Oh Banuelos, where have you been all my life? You had me at the first heavenly bite of cinnamon, honey and crunchy goodness. The super-frozen creamy vanilla ice cream, rolled in more crunchy goodness was icing on the cake, or in this case, the clincher for the best dessert in town.

Casa Blanca Restaurant & Cantina

But before I get to the conclusion, let me tell you about my journey to finding my new favorite dessert.  It all started on the loveliest patio on State Street. Perched on the corner of Gutierrez and State Street, under mature oak trees that are decorated with white party bulbs, you will find a romantic, friendly and inviting place that you will likely remark upon more than once during  your stay. I am not exaggerating, ask anyone who has enjoyed a drink or a bite to eat on the patio of the Casa Blanca Restaurant in Santa Barbara and they will tell you the same.

Opened in 2011 by the owners of some great local eateries; The Fish House, The Boathouse, and the Shellfish Company, it’s clear they know how to build a beautiful restaurant. The interior is worth a stop to see what they did.  I bet you’ll even be tempted to take a picture of the gorgeous tile work or the simply stunning Black Acacia bar. The owners didn’t cut any corners during their 6 month renovation project, adding beautiful details like hand blown glass light fixtures, imported tile, mahogany hand rails, and artistic rod iron. But alas, I didn’t eat inside. The patio is where I dined, and lucky for me I got a table near the outdoor fireplace where I could people watch and enjoy my tasty Jamaica (pronounced ha-mike-ah) margarita. This is one of many specialty tequila drinks on the menu and is made with pure agave tequila, agave nectar, fresh lemon, lime and hibiscus (Jamaica) juice. I didn’t get a taste of the Prickly Pear Margarita, but I did sample the Blood Orange Jalapeno Margarita and I might get that next time.

Chef Onofre

So, about the food. For those of you who are picky about their guacamole, you will either love it, or think it’s too expensive for what it is.  For me, it was exactly how I prefer it.  There was no raw onion that I had to pick out or extra “stuff” in it.  It was just ripe, fresh, buttery avocado with a few tomatoes and not much else.  For me, it was delicious.  And although I truly enjoyed it, the guac was not my favorite appetizer.  My favorite was the Garlic Shrimp.  This is where the seafood roots of the restaurant really shined.  This is a Mexican inspired dish, but it was clearly concocted with a French flair.  White wine, butter and garlic mingled deliciously with the perfectly cooked shrimp and red pepper.  Yes, that was my favorite.

For dinner, since there was a group of four of us, we decided to each get something different from the menu and share. I had the Paella Valenciana, which was on their special menu and recommended by our adorable and attentive server, Allyson (with a Y). With mussels, clams, shrimp and saffron rice, once again, I was treated to a seafood dish crafted with years of aquatic food experience. The Chicken Enchiladas are and were fundamental for our Mexican feast. I think they might be some of the best enchiladas in Santa Barbara, but then again, I am a sucker for enchiladas. I discussed this with a friend (who was not there that night) to get her opinion and she said she came in for the enchiladas one night and came back the next night so she could order them again! Anyway, I would encourage someone at your table to order them so you can taste and decide for yourself. The next dish we ordered was the Chile Verde. This dish was nice and spicy and the tender braised pork fell apart on your fork. I would order it again on a cold winter evening to warm my belly and enjoy with a cold beer. Last but not least we had the Especial de la Casa, and it was indeed Especial. Roasted pastilla pepper baked with Oazaca and Monterey Jack cheese and shrimp was a keeper. This was the table favorite and after our musical chairs of tasting everyone’s dish I have to say I did reach over for one more bite.

Baneulos

And this brings be back to the end. My new favorite dessert is Banuelos. It’s hard to believe that after meal like this that I had any room for dessert, but happily I did not pass it up.   One bite and you will see what I mean.

Hats off to talented chef Onofre. I will be back, and I might just start with dessert next time!

