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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… If you’ve walked past Toque Blanche in downtown Santa Cruz in the past two weeks, your eye has likely caught the colorful display of Le Creuset cookware gleaming in the front of the store. The expanded collection is the result of a new partnership with the iconic French brand. Earlier this month, Le Creuset opened its first retail “shop within a shop” in California at Toque Blanche, bringing the largest selection of its trademark enameled cast iron cookware on the West Coast to Pacific Avenue.
It’s not the first partnership Toque Blanche has had with a distinguished brand, owner Charles Nelson told me. Learn how this independent cooking store sets itself apart in my latest story, out earlier Monday.
… Olallieberries used to be one of summer’s signature crops in Santa Cruz County, but the delicate berries have almost gone the way of the dodo due to changing weather conditions and farming practices. The dark, sweet berries – a cross between the loganberry and the youngberry – are very delicate, and suffer when packed into the plastic clamshells that have become the norm in the berry market. As a result, if you do ever find them, it’s usually frozen or processed into preserves.
But there’s still one local farm growing organic olallieberries and offering them fresh. Prevedelli Farms maintains a brief but intense olallieberry season, and it starts right now. Find them at Prevedelli’s stand at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market on Wednesday afternoons and the farmers market at Cabrillo College on Saturday mornings, and at their Watsonville farm, for around $8 per pint. Discounts are given for multiple pints, so stock up during this short season.
Curious about what makes these berries so special? Farm matron Silvia Prevedelli explains in this short video on Instagram.
… My guide to hot dog stands in Santa Cruz County will be out this week, but a reader wrote to me and asked where to shop for the best hot dogs to make at home. Might be good to keep in mind as you plan your Fourth of July festivities.
Point Butcher Shop on Portola Avenue in Pleasure Point and Shopper’s Corner in Santa Cruz are the only independent retailers that offer hot dogs by the pound ($8 to $10). Both stock Stevens Sausage Company all-beef dogs in a natural casing, which gives the dogs a nice snap. Shopper’s Corner also sells Millers all-beef jumbo franks, which are twice the diameter of a regular hot dog, but lack a casing.
Santa Cruz County is rich in craft sausages. In addition to hot dogs, Point Butcher Shop makes around 10 different flavors ($9.99 per pound), including yellow chicken curry sausages and lamb sausages. El Salchichero craft butcher in Santa Cruz makes a variety of seasonal sausages, including a bacon cheeseburger sausage made with beef and pork, and an apricot and chili flavor. Texas hot links and “Lil’ Chubbies” – small beef sausages in pork casings, its version of Little Smokies – are also available at its Westside shop for around $13.50 to $15.50 per pound. It also makes a killer handmade corndog dipped in buttermilk and cornmeal batter ($10.50 for 2). All of the meat at El Salchichero is sourced from sustainable farms within California.
Corralitos Market & Sausage Company and Freedom Meat Locker in Watsonville also offer excellent handmade sausages. Corralitos seems to be the sausage of choice for several hot dog carts featured in the guide, including Happy Dog Hot Dogs in Santa Cruz and Left Coast Sausage Worx in Capitola. Happy grilling!
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
If you’re on Instagram and live in Santa Cruz County, you’re probably already following Double Meat Please (@DoubleMeatPlease) and Santa Cruz Bucket List (@SantaCruzBucketList), two local influencers who share their favorite local restaurants, pop-ups and things to eat. Each account has thousands of followers, and local businesses say their posts can translate into real sales.
I spoke with the people behind these accounts and discovered that unlike much of the influencing industry, they say they’re not in it for the money or fame. Double Meat Please duo Marcus Trawick and Daniel West, and Bucket List owner Monica Multer, do it for fun, and seem to genuinely want to support local businesses, they say. So far, they’ve kept their accounts almost free of paid promotions, but their large followings have opened up new business opportunities outside of Instagram. Check out the story here.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Mark your calendars for Forks, Corks & Kegs at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz on Saturday, June 29. This is the second annual event after four years of delay due to the pandemic, after an inaugural fest in 2019. Hosted by the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce, more than 30 local vendors attend this foodie festival, offering small bites, wines, beer and spirits. The $95 ticket gets guests unlimited tasting from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. More info here.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
No one is better at a reality check than a toddler. Case in point: my dinner last night. My husband, Mike, and I decided to grab burritos from De La Hacienda, one of our favorite taquerias on our side of town, and eat them with the kids by the lighthouse on West Cliff Drive after preschool. Not only was it a beautiful evening, but we thought it would be easier than making dinner at home.
We were wrong. Marco, our 3-year-old, emphatically refused his quesadilla, choosing to eat only chips, two out of three of which ended up scattered across the picnic blanket. He also took one sip of a seltzer – my seltzer, I would have you know – before turning it upside down and dumping half of it onto the blanket and himself. He then started fussing because his shorts were wet.
Just when we thought things had settled down, the plastic bag the food came in was swept up in a breeze, and Mike had to sprint to get it before it landed in the bay. Once he sat back down, Marco went to watch the surfers, and was able to stick one leg through the bars of the fence above the cliff before Mike jumped up and grabbed him.
If anyone reading this thinks that being a food writer is glamorous, you need to know that when I’m not eating at restaurants for work, most of my meals look like this.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Hot dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut has been banned from the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest held each year on the Fourth of July for partnering with a rival brand. Chestnut signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a plant-based meat company. Chestnut, who has won the contest 16 times, says he’s “gutted” about the ban. (NPR)