Northern Kale-ifornia

One of the best things about loving food (and there are a LOT of things about loving food that I, well, love) is that I am usually not the only person in the room who does. In fact, if John is there, it is guaranteed that at least one other person loves food almost as much as I do. In visiting people, it is such a great connection point. Either they can show us the things they love about food in the area and know that John and I will appreciate it, or we can hop in and get cooking. Both cases, in my mind, are a win.

So, when we planned to visit friends and family in NorCal as COVID restrictions started to loosen, we knew we would be eating extremely well. In planning our trip, we planned a whooping two-week extravaganza – starting in Santa Cruz with John’s mom, Carol, then going to Cool for a family reunion with my Grandma Joni, next would be Lia and Anthony (two of our best friends), a day in Napa for our two-year wedding anniversary, then ending the trip with John’s dad, David, in Palo Alto. It was more socializing than we had done in almost a year and a half, but it was all people we couldn’t wait to see again.

Now, we have to have to have to start with me talking about Carol’s beautiful yard. In Santa Cruz, she lives in this gorgeous Victorian house that has some of the most amazing produce I’ve ever seen. A gigantic avocado tree (more on this later), beautiful fig trees (also more on this later), plum trees, apricot trees, lemon trees, raised planters…I know I am missing some things but I think you get the picture. Something is always in season at her house and she is extremely generous with the fruits of her labor (pun intended), so her friends are always being gifted with fresh produce!

While we were there, we got to help pick some of the many avocados from the tree. We were instructed to get them from a certain area to make sure the branch didn’t get too heavy and fall on her house…and while we picked for an hour, it was but a small dent in the amount of avocados that still remained on the tree. In that hour, can you guess how many pounds of avocados we picked? If you guessed NINETY POUNDS, then yes, you are right. These are Reed avocados, which appear more circular and are huge compared to Haas avocados.

Not only did we do some avocado picking, but we got to make limoncello with the lemons from her tree! Well, limoncello and lemon curd and preserved lemons. So, lots of lemon products, some of which we got to try while we were there and some that need to be enjoyed in a few months (my patience will definitely be tested). We also got to make a ton of jams and chutneys, which included an apricot jam, a spiced lemon chutney, an apple chutney, and a fig-and-plum jam. Now, I think we can touch on the fig tree.

I love fresh figs. Like, so much. And last year, though John tried many times to find fresh figs, we struggled. While we were visiting Carol in Santa Cruz, it was fig season, which is basically heaven. Every couple hours, there would be new figs that had fallen off the tree for me to collect. I told Carol and John that I strongly believed I would be able to keep up with the fig tree (spoiler alert: unclear if I can but they both laughed in my face saying it was simply not possible). Her fig trees are Kadota fig trees, which are also very different than the types of figs that John and I can get in the grocery store, which are typically Black Mission figs. I only know all this because I did a medium-deep dive on figs while we were there. Anyway, I got to eat my fill of figs and we got to take home three big containers of figs home, so I am still in my very happy fig place right now.

Carol even loaded up with figs, plums, and avocados to take to our next stop – my Grandma Joni’s place in Cool. Located about 30 minutes outside Sacramento, Cool was very much not-cold. We went from a coastal town sitting at a relatively temperate climate, to sweat-while-sitting-in-the-shade-under-a-fan kind of hot. What really struck me, though, was that, at Gma’s house, she was growing many of the same things! And despite the temperature differences, plants that thrived in Santa Cruz also thrived in Cool.

Gma and Keith, her fiancé, live in a seriously cool place (pun again, intended). It is a beautiful property that has a ton of different layers to it, whether it is the multi-layer deck, the soundproofed music studio, the amazing yard, or the space to play bocce ball, there is always a nook to find yourself in. The garden part was one of my favorites, as it seemed to have a tree for each kind of fruit – pomegranate, apple, olive, cherry, lemon, lime, fig – they even have grapevines that produce the grapes they used to make wine last year! While we didn’t get to do as much harvesting as we did at Carol’s, we definitely got to make use of the yard and deck areas. Enjoying the beauty of Cool, with almost 40 family members, most of whom had not met John and some that hadn’t even met me, was such a special treat. The sunsets definitely aren’t too shabby either.

