FOOD
avoid under any circumstances. What they served there on Friday in Los Banos cannot even be categorized as food. Any Denny's or Wendy's will serve you much better. It was basicly deep frozen stuff made warm and with garlic. I looked ugly and it tasted even worse. Price category: 70 US$/2 persons including beverage, tax, tip. It was so disgusting I do not have words to describe it properly. The cook obviously had never eaten any Italian dish in his life.
Frank, you have discovered one of the dark sides of American food. Despite the vast overall improvements in my lifetime, the widespread interest in fine cuisine, the high-end restaurants and the merely good ones at reasonable prices, there is a long history of atrocious food being served here. This often applies to what's called "ethnic" food - food from nationalities such as the Italians (formerly), Chinese, and Mexicans that were or still are not as assimilated as the older English, Scottish, and German immigrants. Such food has often been "dumbed down" to fit traditional unsophisticated American tastes, to the point of being little like the genuine article. Italian food has long been in the category of ethnic food, and I learned as a child to avoid Italian restaurants even though I'm part Italian and loved my mother's Italian cooking.
Things have changed since then and many excellent restaurants can be found in these categories. You can still find the awful ones, though, most likely in towns far from the cities and in other more rural areas. Or sometimes in the cities as well, as in the case of the Mexican restaurant I ignorantly directed us to last Tuesday when my first choice proved to be too noisy.
BIOTA
look what we found on the 17 Mile drive!
Bull kelp,
Nereocystis lutkeana, which often washes up on beaches. The larger giant kelp,
Macrocystis pyrifera, forms large underwater forests and is a vital part of California's coastal ecology.
Wild turkey
grass
Neither is native to the state. The turkey is from the eastern part of the country. The plant is Harding grass (
Phalaris aquatica). Nearly all the grass you have been seeing on your visit is from other parts of the world; native grasses are scarce in most parts of the state.
PHOTOS
Despite the complaints I'm enjoying the show. People might try thinking of it as a stream-of-consciousness presentation.
