Arcata California

I am in the Eureka/Arcata area of Northern California this week for work. It is stunningly beautiful for sure. I took a little plane in from San Francisco and we were just feet above the rugged mountains. And then we landed at the tiny airport (and I mean tiny- no gates, you just land on the runway and walk across the tarmac and out a gate) and I was hit with a blast of cool wind. The ocean here is wild, dark blue and constantly whipped up and white-capped. The people are definitely free spirited. Walking around Arcata I saw a lot of dreadlocks, tie-dye, hula-hopping, and crazy things. I thought I had a hippie spirit, but this town makes me feel pretty straight laced.

The center square in Arcta. And after feeling better on Sunday, I am back to feeling not good. So the strange atmosphere added to my dizziness makes me feel like I am in a strange alternate universe. The fact that I am never outside during daylight hours does not help. I’ve gotten up at 4 the last 3 days to work-out and then worked 12 hour shifts in the command center. But I rallied tonight to go out to dinner with a group of people from work, and I'm so glad I did. The food was AMAZING! We went to Folie Douce. The restaurant is tiny, but cozy with bright blue and yellow walls and ceilings. The kitchen is exposed and the wait staff are extremely knowledgeable about the food. Nearly everything is organic and locally sourced. I abstained from the wine because of my cold, but everyone else had a blended California red that they said was amazing. We were offered tastes of any of the wines we were interested in. The bread they served had a great texture, in the middle and crunchy on the outside. I couldn't decide between the many yummy sounding pizzas, so they nicely offered to do half and half. I had half with chanterelle mushrooms, carmelized onions, fontina, garlic, thyme & a drizzle of white truffle aioli and half with pancetta, blue cheese, figs, and arugula. The mushroom was definitely my favorite. The blue cheese was too strong for my linking on the other half, but the figs we nice and sweet and juicy in contrast to the salty pancetta. We were told we had to try to flour-less mocha fudge cake for dessert, and I am so glad we got one to split. I was just going to have one bite, but once I started I couldn't stop. I have had a lot of chocolate cakes in my life, but this was one of the best. It was mousse like in consistency and so flavorful. The creme fresh with violets and mint on the side was a good contrast. I could barely take a picture we were gobbling it down so fast!

After dinner we stayed and talked for nearly 2 hours. This is one of the things I love about my job, I get to meet and interact with such interesting people.