The Essence of Chandan

Looking out from Suite 136A in Stanford Shopping Center, a glance in any direction reveals a familiar name. To the right is California Pizza Kitchen, directly across is Williams Sonoma and to the left, See’s Candies, Tiffany & Co. and Bose signs immediately catch the eye. Tucked in the midst of the big brands is a small 450-square-foot up-market boutique called Mélange, recently opened by a self-made fashion designer determined to hold her ground.

“There is nothing else quite like this in the shopping center. There are very few small businesses, entrepreneurs like me here,” says owner Chandan Allen. “I waited a long time to get to this, and the store is just the right size and location.”

Step through the door of Mélange and the first impression is one of elegant simplicity. Striking red, geometric chandeliers adorn the ceiling while clothing racks tantalize with color block splashes of navys and teals, corals and pinks, and in the far back, the couture selections.

“This whole collection is about Proteas,” Chandan explains, gesturing to a dress embellished with the South African flowering plant known for its bright and showy colorful blooms. Why Proteas? To fully understand Chandan’s many influences, it’s helpful to start with the store’s name, “Mélange”—French for “mix” or “blend—since it captures the essence of Chandan. “Mélange is a combination of my heritage,” she says. “The India craftsmanship, from where I grew up and have my manufacturing, and Europe, which is where I trained.”

Growing up in Mumbai, Chandan says the fashion bug bit her quite early. “When I was little, I was obsessed with knitting. I would sit with the grannies and crochet for hours. I mean, who did that at that age?” she reminisces. As she got older, Chandan traced basic patterns and pieced together creations using her grandmother’s sewing machine: “I realized I really loved it and I wanted to go to fashion school.”

Berzelia Gown

“This gown set in nude is a canvas of the array of hummingbirds and Protea flowers in colorful motifs placed carefully throughout the ensemble. This dress is handcrafted with various embroidery techniques to give it that exquisite look perfect for a fall opera or a symphony night.”

However, Chandan’s parents steered her in a more sensible direction. “They said I should do a degree in commerce. Fashion school was a complete ‘no-no’ in those days,” she says. “So I got an honors degree in commerce and then I did my diploma in business management.”

After meeting her British husband, Mark Allen, while “working on a stint together” in India, Chandan moved to London, where the “fantastic world of fashion” opened up to her. A move to Scotland followed, and Chandan got her first taste of more formal training. “It was just a warm-up,” she says. “It really gave me a platform to start my journey.”

Intent on a career in fashion, Chandan gained admission to the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London, following the same path as legendary European designers like Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. Although Chandan’s fashion course was cut short by the birth of her first daughter, she applied her design and technical knowledge in the Allen family’s next move, this time to South Africa.

In 2009, while living in Capetown, Chandan officially launched Chandan Allen Designs Pvt. Ltd. Recruiting family in India to handle business operations, Chandan set up a full production house in Mumbai, enlisting pattern masters, cutting masters, tailors and embroiderers—and designed her first collection. “It was called the Essence of Africa, and it was all South Africa’s flora and fauna, with Birds of Paradise, crocodile prints and tribal elements,” she says.

Anselia Jacket

“This jacket is a classic jacket with intricate embroidery in the center and on cuff. The simplicity of this jacket makes a casual evening special with no extra accessories needed.”

Initially retailing through South African boutiques, Chandan launched her own store, the first Mélange, in 2012. “I had a lot of help in Capetown and it was just very liberating,” she reflects. “In Africa, people smile from the heart.” Then, in 2014, with three daughters in tow, it was moving time again. Mark took a sabbatical to be a Sloan Fellow in the Stanford MSx Program, and the Allen family relocated to Menlo Park.

After getting the family settled, Chandan turned her focus to the Chandan Allen website, trunk shows and private sales, along with designing her collections. “‘Chandan Allen’ is my smaller couture collection, maybe 15 pieces; they are like works of art. You’re wearing it to a gala or a symphony or the opera. That’s where I release my creative side,” she notes. “I also created another brand called ‘The Sancy,’ which is still luxury but more accessible, ready-to-wear and the price point is a bit lower.”

Now five years into Peninsula life, Chandan launched Mélange at Stanford Shopping Center in June, in what felt like a fitting tribute to the 10th anniversary of the start of her business. “Having a track record counts. I’m confident in my designs,” she says. Still, Chandan acknowledges that the key to Mélange’s success will be fully understanding and serving the local market.

“Getting direct feedback from the clientele is so valuable. I put the collection together thinking that it was for the working woman, the more established woman for sure, who wants to dress smart—and without going home, be able to transition to a happy hour or evening event,” Chandan says. “My designs have been taken more as special occasion wear. California is more relaxed and casual, so I’m taking all these notes and trying to keep the classic silhouettes that are very popular but just tuning them down so they’re more accessible and then bringing back things that people like.”

What can we expect from Chandan’s fall collection? “So far, my collections have been about the places that I have lived,” she says, although she expects this to evolve. “The next collection is a tribute to the 19th-century Scottish artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. My prints are all about his artwork but we’ve given it a modern twist.”

Protea Dress

“This denim dress has the Protea flowers embellished all over it and is perfect for a cool day with a light breeze. The heavier denim gives that extra warmth and the sleeve length adds to a snug feel. Fun, fashion and comfort are clearly reflected in this dress.”

Also priorities are Chandan’s commitment to sustainable business practices and finding ways to give back through local charitable organizations. “The community has been the biggest strength for me since I moved here,” she says. “The help and support have been unparalleled and I say that from a perspective of having lived on
four continents.”

With 14-, 12- and 6-year-old daughters, Chandan maintains a constant juggle between her home life and Mélange. “I do work long hours. When I finish here, I have to start work with India, so it really goes on until 12AM, even 1AM in the morning. It’s very exhausting but it’s a testament to how much you can do,” Chandan says. And while Stanford’s anchor stores may measure their square feet in the tens of thousands, Chandan is eager to show what she can do with her 450. “I’m not worried about all the big stores here. I’m committed to building my brand because I know it’s all about people discovering us.” melangestyle.com

Marlon’s Murals

He arrives around 6PM and doesn’t leave until 7AM the following morning. Working off lights he strings around the mural site, Marlon Yanes perseveres in the dark to finish a 91-foot mural for East Palo Alto’s Ravenswood Middle School in time. And while students will be arriving soon, Marlon has another reason for the time crunch: He has to hop a plane for the Pacific Northwest Chalk Fest in Redmond, Washington.

It’s the middle of August when temperatures can soar during the day and construction crews working around the school operate non-stop jackhammers, so a moonlit art session isn’t bothersome for the street painter, muralist and chalkboard artist from Redwood City. Marlon even prefers the solitude of night, painting with only a pair of earbuds in his ears for company. In fact, for ten years while working his 9-to-5 desk job, the nighttime was his domain for exploring his artistic side projects.

For the project at hand, Marlon is restoring a mural depicting smiling faces of students, jigsaw puzzle pieces spelling out the word “respect” and a sky-blue logo of the school. This is a breezy assignment for the adept illustrator who can draw with vivid detail the nuances of a human face or create geometric shapes with chalk on the pavement to create otherworldly, three-dimensional images.

Marlon begins by prepping the wall the same way he learned from his days as a house painter and in order to cover the massive spread, he uses spray paint—a first for the chalk enthusiast. Wrapping up in time for his flight to Washington, Marlon packs all his gear back into his big, black truck and washes the paint off his hands. He officially concludes the process by posting a few photos and a video of the mural onto his Instagram profile.

“Finito” he writes in the post explaining the artwork, a catchphrase he’ll often deploy in posts like these once the paint from a project fully dries.

He may be done with the Ravenswood school piece, but Marlon and his murals are far from finito. He’s painted almost nonstop since leaving his position last summer as the in-house chalk artist and graphic designer for the Northern California region of Whole Foods. Marlon’s work frequently appears in 10- by 10-square-foot boxes at art festivals throughout the Bay Area and he’s been commissioned for art pieces for schools, office walls and even on Redwood City’s utility boxes. With expanding exposure, private clients have begun to reach out via Instagram to hire him for their home projects.

And then there’s the international group of street painters Marlon teamed up with that’s introduced him to new ideas and connected him to empty walls in need of his colorful vision.

“We all met at chalk festivals and call each other ‘family.’ We all learn from each other and teach one another. Some have traits or techniques from all around the world like Peru or Mexico,” he says. “My chalk family tells me that I never pick anything that’s easy to draw. But I need the challenge; if I don’t have a challenge, I lose interest.”

Marlon is most himself when he has a pen in hand and he’s been like this since he was a toddler. Born in Guatemala, he recalls a story when he was five years old and fell off a bicycle, shattering his leg. When trying to describe to his mother what happened, Marlon’s explanation was fittingly put into an illustration.

“When I saw my mom, I asked for a paper and pencil to draw the bike,” he says. “My mom said that even for a five-year-old, you could see the shape of the bike. I said, ‘Here’s the leg, here’s the bike and wahh.’ I even drew the crying sound.”

Marlon’s mother was a teacher in Guatemala City and his father worked as an accountant for the government. In the midst of the Guatemalan Civil War, his father fled to the United States and the rest of his family joined him in Redwood City when Marlon was eight years old. They lived in the North Fair Oaks neighborhood on Douglas Avenue. Near their house was a corner market where Marlon would purchase copies of Lowrider magazine and zines that inspired him to develop his art. “It was something done in color and pen and I had only drawn with pencil before,” he says.

Marlon attended Selby Lane Elementary School, Kennedy Middle School and Woodside High School where he excelled in math (“I pissed people off because I used to mess up the grading curve,” he says. “I had 117% in Algebra II!”), but he continued to stoke his artistic passion. The margins in his notebooks were scrawled with doodles and he designed the logo for his high school’s soccer club, the Madera Roja Scorpions, which continues to be the logo today. He also drew the sets and stages for the drama department, a position he valued because he wasn’t in the spotlight.

“I liked that, being a little behind the scenes,” he says. “When street painting, there are so many people walking around but I put my earbuds on to tune everything out.”

Marlon later attended Cañada College to study multimedia and worked as a house painter on the side. He eventually left school to manage a Fresh Choice restaurant and later worked in a sales job for underground construction products.

In March 2008, Marlon began working in the prepared foods section for Whole Foods in Redwood City. The new regional director at the time wanted to spruce up the store with chalkboard illustrations but the in-house artist was a skilled graphic designer who couldn’t draw by hand. Marlon stepped up.

“The regional president came in afterwards and asked who did all of these illustrations, only to learn it was some guy in prepared foods. I was there chopping up stuff!” Marlon says. “Later I got a call from the person in charge of store openings who asked if I’d come help open a store in Reno in 2009. Since that Reno store, I’ve opened 20 stores across Northern California.”

One of his more marquee projects is the mural “Seeds for a Healthy Tomorrow” as seen on the outside façade of the Redwood City store. Marlon worked with Whole Foods until summer 2018 when he struck out on his own. Along with his packed calendar of commissioned projects, he travels throughout the country to participate in art festivals. After Washington State, he has stops in Atlanta, Kansas City, Miami and Venice Beach, all before Thanksgiving.

This past August, Marlon returned to the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts where he first began to street paint. This year’s appearance commemorated his first decade as a professional street painter, where his unwavering passion for drawing converged with the skills he acquired from odd jobs to create his future path.

“All those different, random jobs that I had, I realize now how it’s helped me,” he says. “With house painting, I can prepare a wall and make wire brush to scrape old paint off the wall. Restaurant management for Fresh Choice helped teach me how to deal with customers and people. All that stuff I still use. It wasn’t a straight line, it pinballed. I didn’t see it until I started having to use it.”

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Backyard Bliss

Words by Sheri Baer

Romantic meadow grasses rustle in the light breeze, accented by wildflower splashes of purple, pink, orange and red. Meandering pathways beckon, and just beyond, a glimpse of stone steps descending—and then dropping away, with hints of a rock outcropping, a sunken plaza and a burbling waterfall tucked just out of view.

This may sound like a scene from a Tuscan villa, but in fact it is the backyard of a two-story home in the Menlo Oaks neighborhood of Menlo Park. Now consider that this one-acre flag lot started out as “flat as a pancake.”

Going back a few years, the property’s swimming pool and tennis court certainly provided pleasure. But the home’s owner, an avid wine collector, recognized that something was missing. Forced to rely on two off-site storage facilities, he wanted to more easily access and appreciate his reds and whites. He reached out to the landscape architect who had developed other elements on his property. As David Wollney recollects, the conversation went something like this: “What do you think about doing a wine cellar?” Instantly intrigued, David responded, “I’ll get back to you with ideas.”

Half-Italian from his mother’s side, David also shared a passion for wine—as well as the art and science behind winemaking. In fact, it was David’s love of both art and science that drew him to landscape architecture: “All projects have the design, which draws from the right, artistic side of the brain, but then you have to figure out how to construct your design, which fires up the left, technical side.” When David struck out on his own in 1992, he befittingly called his firm Paesaggio, “landscape” in Italian. “I wanted to honor my grandmother because I didn’t know how many more years she had left,” David says. “But she had quite a few as it turned out,” he adds with a smile.

Having recently completed a project for Fortunati Vineyards, a boutique winery in Napa, David’s sensibilities were already tuned in the right direction. As he scrutinized the Menlo Oaks property, one fact was immediately evident. “We couldn’t put the wine cellar under the house. We had to put it outside,” David recounts. “Everybody’s grateful for that now. Otherwise, it probably would have just been a staircase going down into a basement, but instead, we were able to create an experience—the wine cellar becomes part of the way you use the outdoors.”

David’s client had a few stipulations. He desired an entertaining space, but he didn’t want it right up against the house. “He asked for lovely plantings in the foreground, leading up to this ‘hole in the ground’—a plaza and wine cellar,” David says. The one-acre property also had multiple constraints that had to be taken into account. Turning his left brain on, David created the site plan. “I determined the size and shape of the wine cellar, where it was going to be located and how deep we were going to put it.”

To conceptualize the design, David switched gears to the right. “You always hear people talk about the napkin sketch,” he says. “There’s a certain marker that I have with a pen width that’s perfect for me. I drew up the space with the simple geometry of an L-shaped wall on one side and a wiggly line on the other. I didn’t have all the answers at that time. I just had this sketch and it sang to me.”

To both define the plaza and block the wind, David developed a rammed earth L-shaped retaining wall. “It’s an old technique that has an earthly, sedimentary feel,” he says. On the other side of the plaza, the wiggly line evolved into a more natural landform: “I wanted it to look like a rock outcropping and an ecology of plants just flowing down into the plaza and exposing a cave entrance, the entrance to the wine cellar—almost like Roman ruins that you’re excavating.”

The blend of the two elements delivered the effect David was seeking. “The landform side is more feminine and the retaining wall is more masculine,” he notes. “And the two together is what really makes the space magical.”

Working with the conceit of a natural cave formation, David recognized the logical extension, adding a small waterfall cascading down a rock bed. “Even though it looks “natural,” it truly isn’t. It’s meant to create a pleasing sound, and you can turn up the volume for parties or keep it to a trickle when you’re reading the Sunday newspaper,” David says.

Although the myriad of materials included quartzite, boulders and more modern colored concrete, David knew the plaza floor needed to be distinctive. The solution revealed itself in a storage yard in Redwood City. “We met this mason who collects all kinds of artifacts from France and Italy. We immediately fell in love with paving from a road in Provence, likely 200 to 300 years old,” David shares. “It got a lot of wear, so it looks like these old stones that have been excavated up.”

David describes the physical wine cellar as a rectangle with a vaulted arch: “It’s truly an indoor-outdoor relationship, even though there isn’t a window. You just open up the door and people flow back and forth between the wine cellar and plaza space.” Although fine wine could be stored in the cellar’s ambient temperature, the owner installed a separate cooling system with the capacity for about 2,000 bottles. “He wanted it to be the perfect 55 degrees, so it’s behind glass on beautiful wine racks that he had custom-made out of redwood,” David says. “He has a spreadsheet so he knows what wine he’s going to be drinking until the day he’s on the wrong side of the green.”

For the plantings, David collaborated with horticulturalist John Greenlee, guiding him to smother the top of the “cave” with plants year-round—and then extend his artistry throughout the site. “He’s a genius who loves grasses and we wanted it to look like a meadow,” David says. “The grasses are the main character in the movie, right? And then the supporting cast are all these beautiful little nuggets of color that come into play throughout the seasons.”

In the end, all the different elements came together—including “the magical hole in the middle of the meadow,” along with an outdoor kitchen and dining area, a bocce ball court and even a bistro table set amidst the grasses for enjoying a morning cappuccino. Looking out at the view, David emits a clearly contented sigh, “It truly is one of a kind. I don’t know of anything like this that exists or that’s even similar.”

And while David has tackled about every kind of landscape architecture project in his career—ranging from residential to retail to resorts—he knows what he’d like to do next. “You know how all the rage was putting in home theaters? I’m hoping the next rage will be doing personal wine cellars outside of the house,” he says. “I’m truly happy when I’m using the right side and left side of my brain, and I think this project, more than any other I’ve worked on, challenged me that way.” paesaggio-la.com

The Beat On Your Eats

Bluestone Lane Café

Los Altos

Bluestone Lane Café strives to generate human connections within its large, detailed space in downtown Los Altos where mint-green tiles meet coastal beach prints as neutral timber tones and wooden furnishings round out its 1,667-square-foot layout. Founded in Australia by a Melbournian who sought to enhance the café experience, Bluestone Lane’s Los Altos location, which opened in 2013, was developed with a laidback klatch in mind. The menu features the popular Avocado Smash, which combines avocados, feta cheese and cherry tomatoes before it’s spooned onto toasted bread—with premium coffee on the side. 288 1st Street, open Monday through Sunday from 7:30AM to 6PM.

Three Bees Coffee

San Mateo

A staple of downtown San Mateo for nearly 20 years (even predating the movie theater), Three Bees Coffee is a homey, independent coffee shop brewing strong while surrounded by nationwide chains like Philz and Pete’s Coffee. Its secret, according to owner Rafat Haddad, is simple: quality coffee matched by a welcoming atmosphere. “People come here to meet each other for coffee—they want to see each other here,” he says. “That’s the environment we’ve created.” The blackboard menu behind the counter offers straightforward coffee-based drinks while a satellite location on the third floor of the local library shows just how entwined with San Mateo Three Bees has truly become. 224 East 3rd Avenue, open Monday through Thursday from 6:30AM to 6:30PM; Friday and Saturday from 6:30AM to 8:30PM; Sunday from 7:30AM to 6:30PM.

Coffeebar

Menlo Park + Redwood City

If Apple has its “geniuses” and Subway its “sandwich artists” then come to Coffeebar for the “hospitalians.” Inspired by the congenial café culture native to Italy, Coffeebar is a community hub that transitions from morning espressos and coconut chai lattes (with eats like a Harvest Brunch Bowl) to an evening wine bar for winding down the day. The Menlo Park location has become a hit since opening in 2018 and their growth continues with the debut of Coffeebar Redwood City in September with plans for a second Menlo Park café plus a Palo Alto shop. 1149 Chestnut Street, Menlo Park; 2020 Broadway, Redwood City; open Sunday through Wednesday from 6:30AM to 9PM; Thursday through Saturday from 6:30AM to 10PM.

Growing Heat

Off the 101 in East Palo Alto, in the shadows of large retail and commerce structures ranging from IKEA to Amazon, is a small-yet-prominent, family-owned pepper farm. But you’d be hard-pressed to find Happy Quail Farms if you’re just driving by.

Though their peppers are revered by locals at farmers markets and restaurant chefs alike, the private farm hides in plain sight.

Owner David Winsberg started Happy Quail Farms in 1980, not surprisingly, to raise quails to sell their eggs. Initially coming to the Bay Area as a glassblower apprentice, he pivoted into agriculture. Along with quails, David was growing basil and other herbs, delivering them by way of his Vespa scooter.

About the time he married and started a family, he decided that he needed a more durable produce with a higher demand to make a living as a self-sufficient farmer on small acreage on the Peninsula. Calling upon his past from his father’s green bell pepper farm in South Florida, he settled on growing peppers in the clay, silt and loam-based soil of the Bay. The Happy Quail moniker, a vestige of his past, remained in name and represented the intentionally small, family nature of his farm.

Nearly four decades later, Happy Quail Farms produces a large variety of fresh peppers with some of the most sought-after produce in the country. It’s also the last-known independent farm in East Palo Alto.

“We didn’t intend to get big,” soft-spoken David explains. “We wanted to become a small, specialty farm.”

Longtime residents might recall the area’s agricultural history but new neighbors may be surprised to learn how fruitful the ground is in East Palo Alto. How a fertile farm hides among the tech giants of Silicon Valley.

Happy Quail Farms grows many specialties of bell, poblano, shishito and padrón peppers—the largest assortment of any one pepper farm in the U.S. Famed food writer Calvin Trillin once remarked that the padrón is the only pepper he’d travel to Spain for and wondered why no one grew them in the U.S. According to David, Happy Quail Farms was the first to jump in, and lo and behold, these specialty Spanish peppers can be found in East Palo Alto.

David notes that Americans are just acquiring a palate for very hot peppers; therefore, the majority of his crop is sweet and red. While many pepper producers wax the vegetables to maintain their color and firmness for a longer shelf life, Happy Quail Farms decided to forego that preservation step to instead sell the produce quickly so customers can enjoy the freshness.

Restaurants as far away as Miami and Boston order directly from Happy Quail Farms with San Francisco’s La Mar Cebicheria buying 80 percent of Happy Quail Farms’ unique ají amarillo peppers for their ceviche.

The two main factors that determine the spiciness or heat of the peppers are temperature and length of season. Farmers in hotter climates, such as New Mexico and the Yucatán, grow spicier varieties. The Peninsula’s cooler climate and shorter season is more suitable for a sweeter variation of pepper. The peak season for local peppers is between June and mid-October but can run all the way to February, depending on the amount of rain and cold weather.

Happy Quail Farms has become an institution at local farmers markets and even predates when East Palo Alto was incorporated in 1983. Over the years, the farm has grown and adapted with the times. New technology ushered in solar panels to defray energy costs to help run the water pump system and 20 years ago, David upgraded to a retractable roof greenhouse for passive climate control.

The greenhouse is tucked behind David’s home and upon opening the large sliding door, the rows and rows of green leaves and peppers are magically revealed. Happy Quail Farms was the first to use this new roof technique for vegetable growing. The adjustable roof allows the greenhouse to cool the confines without the need and expense of fans. Peppers like it hot and David’s greenhouse can maintain an internal temperature of approximately 100 degrees.

One of the disadvantages to the Peninsula is the familiar pangs of escalating real estate prices. Happy Quail Farms has expanded into other plots outside of the main farm but this past year, the owners of the lot where he grows rhubarb decided to develop their land. Not surprisingly, rhubarb can’t compete with those returns.

While they won’t have as much rhubarb, Happy Quail Farms plants a variety of other crops to help rotate what’s grown in the farm’s soil, such as cucumbers, strawberries, watercress and tarragon. In recent years, David decided to extend his pepper season and products by offering a popular line of powders, relishes and sauces, including Ají Amarillo, Habanero and their top-selling sauce: Smoky Cayenne. The processed peppers have grown to make up 20 percent of Happy Quail’s business.

Any kind of farming is hard work, but the life of the pepper farmer can inherently sting. David and his team avoid touching their eyes when cutting peppers and while producing their pepper powder, use a respirator and gloves along with a ventilation system. David recalls the time he broke a bottle of habanero pepper powder in the back of his truck. “It was so potent, I couldn’t drive for a month without sneezing and crying,” he says.

What should you do if you eat a pepper that’s too hot? David’s tip is either bread or dairy. He says peppers have a sticky quality that latches onto our taste buds. While water provides little to no relief, David recommends something abrasive like bread or products with lactose such as milk or ice cream to help extinguish the inflaming pepper.

You’ll find Happy Quail Farms at farmers markets in Menlo Park (Sunday 9AM-1PM), Marin County and the San Francisco Ferry Building. Look for the amazing variety (red, orange, yellow, white, green, purple and chocolate) of fresh and bottled peppers to add color and flavor to your dishes. You can also buy sauces and relishes at happyquailfarms.com. And if you’re a pepper neophyte, keep a pint of ice cream nearby just in case.

make it

DAVID’S SECRET SAUCE RECIPE

Ingredients

  • 2-3 lbs long Cubanelle peppers
    (vine-ripened if possible)
  • ½ cup high-quality olive oil
  • 1½ lbs tomatoes, cubed
  • 2 onions
  • salt
  • ciabatta bread
  • pinch of sugar (optional)

Instructions

Slice the onions and brown them in the olive oil on low heat in a large, shallow pan until they are caramelized. While the onions are cooking, seed the peppers, slice them thinly either by hand or food processor. Add the peppers to the caramelized onions. They will first produce a lot of liquid. Let the liquid slowly evaporate. Add salt to taste and if you want, a pinch of sugar. Before it starts to burn, add cubed tomatoes and quickly stir. The tomatoes should not cook all the way. When the mixture is about done, cut the ciabatta thinly and toast. When you are ready to serve, drizzle the toasted bread with olive oil and put a spoonful of David’s Secret Sauce on it. Makes for a great appetizer! If used alone, it makes a wonderful sauce for pasta, as well as a side dish along any main entrees like fish or meats.

Two-timing Thief

When I was 12 years old, my concert violinist mom, who had endured all she could of Amarillo, Texas, moved away to join a major U.S. symphony. Since my older brother and sister had already gone off to school, I was left with my quiet, gruff father, alone in our big home.

It was a rough time for me. When he started dating my future stepmom soon after, there was an estrangement between the two of us. I was not a pleasant child to his future family. And so, for the first time, he wanted to curry favor with me in hopes that I would stop being so horrible to his girlfriend and her three young children.

In an inexplicable gesture (since he was an orthopedic surgeon and would never allow us to play football or be within 100 yards of a motorcycle), he bought me a Honda Z50 mini bike, all the rage at the time. I’m not sure that it made me feel any better about the situation, but it did allow me to focus on something other than my home situation and the loss of my mother.

I loved that little yellow bike, and I thoughtfully put together a toolset to take care of all its needs. I kept it immaculately clean, well oiled and full of gas.

Coe Terrell, a boy down the block—one of those kids who hangs around, whom you don’t really like but you somehow tolerate—came by as I was working on my Honda one spring Saturday. He kept asking me if he could take it for a ride, but I kept giving him my built-in and honest answer: “My dad won’t allow me to let anyone else ride it.”

Coe continued asking and eventually got annoyed with me and left. I was glad. I walked over to my friend Scotty’s house then to see his new dog, a beautiful Boxer named Clipper. I stayed for about an hour and then came back home. When I went out to my Honda, I immediately noticed that my toolset was gone. I had a pretty good idea where it went.

I called Coe but he claimed he knew nothing about it. I knew in my heart that he was lying to me, but I didn’t know how to prove it. A few nights later, thinking about it before I went to bed, I came up with a plan.

The next day, a Saturday, I went over near Coe’s home and found a good hiding space in the neighbor’s bushes and waited. Luckily, in about an hour I watched as Coe got into the car with his father and left. Now, I could execute my idea. I walked to the Terrell’s front door and rang the bell.

“Hello, Mrs. Terrell,” I said brightly.

“Hi there, Sloane. How are you? You just missed Coe,” she said sweetly.

“Mrs. Terrell, I’m trying to do some chores at home, but we don’t have any wrenches or pliers and I was wondering if I could borrow some from you. I think Coe told me he has some.”

“Let me check,” and with that she went hunting for my request. I stood at the door waiting.

A few minutes later she appeared with several tools in a small plastic container. I looked down and smiled. All of them were my own. I didn’t know what to say except “thank you” so I just took them and left.

The next afternoon, having practiced my speech a hundred times, I went back to the Terrell home. Coe’s father, a large, stern man, answered the door. I was petrified.

“Hi, Mr. Terrell,” I said, gulping. “Uh, yesterday, Mrs. Terrell let me borrow some tools and when she gave them to me, well, I’m sorry to say that they were the same tools that were stolen from me last weekend. I had a whole box of tools for my mini bike and I had been hanging out with Coe and then I left and I’m afraid that he stole my tools.”

The Terrells had me come in and sit while they went up to Coe’s room. They came down the stairs together and then a remorseful-looking Coe apologized to me. Unfortunately, he told his parents that he had thrown most of the other tools and the box in the garbage because he was mad that I wouldn’t let him ride my bike.

Fortunately, the Terrells owned a big lumberyard and we got into the car and went there. By the register were a large selection of tools and boxes, and they allowed me to pick anything I wanted to try to recreate my toolset. I found what I needed but my toolset never felt quite the same after that incident.

A few years ago, when I was visiting Amarillo, in what was truly a coincidence, I looked at the Amarillo Globe Times arrest report, and there, immediately grabbing my attention, was the name Coe Terrell. Arrested in Randall County. The crime? Second-Degree Felony Theft.

