March 13, 2010

10 am

chanterelle mushroom omelet

2 slices of buttered wheat toast

1 glass of water

One of the first cooking shows that left a lasting impression on me as a kid was the omelet episode of The French Chef with Julia Child.

I could never get Julia’s omelet technique down. She makes it look so easy, setting up several pans and using one arm and a quick flick of the wrist to make an oblong omelet in 20 seconds. I’ve made many accidental scrambled eggs instead despite many, many attempts at the pan shake. I eventually settled on a more traditional method, and Alton Brown’s technique on Good Eats is much more manageable. I’ve since made hundreds of omelets with this method and it’s my quick go-to meal. Take a look at my picture above. That is one pretty-looking omelet. Normally, I’d run a recipe, but you can make do with either The French Chef or Good Eats videos.

2 pm

Subway

foot-long Subway Club on wheat

bag of Baked Lays

20 oz. Diet Pepsi

Saturday was the return of Daylight Savings Time. Subway also priced every regular foot-long sub at $5. This is truly a glorious time we’re living in.

8 pm

Grilled cheese and tomato sandwich on a baguette

2 glasses of Great White Shark ale

11 pm

The Surly Goat

1 pint of Libertine IPA

Jan. 7, 2010

9 am

1 bowl of Crunch Berries

12 pm

1 bowl of rice

1 side of steamed spinach

1 bottle of water

1:30 pm

Starbucks

1 grande nonfat iced caffe mocha

6:30 pm

Los Agaves

2 chicken mole enchiladas

side of rice and beans

1 cup of horchata

Los Agaves is one block south of La Super-Rica in Santa Barbara. I’ve never heard of this place, but La Super-Rica is closed until Jan. 15th and my friend Emily suggested we go here instead. From the outside, this place is rather nondescript, and it’s well situated to handle the overflow crowd from the more famous taco stand a further north. I have to say though, my enchiladas were pretty tasty. The chicken itself was perfectly unmemorable, but the sauce was good, and I spooned up every morsel. They had nopalito (cactus) salsa which I enjoyed with chips, and on top of my enchiladas. I guess their best dishes are molcajetes, meat simmered with cheese and salsa. Wish I knew that before I ordered, but oh well. I enjoyed this meal immensely and would like to come back on a future visit.

It’s time I go where one famous food blog have gone before and mention Julia Child. Whenever I’m in Santa Barbara, I try to visit La Super-Rica, aka, Julia Child’s favorite taco stand. Ever since she mention on Good Morning America in 1985, La Super-Rica had steady lines that took over 30 minutes to wait through. When she retired to Santa Barbara in 2001, she still frequented this place until her passing. When I first came out to Los Angeles many years ago, one of the first places I wanted to visit was La Super-Rica, and solely because of it’s reputation through Julia Child. The food isn’t mind-blowing; handmade tortillas and tacos al carbon lost their novelty factors a long time ago and the food tends to be a bit under-seasoned. But the tortillas are still patted out by hand every day, the guacamole is home-made, there’s always fresh chiles roasting away on the grill and the resulting food has a certain comfort level. It’s more a sense of place, of imagining Julia Child sitting there with her tacos, and the long line of gringos who are there because of her. Hell, I’m one of them. Too bad they tend to go on long vacations without warning, sometimes rendering the hassle to go there a complete waste of time.

It pains me to admit to shamelessly following the Julia Child/La Super-Rica hype, because I was annoyed by the whole Julie/Julia project, even more so after watching the film and finding Amy Adams’ Julie Powell character incredibly self-centered and annoying. But there’s no denying her influence on Americans, and like so many others, I grew up mesmerized by her unique persona on PBS. I got dragged to see “Julie and Julia” when it first came out and while I hated the Julie Powell story, I loved the Julia Child part equally as much. Meryl Streep owned that role and the love story between Child and her husband was touching. Hey, I’m not afraid to admit when a chick flick touches this cold, cold heart of mine. So yeah, here’s my one food blog tribute to Julia Child, a la Julie/Julia. I just won’t complain to you about my dead-end job and relationships, lest you judge me as self-centered. Although bloggers tend to be exactly that. Hell, I wish I had a dead-end job to complain about.