Change on the Menu

Restaurateur Sandy Smith doesn’t appear to be letting his new position as a Ventura City Councilman take his attention away from his first love, Rosarito Beach Cafe.

As is often the case at his Main Street restaurant, there is plenty of tweaking, and experimenting, going on.

Smith recently enclosed the patio in preparation for creating a lounge next to the bar. The plan, beginning this week, is to stay open until midnight Fridays and Saturdays, serving an appetizer-style menu into the wee hours.

“There will be something to nosh on while people have wine,” Smith said. “It will give me a lot of room to play, something that’s not so confined.”

Rosarito’s bar menu will include stuffed prawns, a Rosarito bruschetta (on chili-cheese garlic toast) and crab tortas (small crab sandwiches with a Mexican twist).

Smith said he is planning some changes to the restaurant’s full menu as well, playing around with different flavors of tortilla masas, including roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato. He also plans to add a couple of new pasta dishes and garlic-corn flan for the beans he serves with many of his entrees.

* Rosarito Beach Cafe is at 692 E. Main St.

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Some of the best things about the holidays can also be the worst. Relatives can be a joy and they can be a nightmare. Gift giving can be fulfilling and it can be stressful.

And food can taste delicious and it can--and usually does--add pounds to the body.

Judy Siudara and her staff at Accord Counseling in Ventura are getting ready to help holiday celebrants tackle, and perhaps even prevent, the culinary predicament.

Siudara is taking reservations for a free 90-minute workshop, scheduled for Dec. 8, that will deal with food, stress and the holiday season. It will be led by Darlene Ketola, a marriage, family and child counseling intern specializing in stress, burnout and coping skills.

“It’s about the cultural, physiological and psychological stresses we have attached to food and the holidays,” Siudara said. “Darlene is going to include some recipes for low-fat, fat-free eating, but mostly the emphasis will be that you can control your eating during the holidays. It doesn’t have to be any different than any other time of year.”

Unfortunately, Siudara said, many people think of the holidays as an exception to the usual routine.

“We get a lot of messages that it’s OK [to overeat]--it’s just one time of the year--and then in January I get calls from people saying, ‘I can’t lose the 5 pounds, the 10 pounds, the 15 pounds,’ ” she said.

“We have to be aware of the factors--we do food the way the family always did food: You eat until you’re satiated and go away from the table and take a nap,” Siudara said. “And because we’re doing lots of other things, we don’t get the exercise we would normally get.”

Siudara said the food fight is something that almost everyone experiences during this time of year.

“Particularly women,” she said. “Women are the ones, in particular, who are fixing the food, and they’re generally the ones who are more stressed out.”

To reserve a spot for the workshop, call 339-9211.