I'm back from San Diego, where I had excellent meals and a couple of feasts. The Returning Peace Corps Volunteers of San Diego had their annual "Taste the World" event, and we ate ourselves silly sampling foods even though each serving was small. I especially liked a Peruvian Aji de Gallina (a spicy chicken stew) and was fortunate enough to get the recipe from the chef, so you may see it appear in these pages at some point. I also particularly liked a Mexican lime soup -- tart, tangy, delicious, with "add your own" cilantro and fried tortilla strips. That chef hasn't responded to my request for a recipe, at least not yet. When I Google the dish "Sopa de Lima" I find several different versions, so I hope I don't have to start trying to reproduce that particular soup without some guidance. But hey, I'll try if I have to!
On another day we met up with friends at a little family-owned Italian restaurant, Cafe Luna. The sign at their door asked people to please keep their phones off, and I took that to mean I shouldn't be taking photos. Besides, the conversation was too brisk. But we all had variations on the soup and salad theme, where the soup was Italian Wedding soup. (Finally, I got to try it! Delicious!) The bread was fabulous, and they had a house-made dipping sauce that they called either Celestial Sauce or Celestrial Sauce. We practically went after that stuff with a spoon: it was unctuous, savory, tomatoey, slightly spicy. I can't remember whether the proprietor or her husband or father-in-law made up the recipe in the first place, but it's clearly a hit. The proprietor, who's in her 10th year of ownership now, was happy to list the ingredients. I didn't ask her for proportions. I foresee many happy experiments. The ingredients are olive oil, sundried tomatoes, anchovies, parmesan, roasted garlic, canola oil, salt and pepper, and Herbes de Provence. She said the canola is needed to keep the stuff from getting too thick. The sauce is blended but still has a slight chunkiness: not as smooth as catsup, not a coarse as salsa.
If you're ever in the northern end of San Diego, go check out Cafe Luna. I hope to go there again, many times.
