Best & Worst of the Decade in Des Moines

When the last decade began, few people argued with a New York food critic’s assessment that “a gourmet trip across Iowa is non-stop.” At decade’s end, more semifinalists for the James Beard Award as Midwest’s Best Chef came from Des Moines than all but one other city (Minneapolis). In between, our food world turned upside down. Fishing moved indoors, hog farming returned outdoors. Cows were allowed to eat grass again and humans began to drink it. Iowa’s emerging wine industry survived the Chinese lady beetle while genetically modified seeds overcame the scorn of Europe to dominate Iowa agriculture. Best of all, an artisan food movement made Iowa products like La Quercia, Niman Pork, Eden Farms, Templeton Rye, Majinola, Sutliff, Cedar Ridge, Vande Rose and Northern Prairie into renowned brands of quality.

Earlier this month, the National Restaurant Association rated “locally grown entrees” as the number one food trend of 2009, followed by “locally sourced meat & seafood,” and “sustainability.” Cityview and its sister Relish rated those three things as Des Moines’ top food trends seven years ago. Foodwise, this city spent the 00’s way ahead of the national curve. That took individual vision and entrepreneurial fortitude, the best of which follows:

As bread rises from yeast, Des Moines’ culinary revival began in two bakeries. George Formaro reconstructed a Sicilian brick oven bakery on the southside while Joe and Steve Logsdon built a state of art French bakery on the east side. Together these “Catalysts of the Decade” spawned South Union Bakery Café, Centro, Django, Gateway Market Cafe, Basil Prosperi, Lucca and La Mie.

Renaissances can’t live by bread alone. Formaro and the Logsdons’ genii were sustained by entrepreneurs whose visions covered a broader aesthetic. Minimalist architect Kirk Blunck preserved the historic integrity of East Village. His designs for Basil Prosperi and Lucca made those cafés into anchors of that neighborhood revival. Pam & Harry Bookey defied the city-endorsed forces of rubble lust to save the Temple of the Performing Arts while creating Centro with Formaro. The Bookeys would later give Court Avenue its defining restaurant - Dos Rios. Blunck and the Bookeys were the “Visionaries of the Decade.”

Centro was “Restaurant of the Decade” for reviving the concept that downtown could again be the heart of Central Iowa, with coal oven pizza, chic trappings and a dedication to fresh & local foods.

Formaro was the “Chef of the Decade” for being the face and soul of South Union Bakery and Deli, Centro, Django, Gateway Market Cafe and so much more.

All those visions might not have found financing were it not for a gang of friends collectively known as Full Court Press (FCP), the “Pioneer of the Decade.” When venture capital for local restaurants was directed toward “proven” franchise operations, FCP gave The 50309 a distinctive culinary personality. With sweat equity, they created Royal Mile, Hessen Haus, High Life Lounge, El Bait Shop, Fong's Pizza and Sbrocco while disproving the bankers’ myth that only cookie cutter operations were worth risk. FCP likely enabled other neighborhood developments like those that brought Café di Scala and Gateway Market to Sherman Hill), or those of our “Entrepreneur of Decade,” the Manuel Mora family, who parlayed a small tienda and café into La Tapatia supermarket and its adjoining strip mall.

The “Story of the Decade” was the curious magnetism that attracted so many owner-chefs to Des Moines from the American South and even further away. Doug Smith (Cosi Cucina), Jeremy Morrow (Bistro 43, Star Bar, Azalea, etc.), Gary Hines (Bistro 43, Bistro Montage), Andrew Meek (Sage, Sbrocco), Don Hensley (Danielle) and Rob Beasley (Varsity) all came from Dixie and raised the bar for fine dining here. Ephraim Malag (Oak Room), Miyabi Yamamoto (Miyabi 9), Liam Anivat (Cool Basil, etc.), Mao Heineman (King & I), Jesus Ojeda (El Chisme), Rosa Martinez (La Rosa) and Mark Lijadu (Jasmine Bowl) came further to upgrade our ethnic cuisine.

That story beats out the uglier stories that garnered more headlines while vainly denying the reality that America's dependence on artificially cheap food comes with immigration problems: the terrible Swift raids in Marshalltown that displaced mothers from nursing babes among other scandals; the fiasco that was Rubashkin's in Postville.

The “Worst Idea” of the decade sprung from the Des Moines Public School System, which centralized its cafeterias, at huge expense, and expanded bussing to include the food our kids ate. That converted school lunches from homemade to reheated, while driving students off campus to fast food outlets.

Top 10 Questions About Sustainability and Pop Culture

1.) Why do universities do so little, often less than nothing, to support sustainability in their most visible outlets - sports arena concession stands?

2.) Why do governments regulate and test raw foods, especially dairy, so much, and processed foods so little?

3.) Why is it still assumed that "bragging" justifies any kind of claim in advertising?

4.) Why don't stockholders exert more pressure on big ag corps to do the right thing, instead of just bolden the bottom line?

5.) Is there a politician in America, with any clout, who isn't in the pocket of environmentalists, or the Farm Bureau, or Monsanto?

6.) Has there ever been a serious, polite debate about whether Industrial Ag is really the only way to feed to world?

7.) Why don't our schools teach easy-to-grasp concepts like sustainability like they drill vague ones such as the "Pillars of Character" ?

8.) Why aren't students of all ages encouraged to save seeds and recycle them?

9.) Why isn't there a value added tax on foods that are processed?

10.) Why do so many "farmers markets" allow vendors who don't grow the foods they sell?

Iowa Looks Like Rome of the Gracchi, Minus the Elegant Statesmen

Sir Tadema's "Women of Amphissa"

"Euphrosyne with Grapes"

Dinner Changes the World

History is a conjugation of the verb ‘to eat.’ Anonymous

Food has never been so cheap as it is today. In percentage of income spent and in the number of hours of labor required to eat, contemporary Americans are more distanced from hunger than any people who ever lived. But before the middle of the 20th century, history had been fairly described as “a conjugation of the verb ‘to eat.’” Up till then the notable developments of civilization had been primarily motivated by the desire to eat, or to eat better. And the greatest of all civilizations fed itself to death, in a lesson eerily conjugate with contemporary Iowa.

The Roman Empire was built by small family farmers. Before the first century B.C., the Roman state restricted ownership of land to small parcels. Because only land owners could serve in the military, this proud yeomanry filled Rome’s armies. As the empire grew the state began subsidizing imported grains from slave labor colonies. This reduced the market price of domestic grain below the cost of its production. It ruined Italian farmers and ended the great institution of small family farms. If this doesn’t sound familiar yet, just wait.

