Our Summer Vacation: Part IV -- Agritourism and Eating Places

Wherever we go, there we eat.

Agritourism is big these days, or so I hear. Of course, I didn't even know it was called that, we're just irresistibly drawn to food-related activities.

When we talked to people about going to Paso, there was a blank look -- the "what will you do there?" kind of look. Well, plenty as it turns out.

Paso isn't Paris, but it's not quite the sleepy little hamlet you might think. It even has a nice French restaurant. No, not this one -- Restaurant Paris, which we had read about. We discovered they were closed, sadly.

But just around the corner is Bistro Laurent (1202 Pine St., (805) 226-8191), a very cozy French bistro -- a little pricey, but with excellent food, like my quite succulent pork chop.

We arrived on the day that France played Portugal in the semi-finals of the World Cup, and chef Laurent Grangien was quite happy to tell us the results.


And of course, they have a cheese plate. The waitstaff seemed confused when I asked what the cheeses were.

"Well we have many cheeses and the chef chooses some each day."

"That's nice. Which cheeses? French?"

"Ye-es..I think so. Um, let me get you someone who can tell you..."

The maitre d comes over. Repeat of above conversation. I decide to put them out of their misery and just order the cheese plate. When it arrives, he kindly informs me that it's Saint-Maure de Touraine, Comte, Tete de Moine, Pont l'Eveque, Reblochon and Etorki.

"What?" I say, not quite understanding the last cheese name.

"Etorki?" he says a little more slowly.

"Oh, the Basque mountain cheese," I say. As the words come out of my mouth, I'm wondering, Where the heck did that come from? I've never had Etorki in my life. I'm starting to scare myself with this cheese stuff.

(Etorki is quite delish, by the way, although Eric went into rhapsodies over the Tete de Moine. Since seeing one in Milan, I've always wanted a girolle, the thing they use to make beautiful rosettes of Tete de Moine.)

Anyway, onward. I had read about a roadside organic farmstand in Templeton called Hollyhock Farm, where you can get seasonal vegetables and fresh eggs. It's all on the honor system, so consumers are expected to choose their produce and then check the prices, weigh, and slip some cash into the little slot on the stand.

Apparently you can also do a farm stay there, although we didn't roam too far in, feeling a little shy about tromping about on what was clearly someone's front yard.

I was also a little bummed that only cucumbers and onions were in season and the eggs were all gone, but we selected some onions and bagged and duly paid. Honor code was big at my college and I like the idea that someone comes into this relationship already trusted.

After a dusty day, we retreated to the hotel to take a shower and then drove ten minutes to San Miguel to eat at a crazy place that we'd heard about called the Tenth Street Vineyard Cafe.

The establishment of Dallas and Caren Holt, this is one crazy little farmhouse. You call ahead (definitely call ahead, reservations are essential), and arrive to find yourself in what looks like someone's living room. A prix fixe ($24.95, cash only), nine-course Basque feast is served family style in a raucous atmosphere only encouraged by Dallas, who makes everyone in the place drink sangria from his bota bag (a Basque wine skin). And I mean everyone. I'm not kidding.

Our table was the place to be that evening, as we had three Basque brothers, who brought a Rioja, a bottle of pacharan and a load of great stories. Fermin was celebrating his saint's name day -- and the opening of Pamplona's San Fermines, known to the rest of us as "the running of the bulls."

The pacharan was a big hit with Dallas, who came by for a sample, and then returned for another sample to share with a rowdy bunch of winemakers in the next room.

"Great stuff!" he exclaimed. "What is it made from?"

Pacharan, or patxaran, is a liqueur and according to Wikipedia, it's made by soaking sloe berries (like those used for gin) in anisette with a few coffee beans and a vanilla pod for several months. It's apparently not easy to get a hold of, although up here in the Bay Area, K&L Wine and Liquor carries it. Makes a lovely digestif after the meal, which was enormous.

