Cafe Rustica's European Flair - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Café Rustica’s European Flair – Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Going to some of my favorite restaurants like Café Rustica in Carmel Valley Village when I was a restaurant reviewer for the Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000 – California) was an easy assignment thanks to their perfect food and wait service.

Even after twenty years, I still love dining on their terrace admiring grapevines at the wine tasting rooms across the street.  This restaurant merited two review trips and offers daily specials in addition to their set menu:

Café Rustica Blends Creative European Cuisine with Superlative Service

Dining at Café Rustica in Carmel Valley makes you feel like you have taken a European vacation.  The restaurant offers tasty fare from Italy, France, and Germany along with luscious Californian salads in a courtyard setting reminiscent of continental European restaurants.

My family likes the warm valley weather as well as the friendly ambience at Café Rustica.  On a recent visit for lunch, we conjured up Italian vacations by ordering limonata – a sour lemon soda from Italy with our meal.

For starters, I ordered escargots bourguignons (snails), a specialty of Burgundy France.  Butter, garlic, and parsley are the most obvious ingredients in the sauce, but the co-owner told me that her spouse uses a secret recipe for this sauce that utilizes no less than fifteen ingredients.  I used the slices of toast that came with the snails to soak up this delicious, mystery confection.

Laurent and I ordered 11-inch pizzas inspired by European dishes.  Laurent’s Lorraine pizza takes its name from Quiche Lorraine and is made up of maple-smoked bacon, caramelized onions, and melted gruyère cheese.  For me, these are the best ingredients in a quiche, so I really liked Laurent’s choice. (So did he.)

Caramelized onions were one of the ingredients on my flammekeuche pizza, a dish from Alsace (France), which shares a border with Germany.  I love the onions with cubes of prosciutto that sat atop a layer of crème fraîche.  I thought these ingredients would taste especially good with a slightly sweet white wine like Vouvry, which Laurent ordered on a subsequent visit.

Florence meanwhile was getting an eyeful and a bellyful of a large rib eye steak.  This steak came with a generous helping of herbed butter and French fries.  The meat was tender enough to be cut with a butter knife.

For dessert, Florence ate two scoops of Ciao Bello gelato from San Francisco.  Vanilla bean flecks colored the gelato and added flavor bursts to this creamy dessert.  Laurent and I had Lavazza coffees as dessert.

End of Part 1.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Lengua and a Lightbulb, Please by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Lengua and a Lightbulb, Please by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

El Rancho Supermarket is one of my favorite spots for take-out food in Marina, California just outside Monterey.  Hispanic take-out food is still not well known, so my review for The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000 – California) remains relevant:

Lengua and a Lightbulb, Please

Driving down Reservation Road in Marina (California), it is hard to miss the yellow billboard with El Rancho written on it.  And, you won’t want to miss the meal deals inside at this neighborhood supermarket’s butcher counter.

The menu above the counter lists items in Spanish only, but the names roll off the tongues of El Rancho’s customers, who resemble a mini United Nations.  The store manager said, “The whole neighborhood eats here.”

My recent perusal of Lonely Planet’s Whole Food Mexico gave me the idea to order a torta sandwich with carnitas (deep-fried pork).  My husband Laurent chose carne asada (lime-marinated steak) from the “ordenes” section.

We took our order slip from the counter and walked around the store to pick up water, Jumex mango nectar, and some Mexican sweet rolls.

The sweet rolls look like oversized croissants and buns with sugar and frosting on them.  You serve them to yourself on a tray and the cashier bags them.

We paid for everything at the cash register, picked up our order, and sat down at one of the kitchen tables surrounded by catfish in a freezer; brown-skinned yuccas and plantains in the produce section; and chips to our back.  Four-foot piñatas dangled over our heads.  The butchers chopping up cuts of meat provided entertainment.

My pudgy torpedo-shaped torta had a slightly crunchy crust and received a slathering of guacamole and shredded lettuce to cradle an inch-thick portion of deep-fried pork carnitas.

The salty pork made me wish for a beer, but you can only buy that as groceries.

The portions at El Rancho made several trips necessary to sample more of the menu offerings.

On my next visit, I tried another torta with chicharron (deep-fried pork skins).  If you like rich food that will fill you up for a day, this is definitely the sandwich for it.

The different filling did not change the price of the torta.  This principle operates for the whole menu board:  The listings under the tacos, for example, can also go in burritos or sopes.

Sopes are thick tortillas with turned-up edges that resemble three-inch piecrusts.  I tried one with lengua (beef tongue).  I thought the sope was doughy, but the tongue boiled with tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers merits a return trip.

Another El Rancho specialty I tried is chile verde, which I ate in a taco.  This pork selection is cooked with green onion, bell peppers, and a few jalapeño peppers:  the end result is a satisfying meal.

Burritos at El Rancho are large.  I chose adobada, spicy pork, as my filling.  The combination of spicy adobada and beans was delicious, but had my waistline crying for mercy.

The tamales are fat with carnitas or spicy chicken filling.

I also tried the chicken (gallina) meal.

I plan to return to sample more items:

-costillas (ribs) dinner

-burritos con camarron (shrimp burritos)

-quesadillas

-enchiladas

Along with the food, I liked learning all the Spanish words on the menu.

Once you start ordering items in Spanglish, the vocabulary will stick to you costillas at El Rancho.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Mini Malbec Wine Tasting by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Mini Malbec Wine Tasting by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

-Clos d’Argentine from Argentina, 2014 Reserve, 91 Wine Spectator (available at Grocery Outlet in Salinas, California for under $10 as of today). 

-A Cowgirl Winery Malbec from Carmel Valley, California (available from the Carmel Valley wine room)

-A Hahn Winery Malbec from River Road (Monterey County), California

-Cahors – a French Malbec wine with additions of Merlot and Tannat.  From Southwestern France below Bordeaux.

-a Bordeaux Médoc – Malbec is one of the blending wines in Bordeaux Médoc wines.  Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant grape, though.

-California Cabernet Sauvignon, which is a single varietal.

(Both Bordeaux and Cabernet Sauvignon can be sourced from Grocery Outlet.  Lopez and Bevmo in Carmel might be able to arrange for Cahors.)

The main question for the tasting is:  How does Malbec influence the taste of Bordeaux Médocs as opposed to single varietal California Cabernet Sauvignon?

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Clos d'Argentine, 2014 Reserve, 91 Wine Spectator

Readers Theatre by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Readers Theatre by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Readers Theatre is a good first step to train voice talent for the animated film industry and for clear podcasts in addition to being a way to practice correct pronunciation, acquire new vocabulary, and sustain voice for long periods of time.

For a workshop, a director might want to do the following tasks to prepare for a performance:

-obtain performance rights from book publishers for books to read their texts, especially if you intend to charge admission fees even for non-profit purposes

-the director should do a first read though to establish correct pronunciation of words.  Actors read along in their copy of the book to see if they agree with the director’s pronunciation.  There might be some debate about correct pronunciation.  The best time to resolve issues is with the director before a performance.

-the director will assign each actor a section of text to read, preferably from a small book

-each reader has a book to read from and one that the director uses to underline mispronounced words during the actors’ first read through

-once the actors receive their second book with mispronounced words, they can use Google Dictionary’s microphone function to perfect pronunciation.  English Language Learners (ELLs) can especially benefit from this free service of Google’s to work independently.

-Once actors have mastered English language pronunciation of the words, they can develop their voices for the different characters and narrator (s) in their books.

-Readers Theatre performances have chairs set up before an audience.  Actors read their parts without standing up, but can convey different characters’ personalities with their voices.

You can also use readers theatre to perform foreign language literature.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

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