A few rich families bought the land of the dispossessed soldier-farmers who fled to the “bread and circus” welfare state of Rome itself. The large farms were more productive because the rich owned state-of-the-art plows and slaves. Yet it still became more profitable to trade imported commodity contracts than to actually produce food. Domestic farm land was converted to pasture for the more lucrative livestock trade which was fueled by gourmet excesses of the new upper class. The state had to further subsidize grain imports to feed the growing masses of dispossessed farmer-soldiers.

Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Carthage, was the greatest philosopher-statesman and soldier of pre-Christian Rome. He surrounded himself with the greatest thinkers of the empire’s golden age. They created what historians dubbed “the conscience of Rome.” Scipio’s daughter Cornelia became the greatest salon-keeper of classical times. She raised two sons as a widow, after turning down the king of Egypt preferring to remain simply the daughter of Scipio and the mother of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus.

When Tiberius saw that Italian farms were worked by slaves, he feared for the future of the state. After he was elected Tribune, he enacted land reforms limiting the size of holdings, returning small plots to the citizenry and winning the love of the masses. Conservatives labeled him a tyrant and murdered him. His little brother was later murdered and the charismatic Cornelia was forbidden to wear mourning, lest she inspire an uprising. One hundred and fifty years later, Jesus of Nazareth made speeches that were nearly identical to Tiberius Gracchus’ more eloquent writings about connecting to the land.

Today Iowa looks a lot like Rome of the Gracchi but without the eloquent statesmen. Built by a community of proud citizen farmers, Iowa has become an urban-suburban state surrounded by large agricultural tracts that are owned mostly by non-farmers. Without subsidies the land would be worthless because food can be raised cheaper elsewhere. Without imports the population would starve - because the richest agricultural land in the world lacks the diversity to feed its own farmers, let alone its urbanites anymore.

Politicians pay lip service to the romance of the small farm and the independent farmer. Then they go out to dinner with the fat cats from Tyson. Even the agriculture related literature of our era has forgotten the Gracchi, turning instead to the wimpy King Lear (A Thousand Acres) and Don Quixote (The Straight Story) for analogies. The only history lesson that has been absorbed is that you can get killed trying to deal with the problem of unsustainable agriculture.

Without even knowing it, we change our world with the decisions we make about what we eat. American slavery was an economic by-product of food lust. Human labor was the only commodity West Africa had to trade in an insatiable cyclical appetite for salt, corn, rice, sugar, rum and tobacco. After slavery ended, 19th century America grew rich and powerful because Europeans got hooked on our wheat - a crop modified in America to compensate for the sudden end of slave labor.

We even change the world with decisions about what we feed to the food we eat. In the early 20th century Iowa grew rich after the discovery that corn could be fed to cattle, without killing them before they were ready for market. By the late 20th century, hog lot confinements fouled Iowa - because the average consumer wouldn’t pay a little extra for the superior taste of pork raised without pig abuse.

It’s less obvious now, but history remains a conjugation of the verb “to eat.” The next Gracchus could be a new kind of gourmet, able to inspire people to buy foods that don’t defile their lives, their land and their sense of honor.

A Writer's Best Quotes of 2009

Bill Luchsinger, artist
“All art, all higher functions of the mind, is about time - our wish to control it, to stop it, to understand its triumph over all that we do.”

Dr. Dan Gervich, infectious disease specialist at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines

“ It’s as if Staphylococcus aureus were trained to understand human behavior and vulnerability. They gravitate to the end of the nose, between the legs and under the arms — great places to colonize. It loves serum and blood. That’s what we feed it in labs. Once it finds its way to them — even through floor burns or tiny abrasions — it celebrates. Bacteria are promiscuous, I’d even say bestial. Other species share genetic material with them, extra chromosomal DNA. Within that suitcase lurks resistance to much more than what’s obvious.”

Dr. Tara Smith, the University of Iowa doctor who unleashed MRSA on the mainstream media, and who has also been working on Streptococcus suis, a pathogen of swine which causes a rapidly fatal disease in neonatal piglets as well as sporadic disease in humans with meningitis, a common manifestation.

“All are zoonotic infections — microbes that can be transmitted between animals and humans. HIV has become established in the human population, and the animal reservoir is no longer needed to maintain transmission to humans. With E. coli O157 and ST398 (the “pig” MRSA), animals still seem to be the primary reservoir for these microbes, and humans become infected upon contact with the animals themselves or with contaminated food.”

Mike Callicrate, maverick cattle rancher and bane to Big Ag

“If we can get PAMTA (Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, a bill now in Congress and supported by President Obama that would end the prophylactic use of antibiotics in industrial agriculture) passed it’s the end of the CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) - because CAFO’s can’t exist without massive antibiotics. Without CAFO’s, all the other problems - human rights, animal rights, water pollution, environemental abuses, health issues - improve by leaps and bounds.”

John Phillip Davis, painter

Speaking about himself and three contemporary painters -


“We’re packaged quite differently but we are all afflicted with the same fetish - to make that which we love making and to figure a way to live off our labor.”

Michael Brangoccio, painter whose subjects frequently defy the laws of physics, with floating elephants and grounded birds.


“Floating is nearly always about grace, that unearned quality that just happens if you are in the right state.”

Tara Donovan, sculptor

“My attraction to materials and to their quantities comes from how they absorb and reflect light. I don’t see a straw, I see a tubular construction that sucks light. I work as much as a scientist as an artist. It’s all a process of experiment and discovery for me.”

Monterey - Sicily of the Seven Seas

Sardine Dreams with Flipper Song

"Cannery Row is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” John Steinbeck

Like many baby boomers, I read John Steinbeck in junior high school, which is now known as middle school. That’s not all the only thing that changed. During my lifetime, California truly became the “Golden State,” the place where American dreams came true. With its hallowed golf courses and artsy beach communities with movie star mayors, Steinbeck’s stomping grounds in Monterey Bay became the personification of such dreams. Yet Steinbeck’s books were always there to remind me that such prosperity was built on backs of our ancestors‘ hard struggles.

That writer is best remembered today for “Grapes of Wrath” in which Dust Bowl refugees form the backbone of Central California agriculture. But I was more drawn the characters in his Monterey stories, “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday,” that reified Chinese Californians. When my parent’s generation was still segregated within Chinatown enclaves, Steinbeck was creating fully assimilated Chinese characters. When most Americans still regarded Chinese Americans with suspicion, Cannery Row’s Lee Chong projected epitomic American values like industriousness and generosity.

I was also drawn to those Monterey stories by my own fascination with the coast. Because I grew up in inner city Oakland, the ocean represented my American dream. Our “family vacations” were day trips to see the beach in places like Santa Cruz and Monterey. We kids barely had time to get our bare feet sandy before we had to pile back in Dad’s car and head back to our Chinatown restaurant.

