Sweet and savory tastes from Carlsbad strawberries
Trio of recipes from the Strawberry Shack help showcase popular fruit
All Stories
Living in a state of hue-phoria in Encinitas
Homeowner’s global travels and insatiable love for color, art and texture inspire local interior designer’s ebullient, gallery-style vision
WaterSmart makeover: A blended vision in Vista
With artistic flair and a growing affinity for succulents, couple win first place for transformed yard in Vista Irrigation District
Thoughtful renovations add new spice, space on ASID Kitchen and Bath Tour
Two 100-year-old kitchens in Kensington, part of the self-guided, eight-home tour on May 3, reflect dramatic updates
With spring comes asparagus: 3 new takes on preparing slender, tender spears
Executive chef Kelli Crosson at The Lodge at Torrey Pines shares recipes to take advantage of vegetable's peak season
Magnificently moody bathrooms strike a chord
Darkness, drama and intimacy intertwine in 'moody' bathroom design; San Diego designers share how to get the look
New Rancho Gordo cookbook celebrates the beauty of beans
Veritable ‘bean bible’ from Steve Sando unlocks legumes’ magic in 100 recipes
WaterSmart makeover: Time, careful tending create a drought tolerant haven
Chula Vista couple’s winning front landscape in Sweetwater district melds function, beauty
over performers: 3 dishes that go beyond Seder to the rest of the week
3 recipes by chef Jeff Rossman go beyond Seder to deliciously honor holiday the remainder of the week
This St. Patrick’s Day meal is the real deal
Menu from chef-owner Maeve Rochford of Sugar and Scribe harkens back to her Irish grandmother's family meals
3 weekend breakfast dishes worth lingering over
Family-style recipes from chef Wesley Johnson of Urban Kitchen Group can be prepped ahead for easy assembly
Putting the TV into play: How to incorporate ‘black box’ into room design
For The Union-Tribune We hear a lot about people giving up televisions in their homes. About a year ago, a Gen Z writer for CNET covering TVs noted that data...
Indulging in books and nooks
Hankering for the ultimate home reading haven? Here’s inspiration to get you started
Truffles for your true love: Recipes to pamper that Valentine
Cori Pastificio Trattoria chef shares two pasta recipes showcasing fungi’s decadence
Chef Angels’ cooking lessons help foster youths envision a better future
Underserved kids learn about healthful food prep, culinary career paths from nonprofit's outreach via dozens of chefs in San Diego County
Reveling in ramen, at home
For The Union-Tribune When you think of ramen, it wouldn’t be surprising if your first image is of a packet or Styrofoam cup of, say, Top Ramen or Maruchan or...
WaterSmart makeover: A layered retreat in Otay Ranch
Lush yet low water, longtime homeowner's landscape reflects beauty, mature plantings that come from careful planning
New Year’s Eve: Get the party started in your own kitchen
Retro-inspired modern recipes from Ponyboy will stir up New Year’s Eve
Going upper crust with Pop Pie Co. recipes
Co-owner of local restaurant chain shares a how-to for sweet and savory dishes: Apple Crumble Pie and Turkey Pot Pie
Cluttercore design, done right: ‘More is more,’ but organized
See how two San Diego design pros embrace layered, lush design style in their own homes
WaterSmart makeover: Bringing back the beauty
La Mesa couple’s vision revives dated landscape and wins Helix Water District contest
Farm-to-table appetizers for the holidays
Cellar Hand chef Logan Kendall offers the home cook another way to approach the starter course
Fall means peak persimmon time
The fruit pairs well with ingredients such as squash, apples and Brussels sprouts.
Recipes harness fusion that jumps across continents
San Diego chef Aldo Negrete shares three dishes that reflect his ion for venturing outside the box
San Diego cooks’ book showcases breadth of local culinary talent and ingredients
70 recipes from 35 area restaurants, bakeries and bars unveiled in new regional collection
For the birds: Renamed nonprofit marks 75 years helping local wildlife
San Diego Bird Alliance to present free community celebration Oct. 20 in Liberty Station
San Diego’s master food preservers explain how to make the most of homegrown produce
With a focus on food safety, 20 program grads offer instruction and demonstrations, answer questions for public
Garage organization: Get in gear
San Diego organizers offer guidance on how to get past the chaos, clear away the clutter and keep the stress level under control
Decorating with fauxliage
Plantscaping gets a practical boost with lush-looking, no-water replica plants and moss walls
These women in a new world are cooking toward a meaningful future
San Diego nonprofit MAKE Projects 12-week program teaches refugee and immigrant women to develop work, language skills
Is attending a remodeling workshop worth your time?
Hosted by design firms or contractors in San Diego County, these free events can be fruitful way to meet vendors and learn what the process entails before you have to...