Dynamic Duo

If you find yourself out and about in the evening, looking for a cool place to stop in, Burlingame is a good bet—with two bars setting the bar for Peninsula nightlife. One is Barrelhouse Bar, across from the Burlingame train station. Attracting a packed after-work crowd, Barrelhouse features reclaimed wood decor, steampunk lighting, craft cocktails, beer, wine and a city feel. Also on tap here: an outdoor patio, occasional live music, a happy hour, and if you’re hungry, a small menu of charcuterie and a variety of empanadas.

The other hot spot is a short walk down Burlingame Avenue and a left turn at the Apple store. Here, you’ll find the Vinyl Room—a drinks-only retro lounge fitted out with old-school album covers, a bar, dance floor, live music and DJs spinning playlists for customers who shake it as fast as the bartenders mix drinks.

Both are popular stops on the annual Burlingame Halloween pub crawl and costume contest. And though the two locations may have different vibes, they share the same owners: Juan Loredo and Jose Natividad, two young men who started out even younger, and who’ve successfully worked their dreams into reality.

It all started when Juan and Jose met while fraternity brothers at San Jose State. They were studying advertising when they both got jobs working at a local bar and grill. The money was good, they liked the environment and they did very well. A seed was planted.

After college, Juan got a job with Nielsen doing media research, and Jose jumped into an assistant role at Morgan Stanley. But at night, they continued working behind the bar. They would work their full-time jobs and go straight into bartending at night. And at some point, both realized it was the best part of their day. “I looked forward to working at the bar at night, interacting with people on that level. It just seemed natural,” Jose says. “I got captivated by it; I just wanted to stay in the business.” And as it turned out, so did Juan. The seed took root.

From that realization, it was a three-year slog of working full-time by day and bartending at night so they could open up a place of their own, without needing an additional partner or investor. “We didn’t really care about getting a day off,” Jose recalls. “We just wanted to save money and open up our own bar.”

Flash forward to 2006. Just 25 at this point, Juan and Jose had accumulated enough savings. It was time to make it happen. “We both grew up in San Jose so we wanted to get out of San Jose. San Francisco was definitely the benchmark,” Juan says. Still, the two were realistic. “At 25, we’d helped our managers, but operations is completely different, being an owner. We thought, if we go to San Francisco, we’re just gonna get eaten alive and we’re gonna fail, so let’s not do that.”

Instead, they set their sights on a “small bar in a small town.” They ruled out Campbell, Los Gatos and Willow Glen. “We decided that we were going to try to find something closer to the City that met that criteria: a small town that had a bar for sale that we could possibly buy.”

At last they heard about a closed bar and disco in Burlingame. It was a mirror ball in the rough, but Jose and Juan agreed—this was the place. Rolling up their sleeves, they started peeling off the layers of what had been Rocket’s Nightclub. Long before that, it was the Polo Club, reportedly an old haunt of the legendary late Hillsborough resident Bing Crosby. Finally, when the hammering was over and the dust settled, what emerged was the Vinyl Room. With DJs playing hip dance music and bartenders serving up great drinks, the buzz started to grow. “Everyone just gravitated towards it; everyone was excited for something different and new,” Jose says.

By 2011, the duo felt the time was right to open a second bar, and Barrelhouse was born. This time, the concept was the “Peninsula’s Neighborhood Bar.” Offering beer, wine and spirits (which all come in barrels), the name “Barrelhouse” captured their intent of having selections appealing to everyone. Eight years later, the joint is still jumping. And even though Juan and Jose make success look easy, in the unpredictable world of hospitality, it definitely is not. “We dedicated ourselves to doing it. We committed,” Juan reflects. “People will come in and they know we have two bars, and they ask, ‘Is this all you do? You probably have another job, right?’ And I just look at them… ‘What?’ Because it’s a lot of work. You’re here sometimes until 3,4,5 in the morning.”

At the end of the night, they love what they do and it shows. “We’re always happy to be here, to take care of the customer, to take care of our business,” Jose says. “Even when it’s difficult sometimes, we persevere. We are all-in to make it work, no matter what.”

make it

THE CORTEZ KILLER

From the Barrelhouse Specialty Cocktail Menu, the Cortez Killer is the creation of Barrelhouse manager Jesus Partida. Crafted with Mexican Mezcal, the Chile de Árbol (Mexican red chili pepper) garnish gives the drink its final kick.

Ingredients

  • 1½ oz. Mezcal Unión      
  • 1  oz. lime
  • ½ oz. Agave nectar
  • ½ oz. Aperol          
  • Slice of serrano pepper      
  • Chile de Árbol (garnish)   

Instructions

Add all ingredients into shaker and shake. Put one large ice cube into an English highball glass rimmed with smoked cherrywood salt. Double strain cocktail into the glass and garnish with Chile de Árbol.

BAR HOP:

Vinyl Room

221 Park Road

Barrelhouse

305 California Drive

House of Spice

words by Silas Valentino

Slightly secluded from the bustle of El Camino Real, hidden within the southern edge of San Mateo’s Hayward Park neighborhood, is a restaurant worth the seek.

Down a short alley that splits from the main road and bordered by an insurance service and a boutique shop, stands a cream-colored Victorian well into its hundreds with a kitchen reserved for evocative Californian cuisine. If it’s the mid-afternoon, chef and owner Sachin Chopra is in there delicately prepping the evening’s prix fixe menu as a local rock radio station provides a backbeat to his rhythmic chopping.

Approaching the front door to All Spice, you’ll notice the burgundy trim outlining both the bay and dual upstairs windows. By the time you reach the foyer, Shoshana Wolff is there for the greeting. The restaurant’s wine director and general manager makes herself accessible throughout the meal and is so omnipresent, that even All Spice’s front page photo on Google shows her readily available at the host’s stand.

The charming three-room cottage went through several iterations prior to housing All Spice; originally erected in 1906 as a gatehouse for the prominent Borel Family Estate that once held this chunk of the Peninsula, the building previously served as a maternity store before the more recent Chef Jon Sears’ The Dining Room during the first decade of the current century. Sachin and Shoshana, a husband-wife restaurateur duo, took over in 2010, adding their own distinct flavoring to the premises.

Today, the three dining rooms are designed in colors and ambiance to reflect ginger, cinnamon and basil spices. An avocado-green fireplace provides warmth during the winter. Tables once decked in white tablecloths are now bare, more casual and comfortable. The restaurant feels less like a Michelin-star-worthy pursuit and more as though Shoshana and Sachin have invited you into their family home in Montara for an evening of fine dining.

“We had no idea what this restaurant was going to be, but we kind of molded it to this particular location,” Shachin explains. “This building lent itself to the restaurant. I thought it would be a good place for fine dining and this is what it was supposed to be.”

As fine dining undergoes a transition in modern cuisine, where the number of closures seem to outweigh the openings, All Spice remains a staple of deluxe cookery on the Peninsula, largely due to the couple’s drive for innovation. The menu is so often adapted or modified that certain recipes from years past are lost or abandoned. Sachin uses his kitchen as an exploratorium for unearthing striking flavor profiles; the slow-roasted venison currently on the menu is accompanied by a mixture of juniper, cabbage jus, miso, green peas, turnips and hearts of palm to create savory bites that are hard to pin down.

“Something that gives me a lot of joy is when people taste something of Sachin’s creation, and it’ll remind them of something their mom used to make,” Shoshana says. “The flavors are there but they’re presented in a way that’s out of context or unusual. Sometimes people can’t tell what vegetables they’re eating—is it an onion or a radish?”

Sachin is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York who worked the line at the four-star restaurant Daniel in Manhattan before impressing palates with his melding of Indian flavors and French classics. He came to California in 2003 to work as the executive sous chef of Amber India in San Jose, where he met Shoshana, a Santa Cruz native with a background in mechanical engineering and a passion for viticulture and enology. The two married and envisioned a restaurant where Sachin’s talents were no longer constricted to his Indian heritage or limited by their own ambition.

“I wanted to give him a platform to do something beyond traditional Indian food with a little tweak,” Shoshana says. “He would get hired to do Indian food in a different way but the minute they were not growing astronomically, he had to go back to making butter chicken. There was no joy in it for him.”

For Sachin, any time spent focusing on traditional Indian cuisine meant less attention on creating new dishes and blending flavor profiles. “The whole purpose of coming to America was to work in modern French food,” says Sachin, who was born in Sonipat near New Delhi. “I don’t see any fault in those dishes; they’re very delicious, but as a chef, it was really frustrating because you’d make tons of tikka masala while your other modern dishes would be a little languid.”

Sachin’s profile on Instagram is ripe with examples of his boundless imagination for food. (It’s also a great preview for what to expect on a future All Spice menu.) Scrolling down his Instagram page becomes a carousel of visual delights for foodies. His posts reveal how bite-sized treasures offer a bounty of colors and shapes. At All Spice, your feet remain in San Mateo while your tongue embarks on an epicurean excursion.

Sachin updates the menu with seasonal adaptations or variations on fan favorites. One such favorite is his series “Ode for Wife” now in its seventh edition as a dish rooted in beets, a vegetable adored by Shoshana but abhorred by the chef: “Oh my God,” Sachin laughs. “Beets are horrible!”

Shoshana runs the front of house where she greets every customer who passes through the burgundy-framed door. She says a majority of their clientele are from Burlingame down to Palo Alto but All Spice often attracts foodies from San Francisco, the East Bay or business types in town for a few days.

The duo debuted a satellite All Spice location in San Francisco in 2015 that was awarded with a Michelin Star in its second year. The feat allowed them to share their kitchen with a larger audience; however, they recognized a dwindling demand for fine dining and closed their second location to focus on the flagship. Shoshana says customers aren’t prioritizing formality—they’re seeking experiences that eschew white tablecloths and waiters whipping out crumbers.

“There’s really a movement towards a comfortable, casual-feeling dining even if the food is really on point. If you look at the restaurants that are getting Michelin Stars—take State Bird Provisions [in San Francisco], for example. I heard they laughed when they got the call; they thought it was ridiculous. It’s so casual and relaxed there. It’s not what you think of for ‘fine dining,’” she says.

“We are really fortunate that on the Peninsula, there is a demand for special occasion restaurants. People want somewhere appropriate to celebrate events. There are a lot of delicious foods but not as many places with an ambiance.”

foodie delight

allspicerestaurant.com

@allspicexbranch

Taking a Bow

This has been a momentous year for Robert Kelley, founder and artistic director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. In May, he announced that he’s stepping down after his 50th and final season with the company. And then in June, he traveled to New York to accept the highest honor that an American theatre not producing shows on Broadway can receive: the American Theatre Wing’s Tony Award for Regional Theatre.

Kelley is quick to wave away any personal congratulations, however.

“The award is a recognition for the whole company,” he says. “There are many thousands of artists, costume makers, technicians, board members and supporters over the years who are responsible for TheatreWorks winning this award. When you’re a director you soon realize that every single part of what goes into making a performance happen is really co-equal.”

Nonetheless, Kelley’s vision is acknowledged as a driving force in transforming the company from its beginnings in 1970 as a theatre arts workshop into the professional powerhouse it is today. A member of the prestigious national League of Regional Theatres, TheatreWorks currently boasts over 8,000 subscribers, annual funding of some $9 million dollars and an educational program that reaches about 25,000 students annually. TheatreWorks not only provides musical, drama and music drama performances at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts and the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, it also hosts an annual New Works Festival and Writers’ Retreat.

This emphasis on new works has given rise to many productions that have ultimately triumphed on Broadway and the international stage. For example, in 2004, TheatreWorks presented the world premiere of Memphis, which went on to open on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 2010. Pride and Prejudice, which opens this December, will be TheatreWorks’ 70th world premiere.

All of this has evolved from a single summer project 50 years ago. “I’d been involved since childhood with the Palo Alto Community Theatre,” recalls Kelley, a Bay Area native and Stanford graduate. “I was invited to put together a work that would both engage young people and provide common ground between the over- and under-thirties. This was a very divisive time. Anti-war sentiment was growing and student protests were happening everywhere,” he continues. “We were pretty green in those days but Popcorn, the musical we created, ended up as a great success.”

Not only was Popcorn timely and relevant, it benefited from a few other strokes of luck. “I decided to open the show with a film including a student protest acted by cast members,” Kelley explains. “I got all the right permissions and also asked if some police could attend—our cast members looked far too young to be in law enforcement—but was turned down. However, while we were filming, the police who knew what we were doing went off shift, so when the public started calling in with reports of a riot they sent eight police cars. The cast let out a huge cheer and we had the footage we needed!”

Building on the success of Popcorn, the company continued to perform in any space they could find, including Palo Alto’s historic Lucie Stern Theatre, before ultimately becoming the home company for the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in 2010.

Although TheatreWorks performs in Mountain View and Palo Alto, its operational base is a cavernous administrative, rehearsal and storage space in the Sobrato nonprofit center in Redwood City. “Part of the facility was a massive warehouse,” Kelley notes. “What other organization would need a space like that? But it was perfect for us.”

Starting a theatre company in the suburbs definitely had its challenges. “You could count other suburban theatre groups on one hand,” Kelley says. “That’s changing now; there are more local communities around the country that can support theatres. Over the past 50 years, we gradually went from being a local company to a Bay Area to a Californian and now a nationally-recognized company. We’ve had a very unusual growth curve.”

Kelley credits a fierce commitment to diversity and community values with driving that growth. “In particular, the company is a passionate supporter of the new,” Kelley says. “Our New Works Initiative, which includes our New Works Festival every August, has become a nationally-known institution as well as a breeding ground for success stories.”

In 2000, Kelley says the company reconfirmed its commitment to placing new works at the core of the company. “This has turned out to be a real fire within. I think that’s what put us on the national map. A lot of what we do is likely to wind up on the stages of America over time,” he observes. “I think this is to a large extent because we’re a bit off the beaten path. Here, you’re in a safe place where you can try things and nobody undermines your work at too early a stage. What could be better than advancing the cause of theatre in your backyard?”

TheatreWorks’ growth has been paralleled, and undoubtedly stimulated, by the transformation of the Peninsula into Silicon Valley. “It wasn’t Silicon Valley when we began,” Kelley reflects, with a smile. “But it turned out that our model was a very appropriate art form for here. Our audiences are unusually receptive to new things.”

Kelley talks affectionately about the myriad of relationships that bind the TheatreWorks company: the writers and musicians who create new works, the songwriter and lyricist now married after meeting at a Writers’ Retreat, the infants the company has minded while their parents were on stage (“Now we have a ton of baby stuff in our warehouse.”), the costume designers and the technicians.

“After the Tony Award was announced, I was at a performance, standing in the lobby,” Kelley recollects. “An usher in his 80s whom I’ve known for over 20 years came up to me. He was starting to tear up, telling me, ‘I feel as if I’m part of it too.’” Kelley himself is visibly moved as he relives that moment. “That’s what carried me through that whole Tonys experience, knowing that I was representing all of these people.”

Kelley plans to step down at the end of June 2020. “I’m really retiring to make sure there’s great leadership for TheatreWorks moving forward, that we continue to make a difference here in this region.” He emphasizes that stepping down doesn’t mean stepping away. “I’m not leaving this area and definitely want to do everything I can to keep the company strong.”

Although he’s already directed about 175 productions, it’s clear that Kelley still has more to contribute. “I love directing and will look forward to doing more of that. I’d love to find some opportunities to teach. And yes, I do have a few writing projects sitting on my desk,” he says. “Most of all, I just want to help keep things going.”

catch a performance

Mark Twain’s River of Song

October 2-27

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

theatreworks.org

The Beat On Your Eats

Taqueria de Amigos

Pescadero

You might not have noticed this spot for any attribute other than its low gas prices—and yes, it is located inside of a gas station market on Pescadero Creek Road. Without a recommendation, the natural inclination is to stay away from gas station hot food, but you’d be missing arguably the cheapest and greatest Mexican food on the western edge of the Peninsula. Your pocket change will cover the cost of fish tacos (the chips and salsa are free) and with a quick ten-minute drive, you’ll soon be relishing a perfect California day at the beach. 1999 Pescadero Creek Road, open every day from 9AM to 9PM.

El Palenque Taqueria

San Mateo

Located on an unassuming block a dash from Highway 101 is this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it local favorite, infamous for luring foodies from up and down the Peninsula to explore an otherwise sleepy suburban quadrant of San Mateo. El Palenque Taqueria offers traditional favorites at a cut-rate price (a super burrito is just $7.25, avocado included) but this popular take-out joint distinguishes itself with its refined dinner plate menu. The bell ringer: the alambre, a beef scramble that sizzles with bacon and bell peppers topped in a coat of cheese. The only decoration on the walls are a few ornamental roosters suggesting that when you’re at El Palenque, the focus is on the flavor. 15 North Kingston Street, open every day from 10AM to 8:45PM.

Taqueria la Cazuela

Palo Alto

Taqueria La Cazuela in East Palo Alto is bright with traditional papel picado décor and booming with sounds of grilling meat and crowd chatter. This popular Mexican restaurant is simple, to-the-point and easily loveable. Grab your meal of choice and eat outside the green-colored building under the hanging lights and canopy of trees. La Cazuela’s prolific menu and one-to-three-dollar tacos are especially intriguing, but the real proof is in the flan. All of the traditional Mexican meals you could crave at a taqueria are available at La Cazuela. 2390 Clarke Avenue, open Monday through Saturday 8AM to 8PM; closed Sundays.

What’s Up, Wasabi?

Jeff Roller draws green curlicues on a porcelain grater with a wasabi rhizome. Circular pressure against the grater’s tiny bumps unlocks the heat of the wasabi plant’s chemical reaction; simply slicing the thick stem won’t work.

Green paste builds up on the grater. Jeff sets the stem down, reminding me to wait a few minutes for the chemical reaction to take place. The ground wasabi’s heat level peaks between five and twenty minutes, no sooner and no later. We talk for a few minutes, and then Jeff swipes his finger against a lump of wasabi, puts it in his mouth and nods his head. It’s ready.

I put a hunk of fresh wasabi in my mouth, smelling its earthy scent, noticing its moist consistency and light green coloration. A moment after contact with my tongue, the vegetable’s heat warms my upper chest and tingles up my sinuses. The actual taste is sweet, hitting the taste buds in the back and sides.

I’m here at this farm in Half Moon Bay to learn more about a plant-based condiment I usually avoid at the typical local sushi restaurant. Surprises abound, including how two electrical contractors came to be the Peninsula’s wasabi kings.

In 2011, Jeff Roller and Tim Hall were searching for a niche business they could call their own. They wanted to do something where they wouldn’t be constantly underbid for work. Then Tim discovered that the bright green wasabi paste he enjoyed with his sushi wasn’t the real thing. The majority ingredient in a tube of wasabi is horseradish dyed green with little to no actual wasabi plant content.

Both Jeff and Tim became fascinated with the wasabi plant. Its medicinal potential, the challenge of growing it and the fact that wasabi was being faked in the marketplace contributed to their decision to found Half Moon Bay Wasabi. “Nobody else was growing wasabi in California. Some people tried, but nobody was successful,” Jeff says.

After comparing wasabi’s native growing conditions in Japan to resources available in Half Moon Bay, Jeff and Tim decided that growing wasabi in greenhouses might work. They leased a few dilapidated greenhouses and used their construction skills to rebuild them. As Jeff tells it, “The greenhouses weren’t being used, and the weeds inside were as high as trees.”

The pair began growing plants in one of the greenhouses. Tim had previous agricultural experience, and both have degrees in biology. “Tim tends to deal with building things, setting things up and repairing things when they break because things break all the time,” Jeff says. “I’m generally the one who’s going out and scouting for bugs and just going through the greenhouses looking at all the plants for disease.”

It takes 20 months to grow one wasabi plant, so when Jeff sees signs of bug infestations or disease, it’s a big deal. In the beginning, the farm experienced multiple crop failures, mostly due to bacterial and fungal infections. “It’s a weird plant. It’s semi-aquatic with unique needs from other greenhouse crops,” Jeff explains. Creating the right balance between dry and wet conditions is a big challenge for wasabi growers.

After a virus wiped out two greenhouses and an instance when bugs came in and destroyed a bunch of crops, Jeff felt like quitting. “I was fed up. I would help Tim throw away all the plants and do what we needed to do to clean up,” he recalls. After those losses, Jeff spent a few weeks away from the farm to clear his head. “Tim would have some ideas, a new way to do it to prevent it from happening again. I’d buy in and come back.”

When the wasabi plants started to look good, Jeff and Tim expanded their farming to more greenhouses. They took their first decent wasabi rhizome to the sushi chef at Sushi Main Street in Half Moon Bay for validation: “The chef looked at it, then looked at us, and asked, ‘Where’d you get it?’ We said, ‘Right here in Half Moon Bay.’ He stared at us in disbelief.” Then, the chef sampled the fresh wasabi and gave his thumbs up, to Jeff and Tim’s delight.

Nine years later, Half Moon Bay Wasabi’s five greenhouses are producing long rows of healthy wasabi plants. The greenhouses capture the sun’s heat while the cool coastal breeze rustles in under the plastic-sheeted ceiling. Walking between rows of thigh-high wasabi plants, pebbles crunch underfoot and a musty earth smell permeates the space. Over the years, Half Moon Bay Wasabi has delivered fresh wasabi to 50 Bay Area restaurants. Ongoing orders from 12 local restaurants speak for the 60 to 70 pounds of wasabi harvested every Monday. Jeff is a hero to the San Francisco restaurants where he hand-delivers fresh wasabi and is often greeted by an uproarious cheer of “Wasabi!” from grateful staff.

Each part of the wasabi plant is edible, not just its nub-covered rhizome. The wasabi plant’s multiple long-stemmed veiny leaves add flavor to green salads and make great sashimi wraps. Its delicate flower blossoms are a favorite garnish for chefs looking to add beauty and heat to their dishes.

Local foodies can get Half Moon Bay Wasabi on their plates one of two ways: dine at a high-end restaurant with Half Moon Bay Wasabi on the menu, or place an order through the farm’s website to have fresh wasabi, rhizome or stems and leaves, delivered in a chill pack to their door. A half-pound order of wasabi rhizomes is currently $70, shipping included, and is enough to satisfy the curiosity of wanting to try the real thing. A partially grated rhizome will last about ten days if kept in a Ziploc bag in the refrigerator. Jeff says that you can’t freeze wasabi, but you can submerge it in water, changing the water every few days, with the wasabi lasting about two weeks.

Now that Jeff and Tim are on the cusp of having created a predictable farming method for growing wasabi in Half Moon Bay, they are looking for investors to help them ramp up production. Proud of their innovations and discoveries, they have cracked the intricacies of wasabi farming. “We’ve developed a growing methodology to scale up production, drop the price and bring authentic wasabi to the masses,” Jeff says. hmbwasabi.com

ON THE MENU

Bird Dog, Palo Alto

Wood-Grilled Avocado (with fresh wasabi)

Old Princeton Landing, Half Moon Bay

Norcal Salad (with wasabi leaves)

Rintaro, San Francisco

Sashimi (with fresh wasabi)

Yesterday, Today, and Selby’s

words by Silas Valentino

The painting in question, hanging on the barroom wall of Selby’s, is at eye level for whomever snags the last leather chair at the left end of the bar. But its minimalism could easily deflect focus.

There are many other references to 20th-century Modernism gracing the room, designed in tribute to Gertrude Stein’s cluttered-yet-orderly salon in Paris. So a black tie loosely wrapped around the neckband of a laid-out white-collared dress shirt is hardly an attention-grabber—especially  when juxtaposed with the allure of a nearby John Coltrane painting, rare photographs of Audrey Hepburn and Gloria Vanderbilt or any of the other 150 original artworks that adorn these restaurant walls.

Nevertheless, this unassuming painting was in fact the pièce de résistance for Tim Stannard and Stephen Brady as the duo conceptualized Atherton’s newest elegant eatery. The fancy shirt tousled against a black backdrop is a felicitous blend of opposing directions (luxury vs. leisure) but it’s precisely where this team from the Bacchus Management Group wanted to take Selby’s: where contemporary fine dining intersects with classic hospitality and care, where timeless décor blends into the fray of the modern day.

“Developing a restaurant is a process—it’s not linear. It’s multi-faceted and things fold over and land on top of each other,” Tim says of Selby’s, which opened at 3001 El Camino Real in late July.

“This is our sixth project working with Rob [Delamater] from Lost Art Salon [a commercial art gallery in San Francisco] and we’ve developed a rhythm. We’ll set aside an entire day on a weekend to sip green tea and look over thousands of paintings, photographs and sculptures. That picture [of the shirt] was the one where we were flipping through images and Stephen said, ‘Stop! This is exactly what we’re going for.’”

Tim is a founding partner of Bacchus, which manages several award-winning restaurants throughout the Bay Area, and he’s lived in Woodside for the past 11 years. Stephen is an interior designer who has worked with Ralph Lauren Home and Williams-Sonoma and the two have collaborated since opening The Village Pub in Woodside.

That project was in 2000 when Stephen lived in New York, forcing the duo to improvise with phone calls and postage stamps to envision the restaurant. Tim would snap photos with a disposable camera of the Village Pub site and FedEx them across the country for Stephen to mark up with ideas using a pen.

Two decades later, following Bacchus’s debut of restaurants such as Spruce and The Saratoga in San Francisco and the Mayfield Bakery & Café in Palo Alto, Tim and Stephen plotted Selby’s with much greater ease now that Stephen is local. Alongside chef Mark Sullivan, they’ve crafted a club that serves continental American cuisine in a glamorous dining atmosphere. Selby’s is the continuation of classic 1930s and 1940s establishments like Chasen’s, the Brown Derby and Romanoff’s.

Their intention was to repurpose the towering, ornate wooden doors at the entrance of the restaurant (the sole remaining artifact from the previous tenant Chantilly, which shuttered in 2017) as a portal to lead into the lavish world of Selby’s.

“We wanted to first develop the ‘felt sense’—how does it feel when you open the door to the restaurant?” Tim explains. “We want all our restaurants to be a 3D experience. Everything you come into contact with—whether it’s your eyes, ears, taste buds or fingers—it should all be harmonious. From the music to the candles, it all has to be in sync. That’s a big part of how we start a process. It’s standing in what usually is an empty building and figuring out the felt sense.”

This obsession for detail is visually evident across the 10,000-square-foot, two-story building where signature light fixtures and a Modernistic chandelier in the main room from San Francisco artist G. Magnus Schevene literally shine.

Patrons will quickly pick up on the acoustic padding on the walls that promotes civilized conversation while they’re treated to concierge service from an inspired staff. Scott Kennedy, director of private dining, will only have to learn your name once before remembering exactly how to best serve you.

The menu lifts inspiration from modern, global continental cuisine that shifts with the seasons. (Bacchus runs a ranch in Woodside where much of the produce used in their restaurants is sourced.) The summer menu begins with a few delectable bites of Kaluga caviar complemented by cured Hokkaido scallops from Japan and Olivier’s Salad, a traditional Russian starter that trades lettuce for diced vegetables.

A glass of Chardonnay pairs with the wild mushrooms en papillote alongside a dry-aged roast crown of duck sourced from 38 North All-Natural Poultry in Petaluma. The meal concludes with sips of Madeira and a slice of chocolate cake that executive pastry chef Janina O’Leary tops with salted caramel and fudge sauce.

Selby’s largest feat in terms of size is their dual wine cellars (located on the ground level for all to see), capable of holding up to 20,000 bottles focusing on vintage Italian, Spanish, French and California wines.

Among the multitude of challenges involved in opening a restaurant in the Bay Area today is securing sufficient staffing, given the high cost of living. Bacchus, however, has a unique advantage due to their commitment to cultivating a group of employees who believe in the company.

“It was my biggest fear. It is an incredibly tight labor market and I’ve heard horror stories from friends who weren’t able to open restaurants,” Tim says. “But many employees have been with Bacchus for 10 or 12 years. When we decide to open a new restaurant, we have people in the pipeline who have been growing and are ready to take the next step. Lauren [Kemp, general manager of Selby’s] started as a dining room server. We spend a lot of time and frankly, money, investing in people.”

Although Selby’s has adopted Atherton as its home, the address is within a six-block stretch of El Camino Real that’s technically an unincorporated area of San Mateo County. Reminiscent of their desire to celebrate yesteryear influences with today’s style, Selby’s itself is caught in the middle of dueling forces.

“We’re betwixt and between,” Tim laughs. “An intent for the restaurant was to honor what came before us. We’ve heard great stories about Chantilly from people popping in and it’s important to continue that legacy of being a clubhouse for the greater Atherton community.”

RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED

3001 El Camino Real, Redwood City

650.546.7700selbysrestaurant.com

America’s Best Baker

The bar is packed; the crowd roars. All eyes are focused on the fierce competition playing out on TV. But it’s not the Dubs, the Giants or the Niners who emerge triumphant—it’s Peninsula chef Eric Keppler.

Such was the scene when the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley hosted a viewing party last June to root for Eric, its own executive pastry chef, who beat out eight other professional contestants to win the Food Network title: Best Baker in America.

“I was just happy to be there,” he says. “To show the world how much I love what I do and I hope that it came across in what I made—apparently, it did!”