After I began traveling with bi polar bear Wroburlto, Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” became a spiritual guidebook for us, even though Steinbeck’s dog never went through the wild mood swings my honeybear does. So, when Wro told me he wanted to visit Cannery Row in Monterey, I figured it was time to pay respects to our great mentor. Fortunately, Monterey makes that easy.

Ocean View Avenue, the setting of most of Steinbeck’s Monterey stories, has been renamed Cannery Row, despite the fact that the canneries there have pretty much been closed for business for half a century. If his book had not immortalized that industry, Monterey’s canneries would be as little remembered today as the horseless carriages or steamboats that also thrived during the fish canning era. Like most things Californian, Monterey has re-invented itself. Cannery Row is now a family-friendly, OSHA-approved, five star theme park where Steinbeck plays like background piano music. Tourist shops sells his books and T-shirts. The canneries’ distinctive skywalk passageways have been restored to make the avenue look like it did in the days when the book was written.

I doubt the novelist would recognize the place today though. In his books, this was a de facto skid row while Monterey’s uphill real estate was the dominion of respectability. Today, Cannery Row is some of the choicest oceanfront property in America. Like the book’s hero Doc, contemporary Monterey embraces the ocean as if it were a lovable cartoon seal. The Monterey Aquarium has become an icon of California tourism anchoring a hotel, restaurant and boutique enterprise zone.

We considered two hotels for our trip - the Monterey Plaza Hotel (MPH) and The Clement. The town also has some delightful boutique inns in quieter parts of town (Pacific Hotel is my favorite) and some marvelous hotels linger in nearby Carmel. But Wro insisted that we stay in the middle of Cannery Row - where we could hear seals barking all night long. That left two top hotels to choose between, with personalities as different as Wro’s and mine, or as Wro’s and Wro’s. After checking them out, we devised a simple test to help others choose. Just ask yourself if you would feel more comfortable in Los Angeles or Honolulu.

The Clement projects bustling chic and big city cool - it reminds me of a W Hotel in the middle of say the Los Angeles Civic Center. Guests seem to be young and hip and busy. Its main restaurant, The C, is even named in W style. The Monterey Plaza Hotel is laid back, like a grand old hotel in Hawaii. We asked general manager Doug Phillips about that.

“All great hotels have a definite sense of place. After I visited this place the first time I fell instantly in love,” he related, before adding that he came to Monterey from Hawaii via the legendary Greenbriar resort in West Virginia.

“We encourage, we cultivate the Aloha spirit here,” he admitted, explaining how every employee we talked to somehow knew our names and walked with us to point out directions.

From our room we could see the entire Monterey Bay. I exploited Wro’s interest in that vista to teach him some of the local history. We took Monterey’s Walking Path of History along the bay shore to the Monterey Maritime Museum. I don’t think the museum will be too upset if I condense what we learned there amid their sardine boats and fish nets.

Monterey’s Melting Pot

Rumsien people lived in Monterey for thousands of years before the first Spanish visitors. Both were attracted to the same good food - rich fishing waters, fertile soil and abundant wildlife. Portuguese settlers from the Azore Islands began shore-whaling in Monterey Bay soon after Mexico lost California to the USA. That industry did well until kerosene made whale oil obsolete. Then Chinese settlers developed a new junk fishing industry around China Point where they dried and shipped their catch. They made too much money though. New laws and regulations soon forced the Chinese out of fishing for anything except squid, a commodity that no other ethnic group cared about. Plus, squid were fished at night when other boats were docked.

Anti-Chinese sentiments still continued to grow. A Chinatown in China Point (where Pacific Grove now borders new Monterey) burned down mysteriously and cops prevented the residents from returning to rebuild. The Chinese negotiated for a much smaller settlement, in much less desirable real estate along Ocean View Avenue, smack dab in the middle of what became Cannery Row. Without the Chinese, the canning industry likely would never have happened here because Asian fishing families provided the expertise of fish cutting and drying.

The Japanese introduced Americans to eating abalone and they thrived on its commercialization until the abalone were overfished. By the time the Chinese had been relocated by arson, salmon fishing had become profitable. Frank Booth established a canning industry on Ocean View Avenue in 1896. Norwegian Knut Hovden pumped things up with a new can sealing technology and Sicilian Pietro Ferrante revolutionized the industry with new nets, boats and knowledge about sardine fishing. Sardines and Sicilian fishermen dominated Monterey’s fishing industry until its demise after World War II.

Compared to Atlantic sardines, California sardines were huge, over 14 inches long. Salmon cans were never even downsized to fit sardines. The industry grew in World War I when tinned sardines became a popular battle ration. After that war, American tastes moved toward other things and California sardines were converted mostly into more profitable by-products. By the time the industry peaked, canning accounted for only a small percentage of the sardines fished here. Most of the sardine catch became feed for chickens and livestock, or oil for fertilizer.

The high water mark for Cannery Row was World War II when the US government again bought canned sardines for battle rations. That encouraged over fishing. Steinbeck’s book came out in the sardine’s banner year of 1945. The following year produced a frighteningly low catch. 1947 proved that was no fluke and that the conservationists, like Steinebck’s mythical Doc, had been right all along. The industry’s belief that sardines could never be over fished was exposed as tragic fallacy. Cannery Row became a ghost town within a decade.

Massaro & Santos

All that history made us very hungry. Because Sicily was settled by so many different ethnic groups, from French and Tunisians to Arabs and Greeks, its cuisine is richer and more diverse than that of any other part of Europe. I figured that Monterey’s long history of Sicilian settlers meant that it would be a hotbed for Sicilian restaurants. Wro believed that he was destined to meet a really “hot Sicilian“ chef.

However, we were told that Sicilian restaurants had been relegated to Monterey’s past. The closest thing we could find was Massaro & Santos, on the pier halfway between Old Monterey boardwalk and Cannery Row. Frank Massaro’s dad was full a Sicilian, so there was a connection, but Frank’s from Stockton. His story is more New Monterey, than Cannery Row.

“Dad told me, son, if you want to go into the restaurant business you need to get out of Stockton. I came here to bartend for the US Open (golf tournament) in 1972 and I never left,” he explained.

This 90 seat restaurant hangs over the water and puts one in the mood for seafood. We visited on a slow day, so Frank and chef Miguel Cortez, from the culinary town of Oaxaca, could sit down and talk to us.

On their advice, we tried “scalone” - a scallop and abalone cake covered with almonds and lemon butter, garlic and white wine sauce with a little cream.

