Italian Linguine with Clams at Lure Fish House in San Luis Obispo, California by Ruth Paget
For a family mini trip, my husband Laurent, my daughter Florence Paget, and I went to San Luis Obispo, California which is about 2½ hours south of Salinas.
The landscape changes dramatically along Highway 101 going south. We saw longhorn cattle grazing on the hillsides by the freeway and oil rigs in San Ardo. We passed San Miguel Mission with its whitewashed stucco architecture and compania bell tower that is typical of many Spanish churches with its open towers that allow bells to swing wide and freely and resound over the vineyards.
The Salinas River is underground here, but you can trace its course by looking at trees that sinew along the countryside. Vineyards and olive trees rise up the hills that become browner the farther away they are from the Salinas River.
The landscape looks like Spain with its patches of white sheep grazing along the way. English road signs remind you that you really are in the United States. (I did ask Laurent if Gibraltar is like this. His Navy ship passed by there when he did a Mediterranean deployment.)
San Luis Obispo is also named for it mission church that honors San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1274 – 1297). Tolosa refers to Toulouse, France. San Luis Obispo sits on a plain like Toulouse, France despite going through some mountains to get to it. San Luis Obispo is the home of California Polytechnique State University, which is highly respected for its engineering, business, and architecture schools.
Our dinner destination in San Luis Obispo was the Lure Fish House. This family-owned California chain also has locations in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Camarillo, West Lake Village, Porter Ranch, and Scottsdale (Arizona).
Menus at Lure vary by location to take advantage of seasonal and local produce and seafood. As an appetizer,
I started with deep-fried, crispy calamari (squid) that came with two excellent dipping sauces. The first was a chipotle aioli (garlic mayonnaise with chipotle peppers blended in). The second sauce was a cioppino dipping sauce. This light sauce did taste like tomatoes and white wine cooked with seafood and garlic. Both sauces were delicious.
I ate all the sauce and all the calamari. Fried calamari are served all around the Christian Mediterranean and have a happy, devoted following in California.
For an Italian Mediterranean Diet dinner, I ate a specialty of Naples, linguine with clams, as my main dish. The clams were steamed with white wine, lemon juice, garlic, and parsley.
The meat from about two clams was chopped into the sauce and poured over the linguine. Six large clams were arranged a mound of linguine for this dish. I enjoyed every bite of this dish, too!
I drank a home-made agave vanilla cream soda with this Mediterranean meal. Agave is a natural sweetener that comes from agave plants that grow well in the soil and climate in San Luis Obispo.
Back at the hotel (a Marriot Courtyard), I took a hot shower followed by bursts of cold water to cool off and luxuriated in the air-conditioned room as I looked outside the room window at three kinds of trees: a rubber tree, a California magnolia tree, and a palm tree. San Luis Obispo has a city-wide initiative to develop a tree canopy that is recognized by the Arbor Foundation.
For a great health, culture, and history recharge, San Luis Obispo, California might just be the vacation town for you.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
(Note: View from hotel window. To better see the trees, place two of your fingers on the photo and move them apart to enlarge the image. The tree in front is a rubber plant that can be used to make tires. The pollen from the magnolia tree can be used for honey. The palm trees produce coconuts that can be used for food and coconut milk.)
