Travels with Chili: Three Nights on the Road, Pt. 1

How much can you reasonably cram into a three-night, four-day road trip? We'd been pining to go back to Jack's Grill in Redding, but between work and dogs and myriad commitments a long, leisurely drive down the coast wasn't in the cards.

Welcome to our cozy cottage!

I spent a couple of hours on the phone doing research and came up with a plan. We'd drive down to Arcata, a little bayside town just south of the redwoods and a smidge north of Eureka, spend a couple of nights, then drive due east through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest to Redding, stay another night and come home. A fast trip, to be sure, but eminently do-able.

The drive down was uneventful and, because we cut off from I-5 at Grants Pass, was a pastiche of small towns, kids playing softball on school fields and roadside cafés advertising pie and barbecue. I'd arranged to stay at a "cozy" cottage in Arcata's Northtown neighborhood, chock full of drool-worthy restored Victorians and with its own little cluster of shops and restaurants.

Small, but perfect for two nights.

Ann Wallace converted a woodshed behind her Victorian after a young poet, who'd lived there in appropriately poetic simplicity for eight years, moved out. It's tiny, as befits its original use, but now has a sitting area and kitchen filled with light from the windows that wrap around the end of the building, with a bedroom and bathroom tucked into the back. The view from those windows looks over the town below and out to the bay and ocean, and we witnessed a spectacular sunset our second night there.

Salmon and ratatouille…a combo worth stealing.

The first evening we arrived late and chose a nearby restaurant recommended by Ann, Folie Douce, which advertised its organic and local bona fides and looked like a sweet spot. Warm and colorful, it reminded me of Lucca with pizzas and entrées of fish and lamb from area farms. We chose to split the tomato salad with roasted corn, a variation on a panzanella with thin rounds of rye soaking up the juices and feta from a local dairy scattered across it. We also split the fillet of roasted salmon on ratatouille, a delicious combination I'm stealing for later this summer.

Eddie Tanner of Deep Seeded Farm.

The next morning I'd made arrangements, again courtesy of Ann, to tour Deep Seeded Farm, a CSA-supported venture owned by Eddie Tanner, a young, friendly bear of a fellow. Rather than focusing on wholesale or farmers' markets to make a go of it, he'd leased land right on the edge of Arcata, making it a snap for subscribers to pick up their produce. The land, an ancient river bed that had once been a pasture for dairy cows, had most recently been used for growing hay, which stripped the land of nutrients, making it necessary for Eddie to rebuild the soil for his vegetables and fruit trees. While not certified organic, he's taken pains to use organic methods, shunning pesticides and sprays in favor of compost and organic fertilizers. Currently boasting 200 subscribers, he said the number of local families the farm feeds runs around 350 counting shared subscriptions.

By afternoon the sun had burned off the morning's clouds, so we opted for a walk on the beach with the dogs (top photo), then a stop at the town co-op for vegetables to sauté and toss with pasta for dinner. There was still a half bottle of wine from the night before, just enough to close out our last night in Arcata before heading inland into the heat that was waiting for us in Redding.

Read Part 2 of this post.

Thunder Road: California Campin'

After a disappointing stop at Costco on Sunday morning...they've reduced their liquor supply to one short aisle of standard-but-still-half-what-you'd-pay-here selections...we packed up and headed to the coast for four nights of tent camping. Finding the Humboldt Brews in Arcata closed until late afternoon, we decided to head for our first campsite at Patrick's Point State Park, about five miles north of the lovely little town of Trinidad, right on the southern edge of the Redwoods.

Situated at the top of a bluff, the campground is fairly large with several different sections and has amenities like potable water, showers and flush toilets. South of the point the coastline is jagged and rocky, but to the north there is a winding trail down to a long, curving beach that stretches several miles and is perfect for long walks and nice wave-watching. There are several trails for hiking, but they (technically) don't allow dogs on the trails or the beaches, but that was so ludicrous we ignored it since we always keep Rosey on a leash and pick up after her.

For dinner we headed to the nearby Larrupin' Café, a quirky art-filled space where every surface, including your table, is covered by wonderful Oriental rugs. By the way, the word "larrupin" or "larruping" is a regional slang term that means "delicious." The food is fresh and regional, with a definitely Asian-fusion twist to most dishes, though there are also some odd Swedish touches like the "appetizer board" accompanying the entrees that must come from some previous incarnation of the restaurant.

Since there were four of us, we had a good sampling of the menu and it's definitely worth coming here, with local seafood and lamb featured prominently. We started with an appetizer of house-smoked albacore with a 2005 Sacred Hill Marlborough Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc from their wine list, which was a reasonably-priced selection of mostly California wines. Then the Swedish appetizer board comprised of dark chocolate rye rounds alongside a small crock of chicken liver mousse and a small wedge of nearby Arcata-based Cypress Grove chevre. For main courses we had the lamb chops (both spicy and mild versions), which were perfectly grilled (i.e. medium rare) and smoky, and the justly famous house brisket, several cross-grain slices of melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness. My brother had brought along a bottle of 2003 Beaucastel Chateauneuf-de-Pape that perfectly complemented the mild dishes but was sadly lost on the more spicy entrees. One warning if you go: Strangely, these guys operate on a cash-only basis, so don't go with cards or checks in hand. You might end up doing dishes.

We rode back to the campsite and our tents happy and full, ready to do some hiking and slacking the next couple of days. We did venture to Eureka's Lost Coast Brewing the second day for lunch, but were sorely disappointed by their lackluster beers and merely adequate pub food. Having been there a couple of years ago, either it's lost some ground in the brewing department or we're increasingly getting spoiled by the quality and selection of our local brewmeisters.

The second night, we played several rounds of Mexican Train, a domino game, and enjoyed a Susanna Balbo Malbec Rosé while the fire burned down so we could grill New York steaks. Dave made onion, garlic and smoked paprika-spiced fried potatoes to go with them, and it was all washed down with a 1998 Sportoletti Cabernet-Merlot. I hate roughing it, don't you?

Read the rest of the posts in the series: Thunder Road Redux, Stop1: Jack's Grill, Stop 2: The Sundial Bridge, Back in Oregon.