Santa Barbara’s Fresh New Catch Is Santa Playa Mariscos

 

Sometimes, all it takes is a love of tacos and a dream. That’s how Jonathan “Yona” Estrada got his start, opening Yona Redz in the 500 block of State Street five months deep into the pandemic. Now, four years later, he’s got a second restaurant — Santa Playa Mariscos — and a new location for both at 1230 State Street.

Hailing the seven blocks as a great move, Estrada claims, “In the 500 block, people would go down for fun and then stop by for food, but here, people gravitate for the food.” Currently, you can order from the classic Yona Redz menu — especially those sloppily delicious birria quesotacos with consommé — or from the new seafood-focused Santa Playa Mariscos menu offering fresh catch straight from the Santa Barbara Fish Market.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Rental House" by Weike Wang

 

You’re a mere five pages into Weike Wang’s masterful novel Rental House when she does this to you, as her married couple main characters, one a first-gen Chinese immigrant, the other a striving son of Appalachia, contest a name for their sheepdog puppy, possible considering Mantou (steamed bun):

Nate brought up the propensity of yuppie couples to name their expensive dogs after basic starch items…. There was no fruit or vegetable Keru enjoyed enough to dedicate to their dog. She would also not be giving their dog a human name like Stacy. The other possibility was Huajuan, or a fancy-shaped, swirled steam bun. Nate said the word a few times, believing that he was saying the word right, but Keru said that he was saying the word wrong, and though Nate couldn’t hear where he’d gone wrong, and she couldn’t explain it either, he agreed that Mantou was fine.

Care to read the rest then do at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on January 9, 2025.

A Review of "What Nails It" by Greil Marcus

 

Trying to write a book review about essays in which one of our preeminent social critics, Greil Marcus, explores why he writes criticism…well, I’ve already mirrored myself into infinity or oblivion. But perhaps that’s a worthy task. For Marcus’s short in pages (87) if long in contemplation What Nails It—part of the Why I Write series from Yale University Press, based on the annual Windham-Campbell Lectures—makes an immediate claim for the ineffable dropping into a writer’s noggin. He writes, “I live for those moments when something appears on the page as it of its own volition—as if I had nothing to do with what is now looking me in the face.”

Of course, what stares Marcus in the face during his writing process leads to classics like his debut (not counting—or discounting—his journalism in Rolling Stone, Creem, etc.), Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music and second book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century. Both drew musical murder boards that looped lines connecting unlikely persons and traditions, upending any sense of high and low culture; for just one example, 16th century insurrectionist and self-proclaimed King of New Jerusalem John of Leiden meet Sex Pistol punk Johhny (Lydon) Rotten.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review Books.

Etty’s To-Die-For Deli Opens at Santa Barbara’s Jewish Federation

Cyndi Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, had a vision. “People just didn’t come into the building,” she says about the community center on lower Chapala. Unfortunately, the location lacks the gym and/or pool that’s the heart of many other Jewish community centers. So, Silverman says, she figured, “If you feed them, they will come.”

This August, the center opened Etty’s Jewish Deli & Bakery. (It’s named after Etty Yenni, a generous patron who underwrote the project.) Silverman recalls, “A lot of people told me I was crazy.” And then Etty’s executive chef Doug Weinstein chimes in, “And now they’re here twice a week. We should have a naysayer’s surcharge.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Didion & Babitz" by Lili Anolik

Perched in a cultural place between Ryan Murphy’s Bette and Joan and Craig Seligman’s Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me, Lili Anolik’s Didion & Babitz pairs up exemplars of their age to examine how their age let them (and pretty much most women) down. Just as Seligman made the case for an Apollonian Susan Sontag and a Dionysian Pauline Kael, Anolik does the same for the heady, distant Joan Didion and the easily past Dionysus all the way to Bacchus Eve Babitz. This book is not a high-blown literary assessment or simply a twined biography, but cultural criticism told in an engaging, gossipy tone in which Anolik often directly addresses the reader, sets us up for her methods, previews her structure, even offers two versions of one crucial event and then shrugs and says, “You decide.” Didion & Babitz reads as if you and Anolik were cozied up in a red leather booth at Musso & Frank Grill, dishing dirt over bone-dry martinis.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on January 2, 2025.

Revamped and Rejuvenated Harbor Restaurant in Santa Barbara Aims to Elevate Even More

 

Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Walking into the recently revamped, reconsidered, rejuvenated Harbor Restaurant, it sort of feels like you’ve entered the dining room of a Viking cruise ship. Perched on Stearns Wharf, you are as much on the water as any building can be. The wide expanse of windows offers you a full view of the marina, the slope of the Mesa, and, as the evening extends, a sunset view, given which way west points on our edge of the Pacific. Each table, now, has its share of the view in a room of wood, white walls, and booths with a charming, mid-century modern swirl of green and brown. It’s clean and niftily Nordic.

And it’s all according to the plan of the new ownership group: couples John Thyne and Olesya Thyne, and Gene Sanchez and Carolina Jimenez. “Our focus has been to bring the Harbor Restaurant back into the hands of the locals,” Sanchez says. “Talking to people, it’s been 20 years since some have come to the pier to this quote-unquote ‘tourist trap.’ We want to change that.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Dressed to the Nines, Wine Auction Crowd Raises Nearly $900K

“All lives have equal value,” said Jessica Gasca, addressing the well-heeled crowd of almost 400 attendees in the ballroom at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara. “But equal in value does not mean equal in opportunity,” continued the owner of Story of Soil wines, speaking in her role as president of the board of directors of the Santa Barbara Vintners Foundation — the charitable umbrella under which the Santa Barbara Vintners Association conducts its philanthropic work. “We can help change those experiences. We can’t stand by as people suffer, not when we have the means to help.”

