Southern California Cooking from the Cottage (10 page)

7 cups vegetable stock

1 tablespoon paprika

In a large bowl soak the lentils for 30 minutes in hot water. Drain. In a soup pot over medium heat, melt the butter and sauté the garlic, celery, onion, and tomatoes for 5 minutes. Add the oregano, bay leaf, thyme, cumin, and black pepper. Continue to sauté until the onions are soft and clear. Add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Add the lentils and paprika and continue to cook for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are soft.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

Note:
If you want an even creamier soup, purée half the soup in a blender, then return it to the pot.

TEO'S CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP

T
he phone can start ringing early in the morning and people will be asking if the “Soup of the Day” is Teo's Cream of Tomato. It is one of our top three soups, delightfully flavorful and delicious any time of the year. Clamato juice is a key ingredient and easy to find in the juice aisle of your local market. If you like tomatoes, even a little, try this recipe. It's a winner.

3 tablespoons butter

cup chopped red bell pepper

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped yellow onion

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons dried thyme

teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoons chopped garlic

1 (19-ounce) can diced tomatoes

2 cups Clamato juice

1 cup water

2 teaspoons salt

4 tablespoons butter

½ cup all-purpose flour

2 cups heavy cream

In a large stockpot over medium heat melt the butter. Add the red bell pepper, celery, onion, bay leaf, thyme, black pepper, and garlic. Sauté until the onions are clear and the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, Clamato juice, water, and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. In a small pot over medium heat melt the butter. Whisk in the flour until a white roux forms. Whisk the roux into the soup until well combined and the soup has thickened. Add the heavy cream, and bring the soup back to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Cook for 5 to 10 more minutes.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

Note:
If a thinner consistency is desired, add milk.

OLD LA JOLLA

B
efore the railroad came to La Jolla in 1894, it was a remote ocean-side settlement with a handful of residents who had built modest wood-shingled houses on hills above the Pacific. Most had come from the east; some had a vision that this far-flung piece of scenic real estate with its spectacularly temperate Mediterranean climate might some day be worth something. In the beginning, small home sites sold for $150, and fresh water had to be carried to each residence by the barrelful. The ill-fated La Jolla Park Hotel was built in 1888. (It burned down in 1896.) A post office and a general store opened in 1894, and four years after that, La Jolla had one hundred family homes and a schoolhouse. The first telephone was installed in 1899, and the first car drove into town in 1902. In the early days, the only way to go picnicking in La Jolla from San Diego was to board a horse-drawn coach for a two-hour ride.

La Jolla's first residents knew they had found paradise, even if getting water was a problem. Surrounded on three sides by some of the most breathtaking coastline on earth, the village fourteen miles north of San Diego gradually grew to a population of twenty-five hundred by 1920. Many of the new residents were servicemen who had been stationed at nearby Camp Kearney during World War I; when the war ended, they returned to start a new life. In the early 1920s, a Pennsylvania man named R. C. Rose opened a home-site development on La Jolla Shores, north of Mount Soledad. By late in the decade, real estate was booming—a trend (temporarily) arrested by the Great Depression. In addition to its full-time residents, La Jolla became a magnet for vacationers yearning to get away from city life and pioneering wave riders in awe of the Pacific surf.

From its earliest days the superrich, as well as a handful of carefree worshippers of sun and sea, occupied La Jolla. (The La Jolla Beach and Yacht Club broke ground in 1927.) It is “a bit of seacoast of many moods and manners,” according to a 1923 article in the
San Diego Union.
Beachcombers studied low-tide forecasts in the
Union
so they could browse through the caves and tide pools while the surf was out, and the first Scuba diving club in America was organized in La Jolla in 1933. There was a character of seclusion and favor about this unique resort community that was emphatically enhanced in 1930 when State Road 101 was routed to bypass the village and go through Rose Canyon instead. La Jolla remained a world apart.

When the tracks of the old La Jolla Railroad were decommissioned in 1918, there was no public transportation to and from San Diego. But in 1924, the Mission Beach streetcar line was extended to La Jolla so that now the once-remote hamlet was less than an hour's ride from the city—accessible to anyone who wanted to spend a merry Sunday at the beach. “Not all La Jollans were enchanted with the arrival of a rapid transit system that would place them only forty-five minutes from that metropolis to the south,” observed Patricia Daly-Lipe and Barbara Dawson in their splendid history,
La Jolla: A Celebration of Its Past
. “Nor were they happy to be connected so closely with the ‘hoi polloi' of Mission Beach. Many would have preferred to keep their privacy, enjoying their isolation rather than putting up with the expected invasion of outsiders.” In fact, the authors note, “When the streetcars made their inaugural run down Fay on July 4, 1924, residents were said to have shuttered their windows.”

San Diegans would ride north past strawberry farms on the outside of town, where the car stopped so travelers could buy baskets for their weekend picnics. It became feasible to live in La Jolla and work in the city, especially now that subdivisions of relatively affordable homes were cropping up. The streetcar line went defunct just before World War II, but by that time La Jolla had become very much a part of greater San Diego.

Still, La Jolla retained its village character well into the mid-twentieth century when housing development began in earnest. For many long-time residents, it still is a folksy little community despite its current population of thirty thousand and its average home-sale price of $1.5 million. Spending a few days at the Cottage, we were awestruck by the sense of neighborliness among staff, regular customers, and friends from nearby businesses along Fay Avenue. We could have been in any unaffected small-town café when Bernice Abernathy of the Needle Nook across the street stopped by for oatmeal banana pancakes and to compliment Laura Wolfe on the Oriental chicken salad she sent over for the needlepoint class in progress . . . or when John's wave-riding friend, graphic artist Peter Morris, sat down at a table over buttermilk coffee cake and had a chat about the fine points of surfing, now and in La Jolla's younger days.

NEW ENGLAND CLAM CHOWDER

I
am from New England and know my clam chowders. Here is one of the best: thick, rich, and creamy. It is easy to make and oh so good to eat.

2 cups peeled, cubed potatoes

4 tablespoons plus 2 tablespoons butter

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped yellow onion

1 small bay leaf

½ teaspoon dried thyme

Salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups hot water

1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice

3 (6 ½-ounce) cans chopped clams, drained, liquid reserved

2 tablespoons clam base

½ cup flour

1½ cups heavy cream

In a medium pot, boil the potatoes over high heat until slightly done, about 2 minutes after the water returns to a boil. Drain and set aside. In a heavy stockpot melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Sauté the celery, onion, bay leaf, thyme, salt, and black pepper over medium heat until the onions are clear. Add the water, clam juice, reserved liquid, and clam base. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the clam base. Add the potatoes and return to a simmer. In a small saucepan melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter. Add the flour, whisking until a smooth white roux forms. Add to the soup, whisking until incorporated. Add the heavy cream and bring back to a simmer. Check the seasonings and adjust to taste. Add the clams and simmer for 15 minutes. If thinner consistency is desired, add milk until desired thickness.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

Note:
When I have trouble finding clam or fish base in my markets, I substitute chicken bouillon instead.

SOUTHWESTERN CORN CHOWDER

C
ustomer Lenore W. of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Sarasota, Florida, says, “I love the rich creamy taste of corn chowder, but I especially like the zing of its jalapeños. It is full of flavor. I have it every time I eat at the Cottage.”

4 plus 4 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon minced garlic

cup chopped celery

cup chopped onion