Welcome to Lily Belli on Food, a weekly food-focused newsletter from Lookout’s food and drink correspondent, Lily Belli. Keep reading for the latest local food news for Santa Cruz County – plus a few fun odds and ends from my own life and around the web.
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… Last call for crabs – Dungeness crab season will end locally on April 8, more than two months before its traditional closure on June 15. Migrating humpback whales are starting to return to the waters off the coast of California from their breeding grounds off the coast of Mexico, leading California Department of Fish and Wildlife to call for an early end to the season.
The season closed in mid-April last year, too, for the same reason, H&H Fish co-owner Hans Haveman told me. The announcement is yet another blow to the local fishing industry, after news that the CDFW is considering canceling the local salmon season, which would normally start this month, for the second year in a row.
… The location of the Live Oak farmers market is in limbo after it was unable to renegotiate new lease terms with its landlord last month. Santa Cruz Community Farmers’ Markets has held a farmers market on Sunday mornings in the parking lot of the East Cliff Village Shopping Center on East Cliff Drive in Live Oak for 22 years, operating on a month-to-month lease. But property owner Swenson Builders, a development company based in San Jose, surprised market organizers last month with new lease terms, including a 500% rent increase from $600 to $3,000 per month.
The market “could not function” under the new terms, board president Sandra Ward told me, but was unable to negotiate with Swenson, and was forced to let their lease expire on March 31. On March 29, Swenson offered the market a 30-day extension – allowing the market to be held in the lot until April 28 – but so far, market organizers say they have not been presented with a new lease, and are now concerned that the extension may not materialize. And, last week, a sign was posted in the lot advertising that it is available for a Sunday market for $3,000 per month.
Staff members are working around the clock to establish a new location for the market in the Live Oak area, but it’s unclear where that will be, or where the market will be held this weekend. Swenson Builders did not reply to a request by Lookout for clarification.
… Hook & Line, a new seafood restaurant from chef Santos Majano and business partner Lejla Borovac, is preparing to open this month in downtown Santa Cruz in the former Soif space on Walnut Avenue. It’s a twist of fate that Majano, who led the kitchen at Soif for seven years in the mid-2000s before opening The Kitchen at Discretion Brewing in Soquel, is returning to his former haunt to open his own space. The restaurant will focus on sustainable, thoughtfully procured seafood and locally sourced ingredients. More on this exciting new restaurant to come!
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
A team of educators, dietitians and students are working to create an ambitious nutrition program at the Live Oak School District that blends agricultural education, culinary education and nutrition. The program uses locally grown produce from small farms and student labor via a Food Lab class to create healthful meals for more than a thousand students daily. Read about it here.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Discover the variety and history of Oaxacan cuisine with three cocineros – chefs – from this storied region in Southern Mexico. Local nonprofit organization Senderos is hosting a cooking demonstration as part of Viva Oaxaca Guelaguetza, an annual cultural festival that celebrates Oaxacan arts, music, food and dance. Learn how to make traditional food and drinks and participate in a unique culinary experience. The event takes place on April 7 at Branciforte Small School Campus in Santa Cruz from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. and is free. There will be food for purchase. More info here.
CULINARY SHOWDOWN AT UCSC
Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of judging the UCSC Dining Culinary Challenge in the Porter College dining hall at UC Santa Cruz.
The competition, which is intended to boost team spirit, had not been held since 2019, due to the pandemic, but it came roaring back last week. Five competitors from the campus dining hall staff competed to create the best dish using a specialty ingredient, lingcod, provided by Moss Landing-based company Reel Good Fish.
The dining hall was converted into a kitchen stadium with five cooking stations. More than 200 fans — many with homemade signs and banners — came to support their coworkers and friends. The cheering barely dimmed during the entire three-hour event.
I was so impressed with the technique, skill and creativity from the five competitors. The finished dishes ranged from fish tacos with roasted chilis on homemade blue corn tortillas to a Hungarian savory crepe stuffed with lingcod and goulash.
Competition was stiff but ultimately Renny Reyes, a cook from Porter/Kresge Dining Hall, took first prize with a South American-influenced barbacoa-inspired lingcod served with a quinoa and red pepper salad and a bright chimichurri sauce with lime.
Csaba Ungi, Oakes Cafe Cook, took 2nd place; Martha Aguado, UCSC Catering Principal Food Service Worker, took 3rd place; 4th place went to Wenceslao Lopez Diaz, Rachel Carson/Oakes Dining Hall Cook; Alexis Palomino, University Center Bistro Cook, came in 5th. The other judges included: Executive chef Stefen Shatto from Hotel Paradox; Jenn Lovewell, chief nutrition officer at Reel Good Fish; Andrew Steingrube, food writer at Good Times; and John Bollard, UCSC Associate Vice Chancellor.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
On Sunday, my husband Mike and I celebrated a low-key Easter with our two kids. The night before, Mike and I stuffed pastel-colored M&M’s and bunny-shaped peanut butter cups into plastic eggs, and put together a couple of Easter baskets with some small toys and a large bunny-shaped sugar cookie from Manresa Bread in Santa Cruz.
The next morning, Marco, almost three, jumped out of his bed when I told him that the Easter bunny had come and hid eggs all over the house. Our friend had hosted an egg hunt the weekend before, so he knew the drill. He loved running around the house finding eggs and snacking on the candy inside. Cecilia, the one-year-old, had no concept of the egg hunt, but loved snuggling with the little Easter-themed stuffies in her basket and playing with her new toys.
After a little while, Mike and I became aware that Marco had eaten a substantial amount of candy. Our friend, a pediatrician, said that she thinks kids should be allowed to eat as much candy as they want — if they get sick, they learn not to eat so much candy. I was inclined to take her advice, but we started to be concerned that there may not be a bottom to this pit. How much candy can one 35-pound child eat, we wondered?
A lot, as it turns out. Enough that we had to literally hide the eggs from our toddler so he wouldn’t eat any more. There were a few tears, but we also didn’t need to clean up any Eater-colored puke in the living room, so I think it was the right decision.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Younger generations aren’t drinking wine, and some believe it might be a major cultural shift away from alcohol altogether, not just a fleeting trend. One video on TikTok earned 1.6 million views and 35,000 responses when it asked Gen Z why it wasn’t drinking wine and revealed that many young people equate alcohol with negative health effects — some going so far as to call it “poison.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
➤ The new minimum wage for fast food workers in California jumped from $16 to $20 per hour on Monday. The new law was passed in 2022 and moved forward despite considerable pushback from companies like McDonald’s in 2023. (AP News)