Shrimp Tacos at Michael's in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Fork-and-Knife Shrimp Tacos at Michael’s in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I grew up eating hard, corn tortillas that came with Old El Paso taco kits. They were perfect as a hand-held item for parties, because they did not dirty your hands. 

It took me awhile to get used to soft, flour tortillas at taquerías in California, because your hands tend to get messy as you eat delicious items like shrimp tacos. I have found an easy solution for this, though. 

Shrimp tacos from Michael’s on Main Street Salinas (California) are a pretty nice neighborhood amenity, but you need a fork and knife to eat them. 

The shrimp at Michael’s are grilled in oil. When they are done cooking, they are placed in two soft tortillas with shredded Monterey Jack cheese and shredded lettuce. The tortillas are turned over to let them sizzle in the shrimp-infused oil before being wrapped up in aluminum foil. 

I like shrimp-infused oil, so the slippery tortillas do not bother me. I open up the tacos before eating them and squeeze on lime juice and pour on pico de gallo salsa made with chopped tomatoes, peppers, onions, and epazote for a vitamin C boost. 

I eat these scrumptious tacos with a fork and knife to keep my hands neat. If you want to imagine yourself on a beachside vacation in Mexico, I recommend the shrimp tacos at Michael’s in Salinas, California. 

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

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Mole Amarillo Shrimp Enchiladas at Villa Azteca in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Mole Amarillo Shrimp Enchiladas by Ruth Paget 

Main Street in Salinas, California by the Steinbeck Center has several great restaurants that tourists might like for a flavor of the American West. (Note: There is a reasonably priced parking garage by the Steinbeck Center, a Greyhound Bus Station, and the train station nearby for tourists from Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.) 

My husband Laurent, my daughter Florence Paget, and I have tried Villa Azteca on Main Street Salinas several times. We like the restaurant’s dishes that are different from typical taquería fare. 

On our last visit to Villa Azteca, we began our meal with typical guacamole made with mashed avocado, tomato, and onion. The guacamole came in a square, black dish made of porous volcanic rock that made you feel like you were dining in a rooftop restaurant in Mexico City. 

For my main dish, I chose a shrimp enchilada in mole amarillo. The shrimp were pudgy and briny, which made me think they had been marinated in lime juice before being sautéed to fill the folded enchiladas. (Note: Villa Azteca also serves lobster enchiladas in mole amarillo. Laurent tried these and said they were excellent.) 

The mole amarillo was a shiny yellow-orange color. I suspect this was made with cooked and puréed squash or pumpkin, queso fresco cheese, and a little habanero pepper. I made sure to soak up every bit of this delicious mole that I could eat just with warm tortillas and cheese filling.

I drank a chilled, non-alcoholic Mexican drink called jamaica (pronounced “ha-ma-ee-ka”) with my dinner. This purple colored drink was made from hibiscus flowers and tasted like slightly sour pomegranate juice. I loved the sour counterpoint to the spicy mole amarillo dish I was eating. 

My family shared a Mexican flan, a milk custard pudding with warm caramel topping for dessert. 

This fancy Mexican meal at Villa Azteca in Salinas, California was flavorful and relaxing. I love having Villa Azteca close to my home in Salinas and think tourists might like it for the food and proximity to parking and transportation. 

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

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Mole Rossa at Villa Azteca in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Mole Rossa at Villa Azteca in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Main Street in Salinas, California by the Steinbeck Center has several great restaurants that tourists might like for a flavor of the American West. (Note: There is a reasonably priced parking garage right around the corner from the Steinbeck Center that has a passage to Main Street.) 

My husband Laurent, my daughter Florence Paget, and I have tried Villa Azteca on Main Street Salinas several times for dinner. We like the restaurant’s dishes that are different from typical taquería fare. 

On a recent visit, we began our meal with typical guacamole made with mashed avocado, tomato, and onion. It came in a square, black dish made of porous volcanic rock that made you feel like you were dining in a rooftop restaurant in Mexico City. 

For my main dish, I chose a carnitas enchilada with salsa rossa. Carnitas is usually made with pork rump or pork shoulder braised with bitter Seville orange juice and pulled once cooked like Southern pulled pork. The pork does not taste greasy, because it is made with Seville orange juice. I liked this filling for the rolled enchiladas topped with mole rossa. 