I would like to share this article with you. Lovingly written, applies to all gardening! Linda Buzzell, co-founder of Santa Barbara Organic Garden Club, has a true communion with plant beings, and I’m hoping we, you and I, will all work on bettering our connections with them as well. Long before I started veggie gardening, less than a decade ago, I read Findhorn Garden and was impressed way back then, by the relationship the gardeners had with the land and the plants and how successful that was for them both. Bless you for your kind attention.

Mystic Rose at Rosaflora.net

A WINTER MEDITATION ON PRUNING

Linda Buzzell-Saltzman

Winter and early spring are the seasons when many gardeners, orchardists and farmers — fancying themselves surgeons — approach their trees, shrubs and roses with knives, pruning shears and saws in hand, seemingly unaware that these plants are, as the Buddhists would say, sentient beings.

Most pruning is less a conversation between two of nature’s creatures and more an act of ruthless domination under the guise of necessity.

For some reason over the last few millennia we have come to believe that plants are unable to survive, bloom and fruit properly without human intervention. And while much of the painstaking breeding and hybridizing by our ancestors has provided us with an extraordinary variety of edible plants, it may be time to question some of the time-honored Western methods of plant care.

What’s shocking to many people is that scientific research is beginning to reveal the utter lack of necessity for most of the one-sided surgery we call pruning. For example, a British study showed that rose bushes pruned with hedge clippers yielded as many flowers as those carefully manicured with hand pruners – and that roses left alone yielded still more!

Where did we get the arrogant idea that we know better than the plant itself how to maximize its productivity and health? Such a strange notion, when you think about it… perhaps part of the larger delusion that nature is here merely for us to exploit without thought of the damage we may be doing to individual living beings or our biosphere.

So when might our pruning interventions actually be helpful rather than hurtful? And for whom?

The first principle of permaculture is “observe and interact” – admirable advice in the present instance. Taking time to respectfully see how the plant itself intends to grow, bloom and fruit allows us greater insight into if, how and when to intervene.

Vintage Gardens Nursery’s Gregg Lowery, heritage rose expert extraordinaire, points out that mostly we prune for our own reasons that have nothing to do with the plant in question. It’s a one way conversation. For instance, we may prune to make a plant look better to our eyes, our sense of what’s beautiful or “tidy.” Or we may need to prune for space, when a tree or bush begins to outgrow its allotted place – probably because we made the mistake of not allowing for full, natural growth when we planted it – our error, not the plant’s!

Rather than remove such a plant entirely, we may need to first apologize, and then gently shape it. Not just to suit our ideas of aesthetics (again, to please us, not the plant), but hopefully to benefit both the plant and our space needs.

If so, we might want to observe that traditional pruning times and methods were usually designed for Northern conditions, to protect a tender plant from winter frosts. In a warm-winter climate this isn’t necessary, and yet many of us who live in Mediterranean climate zones dutifully hack away at our roses in usually-wet winters, reducing them to stubs and weakening them with radical surgery. In fact, it’s usually better to do any pruning for size in the summer if possible, when lack of rain may ensure more sanitary conditions.

This whole “do no harm” philosophy of pruning owes a great debt to Japanese philosopher-farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, author of a hugely influential book called One Straw Revolution, who advocated what he called “natural farming” or what some have dubbed “The Zen of Farming,” in which we refrain from digging, cutting or intervening unnecessarily in natural soil and plant systems which we truly don’t understand. We also may need to refine our view of what’s beautiful, to appreciate nature’s own gardening style rather than the control-heavy European aesthetic.

If we do prune, perhaps we might initiate a respectful dialogue with our plants and trees, rather than a monologue. What might be helpful to the plant? Perhaps the removal of a dead or diseased limb? A limb that is rubbing against another in the wind? A sucker from below the graft (if we have a grafter plant) that is draining energy from the top growth?

Observation is the key. And listening. If we take the time to really get to know our plants, they will guide us in our care for them.

