Mmm, barbecue!

The dreamy weather this weekend made it the perfect weekend for barbecuing! Camillia talked me into stopping by "cook your own" night at the Elks Lodge in Santa Maria to say hi to our Sun co-workers. I'd never been to a CYO event before; I thought we were supposed to bring some hamburger meat and throw it on a tiny Webber out back, but it turned out to be way cooler than that! I wasn't going to eat at first but the perfectly marbled steaks were hard to resist. Here's how it works: You line up at the meat station with your ticket. For an extra $5, one of the volunteers carves you an extra-thick cut of ribeye. (Since I had just had a Bloody Mary and a bunch of parmesan french fries at the Santa Maria Inn, I decided to go with the regular cut.)

Elks Lodge volunteers carving meat.

You pick out your piece of steak, chicken, or fish and write your name on a wooden skewer. Then you take the meat out back to the barbecuing room—and when I say barbecuing room, I mean it. The Elks Lodge has a special room with a gigantic barbecue pit for events just like this one. You season your meat, stick it with the skewer, and throw it on the oak grill. The wood is burning so hot, you can feel it on your face, and you have to move quickly. Then you stand around, drink some beer, and chat. After about five to 10 minutes, you grab a barbecue fork and flip the meat over.

Once it's done, you take your plate inside to the salad bar to get some salad, beans, and/or a baked potato. Then you all sit down and dig in as country music blares in the background. It's a blast and very Santa Maria! I felt liked I'd stepped back in time 50 years; I almost expected to see my grandparents drinking martinis and cutting a rug on the dance floor. I've always been hard on the Elks Lodge because I thought it was outdated and too conservative but this was so much fun! If you're ever looking for something different to do on a Friday night, go check it out.

The Elks Lodge barbecue pit; there were cooking stations for steak, chicken, and fish.
Photo by Camillia Lanham

I think Peter was jealous of my fun night at the Elks because he decided to barbecue some pork spare ribs in his smoker today. When he first told me he was going to buy an $800 smoker so he could cook hunks of meat, I thought it was a complete waste of money. But it's been worth every penny because the meat he makes on this thing is so freaking delicious! I'm glad he likes barbecuing and that he's patient enough to do it because, like my Grandpa Hank, I'd probably burn it to a crisp. Our favorite barbecue sauce is Philthy Phil's from Mo's Smokehouse, which you can pick up at the restaurant in either SLO or Pismo or at a local grocery store. I also made some coleslaw to go with it using a recipe from amazingribs.com, the site Peter goes to for all of his barbecuing needs. If you're ever looking for good recipes or information on how to cook meat, I highly recommend it.

Peter's amazing ribs and my delicious coleslaw.

Here's to plenty more barbecuing this summer!

Wine in the sunshine!

Santa Barbara County Vintners Festival

I had the good fortune of getting some complementary tickets to the Santa Barbara County Vintners Festival this weekend! I've always wanted to go but could never justify the price, so I was super excited when the Sun's general manager, Georgia, offered  me some tickets last week. Peter decided to stay home and smoke salmon for some guests we were having for dinner that night, so I invited my friend and co-worker Camillia.

One of the stations of the cross

The festival was held on the grounds of the Santa Ines Mission in Solvang—a beautiful setting, albeit there were a lot of gopher holes, which can be difficult to navigate when you're wearing three-inch wedges and drinking lots of wine.

There were so many different booths offering all kinds of wine and food. I opted for more whites than reds because of the heat (it was in the 80s this weekend). I tried a pinot noir rose for the first time and it was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, I can't remember which wines came from which wineries because we tasted at so many booths. Camillia took a bunch of their business cards so I'll have to ask her. But I do remember the food! My favorites were pinquinto beans from Suzie Q's Seasoning, cheese fondue from Central City Market, and filet mignon meatballs and a cantaloupe agua fresca with prosciutto and creme fraiche from Chumash Casino's The Willows restaurant. I took extra servings of the agua fresca for both of us!

