Om at Home: Soulful Solutions to Breathe New Life into the Way You Live
September 2008
Forget Extreme Home Makeover. Forget the cost and headache (not to mention waste) of a renovation. Stop comparing your life to the pristine museum interiors showcased in the home design glossies. Keep it simple and sustainable by making easy, affordable changes to create a beautiful space right where you are.
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Grow Your Own Way: Urban Homesteaders Reinvent the Family Farm
July 2008
They’re trading lawns for lettuce, bringing hens into the family fold and harvesting honey just steps from their back door. They’re the new urban farmers, and they’re coming soon to a yard near you (if they’re not already there). As climates change, fuel prices rise and food shortages loom, a growing number of city dwellers are realizing that converting a home into a homestead makes ecological and economic sense.
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Good Eats and Good Will at Mission Street Food
April 2009
At 5:30 every Thursday evening, a crowd forms outside Lung Shan, a scrappy Chinese restaurant at 18th and Mission. They're not lining up for wonton soup or mu shu pork, but for a guerilla-style restaurant called Mission Street Food. Think of it as kitchen improv. Anthony Myint, former line cook at Bar Tartine, wanted to flex his culinary muscles, but without a huge cash investment, starting up a restaurant was just a dream. So he got inventive.
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Sweet Spots
February 2009
When Valentine’s Day rolls around, sweetness and indulgence top the menu. You may not be able to avoid the calories, but you can alleviate some of your guilt and even do a bit of good by savoring natural, sustainable and locally sourced desserts.
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Garden of Earthly Delights
January 2009
On a chilly evening in wine country, chefs Eric Korsh and Ginevra Iverson walk between the raised beds in their kitchen garden, pointing out crimson Bull’s Blood beets they’ll use to enrich a bordelaise sauce or a riot of green papardelle leaves that adds bite to a salad. The young husband and wife team met while working at Prune, an award-winning French bistro in New York’s East Village. They’ve since migrated to Sebastopol where, this past summer, they opened Restaurant Eloise.
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In the Living Library, Everyone's an Open Book
January 2009
On a recent afternoon, Margaret Oakley sat at a table at the Santa Monica Library and talked to visitors about her vegan lifestyle. Her goal: to convince people she doesn't dislike carnivores – she's just passionate about her veggies.
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Say It, Don't Spray It
January 2009
Graffiti artists add vivid guerilla splashes of color to the urban landscape, but they do it with toxic paint loaded with VOCs. Enter a new breed of eco-taggers who are ditching the spray cans for natural materials such as water, mud and moss.
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At Piccino, Small Is Beautiful
December 2008
When Piccino, a sliver of a café, opened two years ago on a quiet corner in Dogpatch, the sleepy streets of this industrial neighborhood got a much-needed jolt. The Italian espresso machines hummed to life and suddenly local artists and business workers had the perfect pocket-sized place to stop for a wake-up cup of Blue Bottle or an after-work dinner of thin crust pizza and wine.
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Just Desserts at Mission Pie
October 2008
Walking into Mission Pie is a little like coming home. From the banana cream and olallieberry confections with their imperfect but lovingly handmade crusts to the rustic décor, this café celebrates the sweet, simple comfort of pie. A vase of wheat stalks sits atop an old kitchen dresser, peaches from a local farm fill a basket on the countertop and a long communal table invites diners to sit down and share a slice of goodness.
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OPEN Restaurant: Turning Dining Into Art
May 2008
On a recent spring evening in a restaurant south of Market, a crew of cooks moves busily about the kitchen turning out the night’s menu, while diners immerse themselves in wine and conversation. It might look like your typical restaurant but it’s not. This is OPEN, a temporary dining installation staged for one night only at New Langton Arts by Chez Panisse chefs and artists Jerome Waag and Sam White.
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