UCSB ON CINCO DE MAYO & MY MEXICAN LAMB SOUP

Happy Cinco de Mayo! And just so you don't get too giddy today, both The Bottom Line and the Daily Nexus have published pieces in the last few years about what we Santa Barbarans should and should not do on Cinco de Mayo. Here's an example from the Daily Nexus:

Could these UCSB Social Justice Warriors lighten up a bit? I can't imagine more of a wet blanket date than going to a Mexican restaurant with either of these writers. "Don't pay the band to play La Bamba! That's racist!" "Don't say 'gracias' to the waitress! That's racist!" "Don't even think of putting on a sombrero! That's racist!"

You know what's more important than adhering to these guidelines? Supporting local Mexican restaurants, who depend on holidays like this for business, especially now since many restaurants had low business during the fire and mudslide and the aftermath, I think it's more important for them to make money than please some UCSB student's misguided sense of social morality. And if you see someone wearing a sombrero, don't scold them, especially if they leave a really good tip. No, I don't enjoy being around drunks barfing on the street after too many margaritas, but that's not cultural appropriation, that's just oafishness.

Personally, I'm going to be making Lamb Albondigas soup at home today -- Ray and I eat out a lot at Mexican restaurants here (one of my favorites being Altamirano's Grill at 5838 Hollister Avenue in Old Town Goleta):

I was inspired to cook Albondigas Soup while at the Farmers Market in Carp on Thursday. I saw that Jimenez Family Farm had lamb bones. Not easy to find at regular markets. A couple of pounds of their lamb bones mixed with two quarts of my homemade chicken stock (to make really gelatinous stock, I use chicken feet from either Gelson's in Loreto Plaza or Foodland on San Andres) and I had the startings of a robust and deeply flavored lamb soup.

I didn't buy ground lamb from Jimenez Farm to make the meatballs. Ray'd already picked up two of their "sheep sirloin steaks" which he wanted to sous vide for us for dinner. We'd spent enough -- the prices at Jimenez Farms are not always cheap. While the bags of their mixed bones were just $4 per lb (2 lbs was enough to make stock), the steaks were $18 per lb and their ground lamb is $16 per lb. I don't find their ground lamb that much better than supermarket ground lamb to warrant that amount. Their prices are understandable given they're a small, sustainable and humane operation. And I love supporting local places like theirs, but I don't like going broke over something like lamb meatballs which should be a casual dish.

We ate the sheep steaks with mango curry and lime pickles (which my friend Bill Stern, founder of MOCAD and knowledgeable about all things design and food, introduced me to and which he swears he puts on everything including ice cream). I bought these condiments and parathas from Pennywise, the Indian market at 1121 E. Montecito Street just below APS. It's a terrific little market and resource for Indian cooking. More cultural appropriation on my part! Nonetheless, the lovely family who own and run Pennywise (and can be seen walking their pet tortoise on the sidewalk) seemed pleased that I was cooking Indian food and buying their frozen parathas.

Btw, we were told by the people who sold us the steaks to sear them in a pan. I don't think that's the best way to cook a piece of lamb like this. As with all of Jimenez' lamb it tasted great, but it was tough. I believe it would have been better if it was the same cut but thicker that you braised until it fell off the bone, like beef oxtails or like the lamb osso buco I recently made with this recipe and lamb from D'Artagnan. I do like Jimenez Farm, if just because they're the only local place I know of where I can get lamb belly, which if you haven't cooked, is fabulous spiced with Harissa or Vadouvan, rolled up and tied and dry roasted at 250 degrees for several hours or until it reaches an internal temperature of 220 degrees. Here's a plate of my lamb belly:

Of course today I'll also be making guacamole and chips -- and in honor of the late La Paloma, the Santa Barbara Mexican restaurant I ate lunch at nearly every day when I went to SBCC and UCSB, I'm going to fry my own chips and use flour tortillas the way they did. So much better than corn, unless you are a gluten-free kind of person. La Paloma also made the absolute best bean and guac tostadas I've ever had. I've worked on recreating them, which might be seen by some as cultural appropriation on my part and those people would be wrong -- it's just nostalgic hunger.

But I've never been able to recreate the addictive taste of La Paloma's tostadas. Perhaps the secret remains with Fidel Flores, who worked at La Paloma, and often made the guacamole. I'd see him with a lit cigarette in his mouth while making it, and perhaps it was those ashes he flicked that made it so good. (The former La Paloma is now Paradise Cafe and thankfully they've kept the mural of the Aztec warrior. But the array of photos of Jackie and JFK that decorated La Paloma are long gone.)

And who knows? I may wear one of the shirts I've made out of Mexican themed fabric designed (culturally appropriated!) by Alexander Henry.

As my Mexican-American friend, Bryan Castañeda, said, "Go ahead, wear a sombrero while you drink margaritas -- I may be doing the same."

And here's a photo of my Cinco de Mayo Lamb Albondigas Soup that I made for my mom, step-dad and Ray:

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