On the way home, Camillia and I talked about how fun festivals are because they're so—for lack of a better word— festive; everyone's there eating and drinking and having a good time. I highly recommend this one if you're in Santa Barbara County in April. And it's not just a one-day event; there are tons of winery open houses, winemaker dinners, and other special events, too. For more information, check out their website: http://www.sbcountywines.com/events/festival.html.

filet mignon meatballs

agua fresca 

Me and Camillia

Yummy linguica! 

Family time, jewelry, and dinosaurs!

It's not Easter without cake—and mimosas!

You know you're living a blessed life when you have an abundance of fun things to write about. I'll start with Easter, which I meant to write about earlier but forgot. Since there's no expiration date on Easter, here goes: I drove down to San Diego to spend a mini Spring Break with my family over the Easter weekend. I called my mom ahead of time to request that she make me an Easter basket. I didn't care how old I was—I wanted an Easter basket! She mixed some old favorites (Robins Eggs) with some age-appropriate goodies (a new purse and scarf) and a wild card (Hello Kitty chalk). I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the chalk. :)

In addition to the basket she made an absolutely amazing Easter brunch of ham and savory bread pudding with leeks, mushrooms, Swiss cheese, and eggs. I'll try to find the recipe and post it on here because it was delicious! I spent the day with my mom and dad, both grandmas, and some family friends. Then, later that evening, I drove to La Jolla to spend the evening with the one-and-only Alex Jones. We walked along the bluffs overlooking the cove, caught up, and cooked squash and salmon. Some other highlights of my four-day weekend were hiking Blue Sky nature reserve with my dad and cousin, Raylene; BBQing it up with Joyce and Eddie Lindros; having lunch with my mom and Grandma Arlene; having breakfast with my mom and Grandma Caryl; and meeting some local friends for a pre-high school reunion reunion at Karl Strauss in Sorrento Valley. There's nothing like family, friends, and food!

Two of my favorite people in the whole world: Grandma Caryl (left) and Grandma Arlene.

Now fast-forward to yesterday: I got up early on Saturday, which is typically my day to sleep in, to go birdwatching with my friend Pam. I've loved watching birds since I was a kid, but just recently started going on official birdwatching trips with Pam. On our first trip we drove to Morro Bay to look for shore birds and had a wonderful time. This time we decided to try something new and went to El Chorro Park on Highway 1 for a free, guided session with Doug from Wild Birds Unlimited. Birdwatching might sound boring to some people, but it's actually really cool! We saw a ton of birds, but the highlights were a hummingbird making a nest (a first for me) and a red-shouldered hawk eating something. Normally I'm squeamish about seeing animals eat each other, but I've noticed that I'm starting to accept the whole Circle of Life thing more. I also learned that, in addition to their different markings, red-shouldered hawks and red-tailed hawks also sound different; red-shouldereds make staccato caws and red-taileds make more drawn out caws. It felt so good to be out in nature, enjoying the sunshine and trying something new! I wasn't able to take any photos, but I've included links to images of the hawks so you can see the difference.

Later that afternoon, I had some friends over for a jewelry- and cupcake-making party—quite possibly the most domestic thing I've done lately, if not ever. I served cookies-and-cream cupcakes that I made the night before. I got the recipe out of Family Circle magazine, which my grandma has sent to me. It's not really my thing, but the recipes are pretty amazing. The secret ingredient in this recipe is sour cream; the not-so-secret ingredient is Oreos. For the jewelry making, I busted out the beer bottle caps I've been collecting for more than a year. You could definitely tell which breweries Peter and I favor—or, more specifically, who drinks the most beer in our household. There were lots of caps from Bear Republic, Dogfish Head, and Stone, so take a wild guess as to the answer. The girls brought beads, eyelets, and earring hooks (and snacks and wine!), so we were all set. It took me forever to make my first pair, but I persevered! I'm very happy with both of my creations. I see much more jewelry making in my future. Check out this blog for instructions: http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/06/diy-bottle-cap-earrings.html.

