Our weekly Events Wire newsletter is your guide to Northern Santa Barbara County concerts, arts, and local happenings—delivered every Friday.
Some things, like fine wine and the Mother’s Day brunch at the Historic Santa Maria Inn, continue to improve with age. Behind the scenes, managers have been planning for months to present the best Mother’s Day grand buffet in the history of the hotel on Sunday, May 12. And that is saying a lot, considering […]
It’s the start of peak strawberry season in the Santa Maria Valley, where more than 20 million trays of high-quality, handpicked strawberries are produced annually. Longtime Santa Maria strawberry grower Daren Gee of DB Specialty Farms described this year’s bumper crop: “The biggest in the history of strawberries in the United States! And I’m not […]
This is it! April 19 through 21 is one of the best weekends of the year to visit Santa Barbara County’s more than 100 wineries because it’s Vintners’ Festival weekend, a time for wineries to open their doors, debut new releases, and make their winemakers available to the public. This year, the main event, Saturday […]
Every March, Michael Stevens, owner of Palo Mesa Pizza in Arroyo Grande, goes to Las Vegas to roll the dice on his pizza, entering the International Pizza Expo’s Pizza Challenge. Seven-thousand pizzeria owners and operators like Stevens unite at the annual trade show to try new products and services, attend seminars and demonstrations, and compete. […]
Every year, since my daughter Sienna was 2 years old, she has requested her favorite food for her birthday meal: sushi. So, every year, we’ve brought home sushi from Yanagi in Santa Maria. Sienna hasn’t yet graduated to the raw variety; she started with, and still loves, California rolls, made with cooked crabmeat, avocado, cucumber, […]
Bacon. It’s not just for breakfast anymore. Top chefs around the country are embracing the hog; featuring pork belly, bacon, and pancetta regularly on their menus. Nowadays, restaurants offer pork in everything from starters and entrees, to drinks and desserts. So it makes perfect sense that bacon festivals are popping up across the nation to […]
The old proverb goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Well, I’ve gotten to know scores of winemakers over the years, but I’ve never met one without interesting stories to tell. I thought I would ask Santa Barbara County winemakers about their favorite things to do outside of work, and the […]
As I opened the door to the Santa Maria Tamale Shop near the corner of Betteravia and Blosser roads, I simultaneously spotted a grinning Chef Rick Manson behind the counter and smelled familiar aromas that should take longtime customers back in time. I was transported back to “the good ol’ days” when Manson served up […]
Fans of Bell Street Farm are flocking to Los Alamos to sit down for chicken dinner. It’s the eatery’s first evening dinner series; every third Saturday night of the month, Bell Street Farm stays open late to serve supper. Patrons have pleaded for this ever since owner Jamie Gluck opened the doors in 2011 to […]
It looks really small and unimportant, but there’s some really important stuff going on here,” Firestone Walker Brewing Company co-founder David Walker said about Barrelworks, the new cellar and rare-beer tasting room that opened to the public in January in Buellton. After a private tour and eye-opening beer tasting with Walker, I’m convinced that experiencing […]
It’s the time of the year when I’m reminded just how lucky we are to live in the heart of wine country. Not one, not two, but many elite wine events take place in the coming months, right in our own backyard. Wine lovers will converge at Shell Beach, Santa Maria Valley, Avila Beach, and […]
Sitting down for a late January lunch with Cynthia Segura, the co-owner of the immensely popular Pasión Comida Mexicana in Old Orcutt, was a chance for me to taste their delicious new creations, and for her to catch her breath. The previous two months were a whirlwind. Segura had just returned from a Los Angeles […]