Everything comes out of this little kitchen. We were so intent on pacing ourselves foodwise, that we literally forgot to take pictures. Except for the one below of the sort of Basque shepherd's pie.

Tapas, soup, migas (a kind of spiced bread crumb dish that Fermin and David informed us is usually a peasant shepherd dish), paella, the food just kept on coming.

By the end of the night, I needed a wheelbarrow to cart me and the nine courses back to the hotel, where I flopped onto the bed in much the same fashion as the elephant seals of Piedras Blancas.

They move kind of like Jabba the Hutt -- *slug, slug, slug* ...uhhhh... too much effort. *flop* Watch the movie. You'll see...

The agritour continued with a stop at the "little charming farmstand" that made Earthbound Farms so famous, just off of Hwy 1 before you get into Pebble Beach.



Earthbound's success as "organic gone big business" has gotten some coverage recently. Steve Shapin's recent New Yorker article "Paradise Sold" really made me think about this whole organic movement and what it means.

On the one hand, people are eating a pesticide-free, healthier vegetable, but on the other hand, this brand of "organic" is grown on vast tracts -- 26,000 acres of land total -- and they truck those nice plastic packages of washed lettuce off to the 50 states. Here, "organic" doesn't follow that one key part of the organic philosophy -- it isn't local. Nor is it cheap. This is exclusive stuff, being sold to only those consumers who can afford that kind of lifestyle.

But I sigh with frustration, because being a conscientious locavore seems insurmountably difficult. Who can I buy from? What can I eat? How much can I eat? Do I care enough about all of this really? Maybe I should just forget all about this stuff and pop down to the corner grocery and get a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a six pack of Coke.

The fog rolls in like a rebuke, and I think, no, no, take advantage of living in the one place in this country where this seems even feasible.

We decide to put Earthbound behind us, having purchased nary an onion. We'll focus instead on an extravagant, but exquisitely prepared meal, designed for the sort of people who play golf in Pebble Beach. Dinner, in fact, was at the Stillwater Bar & Grill, at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. The Lodge. Golf. Different world from ours.

There's guilt of course, but it's delicious guilt. Tuna prepared beautifully with a touch of toasted black sesame seeds and perfectly ripe avocado.




Perfectly seared scallops in a richly, flavorful dark sauce, with a potato puree and mache.

Not the same as the Basque feast, but we were thrilled with every bite as we watched the sun set through a mist of fog over the cove.

Yeah, this kind of life is good.

Of course, we can't leave Monterey without paying a visit to the amazing Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'm constantly flabbergasted at the amazing, strange, alien things that come from the sea.



Are those really scallops lurking under that rock? Scallops like the ones we eat?

And live sand dollars. I love looking at the velvety sand dollars, which are vastly more interesting than the dead skeletons you find of this beast at the beach.

We also spend about twnety minutes standing at the OUter Bay tank, mesmerized by the ocean sunfish.

"Do you think he can see us?"

"Oh yeah. Look at him... he's playing us... 'Hey, tuna! C'mere! Look at the weird monkey creatures. No, really, look! They'll stand there all day filming us...'"

After all the abundance, we decided to stop at Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing. It was a little bit tricky to find and seemed buried among the many sea-related institutions of the area.

Unfortunately, it was not the stinky fish market of my dreams -- I continue to search for the kind of place I remember as a child when my Dad took me through the old Fulton Fish Market. (I'm a New Yorker. We loathe change in our city, so the closure of the Fulton Fish Market is a crime, spoken of in the same terms as we refer to the demolition of the Old Met and the destruction of the old Penn Station.)

But I digress. Phil's. Atmospheric. Not as hopelessly crowded as Cannery Row, but not less touristy or less pricey. Eric ordered some blackened scallops and I got the fried artichoke hearts. Decent, but not much to write home about.



Curiously though, Phil's got a lot of press the week after we were there, with appearances on "The View," and "Road Tasted."

Go figure.

Our Summer Vacation: Part III -- Cute Animal Segment

As a city slicker, I have that constant fascination with farm animals that makes my agrarian friends hoot with laughter.

