Good Times Editor Brad Kava leads several surprising lives.
He’s a rock harmonica performer. He’s a Cabrillo College professor. He’s a super dad who not only leapt into fatherhood later in life but birthed a parenting magazine along the way.
Most shockingly, though, he’s a Burger Puritan. No cheese, no tomato, no lettuce, maybe even no sauce, just protein and bun.
“I want to taste the meat!” he told his Cabrillo class when he had me in for a class on food reporting.
While that did have me expressing concerns, it led me to one of his students’ favorite places to get a burger: Grady’s Market (509 Bay Ave., Capitola).
The burger there presents a solid value and straightforward satisfaction.
It’s also fifth or sixth down the list of outstanding elements to recommend the singular bodega, whose local identity I love so much I wanted to get them in the compilation of max Santa Cruz spots for this issue’s special food and drink insert—along with the magical powers of Chaminade Resort & Spa, Surf City’s sublime ice cream culture and Birichino’s world-class tasting room.
The other standout qualities at Grady’s include a deep roster of craft beer and local wine, a bin of Marianne’s Ice Cream flavors, an eyebrow-raising inventory of bespoke and basic snacks, classic sinful ciggy and lottery options, and the kicker: Casa Birria, which does burgers and asada fries to order but also inventive forms of birria (including ramen, tortas and “pizza”), solid fish tacos and much more.
This Casa, which turns 2 this fall, is also noticeably shiny and clean, with movies playing on a big flat screen.
All in all it’s a neighborhood blessing, with the steady tide of regulars to affirm it. casabirriaca.com
NUTRITIOUS NIBBLES
Big ups to one of my favorite journalists, outdoor adventurers, civic leaders, moonshiners and all-around great hangs, Erik Cushman of Monterey County Weekly, for earning a wildly deserved Publisher of the Year from the nonprofit Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) to which Good Times also belongs, aan.org …Beer Thirty Beer Fest cracks open its latest annual beer fest noon-5pm Saturday, Aug. 8, with 30 different breweries, beerthirtysantacruz.com…Permaculture Santa Cruz—once a backyard dream, now a massive soil-rooted community—celebrates its 10-year anniversary 2-8pm on Saturday, Aug. 8, at the farm, santacruzpermaculture.com…Happy 90th birthday to Oscar Mayer‘s Wienermobile—and if you’re turning 90, you can enter to have the 27-foot-long rolling tube meat crash your birthday party, oscarmayer.com/wienermobile…Land Trust of Santa Cruz County’s First Friday event 5-8pm Aug. 7 welcomes in Sophie Wood Brinker, author of Birds of Santa Cruz, for a meet, greet and book signing with live raptors at Mini Nature Museum, landtrustsantacruz.org/events.
FRUIT FORWARD
The NY Times has a recent trends analysis “Everything’s Bananas: America’s most-eaten fresh fruit has hit cafe menus, snack-aisle shelves and drink fridges with unexpected force,” which reminds me of my proudest post-Latin American travels invention (unintentionally vibing off the story’s thought that “familiarity makes bananas ripe for experimentation”): banana-avocado-tomato salsa, best layered over cream cheese on a fried tortilla with honey and hot sauce on top…Popular sown-in-Carmel Valley cookbook series and kitchen-lifestyle newsletter What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking is now a series that takes you inside the home of chef-author-influencer Caroline Chambers to, as she says, “prove that my recipes truly take the amount of time I say they do, even when your kids are acting absolutely bananas,” carolinechambers.com…Irish broadcaster Terry Wogan: “Time flies like an arrow—but fruit flies like a banana.”
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