Yet another downtown Starbucks… the fourth coffee shop of it’s nature is now open on the corner of Carrillo and De La Vina. The shop isn’t expected to sell beer or wine.

Talk of the Town… the movie generating the most buzz at the SB International Film Festival is Starbuck, a story about a sperm donor who fathered 533 children. “Funny, heartwarming, made me laugh and cry,” said one Festival enthusiast. “It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen at the Festival.” Starbuck plays again tonight, 7:40 p.m. at the Metro IV.

Occupy Santa Barbara… a documentary about the leaderless local movement, with a focus on the De La Guerra arrests, screens Saturday at the Metro IV, 10:10 p.m.

Recommended reading… a new 158-page book is out on the life of George Owen Knapp.

They’ve been working on the railroad… a project to replace nearly 50,000 railroad ties throughout Santa Barbara County wraps up this week. 160 track workers and 50 traffic controllers were needed to replace the local ties for the first time in 20 years.

Ugly Early… a dozen mud-filled press releases were sent this week by the candidates running for the California 19th State Senate District. It’s barely February, and the gloves are already off for Jason Hodge, Hannah-Beth Jackson and Mike Stoker.

Keeping Santa Barbara Santa Barbara… make a a tax deductible donation for the Chromatic Gate Restoration – a check can be made out to the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, at P.O. Box 2369, Santa Barbara, CA 93120.

Right about now, I’m wishing it was primary time in California—I’d like to see Republican front-runner and the likely nominee for the presidency take a walk down State Street. After Mitt Romney’s comments about his lack of concern for the poor—and his belief that they’re caught by some magical safety net—it might be a real eye-opener for him to see how torn and tattered it really is, even in America’s Riviera.

He could spend the night in some sumptuous digs in a pristine compound in Montecito, where he’d surely feel comfortable rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous living there. But that’s only part of the story around here, despite the recent Hollywood Reporter article, one of those breathless real estate features that focus on the glitterati who have purchased pricey getaways on the beach or in the hills of Santa Barbara—leaving the impression everyone who lives here is part of the one percent.

But then I’d like to see him take a morning walk on the wild side of our downtown business district and catch a strong whiff of what’s going on out on the streets The sensory assault makes a glitter bomb seem like just a sparkly interlude. Morning is prime time for the down-and-out to congregate on State Street, after spending the night in a shelter, or simply finding shelter somewhere we can’t even imagine. That’s when they’re out in numbers, begging for bucks and depending on the kindness of strangers to supply them with food, drink and handouts for them to purchase who knows what else to get them through the day.

Those nice benches where they hang out might look good in the expansive gardens at one of the many Romney homes—the $12 million one in La Jolla, or the multi-properties on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire, complete with boathouse, stables and tennis courts. But in Santa Barbara, they’ve turned into a sort of daytime shelter, a place to be—even after they were repositioned at the tune of $50,000, less than a single day’s work for our man Mitt.

In all the Republican debates I’ve subjected myself to, not one single question has been asked, not a single word has been uttered about chronic, desperate homelessness—and communities that attempt to deal with it. Santa Barbara is obviously not the only place where it’s happening. But these out-of-touch elites appear to be completely, totally and disgustingly oblivious to the desperate circumstances of real human beings—who for whatever reasons live as beggars on the streets of the U.S.A.

Like all of us, I have none of the answers when it comes to poverty and homelessness, the local industry that supports it, or the irony of glamorous walled compounds located just a mile away from homeless shelters. But I wrestle with the issue—and sure despair when someone who holds Presidential aspirations seems oblivious to a primary fact of life around here. That mythical safety net has been ripped and torn beyond repair—and as we try to cope with it, the social fabric for the rest of us is getting pretty threadbare, too.

Political debates are often born as emerging social issues framed as an either / or situation with mutually exclusive outcomes. That automatically polarizes the issue into black  / white extremes. When positions become polarized, it sets up a false choice. These are mental traps. Avoid them.

