Best Vegetarian Holiday Dishes Looking for the perfect meatless recipes for the holidays? Santa Barbara-based recipe developer and photographer Riley Yahr has a few in mind. She creates modern vegetarian dishes for her popular food blog Mixed & Measured. Her simple yet creative recipes bring vegetables to the center of the table. We recently caught up […]
I have been writing this column for years and I wonder how I could have missed a visit to the Howard School, the oldest operating private school in Santa Barbara. Once located on San Ysidro Road in Montecito, the 1934 designed campus, now the Laguna Blanca Lower School, is a community landmark. On a crisp […]
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I was once in a race against Chris Tamas. To this day, I doubt that Chris is even aware of this. For him to have known we were in the same race, he would have had to be looking way back to find me, struggling amongst the other laggards who didn’t belong on that track. It […]
I started at UC Santa Barbara in 1976, almost on a whim. I thought I would attend UC San Diego, but my high school girlfriend had her heart set on UC Santa Barbara, and though she was a junior, my romantic ass decided to head north and wait for her. When she finally arrived at […]
The prospect of sheltering during the holidays has thrown us all out of our comfort zone. But hunkering down and getting creative with your meal making should be a cinch, especially when you consider fondue, a classic holiday tradition that brings cohabitants together for an evening of festivity in the kitchen, dining room, or living […]
What Makes Montecito Stand Out for You? Montecito Union School was a great fit for our son during his elementary years, and Coast Village Road and the Upper Village have been quaint yet perfectly suited to our lifestyle and needs. But there was some bad to come before it got better. There were fires, then […]
It was not my intention to feature quite so many letters in this column that draw attention to my personal kryptonite (math), and yet, here we are. This week you are being treated to a letter from someone who is not only a talented visual artist but also an aspiring mathematician. Meet Alec Sherwin! Son […]
The first time I ever heard of tapas was when my Navy pilot husband, Cork, our two young children Kim and Dane, and I moved to Spain in 1969. The kids went to school on the Rota Navy Base but we lived on the economy. When Friday night came we didn’t go to McDonald’s (there […]
To say that 2020 has been a challenging year is the understatement of the century. We’re approaching a full year of being held hostage by a global pandemic that’s brought face-to-face social interaction to a near standstill. And with sheltering in place comes more reliance on gathering information and news from the internet, where the […]
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This rich and incredibly moreish stew has just three key ingredients, which come together to create a truly sumptuous dish. Don’t be put off by the time it needs on the stove. It couldn’t be simpler to make, and once everything is cooking you won’t need to do anything other than let it bubble gently […]
Some of Santa Barbara’s best flavors are savored during the holiday season: citrus, persimmons, sage, fennel, spicy pecans, Mexican chocolate, honey, fresh and dried chili peppers and, of course, seafood. Chefs are relying on the state’s bounty as a springboard for Thanksgiving, the year’s most important dinner in these parts, when coastal ranch, Mediterranean and […]
Prolific local author Philip Myers, 68, has published his latest book, Squished: Jackie Kennedy, Espionage, Murder and Me. The revelatory tome combines facts Myers gleaned from working with former First Lady Jackie Kennedy, whom he got to know through his work with the Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations. Myers is a Stanford University Phi […]
I’ve written and rewritten this introduction so many times. I keep revising because I want to get it right. Most importantly, I want to get it right without any of the self-congratulatory nonsense that often accompanies social justice grandstanding. I first met KiSea Katikka on my visit day to Crane Country Day School. A shared […]
Santa Barbara’s Singing Chef Andy LoRusso, who now lives in Naples, Florida, was diagnosed with the neurological disorder dystonia, a mild form of Parkinson’s disease, two years ago. “It causes excessive involuntary muscle contractions for which I take Botox shots every ninety days,” says Andy, who grew up in Newark, New Jersey, before finding his […]
