Moving On and a Happy (and Lazy) Thanksgiving...

I had almost two full weeks in Santa Barbara but, especially as my flight back to Portland approached, that time moved incredibly fast. Santa Barbara still feels so much like home to me. I really enjoyed my life there, and every time I go back to visit it breaks my heart a little bit to leave. I know I'll have an awesome time in Boston and I'm excited about that, but for several months before I left Melbourne I thought I would be moving back to Santa Barbara rather than to Boston, which I think made the nostalgia hit me extra-hard this trip when the time came to leave. I know I'll be back to visit in the future, but still... sigh...

Anyway, we tried to make the most of my last few days in town. Steph and I had meals planned for my last two nights: one to help us take care of some Cab and Syrah that needed drinking, and one to take care of the insanely delicious Cotes de Tablas Blanc that we bought together at Tablas Creek in Paso Robles. Unfortunately (for the plans, not for me), my PhD advisor invited me to attend dinner at an awesome steakhouse with him and some lab buddies on Tuesday (my last night in town), so we had to improvise a bit.

Thus, on Monday night we needed to find a way to drink both an amazing white wine and a big hearty red. For an appetizer, we decided to throw together a white pizza to eat with the Cotes de Tablas Blanc. We topped the crust with ricotta, thyme, roasted red pepper, smoked ham, and goat cheese before baking, then topped it off with fresh baby arugula. With a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, this turned out to be pretty delicious and was a nice accompaniment to a wine that I cannot find words to properly express the awesomeness of...
Our main course was a classic Emily & Steph recipe: Grilled Rib-Eye Steaks with Blue Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms. This was delicious, as always. We tried both a Cab and a Syrah with this and found that the Cab stood up better to the mushrooms, which overpowered this particular Syrah (unlike the 2000 Curtis Crossroads Syrah, which was the wine that inspired us to make this dish so many times before... I taste these mushrooms and I immediately start wishing I had a glass of that Syrah with me...)
Tuesday night brought dinner at Lucky's in Montecito. I never understood why people would "waste" $50 on a steak until I ate at a good steakhouse for the first time. (My budget typically prohibits me from going to steakhouses unless invited for business dinners...) The steaks at Lucky's are very high quality and cooked to perfection, and pretty much everything on the menu is delicious. On this trip I went with Diver Scallops in Escargot Butter and a Charred Bone-In Rib-Eye with Horseradish Sauce (sauce not pictured):
We ordered several sides for the table, all of which tasted great, but I forgot to take pictures because by then I was focused on my steak, which was very much the star of the show. First, though, the scallops made me very happy. I'm such a sucker for fresh scallops, and I try to order them every time the opportunity arises... These were incredibly fresh and cooked to perfection. My steak, too, was perfectly cooked and so very very tasty. Mmmm... Steak....

After one last lunch at Super Cucas on Wednesday (I ordered the totally awesome Chile Rellenos but was too excited about eating my kick-ass lunch to remember to take a picture), I headed back to lab for a few goodbyes. I sat through the crazy 101S traffic (Santa Barbarans panic when it rains (as it did my last two days there) which combined with Thanksgiving traffic to make for lots of sitting in gridlock during my last two days in town) to get back to Steph's so we could say our goodbyes before she headed off to see her parents and I headed out to the airport.
My flight got me back to Portland at 1am, just in time to go to bed and wake up to sit around watching horribly boring football games while my wonderful mother slaved away in the kitchen preparing a feast. I'm such a control freak that I usually end up either being in charge or heavily involved in the preparations for such things, so it was a special treat (especially given how exhausted I was) to just sit back and let my mommy make me a bunch of delicious food... (Thanks, mom!)