Eric’s road to sweet victory began in his small hometown of Danville, Pennsylvania, where he absorbed his grandmother’s work ethic and passion for creating. “She grew up on a farm during the Depression. She knew how to sew her own clothes; she used to embroider and make quilts and she cooked and baked and just did everything well,” he says.

In fact, it was Eric’s adaptation of his Nana’s chocolate cake that won him the “Best Baker” title in the final round.

“She was like Superwoman to me and I learned all these things from her. We were always baking cookies or baking bread and her ability to just make anything was magic to me,” he remembers. “If we were shopping and I’d see some popcorn balls, I’d say, ‘I would love a popcorn ball.’ And she’d say, ‘Let’s go home and make popcorn balls’—and we would! So baking was always something I loved but I never thought it could be a career, because most pastries in small towns were pies and cookies and supermarket cakes. There wasn’t a ‘pastry world’ per se that I knew about because it was so rural.”

But as the years went by, Eric was always the guy at school and at work who’d be asked to make desserts for special events, family and friends. One day, a coworker was complimenting one of Eric’s treats and suggested he go to school for baking.

Armed with Nana’s inspiration and his own raw talent, Eric did just that. He enrolled in Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts in Providence, Rhode Island. After graduation, Eric made his way to San Francisco and began his ascent up the tiers of professional pastry and baking, eventually landing at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley in 2011.

A towering structure at the intersection of University Avenue and Highway 101 in Palo Alto, the hotel aspires to create an authentic local feel. Eric, according to a representative from the hotel, is an outstanding ambassador for the business. From day one, he wanted to share his passion, telling other staff members to “Come into the kitchen, see what I do.”

You can find Eric’s warmth and passion literally on the plate—Nana’s Chocolate Cake is prominently featured on all the menus at the hotel. He and his team create a wide variety of desserts every day, from sweet comfort treats like date walnut sticky buns to pistachio lemon tortas and house-made savories like their parmesan fennel crackers or an intriguing item called a smoked salmon cruffin.

“Everything is made from scratch,” Eric says. “I think a lot of people don’t know that.”

Desserts featured at the Four Season’s coffee bar and restaurant Quattro run the gamut from indulgent cakes and cookies to ice creams and even homemade chocolate bars and French bonbons, often with fanciful names. The Jasmine Masters, for example—a lemon olive oil cake with fromage blanc, strawberry gelee, jasmine tea gelato and confit strawberries—was named for a famous drag queen because, Eric says, it’s “a little bit extra.”

Then there’s the Super Moon, a play on a key lime pie, which highlights the sea buckthorn berry, a fruit said to have more omega antioxidants than salmon. Who knew? Eric is also the mastermind behind the massive dessert buffet extravaganzas for major holidays, plus a sold-out gingerbread house decorating class at Christmas that’s become an annual tradition for many local families.

“I want to give that sense like my grandmother gave to me,” he says. “That what I do is an extension of my loving and caring for people. I want them to feel that through my work. I want locals to know that you can feel that, too. You don’t have to stay here to feel that. You’re our neighbor, come on in! Grab a coffee and a pastry and have a great day. If you’re stuck in traffic, swing by and grab a drink at the bar; chill out. We’re part of the community and we’re here for you, too.”

Continuing, he says, “I’ve lived in every part of the Bay Area and I love the Peninsula. It’s got a nice mix; you can really find a little bit of everything here. It’s been a huge influence on me as a chef, our diversity of Latin, Asian and other cultures. Coming from here makes me a better chef.”

Following 20-plus years as a professional capped by a “best baker” title, what does Eric think it takes to become a great pastry chef, even in your own home? Just three things: patience, measuring and reading.

“Patience and measuring is key. If you weigh everything, your recipes will suddenly just become so much better. And reading the whole recipe all the way through is super important.”

But he also emphasizes that even if things go wrong, there’s nothing to be afraid of. “You didn’t cause an earthquake and no one got hurt, right? Okay, your brownie didn’t come out, but you know what? It’s still yummy and you can try again.” Wise words from a local culinary hero. 

make it

Pistachio Lemon Madeleine Cake with Strawberry Jam

serves 10-12

ingredients

  • 195g all-purpose flour
  • 3.5g baking powder
  • ½ tsp kosher salt
  • 5 whole eggs
  • 150g granulated sugar
  • 45g brown sugar
  • ½ of a lemon’s zest
  • 28g pistachio paste (to make, take ½ cup lightly toasted
    pistachios, grind in a spice or coffee grinder until a paste forms)
  • 170g unsalted butter

instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and prepare a cake pan by lightly spraying the bottom of the pan with nonstick spray and adding a circle of parchment.

• Sift all the dry ingredients together to combine.

• In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whip attachment, add in the eggs and sugars with the lemon zest and whip until light in color and a thick ribbon forms.

• Gently melt the butter, remove from heat and add the pistachio paste until combined; let sit until room temperature.

• Remove the whipped eggs when ready from the mixer and gently fold in the dry ingredients.

• Fold in the room temperature butter mixture last, and mix until well combined but not deflated.

• Pour into prepared cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cake is lightly browned, slightly pulling away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

• Let cake cool completely and remove from the pan by running a paring knife gently around the edge of the pan to release the sides of the cake and tip the cake gently out, removing the parchment paper from the bottom of the cake.

to serve

Dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar. Cut a slice of cake and serve with a spoon of strawberry jam (preferably homemade, but store-bought is fine), sweetened whipped cream and sliced fresh strawberries.  For an extra touch, top with lightly toasted chopped pistachios.

Butano Breakaway

The Peninsula’s coastline is chock-full of activities to choose from, endlessly offering its natural beauty as a reward for making the drive over the hill. This is a journey I know by heart—after all, I’ve been doing it since the first day I had my driver’s license. In fact, the day that my best friend and I made our first of many treks to Pescadero, I felt my sense of personal autonomy soar.

We’ve dubbed this trip “The Pescadero Circuit.” This is the ultimate itinerary for a day at the coast—the guide to make you feel 16 again, kick-back free and full of independence, for even just a couple of hours.

There are two main routes you can take to get to the town of Pescadero—Highway 92 or Highway 84—both of which take you to Highway 1 to access Pescadero Creek Road. Depending on where you live on the Peninsula, one route might make more practical sense than the other, but for the most part, they share a similar ETA.

Option 1: California State Route 92

Highway 92 extends from the East Bay to the Pacific Coast and its surrounding scenery changes quite a bit along the way. Head west on 92 from the Peninsula and follow it across I-280, and you’ll quickly be enveloped by groves of redwood trees.

After a series of gentle, winding curves, you’ll come across the first batch of recommended stops in the 7.5-mile stretch leading to CA-1. Lemos Farm—a ranch-themed park with a petting zoo and several small-kid rides—was always a favorite of mine growing up. Across the street from Lemos are several flower nurseries, including Pastorino’s, that are beautiful to walk through. All throughout the area you’ll find pumpkin patches preparing for Halloween.

Farther down the highway, you’ll discover downtown Half Moon Bay on the left, which is a perfect spot to stop for a meal. If you’re happy to sit down and indulge for a bit, try one of these: The Farm (burgers and milkshakes), Pasta Moon (homemade pasta dishes) or Sushi Main Street (fresh rolls and cocktails). Otherwise, run into the deli/smoothie bar at New Leaf Grocery, or as I call it, Whole Foods’ little sister.

Back on the road, turn left at CA-1 to head south toward Pescadero, which is where the expansive ocean views begin. This portion of the drive is a mind-clearing 28 miles on the water until you head east into Pescadero—I can’t help but recommend you turn on some indie folk (Bon Iver!) or the Big Little Lies audiobook for this.

Option 2: California State Route 84

State Route 84 is a stretch of highway starting in Livermore and reaching to the coast, which includes a familiar section known as Woodside Road. Taking 84 to Highway 1 is fraught with hairpin turns, but the charming, lushly-green and vast forest you get to cruise through is worth the tight grip on the wheel.

Unless you drop into Roberts Market or Alice’s Restaurant as you pass by in Woodside, you won’t find any provisions on this road until you get to downtown Pescadero—but this is not a downside. That’s where you’ll find my top picks for eats. Just pack a snack and your Hydro Flask and be on your way.

While the main perk of this route is the stunning landscape, there is one notable pit stop to consider making before you get to the shoreline. The San Gregorio General Store, which sits on a side-street corner of 84, has been serving up drinks and live music since it was established in 1889. Here, you can find some Half Moon Bay keepsakes and funky costumes to purchase while listening to a local soft rock band do their thing. This is a cool, eclectic place to walk around, even if for only a few minutes. For the live music schedule, check out sangregoriostore.com

Once you hit Highway 1, you’ll have about 4.5 miles going south to watch the waves until you make that left turn into Pescadero.

Now that you’ve made it to Pescadero, what do you do?

If you don’t stop at Pescadero State Beach, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice. This is a quintessential ‘Northern California’ beach. Simple, usually empty and even a little chilly. Not the beach you go to for a BBQ but rather for a quick and quiet walk.

Travel about two miles east on Pescadero Creek Road, and you’ll come across a rudimentary-looking stoplight and a choice to turn left into (in my opinion) the most precious downtown on the Peninsula. Your chosen route has either left you hungry or not-so-much, but before you say you’re too full for another serving, give these downtown Pescadero eateries a thought. Although Stage Road only makes up approximately 1.5 blocks, you’ll find Duarte’s Tavern (breakfast through dinner comfort food), Arcangeli Grocery Co. (artichoke bread from the heavens) and Downtown Local (good coffee and better vinyl).

My next two recommendations I’ll classify as ‘If You’re Into That.’ At the very end of the downtown strip on the right is the tiny, almost hidden Mount Hope Cemetery. This little grass hill has some of the oldest gravestones I’ve seen in California—a fascinating place to wander through. Secondly, a small Mexican restaurant called Taqueria De Amigos sits inside the gas station market on the opposite end of Stage Road. I know what you’re thinking, but trust me on this one.

If your stomach is just too full to take another bite, consider walking through downtown anyway. There are a handful of notable shops including my personal favorite, Slow Coast—a vintage hand-picked clothing store, known locally for the softest flannels.

Lastly, we have the final and arguably most vital stop of the day. After you’ve fueled up, head east on Pescadero Creek Road again until you see signs for Butano State Park. Hiking in Butano has a way of drawing the problems right out of you. I’ve never left the park with unresolved internal conflict. The park is known for being secluded and peaceful—a welcome respite from hectic, high-pressure lives. Consider reserving one of the 39 (both drive-in and walk-in) Ben Ries Campground sites for families that provide lockers, tables, fire rings and working restrooms nearby. Visit parks.ca.gov to book a spot in advance. In addition to being dog-friendly, Butano offers over ten trailheads (and miles of trails through a redwood-filled canyon), creating the perfect destination for turning a hit-the-road stress-reducing daytrip into a rejuvenating weekend getaway.

Hustle and Heart

The morning after your first Heartcore fitness class, a gratification email arrives with general information about booking future classes along with some gentle reassurance:

“You might be thinking the first class was good, but also hard,” the email reads. “It’s completely normal to feel confused or overwhelmed [following] your first time on the Megaformer.”

It’s fitting that the Megaformer machine is so quickly called out. After all, by the time you receive this next-day email, various muscles in the thigh and abdomen region of your body, muscles often unprovoked, have become pleasantly sore, the desired aftereffect of a core well rocked.

The 40-minute Heartcore workout, a unique exercise inspired by Pilates and created by three sisters from San Mateo, is built around the Megaformer. (Or, rather, your body gets built by the Megaformer.)

It’s a ten-foot, 250-pound instrument that uses springs and pulleys to create tension and resistance to help chisel your core as you conduct movements such as lunges and planks. The machine is bookended by two stabilizers and gliding between them is a flat fitness carriage. When you’re in the midst of holding a long plank, gasping, this black-padded board with side handles might resemble a scoop stretcher used to cart people away in an emergency.

“I had a client tell me she had to be in the same mindset as giving birth,” Heartcore co-founder Chrissy Scannell says. “Everything is done slowly and controlled. Your muscles will burn. It gets you shaking. It’s not necessarily about the calories you burn but about the quality of the movements.”

During a recent Tuesday late-afternoon class in Menlo Park, instructor Toran McGill leads the day’s routine with heartfelt vigor. Every day comes with a new routine personally created by the studio’s sibling founders: Alisa, Valerie and Chrissy Scannell, who are constantly adjusting their signature workout that blends Pilates with strength training and HIIT (high-intensity interval training).

No class exceeds ten people in order to allow instructors to float their focus onto each participant frequently. Toran has everybody’s name down, especially the newbies, and tosses quips and words of encouragement throughout the hustle. The participants are from here on referred to, endearingly, as “heartbreakers.” The majority of the class are women—ranging from teen to middle-aged—but one male Baby Boomer is present and fully engaging his core.

The first 20 minutes may glide by with ease but pretty soon that left leg in lunge starts to feel the resistance. While holding a stretch move for somewhere between 20 seconds or what could feel like an eternity, your muscles may uncontrollably quiver in place. That’s how you know it’s working.

“Yes! I love to see shaking,” Toran says through her headset microphone, stopwatch in hand, as pump-up jams courtesy of Beyoncé and J Balvin beat on. (A neon sign in rose cursive gleaming “Love at first shake” is on a nearby wall.)

Although the workout itself is 40 minutes, it’s not unusual to spend a full hour at Heartcore—ten minutes before and ten after to socialize with the cheerful community that the Scannell sisters have attracted to their three studios in Menlo Park, Redwood City and San Mateo. This dedication to promoting such an ambiance is visible even in the “Please keep this door closed” sign above the doorknob, cut into the shape of a pink heart.

“The world is going through such a dark time right now; I want this to be a place where people can walk in and feel a connection,” Alisa says. “We foster an environment where people want to talk to each other. Every person who walks in this studio is your brother or sister.”

“The magic is in the before and after of each class,” Chrissy continues. “This is a place of love and connection. We’re sisters; it’s all about being together.”

Heartcore materialized five years ago through the individual strengths of each sister. Alisa, the eldest of the three, was the first to envision the concept. She has a background in Crossfit and SoulCycle but following an injury, she was seeking a workout that was equally intense and effective but with low impact on the body.

After graduating from USC, Alisa was working a sales job for a solar company on the Peninsula when she visited a client in Pacifica. He was also into fitness and they got to chatting about the Megaformer, a little-known machine Alisa remembered seeing in Los Angeles. He encouraged her to open a studio and on the drive home over the hill, the idea clicked into place.

“I told our dad that this is going to blow up in the Bay Area and we should do it now,” she says.

Alisa enlisted her sister Val, a graduate of Santa Clara University who was interested in the business aspect of the venture (she’s responsible for trademarking Heartcore’s various expressions such as “Love at first shake”) and their youngest sister Chrissy, who had just finished studying human biology at Stanford.Entrepreneurship was in the trio’s DNA, especially considering their local upbringing.

“We all went to Montessori school where we made our own things, like shoes from toilet paper rolls,” Chrissy says. “It wasn’t so foreign to us to have an idea and then go do it. At the end of the day, we are from the Peninsula.”

They opened their first studio in 2014 in Redwood City, followed by the Menlo Park location two years ago before adding their San Mateo studio earlier this year. They’ve already outgrown their current Menlo Park location and expect to relocate to new premises at 1158 Chestnut Street in downtown Menlo Park in October.

The positive response to Heartcore has allowed the sisters to hire 24 instructors and offer several classes in the morning and afternoon every day. Part of their success lies in their attention to detail; the email sent out after an inaugural class also includes a feedback section. Critique, they believe, is the way grow.

Like the bodies that pass through the front door, the Scannell sisters are constantly refining Heartcore to be in its best shape possible.

JOIN THE HEARTBREAKERS

Menlo Park + 205 El Camino Real

Redwood City + 930 Main Street

San Mateo + 219 South San Mateo Drive

iheartcore.com

Unstuck in Lodi

Hear “stuck”—and immediately think of Lodi? The now famous “Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again” lyric from the Creedence Clearwater Revival song has been around for a whopping 50 years. But being stuck doesn’t have to be a bad thing. This is especially true in the fall when temps dip to the bearable 80s, the plump purple grapes are harvested and the miles and miles of vines begin to turn a golden hue. You’ll discover that Lodi offers a lot more than just wine. After drinking from a frosted mug at the town’s A&W Root Beer, the chain’s first, which opened 100 years ago this year, you can also sample miles of waterways, walking the shoreline or paddling a kayak.

The Zinfandel Capital of the World (and a whole lot more)

If you’re going to make a claim to fame, you might as well go big. Indeed, Lodi produces about 40% of the premium Zinfandel in California. So you’ll certainly sip some of the state’s best Zins but also some interesting lesser-known varietals such as Cinsault, Carignan and Vermentino, to name just a few.

The Lodi Appellation includes 85 wineries and 450 labels. You can chart your course by picking up a Lodi Wine Map at the Visitor’s Center located at 2502 West Turner Road, adjacent to Wine & Roses (more on that luxurious overnight option shortly).

Here’s a sampling of family-run wineries that offer a diversity of wines and tasting experiences.

Michael David Winery is one of the region’s oldest family-owned wineries, producing over 660,000 cases annually, grown on over 800 acres of vineyards. Named Winery of the Year by the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium a few years back, it boasts that it has “something for everyone,” given its extensive number of varietals. Tasting costs $10 for five flagship wines such as 7 Deadly Zin or $15 for five reserve wines—Zinfandels named Lust, Rage and Gluttony. Bonus: After tasting, you can choose from an assortment of delicious pies to take home. Located at 4580 West Highway 12; open daily 10AM to 5PM.

Another family-owned winery is Oak Farm Vineyards, which sits on 70 acres that include oaks planted by the original property owners in the late 1800s. Owner Dan Panella replanted 60 acres of vineyards in 2012. Estate-grown wines include Fiano, a southern Italian variety, along with more familiar Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Note: Oak Farm visitors must be 21 and over. The Tasting Bar Experience is $10 per person and features six wines. Located at 23627 Devries Road; open daily from 11AM to 5PM.

Dutch immigrant John Van Ruiten Sr. planted Zinfandel grapes in the 1950s, which were harvested and shipped to other wineries. Those vines remain part of Van Ruiten Family Winery, which first produced its own label in 1999. Just eight years later, the Wall Street Journal named the 2007 Van Ruiten Old Vine Zinfandel the Best Zin in America. Two generations of the family operate the winery today. Tasting is $7 for Van Ruiten Family Wines and $10 for Reserve wines. Located at 340 West Highway 12; tasting daily from 11AM to 5PM.

Take to the Water or Enjoy Views from the Lakeside Trail

Lodi is a watery wonderland. The Mokelumne River flows along the edge of town and forms the Lodi Lake Wilderness Area—a network of channels and ponds that attract millions of migratory birds each year, including Sandhill Cranes.

It’s the latter that brings long-time Menlo Park resident—and fine arts photographer—Susan Carnahan to Lodi year after year. “The Sandhills tend to cluster together while foraging or feeding—and more dramatically when they fly in at night,” she says. “It’s truly a wonderful sight.”

The waters of Lodi also attract walkers who can amble along the two-mile perimeter of Lodi Lake, with ducks, turtles and birds easy to spot. Even better, rent a kayak to explore the area from the water.

Rentals are available through Headwaters Kayak, which operates a boathouse on Lodi Lake, open weekends in September. Rentals can also be arranged during the week by calling 209.471.5988. headwaterskayak.com

Abigail Christensen, who manages the boathouse, grew up in a house on the Mokelumne, so she knows the river well. She organizes group paddles, including a two-hour Wednesday evening paddle and a monthly moonlight paddle set for September 14.

“Probably 40 to 50% of the people who come to us have never kayaked before, but we’re very beginner-friendly,” she says. “The boathouse has a unique dock and launching ramp that makes it easy to get in and out of the boats. The payoff is an incredible wildlife adventure.”

Punctuate your Visit with a Stay at Wine & Roses

Russ Munson grew up in Lodi and recalls thinking, “We never had anything that we could be proud of.” He married local farm girl Kathryn, and 20 years ago, they corrected that void, becoming owners of Wine & Roses, a luxurious hotel and spa located not far from Lodi Lake.

You’ll find beautifully landscaped grounds and large, well-appointed rooms. The property upped its dining ante when two-time James Beard award winner Bradley Ogden came aboard two years ago. “He’s so passionate about his style of cooking and loves the area because of all the farming nearby and the ability to get super-fresh produce,” says Kathryn.

Make sure to budget enough time to stroll the seven-acre botanical gardens. You’ll discover an extensive herb garden and beautiful flowers along with two macaws and two parrots that beg, “Take our picture.” Rooms start just shy of $400 at this dog-friendly property. winerose.com

Lodi footnote…

Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty admitted that he never visited Lodi before writing the song, picking it because it had “the coolest sounding name.” The town of Lodi now embraces the lyrics and even hosts “stuck”-themed events.

fall events in lodi

The Art of Blind Tasting, led by wine professional, journalist and Lodi resident Randy Caparoso, is being held at Wine & Roses on September 18 at 6PM. Cost is $90 per person. Sign up online: winerose.com

Lodi Grape Festival is set for September 12-15 and features entertainment, food, vendors, art, carnival, wine tasting and more. Admission is $10 for adults; $6 for children ages 6 through 12. Details: grapefestival.com

Sandhill Crane Festival takes place November 1-3 with registration opening in early September. These magnificent birds with their prehistoric call and stately gait winter in Lodi each year. cranefestival.com

Diary of a Dog: Tico

I live with a bunch of “adventure geeks,” which explains how I came to find my home. But in all honesty, putting my family in a box is nearly impossible—they’re just too cool to be labeled. I was born in Nosara, Costa Rica, and my name is Tico (which is what the locals call themselves). I started out life as a stray, living a much different life than I live now. I didn’t have someone to feed me, a comfy bed to sleep in or even a friend to scratch my belly. But then I noticed Fia, a summer staff member at a monkey sanctuary in Nosara. I started following Fia everywhere she went, so she just had to fall in love with me. It didn’t hurt that I’m quite the looker. I’m part Mastiff Lab and part Weimaraner, which means I have a shiny and sleek silver coat and dreamy amber eyes. Fia didn’t stand a chance. She called her family back home who happened to be looking for a new dog to join their pack. Luckily, they didn’t let the challenge of transporting an 82-pound dog from Costa Rica stop them. Now I get to playfully knock people over with my lanky, large body, run through the fields of our ranch home in San Gregorio and see the entire Peninsula from my backyard in Emerald Hills. I’m proud to call myself an adventure geek too. I’d say it suits me well.   

On Board With The Captain

The ship is docked, its passengers disembarked but Captain Jackson Gentry has one last nautical story to share before going ashore. “Come watch this boat burn up,” he warmly invites, pulling up a video on his phone.

Since before he could drive a car, Jackson has driven a boat; he’s captained fishing boats since his teens, leads commercial watercrafts for whale watching on his weekends and for the last 19 years, he’s helmed the blue and white research vessel used by the Marine Science Institute in Redwood City.

He’s had 40 years on the water with zero injuries or disasters, minus that one mayday distress signal he sent out on a chilly May morning in 2016.

He was off the coast of Malibu in Southern California helping a friend who had just purchased a 37-foot power boat called the Allison Rae. They were piloting the ship to Santa Barbara when the engine inexplicably caught fire. Three minutes later, the entire boat was in flames.

Jackson, his friend and his friend’s dog dove into the water and were quickly rescued. No one was hurt (apart from the Allison Rae, which sunk to the ocean floor), and Chief Norman Plott of the Ventura County Fire Department described Jackson as an “experienced mariner” to the local NBC news affiliate.

Looking back today, Jackson credits a former boss for preparing him to survive the unexpected at sea. Coincidentally, both he and his friend had worked for Captain John Sczostak years prior, where they had learned the same emergency procedures—along with critical lessons in resourcefulness and diligence.

“His way of doing things was to never give up. If something broke on the boat, we wouldn’t return to port; we’d sit there until it was fixed,” Jackson says. “Sometimes he’d figure it out in ways that were outside the box. Duct tape, baling wire and toothpaste—we’re ready to go!”

Jackson captains the Institute’s research vessel Robert G. Brownlee, an old-style boat that uses a system of cables to pull the levers in lieu of electricity. The Institute offers a marine science camp during the summer and on a recent balmy Thursday morning, Jackson led over 50 campers on a cruise throughout the lower part of the San Francisco Bay to observe marine life.

The Brownlee is laced with Jackson’s ingenuity. He developed a mini claw used to scoop up sediments and materials off the Bay floor to use in lessons with the Institute, and he’s modified the nets students cast while fishing so that they nab the ideal amount and not an overabundance. For the Institute’s holiday party last year, he fashioned old liferings into a clock and coffee table.

The inside of the Brownlee’s deck is essentially Jackson’s office space. A Harry Connick Jr. CD sits idly in a boombox next to the ship’s wheel and stuffed in a crack nearby are a few plush dolls, including a Scooby Doo toy he fished out of the Bay over 15 years ago. One of his daughters, borrowing from her father’s humor, clipped a shark tag on it in case it ever falls overboard again.

Jackson lives in San Gregorio and when he’s not leading excursions for the Institute four or five days a week, he also runs whale watching boats out of Moss Landing and is a relief captain for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s not unusual for Jackson to be out on the water every day of the week. Recently, when a friend asked why he doesn’t take a day off, Jackson’s reasoning was simple: “I have a great white shark swimming directly underneath me right now—what could be better than this?”

A conversation with Jackson may go from discussing the ghost town of Drawbridge, where an abandoned railroad station is located at the southern end of the Bay, before shifting to the aviator and barnstormer Lincoln Beachey, who pioneered aerobatics and set aviation records in the early 1900s. He’s an autodidact who learns through podcasts (Radiolab is a favorite), paperbacks and deep dives on the Internet. Jackson would be a proper companion for a round of bar trivia, as long as the questions aren’t too heavy on sports or pop culture. (He wasn’t too sure who Kanye West is.)

Such an expansive knowledge is even more commendable upon learning that Jackson dropped out of Half Moon Bay High School after his junior year. He was born in Montara in September 1965, which he says makes him a member of Generation X by merely a month. Besides an 11-month period during which his family relocated to the tiny town of Wasco near Bakersfield, Jackson has lived his entire life on the Peninsula.

When he was 13, Jackson lied about his age to work as a deckhand for a fishing company. “I remained 16 years old for three years,” he laughs. He was piloting boats by the time he was 15, before he was driving on the street, and once he started working full-time with fishing boats, he left school without a diploma.

Jackson directs the Brownlee to a spot between the San Mateo and Dumbarton Bridges where a relic from World War I is accessible on low-tide afternoons. The U.S.S. Thompson, a Clemson-class destroyer of the U.S. Navy, is partly sunk in mud flats. It’s the Bay’s very own U.S.S. Arizona, half engulfed in water. The science campers are awed by the sight and Jackson is ready to satisfy their wonderment with facts about the destroyer, like how it was used for bombing practice during World War II.

Working with the Marine Science Institute was a godsend but that doesn’t mean it came easy. In 1999, Jackson was raising his two daughters, aged four and five at the time. He needed a job with a schedule conducive to parenting as a single father.

After spotting the Institute’s ad seeking a captain, he dashed over to drop off his resume. When he didn’t get a call back, he returned with another resume. Still no response. Jackson speculates that he left about 25 resumes over three months before landing an interview. “I was the biggest pain in the ass they’ve ever seen,” he jokes.

The Marine Science Institute proved to be the perfect fit for Jackson—no shortage of challenging projects, plus he could bring his daughters to work with him (that is until they got sick of their 550th shark). “This was a real lifesaver,” he says, double-tapping his fingers on the surface of a blue table on the hull.

It’s an hour past noon and time to return to land. Jackson steers the Brownlee into the mouth of the Redwood Creek next to Bair Island and back to the Institute’s headquarters. Before reaching the dock, Jackson uses a pair of binoculars to point out a half-century-old Fargo truck submerged in the slough. It’s rusty and could have easily been shrouded in the murky marshland if it weren’t for Jackson’s keen eye.

“That truck got on that island somehow,” he says, theorizing that it could have been left behind from a bygone Alaskan fishing company that used to work in the area.

It’s a mystery of the Bay, with a story that’s been lost in the tides, but Jackson’s guess is about as good as it’s going to get.

anchors aweigh

EcoVoyage open to the public

500 Discovery Parkway, Redwood City

Saturday, September 14, 10AM

Perfect Shot: Folger Stable

Photographer Frances Freyberg captures this Perfect Shot of the Folger Stable in Woodside. If the stable’s Art Deco design seems familiar, it’s because the same architect had his hands on many notable Bay Area landmarks. Arthur Brown Jr.’s resume includes Stanford’s Hoover Tower, San Francisco City Hall and Coit Tower; however, one of his earliest projects was designing the stable and surrounding buildings in 1905 for the estate of James A. Folger II, heir to the Folger Coffee Company. The stable is currently open to rent for horses (an enclosed stall runs $1,000 a month) while the original Carriage Room, located within the main stable, has been transformed into a museum to showcase local history; it’s open to the public on Saturdays from 10AM to 4PM.