Design strategies for your Airbnb
Furnishing a short-term rental is different from furnishing a residential home, and there are thousands of such rentals in San Diego County. A longtime Airbnb host and an interior designer...
Such a peach: 3 recipes that embrace the sweet, juicy joys of stone fruit season
San Diego pastry chef Adrian Mendoza of The University Club shares tips on ways to capture the flavors of summer
Branching out with blends of Middle Eastern herbs and spices
Back in 2006, I read a blog post by David Lebovitz touting an Italian herb rub that cook Judy Witts Francini had taught him to make. It consisted of rosemary,...
Seed libraries are sprouting across San Diego County
Seed libraries are sprouting across San Diego County
WaterSmart makeover: Embracing a low-water garden
Carlsbad resident takes on project to transform yard
Creating a home for butterflies
Even the smallest outdoor spaces can bloom with plants that draw the pollinators; these resources will point the way
Feasting on the flavors of local fresh seafood
Venturing beyond the usual fresh seafood choices for what's good right now pays off with San Diego's ever-evolving seasonal catches.
Deg a bedroom that a teen will love
Teens can help steer the design process for a space that reflects their need for expression and independence.
WaterSmart makeover: Creating a neighborhood oasis in Escondido
Couple finds the fun in researching possibilities, deg and putting in the hard work for an award-winning landscape transformation, taking first place in the 2023 WaterSmart makeover contest in Escondido.
Garden’s reward: Spring into summer with transitional produce
June is the apex of the spring harvest, hurtling us straight into the bonanza of refreshing summer vegetables, and timed to collide perfectly with grilling season. Are summer squashes and...
Cooking, Havana style
For Sandra Cardet, Cuban cooking is pretty much all about the sofrito.Cardet, founder and co-owner with her son, Alex Guevara, of the Cuban restaurant Havana Grill, explained that “some people...
Deg a space to inspire the growing child
Years ago, Jessica Nicholls, principal designer at Bungalow 56, designed the bedrooms of two daughters in a family when they were very little girls. Today, they’re 9 and 14, and...
Culinary traditions to savor during AAPI Heritage Month
This May marks 34 years since President George H.W. Bush proclaimed the first Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, since changed in 2009 to Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The monthlong...
WaterSmart makeover: A garden 45 years in the making
Just a block away from La Mesa’s downtown is a residential street lined with sweet vintage Craftsman and Spanish-style homes. Most have lawns in their front yards, but there are...
Seafood sensations, Casanova-style
I first met Hector Casanova, owner of Casanova Fish Tacos, back in the fall of 2012, when the San Diego Public Market opened in a renovated Barrio Logan warehouse. Even...
These local home upgrades create a feel-good connection to the outdoors using biophilic design
When Janet Koenig and her partner, Tom, bought their Cardiff home back in 2011, the house reflected its 1980s vintage, especially in the primary bathroom. Between the gold and beige...
WaterSmart makeover: A low-water ‘mountain glade’ in Encinitas
Oh, the things you do when you first buy a house that make you wish you’d known better. For Melanie and Rick Cullen, it was planting three liquidambar trees in...
WaterSmart makeover: A low-water ‘mountain glade’ in Encinitas
Oh, the things you do when you first buy a house that make you wish you’d known better. For Melanie and Rick Cullen, it was planting three liquidambar trees in...
Deg a nursery that a toddler will enjoy
First things first: If you’re expecting a baby and you haven’t even begun to address setting up the nursery, relax; you have time. Once the baby arrives, the American Academy...
WaterSmart makeover: A gardenful of succulents
When Catalina Schultz and her husband, Steve, bought their National City home in 2011, the front yard was basically just lawn. And Catalina, a self-described housewife, had no interest in...
Encinitas chef’s innate love for sea shines through in recipes for home cooks
You wouldn’t think that a San Diego chef would have the audacity to feature tomatoes in winter, but one of the featured appetizers developed by Aidan Owens, the 26-year-old executive...
In new cookbook, chef Richard Blais and his wife, Jazmin, serve up a healthier outlook
You wouldn’t exactly expect a self-help book from chef Richard Blais, but surprisingly, the new cookbook he and his wife, Jazmin, have just published is kind of self-helpy."Plant Forward: 100...
Annual San Diego Bird Festival lands Feb. 21-25 with activities at Mission Bay
San Diego lovers of all things avian are eagerly preparing to gather later this month for the San Diego Bird Festival, hosted by the San Diego Audubon Society.The event will...
Annual San Diego Bird Festival lands Feb. 21-25
San Diego lovers of all things avian are eagerly preparing to gather later this month for the San Diego Bird Festival, hosted by the San Diego Audubon Society.The event will...
Ease February’s chill with 3 comforting soups from chef Claudia Sandoval
San Diegans know we have it pretty easy compared with other parts of the country when it comes to the mayhem of winter weather. Still, chilly is chilly, and there’s...
