Foothill Flavors

Say Ole to Sutter’s Pepita’s

By Antoinette May Herndon

Are you old enough to remember “Gunsmoke” on TV? If so, you’ll recall Matt Dillon and his summation of life as the marshal of Dodge City. “It’s a chancy job and a little lonely,” Matt was want to opine each week.

I could say the same about the writing life. It’s chancy too. Maybe no one is waiting to gun you down or shoot an arrow into your back, but publishers are mighty fast at firing off rejection slips.

And for certain, writing is lonely. Of necessity, it must be done alone; but that’s only the half of it.

No one else can know the satisfaction of holding a completed manuscript in one’s hands, an experience only transcended by the marvel of holding your own published book. By the same token no one can recognize the full impact of that awful nine-letter word: rejection.

No one but another writer, that is.

That’s what makes writer friends like Janet Langton so special. When Janet called the other day to invite me to lunch with her, I answered without hesitation: “When?”

Janet already had a restaurant in mind and I was delighted to discover that it was one I’d not yet tried. On a recent Monday afternoon we presented ourselves at Pepita’s in Sutter Creek.

Pepita’s has an inviting cantina atmosphere: whirling ceiling fans, yellow and orange walls trimmed in deep blue centered about cozy knotty pine tables and chairs.

I was especially taken with the old black and white photos on the walls. Looked back upon from a distance of eighty or ninety years, bandidos and revolutionaries look mucho romantico. Viva Mexico! Best of all is a framed front page of the San Francisco

Chronicle proclaiming the demise of the biggest and baddest of them all —Poncho Villa.

Such is the stuff of legends and Janet and I have done our best to create or perpetuate our own.

How’s this for a plot: A young woman sails to California in 1850 expecting to meet her lawyer husband for a second honeymoon in San Francisco. Instead, she finds herself stranded in a lawless culture dominated by gold-fever. To find her husband, now a miner, she must journey to El Rio de las Calaveras or River of Skulls.

Janet’s inspiration came from the mountains that surround her Dancing Rooster Ranch. The bare bones of the novel came through her work at the Calaveras Historical Society’s Red Barn Museum in San Andreas.

Now Janet is well into a second novel, “Chimera.” This time the plot centers around the San Francisco Beatniks in the 1950’s, a time she remembers well. (“We changed the world but were having too much fun to notice.”)

In my novel, “The Sacred Well,” I wrote about the Mayan well of sacrifice in Yucatan and Alma Reed, the San Francisco journalist who found a Mayan treasure worth $2,000,000, inspired a love song and lost her revolutionary lover to a firing squad. Yes, it really happened.

Currently. I’m inching my way toward the completion of “Mary’s Monster,” a novel based on the life of Mary Godwin, the girl who created Frankenstein while cavorting with the poets, Shelley and Byron. A wild bunch if there ever was one.

So now you can pretty well guess that our luncheon centered around dreams, hopes and fantasies. As we talked, Janet sipped an iced mug of Negra Modelo with lime. ($3.75) I had a blended pina colada made with chardonnay wine. ($4) Admittedly, I

was dubious about a pina colada made with wine. I didn’t know what to expect but found the results curiously refreshing. It was a perfect complement to a warm summer afternoon.

Pepita’s is a family restaurant. Salvador Anaya, the patriarch who opened Pepita’s just two years ago, did the cooking that afternoon. His daughter, Adrianna, was our pretty, pleasant and efficient server.

I ordered the taco salad, that day’s special, ($7.25) and found the beef a little chewy. However I was impressed by the homemade corn tortillas—very crispy—and loved the guacamole. If you like spicy guacamole, Pepita’s is the place—lots of onions and spices.

Janet, an aficionado Pepita’s, chose an old favorite, Chile Relleno and was well pleased. Thick and rich, it came with all the fixings and a dynamite salsa. ($7.25)

After our Mexican holiday, Janet returned to her Beatniks and I to my literary renegades. Once again, the lonely, chancy life without even a marshal’s badge to dress it up. The break felt good and I’m looking forward to returning for Pepita’s signature dish, the Volcano Molcajete ($17.95) This consists of a Molcajete (whatever that is) filled with a choice of sizzling meat simmered in Monterey Jack cheese and tomatillo sauce served with tortillas. I’m game are you?

VITALS: Pepita’s is located at 39 Main St., Sutter Creek. Phone: 267-5100. Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, 8 a.m to 8 p.m. Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Tuesday. Credit cards accepted.

Pictures

Pepita’s restaurant in Sutter Creek has a cantina.

Adrianna Anaya is an asset to Pepita’s, her family restaurant in Sutter Creek.