If the last 20 months or so of lock downs, canceled events, limited socializing, and restricted dining options have left you hungry for celebrating the joys of gastronomy, the 17th San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival, November 11-14 is just what you need to satisfy your appetite.
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Love Seafood? Love Wine? Want to spend several hours enjoying both at one of San Diego’s premier oceanfront restaurants? Then you don’t want to miss the Ocean-to-Table Luncheon held at The Marine Room in La Jolla Shores as part of the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival on Wednesday, November 13 from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Continue reading
Question: Where will you find the most ooutstanding variety of regional Mexican food?
Answer: San Diego
What? You say San Diego is in California, not Mexico? Well, yes, but on June 1, the best of Mexican cuisine comes to San Diego for the Mexico Gourmet Festival, a one-night tribute to Mexican gastronomy, traditions and art, held on the Embarcadero Marina Park South from 5pm-9pm.
More than 30 chefs and traditional cooks from 13 different regions of Mexico, each with their own cooking style, favorite ingredients, and signature flavors will be presenting their cuisines at the Mexico Gourmet Festival. Ciudad de Mexico, Baja California, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Hidalgo, Coahuila, Veracruz, Yucatán, Tlaxcala, Sonora, Chiapas, and yes, even San Diego and Los Angeles will be represented. Mexico Gourmet Festival goers will have the chance to sample the cuisine and products from some of the most prominent chefs, restaurants, artists and vendors on both sides of the border, while experiencing the sights and sounds of Mexico. Of course, you’ll want to pair all that gastronomic bliss with equally outstanding beverages, so the Festival will also showcase craft beers, Baja wines, and authentic tequila and mezcal from at least 18 producers. Now, I call that a fiesta! Continue reading
by Wendy Lemlin
Last year, a new music-based festival rolled into town and immediately became a success. Filling the downtown waterfront Embarcadero Marina Park North, the three day San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival drew a capacity crowd of not only local smooth jazz enthusiasts, but also participants from all over California and beyond. Not a mean accomplishment for a first-time event during a busy time of year!!
Eric Darius
Drawing on that success, the 2nd annual San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival is back again this weekend, June 29-July 1, with a stellar lineup of some of the best known names of the genre. Hosted by saxophonist, composer, producer, and vocalist Eric Darius, the festival opens with an intimate evening featuring performances by Continue reading
By Wendy Lemlin
A 2017 floral arrangement interpreting the painting seen in the background
In my long list of “things I love about spring”, Art Alive is always among the top entries. During this annual four day event at the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), artworks in the museum’s collection are interpreted in wonderfully creative floral arrangements by over 100 designers. That, in itself, is fascinating to anyone who loves art, flowers and design. For me, however, this “rite of spring” is more than a just fragrant, colorful exhibit; it evokes in my psyche a healthy dose of nostalgia triggered by the floral scents wafting through the museum’s galleries.
Another arrangement in the 2017 exhibit interpreting the painting in the top right.
My birthday is in the first week of April, and as a child growing up in Massachusetts where winter and spring often played hide and seek in early April, my dad would always present me with a bouquet of spring flowers for my birthday. Tulips, crocuses, irises, sweet peas—I loved their fresh, not-too-sweet scents and the splashes of color they brought to a world just starting to green from winter’s dull, monotonous gray. In my mind, the flowers engendered hope for the longer, sunny days to come and the promise of new beginnings.
And so, I find Art Alive to be an ideal amalgamation of things that I love—art, creativity, flowers, and springtime. The floral arrangements in the show that I personally find most successful are those that, rather than striving for a literal interpretation of the painting or sculpture with which they are paired, are more abstract in suggesting a dominant shape, or color scheme, and use mostly un-dyed plant and floral materials without a lot of other props.
a portion of the rotunda display in 2017
The entry rotunda is where all the magic begins, with a (usually) magnificent, grand-scale installation that wows attendees with thousands of blossoms as soon as they enter the museum. This year, Natasha Lisitsa and Daniel Schultz, the wife-and-husband team behind Waterlily Pond Studio in San Francisco, have been selected as the Rotunda Designers. The duo will transform the Museum’s famed Rotunda into a blaze of color, bright blossoms, and lush foliage in honor of Nancy Lorenz: Moon Gold, the Museum’s spring exhibition opening on Friday, April 27. Lisitsa and Schultz are known for their larger-than-life floral installations, architectural design style and innovative use of materials.
