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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… In September, the owners of Lago di Como in Live Oak – partners Giovanni Spanu, Matteo Robecchi and Lindsay Rodriguez – will open a sister location just down the street from the restaurant on the corner of Portola Drive and 17th Avenue. Bottega del Lago will be a deli and market with a range of Italian products, like olive oil and vinegar, dry pasta and sauces, and cookies and pastries. The deli will offer homemade takeaway meals like Roman pizzas, sandwiches and lasagna, and includes a small café with espresso and gelato by the scoop. Visitors will also be able to watch pasta being made by hand through a large glass window from the outside of the store.
Bottega del Lago aims to be a one-stop shop for Italian products and carryout fare, while offering the same attention to detail and warm hospitality that Lago di Como is known for, Rodriguez told me: “It’ll be a daytime version of Lago.”
… Los Gatos Meats & Smokehouse, one of the oldest butchers in Los Gatos, opened a second location in Capitola Village in May. At LG Meats Capitola, the family-owned business makes sandwiches to order using its signature tri-tip, pulled pork, turkey and sausages, and offers a selection of retail meats in its shop. Check it out here.
… The Santa Cruz Port District has canceled the remaining Crow’s Nest Thursday Beach BBQ Parties following the shooting on Aug. 8 outside the restaurant. The decision came a day after the restaurant told me that it would continue through the end of August as planned – but that announcement was premature, Port Director Holland MacLaurie later told me.
Canceling the events planned for Aug. 15, 22 and 29 is regrettable but the most “responsible course of action” in order to evaluate the safety of large gatherings at the harbor, said Holland in a media release last week. Read more here.
… Rustico Italian Street Food in downtown Santa Cruz is open today after a weeklong closure due to a small fire at the restaurant. On Aug. 11, a mechanical malfunction of a piece of equipment caused a blaze that was thankfully extinguished by two sprinklers before the fire department arrived. However, the entire downstairs of the building, which includes the Redroom Cocktail Lounge, needed to be deep-cleaned, Germaine Akin, who owns the building, told me. Now that it’s complete, business is back to usual this week.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Wine writer Laurie Love is back with a fresh edition of local wine news. Inside, she recaps a tasting salon at the scenic Lester Estate Wines in Pleasant Valley, checks in on the harvest – which is just starting to get underway – and notes a new winery coming to Aptos and a new winemaker at Neely Wine. Get the latest here.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Get your tickets now for the Watsonville Testicle Festival, an annual agricultural festival and fundraiser held this Saturday at Estrada Deer Camp. Fried bull testicles – as well as a barbecue feast – are on the menu, and proceeds from the event support scholarships for youth pursuing agricultural education and careers. I went last year and had a ball – more than one, if I’m being honest, and decided it tasted more like calamari than chicken. Read more about this unique community event in my story from last August.
NOTED
Bad Animal – downtown Santa Cruz’s rare bookstore-slash-wine bar-slash-Thai restaurant – earned a spot in a national magazine last week. Food & Wine included it on a list of “5 Bay Area Bar Bookstores Where You Can Drink and Read in Good Company,” and gives a peek at the irreverent humor, excellent Thai fare by chef Lalita Kaewsawang and curated natural wine list that makes this special place one of the coolest haunts in town.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
Last Sunday was a good day. My husband, Mike, took a fishing charter out of San Francisco Bay and came home that evening with limits of rock cod and lingcod. I love it when he goes on these daylong fishing trips. For one, I like having a one-on-two day with just me and our kiddos, and, more importantly, it’s a great feeling when he comes home happy and with a cooler full of fresh filet. That evening after the kids went to bed, he and I stayed up trimming it and vacuum sealing it all into dinner-sized portions for our freezer. He slipped away for a minute and came back with some fresh ceviche, and after we were done I fried up some fish sandwiches with sweet Kewpie mayo and bread and butter pickles.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have both promised to end federal taxes on tips. Turning tips into untaxed income might sound like a good idea, but economic experts warn it could be problematic and could harm workers in unexpected ways. (San Francisco Chronicle)
➤ The food industry has lost a legend: Wally Amos, the creator of Famous Amos Cookies, died on Aug. 13 at the age of 88. In 1975, Amos took out a small loan and established a line of handmade, bite-sized cookies in Los Angeles, and the company exploded nationally in the 1980s. (The Seattle Times)