Those “means” are the biannual Santa Barbara Wine Auction. By the time the November 9 event concluded, $868,000 was raised in support of the Vintners Foundation’s mission, “Grounded in Giving.” Proceeds from the event will provide essential healthcare for medically underserved people through grants to Direct Relief and Community Health Centers of the Central Coast.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

(photo of Jason Paluska's Channel Islands crudo)

Celebrate a Great Just 8 at Clean Slate

(Photos by Christian Rodriguez Photography, courtesy Clean Slate Wine Bar)

Consider this post just a quick preview of a future article for the Independent. Back in October I was lucky enough to attend a Just 8 dinner at Clean Slate Wine Bar in Solvang. Eight courses, 16 and a bonus wine generously shared from the cellar of the Indy and Wine Enthusiast's Matt Kettmann, only 8 guests, hours of delight. As good as Chef Melissa Scrymgeour's menus usually are, for an event like this one she really gets to play, to do things that would bog down service in her tiny kitchen if she had to crank the dish out all night. So you get stuff like that King Salmon Thai Pumpkin Curry above, with kuri squash standing in for the pumpkin--never a bad move if you ask me. 

I'm not going to do a run down of each of the courses, just drop in some tantalizing glimpses to make you get to one of these extravagantly special evenings one day. Plus it also reflects the nature of what Melissa and her husband Jason, a wonderfully warm host, are doing every night. After all, the restaurant's name refers to the slate they chalk each evening's menu upon. Sure, nights often have themes, from curry to Cajun, but you never quite know what might be served up. It all depends upon the season, what some farmer has that's perfectly ripe, etc. And on Melissa's exquisite palate--see her modern salad Niçoise above, the bluefin tuna a hearty tartare beneath both a potato-parmesan crisp and a scatter of angle-sliced green beans. Four leafs of little gems. Dollops of Dijon vinaigrette. And then the molecular magic of caper pearls, like frozen teardrops of salt.

 

And this elegant rethink of Coquille St. Jacques, one expertly seared scallop, a sprinkle of local, roasted mushrooms, a sauce of bright cream and wine. Speaking of, Kettmann did a wonderful job double pairing each course, to the point with this one the two Chardonnays, a 2022 Beauregard Ben Lomond Mountain and a 2019 Solomon Hills Estate "Belle of the Ball" Reserve, did one of those odd flips--I preferred the former with its racy, Chablis-like character just to drink, but then with the rich dish, the richer Solomon Hills said, "I got this," and sang forcefully along.

So, here's to the gang at Clean Slate, where I did far more than just ate. Look for an article before the next one goes on sale in 2025. And get up there in the meantime.

A Review of "Dorothy Parker in Hollywood" by Gail Crowther

 

Late in her life Dorothy Parker claimed during an interview that if she wrote a memoir—which she was loathe to do (and never did)—she would title it Mongrel. That’s the kind of telling, troubling nugget that writer, researcher, academic Gail Crowther unearths in her fascinating Dorothy Parker in Hollywood. Crowther set herself a tricky task, as Parker is both someone people tend to feel they know—heck, her poems might get recited from memory more than anyone’s, especially by those fond of martinis or mordant wit—but also don’t know at all. It’s easy to think of her as a relic of the Roaring 20s and the brilliance of the Algonquin and not even realized she didn’t pass away until 1967. It’s hard to imagine her listening to the Velvet Underground and hanging with Warhol.

Parker also lacks a dedicated archive, and very little exists of her drafts or letters or journals. A paucity of such materials just made Crowther digger harder and deeper, both finding many helpful sources from her friends and contemporary writing about her, but also using Parker’s work itself as a means to measure the woman. And a complicated one she was, for as Crowther puts it, “It is difficult to know whether it is better or worse that however rude Parker was to other people she was equally hard on herself.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on November 27, 2024.

A Review of "Plastic" by Scott Guild

 

The best speculative fiction gives us the distance to see our own world more clearly. Take Scott Guild’s debut novel Plastic. Most of its characters are just that, figurines, although others are waffles, or robots, or hairy shipping boxes with whirring propellers as means of locomotion. But their post-nuclear-war world is a nightmare of rampant consumerism, life lived virtually, and the ever-present anxiety over random terror attacks from groups trying to wake up the drugged-to-complacency citizenry to its own environmental destruction, in the book called the Heat Leap. It doesn’t take much for our humanity to be stirred by these unusual characters’ plights.

Did I mention when the characters converse, they do so in a quick cut new language? At one point history is described by a person explaining why not to study it: “War war war. Kill kill kill.” And here’s how a match from phone app Hot Date attempts to comfort our heroine Erin early in the book: “It okay feel bad, he says. No need embarrass. I get—I get total. Life just…creaky, no? So tough sometime.”

Care to read the rest then do at the California Review of Books.

Pascale Beale’s Latest Book Favors Flavour

 

Even 11 cookbooks in, chef-writer Pascale Beale can still surprise herself. While working on her just published Flavour: Savouring the Seasons: Recipes from the Market Table, she returned home from a spring visit to the Santa Barbara Farmers’ Market, one of her favorite sources of inspiration. Hoping to develop a recipe for stuffed zucchini blossoms — despite dreading the mess of the frying process — she ended up with a bit more stuffing than she needed and an extra, tinier blossom. “I wondered,” she recalls, “what would it taste like raw?” So, she stuffed the smaller flower and discovered a deliciousness that amazed her. That led to the oil-free recipe you can find in the new collection.