A 2017 floral interpretation of a sculpture of an acient Indian deity
In its 37th year, and taking place April 26-29, Art Alive is SDMA’s primary fundraiser to support the Museum’s education and outreach programs as well as special exhibitions. In addition to the exhibit itself, the celebration will also include a number of separately-ticketed auxiliary events, such as the black tie Premier Dinner exclusively for Honorary Committee Premiere Patrons on April 26, the very popular (despite its $200-$250 pp ticket price) Bloom Bash kick-off event, and a floral crown making workshop.
Tickets for Art Alive are free for SDMA members, $25 for nonmembers, $5 for youth (ages 7 to 17), and free for children age 6 and under.
For more information or to make a donation in support of this San Diego tradition, call the Art Alive Hotline at (619) 696-1999, or contact the Museum at artalive@sdmart.org. Tickets are also available online at sdmart.org/artalive
by Wendy Lemlin
In recent years, San Diego has done a lot of growing up, gastronomically speaking. What was once a culinary backwater, defined mostly by gringo-ized pseudo-Mexican surfer grub, has blossomed with growing sophistication and appreciation for inventive cuisine, fine wines, craft beers —and direct collaboration between chefs and the farmers, ranchers, fishermen, winemakers and brewers whose labors provide the raw ingredients for the new excitement in local cuisine. And, in the last 14 years, the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival has been showcasing and giving impetus to this delicious maturation process in a multi-day event unlike anything else in the San Diego gastronomisphere. Because of its multi-faceted scope of events, San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival is my favorite local gourmet experience.
This year, San Diego Wine & Food Festival Festival, which runs November 12-19, is more eclectic than ever and has something for everyone who loves to eat or drink. From fermentation to fish tacos, from wine to wagyu, guests and participants can partake of events celebrating both the latest trends and the time honored favorites.
The Grand Tasting
By Wendy Lemlin
With its authentic food and outstanding vegan menu, Civico 1845 is one of my favorite Italian restaurants in San Diego, and it looks like it is going to become even better. Beginning this month, the Civico team is collaborating with chefs Antonio and Luca Abbruzzino, a Michelin rated father/son pair from Calabria, Italy, to highlight genuine southern Italian ingredients in the restaurant’s dishes. Continue reading
By Wendy Lemlin
When Trust Restaurant opened earlier this year in Hillcrest, I was invited to a media preview. With its enviable location on the corner of Robinson and Park, I could see at once that the 1300 sq ft patio, with its eye-catching red accents, ample table seating, and comfy couches, was going to be an immediate neighborhood success. Inside, the décor was inviting as well, contemporary casual,
all light woods and black accents, with a decent sized bar taking up the entire north wall of the dining room and an open kitchen on the east side, giving diners something to look at, besides their phones, as they wait for their orders to arrive. At that media preview, I recall, I was impressed with the space, but not so much with the food. To be fair, we were served tray-
passed “bites” of various menu items—never a good way to fully appreciate all the nuances of a dish, IMHO—and the large crowd was aggressively pouncing on whatever tidbits came their way, so I only managed to taste a few things. All of which I felt were “okay”, but didn’t wow me, as I remember, not enough for me to make a special trip to the restaurant now that I no longer live in the neighborhood. Continue reading
Words & photos by Wendy Lemlin
Under the therapeutic cascade at Rancho Bernardo Inn
Sometimes you just need a break. Not a long vacation, but certainly more of a change of scenery than just hanging out in your own home. Get away from the kitchen, get away from the computer, and get away from all the little chores around the house that nag to be done when you just want to relax. I’m talking abdication of all responsibility, here, with a side order of pampering thrown in for good measure. You don’t even need to go away to get away, distance-wise, to be amazed at how a change of environment makes for a change in temperament. You just need a great staycation. Continue reading
By Wendy Lemlin
“French Bistro”. Those two words never fail to set my tastebuds on happy alert, and so, when I recently discovered La Bonne Table on the corner of Pennsylvania and Fifth Avenues in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood, it was all I could do not to shout “ooh la la!” Continue reading