Daily Archives: Saturday, 3 January 2009

Morro Bay

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Dog on Strand Sunny Morro Bay
You're Driftwood undaunted
beach tennis exhausted dog

Morro Bay, Thanksgiving weekend, 2008.

Pootled up CA-1 to escape LA and the lab. The main purpose of our trip was to hit the dog-friendly beach: Morro Strand State Beach, that we’d been to the previous summer. As memory served, it was very very long, and full of dogs and surfers. It had not, as expected, changed at all; the perfect dog beach.

Morro Bay is exactly the kind of small Californian town we’d imagined before arriving in LA. It’s like Elie and Pittenweem in Fife, Scotland, although parts of it felt more like Anstruther without the fish and chip shops. But much, much warmer and sunnier, of course. But from snippets of local conversation eavesdropped in the shops, its dependence on tourism may kill it sooner than later. Nearby Pismo Beach has newer, fancier, higher-throughput resort-style hotels, as opposed to the low-key motels that populate Morro Bay. But that, for us, was the very charm of the place. Bustling without being overwhelming. And it was pretty busy Thanksgiving weekend, going by the queues to get into all the breakfast places.

Many dog-friendly places in Morro Bay; lots of patio seating both on the main touristm stretch of Embacadero as well as in town on Main St. And as an added bonus, a street Christmas fair on our last day. What better way to spend the day than popping Kettle corn while strolling about town and The Rock. Morro Rock is one of those features that looks gorgeous only from afar. As you get closer, you can see where it was dynamited for building materials. Naturally, that has ceased and peregrine falcons are rumoured to live in the crevies. All we saw were the usual squaking gulls. And lots of crazy breakers.

I for one want places like Morro Bay to survive. Its aesthetic is the perfect salve to city life.

Mini pancakes with turkey bacon

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ickle pancakes

You never know what kind of pancakes you’re going to get in this household. It all depends on the mood of the pancake maker. Some days, we get beautiful fluffy specimens, and other days… Well; let’s not talk about those too much.

Today’s reward for getting out of my snuggle-buggle duvet-land was pretty good. When quizzed on what the chef had done differently, this was the reply:

An egg and some baking soda.

Yeah, that’s as precise as he ever gets. I sometimes wonder about his bench work.

黒ゴマクリーム

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A metaphor for something

The only way I can tolerate eating breakfast is to switch things around regularly. A 4 or 5 day stretch of cereal and milk can put me off the stuff for months. Even peanut butter on oatcakes is not immune to this quirk¹ of mine. And toast is particularly susceptible to this immense hatred of routine. Even marmite can’t save the day everyday.

So it’s up to a very wide range of spreads to save the day. And here I present my latest spread of choice: black sesame spread/cream.  黒 kuro) ゴマ (goma) クリーム (kurimu) as diligently copied from the packet (should I ever crave it and need to get it from rakuten or some such internet heaven).

I must say I wasn’t terribly heartened when I first opened the pot. Greeted by an oily black paste, most people may have instantly dumped it in the bin. We², on the other hand, seek out the most disgusting looking things to eat, for we know that the worse it looks, the more heavenly the taste³. This particular black sesame spread was no exception. The name is no misnomer. It really is a cream; smooth and with a luscious lingering creamy sensation on the tongue. It’s similar to, but a lot smoother and richer, than the chinese black sesame cream dessert (the name of which has momentarily escaped me). And at 140g, we’ll finish the pot before I get sick of it!

¹ Quirk, fussiness, no need to quibble over words, is there?

² Not the royal; including the P in this one. As he hands me some yoghurt that’s gone out of date… And he complains that his stomach’s been dicky.

³ The converse is sometimes true. The number of times I’ve biten into some absolutely gorgeous wagashi and started choking from the dryness or blandness is … umm… now up to two.