Post-holiday decor blahs? San Diego designers’ pointers can help re-energize your home’s interior
We’re in the thick of San Diego’s version of winter, and here’s hoping all the holiday decor is finally back in storage. Still feel strange to have put away the...
WaterSmart makeover: Prize-winning ‘Nana’s Garden’ is a vision focused on variety
There was a time when Lois and Jeff Scott’s El Cajon front yard was awash in lawn, from the street to just a few feet from the house itself, where...
Shabbat cookbook celebrates cultural crossroads
Every Friday evening at sunset, the Jewish Sabbath — Shabbat in Hebrew — begins and until sunset the next day it is meant to be a time of rest.“Instead of...
WaterSmart makeover: Olivenhain homeowner is the raining champ
You could call Brad Lefkowits' award-winning home landscape a demonstration garden. Lefkowits, a landscape designer who owns Waves Landscape Design, lives with his wife, Joanie, and their two young sons...
WaterSmart makeover: Olivenhain homeowner is the raining champ
You could call Brad Lefkowits' award-winning home landscape a demonstration garden. Lefkowits, a landscape designer who owns Waves Landscape Design, lives with his wife, Joanie, and their two young sons...
Rebate program helps HOAs become grand-scale water savers
The bowl-shaped common space at the Mall III Homeowners Association property in Lake San Marcos was once a pricey, turf-heavy problem for its HOA board. After a water-smart landscape upgrade,...
Neighborhood composting creates a community out of kitchen scraps
It’s a common sight most days to see people walking up to the blue house at the end of a Chula Vista cul-de-sac carrying a container filled with food scraps....
Make small bites the hit of the party
If you’re addicted to food blogs, you’ve probably read The BakerMama, Maegan Brown’s 11-year-old site for family-friendly recipes that include those for food boards, party spreads and small bites. In...
Ex-San Diegan has a tailor-made homecoming in Windansea
Sometimes the old adage “You can’t go home again” is simply untrue. At least it has been for Jeff Holman. The former investment banker, now an adjunct professor at UC...
A recipe to wake up winter squash
Is there a vegetable (OK, botanically a fruit) that is more representative of cool-weather comfort food than winter squash? And there are dozens upon dozens of richly colored varieties to...
Three novel vegetable sides take the spotlight at Thanksgiving
Brad Wise loves fire. The Trust Restaurant Group’s chef/owner has been working the flames since his days on California’s Central Coast, where he experimented with Santa Maria-style grilling, cooking meats...
A tailor-made homecoming in Windansea
Sometimes the old adage “you can’t go home again” is simply untrue. At least, it has been for Jeff Holman. The former investment banker, now adjunct professor at UC San...
Sustenance for souls: Making pan de muerto and pan de elote
One of the most moving experiences in my travels happened just on the other side of the Mexican border about 14 years ago, while walking in and around Miguel Hidalgo...
3 recipes to wake up winter squash
There’s a certain point in time in late August when the afternoon light begins to shift. It’s not as harsh as July light. It softens, gets a little hazy. For...
Feast for the eyes
If you’ve ever dined at one of the more than half-dozen Karina’s eateries in San Diego, you’ve stepped into a bright, colorful and eclectic environment designed by restaurateur David Contreras...
A season finale for tomatoes
Over the summer I’ve jammed tomatoes, dehydrated tomatoes, made a slow-baked (four hours) tomato sauce with roasted eggplant and garlic, and created an astoundingly simple yet delicious tomato sandwich with...
Kitchen starter set: the essentials for their first apartment
Chef and cooking teacher Sara Polczynski obviously knows her way around a kitchen. But when her daughter Ava, now a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon University, decided with roommates to move...
Home is where the hearth is
If you ask Jen Pinto to describe the ugliest fireplace she’s encountered in her years as an interior designer, there's no hesitation.“It was in a home by the water with...
Bay Park renovation gives family room to relax
Typically, a homeowner in search of an interior designer finds one via referrals from family or friends, or perhaps a contractor or architect. But Rachel and Eric Matteson of Bay...
Elegant yet easy appetizers adapted by Marine Room chef add sizzle to summer
With summer in full swing, so is outdoor entertaining.If you’re keen to impress guests with appetizers that can both serve as an introduction to your party and be prepped in...
Elegant yet easy apps adapted by Marine Room chef add sizzle to summer entertaining
Now that the June gloom that actually started in April finally — finally! — left last month and summer is truly under way, outdoor entertaining is also in play.If you’re...
Time for new outdoor furniture? San Diego design experts share their must-ask questions
Now that the sun is finally breaking out and San Diego is ready to return to outdoor living after a chilly wet winter and gray spring, that furniture of yours...
Lighthearted cookbook helps bring the fun back to entertaining
Natasha “Tash” Feldman loves a dinner party. It could be a sit-down dinner, a potluck, even a picnic. As long as people gather together for a meal in her company,...
