Blog

June 11, 2019 – In the middle of Big Sur, an intriguing new attraction has taken up residency for the next three weeks. The Mercado Sagrado is a platform for creative and healing arts and artists that originally took place in Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles.

“Everyone we work with has those values of treading lightly on the earth and giving back and nourishing the community,” says co-founder Heather Culp.

Organizers have put together a full schedule of events, including a pop up restaurant by plant-based culinary artist Greg Arnold—founder of the trend-setting Mesa Verde vegan restaurant in Santa Barbara.

Arnold creates artful, healthy and sustainable dishes using organic produce from local farms and edible flowers. He is also known as a fermentation funkmaster and makes a line of fermented condiments—like … Read More

June 11, 2019 – “Good things come to those who wait” is a fitting slogan for Black Point Market, the looooong awaited grocery store-deli-bakery-coffee shop mash-up that has finally opened on East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. A year ago, co-owner Sasha Nemchonok said they would be open in three to six weeks, but then reality hit hard.

“We ended up getting ahead of ourselves,” he reflects, but “you can’t rush bureaucracy.” A stop work order put them back to square one, but today, all of that is behind them as they welcome in a stream of happy customers. “It’s been good, the community really needed a place right here,” says Nemchonok.

The affable, customer service superstar has been in the food world for over 10 years. He found himself … Read More

June 4, 2019 – For as long as it has had restaurants, the Monterey Bay area has not had any with Michelin stars. 

That’s not for a lack of amazing eateries. It’s simply because Michelin didn’t visit. 

That seemed like an oversight. At one point in the 1990s, the Monterey area alone boasted the highest density of Wine Spectator Grand Award winners in one region, anywhere. While wine-driven, it was still a very lofty honor only superlative restaurants would endeavor to win. (For the record, the five WS Grand Award spots were Pacific’s Edge, The Sardine Factory, Casanova, Bernardus and Sierra Mar.)

Michelin has published ratings for San Francisco and Napa Valley restaurants since 2007, but for years only went as far south as Manresa in … Read More

June 4, 2019 – As he popped the cork on his latest releases—the 2013 Caraccioli Brut Rosé and the 2013 Cuvée Brut—winegrower Scott Caraccioli expressed pride in these particular bottlings, which incorporate estate fruit from his family’s Escolle Vineyard for the first time. 

“I feel this is the most balanced and perfectly composed vintage, with a mid-palate richness right out of the gate,” he says.

He explains that the Brut Rosé was released in the fall of 2018, as the red wine adds a sweetness that helps carry it to an earlier maturity, whereas the Brut really needs time after the dosage is added.

Caraccioli feels extremely fortunate to have apprenticed under the late Michel Salgues, a Frenchman who worked at the famed Roederer house of sparkling wine … Read More