Borrowed Kitchens: Alexia's Granparents' Beach House, Cambria, CA

Post by Lara

For our second "Borrowed Kitchens" post, we stopped along the California coast in beautiful Cambria, where our friend Alexia's grandparents have a beach house.  When we first heard "beach house in California," we thought of hot sun and white sand with warm waves lapping up the shore.  Well, the waves were there-- just about everything else was a bit different.  The Central California coast is not warm, and it's not terribly sandy-- but the tide pools created by the big rocks on the shoreline are very interesting-- full of hermit crabs, sea anemones, and snails.

 For our first ever dinner on the Pacific coast, we thought seafood would be fitting. We picked up some Albacore tuna steaks and cruised up to the beach house with a cooler full of vegetables from Vegas. Alexia and her sister Carina helped us prepare dinner.

Tuna steaks rubbed with salt, black pepper, and cayenne before broiling

Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts before roasting

Lemon slices for our tuna steaks

Cheddar cheese makes everything more delicious

Our dinner of tuna and roasted veggies was just perfect for our first evening on the Pacific.  The following night, we went a bit less healthy and grabbed individual slices of pie from Linn's, a famous bakery in Cambria, and ate it on the beach.  We have no regrets whatsoever.

Before leaving Cambria, we had to stop over at Hearst Castle for a quick look at what I can only describe as one of the classiest over-the-top mansions we've ever had the pleasure of being allowed into, and we were treated to an absolutely fabulous day on top of the 'Enchanted Hill'.  We also got to see a herd of zebras leftover from Hearst's menagerie-- though I wasn't quick enough to snap a photo.

 Next stop: Sacramento (after a winding climb up the coast through Big Sur).