"No, you don't want to raise goats," they inform me, "Or chickens or cows or any of those things."

"How about sea otters?" I enquire.

During this whole trip Eric was, I think, faintly amused at my obsession with taking pictures of animals.

"Look, look! Chickens scratching in the dirt!" I'd shout as I dashed forward with camera in hand.

"Yes, that's what real chickens do," he replies.

I snap a few pictures of happy chickens being happy chickens and then am overcome at the mental picture of all those sad birds trapped inside a hen house with a tiny door at one end so that they can be called "free range." I recently learned the term "pastured poultry" meaning chickens that are raised roaming over grass and scratching for insects. If you want to find out where they raise pastured poultry near you, check the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association site.

Many of my friends have expressed the desire for their lives to play out this way:

"I'd quit my job and have a farm up north someplace and raise goats..."

For all of them, I include this happy goat picture from Sycamore Herb Farms (Highway 46, 3 miles west of US 101. Open 10:30 to 5:30 daily; (800) 576-5288.)

The day of our trip to Hearst castle, we decided to drive a few miles north to Piedras Blancas to visit the elephant seals.

Elephant seals are too much fun. In this part of the season, the juvenile males are molting still. Here they're lined up at the edge of the water like anchovies in a can.

These aren't the big alpha males, we're told, although these boys look like they outweigh me by about 700 pounds. Every so often they get into little tiffs with each other, and then flop back down on the sand -- probably because it's too much effort to keep that up for long...

A clutch of pelicans sailed low over the beach and made for a picturesque moment.





Across the highway Mr. Hearst's zebras still roam the pastures as if they think they're cows. The zoo they came from is long gone, but they seem happy enough. Maybe it's the views.


We stayed over a night in Monterey, and of course, a visit to the Aquarium is de rigeur.

Eric had never seen them feed the fish in the big tank before, and afterwards, we scampered up to the third floor to watch the diver come up, flippers and all.

Over at the otter tank, it was naptime. Here, one of the otters slumbers peacefully with some seaweed clutched like a safety blanket in her adorable paws.

I love cute paws.

Our Summer Vacation: Part II - Zinfandel Mania

One of the reasons we went on this little jaunt of course, was so that my zin-obsessed husband could wrap his palate around the robust little wines that are making a name for Paso Robles.

A few months ago, his sister brought us back some phenomenal wine from a place called Zin Alley (more about them later) and so we thought, why not check out what all this Paso talk is about, anyhow?

Neither one of us has ever been to Paso actually. I've passed through of course, as most people have -- you know, as you drive at 100 miles an hour between LA and SF, trying to get home before nightfall.

On the way though, we couldn't help noticing the HUMONGOUS vineyard visible, well, pretty much everywhere on the drive between King City and San Miguel. Covering some 12,600 acres, this giant parcel runs south of the Salinas River. It's the largest contiguous vineyard in the world and it's owned by the Indelicato family, who makes Delicato Wines. Here's an article with more on the vineyard.

It seemed, there was a lot unexpected about the region and we had a lot to learn about the wine-makers of the Paso region. We decided to concentrate on the part of the region west of Highway 101. It seems you can drive along Vineyard Drive and hit a winery every ten seconds these days, although in the not so distant past, we were told, only twelve wineries really held sway in Paso. I'll leave the serious discussion of the wine to my better half, who has the palate of the family. But I'll mention the places we visited -- and there were some fun ones!

Our first stop was at Turley Wine Cellars. We'd read about the 80-year old vines that were part of the old Pesenti vineyard, which Turley acquired in 2000, but that was about all we knew. For a first stop it was not a bad choice, and we found the staff in the tasting room helpful. I was a little dubious though, about the obvious corporatization that's moving into an area that I'd hoped was a little less "Napa." Of course, Turley started out further north near St. Helena, and they've been making wine all over California is what I read, and the experience shows in the wine, which was very polished.