A few examples of false choice framing that come to mind:

• Either we help the homeless, or we’re cruel.
• Either the gang injunction, or programs to help at-risk youth.
• Either bulb-outs save lives, or they’re annoying impediments that artificially constrain cars.
• Either allow marijuana dispensaries, or a cancer patient suffers.

Those false choice arguments, once entrenched, then perpetuate poor logic downstream. In our example above on homelessness, that initial framing expands to include:
1. Help is clearly always the right answer.
2. More help must then be better. If helping isn’t working, then we must simply escalate our efforts.

The unspoken thought here is that we can’t bear to be thought of as cruel, so we must cleave to helping. No other choice is possible.

The pitfall of false choice framing is it blinds us to information that could illuminate the real problem, and lead to a solution. When information emerges that doesn’t fit our frame, however, our first psychological move is to edit it out, pretend it isn’t there. Our second move is to reclassify it so that it falls into the opposition frame, and is thus bad.

Some have seen that our notions of help sometimes enable anti-social behaviors that we’d ideally not want to encourage. Imagine the businessman on State watching someone hand money to a panhandler, feeling good that they have done something to help a soul in need. The panhandler then trots to the nearest liquor store for a fifth, and later passes out on a bench. He awakens to another transient attempting to steal his booze, and promptly stabs the would-be thief. The cops come, and run warrants checks. Turns out the stabber has a felony warrant from another jurisdiction. People now perceive the area as unsafe, and business falls off.

First responders have long dealt with felons posing as homeless. Business owners who’ve had their windows smashed out, or experienced assaults clearly recognize that some homeless are not harmless. Neighbors might howl in despair when well-meaning individuals turn up with food for the transients that just did some drugs on the corner.

But anyone with these kinds of experiences who then tries to present this information in a public setting will be stunned to hear the equivalent of a Greek Chorus erupt, damning them as heartless meanies who don’t understand the needs of the helpless individuals lodged in a semi-permanent state of despair, further crippled by mental health and substance abuse issues. “They need our help! We’re helping them! It’s going to work someday! You’re just being cruel!”

Needless to say, the neighbors watching the corner drug users getting fed, and the businessman dealing with the panhandling inebriate will hardly be reassured, and have little faith that this sort of help will ever fix the problems they encounter.

Here, then, is the trap of the false choice frame. Information that falls outside of the frame is edited out as though it didn’t exist, or is classified as opposition, and therefore, bad.

People with countering information are thus effectively silenced by the false choice frame. A great deal of useful information is repressed from view this way.

So how do we loosen the grip of false choice framing?

Reject the argument the false choice attempts to make true. Staying with our example of homeless issues, accept that we see certain things others don’t, and that fact alone does not render us cold-hearted meanies. It actually means we’re walking around with a missing piece of the puzzle.

That’s an asset, not some dreadful character flaw.

Recognize there is likely a both / and statement available that replaces the artificial either / or. We want to both help the homeless in need and be effective at it. We don’t want to enable anti-social behaviors that can harm our community.

I’ve used one example that many of us have strong feelings about to illustrate both the power of the false choice argument, and the information it hides from view. You could easily do this for any issue.

Be prepared for resistance. Abandoning a false choice frame that you invested effort in generates tremendous psychological discomfort. Be prepared for the equivalent of social Siberia should you attempt to get someone to see outside a frame they’re particularly invested in. But seeing something different doesn’t automatically mean you’re wrong, just as shouting someone down won’t make you right.

If we want to solve some of the issues that plague us, we have to be willing to challenge the false choice frames that keep us stuck.

Comfy it isn’t, but required it is.

The IRS agent was in the room, and everyone was just too busy to notice.

Christopher Doyal, a Santa Maria-based IRS agent involved with partnerships in education, surveyed the students focused on preparing tax returns for members of the community. “These kids are learning a life skill, and giving back,” he noted. “They are helping educate others, and enhancing their own financial education.”

