Christina Waters

What would Jesus eat? we asked as we thought about a special Easter dinner this year. Well, obviously lamb, yogurt, onions, rice pilaff, pine nuts, something with lemons and olive oil. Garlic, absolutely garlic. Lamb grilled over wood found in the desert, like mesquite.

With Middle-Eastern spices and ingredients in mind, we pulled together a truly delicious dinner of elements, that with a few exceptions — tomatoes, asparagus and red bell peppers on our skewers, and a Meyer lemon pie with crème fraiche - might have easily been found in the markets of Nazareth.

Okay, so the apostles didn’t have Peeps. But had they, they surely would have enjoyed them. Our pink peeps this year were genuine añejo - aged for over one year in a top cupboard of my kitchen. Just dessicated enough to give a unique depth to each bite. More…

Just when you thought it was safe to invite a few close friends over for a holiday gift exchange, some individuals simply go gonzo. Normally polite women, like the attractive, usually restrained Elaine (to protect her clients I am omitting her full name), can — given the prospect of a free present — lose all control. She wasn’t alone the other night at the tastefully-decorated home of Susan “knits in her sleep” Beach. There were others, women who know better but just plain lost it at the prospect of opening presents BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

Desperate Housewives. It started quietly enough. Elaine roamed through the gleaming expanse of the recently remodelled Beach kitchen, picking at appetizer plates, rolling her eyes, making little moaning sounds. Then more cheese platters arrived. More moaning. Before we knew it, the place was crackling with pent-up female energy ready to explode.

Out of Control and Well-Accessorized. Here’s an example: pasta (from my friend Joan Levine’s Camouflage) shaped, well, like a certain part of human anatomy. Well this was certainly not my grandmother’s gift exchange, I can tell you. And by the time Elaine grabbed (yes, grabbed) for the large present in the center of the table, she went, well, ballistic.

The rest isn’t appropriate for a public venue, but you can use your imagination. Holiday gift exchange — think about it.

To get you into the mood, here’s a shot of one eentsy slice of dioramic enchantment available at the gift shop in The Garden Company.

Already enjoying a cult following among local winemakers, Au Midi in Aptos has planned a splendid New Year’s Dinner menu. Chef Muriel Loubiere will begin with Champagne and oysters, followed by seared foie gras and peaches. Then comes a first course of organic chicken breast with morels and white wine, followed by salad in hazelnut vinaigrette and crispy goat cheese. The entree of sand dabs wrapped in butter lettuce sets up the palate for a triumphant chocolate Bûche de Noël adorned with chestnuts and pears.

Au Midi’s gala Reveillon dinner, served from 7pm to 11pm on the 31st —available by reservation only — is priced at $90 per person (not including tax and gratuity). Move swiftly to make your plans to dine out the old year a la francaise, at Au Midi, located at 7960 Soquel Drive in Aptos (behind the Aptos Cinema). Call 831/685-2600 for reservations.

Some people go shopping, I get baking. Immediately after Thanksgiving I lay in a supply of pastry flour, candied citron, pecans, walnuts, almonds, cranberries, oatmeal, raisins, oranges and spices — oh, and butter and eggs. And then I retrieve my vanilla-stained copy of the Sunset Magazine from four years ago — the one with a few dozen award-winning Christmas cookie recipes. This is my template. I have embellished each recipe over the years, adding twice the amount of spices, plus coriander and white pepper, to the Pfeffernusse recipe. Stepping up the amount of grated orange peel, and substituted almonds for coconut in the cranberry-orange recipe. You get the idea.

Then - for two weekends - I bake. More…

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a sushi bar decorated for Halloween. Mobo did a fine, if restrained job of tossing a few pumpkins and spiders and cobwebs here and there on October 31.

But I was there for one thing - my favorite guilty pleasure lunch. Sushi. More specifically, tekka maki (maguro rolled into tight little rolls) with shiso (that peppery leaf that tastes uniquely like itself and nothing else). And since it was a holiday, I decided to splurge and have one order of hamachi nigiri. Add a tall glass of green tea, and you’ve got All Hallow’s Eve heaven on a plate. $13, not counting tip. Pure luxury, soaked in wasabi and soy. Arigato.