Even though we had our own short list, we asked at Turley which other wineries she would recommend. One that sounded interesting was Linne Calodo, which Matt and Maureen Trevisan started back in 1998. After a little bit of back and forth, we drove through an unmarked gate at the intersection of Highway 46 and Vineyard Drive, and as we came up the dirt road, we were immediately surrounded and, well, herded, by the winery's three border collies, Bear, Blue and Marley.

It was a Thursday, and we didn't realize we were barging in on a day when the winery's tasting room wasn't actually open. But they very kindly let us invade, with our furry escort leading us on. The Trevisans make a fantastic Rhone-style blend called "Sticks and Stones" that is definitely a wine to keep an eye out for. This small producer makes only about 800 cases a year, and it's well worth seeking them out. We bought a couple of bottles, and chatted for a bit about where we were planning to visit that day.

"You sound like you're going to a lot of places, would you like a box so your wines aren't rolling around in the trunk?"

Despite its growing popularity, Paso is, as it turns out, a bit different from the more corporate wine regions, we decided. People are warm, and the relationship between the places seems less viciously competitive. They'll send you to the guy across town, chat for a while, offer advice on food. It reminded me of when I first came to California and visited a -- then -- unknown place called Ravenswood, where the tasting room was a fold-up table in the fermenting room next to giant vats of pungent wild looking stuff. Ravenswod is still nice, but let me tell you, the tasting room looks a bit different now.

But I digress. We had a nice picnic lunch at Peachy Canyon (more about picnics here) which made a nice respite from the heat and dust. The Peachy Canyon label you can find locally, and we were pleasantly surprised bytheir Cab Franc which had a lot of peppery flavor.

From there, we hove to Opolo Vineyards, where we ran into one of those group limo tours. Did I say the place was becoming more popular? Eric restrained himself manfully and didn't purchase any wine here (no reflection on the quality of Opolo's estate-produced wines), but moved us on a few hundred yards to our next stop along Vineyard Drive.


"Monster" Zinfandel was the attraction of our next target, Norman Vineyards, which I immediately appreciated for their wildcat logo. Established in 1971, Norman is one of the older wineries in Paso, and certainly a friendly stop.

Jo, our host in the tasting room poured us two irresistible little gems: a lovely 2003 Syrah and a Mephistopheles Zin that Eric kept smacking his lips over.

Let the meal planning begin.

At this point, I was sensing that we were reaching a limit, budgetarily as well as palate-wise, so we hit only one more place that day -- Justin Vineyards, which I expected to be a bit of a touristy spot. Their Isoceles wine we'd read good things about, but the place has an "auberge" and restaurant, and a shop. Exactly the sort of place that would have made Paul Giamatti cranky in "Sideways."

Nevertheless, we did enjoy the wines, which you can find in lots of places around the Bay Area, including Cost Plus, the Jug Shop and the Ferry Building's Wine Merchant. Some may recognize their name from the disastrous fire at Wines Central in Vallejo last year -- They lost 17,000 cases of wine. (The maker of our favorite California blends Orion and Pleiades, Sean Thackrey took a massive hit in that same fire."

Well after Justin we were tuckered. Literally drained by the sun. We're from Fogtown San Francisco, so we don't really know what that big bright thing in the sky is. We went back to the hotel and collapsed for an afternoon siesta, which is a tradition I think is cerainly worth importing here.
Well, the next day, we went on non-wine adventures to Hearst Castle, and to see Elephant seals. (more on that in another post) but there were two places that had been closed on Thursday and that we couldn't possibly miss.

One was Zin Alley, already mentioned above. The place is a small producer run by Frank and Connie Nerelli. Frank's family, as it turns out, owned the Pesenti Vineyard, the same one which got sold to Turley. But winemaking is in the blood and after making wines for Pesenti and Turley, he acquired his current piece of land, which he dry-farms ("Let the vines do the work" is his motto) and from which he gets one of the most terrific zins we've ever tasted.

Frank's a character -- while we were there, he chatted about the area and noted that he wasn't on any wine maps.