We also enjoyed a squid salad that was big enough for four people. Sand dabs were a great $12 entree, with lots of pasta and fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus vegetables. One daily “special’ will remind us to always ask the price of “specials.” A blue nose bass was dryer and less exciting than the sand dabs and it was served with the exact same plating. It cost $27 though. More than double the most expensive entrée on the regular menu.

Decadent Otter Acts

We walked our lunch off on Cannery Row, ending up at the Monterey Aquarium, a place that had been rated “two thumbs way up” by my chief cultural advisers - preschoolers Maggie and Stella. On their recommendations, we timed our visit to include feeding times for both the otters and the penguins. That was great advice.

I remembered that naturalist Annie Dillard had written that one of her greatest voyeuristic joys was to have seen an otter in the decadent act of floating on his back. The Aquarium’s otters never got her memo about that being a rare act. They dive to the bottom of their three story tall tank to catch their dinner, then they bring it up to the surface and eat it while floating on their backs. We couldn’t get enough of that show.

The Aquarium puts the otters’ food (crabs, clams, kelp, sea urchins and sea stars) into toy-like food tubes that stimulate their natural behavior of working to get food out of shells. Otters have the thickest fur of all animals and we saw them hide food in their coats. They eat a quarter of their body weight each day and during an average day a sea otter spends about eight hours feeding, five to six hours grooming and eleven hours at leisure. A good job if you can get it.

Penguins by contrast only eat about 14 per cent of their weight, freeing up time for other things. Otters and penguins have vastly different parenting skills. An otter mother usually has one pup at a time. If she has twins, she abandons one of them. Penguins, maybe because they aren’t always eating, make better parents. We got a kick out of watching them, both moms and dads, protect their eggs, build their nests and teach their chicks to watch out for bears. ( Polar bears’ favorite food is penguin.) Penguin parents regurgitate their fish to feed their kids. We spent several hours at the Aquarium checking out cute critters and some fish canning history too.

Watching otters and penguins eat made us hungry, so we walked back down Cannery Row to the Monterey Plaza Hotel, only stopping for a few shopping distractions. After seeing souvenir photos of the real life people that served as Steinbeck‘s models for “Cannery Row” characters, Wro surprised me with the announcement that he was “over Mack and into Doc now.” I realized his decision was superficial, that Doc was modeled after handsome Ed Ricketts (Nick Nolte in the movie) and Mack’s model was the less attractive Gabe Bicknell (E. Emmett Walsh). But I’m happy for anything that makes Wro more interested in a scientist than a slacker party boy. I so hope this means he’s maturing.

The Duck Club

We usually like to get out of our hotels to dine but not in Monterey. The Duck Club in the MPH is a California treasure. I love chef James Waller’s story about how he was fated to be a chef.

“I came from a big family and I was one of the younger kids. Mom didn’t like to cook but, after the older kids moved on, she developed a fondness for going out to eat and taking the rest of us with her. We younger kids were really spoiled food wise,” he said.

The hotel is owned by same Alden family that owns Rodney Strong vineyard, so wine and food are closely paired here. Because the hotel sponsors the Aquarium’s “Cooking for Solutions” and “Seafood Watch” programs, The Duck Club hosts the Monterey Aquarium Seafood Challenge each year. James told us how one famous chef once brought the ecologically taboo blue fin tuna to that competition. It sounded like an honest mistake so I won’t tell on Roy.

Paying due diligence to a namesake, The Duck Club’s duck takes five days to prepare . Air-dried ducks are brined in soy sauce, jalapenos, coriander, sugar, orange and lemon juices. Actually, it’s more like a dipping than a brining - they take otter-like 8 hour naps between dives in the tank - twice a day for two days. Then they are cooked on wire racks and finished in wood burning ovens.

James Waller is an odd duck himself - a contented California chef. He’s been at the same job here for a dozen years now. New and flashy may be trendy, but I prefer tradition and good execution at the dinner table.

“Over 60 % of the hotel’s guests are long distance travelers, so we‘ve got to have calamari, crab cakes and local produce for them. That’s what they expect in Monterey. But our wood aroma is our signature,” Waller explained.

Of course, the wondrous ocean views are a signature too, at least if you dine as early as we did.

We watched the sun go down over diver scallops wrapped in pancetta, on beds of diced roasted beets plus roast spears of salsify with herbed lobster buerre blanc. Then we tried some Dungeness crab cakes with tempura asparagus, baby heirloom tomatoes and a drizzle of remoulade.

La Brea artisan breads are finished in the oven and add to the spirit of the hearth.

A smooth lobster bisque included some whole mussels and crème fraiche. Caesar salad tasted like anchovies, not anchovy flavoring. We asked for striped bass with an off-menu pairing of ginger carrot puree, micro sprouts, pomegranate reduction and wild mushrooms.

James is not one of those chefs who go nuts if you ask for such things. An entrée of Kobe short ribs, in Pinot Noir reduction, came with mashed potatoes, onion rings and mushrooms.

We ate so much that we could only share one dessert - a fantastic crème brulee of Meyer lemons and smoked paprika.

That night I identified with the song of the howling seals and I promised to eat less the next day. But as soon as we awoke, we returned to The Duck Club for a scrumptious breakfast of oak smoked salmon, strawberry macadamia crepes, a little compote of prunes, figs, cherries and berries and lots of coffee - to stifle our appetites. James then gave us a tip that we didn’t have time to check out - so listen up:

Monterey Insider Info - Because of the post 9-11 nature of national security, the new personnel at the Monterey Naval Station Language School has encouraged the opening of some excellent new Afghani, Iraqi and Persian cafes.

Phil’s Fish

On our way out of The Duck Club, we received another insider tip. A fifth generation Monterey Sicilian told us that the old Sicilian restaurant heritage isn’t dead, it’s just been relocated a few miles out of town in Moss Landing. That was good information, but it created a dilemma - I had planned on eating at Don Elkins‘ Central Texas BBQ in Castroville. We always eat there when we’re in the vicinity, which is probably why I had never eaten in Moss Landing, just a few miles west of Castroville. I had been dreaming about Don’s homemade sausages and slow smoked ribs and briskets all weekend, at least when I wasn’t eating James Waller‘s food. Wro however was sulking about his “dashed dream” of meeting a hot Sicilian chef. So, in order to ward off a violent mood swing, I decided to sacrifice my smoked meat craving and headed for Phil DiGirolamo’s place in Moss Landing.

Phil is a jolly guy who tells his family’s version of the Cannery Row history.

“I was born and raised in Monterey. Grandfather immigrated from Sicily, to fish for sardines - on the pursein King Phillip. He had 12 kids including my dad. Dad owned Angelo’s (restaurant), where Isabella’s is now. So I have Sicilian restaurateur-ing and Sicilian fish mongering in my blood.