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Santa Barbara’s Favorite Greek Grab-n-Go Returns

 

Given Pete Stathopoulos is not only the Parish Council President of the Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church but also the baseball coach at Bishop Diego High School, it’s no surprise that he’s leading a Greek Grab-n-Go that’s sure to be a grand slam of culinary goodness. As chair of the event, he gets to oversee 40-plus parishioners providing take-home delights ranging from savory spanakopita to sweet baklava on the weekend of November 1-2.

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Life at the Dumpling" by Trisha Cole

 

Despite the obvious misery of the pandemic, if you had the luck, privilege, and health to make it through, it also provided opportunity. It forced us to slow, to focus on how our houses must be homes. It opened up the hours to do what we never allowed ourselves the time to do, whether bake bread (put the pan in pandemic?) or engage our arts-and-craftsy sides we tend to under-prioritize in a world of pressing deadlines.

In Trisha Cole’s case, it gave her time to crank out a family and friends newsletter, typed and handwritten and illustrated in a charming way that will create warm feelings of nostalgia for those of us who still pore over falling apart copies of the Moosewood Cookbook. Which is only fitting, as the newsletters offered recipes, poems, encouraging quotes, word search games, fashion tips from Cole’s teen girls, and more. And now the book Life at the Dumpling compiles the first 20 newsletters, originally penned and shipped from March 2020 to March 2023.

Care to read the rest then do at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on October 24, 2024.

Yotam Ottolenghi Cooks and Books Up Comfort

 

It’s impossible not to respect the up-front honesty of a cookbook — yes, a cookbook — that offers the following sentence in its introduction: “For the most part, we live in a batshit-crazy world.” That indisputable claim kicks off the need for the latest book from esteemed chef Yotam Ottolenghi (and his co-authors Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller, and Tara Wigley), Comfort.

“I think food is the best antidote to the madness we live in,” Ottolenghi said during a recent Zoom interview. “If you cook something you know and you’ve cooked before and love, it gives you a sense of stability and a sense of place — this is what I think we are missing. So, this is another layer of comfort I would hope to explore with people, to hear how food gives them comfort through their personal lives and personal journeys.”

Care to read the rest then please do at the Independent's site.

A Review of "1974: A Personal History" by Francine Prose

 

Here’s why Francine Prose is a better writer than you or me—she can craft a sentence like, “Tony was very funny, though when you say that about a person, you can’t think of one funny thing that they said, just as you can describe someone as charming without being able to begin to explain what charm is, exactly.” Beyond the elegant grammatical balance of this relatively long sentence, there’s Prose’s unfolding insight. Yes, we get a sense of Tony’s character, but even more so learn about our own. How much of the world we sense but can’t limn, point to, but fail to name.

Such considerations are at the very heart of Prose’s memoir, a Blakean tale of innocence succumbing to experience, of the passion and desire for change of the 1960s sliding into the conformity and a collusion with capitalism of the 1970s. As she sagely puts it, “People often talked about being true to themselves. But by 1974, what they meant by truth was beginning to shift from the collective to the individual, from political action to personal fulfillment. My truth, they began to say.”

Care to read the rest then at California Review of Books.

Meet the Wrap Stars of Santa Barbara Burrito Week

Los Arroyos' Runaway Burrito

Structural integrity is undervalued in most burrito-making, so that’s where Los Arroyos’ Runaway Burrito steps in. It’s meant to be hand-held, so you can walk or drive and still devour. There’s no muss and fuss of sour cream or guac atop (there is avo wisely inside). Then there is a hardening, tasty sear of the finished rolled tortilla on the plancha....

On the Alley's Grass Roots Burrito

To munch your burrito with a free side of enthralling marina and mountain view, head on down to the Santa Barbara Harbor. There, On the Alley has promoted one of its trio of all-day breakfast burritos — the Grass Roots — to a Burrito Week star....

It's Burrito Week in Santa Barbara, eight bucks a pop. Want to read the rest about the two I previewed (and all the other yumminess) do so at the Independent's site.

Loving Loquita x Raventós

If the world were just, and if I had mad programming skills, this post would auto-generate with a different lead photo every time its code got called for, and even what I wrote would be once again better and new. But you know the state of the world. So let's make do with what we've got.

On September 5th, what we got was glorious, if you were part of the we attending the Loquita wine dinner featuring Spain's Raventós. From the oyster blushing under its pomegranate foam amuse to the dessert of arroz con leche topped with espuma de cava and hiding perfect pieces of peach, every morsel delighted both the eye and the taste buds. (That's four courses between those two, btw.) But to prevent this post from running as long as the leisurely dinner, let's just talk rabbit.

It is sort of rascally up there, let me tell you. That's rabbit two ways, the bulk a pulled-bunny that called to mind carnitas without any of the deeper grill/sear, and then two rounds of loin wrapped in Iberico ham, as if they needed more. Of course, we love gilded lillies for a reason--they are delicious. (OK, that metaphor failed, butI hope you get my drift.) Pea shoots and favas provided earthiness and greeniness and contrast and lift (and a hint of things perhaps even your rabbit once enjoyed). The sauce managed to be punchy without being spicy, one of the ways, for me, to distinguish Spanish food from Mexican (what with the lines of influence and empire ever mucking the world up). Relatively recently appointed executive chef Elier Rodriguez truly proved what he can do. Somehow it was a plate all at once rustic, precise, simple, yet hinting at complexities. 

That's where the wines from Raventós I Blanc / Can Sumoi come in. There's a long long story--parts of it extend to 1497--and there's turmoil and world wars and phylloxera and family fights and untimely deaths. It could easily fuel a fiery telenovela. But now the goal seems to renew its region of Penedés near Barcelona as a site of fine winemaking. That means reviving somewhat (at least to US ears) obscure grapes, and leaning in to organic/biodynamic farming, natural yeasts, hand-picking, etc.