"Oh, you won't find me on any of those," he says waving a hand dismissively. "I had us taken off of all of those. I think there's still one that we're on -- they wanted to do a map of every winery in the area. Can't do anything about that. But I'm off all the other ones."

So you won't see Frank's Zin in Safeway any time soon, and he doesn't have a wine club ("Nah!") but he's willing to mail you wine ("Sure, give me a call. Mail you anything you like!")

He also makes a superb port and a fabulous dessert wine called "After Hours."

Our final stop on the wine adventure was the appropriately-named L'Aventure, the winery of French-born winemaker Stephan Asseo. You can read all about him on their site, and how he found this region when he was looking for a place that duplicated conditions in his native Bordeaux, where he began making wines. Stephan wanted to experiment with his wine, which is um.. not encouraged in Bordeaux -- so he came to Paso where he'd have license to mix his Cabernet Sauvignon with Syrah if he liked. Which he did like. And we like too. It's called his Optimus, if you're interested and it's terrific, as is his 100% Syrah.

"Drink now, and for the next few years," they say.


"Put it in this glass," says Eric.

Our Summer Vacation: Part I: Picnic Mania

Oh, I love a good picnic! All I've done all this wet winter was whine about my picnics and how I'd been cheated of them last summer -- and how I was going to get my picnics, lots of them, this year.

So as we pushed off for our first vacation in ages, I made some preliminary plans to ensure that there would be plenty of picnicking. A little bit of Martha Stewart planning, some shopping and we were guaranteed some spectacularly fun al fresco dining.

After all these years of picnicking and dreaming about picnicking, I've learned a few things, which I'll take this opportunity to share...

1) I always take a cooler with the ice pack screwed into it, even if it seems unwieldy. You can always leave it in the car, but if you're travelling in hot climates, the cooler is invaluable. I also buy myself a little extra ice-time by freezing a few drinks, a few bottles of water to pack in the sides. I also like to pack equipment (blanket, knives, corkscrew, plates, serving/cutting boards, plasticware, napkins, winesaver and rubber stoppers, salt & pepper shaker) in a backpack with the non-cooled food. It's just easier to carry.

2) I believe in a tablecloth. It sounds silly, but it makes a difference when you can cover up that weathered wooden plank, or faded plastic tabletop. I bought this length of batik fabric at the remnants table of a fabric store for $2. If it gets messed up, I won't care, but it makes things look nicer.

3) You don't need a lot of food to be satisfying. For our starter picnic, we bought a whole Molinari coppa salami, some prosciutto, a couple of wedges of cheese (Comte and Tipsy Cow), half a pint of oil-cured olives, some homemade focaccia, some Maille mustards, a few bottles of water. I also made an orzo salad with leftover oven-dried tomatoes and sauteed fennel and along the way we picked up some anchovies. That was literally enough for our first four picnics.

4) Plan ahead where you're going to stop -- a place that has picnic tables? Grass? Will you have to hike in? Is there shade, or water? It saves you a lot of stress and meandering about when you're hungry and therefore cranky.

Our first stop on the picnic trail was at the Mission at San Juan Bautista. Check it out -- it's the site of that fabulous finale in Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." Can't you just see Kim Novak dashing across the lawn? No tower though -- that was a studio set constructed for the movie.

The site was quiet when we got there -- most of the Fourth of July revellers were gone and we saw only a few people painting the bucolic scene of the old El Camino Real and the mission. By the way, all along the old route of El Camino Real -- which started out as an Indian footpath and became the lifeline that connected the California Missions -- there are markers in the shape of bells. You see them at the side of 101 wherever 101 coincides with Camino Real. I wondered about the bells, which have no clapper. As it turns out, there are 555 of them along the route, made by California Bell Company -- and you can even own one of your own...

On Thursday, we had spent the greater part of the day winding through the wineries of West Paso and we were hot and tired by the time lunch came around. Of course, you can find a picnic table at almost any winery in the area, but we found a nice shady green spot at Peachy Canyon, which is on Highway 46.

