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November 25 , 2011 | by richard & Amanda Payatt
We’ve been fans of Christina Gonzalez since she blew us away with her absolutely heavenly baking in CASA Magazine’s own Flan Competition in 2009. We have watched her work ever since, as she bopped around town, as most chefs do. But, it looks like her nomadic days are over, as she has finally opened her own company: Daily Greenz, etc. In its current incarnation, it is a lunch delivery operation, and catering company, looking for a storefront to serve fast-casual food. But the food being delivered to your door is well worth the phone call.
Christina is a native Santa Barbaran who studied at City College’s Culinary Arts Program. Then she went out into the big world, working in San Francisco, at Wolfgang Puck’s Postiro and Reed Heron’s Lulu. After opening a Fog City Diner in Dallas, she was Executive Chef at Ruggle’s Bistro Latino in Houston. But, she became homesick and came back to beautiful Santa Barbara. She made a quiet splash as Executive Chef at Lazy Acres for three and a half years, creating and expanding their successful catering division with her now-business partner, Elena Cisneros. She did a stint at El Paseo and then spent some time at Whole Foods, again with Elena. But, at last, they saw their chance to break out on their own.
The Dynamic Duo, as they are often called, created Daily Greenz to bring food that they could eat to the general public. Both ladies have food allergies to gluten. That makes dining out tough. But, with their collective background, it has been a jumping off point for something delicious. Their salads and wraps are vegetarian in nature, though both vegan and meat-eating options are on the menu. The food is farmer’s market fresh, and the meats are slow roasted or grilled for flavor uncommon in salads.
But the delight is when you take that first bite. The antipasto salad was so piquant, that it made me wish that more pizzas could be made like this. The grilled lemongrass chicken salad featured Asian noodles that were the perfect counterpoint to the peanut satay drizzle and the chili lime dressing. The salad lineup also includes a flank steak salad, and Tuscan tofu salad. The dressings are so good, that we want to see them bottled and in grocery stores.
On the wrap front, they use wheat lavosh as their starting point. Then, the fillings are delightful. The Mediterranean chicken wrap was hard to put down, even after we had eaten two full sized salads. The careful mixture of the kalamata olives, sunflower seeds, and artichoke hearts was just a delight. A grilled eggplant wrap, and a chicken Caesar wrap are also just too tempting to pass up. The soups, which change weekly, are every bit up to Christina’s usual standard.
The dessert menu is short, but worthwhile: wheat-free cookies and cakes that passed the taste test of our health food-averse teenager, gingerbread cakes for the holidays, and, our favorite, Christina’s fabulous flan. So, next time we get stuck in the office for lunch, we know where we will call for delivery. And we’ll even order an extra flan to sneak home for dinner.
Reach Daily Greenz, Etc. at 636-3812 or visit Dailygreenzetc.com.
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October 28, 2011 | by richard & Amanda Payatt
In the hidden quiet of the palm court of Arts and Letters Café, you can forget where you are. You are definitely in Santa Barbara, but somehow, the shaded open air, the plants, and the rustic columns trap you in a bubble of unpretentious calm. The luncheon menu is spare. There are ten salads and ten sandwiches. Lovely appetizers, steak, fish, and cous-cous round out the offerings. But the brevity of the menu is belied by the tastiness of each ingredient.
A Santa Barbara native, Avery Harden was raised watching television. But unlike most kids, what he loved was Julia Child, Yan Can Cook, and Bobby Flay teaching their arts. By the age of seven, instead of making birthday presents for his family, he was making special meals as gifts. Not exactly like the clay flowerpots and silk ties that most parents get. But Avery loved cooking.
At age fifteen, he went to work at Dino’s Pizza on the Mesa. During his teenaged years there, he realized that he really did like cooking for a living, but he also realized that he wanted much more out of a kitchen. That led him to City College’s Culinary Arts program, home of more great local chefs than one can shake a gravy spoon at. After a little time at Chad’s, and more at Stateside, he moved over to Elements for three years of heavy on the job training. Then, working under Cosmo Goss, when Cosmo was at the helm at Arts and Letters, he came to refine his approach to food. Avery likes the old school European cooking style: keep the food as fresh as possible, and add as little to it as you can. The food should be left to shine on its own merits.
Avery likes to play around a lot, with a fresh new menu just now making its appearance. He likes to keep it nutritious and delicious. A combination we can all appreciate! The meats are from Niman Ranch. The greens are generally from Tom Shepherd’s farm. The rest is picked out at the Farmers Market by Avery himself. It is all handled elegantly. The hamburger is topped with a chiffonade of greens that have been lightly pickled to serve as an elegant counterpoint to the meat, and then mounded with Humboldt Fog cheese and house-cured bacon. And the lamb burger with feta cheese is a wonder, as well.