Image Courtesy of Frances Freyberg Photography/francesfreyberg.com

calling all shutterbugs

If you’ve captured a unique perspective of the Peninsula, we’d love to see your Perfect Shot. Email us at hello@punchmonthly.com to be considered for publication.

Raising Rossotti’s

Rossotti’s Alpine Inn in Portola Valley has a long and colorful history dating back to 1852 when Felix Buelna opened Casa de Tableta. That’s the name captured by the plaque next to this historic building, which is a California registered landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Purchased in 2018 by three Portola Valley families, the beloved roadhouse is now embarking on a new chapter, painstakingly restored and once again open for business.

In its 167-year history, this venue has known many owners. Buelna “sold” to William Stanton, but it’s rumored that he lost the property in a card game at the Searsville Saloon. Stanton called it Stanton’s Saloon, but he, and his widow after his death, leased it to a number of operators, and the beer garden took on a string of names including Fernando’s, Philpot’s, Chapete’s Place and The Wunder. In 1919, Prohibition closed the saloon, but then Julius Schenkel opened “Schenkel’s Picnic Park” as a place for San Franciscans to enjoy the warm creekside location.

In 1933, Enrico Rossotti leased (and later purchased) the property. It’s his name that lives on for locals who think of the tavern as Rossotti’s, or Zott’s, for short. Rossotti is also the name of the soccer field next door, and it even graces the name of Portola Valley’s annual race from the Alpine Inn to Town Center, called “Zots to Tots.”

The Alexander and Horther families bought the tavern from the Rossottis but changed the name to the Alpine Inn when the Rossotti family kept getting calls directed to their home phone, back in the day when phone numbers were found by calling 411 directory assistance. And for the next 50 years, the Alpine Inn continued to be a mainstay in the community, hosting basketball teams, soccer parties, cyclists, Stanford students, motorcycle clubs and a host of regulars. It even played a role in the dawning of the Internet age: In 1976, scientists from SRI International successfully sent an electronic message from a computer set up on a picnic table behind the Alpine Inn. It’s this storied past that kept drawing the attention of the new owners, who had their eye on the property for years.

Their chance came in 2018—local residents Stephanie and Fred Harman, Lori and Deke Hunter, and Jim Kohlberg submitted the winning bid in a public sale. They joined forces with operating partner Greg St. Claire, who brings a long history of successful restaurant management with the Avenir Restaurant Group including Milagros, Nolas and Town. Officially renaming the property Rossotti’s Alpine Inn reflects the partners’ dedication to preserving the history and making the roadhouse, as they avow, “the best version of itself.”

The initial intent was to reopen quickly but they soon realized that a true restoration would require months, not weeks, especially given their goal of preserving every detail possible. The back bar is completely refurbished, and the old fridges with stickers still sit in prime position behind the bar. Gone are layers of faded linoleum on the floor, replaced by old barn boards. The iconic historic photos and old license plates are still on the walls, supplemented by memorabilia tied to the community. As Greg summarizes, they tried to “honor every generation that has come here.”

The history of the property was largely instrumental in developing the menu. Greg observes that it really is “a great reflection of the past 167 years and all the immigrants that have owned or operated the Inn.” Latin-inspired dishes honor the Buelna family that originally opened Casa De Tableta in 1852. Sausages and hot dogs pay tribute to the German history under the Schenkels, while charcuterie boards and wood-fired pizzas reflect the Italian heritage. Greg says that old classics like the Zott’s burger will be back but will now use grass-fed ground beef from both Painted Hills Natural Beef as well as his own Rancho Alena.

Sharing the same values as the fiercely protective local community, the owners steered clear of creating a “fancy” new place—instead, keeping counter service and a beer garden, just like it was before. New and longtime patrons will enjoy the addition of a refurbished 1948 Dodge Farm Truck that has a built-in wood-fired oven to compensate for the small kitchen.

Technological advancements mean you can order from any of the counters and return to your table to enjoy your drink while you wait for a phone alert that your food is ready. Future plans include being able to order directly from your phone.

The restaurant is fully-licensed, and you will be able to choose your drink of choice—from the classic 40-ounce beer, still popular with some of the regulars, to cocktails, thoughtfully selected craft beers and Zott’s red or white wine on tap.

For decades, carving your name in the Zott’s picnic tables was a local ritual—and those old tabletops are now repurposed throughout: as the back of booths, behind the outdoor bar, as table legs and menu boards. As Greg says, they “kept everything.” And if you’re looking for your old Little League photo that used to grace the walls, it’s still there, but you might have to go searching for the new location. As for the new picnic tables? Go ahead. Carve away.

Lori has gone to great efforts to discover and share the treasured lore of the roadhouse. One of her favorite stories comes from Enrico Rossotti’s daughter Margaret Beltramo, who recalls that she and her sister collected 50 cents from each car entering the picnic area. In an effort to avoid the fee, regulars used to park out on the road and pile as many as possible into a single car.

The picnic area has also been restored—an old building was removed so that the new picnic tables now overlook the creek—a shout-out to the picnicking traditions of the Schenkels and the Rossottis. “There aren’t many places left that are honestly casual with a beautiful outdoor setting like we have here,” Lori notes. For those who are missing Peninsula landmarks such as the Oasis, the Peanut Farm or Jan’s Valley Inn, Rossotti’s Alpine Inn brings back a beloved (but thankfully not completely bygone) era. 

familiar favorite

3915 Alpine Road

Portola Valley

alpineinnpv.com

Road Trip to Syria

I spend a fair amount of time in Israel these days since my youngest son, Coby, moved there for good about five years ago. After going to college in the lovely seaside town of Herzliya, he is in the midst of doing his obligatory military service in the vaunted Israeli Air Force.

Last month, while I’m there visiting, Coby surprises me: In his headquarters, along with his commander, I pin on his third stripe, making him the equivalent of a sergeant. Coby grew up an aviation junkie after receiving a flight simulator for his Bar Mitzvah and then getting his pilot’s license at 17. He plays an important role in the highly touted force, and I look at him with envy and pride.

The next day, with Coby having a few days leave, we walk the neighborhoods of Tel Aviv from north to south. The streets are crowded with taxis honking at seemingly nothing, as if addicted to punching the center of their steering wheels, and endless numbers of app-rented scooters fly in and out of traffic—with no one wearing helmets. You can anticipate the crashes with certain regularity and indeed, there is one right in front of my hotel. The people are young and beautiful, and children are everywhere. What is noticeable to me—with all the talk and reality of California—is that you see no homeless people and no one asking for money. It is in stark contrast to here.

Early the following morning we load up our Czech-made Škoda Karoq SUV for an overnight trip to the Golan Heights and head out from the city. The highways of Israel are pristine and beautiful, elegantly planted with native shrubs, trees and flowers, and there is little to no trash on them.

While Coby and I are en route, I ask him if he has ever really stopped to think why he is here in Israel, living 7,500 miles and a 14-hour plane ride away from his brother, two sisters, nieces and nephews, and, of course, his mother and father.

Coby—like me—is a quiet, reflective, inward man. He shrugs his shoulders like he does when I ask him things, but I persist since we are an hour away from our destination. I turn the question around enough times until he finally answers me. He says that at home, he would get married, buy a house, have children and do what everyone else was doing.

But here, he tells me, he is traveling his own path, living an adventure, helping to build something. Here, he goes on, he is needed. I tell him that I understand, and I mean it. Purpose is a hard thing to find in life.

We are low on gas. The hardest thing to do in Israel is to fill up at the gas station. Why, in this tech-leading country this is so, no one knows. But it is a fact. And not just for visitors. I have yet to try to do this simple task—even with my Hebrew-speaking son—without it turning into an insurmountable chore. Most Israelis cannot figure it out either and so you are forever going back and forth over the intercom system, asking for help, going into the station to hunt out a person for assistance, or sometimes just giving up, driving away to the next hopefully easier-to-use station.

We make it to our destination, Merom Golan, a 50-year-old stunning kibbutz-resort up near the Syrian border. We have a charming cabin for the night, and I feel as though I’m in Yosemite. The kibbutz—really more of a cooperative now where people do not share their earnings per se—has thousands of acres planted in dozens of crops, including their latest effort, truffles. My son and I find a tiny restaurant where, sitting alone, we eat hamburgers and fries and watch the sun go down on the golden hills.

The next day we are up early and after a huge Israeli breakfast, we look for and find Eitan, an Israeli intelligence officer, who is going to give us a tour of the Israeli/Syrian border. We get in his Range Rover and follow rugged trails and cross defense barriers until we reach a desolate and now unused bunker. We go inside and the underground space is astounding, enough room for a battalion to find safety from oncoming missiles. From there, we can view Syrian towns and a rare car traveling along a distant road.

We eventually return to the kibbutz where we say goodbye and I sit down and rest for a few minutes, nauseated from the long and unsettling ride. Though there is much more to do and explore on the kibbutz, we must head back in order to reach my brother-in-law’s home in Modi’in for Shabbat. I turn up the car’s volume and together my beloved son and I sing ’60s tunes, our favorites, and I get tears in my eyes, already missing him. Halfway there, I check the fuel and see that we can easily make it without having to fill our tank. I smile with relief.

Landmark: Woody the Fish

A 21-foot salmon sits outside a neighborhood-favorite restaurant in Woodside, protecting the creek that runs behind it. Don’t worry, he’s made of wood—and his name is Woody. Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck’s of Woodside, has quite an eye for collecting whimsical décor. As Jamis tells the story, back in the 1970s, he spotted Woody in a fellow’s yard half a mile west of Buck’s. The yard was “chockablock with antique cars and speedboats,” but the fish was a clear standout. Jamis was determined to have him. According to Jamis, the sculpture was brought to life by Enoch Kadashan in the early 1900s out of a single log. He adds that Kadashan belonged to the indigenous tribe Tlingit, meaning “People of the Tides.” The Tlingit people are known for carved totem poles and wooden canoes that display their heraldic crests. Coincidentally, Woody is a silver salmon, the very same type of salmon that spawn in the creek behind him now. It seems that Woody ended up exactly where he was meant to be, thanks to Kadashan’s ambitious carving expertise and Jamis’ mastery of persuasion. You can visit Woody the Fish in the parking lot at 3062 Woodside Road.

Growing Together

Words by Sheri Baer

Anyone else assessing the front yard of an Emerald Hills home for sale might have been discouraged by the steep, seemingly useless bank overrun with shrubs. But when Sarah and Steve Warto eyeballed the plot of land, they envisioned a south-facing terraced garden producing a year-round supply of fresh vegetables. Today, that hillside slope is teeming with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, kale and radishes with splashes of glorious yellow and white dahlias lifting their faces to the sun.

Also strewn throughout the property are succulents—spilling from flower boxes, bursting out from a living wall of color and holding court in vibrant pots around the patio and porch. Meander down a backyard path and a hammock beckons from the corner and just across the way, a small stage tucked in the shadow of a redwood tree stands ready for imaginative play. Asparagus ferns and kangaroo paws abound, along with miniature birds of paradise, romantic soft grasses and groundcover popping with shades of burgundy and chartreuse.

“It’s never going to be finished. Gardens evolve and that’s what’s so interesting,” Sarah notes, gesturing out from the backyard deck. “They’re always changing and growing and maturing.”

The same might be said for the couple who created this haven.

Sarah and Steve Warto trace their own roots to opposite coasts. Steve grew up in San Mateo, helping his dad with his ornamental tree pruning business and taking in plenty of Peninsula fresh air. “As a family with four young kids, my parents were always pushing us outside to get us out of the house,” he reminisces with a chuckle. “Every weekend, we would be at a different local park, hiking or camping. That’s how we spent most of our childhood.” A sports enthusiast, Steve played golf at Aragon High School and found himself intrigued by the design elements of the courses he played. After graduating, he attended Santa Barbara City College, with the intent of transferring into a landscape architecture program.

Meanwhile, Sarah came of age in Westchester County, New York, heavily influenced by her mother, a landscape designer, and her grandmother, a botany lover. “It was a pastoral place to grow up in the suburbs, but you always had the influence of New York City close by,” she says. “Being outside was always a big part of our lives.” Sarah’s passion for the outdoors, combined with her interest in math and engineering, led her to Cornell University. “Landscape architecture was a very, very small discipline there. Our class size was maybe 15 people.”

It’s at this point that their paths cross—with 19-year-old Sarah and 20-year-old Steve meeting in Ithaca, New York. “I had been at Cornell for a year and a half and so a fresh face coming into a small program with a Santa Barbara tan was very eye-catching,” Sarah fondly recalls. “We became very fast friends and then started dating and then never stopped.”

Whether it was classwork or courtship, their time together was always intertwined with the interests they shared. “We would take picnics, take walks, explore the gorge, do everything that we could do to be together and be outdoors,” relays Steve. “There was a really easy bond between the two of us.”

Holding tight to their relationship, the two found themselves veering in different directions after college. Sarah took a job in New York City, working for a global architecture firm with a focus on public and corporate landscape architecture projects. Steve headed back to California, launching his career in boutique design firms. With the long distance growing tiresome, the two set their sights on the Bay Area. “We wanted to give our love a chance on the West Coast and I knew that it would be an easy place to do what we love,” Sarah says, with Steve nodding in agreement. “We’ve traveled a lot of places, and I can’t think of a better place to live, especially given our profession,” he adds.

Initially settling in San Francisco, Sarah transitioned from public and corporate projects into high-end residential design work. “Residential was such an easy connection for me. It was a people connection that I was really missing, and that was the piece that really started to make it blossom,” she says. “So many of the really sweet moments of a garden are small and intimate and unexpected and that’s what was so enchanting about moving to the residential sector.”

In 2012, at the age of 29, Sarah decided to start her own business. “People thought that was risky but in my heart, it didn’t feel risky. It felt really natural and I felt ready.”

Sarah launched Boxleaf Design, and Steve, who had been running a different venture, recognized the opportunity to go all-in with his wife. “He figured out how to make us an official business and I started to run with the relationships,” Sarah recounts.

“Over time, our roles sort of organically fell into place,” echoes Steve. “It’s the same thing in any relationship, especially marriages and partnerships.”

Sarah completes the thought: “It’s really nice to build a business with somebody you trust wholeheartedly.”

In 2017, along with their two-year-old daughter, Ivy, and a new puppy in tow, they moved to Emerald Hills and relocated Boxleaf Design in Redwood City. “We needed more space and our work was shifting down the Peninsula. Signs were pointing strongly in this direction,” Sarah says. Today, Boxleaf Design has four full-time designers, with Steve running point on the business and family fronts, stepping up even more after the couple’s second daughter, June, arrived last September.

Seven years into Boxleaf Design, Sarah and Steve are firmly ensconced in their landscape architecture sweet spot. “I think that the buyers on the Peninsula are smart. They know that there’s more to a property than just the home value price. They move here and live here because they want an indoor-outdoor lifestyle,” Sarah notes. “Our minds go to maximizing the potential of every space, and so we end up in projects where there’s either a large palette to work with or a big problem to solve.”

Projects always start with an interview, a chance to dive into a dialog about where people thrive and what makes them tick. “I ask questions like, ‘Do you read the newspaper? Are you a morning coffee or an evening glass of wine person? Do you take out the trash? Do you like to dine outside? How do you like to socialize and entertain? Do you have kids and what are their ages?’” Sarah explains. “I’m sure most people don’t know how the questions that I’m asking will translate into something in their garden, but it will; it always does. Our goal is to create an intuitive garden that functions as a seamless extension of daily life.”

Whether Boxleaf is designing for a narrow San Francisco lot or a five-acre property in Woodside, Sarah sees clients expressing a common desire. “I think families in general want to live outside. We’re creating outdoor landscape spaces that check every box for your creature comforts inside of your house,” she says. “We expect our outdoor spaces to be elevated to the point where the two speak to each other and there’s an easy transition from one space to the next.”

Sitting out on their back deck, with baby June down for a nap and Ivy playing nearby, the busy pair perceptibly relax, pausing to process the journey that has delivered them to exactly the right place. “Sarah and I both feel we should use outdoor space as much as possible, especially in this climate,” Steve says. “The weather is pretty much perfect all year round.”

“Our moments of recharge are times when we can be outdoors and catch that breath of fresh air,” Sarah reflects. “I think our clients have a very similar response to the gardens we create; they recognize that many of life’s best moments happen outside. I feel so lucky to get to do what we do—creating memorable spaces that make people happy.”

boxleafdesign.com

America’s Youngest Soccer Star

words by Sheri Baer

Watching from the sidelines during their daughter’s first AYSO soccer season in Menlo Park, Helen Wilmot and Greg Davidson noticed something different about their daughter. Although Tierna Davidson geared up in the same blue jersey and tiny shinguards as the other “Blue Snowcats,” her laser focus clearly stood out. “At those first games over at Oak Knoll School, you’d see girls stepping back and saying, ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ But Tierna had the mentality, ‘I want that ball. I’m going to get that ball,’” Greg recalls.

Tierna’s fierce determination remained a constant. “She was very focused, very early—very self-motivated and driven,” Helen adds. “We encouraged her but we never had to push her. She did that herself.”

And Tierna pushed herself a very long way—from scoring into those first yellow-rimmed miniature nets in kindergarten to taking the field for Team USA in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France. “If you had told young Tierna that this was going to happen, I can’t really say that she would have believed it,” Tierna says. “It’s really quite indescribable, the feeling of going out on a field and having your entire country rooting for your team.”

Adding to that experience, Tierna also had the distinction of being the youngest player on the 23-woman roster. Just 20 years old during the World Cup games earlier this summer—she turns 21 on September 19—Tierna’s soccer career already included winning the NCAA Division I National Championship with the Stanford women’s team in 2017, starting in 12 games for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) in 2018 and becoming the first draft pick in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) by the Chicago Red Stars this past January.

PUNCH Magazine caught up with Tierna and her parents for the inside story on her journey from the Peninsula to the world’s biggest soccer stage.

The Player: Tierna Davidson

Growing up in Menlo Park, Tierna remembers first kicking the ball in Burgess Park’s Kidz Love Soccer program. She attended Oak Knoll Elementary School and Hillview Middle School, followed by Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton. Playing for club teams coached by Andres Deza, she was recruited by Stanford University as a high school sophomore and left Stanford in her junior year of college to play professional soccer.

What do you recall about getting started in sports? Did you have any role models?

Some of my earliest memories are playing with my brother, Rory, in the backyard. Because he was two years older than me, I literally did everything that he did. If it was basketball, baseball, swimming or soccer, I hopped in wherever he was going. And I remember soccer just feeling like a very natural thing for me. Being so close to Stanford, we had season tickets to all the sports. I grew up watching Christen Press and Kelley O’Hara playing soccer for Stanford, and it was very cool to eventually play on the same team as them. It was really a full-circle type of thing.

Here’s another full circle. When you were recruited by Stanford, how did it feel to play for a team that you had followed so closely?

It was so weird to be a freshman at Stanford and realize that there were kids in the exact position that I was in, ten years prior, wanting signatures on their shirts and on their hats. I took a moment to think about it and I realized that these small moments for these kids will be remembered forever because I remember walking up to the fence and asking someone to sign my jersey. I felt like I was meeting celebrities—people in positions of real female power—and that was just so special.

Tell us about your position on the field and what it entails.

I am a center back or a left back, kind of depending on the day. As a defender, the definition of success is a little bit gray because it’s not, ‘Oh, let me score a goal!’ It’s more about helping my team succeed, and of course, it means keeping goals out of the back of our own net.

Describe the moment you found out you made the World Cup team.

I got a call after practice one day in Chicago and my coach said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been selected!’ I might have blacked out for a little bit; I don’t completely remember everything that she said, but I do remember really not being able to say anything but ‘Thank you.’ After that, I called my parents and I said, ‘You can book your tickets. Here we go!’

How remarkable is it to have two players from Menlo Park on the USWNT? Abby Dahlkemper got her first call-up in 2016 and was a starting central defender in France. Like you, she also went to Oak Knoll, Hillview and Sacred Heart Prep.

It’s just the weirdest kind of coincidence. I didn’t know Abby going through Sacred Heart because she was five years ahead of me. I actually hadn’t even met her until I came on to the national team. One of the days we were coming back from camp, we drove her home and she literally lives 10 minutes from my own house. It’s kind of wild to think that two players out of this whole entire national pool could come from such a small region, but it also speaks volumes about the kinds of people that the Silicon Valley cultivates—people who have a really strong drive for success and are very determined in what they love to do.

We understand you had a personal fan section that included up to 20 family members and friends. How meaningful was it to share this with them?

I had family or friends at every single one of my games, and it was so nice to have a little bit of home in the stands, even so far away from home. To have both my mom and my dad there was so great. My dad always yells, ‘Go T-Dog!’ right before every game—all the way from club through my international career; no matter how many fans are around, he’ll always yell it, and I always hear it. It just kind of harkens back to the memories of me being a 12-year-old kid, all gangly on the field, and my dad cheering for me on the sidelines. They have consistently been able to make time, despite their jobs, despite their lives and everything that they have to do and get done every week. It’s been really special to have them there through all of my stages of soccer and I think it’s been very special for them too.

As part of the USWNT, how does it feel to be playing a role in the fight for equal pay for female athletes?

It’s incredibly important and it’s so powerful and I feel so lucky to have come into a group of really strong women who want to speak out about it. There were 58,000 people at our game against the Netherlands for the finals. After we won, the most resounding chant that we heard was “Equal pay! Equal pay!” To know that what we have been trying to broadcast to the world has reached all of our fans and everyone who watches us is really satisfying.

What happened after the big win?

It was a whirlwind because we hopped on a plane the next day, flew on a charter straight to New York and then had a ton of media. We went on Good Morning America and then we had the parade and then we had to get on a plane to go straight to the ESPYs in L.A. They had makeup artists and hair people on the plane for us because we landed and had 45 minutes to get ready. It was definitely like one blink and everything’s done!

The Parents: Greg Davidson and Helen Wilmot 

Greg is a former corporate lawyer of 30 years and currently a fellow in the Distinguished Careers Institute at Stanford. Helen is the VP of facility services and planning at Stanford Medical Center, which includes being responsible for the operations planning and opening of the new hospital. In addition to being diehard soccer fans, they are weekend travel team road trip veterans to such destinations as Modesto, Manteca, Sacramento and Santa Rosa.

Describe when Tierna called to say she made the World Cup team.

GREG: It was very emotional for us. We were confident but not overconfident, certainly. There’s no sure thing. When she called to tell us, I actually had just gotten out of a class at Stanford and I started crying. I was very proud, obviously, and it was very special to hear the news.

HELEN: I would say that I was more emotional when she got drafted as the number-one pick in the draft, which is actually going to make me cry now, because that was the moment when she was making the commitment to change her life entirely. So the World Cup, of course, oh my God, making the national World Cup team was amazing, but the draft was the moment when she was exiting this part of her life and going to the next part of her life. She had just turned 20 and was going off to Chicago by herself.

What was it like seeing Tierna wearing her #12 jersey in France?

GREG: When she was out on the field and they were playing the national anthem, Helen and I were just looking at each other and hugging and crying. ‘This is just crazy, is this real?’ It was just surreal in a lot of respects. Wow, all this time and effort and work over the years and her dedication—there’s a payoff here. And at all of the games, we were sitting in the friends and family section, so it was amazing to be with our family and friends and all the other parents.

How do you view what’s next for Tierna?

HELEN: If she is fortunate enough to go to the Olympics, the Olympics has a roster of 18. The World Cup had a roster of 23. So there’s no guarantee ever. It’s a constant reprove cycle that you have to do, so it’s tough. It’s a tough mindset. And if she’s fortunate enough to make the Olympics, then it’s three more years before the World Cup happens again.

GREG: I’ve always looked at Tierna and thought that she has tons of options and could be great at whatever she wants to do. She’s intellectual, she’s smart, and Stanford is flexible and welcoming to have people back. So she’s not abandoning her Stanford degree, she’s just postponing it.

Every so often, we ask, ‘Are you enjoying this? Is it still your passion? If not, you don’t have to do it.’ But she loves it. She loves playing, no matter which team it is—Stanford, Chicago or the U.S. She just loves being out there. She loves the camaraderie. She loves the game. So, we think, ‘Then go ahead and keep doing it.’

Sheer Imagination

It has almost mystical, magical qualities. It’s made from opaque sand, although it’s completely transparent. It’s neither a liquid nor a solid, hovering somewhere in between. And while it’s a staple in design, one of its most revered values is not being able to see it.

Glass is all of these things—and as Telly Sionides will tell you, so much more. “It’s a wall without being a wall. It’s a safety net without looking like one. It opens up a room where everything else obscures it,” Telly notes, adding to the list of wonders. “Designers are using glass for everything these days. People are always amazed by all the things you can do with it.”

Telly should know. He and his wife, Silke, have dedicated the past six years to exploring and expanding their knowledge of this aesthetic and highly-functional material. As the owners of CB Showers in San Carlos, they apply their expertise to interior and exterior glass—in applications ranging from shower doors, railings and partitions to cabinets, backsplashes and wine rooms. There is one exception… “We don’t do windows,” Telly says.

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, to a Greek father and an American mother, Telly explains that his fascination with glass came later in life. After leaving Greece at 18, he joined the U.S. Air Force where he learned electronics. Following his service, he worked for the U.S. Army as a civilian contractor. “I got an offer to work in Germany for a year or two doing electronics on helicopters and I ended up staying 23 years,” he says.

As Telly was preparing to leave Germany, he met Silke, and they moved to Nebraska where he ran a train repair site, before relocating to Mare Island in Vallejo for another position. With a move back to Europe looming (for projects in Russia and China), Telly and Silke decided to put down roots instead. While looking for a business to buy, they heard about CB Showers—and began to contemplate their future more clearly. “I’ve always been interested in architecture and design but I had never thought about glass as a medium before,” Telly recalls. “When I saw what they were doing and met with the owner, that’s all it took.”

Originally founded in 1986, CB Showers introduced frameless showers to the Peninsula and also specialized in mirrors. When Telly took over the business, he recognized the potential to significantly expand the way homeowners look at glass: “I’m trying to show it so people say, “Oh! I didn’t know you could do that!” Curved glass. Cast glass. Laminated glass. Etched glass. Colored glass. Back-painted glass. Textured glass. Even ceramic-painted glass creating the effect of a grid shower. “People will come and sit for hours going through all the samples,” Telly says. “There are just so many options.”

And while the U.S. is a design leader in some regards, Telly acknowledges that the cutting-edge trends in glass are still coming from overseas, especially Australia and Europe. “I think they do a lot more. We’re catching up here but many of the designs here still copy the European designs.”

Telly says the biggest shifts he’s currently seeing are with hardware and finishes. Where the standard finish used to be brushed nickel or chrome, now he’s seeing more matte black and custom selections. “There’s a lot more color,” he observes. On the hardware side, he points to examples like new braking systems for sliding glass doors and wooden door handles for dry saunas. And when it comes to the color of glass, he says the most popular look is utterly transparent—as in crystal-clear, which has less iron it it.

Glass that obscures the view used to be common in showers, but privacy concerns are being set aside for aesthetics: “If you’re investing in nice tile because you want something beautiful, you want to see it, not keep it hidden.”

Given his custom approach, Telly especially appreciates innovative and functional applications of glass, whether it’s saloon-style double glass doors with a glass transom blocking sound from a media room (while maintaining light and airiness), or glass doors and panels with LED lighting creating a stunning showcase for a wine collection.

Telly is also seeing more floor-to-ceiling glass. “You have safety and security but also the openness of having light going through it,” he says. In addition, he’s observing a surge in the popularity of glass railings. “Especially on balconies, it can get windy at times. With glass railings, you still have the view, but you can block a lot of the wind.”

Wine rooms, saunas and steam rooms are also seeing big upticks in glass demand and Telly is excited by the opportunity for further expansion. And although he didn’t originally set out to buy a glass business, he’s thankful for his clarity of vision. “I think designers build in the glass differently than before,” he reflects. “It used to be more like a final touch and now they’re designing it into their whole vision.”

cbshowers.com

EcoGirl to the Rescue!

When Jennifer Jory teaches a sustainability module at Nueva Upper School in San Mateo, she hands out a multiple-choice quiz. “How many pounds of clothing does the average American throw away each year?” it reads. “What is the second most polluting industry in the world after oil?”

After going over the options to choose from, Jennifer laments, “You can kind of guess. It’s always the worst-case scenario.” In the case of discarded clothing: 80 pounds. And the second most polluting industry? Textiles.

The wasteful practices behind fast fashion are what motivate Jennifer to drop into classrooms every year to teach lessons on how to make handbags or backpacks using recycled materials. It’s a topic she knows plenty about. As the founder of EcoGirl, an environmentally-friendly handbag business, she spends her time collecting and rescuing high-end, heritage and vintage fabrics—and refashioning them into custom designs. “I do this as my one small stand against permanent environmental damage. I want to do anything I can,” Jennifer says.

