Emily Berl for The New York Times
The beach in Carpinteria, Calif.
By DANIELLE PERGAMENT
Published: September 28, 2012
YOU know what doesn’t change in 20 years? The smell of eucalyptus. To some people, that soft, sweet green scent is the smell of massages and yoga classes. To me, it’s teenage angst. To me, the smell of high school, the smell of nervousness, awkwardness, acne, hormones, the smell of being a teenager is all wrapped up in the smell of eucalyptus.
Emily Berl for The New York Times
A breakfast burrito at Beach Liquor.
Emily Berl for The New York Times
A pathway at the Cate School, which the author attended as a teenager.
Emily Berl for The New York Times
In Carpinteria, Calif., a point of pride is spelled out in a wall mural by John Wullbrandt.
When I was 15, I packed up, left my home in New York, and moved to the Cate School, a small boarding school in the small town of Carpinteria, Calif. The “mesa,” which would be called a “campus” in Connecticut or Massachusetts, is tucked into the hills just above this sleepy little surf town that few outside of Southern California have even heard of.
Cate was hardly a typical high school. We had no football team, but we did have a lot of shaggy blond kids who surfed during free periods. The hallways of the English department had no walls because it never rained or snowed or reached temperatures less perfect than 68 degrees. The balcony of my dorm room (because, yes, my dorm room had a balcony) had a view of the Pacific. And eucalyptus trees were in abundance: lining the driveway, bordering the soccer field, filling our dorms at night with their intoxicating smell. If there is a more idyllic place to come of age, I don’t know it.
But I haven’t been a student at Cate for 20 years — and it was reunion time. As eager as I was to see old friends, I was also curious about “Carp,” as students call the town.
Carp is a few cities south of Santa Barbara and borders Montecito, in one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the country (Oprah has a home there). But while Montecito — with its pruned hedges and expensive boutiques — had always been one-percenter territory, Carp was not, with concentrations of Mexican immigrants, blue-collar workers, and surfers.
A huge chunk of Carp’s identity is surfing. And the town’s surf shops are as much a draw for people like my friend Jason, who owns more boards than shoes, as they are for people like me — the frauds who don’t surf but like to wear the clothes. The town’s two surf shops — Rincon Designs, which makes its own boards on site and A-Frame Surf, which is one of the few places in the area that offers surfing lessons — were thriving.
Carpinteria bills itself as having “the world’s safest beach,” meaning there is no undertow that will suck you in and drag you out to the middle of the Pacific. And while the beaches can get crowded, they never reach the packed-sardine levels of more famous Southern California towns. But I didn’t come for the beach.
Now that I was back, I wanted to know if the town that had ushered in my growing up had grown up as well. I had heard that Carp had changed. Mention restaurants and any local will boast about the two fanciest places in town — Sly’s, revered for its grilled artichokes, mouthwatering mussels marinière, and lively bar scene, and Zookers Cafe, which serves dishes like baby spinach salad, grilled salmon and other items you would expect to find in pleasant white-tablecloth restaurants the country over.
As a New Yorker, I live a short subway ride away from more fancy restaurants than I could eat at in a lifetime. What was more interesting to me, what I was craving, and what Carp does better than any town north of Oaxaca is Mexican food. Mexican immigrants have been pouring into Carp since the 1800s. Add to that the fact that Carp is the avocado capital of the world (and the site of an annual event called the California Avocado Festival: Three Days of Peace, Love and Guacamole), and you have a recipe for some very fresh, very delicious Mexican fare.
On the advice of my friend Lisa, I started my Mexican food odyssey at a place called Beach Liquor, which is actually a bodega.
Feeling as though maybe I was being Punk’d, I drove past Starbucks, past Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, past cute little cafes serving cute little cafe food and pulled up in front of a nondescript Mexican market on Linden Avenue. I walked in and saw standard bodega offerings: dusty racks of chips, candy, nondescript junk food and rolls of lottery tickets. I would have walked right back out, but Lisa is never wrong about these things.
So I went to the deli counter in the back, and with great skepticism, ordered a breakfast burrito. Then something happened that made me realize this would not be my last meal at this nondescript little bodega: The man behind the counter started seeding and dicing a tomato. Moments later, he was doing the same thing to a jalapeño. Then an onion. And it dawned on me: this was my pico de gallo. In fact, nothing that went into my breakfast burrito came out of a jar. Not only were all the ingredients fresh, they also most likely came from a few miles down the road.
Next, he was scrambling my eggs to perfect fluffiness, sprinkling on shredded cheese to perfect meltiness, and folding the whole thing into a warmed tortilla. By the time he was wrapping the burrito in paper, my mouth was watering. I walked outside, found a seat on a nearby fire hydrant, and unwrapped my work of art. I watched the people down the block having breakfast at a cafe and as I savored every last bite, I couldn’t help feeling a little smug.
