Hwy 1. The winemakers will present four luscious wines — three reds and a Chardonnay —available by the taste, glass, and bottle, and share their extraordinary stories.

Make reservations by calling the Roadhouse, at 831-426-8801 and then plan to be impressed by some glorious vintages made up at the historic old schoolhouse vineyards off Summit Road.

“Chinese-Japanese Cuisine” says the sign on the old China Station building at Fair & mission, which is currently being revamped for a future opening.

Huh? The Westside is prime restaurant territory, where roving foodies (not to mention ravenous students) eagerly await the next dining possibility. Why would anyone offer the curious culinary cross-colonization of Chinese cookery and Japanese cuisine? (Do they give Oscars for alliteration?) After much emailing with the chef/owner of the O’mei, I want to clarify that I would welcome a menu reflecting an authentic, historically-based dialogue between Chinese and Japanese culinary cultures. What I fear is cross-over convenience that ends up being neither Chinese, nor Japanese.

Are we being asked to believe that a single restaurant can convincingly create dishes from two heavyweight culinary cultures? Or that if you can, say whip up a kung pao something, then you can obviously also make robata, or yakitori, or sushi?….What this means to me — and I’ll eat my words if I’m wrong — is that we’re looking at the imminent opening of yet another pan-Asian fusion everything that remotely involves soy sauce eatery.

How about a Bagels & Pho bistro? Or Norwegian Barbeque?

Ben Sims at Avanti made my new favorite summer salad last week.

Fresh local albacore confit, shredded into unctuous morsels and then arranged with organic green beans, heirloom baby tomatoes and a garlicky, fresh aioli garnish.

Consumed with something in the key of Rioja.

Yes.

At this week’s SCMWA professional wine judging, Lionel Le Morvan of Ma Maison Restaurant laid out a spread that was truly choice. Giant shrimps from French New Caledonia, coucous with succulent chicken and fiery harissa, housemade lamb sausages (tdf!), gorgeous desserts including the house signature bread pudding and beautiful little custards with fresh strawberries - and this was after crostini slathered (one of the appetizer tables is shown at right) with salmon and dill, plus enough of the house paté to pave Provence itself.

But here’s the best part, M. Le Movan confided to me that he would be repeating his cold weather triumph of last year — yes, cassoulet. It will make a guest appearance on the Ma Maison menu sometime in February 2009. We’re talking authentic cassoulet, three days in the making, cutting no corners, making no concessions.

I will begin camping out in the parking lot of Ma Maison sometime near the end of January. Cassoulet made by a French chef is the stuff of dreams.