Fruition: Oh My God!

It is hard to come up with adjectives to describe Fruition; you can use the word orgasmic only so many times before it looses its impact. Every course was a visual art form with tastes that burst upon the tongue with explosions of shock and awe. One’s senses overwhelmed, all one can do is gasp and sigh. Eyes rolling back in the head are a bit dramatic I admit, but when the entire restaurant is doing it, it seems like the most natural thing in the world.

Our mystical experience began with the watercress salad. Watercress always makes me feel like a naughty goat trampling in the clover, but this preparation with the grilled asparagus, avocado, and shallots was a feast for the two-legged kind. It was bright, crisp, and harkened summer’s sweetness even on a less than spring-like day. We followed this up with the braised rabbit over homemade tagliatelle (a fancy name for fettuccine), and roasted onions. The clincher, since rabbit is relatively mild, was the veal and mushroom jus. As our waiter exclaimed proudly, “veal jus just makes everything taste better”. We couldn’t agree more.

Our prime beef entrée was a towering pyramid of culottes (a sirlon cap), choux dumplings, braised oxtail, and trumpet mushrooms all sitting on a wonderfully bright orange and sweet carrot puree. This puree, since as per usual we were splitting, became a dangerous battleground of whisking forks, flashing knives, and general exclamations of “your on my side of the plate”.

Fruitions wine list won’t break the bank and has a little something for everyone. I am on an officially announced quest to master the Rhone, so we tried a decent table wine (just a plain Cote du Rhone) from Domaine La Garrigue. No surprise that it was highly marked up at $40 a bottle, but was still inexpensive as restaurant wines go. Our waitress brought us three different wines to taste before we settled, which is always a sign of first class customer service.

While in a state of contemplative bliss we settled on the Blonde Carrot Cake for dessert. This is not your overly sweet carrot cake, but one without the cream cheese and a small dab of golden raisin compote on the side and a small scoop of cream cheese ice cream. The real find, however, was the Belle de Brillet cognac, which is a nice French cognac infused with pears from the Alsace region. It added just enough touch of sweetness without distorting the cognacs pleasing warmth. I declared henceforth that I would always have a bottle in the house for those cold winter nights.

Don’t take my word for it, and the word of the many pundits out there, go, enjoy, worship at the alter of food excellence that is fruition. You too may find yourself using orgasmic in a sentence!

Banana Slug: King of the Gastropods

I thought I would take a moment to poke fun at wildlife bloggers who love to wax poetic about mammals to the detriment of the lesser-respected but no less interesting gastropods!

Gastropods are truly amazing. They live on land and under the sea. They are second only to insects in their numbers and diversity. They usually have a well-defined head and two to four sensory tentacles. They are beautiful, mysterious, and leave slime trails, at least on land. What’s not to love!

The Banana Slug is one of my favorite gastropods. It is the second largest slug in the world. It can reach up to 10 inches long and lives in the moist forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains and other Pacific coast coniferous forests. They are one of nature’s composters, gleefully nibbling on dead plants and animal droppings. If they weren’t so yellow, they might have been called the “green machine” for their zero waste habits. Ha, take that Al Gore!

Whenever I visit Santa Cruz I make a pilgrimage to Felton State Park where I took my first picture in the 9th grade. This park is a dank, moss-encrusted tangle of redwoods and coniferous trees. The perfect place to hunt the slug! I bagged this particular specimen in April 2007. He/she, because banana slugs are…ooooh la la hermaphrodites, was about six inches long. I won’t regale you the hours I spent behind a slug blind waiting for this prey to appear before I was able to swoop down and make this shot.

Finally, my hats go off to UC Santa Cruz whose students chose the Banana Slug as their mascot. Just another rodent was much too commonplace for this unique school!