Last night, Bob and I had the pleasure of returning to Theo's Restaurant in Soquel, for their second annual harvest dinner: Everett Family Farmers Appreciation Dinner for Jasmine Roohani and Michael Irving. The chef, Nicci Tripp, has appeared in these pages before: he's very talented, inventive, funny, and a real sweetheart. I recently took Justin Severino there to see if Nicci was interested in buying his sausages or salami...the answer was HELL, YES. Nicci makes his own cheeses, and cannot make sausages as they would contaminate the cheese in the coolers.
I've uploaded pictures of all five courses into the Glorious Farm Food album: unfortunately Typepad is misfiring on so many cylinders that the photos do not click through with the appropriate sequences. Grrr.
Pictured here is a fabulous group: Corn on the Horizon: Sweet corn & truffle “cappuccino”, corn & shrimp fritter with Worchestershire butter, and a roasted corn cake with smoked trout and horseradish.
Simply fantastic.
The whole meal was only $40/person exclusive of wine and tip. The wine is the only complaint I have about the service. Our server didn't inform us of any of the prices by the glass...and it turns out that five-ounce pours of all the wines by the glass were $9/each. Well, the entire bottle of the zinfandel we liked was only $31. The pours were so skimpy that you would get six or seven glasses from a bottle instead of 4, and thus the wines by the glass cost $54 a bottle. Then our server asked Cynthia if she would like port, and named a couple. Cynthia chose one, not having been informed that it was $33 a glass! Can you say "sticker shock"?
Normally Theo's is an incredible bargain. Their wines are marked up only 50% or so over retail, and the wine list is impressive. But I think it is a failing on the part of our server not to have made prices clear, so informed choices could be made.
But it was great to see so many farmers I knew, and to see the place absolutely packed to the gills. Service was family style, with ten to a table. Cynthia and Manuel arrived with Linda Butler, whom I got to introduce to Betty Van Dyke.
If you come to Santa Cruz, Theo's is one of the very best places to eat. Nicci could be anywhere in the big time, but he's a laidback guy who likes to have fun. His ambitions are not to succeed in a big city, but to be happy in the town he loves. He's all about the farms, too.
That's all for today, except for my recommendation, no, insistence that you go look at Death and Taxes. Tell me, do, what kind of case for themselves can Republicans make about being "fiscally conservative"? That graph represents the very antithesis, the Antichrist, of sustainability. Look at the percentages in red: these items have been cut. Public Broadcasting, Famine and Disaster Relief, Development Assistance, Officer Pay, Conservation...the percentage of the 953 BILLION DOLLAR budget that is military? 64%. The Department of Agriculture in general, down 7%, but farm subsidies are up 5%. Higher Education and Pell Grants: down 30%. Energy is skewed: nuclear is up, and sustainable is down. It's nauseating me to continue, so I'm going to the gym.
Yesterday I, who had not exercised hardly at all in over two years, put ten miles on the bike in twenty minutes. I am just so happy with the changes in my life.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." — Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
(Sorry, my beloved farmer friend who happens to be a Republican. This isn't directed at you, especially since you are pro choice, pro gay rights, pro environment, and pro women's rights.)
Thanks for visiting.
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