Sign of the Times: It's tax time at SBHS.

These students, trained and certified by the Internal Revenue Service, are participants in the nationwide program known as VITA—Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. Several dozen high schools participate in VITA, but as Doyal proudly observed, “This program at Santa Barbara High ranks Number One across the nation.”

It was the first school authorized by the IRS to file returns electronically, and was described by the Los Angeles Department of the IRS as “The best practice model to be emulated for quality and utility.”

VITA coordinator Jesus Terrazas assists a fellow student.

This is the 18th year Dons students have learned to prepare tax returns, and performed this community service for free; each year they assist approximately 600 individuals with their taxes. VITA students are proud of their ability to crunch numbers and figure out complicated tax forms for students, single moms, elderly and low-income individuals who need help—but can’t afford to pay for tax services. As sophomore student/VITA Coordinator Jesus Terrazas puts it: “We help people so they can save money. We teach students good customer service, and it shows.”

Most of the students in VITA are members of the school’s Virtual Enterprise program, known as the Dons Net Café, with the motto, “Doin’ Some Good in the World.” It is part of the ROP (Regional Occupational Program) administered through the County Office of Education. The students learn business and entrepreneurial skills as they run successful enterprises—from selling African bracelets to assist children with HIV/AIDS to running their own website, creating their own marketing and promotion programs; selling healthy snacks and personalized items, as well as participating in community activities from the recent Carrot Mob to Earth Day. Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s, recently spoke at their Grand Opening celebration.

Miss B and IRS Agent Christopher Doyal confer over tax forms.

All this takes place under the watchful eye of Lee Ann Knodel, known affectionately as “Miss B.” Her extraordinary rapport with students—especially those who are struggling to find their way—inspires many. Her ability to make a one-on-one connection is highly valued; her kindness and generosity are legendary.

“Miss B is way more than a teacher, she is a real friend,” explained a former student. “And you can’t even begin to describe her knowledge of business, computers and especially, people.”

Business partners that support the program include the United Way, Montecito Bank & Trust, Marborg and Partners in Education, as well as The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots.The VITA services are available free of charge on a drop-in basis on Thursday afternoons at Santa Barbara High School from 3 to 6 p.m. through the end of tax season; the classroom is located on the Canon Perdido side of campus, near Nopal Street. For more information: www.DonsNetCafe.com or view the video here.

A random stop for locals along the Film Feast trail is Bistro 1111, located at the southern end of the Hyatt Santa Barbara. The restaurant faces out towards East Beach.

Bistro 1111 has a brand new approach… a new staff, a very friendly new chef named Martin (pictured left), and a whole new menu. For starters, the Film Feast menu offers the choice of crab cakes, with a delicious Chipolte Aioli sauce, or Ceasar Salad. The entree choices are organic roasted chicken, local sea bass, and New York steak topped by a mouthwatering gorgonzola butter.

Rather than developing new items for the Film Feast, Martin chose to offer the best of the bistro. He says that 80% of the customers since the Festival started have chosen the Film Feast option, and why not? For $38, the portions are generous and the price is right – the NY steak alone is $25 on the regular menu. And then there is the dessert! The highlight of the meal, besides the service, was a molten chocolate souffle with a vanilla scented strawberry sauce (pictured right).

You can get the Film Feast menu now through February 5th.

McDonalds owes a debt of gratitude to Santa Barbara for its gift of the late Herb Peterson, who, in the 1960′s with Don Greadel, invented the Egg McMuffin. Though it took until 1972 for this mighty little breakfast orb and renowned hangover cure to become nationally distributed, it remains as much a hit today as it did then.

Of course, McDonald’s didn’t have 27 million daily U.S. customers then (growing by one million per year) and fast food hadn’t become a major component of America’s blubbery big-bottoms tilting the scales of healthcare cost and limiting longevity.

