Frank Hyder: New York
Through September 29 you can catch the electrifying work of painter Frank Hyder, at the Walter Wickiser Gallery, 210 Eleventh Ave., Ste. 303 in Manhattan's Chelsea district. Hyder's large-scale artworks are front-loaded with richly saturated colors and threaded with...
Harvest Festival on the Farm – 9/26
Harvest Festival at the UCSC Farm - this Sunday 11 AM to 5PM. Don't miss this rewarding, old-fashioned "back to the garden" afternoon. It's the biggest "open house" of the year up at UCSC's atmospheric farm. Live music, food, apple tasting, an apple pie bake-off,...
The Boring American
Dutch director Anton Corbijn makes beautiful people and places look, well, beautiful. Corbijn hasn't an idea in his head, but he knows how to make ancient cobblestone stairways look blitheringly atmospheric. He knows how to show off buck naked actors, and their...
Pizza La Posta
Somebody once said that one picture was worth a thousand sips of sangiovese. Like this one.
Late Summer on a Plate
Our house. Last week. Dressed with Meyer lemon, olive oil and infant shiso leaves. Perfectly ripe.
Thomas Fogarty Pinot Noir
It's the first Santa Cruz Mountain pinot noir from the 2008 vintage I've tasted, and now I know why this beautiful creation from Thomas Fogarty Winery took a gold at the recent SF Chronicle competition. This full-throated wine is loaded with complex aromatic...
eat cliché love
Eat Pray love is either better or worse than I expected. Like a wine that cannot be technically faulted, yet fails to engage the senses, this film seems to lack any distinction. What it does have is a few fleeting glimpses of a potentially great actress struggling to...
etc etc etc
Go out and try the fresh halibut tacos at Hawgs — an entire meal for just over $10. . . . Chris LeVeque's El Salchicero is looking at an opening by Halloween. The tile walls are up, the ceilings gleam, but the House of Codes is still putting this artisanal salumeria...
Kelly’s Ice Cream Shop!
You only need to know two words. Caramel Almond.
Ice Cream Madness Continues!
Still high on a flavor-intensive sampling of handmade, all-organic chocolate ice cream from Mission Hill Creamery, I need to figure out how I'm going to live until my next visit to the five-week old ice cream mecca. Scooped up by chef/owner David Kumec himself, the...
La Posta: the On-going Conquest
The pizza crust was parchment-thin and addictively delicious. The handmade salume assortment might have brought any Genovese to his knees. And the delicate cannelloni, slathered with roasted heirloom tomatoes and filled with ricotta. Oh! La Posta, on Tuesdays, when...
Cool, Creamy and Made by Hand
The Penny Ice Creamery opens today! And for devotées of the very finest, organic, artesanal ice cream that is a very good thing. (The tempting image, left, is by photographer Molly Watson.) (I stopped by and inhaled a cup of Brown Butter Pecan ice cream lavish with...
Stop force-feeding us losers!!!
A plea to cable TV talk hosts! Just stop it! I have had to assume for the past year that the incessant updates on CNN and FOX news about the lifestyle status of Lindsay Lohan is purely comic relief. After all what with a tanking economy, horrific Mexican mafia...
Lunch @ Greens
The place was Fort Mason. The day was perfect — a blend of fog and brilliant sunlight playing tag with the Golden Gate bridge in the distance. The excuse was the American Craft Council design show and a chance to learn some tricks of the trade from my designer buddy...
Get Down on the Farm!
UC Santa Cruz offers a Fall Gardening Workshop on Saturday, August 28, from 10am until 1pm. Planting a late-summer garden is a great way to save money on your fall and winter grocery bills, so come get some tips on growing a great fall and winter vegetable garden....
Big Label, Big Wine
From Loma Prieta Winery comes a statuesque red wine made from rarely-encountered Pinotage grapes, grown in the Sierra foothills. The locally-made Pinotage — a varietal usually associated with South Africa and produced in only a handful of North American...
Artist Profile: Ian Pines
A recent graduate of UCLA's renowned MFA program, Ian Pines continues to explore the wickedly inventive color work and lavishly gestural oil paintings he began while still an art major at UCSC. Here's a sample of Pines' highly original abstract style, played out in...
Titanic Syrah
There are always many good reasons to visit Soif Wine Bar. This superb and supple 2007 estate Syrah from Peay Vineyards is now among those reasons. Loaded with leather, a central core of robust red meat and soft peppers, this big, beautiful wine floats a hint of roses...
Drama Queen Kvetch
Maybe it's just me, and if so, then you can ignore this observation. But I'm beginning to think that contemporary, especially young audiences have no idea how to respond to live theater. The serious kind, as in Shakespeare. Worse. It's entirely possible, at least...
Vintage Chemistry
Chemistry—a wildly energetic blend of rarely-combined white varietals, including pinot gris, chardonnay and (gasp!) riesling—is loaded with nectarines, apple and mineral essences. Even a backnote of almonds. Utterly drinkable all by itself, this Willamette Valley...
Pinotage Party
Be among the adventurous and sample some exotic Pinotage at a Release Party for the 2008 vintage, August 7 & 8 at Loma Prieta Winery. Loma Prieta Winery will release the 2nd bottling of 2008 Pinotage from the Amorosa Vineyard in Lodi, along with light appetizers and...
The Lion Roars
Led by Marco Barricelli and a virtuoso cast of Equity actors, this year's Shakespeare Santa Cruz opener, Lion in Winter, started off with a roar last weekend. Astute casting and transparent directing, by Richard E.T. White, helped power this biting psychodrama to full...
Contra – Bonny Doon Vineyard’s Newest
Cloaked in a contrarian label are blended grapes from Contra Costa County (the theme begins to sink in...) transformed into the stuff of great ragu and Gorgonzola delivery systems by the shamanic mind of Randall Grahm. Priced at $14, Contra sips like a much pricier...
Artist Profile: Max Stadnik
Q: Max, your color woodblock “Untitled,†(Bike) is a knockout – how did you achieve the amazing effects? A: Untitled, 9x12, was a seven run print, five separate woodblocks with two reduced states one on the second and one on the fourth in the print sequence;...