California - 2008 Official State Visitor's Guide and Travel Planner - (Page 28) enjoy o dine in a garden patio setting 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, were raised just down the road. Inspired cuisine, certainly. Aptly named California cuisine L 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 the simplest 28 Enter L keyword in Search box at visitcalifornia.com Right: Maren Caruso; clockwise from top left: RJ Muna; Laura Flippen; Rob Howard T mainstays, like fish tacos from a beachside grill, can be unforgettable. But it’s California’s homegrown specialties, like the iconic abalone, adroitly prepared at Hoppe’s Garden Bistro in Cayucos, that set our cuisine apart. 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 ever more descriptive adjectives. Food and wine may fuel the California joie de vivre, but they don’t alone define it. Music? Everything L music fest] from [ the likes of James Taylor 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? Runs 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 California 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 http://www.visitcalifornia.com
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