There is much to say about food in Santa Barbara, but perversely I feel compelled to begin with a smoky anecdote from Music City.
Quite a while ago I was a songwriter in Nashville, which means I was a bartender. One of the bars I tended was in a groovy music hall called the Exit/In. And one night the featured performer was Michael Murphey, who had a hit with a song called “Wildfire,” about a horse that busted down its stall. Before Michael would take the stage, he insisted that all cigarettes be extinguished and that the wildfire smoke be cleared.
At the time that seemed kind of fussy to a lot of us in the trenches, but now that I’m no longer a self-destructive youth, I’m on board. In fact, I ended up in California partially because of the healthy food.