A former schoolhouse, this site is charmingly green, with a garden, a gazebo, and our very own attendant. I very much enjoyed the company of our lunch guest, who especially approved of our Tipsy Cow cheese. She was not intrusive, but reminded me of our own Cheese Kitty.

On our third day, we ventured even further west to visit Hearst Castle. I think it's one of those sights that's just too good to miss, but I hadn't been there since I was a child. In the mean time, they've installed a food court, an IMAX theater and what seems to be an exact replica of New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal. The smell inside is very much reminiscent of the Disneyland-Great America-boardwalk experience, i.e. cheap hotdogs, bad fires and lots of High Fructose Corn Syrup (Say what you want, New York Times -- I still want more research done on the connection between HFCS and the obesity epidemic.)
So we were quite happy to escape across Highway 1 to the William Hearst Memorial Beach with our picnic supplies. A lovely lunch with the Pacific Ocean in front of us.

After staving off some interested gulls (horrible birds) we enjoyed a light lunch and then a walk down the pier that leads off the side of the beach.



I love looking at the kelp and the seaweed along the coast. From the pier you could see an elegant twirl of vegetation.

At this point, our supplies were running a little low. However, I'd done some research on shops in Paso and read about a little place called di Raimondo's Italian Market & Cheese Shop (822 13th Street at Park Street, Paso Robles (805) 238-1268). It turned out to be a really well stocked market that sported, among many other things, a wide array of cheeses, Molinari salamis, El Rey chocolate and anchovies from Cantabria. YUM. Owner Jean Higgins was more than ready to let us sample cheeses and let us try a lovely local sheep cheese called Pozo Gold made by Christine Maguire at Rinconada Dairy.

"It's made from raw unpasteurized sheep's milk, aged 60 days," she explains.

"Oh," we say, nodding with a 'wink, wink, nudge nudge,' "Just long enough, eh?"

"Oh, yes," she says, realizing just what kind of cheese-hounds she's dealing with, "Just enough to be legal. I'm there on the 61st day knocking on her door."

She cuts us a sample of the Rinconada's Chaparral, as well as samples of some fabulous Comte, a bit of Bucheron -- she even has some Spanish Picon -- a nice tangy blue we hardly see in our area.

In the end, we opt to go local -- our theme for the weekend -- and we take some of the Pozo, making a mental note to visit Rinconada the next time we're down this way.

On the trip up the spectacular California coast, we broke for lunch in a place that I hadn't researched called Lucia, nestled in the gap between the Los Padres National Forest and the Julia Pfeiffer Burns Park. We got out to stretch our legs, spotted the picnic tables overlooking the ocean, and made a quick decision.


Easily the prettiest spot on the trip, Lucia seemed to be a charmed haven -- even the marine layer pulled back so we could see the jewelled Pacific water. The air was cooler, even though it was sunny and there were nasturtiums blooming on the hillsides. In short, an idyllic little spot at just the right moment -- and after all, isn't that what picnicking is all about?

Simple Focaccia

5 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp salt, plus extra sea salt for sprinkling
2 cups warm (110°) water
1 pkg yeast
6 Tbsps olive oil
3 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary, basil, thyme or oregano (optional)
Chopped garlic, sundried tomatoes, caramelized onions, olives or roasted red bell peppers (optional)

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl. Add in the herbs if you're using them and combine well.

In a separate bowl, mix water, yeast and then 3 tbsp olive oil. Stir the yeast mixture into flour mixture until evenly moistened.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place 1 1/2 hours or til doubled.

Scrape into 10 1/2 x 15 1/2 pan and pat evenly into pan. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise 1 hour.

Uncover and dimple dough by punching finger at 2" intervals into surface. Drizzle with remaining olive oil, and add chopped garlic, green pepper, sundried tomatoes, chopped olives, etc., on top. Sprinkle sea salt over the top.

Bake at 450°F for 25 minutes.