Just hours into what is hopefully our final lockdown order, it’s deja vu all over again. I’m worried about my mother in Los Angeles and my in-laws cooped up in assisted living at Maravilla. As we head into the holidays, I’m missing my family and friends, I’m feeling bad for my kids, and I’m concerned […]
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Every November, I look forward to the Holiday Home Tour in nearby Ojai that benefits the annual Ojai Music Festival, now entering its 75th year. Organized by the OMF Women’s Committee, this year, due to COVID, they have done a terrific job of creating a video tour of three lovely homes. Narrated by architect/designers Steve […]
Lea másMontecito’s legacy shops have stood the test of time, braving the lightest of lulls to the meanest of bear markets. And in a year that has cratered traditional retail, the village’s small businesses have stood tall again. In the midst of yet another crippling lockdown, we feature a few of the area’s celebrated boutiques for […]
Lea másFamed Santa Barbara photographer Macduff Everton and veteran journalist-writer Matt Kettmann, who are both graduates of UCSB, first collaborated on Around the Table: Recipes & Stories From The Lark in Santa Barbara, which was managed by Everton, who also took the photographs, while Kettmann contributed a chapter on wine history in town. Nearly four years […]
Lea másHospice Santa Barbara has installed our Christmas tree in the Upper Village for the third year in a row, and Light Up A Life takes place December 16 at 6 pm. We will be well into Hanukkah, and closing in on the Winter Solstice on December 21, the longest night of the year. Light Up […]
Lea másShock and Law In an article in MJ’s Dec 3-10 issue, Rinaldo S. Brutoco describes the recent Supreme Court decision in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo as astounding, shocking, incredible, and “out of left field.” The only thing shocking to this former trial lawyer is Mr. Brutoco’s total misstatement of the facts of […]
Lea másProprietors Nick Bodden and Ronald Allen are the quintessential do-it-yourselfers of Santa Barbara’s food scene with an approach not unlike early rock ‘n’ roll musicians like Elvis who made their own recordings in order to get their sound noticed. Bodden and Allen do that with their creative recipes and passion for food. Prior to debuting […]
Lea másWith new mandates affecting Santa Barbara’s restaurant scene, each week we will highlight exceptional takeout offerings to help ease our minds and our bellies during the pandemic. Bluewater Grill’s Seafare To-Go Eats Housed in a funky lighthouse building, Bluewater Grill serves up fresh seafood, favorite cocktails and wines of the Central Coast, all paired with […]
Lea másI’ve often extolled Mollie Ahlstrand’s food. She’s the owner/chef of Mollie’s on State, formerly Mollie’s Ristorante on Coast Village Road. In recent months, she has had her challenges. Upon closing her Coast Village Road eatery (after a 25-year run), for example, she and her son, Ali Ahlstrand, opened Mollie’s on State. Then, of course, the […]
Lea másRetired Montecito attorney David Gersh has just completed his new novel Pot Luck, the sequel to his laugh-out-loud award-winning book Desperate Shop Girls, which is being published by Open Books in the New Year. It is the Harvard Law School graduate’s sixth tome, to be closely followed by his seventh, The Whisper of a Distant […]
Lea másThis COVID dominated period our global human society is going through gives me a partial sense of what it must have been like during one of the six great prior plagues humanity has endured and survived. The “good news” is that we have the opportunity to choose to put this terrible human tragedy behind us. […]
Lea másMark Osiel is a lawyer, author, and law professor who holds the Aliber Family Chair at the University of Iowa. So, what’s he doing in Summerland? Well, he adds yet another accomplished and interesting citizen to the community for starters. Here’s a little to know about the professor and author. Q. You recently moved to […]
Lea másA cabaret for Christmas might seem like the mixing of metaphors, but the idea made a lot of sense for PCPA as a way to produce something during the pandemic. That was partly because a show that’s akin to a revue could be done from people’s homes during lockdown without damaging the storyline. But it […]
Lea másTo the Rosewood Miramar for breakfast at the Malibu Farm with London Sunday Times travel writer Jonathan Thompson. The meeting was organized by my former News-Press colleague Karna Hughes, now an executive with Visit Santa Barbara, who thought my 13 years of experience living in our rarefied enclave might be of some use to the […]
Lea másThe extensive Chinese collection of the late society doyenne Beverley Jackson is being sold by Kaminski Auctions in, appropriately enough, Beverly, Massachusetts. The former society editor of the News-Press for 22 years, who died in August aged 91, was an avowed Sinophile after a visit to China during the Cultural Revolution changed her life. The […]
Lea másThe New Roundabout Nightmare Brought to you by the same storytelling government that said closing southbound ramp would not adversely affect Coast Village Road. Plus, they knew they didn’t have to close the ramp until they widen the freeway through Montecito. The only conclusion we can make is they wanted Montecito to suffer. Hurt the […]
Lea másWith City officials urging a Safer at Home order aiming to slow the spread of the coronavirus, now more than ever is the time to support local businesses. Indoor dining is banned for the time being, and as we move into the winter months, dining outdoors is not ideal. But Summerland, a sleepy seaside community, […]
Lea másA truly astounding event occurred this past week. It was both unanticipated and shocking at the same time. It was totally “out of left field,” and yet I believe it is an unfortunate harbinger of things to come. What was this incredible decision? It was the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down New York’s restrictions […]
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UCSB Arts & Lectures’ free outdoor fall film festival series of screenings at the West Wind Drive-In comes to a close with two Christmas classics, with a modern parable followed by a Jimmy Stewart tearjerker. In 2003’s Elf, Will Ferrell stars as an elf named Buddy who discovers that he’s actually a human whom Santa […]
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Having volunteered at the Rescue Mission for the past 13 years, I had to miss acting as a waiter at the Rescue Mission’s annual Thanksgiving Feast this year because of the pandemic restrictions. However, as the 55-year-old shelter is designated as “an essential service,” 40 homeless at a time were allowed in to nosh on […]
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