For the rabbit course the pair was a 2023 Rosado "La Rosa" from Can Sumoi that the rep visiting from Spain, Martín, insisted was their iconic wine, made from the beginning. A blend of 60% Sumoll and 40% Xarel-lo--grapes that sound more like characters in a LOTR video game, no?--the wine is sourced from 20-60 year-old vines rooted in poor clay-limestone soil at 600m altitude. So it suffered to be here, which is what tends to make wines kicky and vibrant, like this salmon-tinged gem. For a concern best known for trying to elevate cava, the still wines all showed quite well too. (Not to even begin to suggest that the cava wasn't elegant and quenching.)

How about some quick photos and comments and less verbiage you ask? Sure!

Here's the full lineup of food and wine. Not a false move all evening, and a pleasant build too.

The password was swordfish. As close as a pescatarian will ever get to prosciutto. And hooray for puffed millet!

Martín during one of his moments to let us know what we were drinking.

Heirloom Tutti Frutti tomato carpaccio, late summer in redolent, shockingly thin slices. 

We'll end in the graveyard eventually. (But generally not so satisfied.)

A Review of "The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice the Radical Paper that Changed American Culture" by Tricia Romano

 

What an artfully deejayed book Tricia Romano has spun for us, the (mostly) oral history The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture (Public Affairs, 2024). This 571-page doorstop of a volume covers the full history of the Voice, from its founding by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in 1955 to its demise in 2018. (The Voice rose back to online life in 2021, with occasional print editions, but you know how zombies are.) To tell the fractious tale, Romano — who wrote about New York nightlife for the paper — weaves together more than 200 interviews, digs up archival material from those already gone, and quotes clips from stories capturing landmark events like Stonewall, the AIDs crisis, and the rise of some nepo-baby scumbag real estate developer who was a jerk in 1979 even before the rest of the world got to (unfortunately) know him.

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Santa Barbara Funk Zone Rebranded Bar Nods to Its Namesake

Acme Hospitality, in its quest to bring the best experiences to Santa Barbara, is ever eager to tinker. Take its new revamp of Pearl Social, now with Cocktail Club completing the name. You don’t have to join a club to go, but you will want to, as the space has become more parlor, less standard bar.

The interior changes come courtesy of hotshot L.A. designer Nathan Turner, who says he wanted an early California collected feel. “I started with my ‘Cowboy Toile’ wallpaper, a very traditional print but reimagined with California motifs like cowboys and mountain lions,” he explained. “Then I layered elements like tufted velvets, gilded mirrors, and a dusty pink color palette. The last, most fun part was compiling the gallery wall, filled with paintings depicting our surroundings, and maybe a few Pearl picked up on her travels.” That Pearl is of course beloved Santa Barbara preservationist Pearl Chase, for whom the bar is named. No doubt she’d be charmed by one wall chock-full of hardcovers — who could resist the pull of a stirring narrative and a stirred drink?

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Fit to Be Mai-Tai'ed

It's kind of a statement when you feel confident enough to give away your recipe on the back of the cup. But as you can see from the photo above, that's precisely what Bluewater Grill does with its spot-on Captain's Mai Tai. Of course part of that is they want to tout their new product, Catalina Rum Company. The name is a nod to the rum-running days of Prohibition (how easy it is now for us to romanticize that unfortunate era, no?); Bluewater teamed up with R6 Distillery in El Segundo to craft both a dark and a light rum from molasses and cane sugar. While I didn't taste them on their own, they do mix really well, and they clearly are meant to sell, at MSRPs of $34.50 for the dark, $24.50 for the light (750ml bottles).

Note even the conveyance for the Mai Tai isn't a fancy tiki mug but a more working class enameled tin cup, perfect for keeping the drink frosty even on a toastier summer day. (Of course you can buy the cups on their own or with some of the rum--Bluewater didn't build a chain of locations not pleasing its customers.) The straightforward Bluewater Mai Tai wisely includes the dark rum not just as a float but in the mix, so you never get to the spot of the drink where it's all the less vigorous light rum and lime juice. I've had too many a Maui poolside Mai Tai that is wonderful for those first eleven-and-a-half sips, and then the rest seems like something watered down and served to the pirate captain's least favorite matey. You can even write the drink off as a salad, with the fresh chunk of pineapple, the orange, and the cherry awaiting to be devoured.

If you prefer to devour more food, Bluewater's got you covered there too, of course. Try to stop by during Happy Hour, quite a deal for firecracker shrimp "tacos" in lettuce cups (once again, you get to indulge and feel a mite righteous with each salady bite) for 8 bucks or a classic white wine, garlic, lemon, parsley bowl of steamed clams, probably Manila based on their petite yet meaty size, for 12 bucks. You will wish for more bread.

Cheers to Bluewater for continually providing an experience of food and drink that matches their wonderful views at the foot of Stearns Wharf.

Seven Lands a Heavenly New Location

Interior of Seven Bar's new space | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

When Seven Bar & Kitchen lost their lease in 2022 after 10 years of providing a fun and truly funky destination in the Funk Zone, shutting down that August, owner Michael Gomez, unsurprisingly, wasn’t pleased. Now Seven Bar (the “& Kitchen” is gone, even if food service isn’t) is settled into its new location — the spot once occupied by The Neighborhood on Montecito Street.

“This change wasn’t part of the plan,” Gomez says, “but it’s turned out to be a blessing in disguise.”

Care to read the rest than do at the Independent's site.