We ended the night with champagne and dinosaurs—cupcakes, that is. Back when Peter and I were getting married, we put a dinosaur-themed muffin tin on our registry just so people would have something fun to buy. Lo and behold, someone did buy it, and I've been waiting for a chance to use it ever since. Heather and I mixed up some vanilla cupcake batter and Camillia had the awesome idea of swirling the yellow and green food coloring together to make some psychedelic dinos. Unfortunately, the swirls didn't make it through to the front of the tin, so we made the second batch completely green. I'm totally stoked by the amount of detail in this tin! We found it on Amazon, so it might still be out there. Happy baking!

Paleo-EPIC!

Happy Spring!

After getting sick numerous times this winter, I'm so happy to be healthy and active this spring! 

A couple of weekends ago, Peter and I went on a romantic day-long adventure up Highway 1 to do some hiking, sightseeing, and eating. We gave ourselves the morning to relax and hangout with the animals, and then we made our way up to the Salmon Creek Waterfall Trail in Big Sur. It's in the southernmost portion of Big Sur, about 3 1/2 miles north of Ragged Point. I really loved how ecologically diverse the trail was. It starts with a dense Live Oak forest and a gorgeous, rocky waterfall, and then climbs to a more arid climate, with tons of wildflowers and amazing views! The trail goes for miles, so you can decide how far you want to hike in and then turn around once you're tired. There are also some campsites out there, but we didn't make it that far because we wanted to do some sightseeing.

I felt like we'd stumbled upon Terabithia.

The trail was surprisingly narrow, but the flowers were lovely!

The view from the top of Salmon Creek Falls Trail.

On our way back down Highway 1, we stopped to see the elephant seals. We were a little disappointed to learn that all of the mature males (whose strange snouts no doubt inspired the species' name) had already migrated south for the season, but we enjoyed watching the seal pups shovel sand onto their backs. The barking noises they make are also hilarious and a little sad. We also stopped at a beach to check out Piedras Blancas Light Station, but couldn't get very far because there were a bunch of seal pups blocking access to the beach. What jerks!

Elephant seals

By this point we were getting pretty hungry. I bought a sandwich and some chips at a San Simeon gas station on our way up; the chips were delicious, but the sandwich was dry. So we decided to make the trek out to Linn's original farm stand in Cambria to get some pie. I'd been dreaming about this pie all week and it did not disappoint! I love getting the olallieberry, which I believe is a cross between a blackberry and and a raspberry. Peter's favorite is apple pie. But I honestly enjoyed the creamy vanilla bean ice cream the most! Peter said that was "scaralicious." If you're looking for the most amazing pie on the Central Coast, go to Linn's!

Linn's olallieberry pie and vanilla ice cream is to die for!

Last but not least, we stopped at Taco Temple in Morro Bay for dinner. I know—we did the whole meal thing backwards, but everything still tastes the same so it doesn't really matter, right? This place is one of the coolest taco shops around! The surf-themed decor is fun and welcoming (albeit, Peter and I noticed that they have a lot of sculptures of sea animals eating each other—not sure why). There's a free, all-you-can-eat chip and salsa bar, and ... the tacos are GINORMOUS! You only need to order one taco because they pile it so high with meat, veggies, and flavorful sauces. I ordered a shrimp taco with mango-pinapple salsa and Peter ordered a calamari taco. Unfortunately, I couldn't eat much of it because I was so stuffed with pie and chips, but I took it home for a delicious late-evening meal.

This is my shrimp taco after only a couple of bites.

Chips and salsa—the dinner of champions!

This was truly one of the most enjoyable days I've spent on the Central Coast and I highly recommend you recreate it for yourself! If you have any other hiking or eating recommendations, please let me know.

Happy Living,

Amy

Living SLO: An Introduction

Inspired by Easter, a holiday celebrating renewal and rebirth, I've decided to create a blog focused on "Living SLO." In today's world, it's easy to fixate on that laundry list of things we have to do; that next deadline; that unpaid bill. Too often we let the chores of life become the only life we have. It's something we're all guilty of, at some time or another. To remind myself not to get caught up in the "have tos" and "shoulds" of life, I'm going to start blogging about the things I really enjoy doing, but don't do often enough. My hope is that it will inspire me, and maybe others, to focus more on the things that are most important to us. Please share your passions with me, too!