Alice Waters is my Fairy Godmother

After a scenic, sporadically snowy, and event-filled drive..

















...we arrive at Albertson College in Caldwell, Idaho.

Loyal readers will remember our trip to the Pepperdine U cafeteria.

Albertson College's cafeteria makes Pepperdine's look like a McDonald's, which is shocking, considering Pepperdine is in Malibu and we are currently in Caldwell, Idaho.

We happened to have lunch there on their annual "Eat Local Challenge" day. Almost all of the food served was grown within 150 miles (again, we are in Idaho, not Berkeley).

It was like I had imagined my ideal cafeteria, and poof - there it was.


























We sampled groundcherries (aka Cape gooseberry), which look like mini tomatillos but taste like pineapple, pluots, really peppery arugula, lemon cukes, and tiny, super-sweet strawberries. The salad bar had fresh peas (fresh!), handmade mozz, three kinds of tomatoes, pattypan squash, whole cloves of roasty garlic in olive oil...

The pasta station had linguini with chicken, tiny fairy tale eggplants, and black basil. I had the grill special, which was a steak sandwich with cheese (the origin was given, but I can't remember the name of the cheesemaker) and a side salad with lemon cukes and red onions. The steak was thinly sliced, caramelly brown, and really, really good. The soups were heirloom tomato gazpacho (Yurika & Dylan loved it) and pozole (spicy! yum!).








































And this was after I had eaten my weight in local, freshly-picked peaches (part of our backstage snacks, provided by Sylvia, our lovely presenter).

Here is this story from another, more informed perspective.