The mole rossa sauce was a delicious surprise. I was expecting a light pink sauce made from puréed tomatoes and queso fresco. What arrived was a pinkish-purple fuchsia-colored sauce made from puréed beets, queso fresco, and a hint of habanero pepper for a little kick without numbing heat. 

The mole rossa was rather mild from the beets, which have a good amount of dietary fiber, vitamin C, iron, vitamin B6, and magnesium according to the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) website. I was pleased with my first-time try of carnitas enchiladas with mole rossa. 

I drank a non-alcoholic Mexican drink called horchata with my meal. This drink is made with ground rice, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Horchata is served chilled. Mexican vanilla is strongly flavored, and made the horchata taste like a cocktail despite being non-alcoholic. 

My family shared a delicious Mexican flan milk custard pudding with a warm caramel topping for dessert.  

This fancy Mexican meal at Villa Azteca in downtown Salinas was flavorful and relaxing. I love having Villa Azteca so close to my home in Salinas, but the nearby train station, Greyhound bus station, and parking garage make it a great stop for tourists visiting Salinas from Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, too.

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

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Seared Ahi Salade Niçoise at Woody's in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget

Seared Ahi Salad Niçoise at Woody’s in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget 

My husband Laurent and daughter Florence took me to my favorite bar and restaurant in Monterey, California for Mother’s Day – Woody’s at the Monterey Regional Airport. 

I have a childlike love for sitting on the outside terrace on the airport’s rooftop and watching planes take off and land. My favorite planes belong to Alaska Air, which have a large image of an Inuit man in a fur-lined parka hood on the tail wings of their planes. (Alaska Air runs commuter planes up and down the Pacific Coast from all-points Alaska to San Diego, California. They are well-liked for roomy seats and leg room.) 

I like many of the items on Woody’s menu. On Mother’s Day, I chose Japanese-influenced Mediterranean dishes for my meal starting with deep-fried calamari, whose breading appeared to be made with crunchy, Japanese panko breadcrumbs. I love the calamari at Woody’s dunked in cocktail sauce made with grated horseradish. The punchy horseradish reminds me of Japanese wasabi. For my main dish, 

I chose the seared ahi tuna salade Niçoise. Ahi tuna was made famous as a Japanese sushi choice. Ahi tuna tastes good with the light sear Woody’s gives it that cooks it yet lets the fish retain its flavor. The seared ahi salade Niçoise comes with sliced hard-boiled eggs, quartered tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, steam green beans, fingerling potatoes, chives, and Dijon shallot vinaigrette. 

The spring lettuce leaves were well chilled and tender. Salads like this make me happy to live in America’s Salad Bowl in Salinas, California. 

To make my fusion Japanese-Mediterranean lunch complete, I received a new Sushi Go! Game and A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page Over Seven Centuries by Henry Notaker (Part of the California Studies in Food and Culture Series) on Amazon Kindle. 

Woody’s is a welcome sight after coast-to-coast airplane rides and for nice lunches. 

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

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Vegetable "Meatballs" for Taste and Savings by Ruth Paget

Vegetable “Meatballs” for Taste and Savings by Ruth Paget 

When I was younger, one of my job duties at several employers was to arrange cocktail party catering that was delicious, elegant, and not too expensive. 

At that time, I would have loved to have had Michele Anna Jordan’s More than Meatballs: From Arancini to Zucchini Fritters and 65 Recipes in Between to use as an ordering reference. She provides traditional Italian fare as well as items like Chicken Kiev meatballs that she serves on a bed of spring lettuce instead of paper doilies to pass with convenient tooth picks poked in them for easy serving. 

She also has a recipe for turkey and sage meatballs that you can serve with a tomato coulis dipping sauce. Both the Chicken Kiev and turkey meatballs would pair well with pinot gris, rosé, and sauvignon blanc wine. Those three wines are usually not too expensive an perfect for large gatherings. 

Michele Anna Jordan has meatball recipes from around the world such as Vietnamese shrimp balls, Ethiopian kitfo, and spicy Thai meatballs with coconut and peanut sauce that make cocktail party planning an educational experience for the organizer. 

However the recipes that really interest me from my vantage point in Salinas (California), an agricultural capital with more than 200+ agricultural products cultivated in surrounding Monterey County, are the vegetable ball fritters. 