Mobo Sushi, 105 S. River St., SC 425-1700

Any holiday at Ristorante Avanti can be juicy. Especially Halloween, which brings out the outrageous costume consciousness in the normally sedate staff of servers. To be candid, any excuse to dress up and act out is welcomed by this hard-working, hard-playing group, and so it was even more fun than usual having dinner at the Mission Street landmark on All Hallows’ Eve.

We were shown to our table by Willy Nelson, our order was taken by the Queen of England herself, bread was brought by a young man whose daring disguise was as smart as it was obvious. He was dressed as himself! A charming pirate of the Caribbean made sure we had enough bread and a witch with pink hair swirled through the patrons.

Even better was the food. We started with a shared sauté of wild, fresh porcini mushrooms — sweet and earthy — on a bed of frisée. Jack then proceeded to dive into his Avanti standard, the exceptional meatballs with housemade pappardalle. I ordered a special of Liberty duck breast, done rare and smothered in more sautéed porcinis - yum - on a bed of ragout of various green and yellow beans and infant white turnips.

An appropriately wicked dinner, served by a skilled band of pranksters.

Here’s what happened at our breakfast table this Easter weekend — an explosion of chicks hatched out of one of our soft boiled eggs! Egg-xactly.

The name “Easter” honors the Anglo Saxon goddess of dawn, whose favorite animal companion was the hare. Now hares, like rabbits, aren’t exactly known for celibacy (to whit, the high school expression, to “bang like a bunny”), hence they make the perfect symbol of the season. After the hard times of winter, spring—by any name—was worth celebrating (and here we’d do well to recall that baby chicks, little bunnies, lambs and other adorable barnyard entities are actually born in the spring). The egg motif, again symbolic of birth, predates Christianity, and was used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks in their fertility cults. It would be cynical to point out that each spring, hens just tend to lay a lot of eggs, and somebody had to invent something to do with this ovoid glut. Nature was essentially the biological metaphor for Christ’s return from the dead—and vice versa. It was a good fit, and the early Christian marketing geniuses knew it.

So did later Christian marketing geniuses, guys with names like Macy and Wanamaker. Easter - the most exploited excuse for spending since (you got it) Christmas, moved from a religious ritual to a retail rite of spring, thanks to the Victorian mania for interior decoration. More…

Immodest Proposals: Where to go for romantic V-Day dining? Here’s my answer. Gabriella Cafe chef Rebecca King and her sous-chef, Ben Howard (both veterans of Chez Panisse) offer lovers a four-course Valentine’s odyssey, accompanied by two glasses of Italian bubbly, for $85 per person. And since Gabriella Café, 910 Cedar Street, is arguably the most romantic dining spot in Santa Cruz (as Theo’s is to Soquel), one must reach immediately for the phone to make February 14 reservations, at (831)457-1677. And speaking of Theo’s, Roger Romano tells me that reservations are rapidly filling up. V-day dinner — $75 per person, not including tax & tip. Just know that chef Nicci Tripp will make the experience a benchmark in romantic gastronomy. Feast on the Valentine’s menu at www.theosrestaurant.com/ and then pray there’s still a table! Theo’s, 3101 N. Main - Soquel: 831.462.3657. . . Since hyper-romantic (in that nostalgic way) Shadowbrook has probably long since stopped taking reservations for dinners, I can pass along a tip. Try grabbing a seat in the upstairs Rock Room Lounge, where Terry Riversong will be singing on Valentine’s eve. There’s a wood-burning oven, and a separate food menu, plus with the first come/first served, no res policy, this is a great option for those who couldn’t get a dining room reservation. Vibrant and definitely romantic atmosphere. The Shadowbrook, at 1750 Wharf Road, in Capitola: 831/ 475-1511.