Culinary Icon Alice Waters Meets Santa Barbara Elite to Improve How We Eat

 On a lovely late summer afternoon from El Encanto, a Belmond Hotel’s perch on the Riviera, one might assume your focus would be on the enthralling city and seascape below. Instead, on August 19, all eyes looked back toward the fabled hotel, where legend of the slow food movement Alice Waters made her pitch for the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Waters, the force behind Berkeley’s culinary gem Chez Panisse, helped create the farm-to-table movement back in the 1970s. But providing delicious and nutritious dishes to restaurant patrons was merely the beginning of her life’s work. The one time Montessori teacher remains a powerful educator. And as she pointed out to the small if well-heeled crowd at the fundraiser, the Edible Schoolyard Project grew from one school in Oakland to more than 6,500 schools today.

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Literary Libations Come to Santa Barbara’s Kingdom by the Sea

 

It’s not every day you get to make jokes about cooping with the creator of an immersive evening of entertainment that’s coming to Santa Barbara September 12-14. Then again, it’s also unusual to discuss the beloved 19th-century writer with someone who has studied him enough to put together a touring show called the “Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy.” Fortunately, creative director Julia Tirinnanzi can promise that even with four spookily themed cocktails served up in 90 minutes or so, “There’s no cooping allowed.”

(For the 93 percent of the planet that has no idea what that’s referring to, one rumor about Poe’s still-mysterious death is that Baltimore ward workers marched him around from polling location to polling location, changing his outfit and keeping him drunk, causing his demise on election night 1849. This old-time political machine gambit was known as “cooping.”)

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Good Lion Hospitality Roars Through the 10-Year Mark

 

When the Good Lion opened in December 2014, it not only reimagined the cocktail bar for Santa Barbara, but it also signaled the dawn of a Central Coast mini-empire. As they aptly put it on the Good Lion Hospitality (GLH) website, they have “a vision of exciting, comfortable, and dynamic eating, living, and drinking spaces featuring world-class hospitality.” That vision and hospitality begins with couple Brandon and Misty Orman Ristaino, curious, clever compadres in class and taste.

If everything goes to plan (and all “trying to open a business in these parts” warnings must apply), by year’s end, GLH will include the bars Good Lion, Test Pilot, and Shaker Mill in Santa Barbara; an as-yet-unnamed project in the Montecito Inn; Strange Beast, Bank of Italy Cocktail Trust, and Jaguar Moon in Ventura; and the “bed-and-beverage” Petit Soleil in S.L.O.

Turns out expansion was always the plan.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show" by Tommy Tomlinson

 

As I was reading Tommy Tomlinson’s Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show, something delightful and ridiculous—at least in name—stuck its long schnoz into my lap, demanding pets. It was our silken windhound, a real breed (at least UKC recognized), bred mostly from borzois and whippets to create a smaller borzoi. And sure, Archie’s hair is sweetly soft, and he can run like the wind with that double suspension gallop that sighthounds share, but c’mon. Silken windhound? 

 That is all to say I’m not going to be objective in the least writing about Tomlinson’s book, for I’m a dog person through and through. 

 Of course I’m not alone in that canine love. Tomlinson informs us there’s one dog for every four people in the U.S., just one of the many well-researched tidbits he sprinkles like pills of information hidden inside all the other treats of the book that explore, well, happiness of all things. When he runs through the possible ways wolves evolutionarily decided to play nice with humans—there’s a debate—he ends “we domesticated dogs, and they domesticated us.”

Care to read the rest then do at California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on August 2, 2024.

A Review of "And Then? And Then? What Else?" by Daniel Handler AKA Lemony Snicket

 

Given he has previously penned a series of four books called All the Wrong Questions, it’s not surprising author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) would suggest he relishes the frisson of being wrong. He writes: 

That light dawning, that small but potent vertigo as a beautiful idea, taken for granted, falls apart in one’s mind, feels so very essential to the enterprise of literature, not only writing it but reading it and living in a world in which it is written and read. It’s a ticket, being wrong, not only a citation but a way of gaining entrance to something more marvelous and exciting for my not knowing at all what it really is. 

Readers who opt in by picking up his latest, And Then? And Then? What Else? will get to spend 200 pages and change frolicking in Handler’s mind as he struggles to figure out what it really is. It’s a bit of a genre-buster, this book, a sort of memoir in which he’ll do infuriatingly vague things like talk about his time in college without naming where he went (Wesleyan, if you’re interested), describe in detail how he writes while shying away from the writerly phrase process, and lean in to a tradition of many before him, from Didion to Orwell, from David Foster Wallace to Zadie Smith, examining the peculiar compulsion that leads anyone to put words together, thereby, perhaps, helping you do the same.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on June 26, 2024.

Pimento Cheese, If You Please

 

Food history is a funny thing, cause once grandmothers get involved, no one minds fudging the truth for a good tale. Take pimento cheese. Today we all think it's an emblem of Southern cooking--heck even Wikipedia suggests its nicknames are the "pâté of the South," "Carolina caviar," and "the caviar of the South."

Turns out mashing together pimento peppers and a soft cheese started in the northern U.S., only to make its way to a hundred southern variations by the middle of the 20th century. Arguably every family had their way, using or eschewing mayo, zipping it with more spice, subbing in red bell peppers--cheaper, more available--for pimentos (also spelled pimiento to further muddy the recipe waters). Starting the 1940s it became a thing at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, GA, its orange glow almost as famous as the winner's green jacket. It's still a thing there today, for a mere $1.50 a sandwich. That's another attraction of the spread--it could be made cheaply, if people so desired. You don' have to gussy it up like the James Beard-winning New Orleans cocktail bar Cure with Hooks 2-year cheddar. (That version is delish, though.)