These recipes include: 

-carrot fritters 

-zucchini fritters with basil and mint 

-spaghetti squash fritters 

-mashed potato fritters 

-parsnip fritters with horseradish cream 

-eggplant polpettine 

-chickpea balls (like falafel) 

Hard cider like Henry Hot Spurs would go well with fried vegetable fritters like these. 

If you have a food processor with a grater attachment, these vegetable fritters are east to make. Generally, you add grated vegetables to breadcrumbs with egg as a binder and form the mixture into balls for frying. 

The meatballs and fritters that Michele Anna Jordan describes in More than Meatballs can be made ahead and warmed up for parties or weekday lunches.

The variety of recipes from around the world in More than Meatballs by Michele Anna Jordan make it a nice addition to kitchen reference shelves. 

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

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Great Value Polenta by Ruth Paget

Great Value Polenta by Ruth Paget 

I learned to love grilled polenta slices when my husband Laurent and I ate dinner out on trips to Vicenza, Italy outside Venice when we lived in Stuttgart, Germany. 

I would eat grilled polenta with pork osso buco (braised pork shanks) seasoned with thyme, rosemary, and cloves. The exotic cloves reminded me that Venice grew rich on the spice trade in the middle ages. 

Back in California, I now buy Golden Pheasant polenta and think of the Veneto region to make recipes out of Polenta by Michele Anna Jordan, a Sonoma County caterer and author, who provides 100 polenta recipes in her cookbook. 

Jordan writes that relying on polenta alone for meals can cause pellagra, a rash of dry, rough skin. However, polenta, which is made from corn, is a great carbohydrate to go along with other ingredients due to significant amounts of the following nutrients:  

-vitamin C 

-folic acid 

-magnesium 

-phosphorous 

-thiamine 

Jordan provides a recipe for soft polenta, which can be served as a porridge. Her favorite way of eating soft polenta is with chopped walnuts and gorgonzola blue cheese mixed in it. 

Jordan also gives instruction on how to make polenta firm so it can be cut into shapes including bars that can used as a base for crostini hors d’oeuvres with toppings. Another use for polenta cut into bars is an Eastern European baked dish with melted goat cheese on top. Once polenta is firm, it can be grilled, fried, or broiled. 

Jordan provides 100 polenta recipes in her cookbook, which includes deluxe recipes such as: 

-roast chicken with lemon-scented polenta and lemon-cream sauce

-orange-scented duck with olives and polenta 

-polenta with ragù meat sauce 

-roast pork loin with apricot sauce and polenta pilaf

-polenta with sausages, apples, and mustard greens (I like sausages made by Aidell’s.) 

Polenta requires stirring, but other than that I find it easy to work with for tasty results. Jordan provides cooking methods for baking and microwaving polenta that might be preferable for other cooks. 

The 100 recipes in Polenta by Michele Anna Jordan are Sonoma County secrets for culinary success making the book a very good purchase. 

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

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Ranch House Quesadillas at Michael's in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Ranch House Quesadillas at Michael’s in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Ranch House Quesadillas at Michael’s in downtown Salinas, California are a delight for a light lunch at the office or at home. 

A quesadilla is a large flour tortilla that is folded in half and grilled with fillings. For the ranch house quesadilla at Michael’s, the cooks fill the quesadilla with roasted mushrooms, charred red potatoes, fresh mild chile peppers, and melted cheese. The cooks top off the quesadilla with fresh cilantro and serve it with sides of salsa fresca, guacamole, sour cream, Mexican rice, and black beans. As of May 18, 2024, this delicious menu item costs $15.84 according to the website.  

The quesadilla fillings are very nutritious. Chile peppers regardless of heat contain Vitamin C, which is an antioxidant. Mushrooms also contain antioxidants, which help remove free radicals that can cause cancer from the body. 

Red skin potatoes contain Vitamin A, which is important for good vision, the immune system, growth, and development according to the National Institutes of Health website. Cheese contains protein and calcium, which promotes tissue and bone health. For all these reasons, I think the ranch house quesadilla is a great buy for lunch. 

Michael’s in downtown Salinas delivers, making the ranch house quesadilla an affordable, delicious, and nutritious lunch option for the office or at home. 

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

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