Show of hands, please: how many of you were first introduced to Mexican food by Taco Bell (en-chi-REE-toe,TAH-co)? And how many of you were shocked to learn that Taco Bell is not actually Mexican food as served in Mexico?

Ooops. Sorry. Femme de Joie just realized that she may have committed the culinary equivalent of saying there’s no Santa Claus. ( Read more... )

For six decades there’s been a whole lotta cooking going on in that tiny concrete block building on Placer, the one across from Holly Bail Bonds. Back in the 1960s it was home to Jan’s Frost Shop, run by a swarthy burly hirsute man who called everyone sweetheart and who made the most fabulous greasy pastrami sandwiches and French fries. After Jan’s ( Read more... )

If you haven’t lived in Redding long, you might be surprised to know that Market Street used to be part of California’s main thoroughfare. The Highway Formerly Known As 99 ran from Mexico to the Oregon border and was quite the accomplishment in interstate highways. When Interstate 5 was completed - likewise an accomplishment - it decimated ( Read more... )

It might surprise some folks to learn that the Redding strip mall known as Cypress Colony was once a Southern Baptist Church. When that congregation upped sticks and moved elsewhere, developers turned the Sunday school classrooms into shops and offices; the former sanctuary became a restaurant. It seemed like a promising plan - after all, Cypress ( Read more... )

If you are of a certain age and grew up in the North Valley, you probably have some indelible memories of summer. Your family car might have been a Ford Falcon or a Rambler with vinyl bench seats (sans seat belts) that got hot enough to leave burn marks on bare legs. There were no shopping malls; all stores faced a street and you walked outside ( Read more... )

Jane and Michael Stern, those chroniclers of true American food, wrote in their 1986 travelogue-cum-cookbook “Real American Food” of the Southern phenomena of combining food and unrelated commerce: “Drive along a country road in the Mississippi Delta and you will come across Upholstery Repair-Catfish Parlors, Flats Fixed-Barbecues, and Seamstress- ( Read more... )

After Senor Rosa's upped sticks and moved into the old Leatherby's Family Creamery at the south end of the Downtown Mall (call it the Promenade all you like, it's still the old Downtown Mall) that funny little cinder block building set back from Eureka Way didn't sit vacant for long. Salvador Hernandez stepped up and opened El Rinconcito a few ( Read more... )

Long ago - long ago being relative, of course - there was a Mexican restaurant in Hamilton City which was apparently the bee's knees to Hamilton City diners. The exact name of it escapes Femme de Joie just now, and after doing a brief search on the internet, apparently no one else remembers it either. But what M. de Joie does recall is that there ( Read more... )

Long, long ago, in a space of time after dirt was discovered but before Interstate 5, there were only two-lane roads. Incredible, yes, yet it's true. Femme de Joie saw it with her own two eyes. She traveled those roads often whenever the de Joies went on a weekend trip . Mostly the trips were modest ventures, as the crow flies: Crater Lake, Lassen ( Read more... )

Longtime Redding residents will remember the old Italian Cottage on Hilltop Drive, pre-dating even the Mount Shasta Mall. Sawdust was piled high enough on the floor to get in your shoes, they put an olive in your beer, and the minestrone had hard vegetables mixed with squashy ones. Femme de Joie has fond memories of trying to fit a small group of ( Read more... )