Food & Drink

The ghosts of Prohibition still linger in the cool warehouse distribution rooms of our Central Coast wineries. Constitutional amendments of Prohibition enacted 100 years ago—the 18th and 21st specifically—continue to affect the production, distribution, and commerce of wine and other alcoholic beverages throughout the 50 states and abroad. And according to the folks at the […]

I was either the best or worst waitress (according to handwritten notes on my check receipts). My status depended entirely on circumstances because even the most skillful waiters could not pull off a triple seating on a Friday night when you’re understaffed and you got assigned the one busser who just started. To make everyone […]

This is way more doughnut than I bargained for. Four full-sized doughnuts are placed in front of me. Blueberry, apple, vanilla, and chocolate cake. Each is iced in frosting infused with the wine it will be paired with. Riverbench 2017 Bedrock Chardonnay pours into an etched wine glass. I gently tear the Blueberry Chardonnay Cake […]

This past year was all about alternative milks and nut butters.� Cannabis and/or CBD-infused food and beverages.� Flower flavors and bitter plant fronds in cocktails.� Salads, collagen-pumped foods, prebiotics, avocado toast, açai bowls, and antioxidants.� Real butter is back, and we all seem to be comfortable cooking with ghee and coconut oil. That was 2019 […]

What’s most worth remembering about the past year? Think about all of your senses and what might deserve revisiting or at least savoring the memory of.  We at the Sun want to help you remember some of the most delicious places and meals of 2019 so you can relish those “oh yeah, that happened last […]

“Seriously?” I exclaim under my breath.  Exasperated, I realize now—after what feels like my millionth trip to the grocery store this weekend—that I don’t have any baking soda. It’s an essential for making Nestle’s chocolate chip cookies. And so was the granulated sugar that I had just brought back from the grocery store five minutes […]

I was fortunate to catch up with chef Debbie Duggan before one of her famous appetizer classes recently. We met at her gorgeously remodeled teaching kitchen on Parker Street in an industrial sector of San Luis Obispo, right around the corner from the Nautical Bean coffee shop. Her kitchen is designed in a Tuscan style, with […]

It’s all in the name at the Wine Stone Inn: The brand-new boutique hotel features a Vintage Room with a wine option for everybody. But Wine Stone isn’t just serving up local and international wines to their guests—as General Manager Lauren Wise told the Sun, a stay at this Orcutt inn is “an experience from […]

Since its establishment in 1952, the Cuyama Buckhorn Restaurant and Bar has been serving meals to locals and travelers passing through alike. But this fall season, the New Cuyama staple is switching things up with its first seasonal offerings: the Fall Harvest Menu. “There’s going to be a huge culinary focus on connecting the food […]

Yves Simoneau attended The Garagiste Wine Festival in Paso Robles with a planned itinerary, but he took a “delinquent” turn down a row of intriguing mystery vines and fresh new labels. He was pleasantly surprised by the wines of Hayseed and Housdon, from winemaker Enrique Torres, who also makes Enrique Torres Wines and the hand-crafted […]

For Santa Maria-based couple Natalie and Victor Bryson, ice cream has always been a shared love in their relationship. “My husband loves ice cream; I love ice cream. Our first date we actually ate ice cream and talked about ice cream,” Natalie told the Sun. So when the Brysons were thrift shopping one day, they […]

About the same time their 15-month-old daughter, Zoia, took her first steps, Anatoly and Katherine Vorontsov launched the most happening cheese and charcuterie business around, Cured and Cultivated. And now, just in time for the holidays, the couple recently began offering online ordering and delivery of their boxes, boards, and “tables” of imported wares up […]