California Trip

Mom and I just got back from a week long trip to Santa Barbara to visit Katie, and I've completely fallen in love with California. It's a vegetarian's dream come true! It blew my mind how easy it was to find great vegetarian food everywhere. There are great vegetarian restaurants with really creative menus on practically every corner, and even the regular restaurants all seem to have alot of vegetarian dishes. The last time I went out there, Katie and I actually found a veggie hot dog at a hot dog stand in Santa Monica. Crazy! Here's the vegetable platter that I got for dinner one night at a place called SoHo:

Being an East Coast suburban girl, I don't think I ever truly understood how amazing real fresh locally grown produce could be. Mom and I went to the farmer's market in downtown Santa Barbara one day while Katie was in class, and I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't believe how many local farmers there were, selling the most amazing looking organic produce for so cheap!

We went back to Katie's apartment that night and made an absolute feast out of everything we'd bought. We made a spaghetti squash with roasted vegetables, a beet salad with red and gold beets, and tossed salad with arugula and heirloom tomatoes, and we had this awesome organic Italian wheat bread that we found at the market. It made a ton of food that was amazingly filling, considering it was all vegetables!

Veggie-Bacon Recommendation: If you get to California and you get a chance, visit a farmer's market. They're amazing - you won't be sorry. Oh, and if you're a fan of Trader Joe's and cheap wine, buy a case of Charles Shaw. It actually costs 2 freaking dollars a bottle out there! Insane!