EcoGirl was born out of a simple fabric fascination—an interest that increasingly crept up on Jennifer. After growing up in Foster City, Jennifer attended UC Santa Barbara as an English major but ultimately found herself working in finance on the Peninsula. Jennifer’s route was already nontraditional, but the real kicker is that she ended up in sustainable fashion. When traveling in Southeast Asia in her 20s, Jennifer fell in love with a historically expensive tribal ikat blanket that a local begged her to purchase for only six dollars. Following that experience, she continued collecting unique fabrics throughout her trip in Malaysia and Thailand.

The collection grew back home at the Alameda Flea Market where Jennifer discovered vintage and one-of-a-kind materials such as suzani, a wedding fabric from Uzbekistan. This led to an interest in rescuing design samples that would otherwise go to waste. “I couldn’t let these beautiful samples that are $300 a yard go into the landfill,” Jennifer says. “Let’s just say I have a lot of storage.” From clutches, handbags and cross-body purses to beach and book bags, EcoGirl produces a variety of designs with prices ranging from about $80 to $200.

The satisfaction that Jennifer’s fabric collection gave her came as a surprise. “I had no idea I was the creative type,” she says.

How does a vintage leather belt from the flea market find its way to a zipper from her daughter’s old wallet and a sample of Chimayo Indian weaving? There’s a certain fascination in how Jennifer marries fabrics and hardware. On the table in her San Mateo home where she works sits a neatly folded set of textiles and notions, all tied together with a string and a piece of white construction paper. This is called a bundle—the staple of Jennifer’s day-to-day work—and it contains all the materials, measurements and design instructions needed before a single stitch is made.

Beyond her own creative conceptions, Jennifer will also make designs based on customer-specific fabrics or hardware. One time a friend found a vintage piece that reminded her of her aunt, so she commissioned Jennifer to transform it into bags for every member of the family. A special heirloom such as a brooch or necklace could be used as hardware as well. From couch upholstery to curtains, Jennifer has experience with all types of textile.

Once the materials are gathered and the design is finalized, the bundles are sent to her sewing crew in San Francisco—which turns out to be a rarity in fashion manufacturing. Jennifer relays a story about a retail sourcing event she attended in Las Vegas. “I was so excited to try to find new manufacturers in the U.S.,” she recalls. “I go to this giant event room and ask where to find them, and they point to the only one out of thousands of tables. Very few handbags and clothing are made in the U.S., so having my bags made nearby in San Francisco is especially rewarding.”

Although EcoGirl remains one-hundred percent local, Jennifer draws motivation from her international travels. Whether it’s sending materials to young women in Honduras to make their own bags or donating 20% of EcoGirl event proceeds to an organization that helps women in Africa sustain their own businesses, Jennifer makes a practice of giving back.

Jennifer’s three daughters also fuel her enthusiasm for her work. “They’ve all helped me along the way—whether they’re working for me at the farmers market or keeping me current with what’s in style. One of the reasons I keep being excited about EcoGirl is that my girls’ friends actually want my bags. It is just too much fun. I have to keep going.”

When it comes to style, Jennifer points to a fashion trend that never dies: denim. “I love material that could be worn with jeans. For instance, right now I’m into indigo fabric. Imagine brown leather with a stripe of indigo down the middle—that would be such a good complement to a pair of jeans,” Jennifer muses. However, Jennifer is also very cognizant of the dark side of jeans production. “To make one pair, a manufacturer uses the amount of water it takes for a person to survive for over two years,” she relays, which further inspires her to use recycled denim in her designs.

On that note, here’s the final question on Jennifer’s sustainability quiz: “What percentage of textiles and clothing are recycled or repurposed each year?” The answer: only 15 percent. Intent on raising awareness about textile waste, Jennifer is also looking to expand her reach in the classroom, offering her module to more Peninsula schools.

Back in her design studio, Jennifer studies the materials in front of her—a turquoise thumb catch, a thrifted leather belt and a fabric sample with a corner grommet perfect for a handle or tassel. “I just can’t seem to stop making bags,” she reflects. “I never grow tired of finding that next beautiful piece that needs rescuing.”

eco shopping time

Burlingame Sunday Farmers Market

9AM to 1:30PM

Cocktails & Couture Benefit on September 26 49ersacademy.org/couture

ecogirlonline.com

Breathe. Move. Recover.

Amidst all the activity and whirring of exercise machines from early risers working out at Performance Gaines, a fitness facility located in Palo Alto, there’s a group in the corner doing something different this weekend morning. They’re participating in a three-hour mind and body XPT workshop. Today’s program involves common workout equipment, a sauna and 200 pounds of ice (more on this later). An uncommon workout is about to begin.

XPT, short for Extreme Performance Training, teaches the ability to adapt through its Breathe, Move, Recover curriculum. This is a special session, not a daily or weekly class, loaded with techniques and lessons to take home—with the goal of optimizing performance and quality of life, including managing stress.

Founded by legendary big wave surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife, former professional beach volleyball player, Gabby Reece, XPT’s strength and conditioning program was inspired by their challenging workouts with friends. XPT ambassadors include actor Orlando Bloom, country music star Kenny Chesney and Saratoga’s own Olympic beach volleyball champion Kerri Walsh Jennings.

While Laird and Gabby’s XPT retreats in exotic locations such as Malibu and Hawaii and training with celebrities like Will Smith (on his show Bucket List) have garnered attention, certified XPT workshops are now available locally, for athletes and non-athletes alike.

“Performance Gaines aims to help inspired people work towards bettering themselves through movement. XPT’s motto feels very authentic to what we value,” explains Chris Gaines, the founder and director of programming at Performance Gaines.

While the evolutionary XPT program was created by Hamilton and Reece, it is XPT coach Kyler Ishisaki who has brought it to the Bay. Following high school football and track and collegiate snowboarding, Kyler wanted an active career coaching others. After graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a kinesiology degree, Kyler received his certified strength and conditioning specialist certification. Soon after, he began working with PJ Nestler, who later became XPT’s performance director and introduced the training to Kyler.

Which brings us to today. The session begins with Kyler gathering students to sit on the floor as he launches into the workshop’s three stages.

Stage 1: Breathe.

Kyler talks to the class about the importance of mindful breath, including up-regulating and down-regulating. “I explain the sympathetic, parasympathetic brain and how students can utilize what they learn in a workshop in their everyday lives. The sympathetic nervous system is our fight, flight or freeze response to stress, and the parasympathetic response is our rest and digest state,” Kyler says. About thirty minutes of various intentional rounds of breathing follow.

Stage 2: Move.

Now it’s time for action. Although this part of the workshop feels most familiar, it’s also the most taxing. Workshop participants row in unison, back and forth swiftly for a few minutes, breaking to monitor their heart rate and follow breathing instructions. Next are individual exercises up and down turf painted to simulate a playing field. The push and pull routine deploys brief, but intense functional movement to deliver a full-body workout, increasing the heart rate and the need for proper recovery. After a couple of rounds, the class is tired and winded. Time for the bathing suits.

Stage 3: Recover.

Perhaps what most distinguishes XPT is how they embrace both fire and ice in the recovery portion of their classes. Or in this case sauna, preceded by time in a giant tub of ice (around a frigid 34 degrees). The sight of the ice is the biggest obstacle.

The first 30 seconds in is usually the worst for the uninitiated. The goal is achieving a relaxed state of mind and remaining in the ice bath for three minutes, resulting in an empowering “I can handle this” moment. They go one at a time. Some choose to ease into the ice water, while others plunge right in, dunking themselves head to toe. Kyler guides students through the process, recalling the calming breathing techniques taught before and adding a helpful reminder that the warm environs of the sauna awaits. Students emerge from the ice bath exhilarated, and after shaking out their limbs in the sun, it’s off to the sauna for 15 minutes.

“The biggest take-away from the cold exposure is learning how to respond and deal with stress. Being able to focus and calm the mind during this time will show you first-hand how powerful the mind and breath can be in dealing with stressful situations,” says Kyler.

Reflecting a bit later, XPT first-timer Chesca Jensen agrees. “Before the workshop, I was terrified of the ice bath. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to do it,” she says. “After the ice bath, I saw how much easier it is with the breathing and knowing what to expect for the next time. I definitely felt how it relaxes the body.”

Take the Plunge

XPT Workshop August 24

performancegaines.com

kyler.ishisaki@gmail.com

Fitness: Punch Away!

45 punching bags in an open section of Redwood City’s Undisputed Boxing Gym hang suspended from a steel structure to form perfectly-lined rows. It’s dim, minus the warm, red glow emitting from the lights above. Brian Schwartz steps up onto the coffee table-sized stage in the center of the room to launch into a 9:15AM workout. Dozens of gym members await his direction, in position and ready for action in the dense forest of bags.

The gym’s founder and owner uses a headset microphone to project his commands over the pumping remixes of recognizable favorites. The hands-free technique allows the lanky and chiseled champion—nicknamed the “Mad Stork” from his days in karate—to lead by example while four flat-screen televisions on a nearby wall tick off his commands: lateral lunge, knee raise, push-up…

This is the Undisputed workout. Sixty minutes of boxing, strengthening, kickboxing and conditioning to challenge the entire body. No two classes are the same; some incorporate various free-weight equipment like dumbbells and barbells, but the one constant is the pro-style heavy punching bags.

Following the warm-up, the television screens announce in bright yellow lettering: “Glove Up!” A club remix of Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved” sets the tempo as participants fetch a pair of boxing gloves in a small basket beneath each bag. Two young women in their first Undisputed workout help one another gear up.

Brian calls out combinations: rear hand uppercut, front hand uppercut, cross and hook. The routines blend into each other like the endlessly streaming house music. Even the calls to rest include fast footwork in place.

Nearing the halfway point, the participants seem to hit the bags harder; it could be out of vented exhaustion or because they’re coolly focused on Brian’s every command. The class is predominantly women, some wearing state-of-the-art Nike attire while others burn calories in a regular t-shirt, with ages ranging from a teenager to a septuagenarian. Everyone is committed and no one throws in the towel.

A few feet away is an all-black leather boxing ring where each corner bears a simple message from Brian himself: “Train Strong.” The ring is empty now, but Brian has spent more of his life in a ring like this than perhaps his own bed. Never the biggest guy in the ring, Brian found his advantage in relentless training. Recognizing that you can’t coach height, he hired a coach and always went hard. It’s a philosophy that guided Brian to an undefeated title in kickboxing and now his own gym where every day he widens a gap in the ropes to welcome more people into the sport.

Following six World Championships in Sport Karate with a spot on the U.S. National Team, a World Super Middleweight title from the International Sport Kickboxing Association and retiring undefeated in 2006 with a record of 18-0, Brian shares with the Peninsula the routine that made him a champion—11 classes a week.

Born in South San Francisco, Brian didn’t waste time finding his passion.

“My dad took me to see a Bruce Lee movie and that was it. On my sixth birthday, I asked to learn karate and went to a martial arts school in Millbrae,” he says, before breaking into a smile.

“I was the worst kid in the class, so bad that the instructor told my parents. But I loved it, and I credit my folks because they kept bringing me in. Then we moved to Foster City and I switched schools. I was still the worst but my new instructor really encouraged practice and the process. He made it fun. Pretty soon, I was second worst in the class.”

Brian said it started to click when he was 15, the same year he earned his black belt in karate. (After failing in his first two attempts.) He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1992 and attended the College of San Mateo for six months before making a proposal to his parents: He’d give it a year to get into the karate pro circuit and if not, he’d return to academics.

Brian maxed out credit cards to pay the entrance fees into tournaments and by the year’s end he was a wildcard in the world championship. Like a Bruce Lee movie, he worked his way through one opponent after another, competing in 16 rounds with some back-to-back matches. The night before the championship match he paced around nervously but the minute the match began he won handily.

“What made me more successful and able to win was that I came from a background where I was so bad. I knew that I wasn’t going to be the fastest or strongest but I could work harder than anybody out there. When it came time to go to the gym, I did the work. When it was time to get in the ring, even if he was bigger, there was no way he was going to outwork me. Every athlete at one point comes to a crossroads: winners figure out how to win. Losers go the other way. That’s in you and you can’t teach it.”

Brian says his defining moment as a fighter, when he earned the right to call himself a champion, came in 2002 after refocusing on kickboxing. He was fighting at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and during the second round of a big match he shattered his left hand. The inches-long scar is still visible today.

“It was a really bad break and I didn’t realize at the time it was broken,” he says. “I could feel my energy drop and my glove was getting tighter because I was swelling up. I had this guy who was going to knock my head off but I fought and stopped him in the fifth round. After that, I always knew I could find a way.”

Following the birth of his first child (he’s now a father of three), Brian opened the Undisputed Boxing Gym in 2006 in San Carlos, later relocating it to Redwood City.

The gym reflects Brian’s character; he detests clutter and waste so every piece of equipment has its place. The ambiance is lively but focused. The punching bags are Pro Boxing Bags like what the professionals use and the floors are made out of recycled Nike shoes. (Brian is a sneakerhead with over 40 pairs at home; most were gifts from former 49er Michael Crabtree whom Brian used to coach and the duo have the same shoe size.) The gym is class-centric, with classes for all abilities and ages offered daily, and every visit ends with a complimentary stick of gum at the front desk.

Brian was keen on making sure the gym paid tribute to boxing culture. Three hundred copies of Ring Magazine make a collage out of the indoor pillars and the gym features a lot of metal and wood in the design to reflect the urban nature of boxing. One wall in the back shows a blown-up photo of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston. It’s a love letter to boxing and its author wants to share it with the Peninsula one rep at a time.

“This sport has done so much for me,” Brian says. “What gets me up in the morning is if I can get someone to do one more push-up today than they could yesterday.”

Glove Up!

380 Convention Way

Redwood City

undisputedboxinggym.com

Landmark: Devil’s Slide Bunker

The Devil’s Slide Military Bunker sits atop a man-made dirt mound in such a way that you’d think it was about to fall off the coastal cliffs that surround it. In contrast, the bunker was initially built to protect the land it sits so precariously above—the San Francisco Peninsula. Although this now private property restricts Pacifica beach-goers from entering the structure, the views from its highest point are spectacular and inherently deliberate. During World War II, the Harbor Defense of San Francisco utilized the bunker for military triangulation and lookout, specifically watching for Japanese ships encroaching on the California coastline. With the introduction of a more sophisticated defense system, the bunker was deserted in 1949. Since then, the antiquated bunker has become Highway 1 eye candy and something of a public slate for graffiti art. The property’s name was coined from the treacherous erosion and landslides that plague the area. When the State of California sold the bunker in 1983, the new owner dug out the ground surrounding its base, leaving the bunker to appear to be levitating over the Pacific Ocean. Today you can see the floating bunker from the stretch of Highway 1 between Gray Whale Cove and Montara State Beaches.

Road to Mount Hamilton

words by Sheri Baer

During nearly 15 years of commuting to work in downtown San Jose, one sight consistently filled me with wonder—seeing Mount Hamilton, occasionally snow-frosted, but always tipped with tantalizing white domes, in the distance. And while the peak (and vague knowledge about an observatory) captured my imagination, I failed to make the trek to explore this local treasure in the Peninsula’s backyard.

“What? You’ve never been to Mount Hamilton?” If, by chance, you’ve also heard that incredulous comment, here’s the lowdown on traveling to the top of that nearby 4,200-foot summit.

What’s Up Top

Along with jaw-dropping, breathtaking terrestrial views, what you’ll find up on top of Mount Hamilton is a first—the world’s first permanently occupied mountaintop astronomical observatory. Built between 1880 and 1888, Lick Observatory is the legacy of an eccentric businessman and self-made millionaire, James Lick, who commissioned a monumental telescope project as a way to memorialize himself for posterity. Lick chose Mount Hamilton for the location, speculating that a higher elevation would reduce atmospheric interference, with the added benefit that he could see Mount Hamilton from his home. Although Lick died before the Lick Observatory and Great Lick Refractor were completed, his name most certainly lives on through the Observatory’s pioneering astronomical research and contributions to science. Part of the University of California, Lick Observatory remains an internationally renowned active research facility, housing 19th-, 20th– and 21st-century telescopes in 10 distinct domes.

Getting There

Located in the Diablo Range overlooking Santa Clara Valley, Mount Hamilton is 20 miles east of San Jose, but the mileage count doesn’t do justice to the spectacular, even spine-tingling journey. There are two possible routes, each about a one-hour drive from San Jose. Either way, prepare accordingly (anti-nausea meds anyone?) for twisty turns ahead. One point to flag at the get-go: you will find only vending machines at the top. To avoid a stomach-growler of a day, make sure to pre-pack sustenance or plan for a pit stop.

Route 1: Quimby Road

If you plug Lick Observatory into your phone’s map app, it’s likely to default to a route that takes you down 101, exiting East Capitol Expressway to Quimby Road. Quimby Road is a seven-mile stretch that connects you to CA-130 East, also known as Mt. Hamilton Road, which you’ll follow another 11 miles to the summit. There are definite upsides to the Quimby Road route. You’ll pass by Evergreen Village, where you’ll find a slew of eateries around a picturesque square including Citi Cafe, Sophie’s Mediterranean Grill and Evergreen Coffee Company, which, along with coffee drinks and smoothies, offers tasty sandwiches (eat in or to-go) on a bagel, bread or croissant. If you’re traveling on a Wednesday or Sunday, you’ll also find the Evergreen Farmers Market here from 9AM to 1PM. Continuing along this route, you’ll see the majestic Sikh Gurdwara, the largest Sikh place of worship in North America. Situated on 40 acres, visitors are welcome to take in the site’s expansive views, with signage providing additional insights. You’ll also pass through Joseph D. Grant County Park, the largest of Santa Clara County’s regional park and recreation areas. Covering 10,882 acres, the park is known for its grasslands, majestic oak trees and 51-mile trail system. What it’s not known for is shade, so spring, fall or winter are the best seasons to veer off for a hike. Another benefit of Quimby is that there are fewer bicyclists sharing the roadway, however, for good reason. Much of this route is steep and narrow with harrowing hairpin turns and only the occasional guardrail.

Route 2: CA-130 East (Mt. Hamilton Road)

To avoid the Quimby Road default, here’s an easy workaround. The alternate route (only a few minutes longer) will have you exiting Alum Rock Road to CA-130 East (Mt. Hamilton Road). This route also provides food stops including New York Pizza and TeaZer, with a menu of boba drinks, sandwiches and snacks. When your grub is secure, keep heading upward, passing through Joseph D. Grant County Park on a gentler 19-mile ascent to the top. As you’re driving on Mt. Hamilton Road, marvel that this route was originally built in the late 1870s, anticipating the construction of Lick Observatory. The grade rarely exceeds 6.5 percent, which allowed horse-drawn carriages to lug up equipment. Today, that slow and steady climb attracts cyclists, so factor in an extra measure of precaution.

Either route requires unwavering attention—even as dazzling vistas are unveiled at every switchback of the road. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you encounter the first shhh! sign: “Quiet please. Day sleepers. Researchers work at night.”

Visiting by Day

For a better understanding of all the astronomical hubbub, plan a visit Thursday through Sunday when Lick’s marbled Visitors Center hall is open from Noon to 5PM. Starting at 12:30PM, free talks are given on the half-hour inside the dome of the 36-inch Great Refractor (which has 36-inch diameter lenses at the telescope’s top).

On the day we visit, our guide is Michele Redel, one of the 27 people who make their home on Mount Hamilton. Michele is a retired nurse who also serves as Lick Observatory’s chief water operator and safety coordinator. “We all wear many hats,” she tells us, before relaying the history of this visually-enthralling monument to 19th-century engineering. “When this telescope was built, it was the largest refracting telescope in the world. Everything you see had to come up that skinny road that you came up, and it all came up by horse and cart.”

We learn how the telescopes here help find planets beyond our solar system and discern the nature of galaxies and black holes. Michele also describes what it’s like to live on Mount Hamilton. She’s going on 12 years now. “Never in my life did I ever think I would be living at an observatory. I’m in awe all the time,” she shares. “Every time I walk in that dome, I’m still agog at everything that they did. It never gets old for me.”

After our tour of the Great Refractor, Michele directs us on a 10-minute walk (or short drive) to see the Shane Dome’s 120-inch Reflector. Completed in 1950, the mountain’s largest telescope deploys new laser technologies to minimize the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere. The Shane 3-meter Visitor Gallery is open every day from 10AM to 5PM.

Keep in mind, every day is a good day to visit Mount Hamilton. Scenery binoculars and interpretive signs are located around the facility, along with tables to enjoy the snacks or picnic lunch you remember to bring—and views, oh, the views! Weather and haze cooperating, visitors are treated to a bird’s-eye perspective of the entire Bay Area, from the skylines of San Jose and San Francisco stretching all the way to Half Dome at Yosemite.

Visiting at Night

If you’re now clamoring to view celestial objects yourself, here’s the good news: Every summer, Lick Observatory presents multiple programs for public telescope viewings at night. Lick’s Public Evening Tours offer a “behind the scenes”-style astronomer-led walking tour and Lick’s Summer Series alternates between its Music of the Spheres concert series and Evening with the Stars lectures. As soon as the sky is dark, every guest gets a turn looking through Lick’s 36-inch Great Refractor and 40-inch Nickel Telescope. Plus, amateur astronomers set up in the parking lot for additional viewing opportunities.

If you think that sounds like a star-studded combination, you’re not alone. Here’s the bad news: The limited tickets for these programs go on sale in mid-April and sell out within days—if not hours. For 2019, the best option is trolling StubHub for second-hand tickets. To get a jump on the timing for 2020, sign up for Lick’s mailing list at ucolick.org/summer/resources/subscribe.html. You can also join Friends of Lick Observatory to get early access to Summer Series tickets: ucolick.org/main/support/folo.html

Is it worth the twisty, turny (some might say, tortuous), drive? Before we venture off to explore on our own, we ask our guide Michele for her take. “A lot of history started here,” she reflects, before delivering a resounding yes. “It’s one thing you should have on your bucket list. Make sure to come to Lick Observatory and be a part of it.”

No Snow Play Here!

Perched at 4,200 feet, Mount Hamilton has recorded measurable snowfall in every month from November through June—including a monthly record snowfall of 38.1 inches this past February. While the cold white stuff may seem enticingly close, you’re advised to steer clear. Mount Hamilton’s icy, dangerous roads are not equipped to handle snow-seeking visitors.

Day Trip Tips

+ Come up with a full tank of gas. There are no service stations on Mount Hamilton.

+ Remember you’re heading to 4,200 feet. Bring water to stay hydrated and oxygen if you use it.

+ Make a food plan in advance—whether it’s bringing snacks, lunch or dinner.

+ Anticipate cooler weather at the summit and pack a coat, sweater or blankets.

+ Prepare for limited connectivity: There’s currently no public WiFi and cell coverage can be spotty.

+ To preview conditions, check out Mount Hamilton’s live HamCams before you go: ucolick.org/main/science/hamcam.html

Ever-evolving: Sudnya Shroff

If you’re lucky enough to wander by Los Altos-based artist Sudnya Shroff’s home studio, there’s no need to wonder if there’s a creative spirit inside. Outside the gate, her 3D sculpture takes the form of crocheted flowers alongside a shooting rainbow of thread winding up, down and around her curbside trees. As Sudnya recalls, “My son asked me if it’s supposed to celebrate Pride, and though that was not the original intention, I quickly said, ‘Yes! Yes, it is!’”

It’s this very Bay Area attitude—combined with an abundance of talent—that attracted the attention of Saratoga’s Montalvo Art Center, where Sudnya prepared a similar but towering installation on display now in their gardens. There, her sculpture A Common Thread invites visitors to show support for the global refugee community by adding to the hundreds of crocheted flowers on display in the piece.

Although simple in pattern, the flowers convey a complexity of emotion and meaning, as they are crafted by women from 17 countries housed at a refugee center in Greece. According to Sudnya, the flowers symbolize “the tenacity of the refugee-activist collective resisting the darkness of fear while embracing the beauty of hope.” Inspiring hope is what motivates Sudnya to travel to Greece for a month every summer, where she personally teaches refugees the skills needed to craft the small blooms. She provides the supplies and then pays the women two Euros per piece.

Here’s how she captures her intent: “In providing skeins of multicolored yarn and needles to my talented multifaceted refugee sisters—who otherwise spend their time counting long, tortuous days inside flimsy crowded tents at the mercy of inclement weather and fellow humans in power—my hope is to help them create space where they have none, in their minds, crocheting their meditative states into beautiful flowers as they not just cope with their trying situation but also reclaim their intrinsic power.”

And if Sudnya’s social activist sculptures aren’t inspiring enough, she is also a passionate mother, wife, author, textile designer and philanthropist who came into these roles by first becoming… an electrical engineer? “I have been five different people in my life already,” she says. “I love that.”

A little background: Sudnya was born in Pune, India, to a Gujarati family. She followed her childhood sweetheart Nick to the U.S. so each could pursue advanced degrees. “I met my boyfriend, now husband, at the age of 14. He had a plan and he wanted to do engineering and I kind of just tagged along,” she says. “I would have gone to art school had I not met him, but he really had a plan of making it on his own and I knew my art degree would not really help. I was being practical, and I really enjoyed math and science, so I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’”

Still, she’d been painting since childhood, and when Sudnya arrived at Iowa State University, the most exciting part for her about America was the art section in the bookstore. “It’s different now, but in India back then, art supplies used to be ridiculously expensive or just not available. So when I came here and they had paper in all these different thicknesses and so many different brushes and pens, I was in heaven,” she recalls. By living frugally, Sudnya was able to nourish her artistic side. “I still have some of the works that I did. It was my way of meditating. I just knew that I felt calm when I did it and it was just instinctive.”

When graduate school ended, Sudnya headed west to take a job at Intel and be near Nick. “Hardware design brought me to Silicon Valley. I was on the first 64-bit microprocessor architecture called titanium and I was there from ’97 to 2000.” Then Intel sponsored her second masters degree in engineering management at Stanford. “That’s when I took all the possible classes in art and in creative writing, everything other than engineering, because I’d already finished my masters and a thesis in electrical engineering,” Sudnya says. “What I was doing at Stanford was the management aspect of it. It was all common sense and learning the language of business.”

Through creative writing classes, Sudnya met Lynn Stegner, the daughter-in-law of the late writer Wallace Stegner, who founded Stanford’s creative writing program. “Lynn was my teacher and my editor and mentor, the one who encouraged me to go ahead and publish my novel and that’s how my first novel happened,” Sudnya says. “So my life is a lot of happenstance. I know I didn’t plan any of it. Even the engineering part. I come from a business family.”

For Sudnya, it turned out well for her to be a generalist. “When we were growing up there was a lot of value put on being a master of one rather than a Jack of all trades. A master of none was considered very negative,” she reflects. “But I actually think in my case, it worked out. Nothing’s a waste; everything informs your next step. I find that the more you do, the more you build confidence that you can become resourceful. You’re learning some skill regardless of what you’re doing.”

On that note, let it be known that Sudnya is also adept at everything from project managing large-scale custom construction projects to photography—which, by the way, led to her own clothing line. She printed blown-up photographic images of nature or her boldly painted artwork onto fabric, thinking she’d create scarves: “When the fabric comes printed, it doesn’t come cut out as the scarf, right? So, the first time it came, I just draped it like a sari. ‘Hmm,’ I thought. ‘It looks so beautiful. Why am I limiting myself to scarves?’ So scarves became saris.”

Teaming up with a fashion designer, the saris led to dresses, blouses, skirts and outerwear—now branded as the Sudnya Shroff Label, which Sudnya describes as an extension of her philosophy to integrate and embrace art into daily living. All of her work is motivated by social entrepreneurship, with proceeds directly supporting refugees, women’s and children’s causes. “My art is a platform for messaging or giving voice to whatever it is that I want to give voice to—and then tying it to my business, which is the fashion line,” Sudnya summarizes. “I sell clothes, which are made from my art, which is inspired by my activism.”

Sudnya’s home itself is a livable installation spanning the intersection of art, design, veggie garden, architecture, landscape, shop class, technology and the performing arts. Recently, she hosted a jam-packed performance and fundraiser for the LA Dance Project and its founder Benjamin Millepied—a former Director of the Paris Opera Ballet—where the dancers cavorted like nymphs through her lavender bushes and trees.

“Benjamin’s vision for dance matches my vision of my art, making it accessible to everybody and not exclusive—inclusive—which is why I love the concept that he wanted to come to my home and not build a stage,” she says. “We didn’t put up any surfaces and knowing that, we didn’t have any chairs. The whole concept was how we can live without thinking of something in a predictable fashion. You don’t have to experience dance on stage. You don’t have to experience art in a museum. You can experience dance anywhere.”

Stay tuned—there’s certainly more to come from Sudnya Shroff. What’s exciting is that even she has no idea what it will be. “Like I said, I’ve been five people already,” she muses. “I have no guarantee how many are going to be next.”

Art-Inspired Fashion

sudnyashroff.com

African Dreams

words by Silas Valentino

Menlo Park’s Cafe Borrone on a Friday afternoon is an active watering hole attracting various native breeds of the Silicon Valley Serengeti.