All that prelude is to get us to Birdie's, hoping to take the pimento cheese market by storm. The founder of the company, Robin Allen, loved the snack as a child. As an adult, she and her husband Glenn owned their own printing business together for 25 years, and were considering trying their hand at something different.

As the website puts it: 

A revitalization grant brought a farmers market to the Allen’s home of South Hill, Virginia; and soon after catching the market bug, Robin and Glenn came up with a plan to sell three flavors of pimento cheese--just for one day--at the market, just to see what it was like. Turns out, they loved everything about it. The town of South Hill, VA paved a clean path for Robin and Glenn to get their pimento cheese inspected and their business established, and after that first day--making new friends over pimento cheese, feeling the thrill of the sale, and selling out all 30 tubs of cheese they had in stock--Robin and Glenn had a hunch that this might be their next life. A few months later, they sold the printing business and started making Virginia’s pimento cheese full-time. Birdie’s Pimento Cheese was born.

The basic recipe is the standard cheddar, mayonnaise, cream cheese, pimentos blend. They keep the cheddar in its shredded state, not doing a full whip and mix, that makes it a bit more homestyle and hearty transom variations. (Yep, even the texture is a matter of family tradition, locale, and taste preference.) What truly makes Birdie's stand out is they offer a series of variations on the basic blend, and those shine and sing--especially the Garlic Parmesan and Jalapeño in the photo, offered along with pita chips for fine buffet skimming at a friend's recent birthday fête. They certainly know how to add flavor yet keep things in bright balance. Other options include Cream Cheese + Black Pepper, Smoked Gouda + Roasted Red Pepper, and seasonal varieties. 

Note, their site also offers all kinds recipes--whipping it into your mac and cheese, slathering it on hot dogs, bringing cheesy goodness to an egg salad sandwich. It's hard not just eat it "raw" though, if you ask me, with the help of your favorite cracker. Or finger, if no one's looking.

(It's only available in northern California stores right now, but you can order online.)

The Good Lion's Summer Sensations

(photo credit: Lure Digital)

When the owner of an establishment insists the current seasonal menu is the best they've ever done, it's nearly impossible for one's marketing malarkey meter not to register bright red. Of course the latest is always best.

Turns out if Brandon Ristaino of The Good Lion makes such claims, you better listen--and drink--up. I had the great fortune to sit down with Brandon and his wife and business partner Misty this week to taste some of the 11 new drinks on the GL's warm weather 2024 menu that also celebrates their ten years alongside the Granada on State Street. And while I didn't sip all 11--my constitution is not that mighty, dear reader--I had some healthy swigs of five of them and the brilliance and range of what the bar is cranking out easily sums up their successes of the past decade. We cannot begin to express how lucky we are to have The Good Lion and the ever-growing hospitality empire Brandon and Misty are building, now from Ventura to San Luis Obispo. Plus they've been working on three new projects all opening within seven months (one that's right now off the record I'm ridiculously excited about--sorry, won't tell). "You go from a CPA meeting to a mezcal tasting to meeting with a city council member...," Brandon describes. "It gets tough on your body--you can get loopy after four hour in a row."

There's nothing loopy at all about the 10th anniversary special menu. First, it's visually delightful, offering a map of Santa Barbara as the cocktails are named after/inspired by many of our streets. (A lot of these trifolds are going home with patrons, no doubt.) Brandon runs a lot, the two love to urban hike, and if you stare at an Olive or Nopal Street sign long enough, in their business you're bound to get boozy ideas. Some might take a bit more imagination--Islay Street might be pronounced IS-lā in town thanks to the Spanish/Mexican influence, but to a mixologist, it's hard not to think of Scotland and the home of peaty single malt whisky, EYE-luh. 

That's how Ristaino and team got to the Islay St. Penicillin, famed for its Islay whiskey float that brings the delight of smoke to the relatively familiar cocktail. The basics of the drink--usually blended scotch, ginger, lemon, honey, and that float--get rethunk and expanded at GL, to the point when you read the list of ingredients on the menu--Bajan aged rum, pineapple, ginger, mole, apricot, añejo tequila, cognac, lemon, the Islay whisky float--it's easy to panic the result will be an over-complicated muddle. That simply doesn't happen at Good Lion, though. Somehow cocktails deepen and find new dimensions, in the way a cushion cut diamond draws the light, and your eye, into its brilliance. Such richness--Ristaino suggests the añejo adds a caramel note, almost liked a baked good. And what better with the fruit, the cognac. And then the whiff of smoke.

Or take Good Lion's advanced course version of the Boulevardier, the Bananapamu Street Boulevardier. The core cocktail is basically a Negroni with whisky standing in for the gin. Three ingredients, no muss, no fuss. Here's the list for the GL take: bourbon, house bitter blend, banana, macadamia, cacao, Italian vermouths, Demerara rum. What could appear to be too much instead of 1+1ing multiplies, finds ways to make each delicious delight exponential. Overtones and undertones. All the possible poles of flavor, like sour-sweet, boozy-fruity, balanced like a Wallenda* out for a wired walk. Ristaino calls it a more tropical take, which seems Santa Barbara appropriate (May Gray/June Gloom issues aside).

* You're allowed to date yourself when discussing cocktails.

There's something for every drinker here, as the list runs from aperitif to digestif, more or less, from a Garden Street Gimlet, fittingly an herbaceous blast of green that Ristaino compares to "a brunch in an English garden," to a Mission Street (Espresso) Martini I didn't try, but which offers coconut oil vodka, pineapple rum, and Cynar (artichoke, sure!) with the cold brew. Clever cross-marketers that they are, the list points to sister properties--the State Street Spritz (cachaca, gentian, and passionfruit among the ingredients dancing with the Prosecco) nods to Shaker Mill; the Helena Avenue Fix (Fassionola, vegan yogurt--Ristaino prefers to keep his bars dairy-free or all sorts of obvious reasons--whipped like a Ramos fizz) nods to Test Pilot; the Oak Street Margarita (there's even sherry in it) nods to Ventura's soon-to-open Jaguar Moon. 

