I gotta admit, California bugs the crap out of me sometimes, but they sure know how to cook out on the Left Coast.
It’s been 25 or so years since I was last in California, and my culinary experiences while there tended towards the humbler side. Mexican food in San Diego and LA was the general rule, with strange detours to astounding burgers and dogs at very odd hours in places I’d never heard of, or that I could ever find again.
Tri tip barbecue. Now that was one thing this Southern boy did not expect to find. Good barbecue in California. Granted, it was different, but man was it good! Beef cooked over oak coals? Oh yes. Some of that Santa Maria stuff gave the pig a run for its money.
I, like so many others, bought my first wok in Chinatown. Face it. There’s only one Chinatown. San Francisco was - and still is by all accounts - a culinary hedonist’s dream come true. The weather when I was there was generally miserable, which made me look for cozy food; stews and crusty bread, Chinese food that wasn’t on the menu, vegan craziness across the Bay with some macrobiotic madness thrown in for good measure, and all of it washed down with the best the Napa Valley had to offer and a fair amount of Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as well.
I remember some of the strangest meals in the most unlikely places. Pancakes with blueberry syrup in Monterey. Go figure.
For giving us an endless line of great chefs from Wolfgang Puck to Cindy Pawlcyn to Thomas Keller, California can almost be forgiven its general idiocy at times.
Almost.
Like I said; it’s been a long time since I’ve been to Cali. I get the feeling I’ve been missing a lot. Chances are I’ll be heading to LA within the next year for my brother-in-law’s wedding. The Lady and I are discussing turning that trip into a two or three week rumble through the state, frantically hitting all the places we talk about. Tips, as always, are appreciated. And for this thread, any California culinary memories or thoughts are not optional.