The tricky part about a food odyssey in three days is that no matter how many people you ask for advice, and no matter how well intentioned those people are, they will send you to the wrong places. It’s like asking a New Yorker for advice on what show to see: 9 out of 10 will send you to “The Book of Mormon.” It’s the rare local who will suggest a small-but-terrific, Off Off Broadway show that’s just as good as “The Book of Mormon” but not as famous.
I wanted to eat at a Mexican place where actual Mexican people ate. I can get a pretty good approximation of Mexican food near my office in Manhattan. I wanted something muy auténtico. I wanted Off Off Broadway. Instead, I got Delgado’s Mexican Foods. The margaritas at Delgado’s are salty and delicious, the guacamole is fresh and creamy, the restaurant is colorful and busy. It’s great, popular and, basically, the Carpinteria restaurant equivalent of “The Book of Mormon.”
Here’s the thing: If I wanted to know where Mexicans eat, I should be asking Mexicans, not my former classmates Eric and Mara (who still live in the area). The next day, I went to the Reyes Market, which sells south-of-the-border spoils like Mexican Coca-Cola (made with cane sugar, not corn syrup, which makes more of a difference than you would think). I asked some day laborers sitting outside if they could recommend a good place for lunch.
That’s how I found TaquerÃa El Buen Gusto. Over my quesadilla — warm, gooey, topped with fresh avocado — I asked my waitress, Cecilia Vejar, what she thought accounted for Carp’s great Mexican food. “The food is made by people who know how it should taste,” she said. “These are the same recipes we use back in Mexico.”
After my quesadilla (and maybe an order of nachos), I could sense my Mexican Food Odyssey being replaced by a Mexican Food Coma. That’s when Lisa — the one with the foolproof recommendations — called. “It’s our reunion,” she said. “Stop reporting your story and come meet everyone for a beer.”
An hour later I was at the Island Brewing Company, a microbrewery a few blocks from the beach. The class of 1992 represented well that day. There were about a dozen of us crowded around the patio tables, laughing, reliving memories, pretending that not much had changed in 20 years.
We talked about sneaking off campus, about afternoons on the beach, about the AP Chemistry teacher who routinely locked himself out of the lab and had to climb in through the window. But of course we had changed. Ellie is now Elizabeth, Amy now goes by Mimi, and as one pint of Island Pale Ale became two, a few people started passing around iPhone pictures of their children.
It’s not easy to go back to the place where you became an adult. You can’t dissociate yourself from the angst, the mistakes, the naïveté. But it is cathartic. By evening, my teenage years had been thoroughly relived, there was no Mexican food left to eat, and my weekend in Carp was coming to an end. The seal of nostalgia had been broken. The eucalyptus stopped reminding me quite as powerfully that I hadn’t studied for my midterm. Old Carp had been replaced by a cooler, more modern version of itself that still had the best Mexican food going. The place had changed and the realization was bittersweet.
We all left with promises to return for our 25th reunion, but for now it was time to go. I had a plane to catch — and my family was waiting for me.
IF YOU GO
WHERE TO STAY
The Linden House (789 Linden Avenue, Carpinteria; 805-574-0031; carpinteriacoast.com/lindenhouse.html). This pleasant, airy three-bedroom house is right in the middle of town and is the perfect jumping-off point for the beach and the main shopping and dining areas. The rate is $425 a night in the off-season, Labor Day to Memorial Day; the high-season rate is $3,000 a week, with a one-week minimum.
The Four Seasons Biltmore (1260 Channel Drive, Santa Barbara; 805-969-2261; fourseasons.com/santabarbara). A 10-minute drive north of Carpinteria, the Biltmore is a vacation unto itself. The rooms are spacious, the restaurants are beautiful, the location is right on the beach, and the whole place smells like jasmine. Rooms start at $625.
The Montecito Inn (1295 Coast Village Road, Santa Barbara; 805-969-7854; montecitoinn.com) is a chic, comfortable hotel right in the middle of Montecito. Double rooms start at $265.
WHERE TO EAT
The Padaro Grill (3765 Santa Claus Lane; 805-566-9800; padarobeachgrill.com) is right on the beach. Picnic tables, a sandbox and endless potential for activity make it ideal for children; reliable beach food and cold beers make it great for their parents.
The Island Brewing Company (5049 Sixth Street; 805-745-8272; islandbrewingcompany.com). Go in the afternoon, get a table outside, and ask the bartender to recommend a pint. You can also buy someone a future beer by writing his or her name on the dry-erase board inside.
TaquerÃa El Buen Gusto (4835 Carpinteria Avenue; 805-684-2255). The tacos are the prize of the menu, but ask for the hot sauce on the side or you will breathe fire for the rest of the day.
