Santa Cruz

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road trip to Cali

Friday, July 29th, 2011

on the beach

We’ve just begun to recover from our week-long road trip to Santa Cruz to visit my brother-in-law. We spent two days driving south, a few days there, then three days coming back. We hit an astounding number of brewpubs along the way. Here’s a (rather long) photo essay of some of the week’s eats and drinks.

HopworksHopworks Brewery

We left Mount Vernon bright and early, with our first stop at Hopworks in Portland. It was pouring down rain (my feet got soaked just going the short distance from the car to the door), but the brewpub was bright and cozy and the Women’s World Cup was just starting. We could happily have stayed there all day, but we dragged ourselves away at halftime.

Ancho chicken sandwich

steak sandwich

blue cheese salad

The sandwiches were excellent, especially the chicken ancho, and the salad had chunks of Rogue Creamery blue cheese almost too big to eat. Plus their beer is amazing – I had a pint of Evelyn’s Sunshine Imperial IPA, which was badly needed after our drive through the storm.

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Clara

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Clara

This week’s Caturday is brought to you by Clara, our cat-in-law. She’s a pretty thing, a bit round these days, but not as pear shaped as our own gray Stella. She has  gorgeous eyes,  loves chasing a laser pointer bug, and has her people firmly wrapped around her paw. She likes to sit in the kitchen sink.

pale green eye

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Avanti (no food photos)

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

sunset surf

There are several very nice restaurants in Santa Cruz, but the one my brother-in-law and his partner had been most excited to take us to was Avanti. A charming little Mediterranean bistro in a strip mall off of Mission Street, this was one of the highlights of our trip. However, we went in the evening, it was pouring rain outside, and our table was dark. The pictures we took are unspeakably bad. So you shall have to envision the food I am about to describe, and I will appease my need to stick photos into posts by showing off some images I took from the ocean cliffs nearby.

top of the bluff

Avanti was one of those places where I look at the menu and immediately want all of it, simultaneously. It was all perfectly seasonal and local and delicious-looking, and I couldn’t see how I could possibly choose. Eventually I calmed down and was able to focus, and we avoided some of the problem by ordering three antipasti for the table.

calm seas

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coffee & toast

Monday, April 5th, 2010

the surfer's dog

We’re back from (partly) sunny California! Spring break is over, we’re back at work and looking at a rather involved couple of weeks ahead. I want to do a few posts on some food highlights, but in the meantime you’re welcome to keep an eye on my Flickr stream for photos as I get them loaded in.

We were visiting my husband’s brother in Santa Cruz. The house is fabulously located less than a mile from the seashore, and just a few blocks from a pizzeria, a good grocery, a large collection of wine tasting rooms (more on those later) and a great bakery and cafe. On the first morning of our visit, we discovered that most of the breakfast goods in the house had almonds in them, so off to Kelly’s French Bakery we went.

Kelly's French Bakery

I’m happy to report that Kelly’s makes a very nice cappuccino. I promised a coworker that I would drink a cappuccino in Santa Cruz for her, which is the sort of mission I take very seriously.

Kelly's French Bakery

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