"We came to Moss Landing for the dock in the 60’s, when albacore and salmon were plentiful. By 1973, we felt that Monterey had become so touristy that it was time to abandon it completely and we moved all the operations here. Then there was a salmon glut and no one wanted them - the smokers cut off their orders, the restaurants had more than they wanted. We were desperate to all the salmon we had, so we started putting ads in newspapers as far away as Sacramento. That worked, people just started showing up here to buy salmon. That convinced us there was a need for a fish market on the docks,” Phil told us as we walked around what has become a giant seafood market and restaurant.

“We started in a tiny area, selling fish off the dock. Then we opened a 600 square foot fish market. I did demo cooking to promote the business. I used to make cioppino in a red wok that I bought at Costco. People would watch me and order some, so I started promoting cioppino with “bring your own pot” ads. People did that. We still do that at Christmas, but after the internet popularity hit home, we had to find something more standard. So now we use (plastic) buckets.

“Customers won’t let me change the menu though. And I have to respect their sense of tradition. This place has a life of its own. Families often hold reunions and memorial services here - because it was the dearly departed loved one’s favorite place. Grandmas and moms tell me that they have been coming since they were as young as the youngest kids at their table,” he explained.

Just his kitchen employs nine line cooks - at all times. Wro noticed that most of the chefs were Mexican, mostly from Michoacan and Oaxaca. Head chef and smoker Ricky Loya told Wro that he had a surprise for us later.

I have never been in a kitchen where so many line workers seemed any happier. Phil is clearly a nice guy to work for. I asked him about the Sicilian influence on Northern California cuisine, particularly seafood.
“Cioppino (San Francisco’s most famous hometown dish) is a Sicilian inspiration I am sure. The spices give it away - they’re the same as Sicilian “bicce brodo.” Cioppino is probably a slurred Sicilian pronunciation for “chippin in.” Whatever was left over went into the pot.

As a young man, I learned a lot from my grandmothers - both were great Sicilian chefs. They came to Monterey in the 1920’s and lived through the Depression when the modus operandi was to use everything and waste nothing. I came home from school and kneaded dough for bread and for pasta. I love home made pasta, but I also love the dried kind - I use Barilla in the restaurant now,” he explained.

Wro asked Phil how faithfully he follows the environmentalist creed, like the Aquarium’s list of forbidden fish. Phil answered with delightful candor.

“I do what I want. I argue with them all the time about what’s endangered and such. Fact is, I am a fish broker and I think that my information is better, and certainly more thorough and up-to-date than their’s is. They ( The Aquarium) are my land lord too. I did take shark off my menu, because they are such a slow grower. But I keep Chilean sea bass on it - I just make completely sure that mine comes from a fisherman who only uses short lines. The long lines are the problem with fishing them,” he explained.

Phil’s walls revealed that he is a proud Scottie owner. They were covered with blue ribbons and plaques that the doggies won before leading Phil into a new fishy enterprise. He now markets specialty dog food for Scotties and other breeds like them who are susceptible to liver problems. Phil’s special formula is made with sweet potatoes, green beans, carrots and cod. He makes it himself - steaming, packaging and freezing for shipment.

His most popular mail order items though are clam chowder, both red and white, and, duh, cioppino. He makes a base for both soups that can be dehydrated with milk or not - so lactose-intolerant seafood lovers can use it.

In pure blooded Sicilian style, Phil’s chief advisers are still family member.

“Dad’s been gone a long time now but I still talk to him everyday,” he said, pointing to photos on the wall. Phil’s 88 year old mother -in-law comes to work with him daily, at 7 a.m.. She and Phil take only a half day off each week.

“She’s got to earn her room & board. She lives with me,“ he joked.

When we visited, Phil had just raised $100,000 for Legal Aid for Seniors with a fund raiser that paired Hahn’s Estate Pinot Blanc with Phil’s cioppino.

“Whatever you give comes back to you, as long as you don’t ever give to receive, just give for sake of giving,” he explained.

Sicily, by any other name

I hoped Wro was listening but I knew he was becoming impatient for Ricky Loya’s surprise. We began eating a little snack of fried oysters, sand dabs, shrimp, artichoke hearts in tempura, New England clam chowder, cioppino and Caesar salad with long white anchovies. Then we tried some of the freshest, brightest halibut I have ever seen, baby octopus, petrale and ling cod - all of which had been fished from local waters. Finally Ricky brought out the star attraction of our entire Cannery Row odyssey - grilled California sardines, “Yes, they are making a comeback,” Phil said, appropriately closing a circular story.

For centuries, fishermen have been lured into the deep and dangerous waters beyond Monterey Bay by ever changing enticements - from whales and salmon to squid, abalone, sardines, halibut, snapper, tuna, et cetera. Similarly, the composite American dreamer who came to Monterey over the centuries has morphed by ever changing blood lines - from American Indian and Spanish to Mexican, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Scandinavian, Sicilian, Vietnamese, Afghani, Persian - and Mexican again. So it goes.

The Central Coast of California has now thoroughly assimilated the Portuguese and Chinese who settled here 150 years ago and separately developed Monterey’s signature fishing industry. The islander mentality of Sicilian Monterey also washed away in the California’s melting pot but Phil DiGirolamo believes such things only change on the surface. Just as Sicily has always been a melting pot of Mediterranean cultures, Monterey has become the Sicily of the Seven Seas.

“My Mexican workers are the 21st century’s Sicilians. They work hard and they appreciate things that others take for granted. I am blessed to have them. They make my place what it is,” DiGirolamo explained.
My eighth grade teacher said that “Cannery Row” was a story about hope and appreciation. The book’s characters have very little in life but they need even less. That kind of contentment might seem outdated today but it makes me wonder about the tides that pour into Monterey Bay each night to a Hallelujah chorus of barking seals. Perhaps that unique combination of moon-pulled water, jagged geology and flipper song creates a magic mist that nourishes hope as carefully as penguin parents protect their eggs.

Otherwise, how does one explain the little miracles: Skid Row transforming itself into a luxury hotel zone; sea otters finding a place where they feel safe enough to float half their days away on their backs; and California sardines surviving near certain extinction to grace Ricky Loya‘s open-fire grill?
　
If you go

Hotel Pacific
300 Pacific St., Monterey, CA 93940, 800-554-5542, http://www.hotelpacific.com/

Monterey Plaza Hotel
400 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940, 831-635-4077, http://www.montereyplazahotel.com/

Phil’s Fish Market & Eatery
7600 Sandholdt Road, Moss Landing, CA 95039
831--633-2152, http://www.philsfishmarket.com/

Massaro & Santos
32 Cannery Row, Coast Guard Pier
Monterey, CA, 93940, 831-649-6700, http://www.massaroandsantos.com/

Monterey Maritime Museum
Across from Fisherman's Wharf in Downtown Monterey
(831) 372-2608http://www.montereyhistory.org/

Reef Break: Easy Riding in San Luis Obispo County

Where wining & dining are easy too

With two universities, including the main campus of California State Polytechnic University, the town of San Luis Obispo (44,100 population) probably has the youngest average population in California. So it’s on the cutting edge of youth and scientific culture.