Some of the Big Five game you can expect to find in this bustling ecosystem include young parents watching over their wandering cubs or the lone wolf absorbed by an illuminating screen. Perhaps you’ll catch a glimpse of the predatorial parking enforcement officer roaming off in the distance.

In the forest of canopies outside the cafe, seated at a table alongside the manicured brush, is a pair of travel specialists who are experts in sub-Saharan African safaris. They not only offer personalized, vetted experiences uniquely designed for each traveler, but do so under the guidance of ecotourism, a method of travel that encourages responsible practices such as conserving the environment and sustaining the well-being of the local people.

This Menlo Park cafe is where Amanda “Mandy” Sunderland and Dan Chaknova often hold their meetings with clients as they begin to map out a trip through their travel company Safari True. The business partners and married couple begin by sussing out what the client already knows about Africa, what their goals are and their comfort levels (The inability to survive without air conditioning helps weed out a few lodging options.)

Furthermore, the duo will begin developing options for how the traveler can give back to the communities they’ll soon encounter. Safari True acts as the intermediary, connecting travelers with lodges, guides and activity coordinators who align with their ecotourism values. Every trip planned through Safari True includes a direct contribution to a local community or conservation project in one of the destinations visited.

“You feel empowered as a traveler when you know you’re helping just by going there. You feel like a part of the story,” Dan says between sips of iced tea. “You want to feel like you know your guide and keep in touch with them on WhatsApp after you’ve returned home.”

When Mandy met Dan, he was releasing adult baboons into the bush of South Africa and his people skills were, well, a little rusty. They laugh about it now but their first encounter back in 2009 at The Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education, or CARE, wouldn’t fit the stereotypical romantic mold.

Dan was working as the release manager for CARE and it was his job to reintroduce baboons into the Kruger National Park once they had grown old enough to live independently. He’d assume the role of the troop’s alpha, deciding where the baboons were going, when to sleep and what to eat. Eventually, following months in the wilderness, an outside male baboon would step in to allow Dan to disappear so that he too could be reintroduced back with his species.

Mandy came to CARE to work in the baboon daycare center, sometimes caring for newborns for 24 hours straight during their first few months of life. On the day of her arrival, she was greeted by a disheveled Dan who had just returned after months in the Kruger National Park.

Their meeting was less than conventional.

“He was living in the bush for six months at a time and he looked like he was a baboon that was living in the bush,” she says. And to make matters worse, he wasn’t the smoothest conversationalist.

“I carried her bags in and made fun of how heavy they were,” he says. “What I didn’t know was that they were full of supplies. And then I made fun of her for being vegetarian…”

Although the pair was initially out of step, their shared passion for animal husbandry inevitably prevailed. Both were on paths to attend veterinary school until they experienced Africa for the first time.

Mandy, originally from Maryland, was bolstering her vet school application by acquiring animal experience and found CARE, a respected organization for the rehabilitation and release of baboons.

Dan, who grew up in San Carlos and graduated from Sacred Heart High School in 2004, says his earliest ambition was to become a wildlife vet. His life took a defining turn when he took an internship in Namibia while pursuing his animal science degree at U.C. Davis. “The moment I stepped foot on African soil I was gone,” he says. “I wasn’t always liking the animal clinics and dealing with hardships like becoming numb with animal suffering. I liked opening up cages.”

The couple returned to the U.S. in 2013 and settled on the Peninsula where Dan worked for a travel company and Mandy served as a behavior specialist at the Esther B. Clark School in Palo Alto. During the evenings, they plotted their ideal travel company: a business that cared for the places visited as much as the visitors themselves. They founded Safari True in 2014, initially operating out of their home office in Redwood City.

At the time, the African tourism industry was in a lull due to the outbreak of Ebola but the two persisted, acquiring advice from contacts they made during their years abroad.

“When we started the company, we met with a lodge owner we knew in South Africa who was only able to meet for an hour at the airport,” Dan says. “He gave us all this advice and then mapped out what would happen. He said the first three years will be brutal but then you’ll start getting referrals. And he’s been spot on.”

Mandy and Dan witness firsthand the benefits of tourism in rural areas of southern Africa, how every dollar spent can positively impact a community that had previously been unexposed to financial opportunity. They place a large focus on conservation for the animals themselves, where native species are now benefitting from the popularity of wildlife photo safaris. For example, “The Big Five” (as in lions, leopards, rhinoceros, elephants and Cape buffalos) was an exclusive term used by big game hunters but the expression has evolved into the ultimate checklist for animal admirers.

“Safaris started in Kenya at the Maasai Mara National Reserve. That’s also where ecotourism started,” Dan explains. “At first, it was mass marketing; pack in as many people as you can. There’d be 25 vehicles around a sleeping lion. What’s happening now is a shift away from big camps for smaller, intimate camps. The Maasai community owns and leases the camps. That’s what we’re seeing: a going away from mass tourism but the impact is getting better.”

“It’s a communal effort,” Mandy continues. “Everyone is in on it over there. If it’s off the beaten safari path, it’s all meaningful dollars and not wasted dollars. We knew places that didn’t have resources before tourism, such as no access to clean water. Now a lot more people have access.”

The clients served through Safari True encompass everyone under the sun, Dan says. From solo adventurers to family vacations, the duo is fully accommodating. “All trips are completely customized and no two trips are the exact same,” Mandy says. “We have clients who take long sabbaticals for two months and people who can fit it all into 10 days. We don’t want to skip around to different places, we want to have time in each place to settle in.”

As an example, a recent trip entailed a three-week safari where a group visited five countries, trekked to visit endangered mountain gorillas in Uganda, spent four days surrounded by the Great Migration in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and then gazed upon the wonders of Victoria Falls.

“We’re really personally invested in all our clients’ trips. We put so much thought and personal care in designing them, it’s almost to a detriment,” Mandy says. “The time change is about nine or ten hours away and we structure things to remain accessible 24/7.”

Such an active work ethic might be the norm in the Silicon Valley Serengeti but the couple has not shed the lessons learned while embracing the true Serengeti.

“I feel it as soon as we land,” Mandy says. “I think the slow pace in Africa lends itself to more connections. The rhythm of life there is something different. We try to pause and watch the sunset here.”

Echoing the sentiment, Dan adds, “It taps into something primal; it resets you. It can be tiring in the bush and at the end of the day, you’re ready to sleep. But you wake up feeling refreshed and alive. I think that’s one of the most important things about being on a safari with the wind against your face and all the sounds and smells— you feel connected to all life.”

Discover Africa at safaritrue.com

Triple Crown Orthodontist

Menlo Park orthodontist Scott Kaloust explains his approach to life succinctly: “Decide to do something, and keep moving forward until it’s done.”

That’s how he got through his undergraduate studies in three years, followed by dental school and a residency in orthodontia at UCSF.

And that’s how he approached accomplishing something few people in the world have managed to do—complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming: the English Channel (21 miles between England and France), the Catalina Channel (20 miles between Santa Catalina Island and Southern California mainland) and 20 Bridges (28.5 miles circumnavigating Manhattan Island).

Completing these three swims is the penultimate goal for open water swimmers—and a natural for Scott to set his sights on. The Redwood City resident and father of three trains both at Burgess Pool in Menlo Park and the South End Rowing Club in San Francisco.

Goal #1: Become an Orthodontist

Scott, who grew up in Riverside, swam and played water polo in high school, and may well have played at the collegiate level. But a less watery goal was already set in his mind.

“When I was a junior in high school, I decided I wanted to be a dentist,” he says. “I think it was because of the great experience with my orthodontist, not just as a patient but as his occasional office helper.”

Scott focused on school, putting aquatic endeavors aside. “Dental school is pretty intense,” he recalls. “I remember 13 finals in one week.”

While finishing his residency, Scott heard that an orthodontist in Menlo Park was retiring and interested in selling his practice. He bought the practice on University Avenue in 2000.

“I’m actually the third orthodontist to occupy this space, although it’s looked very different,” he says. “Doctor #1 was floor to ceiling orange drapery with brown shag carpet. Doctor #2 was ’80s formica, faux marble countertops with country club decor. I’ve put my own spin on things.”

Scott’s spin is decidedly tropical. Tikis and a surfboard adorn the walls. Crashing waves are shown on a number of television monitors. No dull medical attire here—Scott stays on theme by wearing colorful Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts instead.

Goal #2: Become an Open Water Swimmer

Opening his practice coincided with a return to swimming. “I found Burgess Pool, the Menlo Masters and Tim Sheeper, who sets one fun goal after another,” says Scott. “One such goal was an open water swim at Lake Del Valle. That was my introduction.”

With one down, he started looking for another. “Because I love Kauai so much, I started thinking what fun it would be to swim the 16-mile Nāpali Coast. That was in 2012.”

According to Scott, once he’s in the water working to complete a swim, he’s on autopilot. “What requires motivation is the training,” he says. “Getting up at dawn to drive to the City to do longer and longer swims. That’s where the dedication and sacrifice comes in.” He also reports that he’s never experienced any scary moments while swimming. “Every once in a while a seal will pop up near you, but that’s more of a surprise than a fright.”

Goal #3: Complete the Triple Crown of Swims

In September 2014, Scott’s first Triple Crown swim was from Catalina Island to California. “I chose it because of its proximity, and it’s relatively easier to plan for, due to more good weather days,” he says.

Now that he’s completed all three Triple Crown swims, he places Catalina in the middle as far as difficulty. “There’s no significant current, and the warmer water makes it easier, but rough, choppy seas made it challenging.”

Following Catalina, in September 2017, Scott took on the Manhattan swim. Organized by New York Open Water, it is named for the 20 bridges on the Hudson, Harlem and East River that swimmers pass under. It’s held six times over the course of a summer.

Twelve swimmers are selected for each swim based on a number of criteria. Scott shared the water with male and female swimmers from Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Sweden and England as well as the U.S.

“Each swimmer is assigned both a boat and kayaker. The boat has a driver as well as an observer,” Scott recounts. “The 20 Bridges swim begins at Battery Park where the ferries also depart, posing a bit of a challenge for the swimmers. It was a bit nerve-wracking both because of the boats themselves and the choppy water they stir up.”

One difference with this swim compared to Catalina and the Channel was that it’s all done in daylight. “That meant I could look around a lot,” Scott says.   

Scott’s final leg of the Triple Crown, swimming the English Channel last September, almost didn’t happen.

“Based on the tides, you sign up with a boat captain who specializes in Channel swims 20 months in advance. What you can’t control is the wind and the rain, and the wind was blowing 40 to 50 miles an hour while I was there. My window was almost up. Then the captain told me, ‘If you stay one more day, you’ll get your shot.’”

Wearing, as always, just a swimsuit, cap and goggles, Scott took off from England with the boat captain and his crew of two friends at 11:15PM. The captain charts the course; the crew provides both motivation and nutrition. “The goal is to keep your energy up, and they’d hand me liquid protein drinks,” he says. “But after a while nothing tastes good, and I just drank sugar water and coke.”

Scott’s time of 14 hours, 59 minutes was just a little longer than he’d expected. The currents push the swimmer sidewise in “a giant S-shaped curve,” according to Scott.

“I felt confident that I was going to make it until the last hour,” he says. “The tides kept pushing me, and the land started falling away. Then I saw the cliffs in front of me and picked up the pace.”

Here’s how Scott describes becoming the 202nd entry in the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming record book: “I landed on a tiny beach about three miles east of Calais. You have to clear the water and stand on the land to record a finish. I looked around, picked up some sand off the beach and put it in a container I’d brought and swam back to the boat.

“The crew covered me in blankets, and we took off back to Dover. I drank some water and tea and had a little bit of food,” he continues. “I spent the night in Dover, boarded a flight home from Heathrow the next day and was back working at the office the following day.”

How’s that for a Superman (swimmer) to Clark Kent (orthodontist) transformation?

Checklist Complete, Now What?

Scott says he’s eyeing two August swims. “This year I’m keeping it local—well, at least in California. I’m planning on doing the 12-mile Santa Barbara Channel and 12-mile width of Lake Tahoe—with the goal of completing them five days apart.”

Based on his history of persistence, we’re betting he meets his goal.

open water swimming stars

db.marathonswimmers.org/triple-crown

The Color of Joy

Heather Elementary School students are in for a surprise when they return to school this fall. The San Carlos hillside school’s vague Southwest vibe of adobe beige walls and slate blue trim is now undeniably desert-chic thanks to a new whimsical cactus garden mural.

Backtracking to the first week of summer, Palo Alto artist Flo de Bretagne is dressed in layers, a sweatshirt over turtleneck and paint-splattered jeans, a modern art piece of their own, as the morning’s coastal fog slowly dissipates. She sits on a drop cloth in the school’s hallway, painting in the spiky details of a bubble-gum pink cactus.

Prickly pear pads frame bulbous succulents painted with a vibrant color scheme—a polka-dotted barrel, a two-toned pink candelabra raising its arms and teal organ pipes are among the cacti posed against an azure sky. Flo drafted a design for the school’s stamp of approval, but when it comes to transferring her idea to the wall, she doesn’t use a projector or grid. “Freehand is prettier,” she says. “Nothing is perfect in nature.”

Kid-height backpack hooks extend into the mural wall space, painted over to become one with the artwork. Flo has a history of incorporating items attached to walls into her mural designs. At Selby Lane Elementary School in Atherton, she transformed a utility box into “the box of knowledge” held up by a child. A drainage pipe, in another mural, became part of a painted tree trunk. With over 100 mural projects completed at schools around the Bay Area in the last ten years, she knows how to work with imperfect surfaces to create inspiring works of art.

The French art movement, art brut or outsider art, founded by Jean Dubuffet, has a big influence on Flo’s art. The movement celebrates art done by people with no formal art education, such as children. “People create art as a way of expressing themselves. I try to keep real authenticity in my work and really express what is important to me,” Flo says. “As a child, I grew my imagination and creativity just as a way to handle structures and rules.”

Flo spent hours drawing in her bedroom growing up in Paris. Her mother was a history teacher and her father, an antique collector. Living in the heart of the art world, she could tour as many art exhibits and shows as she wanted. “My parents introduced me to art because they loved color. Their house is full of color and paintings. Every wall has a different color, so I think that’s where my sense of color is coming from,” she says.

Like Jean Dubuffet, who returned to art in his early 40s, Flo planned to have a career in something sensible, and then return to art later in her life. She double-majored in law and business, where she built up her organizational skills. Then a painful bout of sciatica struck. “I had the diplomas in my pocket and I was offered a great job, but I couldn’t walk,” she says. Flo used her recovery time to rediscover painting. “I absolutely loved it and realized there was a lot I wanted to do with painting. That’s when I switched to become a full-time artist.” Flo went back to school to study art and graduated from a Paris art university.

In 2005, Flo made the move from France to the Peninsula with her husband and young family. After a visit to the U.S. as a teenager, Flo knew she wanted to live here. “I love the American mentality. People are very positive and open-minded. It encourages you to do really interesting things.”

That open-mindedness allowed Flo to paint her first school mural. In 2010, Flo approached her daughter’s school, Walter Hays Elementary in Palo Alto, about painting murals. “I had no experience. The principal looked at my website and saw my work on canvases and she said, ‘I love your work, so yes, go for it, paint murals.’” The project encompassed nine murals, each representing one of the school’s core values. “I proposed to the principal that every child in the school participate. It was a bit crazy, but we did it,” she says.

When she’s not painting murals, Flo creates color-infused playful works on canvas at her home studio. Her large-scale acrylic paintings, measuring as long as 72 inches, are inspired by such themes as animals, landscapes, flowers and trees. Seeds, which she considers her signature work, represent seeds of change, hope and new life. Over the past four years, Flo’s home decor art, designed for placement over headboards, couches and fireplaces, has earned her several Best of Houzz awards. “Many of my paintings sell to private homes because my paintings are full of emotion and they resonate with people’s emotions,” she says.

Flo’s joyful paintings are frequently displayed in various art galleries and public settings like cafés, town halls and libraries on the Peninsula and in France. “I like to show my work in the places where people go in their everyday lives,” says Flo, naming a few recent hosts like Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park and her summer-long exhibition at a beautiful French castle in the Champagne region, Condé en Brie. Flo’s tribal-patterned alpha animal series, one depicting a powerful elephant waiting patiently for a family of geese to pass, are paired with her storybook landscapes of the French countryside.

Before jetting off to France for her show opening, Flo put the finishing touches on the cactus mural at Heather. It takes several weeks, even months, to complete a mural, after the planning stage is wrapped up. Flo can only paint around five hours a day because the work is tiring. Although she is speedier on her own, she welcomes corporate groups to sponsor her murals and send employees over to help her paint as a team-building activity. Teams from Apple, Facebook and Salesforce have all made contributions to Flo’s creations.

“I love painting murals because they have a direct and quick impact,” she says. “It’s a real transformation.” Students watch Flo working with perseverance as the murals take shape. “There are messages in the painting and in the process of the painting.”

That’s why Flo ran a successful Kickstarter campaign this year that raised $20,000 from over 100 backers to fund five new murals at three budget-strapped Peninsula schools. Based on the reaction she gets, Flo’s mission to brighten drab walls and inject color into education is a success. “Since day one, when I start painting at a school, the students jump for joy,” she says.

uplifting art

flodebretagne.com

Diary of a Dog: Demi

My name is Damsel… Demi for short. The Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael gave me my full name but my family in Emerald Hills liked Demi better. Do you have any food on you? I’m a Labrador Retriever so I love to eat. I was born into the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association’s breeding program, but my obsession with food got me in trouble as a puppy, and I think that’s why I didn’t pass Guide Dog Training. I became a breeder instead and had five litters of puppies. It was tough but rewarding… and definitely worth the extra scoop of kibble I get on Mother’s Day! Now that I’m retired, I can finally let loose and have more me-time. Retired life is sweet. I get to eat each and every crumb of food that is left within Labrador reach. No diet restrictions, no excessive exercise—and I still get lots of attention and even some extra belly rubs. The best part is not having to take care of the pups. I love them but I’m glad that they’re out there helping humans who need them. Plus, I have human kids to take care of now. They need me to distract them from homework and stress. I may be retired, but I never stop working! To learn more about how to foster (and adopt) dogs like me, visit guidedogs.com   

Perfect Shot: Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach is marking its 50th anniversary this year, and while most visitors associate the area with discovering starfish and sea anemones, the Reserve also has several blufftop paths to explore. This Perfect Shot captured by photographer Charles Ginsburgh shows Dardenelle Trail, which leads hikers directly through a grove of Cypress trees, across San Vicente Creek, connecting California Avenue and Cypress Avenue. The Dardenelle Trail also offers stunning shoreline views from the westward-facing bluffs. To learn more about visiting the tidepools and hiking trails of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, check out fitzgeraldreserve.org

Image Courtesy of Charles Ginsburgh

calling all shutterbugs

If you’ve captured a unique perspective of the Peninsula, we’d love to see your Perfect Shot. Email us at hello@punchmonthly.com to be considered for publication.

Cine Camera Collector

Stuart Soffer may be an engineer by education, but he defies classification. He is also a patent law expert witness, helicopter pilot, technology chronicler, steampunk enthusiast, art aficionado and vintage cine camera collector. Stu is someone whose wide-ranging interests remind us that Silicon Valley owes its unique spirit to more than the ability to build computers or write software.

Stu moved to the Peninsula from New York about 40 years ago for an engineering job. Just as his technology career went from strength to strength, so did his collecting habit. Welcoming me to his Palo Alto home, he explains, “I’ve always been interested in photography and the evolution from still cameras to moving pictures to sound. The process of syncing sound and picture has fascinated me since I was a boy. I loved going to the projection booths of theaters to see how a reel of celluloid became a movie. But art is my other hobby.”

Underscoring that point, the first thing that strikes me is the vibrant art on every wall. Representing artists from Europe and the U.S. and a mixture of pieces inherited from his parents and his own acquisitions, the work is arresting, meaningful, gloriously colorful and everywhere. I’m particularly struck by two works by Polish artist Justyna Kisielewicz jointly called Want More, a stunning painting by a Gaza artist called The End of Peace—somewhat reminiscent of a Frida Kahlo-—and a hyper-real oil painting depicting a 1950s camera on a bold red background. This is a home that could double as a fine arts gallery.

It’s only after taking in the artwork that I notice the RCA cine camera that takes pride of place in one corner of the living room. This is my first visual clue to Stu’s other obsession. Walking into the family room, my eye is captured by a shelf stretching nearly the whole length of one wall. It’s simply laden with pristine examples of early cine cameras, many from the ‘60s and ‘70s, but some dating back as far as the ‘20s.

Immediately, Stu starts picking cameras up off the shelf to demonstrate how they operate. Many need to be hand-cranked every minute–which would explain the jerky footage from early newsreels. All make a distinct sound, some as loud as a lawn mower, some more mellow. A number of the smaller cameras display wonderful Art Deco-like arrangements of lenses and dials, cogs and wheels turning them into objects of beauty. Some project a very steampunk vibe–in fact, Stu has dressed one camera for the part in a pair of aviator goggles.

Stu leads me over to an imposing, tripod-mounted still camera from the 1890s, complete with cloth to drape over the photographer’s head. “This I got from an estate sale in Palo Alto,” he recounts. “It originally came from Paris. It would have taken several minutes to capture an image, so I suppose you could call it a watch-the-birdie camera.”

It’s moving pictures that especially move him though. “I spent much of my childhood watching old movies,” Stu says. “As a kid, I loved going to projection booths at movie theatres.”

Stu started his collecting odyssey with just one vintage camera and from there, the collection quickly snowballed. “I went from still to movie to sound movie cameras, then filled in what was missing. There must be 60 or 80 artifacts now,” he estimates, adding that this number is unlikely to expand much in the future. “My wife doesn’t hate the collection; she tolerates it. But I’ve hit my limits on cameras.”

Every item is in perfect working order. Stu painstakingly restores each artifact and generously shares his advice on tricky repair challenges with fellow collectors. “I love getting things to work,” he says. “The miracle of the Internet allows me to find manuals and instructions on how to reconstruct these pieces.”

Stu believes that this interest in repair and reconstruction is a natural progression from his work as an engineer and expert witness: “I find there’s a correlation in Silicon Valley between what people who develop products do and the recreational challenges they look for.” In Stu’s case, this also extends to piloting helicopters. He sees the springs, cogs and switches of a helicopter as similar in nature to the workings of his vintage cine cameras.

Stu shows me a clapboard from the 1950s. Before the advent of the sound track on celluloid, film and sound were recorded separately and pieced together after production wrapped up. During the shoot, continuity staff chalked details of each scene on the clapboard to provide on-camera markers, while the clapper on the top of the board made a sound which guided the post-production synchronization team. Who knew?

Asked how difficult it is to find these rare objects, Stu responds that it’s a matter of focus and timing. “You don’t have to go too far,” he confides. “eBay is a great source but I’ve found a lot locally at auctions, flea markets and estate sales. I picked up some prize pieces after the old Guild and Park Theatres closed. When I heard the Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto was about to make the change from analog to digital, I rushed over. They told me to take what I wanted, so I grabbed the projector. It was huge. I had to carry it down the stairs and try to cram it into my Porsche to take it home to my garage.”

It’s a rare collector who willingly parts with his treasures, but Stu is not afraid to do so. “At the Palo Alto High School flea market I met a student and his mother selling camera equipment. I bought a few things and told him about my projector. He was fascinated. This was a really bright kid and I knew he wanted it. I thought about it for a while, then gave him a call and said, ‘Get your mom’s truck and you can have it. I’m kicking it off to another generation. I had my fun with it, you can have it now.’”

There’s plenty left in Stu’s collection. It still includes a 1970s three-piece sound and motion newsreel camera from 30 Rock (aka Rockefeller Plaza, New York City), special effects machines, sound amplifiers and a 1941 tripod news camera protected with wood casings since metal was not available during coverage of World War II. A favorite piece is the rare 1920s/’30s library projector, a wood-encased beauty with a mini screen that concertinas out for personal viewing and deploys color filters that make black and white film look somewhat like a color reel. This ersatz color technique was commonly used in early filmmaking and, yes, Stu has machines that do this too.

An hour isn’t long enough to fully appreciate the treasures that Stu has assembled together and brought back to life, but it does suffice to understand the allure of this eclectic hobby.

Explaining his own fascination, Stu reflects, “I’ve always had my own contemporary cameras, and of course these days an iPhone does everything and more that you could want, but the technology is hidden away. The old cameras show how the image is produced. They show the magic.”

Dream Gig: Touring with The Who

words by Silas Valentino

Roger Daltrey was putting together a band for a solo tour about ten years ago when the voice behind The Who put a call out looking for Los Angeles pianists. It wasn’t long until word made it to Loren Gold.

The L.A.-based keyboard player, vocalist and songwriter originally from Palo Alto scored an audition and was given a few songs to learn ahead of time, including Joe Cocker’s cover of “A Little Help from my Friends.”

“I studied every subtle nuance of that song’s intro. I was playing nuances that no one would know. I spent two weeks, eight hours a day, learning every possible part of that song. And when I went into the audition, Roger said, ‘Let’s just jam the blues.’ We never even played it!” Loren chuckles. “Classic. I shook his hand thinking I’d never see him again.”

Today, Loren sees him nightly. After securing his place in Daltrey’s band No Plan B, Loren became the keyboardist and a supporting vocalist for The Who, joining the rock titans on the road since 2012.

It’s been nothing less than a dream gig, taking him to arenas and stadiums across continents to deliver some of the greatest rock songs ever channeled through an amplifier. The Who, whose surviving original members include Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend, is a band where each component competes to be the loudest—be it Daltrey’s roar during “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or Townshend’s iconic windmill motion with his guitar. But Loren has succeeded under a simple credo: Practice hard and don’t make it about yourself.

From his early start playing for a meal at a downtown restaurant in Palo Alto to penning songs for arena-level pop artists, Loren has maintained humility even when facing tens of thousands of screaming fans. But he admits that the gravitas felt as his fingers hover over the F-major chord structure before launching into the melody of “Baba O’Riley” is a sensation that’s impossible to downplay.

“I still get a blood rush. I still have that moment thinking, ‘Here it comes,’” he says of that monumental opening chord. “Not only that, but it’s the part of the show every night when I remember how I was a little kid in Palo Alto. I was in Oakland at the Days on the Green in 1982 watching The Who and waiting for this chord. That rushes through my body and I’m just grateful for it. It never gets old.”

Growing up on Cowper Street, Loren remembers two subjects that dominated his youth: music and Little League. He played on a team called The Police and would gush over The Beatles and the Doobie Brothers with his fourth-grade teacher at Ohlone Elementary School.

The walls in his childhood home would often reverberate The Beatles (The White Album) and Rubber Soul and Loren’s mother recognized early on how her son gravitated to music. She placed him in group classes for piano alongside a dozen other students at a music school off El Camino where he began with Chopin and Mozart. But his heart was always more suited for Elton John and Billy Joel.

By age 14, Loren was playing his first weekly gig: piano for an upscale French restaurant in Palo Alto called Le Tour. “I was so young and I can’t believe they hired me,” he says. “I’d take out my sheet music and play the same ten songs over and over again.”

During his years at Palo Alto High School, Loren came across a big Fender Rhodes electric piano (“I still have it hooked up at my studio,” he says.) and played in bands called Pranxster and Cross Fyre; the latter’s drummer, Eric Valentine, went on to produce albums for Third Eye Blind, Smash Mouth and Nickel Creek.

In traditional fashion, Loren eventually found himself in L.A. where opportunities to play were plentiful. He worked as a dispatcher for a messenger service, quickly acclimating to the lay of the la-la-land, and began releasing solo albums beaming with ethereal piano compositions.

Loren toured as the keyboard player for pop star Hilary Duff and then continued as her musical director. In the early 2000s, he linked up with James Renald from the successful Canadian soft rock band Sky and the two became writing partners. The duo was asked to write a song for Taylor Hicks and their response was the American Idol winner’s first single, “The Runaround.”

Loren established a reputation as someone who could write a song in the key of the Doobie Brothers or Hall & Oates that rebuked the stale ingredients of common pop songwriting.

“I think I have a pretty good sense of finding a good melody. I try not to devolve to the standard, typical chord formula that we hear. I try to have some interesting moment, kind of an obscure chord or voice thing—a key change when you wouldn’t expect it,” he explains. “And I’m pretty mellow when I write. It’s easy for the singer and lyricist to work with me. I let it breathe and allow people to go down their own avenues of exploration.”

Whenever he’s not on the road with The Who or gigging for other artists like Rita Wilson (who took him to Athens in June for a show), Loren dabbles in real estate and earned his license last year. He started with a house in Woodland Hills and continues to invest in new properties. His other outlets include golf and sometimes teaching piano through streaming online. “I’m the rock and roll real estate agent who teaches piano lessons and plays for The Who,” he summarizes.

The Who return to San Francisco on October 9 to play the new Chase Center, one of the first acts to christen the arena, but Loren will be back on the Peninsula before summer’s end for another monumental event: his family picnic.

Around 30 members of his family unite every summer at Rinconada Park where they play various games and even though he’s conquered  Madison Square Garden, there are still feats left for Loren to achieve.

