As a very young kid, I have fond memories of sleeping over my grandparent's home and awakening Sunday mornings, climbing into my grandfather's car and driving to Miami Beach to buy smoked salmon, bagels and cream cheese for Sunday brunch. My Zadie (the Yiddish word for grandfather) and I would stand before the deli counter of his favorite Jewish deli and I'd listen to him describe exactly which piece of fish he wanted and how he wanted it sliced. We'd travel home and he would slice tomatoes, cucumbers, bagels and more. In time, my grandmother would wake up and my parents, siblings, and cousins would arrive for a glorious Sunday morning of eating and talking. It was how I thought every family started their Sunday.

The smoked salmon we bought wasn't called smoked salmon. It was called lox, when salted, or nova, when not. But whatever you called this fish, it was a part of every Sunday morning for my family.

As I grew older and realized the world was larger than my immediate family, I learned that smoked salmon was prepared differently in varying cultures, yet still remained a tradition all over the world. Sometimes it's cold smoked, sometimes hot smoked. Sometimes it's wet brined, sometimes dry brined. The differences go on and one. And I love them all! Whether for breakfast, dinner or as a canapé-

count me in! I love the stuff.

Being raised on this delicacy, and being Jewish, where Smoked Salmon is a staple at any gathering, I thought I'd tried it all and knew the best. And so it was a shock to me about six months ago when I attended a wine dinner at a friend's home and he served me the best Smoked Salmon that I'd ever had. I asked Tony where he had purchased this object of my desires and the very next day

We started tracking it down for the Sunset Corners Deli.

It comes unsliced and I like to cube it and serve it as an appetizer before dinner. It's amazing stuff and regardless of what your family's tradition is, if you like salmon, you're going to go crazy over this extraordinary delicacy!

Royal Tenderloin of Salmon

Approx.. 1lb

$48.00

The New York Times called salmon from the Santa Barbara Smokehouse the best smoked salmon in the world, and we heartily concur. Unbelievably tender with a velvety texture, hand cured and smoked in small batches over an open fire with oak and apple wood.

You can buy it at the shop

or order it on our website and we will ship it to you frozen

Here's a copy of an article we found about the producer on the Internet:

Changing the World, One Salmon at a Time

Santa Barbara Smokehouse Does Smoked Salmon Right

By Shelley Flanders

The Santa Barbara Independent

Thursday, May 28, 2009

What a surprise to discover the Santa Barbara Smokehouse-maker of Cambridge House Smoked Salmon, which the New York Times has called "the best smoked salmon in the world"-right in downtown Santa Barbara. Many major hotels such as the Bellagio and the Wynn, as well as cruise ships and restaurants, order exclusively from the Santa Barbara Smokehouse and the company boasts of accolades from Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse, among others.

President and S.B. resident Tim Brown has been devoted to the art of smoking the world's best salmon since he was a lad of 15 on the Scotch-English border. In an industrial hometown that offered few opportunities, Brown left high school to join forces with his brother and, together with the aid of a $20,000 government grant from Margaret Thatcher, they began smoking salmon. In the beginning, with no real equipment, Brown did everything, including filleting fish with his bare hands and plunging them into warm water in winter to prevent frostbite. Finally, after nearly losing hope, when an actual livelihood became realized, Brown and his brother were determined to be the best at what they did. "I never imagined I would end up here today," Brown said.

When the U.S. became their largest market, it became necessary to cross the Atlantic in order to maintain the highest standard of quality. Brown decided to go it alone, purchasing in 1999 Carpinteria's Cambridge House Smoked Salmon, even though it was going bankrupt. Already voted number one by the Times, the purveyor had a unique wood-burn fire and Brown knew he had found the mother lode because he "believed in the process." Then, several years ago, he raised the bar and successfully undertook building the Santa Barbara Smokehouse, a $5 million, state-of-the-art facility on Nopal Street. This remarkable 15,000-square-foot ode to the art of smoking salmon was designed to emulate a church on the outside and encompass an ultra-modern interior with plenty of room for growth. Brown is "happy that in these hard times, we are still able to maintain a staff of 35." Never far from the humility of his past, Brown is passionate about giving back to the community. The more jobs he can provide, the more he can give to charities, and the greater the future will be for everyone, including, of course, his wife and two young sons.

Santa Barbara Smokehouse brings in fresh, 99 percent farmed, antibiotic free, naturally fed Scottish salmon from the cold, deep waters of the Shetland Islands twice a week. It is hand-cured with pure sea salt and fresh herbs and smoked in small batches using the traditional open-fire dry-cure approach where smoking and flavoring are enhanced through the use of oak and applewood. However, only wasted or fallen wood is used; no trees are ever cut down for the process. Santa Barbara Smokehouse is the only commercial company in the world that burns entire logs and hardwoods in an open-fire kiln, as all other companies use wood chips or an electric hot plate method. This amazing smokehouse reaches 2000 degrees to guarantee an absolutely no-burn environmental atmosphere.

Excited about his newest passion, Brown described the upcoming implementation installation of a brick kiln, which will be a small center of their production. Here the salmon "will be hand hung by rope as it was done hundreds of years ago in Scotland." There is not much room for profit in this process, but according to Brown, "because the salmon gets a lot drier, it will produce the crme de la crme of smoked salmon." Brown reckons that "there are only a few people in the world undertaking this method because it is so labor-intensive; only very tiny quantities can be made."

Brown's fervor for what he does and how it affects the lives of others causes him to have a bone to pick. He would like to set the record straight regarding salmon as a continuing species. Santa Barbara Smokehouse salmon is best-farmed in good, sustainable farms, which is the most ideal salmon for commercial smoking. "Good farmed salmon is necessary to sustainable salmon farming because the truth is, wild salmon are endangered," he claimed. "It's vitally important for consumers to realize that if they continue demanding and eating wild salmon rather than good-farmed, the consequences could mean their extinction."

This Saturday's Tasting:

The WINES:

CALIFORNIA DREAMING!

Nine different wines- four white & five red

From seven different grapes~

THE SPIRITS:

Diplomatico Rums from Venezula

WHITES:

Peirano 'The Other' White 2007                   $11.99

Sunbox 11 The Nice Viognier 2007               $41.99       $19.99 sale

OTP Chardonnay 2008                                $24.99

Mer Soliel Silver Chardonnay 2010                $29.99       $22.99 sale

REDS:

Peirano Malbec 2008                                  $11.99

Louis Martini Sonoma Cabernet 2008            $18.99       $12.99 sale

Swanson Merlot 2007                                 $34.99       $24.99 sale

Marc Herold Flux Grenache/Syrah 2008         $29.99

Anderson's Conn Valley Prologue Cab 08       $24.99