I recently read that the city of Loma Linda is attempting to prevent ‘Mickey D’ from coming to its health-oriented town. Seems that about half of the 22,000 residents are Seventh Day Adventists, who approach their bodies with serious intent: no alcohol, no tobacco, no caffeine, and usually vegetarian.

The residents of Loma Linda have been designated by National Geographic as one of four cities in the world where residents life expectancies reach into their 80′s, 90′s and 100′s. (Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica and Sardinia, Italy are the others.)

Clearly, these folks are evidence that driving through the golden arches can also fast track you toward the pearly gates. But we live in a society with freedom of choice, and reward developers and their seemingly insatiable appetite for new fast food locations.

Even in towns where the population really doesn’t want them.

Loma Linda does in fact have a del Taco and Carl’s, Jr. but the Happy Meal location is a little too close to “site of the rolling hills that Adventists prophet Ellen G. White envisioned as a haven for the church.”

City Council in between a rock and a Big Mac on this one. The Loma Linda University Medical Center has joined with the Adventists in pleading to restrict the placement, and every council member knows there is another election right around the corner.

So, should Uncle Sam replace Betty Crocker in the kitchen? Is it the role of government- local, state or federal- to control what we eat? I can’t imagine it is a just matter of “education,” because if anyone still believes you can have a healthy body surviving on brown and white fried food seven days a week, they haven’t been to the doctor in a while. And don’t tell me it’s cheap, because in the long run, poor health is anything but.

While it is the government’s role to protect its citizens, many say it is overreach to prevent us from simply making bad choices. The ‘nanny state’ mentality has been a popular theme in this year’s Presidential campaign already; ironically with the one physician of the lot, Ron Paul, the most Libertarian stand of all.

Is putting a KFC within walking distance of an open campus high school a similar health risk to placing an outlet for medical marijuana nearby? I know plenty of parents who would storm the gates of City Hall over ‘legal’ weed being distributed down the street from classrooms, but wouldn’t think twice about the health risks of super-sizing their adolescent.

And what if good food choices are offered in schools, but no one will eat them? Recent ‘healthy meals’ in the L.A. system have not only been rejected by the student bodies, they’ve petitioned to end the practice.

“We, the students of Roosevelt High School, would like to be served food that we can enjoy eating, rather than the ‘healthier’ food that we just throw away,” reads the dictum designed to end the high-nutrition, but often unfamiliar selections like butternut squash and tortellini.

Children are not the only cannon fodder in the food wars. Starbucks, with its 6,500 American outlets, is testing out the addition of beer and wine to its selection of caffeinated ‘highs.’ To quote Clarice Turner, senior vice president of U.S. operations, “As our customers transition from work to home, many are looking for a warm and inviting place to unwind and connect with people they care about.”

Do we really need 6,500 more places for stressed out employees to ‘unwind’ with alcohol before they get back behind the wheel of their cars and head home? However, our street drunks might be thrilled to know they can not only get a cup o’ joe, but a jigger of merlot for their sign-holding efforts. And will the fast food ‘heavyweights,’ soon follow, with bourbon at Burger King, or Taco Bell n’ tequila?

In the battle of mass marketing versus common sense, when should schools, hospitals, churches or governments step in to save us from ourselves?

Mayor Rhodes Rigsby of Loma Linda is personally frustrated with the attention his town is receiving. His belief is that, “we should keep people from harming one another, but government doesn’t have a strong need to keep people from harming themselves.” Across town, Dr. Wellhausen, from the University’s school of preventative medicine, views fast food promotion with a more ‘jaundiced’ eye. He believes that saying there is a “healthy menu at McDonald’s, is like putting 5 milligrams of Vitamin C in a cigarette.”

Whether it be fatty livers in obese children ten years of age, or folks driving drunk after getting barista’d at Starbucks, the government is likely going to try to save us from ourselves…at least until we decide that living a long, active and healthy life is the smarter and ultimately cheaper choice to make.