Eating Out Locally

I didn't think it was possible but I was wrong. I've just returned from my first local, 100 mile diet meal out. A friend, my enviromental muse, and I went to Ava's in San Anselmo, three blocks from my home.

What I can't wait to say is they had Sonoma salt on the menu. I'd never even heard of Sonoma salt. Unfortunately the waitress had never heard of it either and fluffed over where you get it but I was too blissed out on the house pulled mozzarella and heirloom melon salad laid on thin rounds of yellow beets, all of which was topped with Sonoma salt, to shake her down for more information.

We sat streetside under heaters and a light pink sunset. The muse ate a salad of sliced peaches, frisee and little gem greens scattered with ricotta and I think a bit of honey. It could have used Sonoma salt for my taste and would have been better appreciated at the end of a hotter day. Okay; it paled in comparison to my salad.

Earlier in the day I'd checked out the menu on Ava's website and decided then to have a Marin Sun Farms burger. It was like Grandma's beef was; from cows with names. It was even a little better. The burger is generally served on a kaiser roll, which I declined and the thimble of house ketchup served on the side was too much with the rich meat taste that I scraped it off but I could have eaten the house pickles with every bite. I could have sold those pickles by the case to the people on the street.

As a side I ordered carrots from a west Marin grower I recognized but can't remember. They were cut into long quarters and sauteed in brown butter with thyme that I shamelessly ate with my fingers, discretely licking them afterwards.

My meal was such a good time I didn't taste the muse's bowl of potato gnocchi with chanterelle mushrooms. When the hostess cleared her plate though I practically saw her reflection in it.

A week ago I'd surrendered to not eating out at all for the month given that I'd proclaimed I would eat only food produced within 100 miles, meaning every spec of salt and dollop of oil; meaning everything in capital letters and no restaurant could live up to that. But I was wrong. Deliciously and satisfyingly wrong.