by Christina Waters | Jun 1, 2007 | Food, Home |
Justin Severino is an old-fashioned food maverick. The former chef – Bernardus, Manresa – is currently into handcrafted charcuterie and traditionally butchered meats. Primarily pork, which he gets from pastured, free-roaming pigs raised on TLC Ranch. What Severino does with the dense, flavorful meat is nothing short of sorcery. The proof is in the tasting, so I suggest you hit either the Westside farmers market this Saturday, or the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market on Wednesday.
Look for Severino’s Community Butcher, Inc. And grab – with both hands – all the packages of Spicy Italian Sausage you can carry ($6/lb). I grilled a few of these last week to serve next to my favorite Pasta Mike’s raviolis. Bursting with flavor! In addition to the lean-but-delicious pasture-raised pork, Severino’s sausages acquire zingy flavor from local dried chilis, coriander, fennel, black pepper and smoked paprika. Definitive Italian sausage any way you slice it. You need to try this. Need to.
by Christina Waters | May 27, 2007 | Home |
It turns out that longtime Santa Cruz foodie Dan Dickmeyer was right. There is going to be a new Italian place on Soquel Avenue, where the old Malabar was, and it’s scheduled to open in July.
If you’re like me (and I truly doubt it) you don’t immediately think “Italian” when you hear the name “Lillian.” But you will from now on. Lillian’s Italian Kitchen is the name of the new place at 1116 Soquel Avenue, and it’s all about Southern Italian cooking. Think Sicily when you consider menus items like meatball sandwich, pasta e fagioli, Sunday Gravy (the old southern Italian meat sauce with spaghetti), prawns diavola over penne – even cannoli for dessert is on the brand, spanking new menu.
July. Something to look forward to. Grazie tanto.
by Christina Waters | May 21, 2007 | Home |
You know the ones I mean. Locations in which well-meaning, hard-working entrepreneurs keep trying to set up a restaurant business, and which keep resisting any success. Locations whose ill-fated feng shui, or abyssmal karma, bodes against every effort to achieve something like success. There are many such culinary Bermuda Triangles in every town, and the Santa Cruz area is no exception. Here – with input from many readers – is a short list of retail revolving doors. Places that just plain don’t work, no matter how creative the make-over.
1) The very top cursed location is the corner of Ocean and Soquel. What is it about this place? Surely this could be a prime location for something? I mean every hungry, thirsty tourist aiming for the beach has to pass by here, right? Yet over and over – nothing works. Maybe it’s the tiny parking lot, or the fact that it’s just a little bit too far from downtown. This one got the most votes of all! Former Rock ‘n’ Tacos, Maui Maui, something pancake house, something vegetarian, somebody’s bakery & café.
According to Larry Pearson, Players’ Pizza was the last successful restaurant at that site, owned by Terry & Cathy Hutson who closed it down and moved to the Sierra foothills 10 years.. . . Where’s the al qaeda when we need them? Just blow up this building and put it out of its misery.
2) Then there the former Manoff’s, on Water Street that re-re-opened a few minutes ago as another taqueria, after the demise of Puerto Escondido Taqueria. Way too tiny and (it has to be said) ugly. After many years of serving great burgers, Manoff’s went the way of Castagnola’s and the Santa Cruz Hotel. Then it was the Turkey Shack, then Mike’s Soul Food (or was it the other way around?), then some other burger joint, then a taqueria, and now yet another taqueria.
3) Several readers felt that the Art Center dining rooms of former, incomparable India Joze have become another cursed location. (more…)
by Christina Waters | May 20, 2007 | Food, Home |
Grilled sea scallops on a bed of Israeli cous cous, with ultra fresh snap peas and fava beans, micro bits of Meyer lemon all tossed in olive oil and Meyer lemon juice, with nano-strips of fresh basil. It is literally the month of May on a plate. Thanks to Avanti chef Ben Sims, who has other such goodies up his seasonal sleeve.
by Christina Waters | May 15, 2007 | Food, Home |
How unfair that we compare gluttonous humans to pigs! Pigs are absolutely sensational creatures — playful, intelligent and curly-tailed. I love pigs and I love pork. So that means I was curious to see TLC Ranch, home to a hundred free-spirited, free-range pigs. TLC Ranch overlooks the pastoral paradise that lies somewhere between Aromas and Watsonville. On the generous easements of a 200 acre spread, rancher Jim Dunlop raises hundreds of chickens, lambs and pigs. Big fat gorgeous Berkshire and Blue Butt pigs. All of these animals live in ways that would make even animal liberationist Peter Singer happy. The word “free-range” doesn’t begin to describe the prime wandering, foraging, rooting and lazing around Dunlop’s animals enjoy on their idyllic acreage.
I’d been interested in the pastured products of TLC Ranch since discovering them at the farmers markets last year, so I jumped at the chance to join a dozen or so folks, plus plenty of kids, for a walking tour of the Ranch, which is tucked into acres devoted to horses, organic strawberries and raspberries. Under the oaks, nestling in the soft dark forest floor of ponderosa groves, the fabulous pigs slept, ran around and rolled in deep troughs filled with mud. Weighing in at up to 400 pounds, the animals forage their way through one section of the property, and then are moved to another where their ability to eat anything is put to good use. Dunlop describes them in colorful ranchers’ terms, as “bulldozers with manure spreaders on the back.” (more…)
by Christina Waters | May 14, 2007 | Food, Home |
If you’ve never indulged in the exquisite sensory array of one of the “Outstanding in the Field” farm dinners, you have missed something wonderful. Imagine dining at a long, linen-draped table, placed out in the open next to a swath of atmospheric fields. Now add a variety of local wines, complete with local winemaker to discuss them — add five courses, each one paired to a wine, and to the season. Each course prepared on site, with chatty tasting notes from the chef. Complete the picture with 60 or so vivacious fellow diners, each one of them as seduced by the beautiful setting and the robust flavors as you are – and you have something close to the picture.
On July 1, this long, leisurely, utterly memorable moveable feast unfurls at Route One Farms, just north of Santa Cruz (seen above in the photo by earth entrepreneuse Tana Butler). Foods prepared by the expert hands of Oswald chef Damani Thomas will be matched by wines from Zayante Vineyards, presented by winemaker Kathleen Starkey. Your farm host for the afternoon will be Jeff Larkey, and a tour of the fertile fields is included in the $150 per person price. The event begins at 4pm, with wine, munchies and the start of the tour. This summer is the time to treat yourself to the ultimate experience in fresh, fresh, fresh flavors. How fresh? Well, you will be literally dining in the very fields that produced your salad. That’s how fresh.
For the complete 2007 Season schedule of al fresco dinners, go to the “Outstanding in the Field” website and make plans! These matchless multi-course culinary odysseys sell out quick – so get moving!
