I’ll admit it up front, this post is a bit of a hack.  Where the recipes should go at the bottom, I’m going give you a link that sends you to the Santa Maria Valley site that supplied all of the recipes for this meal.  Memorial Day Weekend is nearly upon us and I had a choice–deliver the post in time for the first official grilling weekend of the summer or make you wait until July 4th.  Trust me, you don’t want to wait.

My mom is from Santa Maria as is her mother (well, Myrna was really from the tiny town of Orcutt, next to Santa Maria).  For the un-inducted, Santa Maria is a smallish town sandwiched in between Santa Barbara to the South and San Luis Obispo to the North.  Its geographic terroir makes for verdant agricultural, viticultural and ranching industries.  Pair fertile, vaquero, studded land with French immigrants (Myrna was nee Jullian) and food and wine form the centerpiece of family.  Very often, tri-tip was the star.

Tri-tip BBQ in Santa Maria is its own brand of adventure.  Sort of like pop-up restaurants pre-Twitter, the best are found in mobile locations, usually on the weekends and in the parking lots of Home Depots and grocery stores.

You can also make it at home, which my parents did quite often, slow cooking the roast on a kamado grill (long before it was popular with the cool kids).

I bought TD a kamado grill for Christmas and while it does make spectacular tri-tip, we know from experience that a charcoal, wood or  or even gas grill can yield similar results (parking lot Santa Maria BBQ uses oak wood).  Santa Maria seasoning is simple; garlic salt and pepper.  Though, returning to that french influence, we often use Herbs de Provence.

The pinquito beans are as important to Santa Maria BBQ as the tri-tip. I found these little pinto-like beans at the farmer’s market.  The recipe calls for ham, I used Canadian bacon.

Salsa also play an important role.  The Santa Maria version gets an extra punch of color and flavor from bell peppers.

And then there is the garlic bread.  To be honest, we eat this meal with tortillas as often as we do bread.

Here is how you eat it: dump the beans and salsa on top of the meat.  Enjoy.

And, don’t forget the wine.

If you are in the area and going for authentic experience, there are a couple of go-to places.  The first was made famous in the movie Sideways.  Setting aside cinematic popularity, The Hitching Post is the real deal.  So is the Garden Room Restaurant at the Santa Maria Inn (where my parents had their wedding reception over 40 years ago).

Santa Maria BBQ

Santa Maria BBQ