Public Apology

February 2010: Oceanside, CA

December 2010: Malibu, CA

On many occasions I declared a strong dislike for LA and swore I'd never, ever travel north of there. In my head it was crowed, and cold and lame. In my head, it was just as bad as Kansas. Not this Kansas:

This Kansas:

But I digress. The good news is, I was wrong. LA is awesome. Places north of LA, like Santa Barbara, are beautiful. So California, I apologize, I was wrong for judging places I have never gone. You were right, you (no matter who you are), can find yourself in California. I look forward to more visits to more places I've never been. Thanks for being way better than Kansas.

California Love

I woke up in Santa Monica, CA today and although the sound of my phone ringing was my alarm clock, I did't care all that much. The sun is shining through my window and its the legit warm kind. Not the tricky midwest kind that lures you outside with false pretenses of warmth.

What adds even more to the experience is that as me and the hubs venture to Santa Barbara for the first time, our trusting tour guides will be our great friends Jenny and Aaron. Mostly, I'm excited about all the food. All the eating. All the consupmtion. It'll be difficult to top In N Out Burger yesterday but Aaron assures me that a local wonder called Amandine will deliver a solid effort by way of breakfast and most importantly, coffee.

Getting up, moving out.

Pictures of food

The City of San Diego runs commercials. Because of that, I'll spend the rest of the weekend thinking back to vacation, just when I thought I was moving on. Eating and SoCal are two of my favorite things so I dedicate this blog to comfort of what was.

The first morning at the beach house, the hubs and I had the place to ourselves and used the kitchen in our studio to make bacon (and eggs, toast, coffee and fresh blueberries and mangos). It was so good we didn't even really talk. Our only exchanges were passing comments on the brilliant view and weather and bacon from Trader Joe's.

My second favorite breakfast came to be by sheer fate.  I was out on yet another grocery store run and decided to drive down Pacific street just to see what else was in the neighborhood. 

I drove past this place which I can only describe as a food stand that happened to have rock star, unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean. "The Bucc" was so amazingly good that I had the french toast, with a side of bacon twice that week.


My obsession with breakfast seems unending. My final mention of the meal includes Hill Street Donut House. These were so good that I was happy for the days when I traded in my daily dose of bacon for a plain glazed donut (or a cake donut with blueberry frosting as a substitute). Hill Street donuts were my last meal at the beach house. It was too sad to take a picture of the last anything that day.

Although breakfast is my favorite meal, I ate a lot of non breakfast related food too.  In a perfect world, someone would have handed me a In-n-Out single with cheese animal style, fries and chocolate shake the moment I stepped off the plane. 

I became a fan of the fish taco after my very first bite.  I have never savored a fish taco the way I did this one from George's at the Cove. Nor have I been offered the catch of the day for my taco. This was mahi mahi.

In all the times I've been through, in and around Dana Point, I've somehow missed Jon's Fish Market.  Which I totally blame my San Clemete friends for hiding from me. I was too busy eating to stop a take a photo but I thought about the crunch of the fish and chips basket from there for the rest of the week.  I wish I that could be my dinner tonight.  Instead, I'll bundle up under a blanket and eat a bowl of chili and listen to the rain fall.