Designers share tips for your next couch casting call
When Traci Taylor headed off for college years ago, her mother — a designer in Arizona — gave her the Marge Carson sofa that had been the first big purchase...
Cooking classes at Carlsbad’s new Ethos Culinary center offer an education on the Greek ‘classics’
in-person cooking classes? You know, the ones held at the late great Great News! Cookware and Cooking School, Sur La Table, Macy’s and Williams-Sonoma. Then there were the ones...
WaterSmart makeover: Remade for natural shade
It was 2019 when Jennifer Dell purchased and moved into her home on a corner lot in a San Marcos neighborhood. The front yard was “scruffy grass,” as she put...
‘Beautiful plus livable’
It basically took one word for Alene and Sam Hedgpeth to decide to move from the San Francisco Bay Area where they had lived for years to San Diego: grandchildren....
Smart kitchens are ready and waiting, as we gradually warm up to them
Imagine you’re a parent with young kids, juggling work and schlepping them to and from school as well as after-school activities. And you want to have dinner ready at a...
Natural fit: Remodel reflects beauty of Rancho Santa Fe surroundings
It’s unexpected, that view. While driving to the Rancho Santa Fe home owned by architect Salomon Daniel and his wife, interior designer Dalia Feldman, there’s no indication from the road...
From long-hidden suitcase, a bittersweet gift of food memories
The old, tattered leather suitcase was a gift that cookbook writer Kitty Morse wasn’t expecting. Morse came across it in 2017, just after her mother died at 94. The Vista...
WaterSmart makeover: Painting with nature’s palette in Oceanside
Keith Umbreit is no stranger to gardening. Back when he was living in Riverside, he was a devoted rose grower and member of the local rosarian society.“I had 69 rosebushes...
Handmade servingware from Leucadia pottery house drawing raves – and the interest of chefs nationwide
When Animae’s executive chef Tara Monsod came on board in 2021, like any chef, she was keen on putting her stamp on the downtown San Diego restaurant. And that wasn’t...
Handmade servingware from Leucadia pottery house drawing raves – and the interest of chefs nationwide
When Animae’s executive chef Tara Monsod came on board in 2021, like any chef, she was keen on putting her stamp on the downtown San Diego restaurant. And that wasn’t...
Three decadent desserts, three San Diego restaurants, one all-important pleasure principle
“I always tell people the reason I like baking is because it makes people happy,” said Puffer Malarkey Collective’s executive pastry chef, Laura Warren. “Everyone has to eat for sustenance,...
Mount Helix home’s modern makeover sets tone for design pros’ annual Kitchen and Bath tour
For many of us, the perfect weekend is spent visiting other people’s beautifully appointed homes to get design ideas and inspiration for changes we’d like to make in ours. So,...
From brown to bright: Del Sur home sheds dark interior, embraces the light
The size was perfect. So was the location. The view from the back of the house and patio? Stunning open space of rolling green hills. The Del Sur home was...
WaterSmart makeover: Helix district winner’s landscape an homage to neighborly inspiration
After spending his weekdays with 25 energetic 5-year-olds as a kindergarten teacher, Nick Voinov needs a place and activity that provides respite. For decades, it’s been his garden. Voinov, who...
Beach inspired: Remodel transforms condo into bright, open home
As a family evolves, so too, does their home — even a vacation home. When a Mexico City couple bought their 3,495-square-foot condo with three bedrooms and 3 ½ bathrooms...
WaterSmart makeover: Escondido yard is a handcrafted haven
In Jeanne Reutlinger’s world, gardening is an act of collaboration with friends and neighbors — meaning you don’t need much of a budget at all to create a prize-winning front...
Make macarons your sweet Valentine’s Day treat
I am ittedly a Valentine's Day grinch. I get this from my dad, who used to dismiss it as just a Hallmark holiday. However, I’ve always loved the edible V-day...
WaterSmart makeover: Seasoned landscape in Chula Vista a standout for fullness, color
When the matriarch of the neighborhood decides with her husband that it’s time to renovate the front yard’s landscaping, you know it’s going to have to be something special. Nancy...
Time for a ‘real’ home office? Here’s what to consider
For years, Aaron Hoskins had the option to work from home. But Hoskins, who leads the digital operations team at Sharp HealthCare’s Digital Experience department in San Diego, preferred to...
Shaking up Hanukkah tradition with a new look at latkes
While most of the country is busy buying and decorating Christmas trees, putting up lights and anticipating cookie exchanges and yule logs, the Jewish community — at least the Ashkenazi,...
Shaking up Hanukkah tradition with a new look at latkes
While most of the country is busy anticipating Christmas dinner and cookie exchanges, the Jewish community — at least the Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, part of it — will be...