There is also a rather distinctive surfing scene. SLO County’s 85 mile coastline has no point breaks. As fans of Keanu Reeves (star of the surfing movie "Point Break") know, that keeps dare devil surfers away and helps the coastline remain rather bucolic. So I reasoned that a long coast of gentler reef breaks would make an easy place for a young surfer to learn the sport. SLO County is also one of the last places on the West Coast where people can still legally drive dune buggies and ATV’s on the beach.

Sycamore Inn

In 1886, oil drillers in Avila Valley found sulfur-based mineral water instead. Those white sulfur hot springs quickly became a resort and a playground for Hollywood‘s elite. The Pacific Coast Railway stopped there on its Los Angeles to San Francisco route. W.C. Fields visited frequently, as did many guests of the nearby Hearst Castle. After World War II, the emergence of freeways, super jets and air conditioning took the buzz away as Palm Springs and Hawaii became more accessible resorts for southern California’s rich and famous.

The hot springs thus remained rather unchanged until recently. Today Sycamore Mineral Springs Treatment Center offers massage therapy, herbal therapy, Chinese medicine, ayurvedic medicine, aromatherapy, yoga and hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy tubs line the hillsides, Japanese style, but we checked into a private unit with our own tub.

Gardens of Avila

The resort’s executive chef is David McWilliam, a self-described "South Bay guy" who fled to the Central Coast for a more peaceful place to raise kids. David cut his culinary teeth at A.P. Stump’s Chop House, a traditional legend of San Jose. His biography is filled with circles of irony.
"I became a vegetarian in the Navy because the food was so bad that vegetables were the safest things to eat. When I graduated from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), the Navy was sending its chefs there were in order to improve the quality of the food," he told us laughing.
David’s kitchen turns out wonderful Pacific Rim fare matching fresh and local seasonal products with classical European and Asian inspirations. We watched him brine his own chickens and tend his own garden. I noticed a pattern of using different salts.

"One thing I learned working for Charlie Trotter - cook with kosher salt and season with sea salt," he explained.

His Gardens of Avila restaurant featured a fireside lounge, an elegant, picture-window dining room and a century-old stone hillside patio. We enjoyed a bottle of local wine, an exquisite Bordeaux-blend called Isoceles from Justin in Paso Robles, and began with some scallops on the shell plus an awesome ahi presentation. We tried a salad of fresh greens topped with roasted red and golden beets, goat cheese and toasted walnuts. Then we moved on to a special prime rib plus a confit of duck leg with duck breast on a bed of micro greens. We chose them over two tempting dishes: seared quail with polenta, pine nuts and pomegranates; and a pepper-crusted venison loin with spaetzles and black truffles. It was all so good we ate every morsel and could only split a dessert of pistachio crème brulee before crawling into the hot tub.

Old Edna

The next morning we had breakfast at the Gardens of Avila and drove inland, through annoying mountains, to Old Edna. This was originally a stagecoach road that linked SLO and Pismo Beach. Old Edna wasn’t on my map (maps never help me), but it appeared anyhow, at the corner of Highway 227 and Price Canyon Road. Thinking like a stage coach driver, I parked under a giant cypress tree next to a little brook where my horses could drink in the shade.

A sign claimed Edna had a population of 1,600, but most of them were good at hiding. Today, an early 20th century farmhouse is home to Fiala’s Gourmet Deli which serves scratch made sandwiches and home grown salads on its porch and in cute little outdoor playhouses. Old Edna is pretty much the doing of Pattea Torrence, a native of SLO who came to here in 1998. Edna had pretty much been abandoned for two decades before she bought the town, or the site of a former town.

"One thing led to another, I didn’t ever have a vision of this as this," she admitted laughing. "I was running a consignment clothing and antique store in San Luis. I had traffic hassles because of all the loading and unloading I needed to do. So I decided to sell it. Now I had kept a horse here when I was younger, so I asked the owners to sell and I kept asking until they finally did," she recalled.

Having gotten what she wished, Pattea suddenly had more than she knew what to do with - a wood-frame, tin-sided storefront near the highway, two homes, a storage room, a shed, and a large barn.

"Everything was in serious need of repairs, too."

The homestead had been built between 1906 and 1908 and included a family home, a store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a dance hall and a butcher shop. Pattea restored the main building for her antique store but realized that keeping an inventory took all her time. She really missed dealing with people.

"So decided to rent it out and restore the cottage. The second floor used to be a dance hall and I am told less savory things are suspected of going on there too. It’s a good space for artists. The deli worked out perfectly on the main floor," Pattea said.

Old Edna was thus reborn one project at a time. A 1200-square-foot cottage became a bed and breakfast, accommodating up to three couples. Pattea’s skill as a antique hunter clearly paid off in decorating. So did her patronage of local artists, one of whom rents the upper floor of the main building. Pattea told us she’s encouraging artists to come in hopes that tourists will follow.
Wine tasters have been flocking to nearby vineyards, especially after the movie "Sideways." A short walk from the cottage, Corral de Piedra River passes Blue Belly Barn and MacGregor Vineyards. There’s also a one-room schoolhouse and that’s about it for Old Edna.

Claiborne & Churchill

We had lunch in a delightful little garden playhouse with Claiborne (Clay) Thompson and Fredericka Churchill. Former language professors at the University of Michigan, the couple left the "groves of academe" for the vineyards of California in 1981. Since its first crush in 1983, Claiborne & Churchill has specialized in dry Gewurztraminer and dry Riesling. They produce 10,000 cases of wine a year now, purchasing grapes from vineyards in the cool maritime valleys of the central coast. They also make Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cuvee, Pinot Gris, dry Muscat, and Edelzwicker in small lots.

We walked to their winery after lunch. (I told you Edna was a small place.) The place was constructed out of bales of hay and thus is probably the best insulated building in the area. It stays cool without air conditioning even in the hot summer months. We met their lovely daughter Elizabeth, for whom a C&C Cuvee is named.

Back down the big hill we checked into the Avila Lighthouse Suites located right on the main beach in Avila Beach. Avila and Pismo Beach get subjected to snobbery in Los Angeles, where they are labeled "the Bakersfield Hamptons" or "Malibu for Fresno." One of the local surfing guides warned southern Californians that "a lot of people live here (in SLO County) and surf here because they can’t stand Los Angeles. So, don’t remind locals that you come from Los Angeles, or you might be asked to leave."

