I met Kiara Lin in the place many Santa Barbara natives eventually meet–Los Angeles. She grew up in Santa Barbara, attending Montessori Center School and Santa Barbara Junior High. Even in her youth, Kiara’s dedication to film was unmistakable. After three years enrolled at Santa Barbara High School, she moved to Michigan to complete her […]
Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s 805 Beer is the official craft beer partner of the World Surf League North America. At the U.S. Open Surfing Competition in Huntington Beach, look for the Cold Beer Surf Club podcast by legendary pro surfer and 805 Beer Authentico Conner Coffin. Coffin takes the deep dive with his interviews of […]
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‘Scandalous Women’ Author Gill Paul imagines a friendship between two glamorous women in her latest, Scandalous Women. Jacqueline Susann was the first to shock the publishing industry with her now iconic Valley of the Dolls, which remains one of the all-time best-selling novels in history. Two years later, in 1968, Jackie Collins published The World […]
HT sends me a photo of a sterling silver tulip-shaped engraved vase, won by her great-grandfather for ‘Best Dahlias’ in the 1904 Santa Barbara Flower Show. HT’s great-grandfather was quite adept at winning flower shows, as he was a Master Gardener trained in the fine mansion gardens of England. Relocating, he lived and worked in […]
On a lark, Michael and Gabriella Salsbury walked into Madame Rosinka’s fortune-telling shopfront on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara. Rudderless and adrift on the open ocean of unspeakable parental sorrow, the couple were emphatically not looking to Madame Rosinka for the answers that had otherwise so eluded them. The Salsburys were not seekers after the […]
Look at your shelves. It’s not the framed photos or unread books that make those shelves uniquely yours. It’s those knick-knacks, collectibles, and tchotchkes you’ve kept, moved, and refused to throw away over the years. What do these trinkets mean about us? Sam Fitz and Bella Vasquez, the co-founders of Santa Barbara’s newest art collective […]
It’s not just the views that impress from atop Sulphur Mountain in Ventura County. It’s the wines, too. Ojai Mountain Winery is one of the newest wine projects on the Central Coast. Its first releases hit the market just last year, and the buzz around them has been swift and upbeat. Their acclaim stems from […]
GJ found two “blob top” straight-sided, shorter-necked low-shouldered amber/brown 23-ounce glass bottles wedged between the ceiling joists in his 1890s house below APS. They were each slightly different and covered with 134 years of dust gathered in their final horizontal resting place amid the lathe and plaster. GJ had been installing a new ceiling fan […]
The growing concern about personal information and privacy in the digital age has led a company based in Santa Barbara to develop products protecting consumers. MOS Equipment, founded by Westmont alumnus Ryan Judy (’08), manufactures Mission Darkness™ faraday bags, tents, and lockers that block radio waves, including cell phone signals. “A lot of people don’t […]
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Having just returned from hosting an enchanting wine river cruise in the heart of Bordeaux, I am brimming with stories and memories. This famed wine region, celebrated for its luxurious offerings, revealed itself in all its glory as we navigated the picturesque Garonne and Dordogne rivers. Each bend in the river opened a new chapter […]
In HT’s great grandfather’s day, he farmed citrus and avocados on his ranch on Shepard’s Mesa in Carpinteria. He was an early 20th century businessman and had a hacienda adobe in mind for the main house at the ranch. He hired artisans from Mexico, and the house was built with bedrooms opening to a center […]
What is more quintessential than the California avocado? Creamy, decadent, savory, sweet – the avocado is so versatile and nutritious! My favorite avocado farmer is Vista Del Mundo and wow does he have an incredible harvest right now. There is some confusion as to whether the avocado is a fruit or a vegetable, but it’s […]
My name may be familiar to you, reader. Maybe you recognize it from the fading memory of your child’s school theater production playbill, or perhaps from reading Stella Haffner’s interviews with me in this very column. Thanks to Stella and the Montecito Journal, you’ll be seeing my name on a much more regular basis as […]
My rebellious teen years formed me. I was an iconoclast, an outlier, a pugnacious and angry loner dancing on the knife edge of chaos. Refusing to play the idiot game, I skulked around the outskirts of the Established Order and its meaningless rules of conduct, taking wild, ferocious swings at this stupid world and its […]
