California Official Visitor's Guide 2009 - (Page 29) T o sit in a garden patio setting, dining on butter-soft abalone, sunshine on the nape of your neck and a choice of 200 wines at your fingertips, is to understand that life gets no better. Especially when the abalone, like the baby lettuces and heirloom tomatoes in your salad and the Chardonnay grapes in your wine, was raised just down the road. Inspired cuisine, certainly. Aptly named California cuisine [ CA cuisine] is constant only in that it is continually reinventing and extending itself. Infuse a state that produces a bounty of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, seafood, and meats with a rainbow of cultures (over 200 different languages spoken here) and you get pretty much every gastronomic possibility imaginable. Even simple mainstays, like fish tacos from a beachside grill, can be unforgettable. It’s California’s homegrown specialties, like the iconic abalone, adroitly prepared at Hoppe’s Garden Bistro in Cayucos, that define our distinctive cuisine. And, of course, our wine. Growers in the Napa, Sonoma, Santa Ynez (of the movie Sideways fame), and Central Valleys as well as 100 other viticultural areas are eternally experimenting with varietals whose subtleties demand descriptive adjectives. Food and wine may fuel the California joie de vivre, but they don’t alone define it. Music? Everything [ music fest] from the likes of Stevie Wonder at the Hollywood Bowl to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, for free, at San Francisco’s Stern Grove. Theater? Try the Berkeley Repertory Theatre or the Geffen Playhouse. Art? Choices run the gamut from The Getty Center in L.A. to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Shopping? Palm Springs, Rodeo Drive, or perhaps Westminster’s Asian Garden Mall (the country’s largest gold jewelry mart). Spas? Perchance a body treatment that will burnish you California gold. A little action? Experience the rumble of race cars at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Something extravagantly simple? A picnic lunch for two, hand-selected at a local farmers’ market and spread beneath just the right oak. Unapologetic self-indulgence? Perhaps. Here, travel isn’t just about destination. It engages the senses. California is your oyster. Or, your abalone. KEN McALPINE OPPOSITE: JEN JUDGE; THIS PAGE: TAI POWER SEEFF Enter keyword in Search box at visitcalifornia.com 29 http://www.visitcalifornia.com
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