“I can’t say I ever won the three-legged race, but one thing I did win was the egg toss,” he says before pausing. “I have the F-major chord and the egg toss!” 

get in tune

The Who

Chase Center, San Francisco

Wednesday, October 9

Window Into History

A boot closet. The butler’s staircase. Exposed redwood beams dating back to the Gold Rush. These are not typical features you’d expect to find in a home in San Mateo. But in a residential neighborhood, tucked back on a nearly quarter-acre lot on East Santa Inez Avenue, is a Tudor Revival house that transports visitors back in time.

“Most people have no idea what’s back here,” says Jeremy Slater, the current owner of the property. “The colors, the materials that they used, blend in with the nature around it, the tall redwoods in the front and the big trees in the back, so you can walk by it and not even see it.”

It’s true. To the casual passerby, East Santa Inez Avenue looks like any Peninsula tree-lined street today, with its mix of single-family homes and apartment complexes, cars parked tight to the curb and a white postal truck making the customary stops along its route. With San Mateo’s downtown and Caltrain station just short walks away, it’s hard to imagine the wide-open rolling farmlands that existed here in the late 19th century. It was that setting—rustic, lush and natural—that first drew the eye of noted British architect Ernest Albert Coxhead.

Professionally trained in England, Coxhead moved to California, where he primarily designed churches before focusing on more residential designs. Making his home in San Francisco, Coxhead, along with his architectural colleagues Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck, heavily influenced the emerging Arts and Crafts design movement.

In 1891, inspired by the notion of a country retreat, Coxhead designed and built a second family residence in the “rustic suburb” of San Mateo. After Coxhead sold the home to friends in 1924, the property turned over four more times—at one point inhabited by the founders of the San Mateo Unitarian Church. In 1991, Pat Osborn and Steve Cabrera purchased the home, and with renovations and updates staying true to the original design, ran it for 15 years as Coxhead House Bed & Breakfast.

Now tipping toward its 130-year milestone, with its double bowed roof and delicate leaded windows carefully preserved, Coxhead House is both a National and California State Historic Landmark. Curiosity is piqued, prompting the question, “What would it be like to live here today?”

Walk down the gravel driveway, and you’ll pull up at a massive wooden front door, accented by a trim of oversized brass nailheads. Glance to the right, and you’ll see the door’s original brass knocker. Give it a couple of taps: “Clack! Clack!”

The most recent family to keep residence here are Jeremy and Bonnie Slater, along with their twin 10-year-old boys and 8-year-old daughter. “It’s your house, but it’s also its own entity. You’re the next person to take care of a piece of history,” Jeremy says, in answer to the query. “I think the first thing that catches most people’s attention is the roofline. It’s got the double gables coming across so you think English Tudor. It’s this big 10,000-square-foot lot of just your own country space. The other homes that surround it disappear when you’re on the property.”

Stepping inside for a tour, Jeremy points out both deliberate and some surprising design choices—given the context of the home’s origins. “Coxhead was English, and you’d think an English Tudor would have lots of small, compartmentalized spaces. That’s what you see when you walk in the front door, but I think he does it mentally to trick you,” Jeremy notes. “When you walk through, it’s a big, expansive open space concept that everyone wants these days, but he built it way back in 1891.”

Another arresting—yet also utilitarian—feature is the home’s complex rubric of leaded (and updated to zinc) framed windows, 88 by one account, panel after panel, containing geometrically pieced together panes of restoration glass. “One of the things that struck me immediately is that all of the windows are set up in consideration of the environment,” Jeremy says. “It doesn’t have AC, but the whole house can have a breeze come through it. And from where the sun rises to where the sun sets, depending on where you should be in the house, that’s where all the light is going to come in. As long as the sun is out, there’s no electricity needed for light.”

Those same environmental considerations likely inspired the inclusion of five fireplaces in the 3,600-square-foot home. But while there’s a bounty of certain amenities, the era in which the home was built may also have played a role in the scarcity of others. Although one of the five bedrooms does boast a boot closet (slightly reminiscent of Harry Potter’s cupboard), Coxhead clearly saw no value in bedroom storage, which Jeremy attributes to a bygone lifestyle characterized by a best Sunday suit and one pair of shoes. “We got a little creative because each room doesn’t have its own closet, but there are closets in the hallways. The bed & breakfast utilized a lot of wardrobes and armoires,” Jeremy says. “You buy furniture that has a bit more utility built into it.”

Having resided here for six years, the Slaters are now preparing to hand off Coxhead House to the next set of owners, thus presenting the current opportunity for a peek inside. Meridith Baer Home handled the staging and relished the assignment of conveying contemporary living in an historic setting. “We chose to honor the historic elements of the house and not fight it,” says designer Sabrina Ferrand. “You have to respect the home. You bring in certain pieces that nod to it, making the flow cohesive while acknowledging what’s there.”

For example, the home is heavily accented with redwood-paneled walls, which while visually striking, can also make rooms look smaller. “We wanted to lighten, brighten and whiten everything. I tried to keep everything light,” Sabrina says. “I did more transitional. I used a glass table, rather than wood, in the dining room. And with all the brass elements, I went heavily into gold in a more modern way, bringing gold tones, and a richness, into the space.”

As a designated National Historic Landmark, the Coxhead House’s historic exterior must be maintained (a requirement that comes with a reduced property tax incentive), but there’s a lot of flexibility with interior upgrades. Following the enhancements made by previous owners, the Slaters took on their own list of projects, including remodeling the kitchen. “Recently, we pulled up the baseboard in one of the bedrooms upstairs and we found a 1917 penny someone had placed there,” Jeremy says.

The Slaters added the penny to an artifact cabinet, which contains all the historic Coxhead House “treasures” discovered to date, ranging from a 1905 report card to an old medicine bottle still holding a syrupy-looking substance. “Builders would drink the medicine because it contained alcohol, and when the foreman would come by, they’d just put it in the wall and plaster over it,” recounts Jeremy.

As to final reflections as they’re about to drop the heavy brass door latch for the last time, Jeremy has this to say: “I always felt you were a steward or a custodian of the house; I always felt it was our job to take care of it as best as possible.” Any regrets? “I’m still looking for the treasure chest full of gold,” he says, wistfully. “Perhaps the next person will find it.”

tucked-away history

coxheadhouse.com

The ’64 Road Trip

Summertime is when all sensible parents take long car trips with their children. At least they should. Yes, there is fighting and screaming and boredom, but it is absolutely worth it. The best trips I ever took with my own kids were car trips, the sort of journey that is underrated in this day of easy airline travel. You remember car trips. They stick with you because you are locked into a tight space with your family—for better or worse—for extended periods of time. My kids made me crazy when we were driving our white Suburban throughout America. The four of them, stuck for hours within inches of each other, would find anything and everything to fight about. But my kids will remember these trips for the rest of their lives.

In 1964, when I was a small child, we drove our sparkling white, aptly-named Chrysler New Yorker station wagon from Amarillo, Texas, to the New York World’s Fair. Spiffy for its time, the car had three rows of seats, with the back one facing outward. My parents sat up front and in the back were my brother Danny, five years my senior, and my sister Shelley, a couple of years older than Danny. As well, since my sister was a reluctant participant in this venture, our father allowed her to bring her best friend, Malee Miller. Olive skin, very pretty, 15 years old. And that was just fine with Danny and me.

We all wanted to sit in the far back since, horribly, our parents smoked in the closed car with the air conditioning going. Hard to imagine today, but what did we know? We just suffered through it and pleaded with them to open the windows now and then. I loved sitting in that third row in my private space, although I hated making eye contact with the drivers behind us. One day I found a box of large cotton pads and pulled one out and rubbed it all over my face. When Shelley saw me, she burst out laughing and soon the whole car was laughing uncontrollably. It was only years later that I found out that I had been rubbing a Kotex pad all over myself.

Nothing much about our drive was planned, so when our dad was tired of driving, he would pull over at the first decent-looking motel. About half the time, we would get lucky and there would be an orange-roofed Howard Johnson’s, my favorite. The restaurants had good hamburgers and great ice cream. Near the front registers were machines with prizes in circular plastic containers. I would beg for a couple of dimes and quarters to see what I could win.

Danny and I were excited when we pulled into the Mickey Mantle Motel in Joplin, Missouri, but were let down when the only tie to the great hitter were some rather bland paraphernalia in the lobby. So much for hype. They did have a nice pool and as boys there was distraction enough watching Malee walk about in her two-piece swimsuit.

I remember exactly two things about being in New York. First, we went to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, which was the first live show I had seen and was quite a dazzling event. Next, the World’s Fair was generally a let-down, but they did have some cool machines. In one, you inserted a penny and a quarter, and it smashed the penny around until it had an imprint of the World’s Fair logo on it. The other machine took a square of colored plastic and right before your eyes turned it into a toy dinosaur. I still remember the smell of melting plastic as it was transformed.

Driving back home was not as fun as starting out, since the excitement of heading to a destination is always the better half of a trip. Our dad, an impatient man, had driven us to New York in a leisurely way, but coming home he was all business. I wanted that trip to last forever. It was perfect having my mom and dad together along with my much-loved sister and brother. And traveling with the exquisite Malee Miller was something that I would remember with sweet nostalgia for the rest of my life. Certainly much more than all those educational exhibits at the World’s Fair.

The Beat On Your Eats

Quality Bourbons and Barbeque

Mountain View

Quality Bourbons and Barbeque flips the script on deep-flavor dining. QBB adapts BBQ with a couple of tried and true tricks: Pair the meats with corn-bred whiskey and don’t skimp on the process. The brisket shines thanks in part to its taking up to 16 hours to smoke for that maximum taste and QBB breaks from the Peninsula BBQ pack by grinding and stuffing their sausage in-house. Plus, they carry over 150 bourbons. Keep an eye out for their monthly five-course dinners that partner with different bourbons such as Jack Daniels and Sonoma Distilling Company.

216 Castro Street, open Monday to Thursday from 11AM to 2PM, 4:30PM to 9PM; Friday to Sunday from 11AM to 9PM.

Gorilla Barbeque

Pacifica

Two characteristics immediately pop out about this Pacifica barbeque joint: First, it’s located inside a 1940s-era Southern Pacific railroad car and secondly, owner Rich Bacchi specializes in a homemade sauce that unites two of the country’s best barbeques. “Some people ask if it’s Texas or Carolina sauce? I call it Californian sauce,” he says. “It’s more savory and gets away from the spice. It’s a Texas-Carolina hybrid where you get the blast of pepper and vinegar before the sweetness hits the tip of the tongue.” It’s no wonder that Gorilla Barbeque found itself on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with such mouthwatering multiculturalism.

145 Coast Highway, open Monday to Sunday (closed on Tuesdays) from 12:00PM until sold out.

Emergency Barbeque

San Carlos

Find yourself in a culinary pickle this summer and need help feeding the masses at your next backyard soirée? Call on Emergency Barbeque for all catering needs, from ribs to tri-tip to pulled pork with a side of mac-n-cheese. These grill masters slow smoke their brisket with hickory and apple woods for over 18 hours—creating such tastiness that you’re advised to always call ahead to ensure there’s still some meat left to share. Centrally located on Old Country Road in San Carlos, consider Emergency Barbeque your summer lifeline.

765 Old County Road, open Tuesday to Friday from 11AM to 3PM; Saturday from 12PM until sold out; closed Sundays and Mondays.

Bountiful Bruschetta

During a recent holiday party for the workers of B Street & Vine, a personalized game of Jeopardy! broke out in which owner and founder Steve Spieller quizzed his employees with a list of detailed questions only a restaurant embedded into the soul of a downtown could muster.

One column was dedicated to the regulars, the folks who come into the San Mateo wine café weekly for a bite from their extensive bruschetta menu that’s paired with an equally ample wine list. Questions included “Who orders the Italian sausage panini with a bowl of red pepper soup on Wednesdays?” and “Which 91-year-old customer asks for extra croutons with their kale salad?”

Recalling the game during a tranquil weekday afternoon, Steve chuckles at the memory and calls upon an employee passing by to help remember some of the other questions. “It goes back to the Cheers theme song,” he says. “People like to be recognized and treated the same way. When you’ve been here for as long as we have, you know the people and the things they like.”

Since 2006, B Street & Vine has nestled itself into the downtown San Mateo dining scene to become a popular fixture for a pre-movie rendezvous (the Century 12 theater is across the street), light lunches and weekly live jazz. The wine bar with a shaded back patio is located in a century-old building, originally the city’s first library, where golden walls are adorned with painted artwork of musicians and models. Akin to the cross-streets suggested in its title, B Street & Vine is where Italian themes like paninis intersect with specialty salads to create tapas with an Americanized flair.

“When we first started, it was all about introducing the combination of the food, the music and the wine. That seemed to be the big attraction,” Steve says, explaining that the core concept is a social, shared plate experience. “When my wife and I go out, we have multiple plates to try different flavors and enjoy the essence of the whole restaurant—especially appetizers, so often the appetizers are more fun to try than the entrée.”

Some B Street & Vine menu items are especially meaningful for Steve. For example, he credits the bread pudding to a recipe crafted by his 95-year-old mother who lives in San Mateo.

“Most restaurants pull from their roots,” he says. “It was fun to introduce the coffee ice cream pie because it was my birthday dessert growing up—we still use Oreo cookie crust with chocolate ganache. People will say they love it and I’ve been having it my whole life!”

Yet the star of the menu is the bountiful bruschetta, with 16 selections to choose from to make a plate of four, each sliced into fourths for premium sharing. At the top of the column listing each variety is a short phonic reminder: “bruschetta (brew-skeh-teh).” It’s not a pet peeve for Steve, rather, a gentle prompt. “You wouldn’t say chee-anti,” he reasons, referencing the classic Italian wine.

Popular choices include the brie with apples and spiced pecans, the gorgonzola with honey and the brie with pear, basil, honey and dried cranberries. “When people see the presentation with all the different colors, I’ve heard some customers describe it as the sushi of Italian restaurants,” Steve says.

The dessert bruschetta is where customers have the ability to get creative and choose from a spread such as Nutella or fruit jam, pairing it with a fruit or cheese and then topping the concoction with caramel, coconut, cookie crumbs and more.

The bruschetta menu has been a runaway hit, drawing fans from around the world; Steve says that when his cousin was visiting New Zealand, she told her Uber driver that she was from the San Francisco Peninsula. His response: “Have you ever had the bruschetta from B Street & Vine?”

“We’re famous in New Zealand!” Steve laughs. “Someone asked me recently if I ever thought this would be successful—who would have thought I’d make a living cooking a bunch of toast and putting toppings on it?”

Helping to add to the café’s casual ambiance is a packed music program where various forms of jazz music is scheduled from Wednesday to Sunday, beginning at 7:30PM. (KCSM broadcasting from the nearby College of San Mateo fills in the aural gaps during the day.)

B Street & Vine has become a tucked-away venue for finding local rhythm and bass duos and Calypso jazz. Moreover, on Sundays in the fall, Steve opens the stage for high school acts. Students from the likes of Aragon High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory and El Camino High School have performed in the past. The school’s music departments retain all the tip money and Steve adds a personal donation following each show.

Although B Street & Vine has cemented itself as a favorite for San Mateo locals, it doesn’t mean the restaurant hasn’t drawn a few bad apples over the years—as was the time the bar momentarily shielded a criminal.

“There was one instance when a gentleman had pulled a knife at North Beach Pizza around the corner from us and it just so happened, not long after, someone came in to sit at the bar and ordered a beer,” Steve says. “The police were chasing him and spotted the guy sitting at the bar. The music kept playing, and I don’t think a lot of people noticed. And I think he still paid the tab.”

SHARE A PLATE

320 South B Street, San Mateo • bstreetandvine.com

behind a staff favorite

INGREDIENTS

  • Brie
  • Pear
  • Basil
  • Honey
  • Dried cranberries

A simple bruschetta recipe that’s adaptable for any season. Exchange basil with mint and pomegranate for cranberries to make this a wintertime treat. Steve counsels that a crusty sourdough works best on the bottom.

As for the mixture of ingredients? “One of my waiters was with his mom at the doctor’s office and he was looking through a magazine,” Steve recounts. “It was holiday-themed and he saw a photo of people eating a bruschetta with brie, pear, pomegranate and mint. He brought that in and we tried it with basil instead of mint. And since pomegranate was not in season, I tried it with dried cranberries. If you’re ever looking for a new recipe, someone has probably already figured it out.”

Caramel Caravan

Courtney Peters had ordered her wedding dress six months ago, and the big day was finally approaching. As the seamstress helped her into the gown for her fitting, the two looked at each other in bewilderment. It wouldn’t fasten. Thinking back, Courtney immediately identified the culprit: caramels. However, the issue wasn’t that Courtney had been lazing around eating them—she had been hard at work making them.

“We were stirring all of our caramel by hand. We were pouring it all by hand. We were cutting it all by hand,” she says, recalling the days before an electric kettle came into the picture. “My shoulders had grown at least a dress size. I call them caramel lady shoulders.”

Courtney is actually one of two caramel ladies. The other is Celia Glowka. Together, they are the founders of Caramel Caravan Co., a craft confections business launched in 2017 in Redwood City. Operating out of a commercial kitchen, they make up to 30 large batches or 7,000 caramel pieces a week, selling them online and through customers like Farmgirl Flowers and nearly 100 specialty retail markets around the country.

Although both are graduates of Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, the pair came to the caramelizing sugar business in different ways. Raised in Morgan Hill, Courtney grew up stirring bubbling batches in her family kitchen. “My mom and I have been making caramels forever, probably 20 years now,” Courtney says. “It was always bonding time with my mom.”

Through numerous moves and living in four countries, Celia enjoyed the constant of baking—especially the German tradition of “kaffee und kuchen,” afternoon coffee and cake. When she met Courtney in business school, they naturally bonded over their shared love of food.

After getting her MBA, Courtney knew exactly what she wanted to do. “I wanted to start a food business and build a brand,” she says. “That was my big dream.” And under the guiding principle of ‘do what you know,’ caramels came to mind. Courtney dove in and soon recognized that she needed help. That’s when she ran into Celia at an event.

Here’s how Courtney tells the story: “I don’t really know how I got her to do it. I’m telling her, ‘We’re not going to make any money, we’re gonna be slaving in the kitchen, it’s going to be hot.’ It’s like the worst possible thing that I could ask her to do, but I somehow convinced her to do it.”

This is how Celia remembers it: “I had decided before that event that I wanted to do my own business, but I didn’t know what I wanted the business to be about. And then a few days later, Courtney walked into my life and said, ‘Do you want to go into business with me?’ And I said, ‘Uh….yes!’ I have to say, I got super lucky.”

And although Celia would have described herself as more of a cake person, she happily embraced Courtney’s favorite creamy confection. “I am definitely a caramel convert,” she says. “It’s rich and indulgent. I actually don’t really eat candy, but you can just savor a little piece so it’s more like a dessert.”

With complementary skills, Courtney and Celia fell into natural roles building their new business, even as they found themselves expanding their own lives. Along with planning a wedding, Courtney, now living in San Carlos, took on production oversight and operations. Celia, now in Palo Alto, handled marketing, sales and content-related work—not to mention giving birth to her first daughter.

Given that they were bootstrapping their company, working out of a commercial kitchen made the most sense, but Celia and Courtney agreed they needed their own creative space. The answer came in the form of a renovated vintage 1957 Cal Craft trailer. “We’ve named our caravan Lucy in reference to the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are trying to keep up with a chocolate production line and they stuff their faces,” Celia says. The vintage trailer also inspired another business milestone. “We rebranded and named ourselves Caramel Caravan to tie the trailer and the company together.”

The two say to keep an eye out for Lucy at craft fairs, pop-ups, wineries and private events, but all the behind-the-scenes cooking happens in their Redwood City kitchen.  First, they start off with heavy whipping cream from Clover Sonoma and butter from Gilt Edge in San Francisco. Sugar, glucose syrup, a natural emulsifier and salt wrap up the six base ingredients. Courtney describes their giant electric mixing bowl as a magical copper kettle: “It helps us create a more consistent batch because it automatically checks the temperature.”

It takes about an hour to cook up a batch—about 1,500-1,700 pieces—with the caramel bubbling and steaming a bit, before turning silky smooth. The caramel is then scooped out and poured into sheet pans where it is smoothed out with spatulas and left to set for four to six hours. Next, toppings are added—like Guittard dark chocolate and sea salt. After that, it’s on to cutting, wrapping and packaging.

“We score all of our caramels so they are the correct shape and then we hand-cut all of them,” Courtney says. “You get some resistance training when you’re pushing the knife through over and over and over again.”

The two also invested in a 1952 double-twist wrapping machine, which both sounds and looks like it comes straight from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Consistent with the company’s vintage vibe, they’ve dubbed her “Betty.” Freshly-cut caramels are dropped into the machine and within seconds, out pop perfectly wrapped treats.

Packaging comes next—into two-piece samples, four-piece bags, four-piece favor boxes and 10- and 20-piece variety boxes. Flavors range from coffee and cashews to seasonal offerings. “We like to think about California and what agriculture grows here,” Courtney says. Examples include orange rosemary, honey lavender, strawberry basil and banana. “Banana isn’t from California—I just really like bananas,” she jokes.

While starting a business is a thrilling venture, the two acknowledge that the caramel making lifestyle is inherently repetitive. Monotony sets in around the 1,000th bag made, and thus, ‘Would You Rather (WYR) Wednesdays’ was born. To spice things up, the team poses thought-provoking questions that stir heated debate, such as, ‘Would you rather eat six teaspoons of salt or drink a whole bottle of soy sauce?” And no—you can’t say ‘neither.’ Instagram followers of @caramelcaravan know to anticipate weekly highlights of their antics.

Even as good-natured banter is thrown back and forth across the kitchen, the partners are focused on growing sales and expanding their product line. The days can be long and tiring, but they’ve learned to keep their sights on the bigger picture. “We have a great crew, we’re bringing something that consumers love, that we’re passionate about and we’re changing the way business operates,” Celia says. “I’m so glad that we did this.”

Courtney emphatically concurs. “I don’t ever want to go back to a day job and I will work 14-, 16-, even 20-hour days to avoid that.”

Plus, there’s always that added perk—sweet, creamy caramels. How many do they eat?

“A decent amount,” says Courtney. “It’s hard to say,” Celia adds, “because we only sample little pieces.” Courtney ponders it some more. “I don’t really want to know,” she sighs. “Let’s just say it adds up to one caramel per day,” Celia suggests, and Courtney nods in agreement.

savor some sweets

caramelcaravan.com

The Beat On Your Eats

St. James Gate Bar and Restaurant

Belmont

An impressive collection of 350 bourbons, 40 rotating beer taps and two stages help fashion this Belmont bar and restaurant into a live music destination for the upper Peninsula where Friday and Saturday nights feature a variety of cover bands and dance rock party starters. The music begins outdoors at 6PM where the back patio is decorated in island-vibe greenery and is lush with lighting but as the night progresses, the indoor stage erupts around 9:30PM and lasts until no one is left standing. A few of the recent acts to swing open the Gate were Latin rock ensemble Pure Rhythmz, the Beatles cover band Ticket to Ride and new wave rockers Neon Velvet. Situated alongside the Caltrain line, this bar is on the right side of the tracks.

1410 Old County Road, open Monday and Tuesday from 11AM to 1AM; Wednesday to Saturday from 11AM to 2AM; Sunday from 10AM to 1AM.

Vino Locale

Palo Alto

Downtown Palo Alto’s neighborhood wine bar offers several pairing events with their rosés, whites and reds—such as their paint parties and educational Flight Nights where a winemaker explains the marvel behind each sip—but it’s their coupling with live outdoor music that sets this bistro apart from the other bottle houses in town. Vino Locale maintains an active calendar of programming where you can unwind alongside acoustic classical guitar, jazz, folk, flamenco and bluegrass from Tuesday through Saturday at 7PM. You can expect the acoustic guitarist and composer Jorge Faustmann and the Latin guitar instrumental jazz band Blue Flamingo Quartet to enliven the patio. Keep an eye on Vino Locale’s online calendar for the schedule of musicians and special events. 431 Kipling Street, open Tuesday to Saturday from 4PM to 9PM.

Menlo Tavern

Menlo Park

Since the Menlo Tavern acquired the space previously held by the Menlo Grill inside the Stanford Park Hotel, the American restaurant and bar has reestablished itself as an excellent addition to the city’s cocktail circuit. Now the Menlo Tavern is gunning for a spot in your nightlife repertoire with its seven-days-a-week Summer Music Series. Through October 13, the Tavern’s patio is booking solo, acoustic artists performing trusted modern pop and classic rock songs to complement the slow-braised short ribs and Cabernet Sauvignons. Reserve a table for dining or cozy up around the circular fire pit and let the Tom Collins do the talking as another summer on the Peninsula replenishes the spirit. 100 El Camino Real, Sunday to Thursday live music 6PM to 9PM; Friday to Saturday live music 5PM to 9PM. The bar is open daily from 11AM to Midnight.

Inspired Baking: Gracie’s Goodies

Some 20 years ago, Chef Grace Nguyen was running a restaurant in San Francisco when a customer placed a particularly picky order. At the time, the pickiness irritated her, until she learned that the woman had celiac disease. Noticing an increasing number of special requests, Grace started researching gluten and what foods would accommodate a gluten-free diet. Back then, she had no idea that this would lead to co-founding Asian Box in 2011, and more recently, launching Gracie Jones’ Gluten-Free Bake Shop, a small, thriving business in midtown Palo Alto.

At the time Grace sought to learn more, most people had never heard of gluten (a protein found in wheat and cereal grains), much less considered eating gluten-free. Today, 1% of Americans are affected by celiac, an autoimmune disease with potentially serious health complications that requires a gluten-free diet. Another estimated 18 million Americans suffer from some level of gluten intolerance—with side effects like stomachaches, bloating, joint pain and headaches.

When Grace and her partners were preparing to open Asian Box, they met a family with a four-year-old son who had celiac disease, giving yet another face to the health issue. An idea sparked: Why not launch as a gluten-free restaurant? Inspired by street stalls in southeast Asia, Asian Box’s menu naturally lends itself to gluten-free offerings, since they lean heavily on ingredients like meat, vegetables and rice noodles. Over the past eight years, the business has expanded to 10 locations throughout California, including the original Town & Country Village shop in Palo Alto and another in Burlingame. But how did running an Asian restaurant chain lead to opening a bake shop?

“We were growing rapidly, and I was tired of jumping from one restaurant to the next to teach new cooks how to do the recipes,” Grace explains. The team decided to open a commissary kitchen to make all of Asian Box’s sauces, with a driver delivering them to the different restaurant branches. Catering had also expanded too much for any of the restaurants to accommodate individually, so this became the catering kitchen as well. Always experimenting, Grace also started to use the kitchen for baking. “I’ve always needed to create. I’ve always needed to do something,” she says.

And that’s how a gluten-free bake shop came to be the public storefront to the commissary kitchen. “I’ve always loved baking, but I knew that I couldn’t not do gluten-free, because the kitchen is already gluten-free for Asian Box,” says Grace. Everything in the kitchen is gluten-free in order to prevent any potential cross-contamination. Even her two employees know they cannot bring in lunch or snacks that contain gluten, in order to keep the kitchen clean.

And the name? Apparently it’s a thing in the food industry for cooks to have nicknames, and “Gracie Jones” earned her moniker from her husband, a chef and culinary director for Asian Box. She liked it, and it stuck. (You might even notice “Miss Jones’ Sriracha” on the Asian Box menu, named in honor of you-know-who.) When the bake shop opened, it seemed only natural to keep Gracie Jones in the title.

One of the biggest challenges in gluten-free baking is creating an appealing texture. “Because I am not gluten-free and I know what things should taste like, I would feel so guilty if I made something and I couldn’t even eat it myself, and I had to go and sell it!” laughs Grace. Gluten is what makes dough elastic, so a lot of gluten-free baked goods are dense and crumble easily. To counteract this, Grace developed her own flour mixture that produces more palatable pastries.

When she first started researching gluten-free baking, most sources recommended mixing five or six different flours—more hassle than Grace was willing to undertake. “That’s too much work,” she says. “So I created my own flour blend, and then after a few tweakings I found the flour blend that works for me.”

Grace has taken it on as a challenge to develop gluten-free recipes that are also on the healthier end of the spectrum. She often uses psyllium husk as a binder, which adds a lot of fiber to her products. Brown rice, sorghum and millet also provide a lot of nutrients, including protein and fiber. The friend whose son inspired Asian Box to go gluten-free happens to be a professor and doctor, and she taught Grace about low-sugar, low-fat eating. “I just wanted to bake!” Grace shrugs. “Because of her, I switched my mindset to bake gluten-free but also things that are sugar-free and vegan to make it healthier.” To do this, she uses coconut oil and coconut sugar, which she says she actually prefers to cane sugar.