Next stop was Lia and Anthony’s place! And while there was no fruit-producing yard, we got to go to some delicious restaurants…starting with Palette Tea Garden. Their specialty was high-end dim sum, and it did not disappoint. They even had lobster shu mai and their vinegar was served in caviar-like spheres (I suspect molecular gastronomy)! After that, Anthony and I had to get a little fitness in, before going to Orchard City Kitchen. It was tapas style ordering (honestly, my favorite) so we could all get things to try. We ordered garlic noodles (always a crowd pleaser), B^3 (biscuits, butter, bacon – yum), tako salad (octopus!), tempura-fried squash blossoms, heirloom tomato and plum caprese salad, pork chop with pickled peaches, and a miso brownie. I definitely think I could have done more fitness beforehand but man, what a meal!

The good food just kept rolling as we took our trip to Napa. We started our meals with lunch at the El Dorado Hotel and everything was good – from the homemade breads, to the kale Caesar salad (we needed the greens), to another tomato/burrata/basil salad, and ceviche, and mussels! We were way too full for dessert, mostly because the bread was so good.

We stayed overnight at this beautiful property, Beltane Ranch. It was so idyllic, with donkeys and horses to feed, and chickens that grazed in the olive grove, to the two long-horned cows that stared at you all the way up the driveway. It was a must to do a walk-about, walking amongst the grapevines and under the 300-year-old oak was a highlight. They said that they are booked every weekend from now until the end of the year with weddings and I can 100% see why.

For dinner, we went to Glen Ellen Star, and a restaurant we had heard a lot about! We started with a gazpacho, since it was so warm out, and it was the perfect way to begin the meal. For our mains, we got this homemade pasta with all these summer veggies, and a whole branzino with a peach mole and seriously, the peach mole was divine. I could have put that on ice cream and eaten it – it could have been sweet or savory and was such an interesting flavor combo. Our side was roasted brussels with bacon and, how can you go wrong there? We finished the meal with a white chocolate mousse topped with strawberries and rhubarb and wow. During this past year, we had also been trying to find rhubarb, so it was an absolute treat to be able to have it for our anniversary dinner, which was so generously paid for by John’s mom, Carol! She had called ahead so when we asked for the check, we were so sweetly surprised when the waitress told us that Carol had made that night happen for us.

Our last meal in the Napa-area was actually at Beltane Ranch – they are a B&B so we woke up to a delicious fresh breakfast with eggs from the chickens on property and a cornbread that is my favorite cornbread I have ever eaten.

The last NorCal stop was in Palo Alto. John and I have made it a tradition to stop at Blue Bottle Coffee while we are there – and while Sirius waking us up at 6AM is never fun, it meant we got to go there every day we were in Palo Alto so he could get his morning walk. The big adventure while we were there was sailing. By sailing, I meant that I got to be on a boat as it went under the Golden Gate Bridge in partial fog. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I got to enjoy because John and his dad, David, are experienced sailors that have those connections in SF. We got to see dolphins (or more properly, harbor porpoises) and sea lions (maybe seals, unclear); at some points, it was so cold that I had three layers on, at some points, it was sun’s out, guns out! My nose is still recovering from the sunburn because, despite it being pretty dang cold, turns out you can still get a sunburn.

 While on our trip, it turns out Lia and Anthony would also be driving down to SoCal – so we all decided to caravan back down together, with the incredible stop at Carol’s in Santa Cruz before we said goodbye to NorCal for a bit. Not only did John and I pick up more produce (figs galore!) but we also had an incredible lunch prepared by her that featured all things that had been grown in her yard.