The suites were wide open and ocean side. Neighbors said hello and gave us nice directions when we got lost. When he wasn’t taking surfing lessons, Wro sat on the life guard stand on the beach, which I could see from our room. A sign on our patio thoughtfully reminded him to not walk in the flower beds.

After hanging out on the beach, we went for a ride on the local free shuttle bus, getting off to shop at a farmers market store. Then we were off to Pismo for dinner.

Lido

Pismo Beach is home to one of the largest Monarch butterfly groves in the USA and Wro and I believe that butterflies have exquisite taste. We came for Lido Restaurant in the Dolphin Bay Hotel & Residence. Chef Evan Treadwell, one of the best chefs in California, moved here when the hotel opened. The hotel is a century away from the Sycamore. A member of "Small Luxury Hotels of the World," it’s located on Shell Beach in Pismo Beach. And yes, it’s on the beach. Seventy guest rooms ranged from 900 to 2,000 square feet with 21st century appointments - double-pane windows, honed travertine floors, wool carpet, solid wood doors, granite countertops, full kitchens and laundries.

La Bonne Vie Spa’s massages, facials, herbal and hydrotherapy treatments all utilize top line treatments from Paris, Carita and Decléor, plus local and seasonal ingredients. It’s lavender to Sycamore Spring’s sulfur. We only had time for a sundown dinner though. Early birds filled Lido’s window seats to watch the ocean absorb the light over a drink and a Lido shellfish platter. Our Vegas-style presentation of crab legs, mussels, clams, oysters, prawns and accompaniments disappeared at the pace of the setting sun. After sunset, we noticed the lovely dining room and its spectacular Murano glass ornaments.

With the sun out of the way, we got serious and so did Evan. We tried some flatbreads with wild mushrooms, Fontina, caramelized onions, duck confit, chorizo, peppers, Manchego, Serrano ham and some local chevre. And a little bisque of squash with black truffle foam, and some house baked oysters with prosciutto, leeks and Bearnaise sauce.

Then we moved into the deep water portion of dinner.

Evan served an ahi crudo that was as good as any we ever tasted - and we have tasted many. He matched the fatty raw tuna with a Tunisian entourage of harissa, almonds and medijool dates. Wro ordered a tiradito of halibut, which brought a filet of fish barely "cooked" in a divine hibiscus pomegranate vinaigrette with avocado, ginger and jalapeno. We split some black mission figs with Serrano, chevre and micro greens as well as an heirloom tomato salad with pesto, homemade mozzarella, pickled onions and caper berry vinaigrette.

I passed on the highly recommended Maine lobster tail pot pie (with Cajun tasso) for something more Pacific - fast seared ahi with lentils, aioli, eggplant and roasted tomato. I also swore his pancetta-wrapped rabbit was the best ever.

I can’t eat bunnies myself, but I was tempted by the wild mushroom sauce in this dish.

I suffered a power outage from the overload of divine food accompanied by a bottle of Chardonnay from our new friends at Claiborne & Churchill. I vaguely recall that pastry chef Benji Puga finished us off with a mission fig creme brulee and a chocolate truffle torte. And a trio of home made gelatos. And a cheese plate with some local honeycomb.

When overloaded with good food, my brain attempts logical deductions. I reasoned that if Lido was in San Francisco, one would need to make reservations more than a month in advance. When I left Lido, there were still empty tables. Even if a 3 hour drive takes 8 hours, I had still saved a month of time. So, one can become younger by eating here often.

El Paso Robles
Somehow, I drove after dinner.

Paso Robles has an interesting past. The rough side of the area’s reputation comes from Jesse James’ uncle Dury James, who ranched here, and Dr. Woodson James who operated a hotel at Sulfur Hot Springs. Jesse and brother Frank were frequent visitors and even recovered from gunshot wounds there.

El Paso has been a wine town since 1797 when Father Junipero Serra planted California’s first grapes at Mission San Miguel Arcangel. Commercial winemaking began here in 1882 and really took off in the Roaring 20’s after legendary pianist Ignace Paderewski purchased 2,000 acres and planted Petite Sirah and Zinfandel on his Rancho San Ignacio vineyard. (After Prohibition ended, Paderewski’s wine was made by York Mountain Winery.) Rancho San Ignacio wines won awards and Paso Robles’ reputation grew. Zinfandel has been a star wine here since the early days but Cabernet Sauvignon is now the leading variety for the appellation.

Larger vineyards and wineries were established here in the 1980’s when reasonably priced land encouraged new growers. Smaller vineyards have been coming on line the last two decades - "vineyards for mere millionaires instead of billionaires." Between 1994 and 2006, at least 10 wineries focusing on Rhône varieties were established here. Now the area has the largest acreage of Syrah, Viognier and Roussanne grapes in California.

In 1997 Justin Vineyards & Winery’s Bordeaux-style "Isosceles," which we loved at Gardens of Avila, was named one of the top 10 wines in the world by the Wine Spectator.

Chester’s Hotel

We checked into the remarkable Hotel Cheval, an intimate inn consisting of sixteen luxury guest rooms, a gorgeous courtyard with stone fireplaces, a library and the Pony Club bar and breakfast nook with its horsehoe-shaped zinc bar. We met Chester, the hotel’s Red Belgian draft horse, who moved here from Ohio’s Amish country to provide guests with carriage rides to the restaurants around the city park. Though we could hardly eat another meal, Chester pulled us around in a vintage vis a vis carriage. Chester’s driver Tommy Harris said the horse was 18 hands tall and over 2000 pounds. He eats 60 pounds of hay and two gallons of rolled oats per day. About the equivalence of what we had consumed at Lido.

The next morning we strolled around the village shops and hung around the wonderful hotel as late as we could. Then we headed into more confusing hills in search of two of the area’s great food and wine creators.

Justin

Justin estate winery was founded in 1981 when Justin and Deborah Baldwin planted 160 acres with the major Bordeaux varietals. This property looks like a great French vineyard, from the huge cave to the tasting room, from the private club room and the inn. It also looks like it belongs in Architectural Digest as much as Wine Spectator. We had come to the patio of Deborah’s Room where we met Justin Baldwin for lunch. Restaurants like this are rare finds on wine estates in California. Justin explained.

"When we started there were less than 10 wineries in this area and 200 in California. Now there are nearly 200 here and 2400 in California. Only ten have restaurants. We made it just before the legislature made it illegal to attach a new one to a winery," he said.

Deborah’s Room serves dinner and weekend lunches inside or outside. There is no nicer setting for lunch. Justin confessed that he grew up in San Francisco and "fell in love with good food before falling in love with good wine." He also fell in love with Deborah there, where both of them were investment bankers.