Vegan, dairy-free and grain-free items at the bakery contain less sugar. The granola recipe is sweetened with coconut sugar and honey. Grace uses coconut sugar as a substitute upon request for special orders, like birthday cakes, but using it in all her products is price prohibitive. It’s important to her that customers can purchase high-quality items without breaking the bank; she believes people’s wallets shouldn’t suffer just because they aren’t able to consume gluten. “If I could afford it, I would switch it all over, but it’s too expensive,” she says. “I don’t want to have to charge $7 for a cookie!”

Grace is now four years into her dedicated baking kick. She continually experiments with new recipes, having employees and partners test her products and give honest feedback before offering them in the bakery display. Some of the more popular items at the bake shop include breads, bagels and doughnuts, which many customers said they’d missed since going gluten-free. The chocolate chip cookies are also big hits.

Bake shop visitors can choose from a large variety of baked goods, and they can also stick around for lunch. The menu includes a variety of banh mi sandwiches, an Asian salad, a number of protein-rich bowls and daily specials testing out Gracie Jones’ newest recipes—all gluten-free, of course.

tasty treats

2706 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

graciejonesbakeshop.com

Favorite Flavors: Tasting Summer

If summer had a flavor, wouldn’t it be something cool, sweet and fleeting? Licking the drips off a melting ice cream bar on a hot, sunny day. A plump, juicy berry popped into the mouth. That first crisp, mouthwatering bite of a slice of watermelon. Here are a few of our favorite flavors and traditions of summer to help jump-start the memories and entice the taste buds.

Photograph courtesy of Jim Alkhatib.

The Ice Cream Truck is Coming!

The ice cream truck is so often preceded by the archetypal tune “Turkey in the Straw.” It’s a jingle unlike any other—with a melody in the key of summer—casting a sweet spell to lure neighbors onto the street like a pied piper of dessert. Although this song may evoke summer to us, for Jim Alkhatib, who owns the mobile ice cream vendor Golden Ice Cream, it was once a slight occupational hazard.

“In the beginning, it was hard; I used to wake up in the middle of the night hearing the music,” he says. “But now my brain will ignore it and sometimes I won’t even know if the music is on or off.”

Jim has delivered delight to doorsteps for nearly 30 years, first by working for an ice cream vendor in Palo Alto before purchasing his own truck in 1996. He immigrated to the Bay Area from a small village in Jordan when he was 27 and is now a father of three with a house in Lathrop.

His selection includes all the staples—Drumsticks, Crunch Bars and 50/50 Creamsicles tend to be top sellers—and Jim prefers IT’S-IT, partly because the company is based in Burlingame. Besides his route, he’ll pull the truck up for private events such as company picnics and graduation parties. However, nothing is as sweet as the view from inside his mobile parlor as the community he treasures grows up.   

“One day, a lady came to me and said her son was a one-year-old and sleeping so she asked me to turn the music down whenever I came by,” Jim says. “I kept doing it for years; whenever I came by I turned the music down. Fifteen years later I saw her with her son, who was now taller than me, and she told me how she appreciated that I always turned down the music.” goldnicecream.com

Ode to Olallieberry

When it comes to summer flavors on the Peninsula, there is perhaps none more tantalizing than the olallieberry. If your response is “The oh-what-a-berry?!” then you’ve been missing out on one of our home-grown tastiest treats. While it looks like a classic blackberry, genetically the olallieberry (olallie is a Chinookan word meaning berry) is also about one-third raspberry, making it both sweet and slightly tart. Originally developed in Oregon, it turns out that the olallieberry prefers our coastal California climate. Yay for us! But here’s the catch. The olallieberry season is super short—as in a four- to six-week span sometime between late June and early August. So, go pick! Eat! Right now!

In Portola Valley, Webb Ranch’s U-Pick season is underway from 8AM to 1PM on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The price is $4 for entry and then $5.50 per pound of berries with baskets provided. Show up early for the best selection. Call 650.854.5417 for weekly U-Pick updates. 2720 Alpine Road, Portola Valley. webbranchinc.com

To pay full homage to the olallieberry, Pescadero is the perfect place for a pilgrimage. About a half-hour south of Half Moon Bay, you’ll find R&R Fresh Farms, with five acres of different berry varieties. Owner Jose Ramirez introduced his olallieberry crop three years ago. “The big farmers don’t like them because there are only six weeks for picking. They want berries to stay longer, so they gave up on them,” he says. Not only did Jose not give up on olallieberries, he grows enough to freeze, so he has them for sale year-round. U-Pick certified organic berries are priced at $4 per pound. If you’re in a hurry, you can buy $2.50 baskets at R&R’s Farm Stand. 2310 Pescadero Creek Road. rnrfresh.com

And finally, for all things olallieberry, swing by Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero, renowned for its #1 selling olallieberry pie. Made with a recipe perfected in the 1930s by Emma Duarte, it’s $8 a slice or $35 for an entire pie. Duarte’s grows their own berries, and during the olallieberry’s blink of a season, you’ll also find offerings like fresh olallieberry cobbler and even margaritas. And when the picking is done, Duarte’s extends this treasured taste of summer, drawing from its own frozen stashes to keep olallieberry pie on the menu year-round. 202 Stage Road, Pescadero. duartestavern.com

Mouthwatering Watermelon  

If you had to pick just one flavor, what’s the quintessential taste of summer? Here at PUNCH, we put it to a vote and came up with a clear winner—that dark green, awkwardly heavy, spherically-shaped, sweet, juicy, beloved behemoth of a fruit (which we surprisingly learned is also a vegetable), watermelon.

With that decided, we gave our resident foodie/photography director Paulette Phlipot a challenge: create a simple, refreshing watermelon drink to help us savor these sweet summer days. We think you’ll agree that she delivered the goods, along with some helpful tips for watermelon wrangling.

Picking the Right (Ripe) Watermelon

+ Look for “bees stings” – brown, web-like spots or lines

+ Melon should be heavy for its size

+ Try the thump test – if a watermelon has a hollow bass sound when you tap the underbelly with a finger, that’s a good sign.

+ A yellow spot on one side is good (this is from lying in the field)

+ Shape counts – go for uniform instead of wonky

+ Forget the shiny (not ripe) finish – dull will be more delicious!

make it

Create the Base: Watermelon Juice

Cut a watermelon into chunks, take off rind and remove seeds if your watermelon has them.  Place the chunks into a blender and puree until smooth. Strain and serve chilled over ice. Add a little lime juice or fresh mint leaves to enhance flavor.

Watermelon Strawberry Basil Juice

One serving

Take one cup of strained watermelon juice and place in blender. Add 5 large basil leaves (or equivalent if using smaller leaves) plus 2 large strawberries (or equivalent if using smaller strawberries). Blend until smooth. Strain and serve chilled over ice.

Liven up your Sunday Brunch!

Watermelon Strawberry  Basil Mimosa

One serving

Fill a champagne glass ⅔ full with your favorite prosecco or champagne, top off with chilled Watermelon Strawberry Basil Juice. Enjoy!

tips

Don’t Toss Out the Rinds! They’re full of nutrients. In fact, they contain a higher concentration of certain antioxidants, minerals and vitamins than the fruit. Try pickling the rind or simply blend a bit into your next smoothie.

Seedless? Forget that childhood myth that if you eat the seeds, you will grow a watermelon in your stomach. The seeds are edible and actually contain healthy fats and protein and are full of nutrients.

Wine Vibe: All About the Grape

Whether you’ve lived here forever or have only just arrived, one gauntlet of Peninsula life is the expectation that at some point, you’ll learn how to make your way around a proper wine list. It just comes with the terroir-itory, if you catch my drift. So, where to begin: Napa, Sonoma or even Safeway? Or maybe you’re not interested in fighting the traffic, tourists and shopping carts. Then welcome to Velvet 48, a new wine bar in Burlingame designed for aficionados and newbies alike.

Owner and Burlingame resident Jason Cooper is decidedly a wine person, though his customers don’t have to be. With over 20 years in the wine industry, he observed what worked and what didn’t in the marketplace and came up with a concept aimed at two customer bases: people in the know about wine who want a better selection, and people who aren’t and just like to go out and drink wine.

“I wanted to put together familiar names but not like the grocery store. And then I also wanted to carry ones so that any wine industry or wine-savvy person would walk in and say, ‘Wow! I can’t believe they have that!’ I’m in the middle of those two people,” Jason relates. “I know a little bit about wine, more than probably the average person, but it takes a lot around here to really know about wine. The bar is pretty high.”

Jason also saw an opportunity for a place where people could come enjoy a glass of wine without sitting at the bar of a restaurant. “I would like this to be a real wine destination for people who love wine and a gathering place for locals,” he says. “I haven’t seen that anywhere else, that feeling of ‘I’m in a special place and I’m learning something, and isn’t it nice to be here?’ It’s how this place came together and became more of a tasting room kind of vibe and feel.”

The Velvet 48 experience starts the moment you slip down their speakeasy-like narrow entrance: everyone is greeted with a complimentary glass of Velvet 48’s private label sparkling rosé. Hundreds of bottles of the stuff even decorate a large wall. “I just felt like when you go to a restaurant or a bar, it’s not until you actually get your drink that you kind of settle in,” Jason notes. “So I wanted to take away that waiting period and just give people something so that as soon as they got here, they’re comfortable. It’s something to have while you’re browsing an admittedly very large list.”

The private label sparkling rosé is also a bestseller at $30 per bottle. However, Jason emphasizes, “I want to sell high-end wine at a value, but I’m not selling five-dollar glasses of wine.” The lowest prices are three $11 glasses offered per day—a white, a red and the sparkling—but they also serve glasses of MV Krug Grande Cuvee and Moet et Chandon Dom Perignon for $45. As far as Jason knows, his is the only establishment to do so besides the French Laundry.

As for the rest of the list, prepare to be dazzled: about two-thirds are domestic and the rest are imported, mostly from Europe. With a selection of 400 bottles to purchase, 50 by the glass ($11-$55) and thousands in storage, the options are seemingly endless. If you’re looking to learn and experiment, Jason suggests you come in with an idea of what you like to drink, whether it’s by brand or varietal, and the knowledgeable staff will suggest a taste-alike or improvement. Or, just follow your fancy.

While 90% of Velvet 48’s bottle sales come from wines by the glass, patrons can also browse the standing racks to find inspiration. “One thing we do that’s a little different is that we don’t take a typical restaurant markup. We’re sort of in between a restaurant and what a retailer would charge,” Jason points out. “And if you buy six bottles or more you get 25% off. The idea is that it doesn’t matter if you drink them here or take them with you.”

If Jason has one overall goal for Velvet 48, it’s that the wines he carries should be, well, velvety. “I wanted wines that were soft and supple and wouldn’t rip the enamel off your teeth,” Jason vividly describes. “And then 48 was the year my mom was born. She passed away a couple of years ago. I wanted to do something that would make her proud, with a little nod to her too.” Jason’s mom is not only in the name, her spirit carries over to the décor. One whole wall displays some of her collection of signed Hollywood memorabilia.

Another aim was to serve food that matched the quality of the wine. “Our food menu is really small but it’s really thought-out and we’ve sourced some really cool things,” Jason says, including cheese puff-like gougères made with gruyere. “One of my pet peeves is when they give you cold bread and butter, and the butter is rock-hard, so I wanted to do warm bread and give you soft, really good, salted butter.” A cheese plate and charcuterie are among Velvet 48’s more substantial offerings. The wine bar also serves four sweet dishes: macarons, creme brûlée, broken pieces of Guittard chocolate and tiramisu.

If you’re accompanying an oenophile and wine isn’t your thing, Velvet 48 carries 10 local craft beers in cans, plus a calorie- and alcohol-free rice lager, a best-seller in Japan. They also have a hidden TV with no plans to have it on regularly. Jason says they may make an exception for the Oscars or Super Bowl in the future, but for the time being, it’s off. What a relief. Visit Velvet 48 while it’s still TV-less and discover a sophisticated, neighborhood spot that’s reimagining what an American wine bar can be. 310 Lorton Avenue, Burlingame  velvet48.com

Jason’s Summer Wine Picks

Velvet 48 Rosés, Robert Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinot Noir, Carneros

They call it Vin Gris/gray wine because it’s sort of in between. It’s not white and it’s not red. Dry, aromatic, a reliable favorite. $45

Figuiere Premiere Rosé, Cote de Provence, France

A little wine that when we tried it, it was amazing. Dry, lighter-styled, more delicate. An easy, light summer quaffer. $36

Montes Cherub Rosé, Chile

A little bit on the fruitier side. From one of the better known producers in Chile. Maybe a little bit more of a food wine. $25

Velvet 48 Dry Whites Cade Sauvignon Blanc, Napa

One of my favorite Napa Sauvignon Blancs. Classic, with tropical fruit, nice acidity, crisp. Great with or without food. $45

Hirsch ‘Hirschvergnügen’ Grüner Veltliner, Austria

If you remember the old Volkswagen slogan “Fahrvergnügen,” which means for the joy of driving, this hirschvergnügen means for the joy of Hirsch. Crisp, floral, very drinkable. $26

Vietti Roero Arneis, Italy

Arneis is a grape indigenous to the Piedmont region, more obscure. You don’t really see it in a whole lot of other places. It’s really floral and crisp with more minerality. This is probably the most foodie of all these wines, though you can drink it on its own. $35

Hikes With History

Hiking on the Peninsula places you footsteps away from some important historical moments and sites. Given that July is a month we think about historically, what with the Fourth of July and all, here’s a selection of hikes where you can also soak up some history.

Sweeney Ridge (Pacifica and San Bruno)

Sweeney Ridge is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. At its 1,200-foot summit, you can stand at the spot near where, in 1769, Gaspar de Portolá became the first European to lay eyes on the San Francisco Bay. A granite monument directs visitors to see—on a clear day at least—the Farallon Islands, Mount Tamalpais, Point Reyes, Mount Diablo, Montara Mountain and San Pedro Point.

Not far from the Portolá expedition historical marker are the remnants of the Nike Missile Control Site SF-51, which today is a rather ramshackle graffiti gallery. This was one among a number of missile sites built during the Cold War as the last line of defense against Soviet bombers. With the advent of long-range missiles, these cinderblock structures were left to decay in place.

A third spot of historical interest is Shelldance Nursery on the Pacifica side of the ridge. In 1949, Herb Hanger erected a cluster of Lord and Burnum greenhouses where he created hybrid orchids. The nursery, which is open to the public on the weekends, still cultivates hundreds of orchids and bromeliads in the greenhouses.

The Mori Ridge Trail from the Nursery leads up to the summit. While the out-and-back distance from trailhead to Discovery Site is just a little over five miles, this is a climb that begins steeply and then gets steeper, recommended only for those who are fit.

A less arduous ascent is from the Sneath Lane trailhead in San Bruno. The paved pathway is accessible by cyclists as well as hikers and has just a few good pulls before it levels off at the ridge top. You can enjoy the 360-degree views by continuing south on the Sweeney Ridge Trail to where it dead ends near San Francisco Water Department lands. Retrace your steps back to the trailhead for a hike of about six miles (depending how far you go once on top).

good to know

+ Parking at the end of Sneath Lane in San Bruno or Shelldance Nursery (2000 Pacific Coast Hwy) in Pacifica

+ Steep dirt trail from Pacifica; paved trail from San Bruno

+ Open to hikers, equestrians, cyclists and leashed dogs

Green Gables/Woodside Store (Woodside)

In the early 20th century, successful San Francisco businessman and investor Mortimer Fleishhacker and his wife Bella commissioned noted Pasadena-based architect Charles Green to build an English estate on the Peninsula. The result is the magnificent 74-acre Green Gables, which is currently up for sale for the first time in more than 100 years.

The main house has been on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1986. While trails on the estate itself are only open to Woodside Trail Club members who are given keys to open the locked gates, there’s a public trail that’s adjacent to the property where you can catch a glimpse of the buildings through the trees.

Not far from Green Gables is the Woodside Store, both a California and national historical landmark. Built in 1854 among sawmills and redwood groves, the store was purchased by the County of San Mateo in 1940 and opened as a museum seven years later.

An easy out-and-back two-mile hike starts from a pull-out near 329 & 331 Albion Road. Turn right onto Manuella Avenue. It’s along here that you’re adjacent to Green Gables. There’s a marker noting the Fleishhackers’ contributions to the community. Turn right on Kings Mountain Road to reach the Woodside Store.

good to know

+ Terrain is dirt pathway

+ Open to hikers, equestrians and leashed dogs—please do yield to horses

+ Mostly in the shade

+ More about Green Gables: gamblehouse.org/green-gables

Thornewood Open Space Preserve (Woodside)

The 176-acre Thornewood Open Space Preserve was once the estate of Julian and Edna Thorne, who developed the land in the 1920s. But the area’s roots run deep.

In the mid-1800s, Dennis Martin had two redwood sawmills along a creek within what is now the Preserve. Martin, who was born in Ireland, was a member of the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada into California. The creek in Thornewood bears his name.

The preserve’s Schilling Lake is named after spice company owner August Schilling, who bought hillside acreage, excluding the summer home that noted architect Gardner Daily had designed for the Thornes. The home is situated so that its occupants had unobstructed views of the valley below. We can only imagine as it’s off limits; a private party is leasing and restoring it.

We started our 3.5-mile, round-trip hike at a pull-out along Old La Honda Road. There’s a sign marking Dennis Martin Creek there. We ascended steeply through the forest on the Bridle Trail. (But saw no horses!) Near the top, a left turn takes you to Schilling Lake, now almost invisible below the thick growth of vegetation.

Wanting to extend our hike, we took a broad path upwards just to the right of a private road. If you were to follow the path to its end—we did not—you’d hit Grandview Drive, which connects to Highway 84 almost at Skyline Boulevard.

Along this stretch we encountered a local homeowner who told us of the many Schilling-built ruins on the preserve, such as a fountain so overgrown it was barely recognizable. Reverse your steps on the return.

good to know

+ Limited parking on Old La Honda Road, about a half mile from Portola Road

+ Terrain is dirt with forest mulch

+ Mostly in the shade

+ Open to hikers, equestrians and leashed dogs

+ More about Thornewood Preserve, including a map: openspace.org/preserves/thornewood

Wunderlich Park/Folger estate (Woodside)

The 942-acre Wunderlich Park stretches from Woodside Road to the Skyline, providing 17 miles of trails through beautiful second-growth redwoods scattered with artifacts left in place by its successive owners. Coincidentally, the Portolá expedition camped here before traveling north.

Occupied initially by Native Americans, the hills and ravines of Wunderlich were logged in the mid-1800s and then farmed in the 1870s. Some of the planted fruit trees still exist.

In 1902, James A. Folger II, the son of the founder of the Folger Coffee Company, purchased the property and turned it into a recreation area. Roads constructed to haul lumber became riding and carriage trails. It was Folger who built a large mansion (now privately owned and located adjacent to the park) as well as the main stable, carriage house, blacksmith barn and dairy house. These four buildings make up the Folger Estate Stable Historic District. A walking tour of the buildings takes about 30 minutes.

For the more ambitious, you can hike from the parking area all the way to Skyline on the Alambique and Skyline Trails, a round-trip distance of 10 miles. Lacking the time—or ambition—you can enjoy a five-mile loop that ascends on the Bear Gulch Trail, connecting mid-way up to the Meadow Trail, which crosses the park to pick up on the Loop Trail for the descent back to the parking lot.

good to know

+ Parking at trailhead: 3030 Woodside Road, Woodside

+ Wide dirt trails

+ Mostly shady

+ Open to hikers and equestrians; no cyclists or dogs

+ More about Wunderlich: parks.smcgov.org/wunderlich-park-trails

 

The Gatehouse

The Barron-Latham-Hopkins Gate Lodge, or the Gatehouse, is the oldest structure in Menlo Park and one of only three buildings in Menlo Park on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also the last remaining gate lodge, complete with gate, in the state of California.

Located on Ravenswood Avenue, the Gatehouse was built in 1864 by William Eustace Barron as the entrance lodge for a 40-room mansion on a 280-acre estate. Several changes of ownership later, in 1888, the property was deeded as a wedding gift to Timothy Hopkins, adopted son of railroad baron Mark Hopkins and founder of the Sunset Seed and Plant Company.

After the 1906 earthquake rendered the main house uninhabitable, Hopkins renovated the Gatehouse as a summer residence, which was used by his family until 1941. Hopkins bequeathed the entire estate to Stanford University. As only the Gatehouse and gate remained usable, the University demolished or sold all other buildings to make room for an Army hospital.

In an interesting bit of trivia, Universal Studios bought the disassembled mansion and stables for use as movie sets. Interiors of the main house were used in films including Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece Psycho and 1964’s The Unsinkable Molly Brown. 

After the hospital closed in 1946, the Gatehouse was leased as a private residence. In 1968, it was bought by the City of Menlo Park and has served as headquarters to the Junior League of Palo Alto•Mid Peninsula (JLPA•MP) since 1970. Leased exclusively to the JLPA•MP since the mid-1990s, the Gatehouse is available for event rentals.

In The Public Eye

Words by Sheri Baer

Heading into a concert or Thunderbolts game at The Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, music and hockey fans encounter Vibrant River, a 41-foot steel-lace matrix of arcs adorning the arena. Looking up, they know to search for overlapping natural elements—from a catfish to a stag beetle—hidden within the abstract stainless steel sculpture.

Travelers driving to Stockton Airport are greeted by Gateway Icon, a mesmerizing stainless steel totem-like sculptural form, looming 40 feet above the street.

At the Mitchell Park Library in Palo Alto, adjacent to the glass entrance, the 32-foot-wide stainless steel Cloud Forest appears to magically extend from outside to inside, welcoming visitors with its own mix of images tucked into the lacy steel pattern.

From Bethesda and Tucson to Oakland, Mountain View and San Jose, you’ll find immense wall-mounted and free-standing works of public art all sharing a common signature. They are the creations of Portola Valley artist Roger White Stoller, who in the same way he now liberates metal into miraculous forms, unleashed his own talent through personal transformation.

Situated in the Ladera neighborhood of Portola Valley, Roger’s home provides the perfect backdrop for hearing his story, surrounded by maquettes (scale models) and finished sculptures strewn throughout his property. As the conversation unfolds, Roger’s eyes dart about, settling on the perfect visual aid at any given moment to illustrate a point. “I’ll just get one to show you,” he says, before returning with a small abstract piece. “This is a wax model that will become bronze through the lost-wax process.” A few minutes later, he’s gesturing to a free-standing stone form. “This is a 10th scale maquette that’s actually from the same quarry in India that the 10-ton piece is from.”

Fully understanding Roger’s artistic journey requires a trip back in time to a different place—the neighborhood near Santa Monica where he was raised. As a boy, he became friends with the grandchildren of R. Buckminster Fuller, the world-renowned 20th-century inventor, architect and futurist, who authored 28 books and invented the geodesic dome. “I knew him growing up,” Roger shares. “And then when I turned 18, I realized this guy was really important so I read most of his books at that time. The thing that really impressed me about what he was doing was not only his ideas, but that he reduced them to practice.”

When Roger was in his early 20s, Fuller took him on as his personal assistant, bringing him along on synergetic geometry and geodesic projects around the world. “After I had been working with Bucky, I realized I’m a good model builder and I love his work, but I really am not trained in anything,” Roger remembers thinking. Influenced by his mentor, along with Fuller’s close friend, critically-acclaimed sculptor Isamu Noguchi, Roger enrolled in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

After graduating with a degree in product design, Roger recognized that if the information revolution was about to happen (as suggested by Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave), he needed to hightail it out of Pasadena and get to Silicon Valley—a move which led to 15 years of industrial design work and the founding of Stoller Design and co-founding of Praxis Design Associates. “Industrial design is everything that’s not architectecture,” Roger explains, sharing that his work during this period included designing furniture, medical equipment and digital cameras for corporate clients. As his firm grew in size, Roger found himself taking on a role he hadn’t anticipated. “Since I was one of the principals, I needed to be schmoozing clients and doing sales and marketing,” he recalls. “I got pretty depressed because it felt like I had sort of succeeded into a corner.”

At ends with what to do, Roger took a psychological assessment/personality test and was staggered by the results: “It came back with sales at like 3%, marketing at 5%, design at 85% and artist at 99%, which is the highest score that you can get.” Roger tried to process what the test was telling him. “I never really thought I was allowed to be an artist, so it never occurred to me,” he says. “Also by this time, I had two young kids and a mortgage. But I felt I had to do it. It didn’t feel like a choice.”

With his wife Naomi’s support, Roger exited the corporate design world and started taking classes at the Foundry at San Jose State, while teaching industrial design courses. “I knew I had to make a living, so I bought myself a couple of years while I figured myself out as an artist.”

Here, Roger pauses and gestures to two sculptures in the living room. “See those pieces in the corner?” he asks. “Those were made by me, by hand. Everything I did in those days were just things I was making myself.”

So how does one go about finding one’s artistic identity? Reflecting back on his early influences, Roger expected to embrace a minimalist calling but ended up veering in a different direction: “The first time I took a class with a torch to cut metal, I kept drawing lines with this torch. I thought, ‘Wow! There are patterns just sort of coming out!’ and I’ve been creating patterns ever since.”

Surprised to find himself creating elaborate, complex designs, Roger reconciled his new-found style with his love of nature. “I realized a tree is a simple thing from a distance, but when you get up close, there’s so much going on with just the bark alone, let alone the leaves, or molecules inside,” he notes. “I started trying to create things that would have that simplicity when first encountered, yet allow for the discovery of depth and meaning as you encountered them further.”

Roger also found himself channelling one of Fuller’s basic units of structure. “A tetrahedron is like a cube made out of triangles,” Roger explains. “I started taking that form and working with it in various ways—something very simple and geometric, but then introducing a complexity like one finds in nature.” And then, there was that other driving motivation, and not a small one to factor in. “For some reason, I just kept feeling I wanted to do these really large-scale pieces,” he says. “My wife was like, ‘Really? That’s so much metal and weight and cranes and everything.’”

Once Roger figured out what he wanted to do, the next critical piece was identifying the place to do it. And that’s how Roger discovered public art and “Percent-for-Art” programs, which require local, state or federal entities to build the cost of public art into project construction budgets. “To do these big pieces, I had to find an avenue,” he says. “I got introduced to the idea that they have these competitions. I had the attitude that it’s very hard to succeed at this but some will, so I’m going to be one of them.”

In 2002, after winning his first national competition, Roger installed a major public sculpture, the 22-foot Textrahelix, for Alza Corporation. Weighing 11 tons, the work ended up in a serendipitous spot, standing in front of what later became Google’s headquarters. Roger’s new course was set, and today he estimates that about 80% of his sculptures are public works, with residential and corporate making up the other 20%.

To date, Roger has installed 15 public works, with two to three new projects underway every year. “The public thing was perfect as there are existing budgets for art and my work is seen by many, many people,” Roger says. “I’ve got the best of both worlds, as they select me to do my thing, but I strengthen the public nature of the work by incorporating their thinking, loves and interests.”

Sculpting full-time out of studios in Portola Valley and San Jose, Roger has an evolving technique that would be a story all its own, but he clearly remains passionate about playing with fire. “We built the furnace that melts the bronze at 2000º. It’s like being near a volcano that you’re controlling,” he says. As for what it takes to install his massive sculptures? “The freestanding pieces are completed at the Studio shop; we truck them out, take a crane and put them up,” he summarizes. “But the wall pieces are like giant puzzles that have to be assembled on site, so the first time I see it in full scale is when we install the final pieces.”

Having now toured Roger’s collection of sculptures arranged around his property, it’s finally time to reflect on where his choices have brought him. “It was the right thing to do, and I’m really happy I made the jump,” he says. And even as he had his own mentors, he realizes that he has become influential as well: “My younger daughter is a choreographer whose work was recently performed at the Royal Opera House in London. She’s making a success out of an impossible career, in part, because she saw it was possible.”    

awestruck by art

stollerstudio.com

L’Mara (Giraffe)

El Paso Zoo

Created for kids and adults alike, the “seek & find” aspect of this stainless steel sculpture is fun for everyone. In the Africa section of the zoo, L’Mara depicts iconic animals of Africa through a series of shapes and other hidden figures. From a distance, one sees a giraffe’s head, but upon approach, other images can be found within the lacy steel pattern: a crocodile, a lion, an elephant, a cape buffalo, a baby zebra, a rhino, a meerkat and silhouettes of people.

Tetra Con Brio

Bethesda

This sculpture is the signature work of art at the Music Center at Strathmore Arts Center near Washington, D.C. Tetra Con Brio is a symbolic representation of the dynamic performing arts alive within the Center. The sonata form of musical composition has been utilized as a guiding principle underlying this visual improvisation set in bronze. The dynamic tension between the pure integrity of tetrahedral geometry and the intuitive/creative process combine in bringing the work to life.

Cloud Forest

Mitchell Park Library, Palo Alto

Located in the entry of Palo Alto’s new state-of-the-art library, Cloud Forest is inspired by the symbol of Palo Alto, the redwood tree. This sculpture is an abstracted interpretation of the unique exchange between the coastal redwoods and Pacific Ocean marine layer. The steel curves subtly “billow” from the walls to join with the hand-brushed finishes in creating uncommon light reflections. These complex patterns of light and steel signify the worlds within worlds found inside the library.

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