Julian pies and the brutalism within UC San Diego

I always get excited when it comes to traveling for food, in this case desserts. but in US this quest never brought the real food one would feel truly motivated to travel for within Europe: to Italy for pasta, pizza, to France for croissants, wine, cheeses etc, to Germany for sausages, beer... and so on. we have Julian shy of 3 hours from Los Angeles, a destination for pies, specifically apple pies. They're famous for apple orchards and the derivates, pies in this case, which pies are something thick and unrefined, something that doesn't require much work and a specific science (like a croissant, spaghetti carbonara, Bavarian sausage etc.) but what the hell, if this is all we can get here at least hope was the pies would be fresh. And indeed they would. The drive there would be agreeable, a bit long tho, yet passing thru little towns, little hills, with little traffic and perhaps little expectations too. would their apples be GMO free, I asked myself? Unlikely. would there be something else to do in Julian in case the pies were horrible? probably not. but the town had a mining past and proof was the Pioneer Museum that sadly closed early that day. Next day, honoring the exceptionalism of Brutalist Architecture we checked UC San Diego because there are some pretty remarkable pieces: Salk Institute and Geisel Library. Although money is not an issue with the profit conscious US educational institutions, most campuses are ugly, built around economic and efficient, beauty seemed unknown reason to build.