Things can get nerdy, if no less downable. The Olive Street Martini has both an olive oil washed vodka and a gin, so edges into Vesper land, but then heads into terra incognita with a tomato essence that kicks off with a tomato oleo. Along with the French vermouth, there's a hit of balsamic vinegar. Think of it as a dirty martini that rolled in the classiest "trash." Ristaino's aide-de-camp Jonathan Jarrett was particularly excited when he might get his hands on pineapple tomatillo to garnish the drink. 

Simply put, the inventiveness never ends, but it also never chases fancy just to be different. The first measure of any of these drink is always pleasure. "We always want to be your local neighborhood bar," Misty says. And Brandon adds, "We want to provide a singular cocktail experience, and never have people be burned out by the cost or the lack of variety." 

And to think for this summer every drink gets to celebrate Santa Barbara too.

A Review of "The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster" by John O'Connor

 

How much of writing is staring down the dark. (Just ask Dante and his selva oscura.) Of course that also means, how much of life is staring down the dark, knowing that even if we fail or fear to consider it, the dark will swallow us up in the end. So maybe that’s why we want something to be out there, and why not Bigfoot? 

 Here’s one of the nut graphs John O’Connor offers in his lively, thoughtful, funny, The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster: 

Whatever mythic yearning monsters fulfill, we’re jonesing hard. Sixty-six million of us, according to a recent survey, profess to believe in just one: Bigfoot. Sixty-six million! As these numbers suggest, it’s not only crackpots who believe. There may be no more sacred expression of American exceptionalism than faith in a monster we’ve adapted to fit our peculiar view of history, unfalsifiable by facts proffered by science or qualified experts, and suggesting a medieval belief in the raw and violent power of nature. Perhaps we all need Bigfoot in our lives, whether we realize it or not.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Trinity Gardens Tour

 

The Santa Barbara Culinary Experience (SBCE) doesn’t just feature the region’s stars — it also hopes to shine a light on lesser-known people and projects. Take Trinity Gardens, three acres nestled in the Santa Barbara Foothills near the intersection of La Cumbre and Foothill roads. The land — provided by Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church — allows not only for gardens that grow produce for local food banks, nonprofits, and the Organic Soup Kitchen, but also 23 individual plots rented independently. In addition, Dewayne Nash, chair and garden manager, says, “We also provide gardening and food education for all ages to raise awareness about sustainable and healthy growing and eating practices.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site. 

The TOSB Soirée

 

I profiled three of the chefs taking parting the Taste of Santa Barbara Soirée for the Independent. I will include the first paragraph of each quickie, but if you want to read the whole thing, you can do so at the Indy's site.

Sandra Adu Zelli

Those attending the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience Taste of Santa Barbara Soirée will be able to indulge in three desserts prepared by Chef Sandra Adu Zelli, owner of Gipsy Hill Bakery. One of them, the decadent chocolate cake known as Reine de Saba, Zelli has been baking for almost two decades. The funny thing is, when she started, she didn’t know it was famously associated with Julia Child.

Sergei Simonov

A flair for the dramatic is simply part of Chef Sergei Simonov’s skill set, as anyone who saw him manipulate his way through Netflix’s Pressure Cooker series — Lord of the Flies meets TV cooking competition — knows. So it’s little surprise that, for the Santa Barbara Soirée, he will be live-cooking paella de mariscos, a signature dish during his run as Loquita’s executive chef. Guests can expect sizzle and fire in addition to grilled bay scallops, Prince Edward Island mussels, wild jumbo gulf prawns, black garlic sofrito, shiso, and saffron aioli.

Alex Bollinger

Turns out you can go home again — twice — if you’re Executive Chef Alex Bollinger at El Encanto. The Santa Barbara native had a plan early on; he remembers writing in his 6th-grade yearbook that in 10 years, he would be in Europe training to be a professional chef. He ended up traveling the world, cooking under esteemed chefs from Charlie Palmer to Tyler Florence, only to return to be the opening chef at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara’s Angel Oak. From there, he ran F&B for the Alida Hotel resort in Savannah, Georgia, until El Encanto called him home a second time.

Hyperlocal Vegetarian with Satellite / Mezze with the Daisy

 

I wrote a bunch of quickies for the Independent about the 2024 Taste of Santa Barbara. These first two were about cooking classes with Emma West from Satellite (photo above) and Carmen Deforest of The Daisy. I'll give you the first paragraph of each one, but if you want to read the rest, you can do so, as usual, at the Indy's site. (The overall intro is by Matt Kettmann.)

Hyperlocal Vegetarian with Satellite

Necessity is the mother of Satellite, the buzzy State Street restaurant and wine bar. “Vegetarian cuisine started at Satellite because we have a unique ‘kitchen’ space,” says chef Emma West, co-owner with Drew Cuddy. “We converted two offices into our kitchen and dishroom. We have a couple of induction heating sources and some refrigerators. With the limitations, I wanted to keep things simple and fresh, vegetarian was the way.”

Mezze with the Daisy

Although the Turkish word “mezze” means “snack,” if you load up a plateful of appetizers, it can be a feast. That’s especially true for the class to be taught by Chef Carmen Deforest of The Daisy Restaurant. “The plate embodies the flavors that we love, really fresh and bright,” Deforest explains, “and the way we like to eat, sharing and having a little bit of everything.” Think more typical items like hummus, marinated olives, and flatbread, but then there’s a delicious dip called beet Muhammara, pungent with garlic, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, walnuts, and more, and spicy California lamb and beef Kofta meatballs.