"She turned me down for a loan," he joked.

We asked him to differentiate Paso Robles from Napa.

"Paso Robles is different. Napa is about 18 feet above sea level and we’re at 1400 feet for starters. Our appellation has the most Syrahs in North America," he began.

"Our winery is the furthest west and the highest in this appellation. Three miles beyond here is a dead end road and limestone quarry where all the cement in the Central Valley originates. You can set your clocks by the limestone trucks, but guests at the inn don’t seem to mind. The limestone’s ph count binds the soil nutrients and slows down both the growth of the vine and the yield. We get low yields here, but concentrated flavors." Justin said.

Justin compared wine making to cooking,
"My favorite part of winemaking is putting the blend together. My objective was originally to make one wine and one wine only. The ISOCELES was a "left bank" Bordeaux style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, which, like the triangle it’s named after, was to have three equal parts.

"That was rigid. The formula needs to be changed every year and, besides, we got bored just making one wine. It’s been 20 years of trial and error, but we use much less Merlot now. And we also make JUSTIFICATION, it’s a "right bank" Merlot and Cabernet Franc cousin. And we do varietal bottlings of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. We also produce limited amounts of Tempranillo, Zinfandel, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Sangiovese, OBTUSE (Port wine), Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

Justin and Deborah were flying the Mexican flag.

"We have been flying a Mexican flag here for 20 years, in honor of our main group of workers. Those guys do the real work, we have two French experts in our harvest crew too, but we are most grateful to our Mexican workers," he explained.

After splitting a relatively light lunch of pan roasted foie gras with pickled huckleberries and arugula, followed by seared sea bass, a New York cut steak and a Meyer lemon pudding cake, we visited the the Just Inn. Four luxury suites (Tuscany, Provence, Sussex, and Bordeaux) had a definitive European look with tapestry-covered furnishings, big feather beds and frescoed ceilings. English gardens and a heated spa and pool sat in the middle of the wine making operations.

Next door to the inn we toured the ISOCELES Center, where wine barrels aged in caves and club members tasted the latest vintages. What a great place for fantasizing.

Pasolivo

We had another appointment to keep. Down more strange roads with strange names we found Pasolivo, a 140 acre ranch. Owner Karen Guth bought the place 20 years ago. It had been King Vidor’s ("War and Peace","Stella Dallas") estate back in the days when Central Coast was a Hollywood playground.

"We have over 45 acres of olive trees under cultivation, in varieties chosen specifically for their excellent oil. I wanted something different. We decided to make an olive oil more like Tuscan oils," she said, going on to explain that most oils in the American market are filtered to make them clear. Plus they are usually made from olives that have been stored awhile between harvesting and pressing and then rushed to market after pressing and bottling.

Karen does things backwards. Her oils are pressed within hours of harvesting and then aged for up to 18 months in casks. The common commercial method, which is what most American consumers expect, produces a mellow flavor. Karen says that she wanted something that didn’t "take the spine out of the oil."

" I wanted the natural flavor, bite and all," she said.

Even more exciting was her California Mission olive oil. She partnered with Mission San Miguel and UC Davis to revive the original olive tree that Father Serra planted. They have tested the DNA of Karen’s trees and they now match the original, so this is a pure heirloom oil like no other in America.

Karen said that customers are learning to accept cloudiness and bitterness in her oils. We were able to see her state of the art Pieralisi press and barrels that her oil is aged in, all just steps away from the olive orchards .After tasting her oils, we understood why everything Pasolivo produced the last five years sold out quickly. We bought some of each kind and got our names on her internet alert list for future pressings.

Wishing we had more time, I started the drive back home. Using directions from the concierge at Hotel Cheval, we made it in three hours. That made me think that everything about SLO is as easy as riding a reef break wave. You can choose to relax in sulfur springs that have been curing ailments for most of a century. Or in state of the art new spas on the beach. You can play "Sideways" without the traffic hassles or crowds that Napa wineries make you endure. And you can simply walk in and dine at places that would require you to make reservations months in advance if they were in San Francisco.

Recipes

Pasolivo’s Oven-dried Tomatoes

24 Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise Sea salt (Debbi prefers gray salt) and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons Pasolivo, plus more for storing 2 tablespoons dried herbs, like Herbes de Provence 1 clove garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 250. Arrange the tomato halves cut side up and close together on a baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, combine the 6 tablespoons olive oil, herbs, and garlic. Spoon a little of the mixture over each tomato half, stirring as you go. Bake until the tomatoes are soft and shriveled but still retaining some moisture, about 5 to 8 hours. Timing will depend on how large, meaty and juicy the tomatoes are. Let them cool completely, then arrange in a plastic container, making no more than 2 layers. Add olive oil to cover completely, then cover and refrigerate. Use these stuffed with goat cheese and sprinkled with basil for an appetizer.

Pasolivo’s Oranges

This is an easy, elegant way to highlight the taste of extra virgin olive oil. It was prepared for us by a friend in a tiny restaurant in Rome and we've never seen it anywhere else. With so few ingredients, it's perfect to bring to a party, and it looks lovely on the table. We serve it all the time at the ranch - enjoy!

Ingredients:
4 - 5 of oranges pinch of sugar
freshly ground black pepper
Pasolivo Extra Virgin Olive Oil
loaf of fresh bread

Instructions:
1. Cut the oranges into slices about 1/2 inch thick. Arrange on a large plate or platter. 2. With a fork, press the orange slices to release some of the juice. 3.Sprinkle just a pinch of sugar over the oranges. 4.Generously drizzle with Pasolivo so that the oranges are covered in olive oil. 5.Pepper the oranges. 6.Cut the bread, and dip it onto the orange slices. You'll taste the oil, with a hint of fresh citrus. You can also try this with lemons or grapefruit. Tucking basil leaves under the oranges adds even more color.

If You Go…

San Luis Obispo County Visitors & Conference Bureau at 800-634-1414 , http://www.sanluisobispocounty.com/

Justin/Deborah’s Room
11680 Chimney Rock RoadPaso Robles, CA 93446805-238-6932, http://www.justinwine.com/
Dolphin Bay

Lido
2727 Shell Beach Road, Pismo Beach, CA 93449
805 -773-8900, http://www.thedolphinbay.com/

Hotel Cheval
1021 Pine Street • Paso Robles, CA 93446
866-522-6999

Avila Lighthouse Suites
550 Front Street, Avila Beach, CA 93424866-853-3997 , 805-322-7010

Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort/ Gardens of Avila1215 Avila Beach Drive, San Luis Obispo, California, 93405800- 234-5831, 805 -595-7302