Christina Waters

Congratulations to Cabrillo culinary students and to Mike Wille, instructor at Cabrillo College’s Advanced Culinary Arts program. Wille’s inventive chefs-in-progress made a brilliant showing at this year’s Clam Chowder Festival - taking First Place in the “Best Restaurant Boston” category, Second in “Best Restaurant Manhattan” and won the “Overall People’s Choice” award in the Professional category.

Wille admited that these recent awards were an honor for his talented students, and that he was “excited about the quality of this year’s entries.”

So you have even more reasons to dine at Cabrillo’s Piño Alto dining room.

Most of Santa Cruz swooped down on Staff of Life’s humongous new digs last week, to check it out and to start getting familiar with their new neighborhood natural foods emporium.

I spotted two more reasons to head over to Staff - fresh duck breast and fresh spot prawns. Not your grandfather’s natural foods market. Wow. Impressive already, and there’s still plenty of shelves to be filled.

Corner of Darwin and Soquel on the Eastside. Stop by for coffee and pastries on the front patio.

Too tired to rustle up something decent for dinner? Me too, which is why I find myself running over to O’mei, and either dining in the restaurant or picking up a few favorite dishes to take home.

Here’s our go-to dinner: Rosemary Chicken with Mushrooms (pictured here), preceded by an order of those irresistible Red Oil Dumplings. Add a glass of Ahlgren Semillon, or maybe an easy-sippin’ Cinnabar Mercury Rising. Major spicy flavors for not many $$$.

You remember the guy who gave us that sensational charcuterie a few years back?

Justin Severino from Severino’s who sold terrific artisanal meats at the farmers markets here in Santa Cruz?

Justin just emailed to tell me that his highly-regarded culinary style at Elements Contemporary Cuisine in Pittsburgh, PA, is up for Food & Wine magazine’s Top Chef/ Mid-Atlantic Region competition.

Success couldn’t happen to a nicer, smarter chef — too bad he’s not still dazzling our tastebuds here in Santa Cruz.

Check out Severino’s award-winning menu! Your mouth will water, I guarantee.

[photo: Tana Butler]

Music department manager Thomas Pistole sure knows how to pamper his UCSC faculty & staff. Cupcake Diva Pistole uses any holiday as an excuse to break out his trusty cupcake carrier and fill it with colorfully-decorated, to-die-for pastries.

These are his latest - red velvet topped with cinnamon-flavored hearts.

A good man to know, especially around Halloween when his fabled carrot cupcakes with orange frosting are available.

The lovely Pino Alto dining room at Cabrillo’s historic Sesnon House, formed a graceful backdrop for some cool jazz and exciting food and wine pairings last Wednesday evening.The highlights for me were the elegant sounds of Hot Club Pacific trio (who also hold down the house at Soif each Monday night), and the well-trained students from Mike Wille’s advanced culinary class, who served, cleared endless dishes and stemware, and served some more throughout the evening. The evening, this year’s version of the recent “Dare to Pair” wine & food event, marked the mid-term exam of Wille’s young team.

Another highlight was an engaging match of (more…)

For six years the source of astounding eggs, pastured pork and an organic paradise for happily and humanely-raised livestock, TLC Ranch has become a casualty of the economy.

Jim Dunlop and Rebecca Thistlethwaite, TLC owners, explained in a long newsletter narrative that they couldn’t fight the high cost of property and farm help, and the dwindling availability of meat processing stations. Consumer reluctance to pay what it took to create handmade, free-range, pastured foods finished them off, and a multi-year dream was taken off life support.

Yes it was expensive food. (more…)

Whoa! Where did the time go? Back in the late 70s Scott Roseman was your basic UCSC student. Then he got involved in the Food Co-op located on the Westside of Santa Cruz. Next thing you know, there’s the Westside Community Market which in turn morphed into the mighty New Leaf community Market on Mission Street in 1990.

One thing led to another and now Scott and his New Leaf partner Rex Stewart lead a mini-empire of New Leafs (New Leaves?) - and to help them celebrate, the entire county (more…)

Report from the Vineyards: Yes, it’s true that wild man winemaker Richard Alfaro has cut his locks — “I donated a 15-inch pony tail to Locks of Love,” he revealed a few days ago. (You can see why I didn’t pry any further.) Alfaro also says he’s experiencing a “reverse Samson” effect from the hair cut: “my strength has doubled and my six-pack abs have returned.”

Alfaro officially started the harvest of 2010 as of September 27 - “bins are being cleaned and loaded on the trailer for delivery…. winery equipment is being sanitized….. lab work has started…the phone is ringing off the hook with fresh information from my growers…the fridge is stocked with beer and the margaritas are being mixed!!!!” Alfaro says he expects to pick until the end of November. “The fruit is late but WONDERFUL” he added. Most of his Corralitos and south appellation colleagues are ready to begin their harvests too — “the action is started.”

I chatted last week with Peter Rinaldi, a third-generation Santa Cruzan who’s about to open Rocco’s at 503 Water Street. Why am I telling you this? Because Rocco’s is the new Italian-influenced dining place occupying the site of the late Limoncello, that’s why.

We’re happy to know that there will soon be a fresh new restaurant in this familiar old location, and Rinaldi — who also manages next-door Callahan’s — said that he wants to make sure the restaurant is casual, inviting and uses as many local purveyors as possible. Stay tuned! . . . .
And Chris leVeque tells me that his long-awaited El Salchichero house of artisan charcuterie is moving along — the interior tilework is, in a word, awesome. But he’s thinking that perhaps Thanksgiving might be a more realistic opening date than Halloween. Stay hungry!. . . .

Don’t miss this rewarding, old-fashioned “back to the garden” afternoon. It’s the biggest “open house” of the year up at UCSC’s atmospheric farm.

Live music, food, apple tasting, an apple pie bake-off, garden talks, hay rides, kids’ events, tours, displays by local farmers, chefs, and community groups and free for kids and students, only $5 for general public.

Call 831.459-3240 or send email for more information or to volunteer for this wonderful community event.