A Review of "Come and Get It" by Kiley Reid

 

Kiley Reid’s second novel Come and Get It might appear to be a campus-set comedy of manners, but the joke will be on you if you think it’s only a satire of a self-involved academic/writer and a gaggle of coeds who lean on the phrase ohmygod a lot. It’s not that Reid fails to deliver witty insights about life at the University of Arkansas in 2017. For instance, at one point she describes her most sympathetic character Millie as follows: “She stood bright-eyed in her red RA polo with the posture of a zookeeper who feeds sea lions for a crowd.” But Reid has much more on her mind than pointing out character quirks, consumerist obsession, and social peccadillos. 

The academic, Agatha Paul, is a visiting professor teaching nonfiction and cultural and media studies, who gets most obsessed researching the young women of Belgrade (really its name, and it is not a choice housing location) dorm, first examining their thoughts on marriage, only to pivot to exploring their ideas about money. That’s a hint—the novel limns what one can and should do for money, but without any preachiness.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

The review was also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on May 17, 2024.

Cuyama Buckhorn Makes Santa Barbara’s High Desert a Dining Destination

 “The Pickle Plate” might not sing a siren song from a menu. But if you’re dining at Cuyama Buckhorn Restaurant and Bar, the dish’s simplicity certainly should. Banish any thought of boring retro relish trays. Instead, admire its directness, its delivery of just enough vinegary sour to highlight the vegetables’ intrinsic sugar that’s often easy to ignore. Appreciate texture — the snap of carrot, the lush flesh of red pepper, the bristle of broccoli florets. Notice your appetite awaken in fuller ways than it might usually. 

 It’s both delicious and kind of Zen. 

 Let’s get even more essential and order what’s basically bread and butter. That’s a Tehachapi rye flour biscuit, a bit homely and hockey puck sized, beside a quenelle of luscious butter, scooped like ice cream, and drizzled with honey like a sundae topping. That rye flour offers hints of malt and sour — plus, it comes from a project working with heritage grain, non-GMOs, all the good stuff. It’s both hearty and light at once, and when slathered with some of the rich butter and the sweet honey, you will be nothing but happy.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

The Black Sheep Santa Barbara Brasserie Raises the Baa

 

While the Black Sheep SB Brasserie is generally dark on Tuesday evenings, it will be open this April 30 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Observant eaters will note the restaurant has only been at its 18 E. Cota Street location since December 2022, but owner and GM Ruben Perez is counting from the opening of the original Black Sheep on Ortega, which was April 30, 2014. 

To honor the day, Black Sheep will roll back the cost on its four-course, nine-dish tasting menu to 2014 prices — a mere $45. “Can’t believe it went by this fast,” Perez posted in a Facebook announcement for the event. “So grateful for the chance to become part of this amazing community and for the amazing friendships we have made. Here’s to another 10 years filled with food, love, and laughter.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Last Acts" by Alexander Sammartino

 

If fathers and sons didn’t exist, novelists would have had to invent them. Alexander Sammartino, in his debut novel Last Acts, dishes up quite a twosome, nailing the fear, faith, and fury of filial love. David Rizzo, veteran, gunshop owner in a godforsaken Phoenix-adjacent stripmall, “had been wandering around with his head bowed, begging to be kicked in the balls if it meant he would have enough money to be recognized a decent citizen.” His addict son Nick, as the novel begins, has just been saved from an overdose. And so we will get a moment of passive-aggressive love like this, as Rizzo rails at Nick: “How about a simple thank-you for a father that goes out of his way to make sure you have snacks? How many recovering drug addicts have snacks?”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

The review is also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on June 11, 2024.

Nick the Greek Gyro-ically Hits Santa Barbara’s State Street

“We’re a classic gyro house,” says Niko Heliotis, one of three partners, along with Dimitri and Panayioti Trembois, who are opening a Nick the Greek location at 508 State Street, in the former Natural Café spot. “After spending time in Greece, a lot of Greeks hold nostalgia for that food,” Heliotis explains. “We hope to bring a piece of that nostalgia back.” 

The Bay Area-based chain, now up to 80 restaurants or so (the number grows nearly weekly), certainly delivers delightful gyros, particularly the lamb/beef, with both meats tender and succulent, wrapped in a warm pita with tomato, crispy fries, red onion, and zingy tzatziki. With its extended evening hours — until 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, until 1 a.m. on weekends — Nick the Greek will no doubt fill many a post pub crawl craving. It’s easy to imagine the spot serving up its over-the-top Nick’s Fries slathered in feta, garlic, spicy yogurt, a protein of your choice, and green onions to a long line of happy chompers.

Care to read the rest, then do at the Independent's site.

Wexler’s Perfect Pastrami and More Comes to Santa Barbara Public Market

 

Even though owner Mike Kassar has been tasting his Wexler’s pastrami for 10 years — they originally opened in Los Angeles’s Grand Central Market in 2014 — when executive chef and partner Chris Requena cuts him a slice to sample at their just-opened Santa Barbara location, his eyes bulge out with delight. His involuntary expression of pleasure makes clear why he wears a sweatshirt that reads “I am my own happiness dealer” across its back. 

 Kassar, New York born and bred but a West Coaster for 20 years, relishes bringing deli “back to its roots, by providing craftsmanship, quality, and tradition.” And now bringing deli to the Santa Barbara Public Market. Kassar has always loved Santa Barbara — he and his wife were married here — and admires the “warmth of the community, and how the area is appreciative of good food.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.