Avery handles his own charcuterie, a mantle that he inherited from Elements. The house-cured meats are fabulous. The bacon that peeks from the sandwich menu will drive you wild. Better still, there are three variations on that bacon. Avery’s approach to cooking keeps even the sauces fresh and tasty. Aioli is a simple garlic mayonnaise. It is ubiquitous at better restaurants, but it is usually bland, and often prepared some long time ago. Here the garlic crunches in your teeth, and the flavor bursts across your tongue. It is a real pleasure to taste such attention to detail. Try his other sauces, like the pine nut relish. You will be amazed.
When Spring returns, Arts and Letters Café will resume its dinner menu and its opera program evenings. Both have been local favorites for years. But, Avery is trying to work out more musical evenings at the café, as well as a possible weekly movie night. Popcorn salad anyone? We are looking forward to Spring, but in the mean time, we won’t be skipping any lunches. Not with Avery in the kitchen.
Arts and Letters Café is located at 7 E. Anapamu St and is open Mon-Sun 11am-2:30pm. Reach them at 730-1463 or visit www.artsandletterscafe.com.
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FRIDAY, August 26, 2011 | by richard & Amanda Payatt
Something is new We have eaten a lot of great desserts over the years, but never had the urge to write about the specific pastry chef who makes the desserts, until we met Rosie. Rosie Gerard, who has been at the Wine Cask since it’s re-opening is one of the most creative and inventive dessert chefs we have ever seen. She beats out fabulous desserts we have had at Tour d’Argent, La Domaine des Hauts de Loire, and Brown’s in London. And she does it every time we have been to the Wine Cask.
Rosie began her studies at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Academy of Culinary Arts. Though it was not part of her plan to become a pastry chef, she stayed on to do the extra year on the subject. She had always been amused that the pros on Top Chef always fumbled when it came time to make pastries. If she was going to be a top chef in her own right, she figured that this year of schooling would do her good. And boy, did she learn good things. Her first job was at Café Boulud in Palm Beach where, under top-tier chefs, she began to incorporate fresh herbs and mousses into her pastry oeuvre. Her fiancée, Dylan Moot, walked into Bouchon on a visit to California, and asked if they were looking for somebody. Bouchon’s Mitchell Sjerven hired him the next day. When Sjerven let his team know that he was re-opening the Wine Cask, Dylan recommended Rosie. The rest is history.
Rosie has the heart of a playful kid, and the skills of an extraordinary professional. The ever-changing menu is filled with fun mementos of one’s childhood. The peanut butter cup sounds simple, but this one starts with chocolate tart, then add in peanut butter pudding, peanut butter whipped cream, and top it all off with a triangle of house-made peanut brittle. This has one of the most loyal followings of her desserts. The most popular, however, are the chocolate and chevre donuts. These freshly fried donut holes come out warm and gooey on the inside, with a perfect crackling crust. They come in a pool of crème anglaise, drizzled with dark chocolate sauce, and have a perfect side of cappuccino ice cream to balance out the plate. Who wouldn’t want coffee and donuts? In the autumn months, chocolate donuts get swapped out for pumpkin donuts. Apparently there is always much hand wringing among the guests when that happens, as the donuts quickly become personal favorites.
A bit of paradise created as a personal favor for one of the owners are the warm beignets filled with vanilla custard and candied walnuts with banana ice cream on the side. YUM!! Butterscotch pudding is always a favorite memory from childhood, but it is seldom done correctly because it is supremely easy to screw up if you don’t watch it like a hawk. Rosie manages it like a champion. If you have never had good butterscotch pudding that didn’t come out of Jell-O box, it is time to try the real thing. We could go on, but there simply isn’t room.
Conveniently engaged to a promising chef (ask her how she got engaged at an Eric Clapton concert!) she wants to have her own restaurant someday so the Wine Cask is kindly helping her learn all the ropes by acting as hostess during afternoons. So, if the charmingly petite hostess suggests something for your luncheon dessert as she seats you... order two!
The Wine Cask is located at 813 Anacapa St. and is open Mon-Thu 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-9pm; Fri 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-10pm; Sat 11am-5pm, 5:30pm-10pm; & Sun 11am-5pm, 5:30pm-9pm. Reach them at 966-9463.
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FRIDAY, July 29, 2011 | by richard & Amanda Payatt
Something is new at the Canary Hotel’s Coast Restaurant. Chef Brian Parks has put up a dynamic and ever-changing new menu focused on local, sustainable, and seasonable food, and the new restaurant manager, Gary Lynd, formerly owner of State and A, has brought in a new look and feel. It is a one-two punch that is going to be hard to beat. Read More
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