California Mexican

California Mexican food can be wonderful. I believe that it's based on the cuisine of Baja California, of which the border is only 30 or 40 miles from here, but on the other hand, the "Mexican" people were the Californians, before the USA got here and overpopulated everywhere. Could you say that California Mexican food came with the territory? Or was it really invented more recently? I don't know -- one long-existing place we've eaten says they've had some of the same recipes since the 1940s. Sunset magazine and its spin-off cookbooks wrote about all this from its beginnings, more than 100 years ago.

Sunday, we had huevos ranchero and a scrambled egg burrito for brunch. The place we ate wasn't particularly Mexican -- there were lots of ordinary American foods like sandwiches available, as well as coffee drinks. Today we ate lunch at Sbicca in DelMar. It's named for its owners -- sounds Italian, doesn't it? We ordered the fish tacos -- batter-fried with creamy dressing, which is local style -- and quesidillas with chicken, havarti cheese, and avocado, papaya chunks, and baby greens. I'm thinking fusion, or maybe confusion. But delicious.