Page 736 | Good Times

How One UCSC Alumnus Turned Munchies Into A Delivery Startup

Food & Drink

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October 22, 2018

How One UCSC Alumnus Turned Munchies Into A Delivery Startup

Editor’s note: This story was first published in ‘Dilated Pupil,’ an annual magazine about student culture in Santa Cruz.

There are two types of cookie eaters in this world. Those who, like me, prefer the thin and crispy snap of a chocolate chip cookie, and those like Cookie Cruz owner Matt O’Brien, who prefer their cookies thick, cakey and chewy.

Before tasting Cookie Cruz, I would have said that O’Brien keep his cookies on his side of the court. But alas, after ordering the Nutella and Cookies ’n’ Cream, the chewy cookie has infiltrated my home, heart and long held opinions of what a cookie should be like.

Matthew O’Brien knows how to keep a good thing going. Not only will he deliver cookies to your front door during the late hours of the night, but he makes sure they are warm, gooey, and coupled with Marianne’s ice cream and/or cold milk. It’s Santa Cruz, so he also provides for the gluten-free and vegans. Cookie Cruz (formerly All-Nighter Cookies) boasts eight cookie flavors, including (in order of my personal favorites) Nutella, cookies ’n’ cream, chocolate chip and chocolate mint chip.

“A lot of people are surprised that there is no weed in the cookies,” O’Brien laughs. “Seriously, most people think that they are weed cookies, especially when I first tell them what my business is.”

It’s not a surprise, really, since Cookie Cruz is particularly well-known among college students. O’Brien says they sometimes will tip with weed or acid.

O’Brien uses his dad’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, which uses oatmeal flour to give it a more substantial, wholesome bite. Most of the other cookie flavors are based off of the chocolate chip recipe, as well. He says he’s also experimented with a Cheetos cookie and a peanut butter and jelly cookie, which I continue to hope he brings back so that I have an excuse to order another dozen. But he’s got a lot of requests lined up already.

“I get requests for the white chocolate macadamia a lot. I haven’t done that one yet,” O’Brien says. “The Cheeto one is really good. I’m telling you, it’s sweet and salty—it’s so good. I’ve also done a double peanut butter one that was peanut butter and stuffed with peanut butter. Before summer is over, I want to do an orange creamsicle cookie.”

Cookie Cruz has regulars who order cookies every week, or even every day. Beyond satisfying the late-night munchies of students around UCSC, they serves families, middle and high schoolers schoolers, the 911 call center, police dispatch and hospitals. O’Brien says nurses, in particular, love them.

“We’ve got them hooked,” O’Brien says. “I tell my delivery people that if they are delivering to a hospital, they have to call the nurse who ordered it, because if they just leave the cookies there they always get stolen and eaten. It happens all the time.”

A UCSC alumnus, O’Brien has been running his cookie delivery business for three years since he started it in his apartment in 2015. He ran it all himself at first, baking cookies and delivering them from UCSC to Aptos almost nightly for a year. Eventually it got to the point where it was too busy for him to run the company alone. Now he has eight employees to do the driving for him, though he still makes deliveries.

“I just really liked cookies, and ate them a lot, plus I wanted to start a business, so I just made this happen,” O’Brien says. “I only started off with chocolate chip cookies, then I added snickerdoodle and mint. Now there is a bunch of milks, ice creams and vegan cookies.”

O’Brien says that they will spend one day mixing one type of cookie for the entire week, then they will scoop and freeze it for quick and easy baking. This continues throughout the week for all of the types of cookies. They are open nightly seven days a week.

“My whole life, I’ve only worked for private businesses, and I wanted to make my own schedule and be my own boss,” he says. “I just really like sleeping in and surfing, and I wanted to start a business that I could do all of that. So, here we are.”

cookiecruz.com. 419-1257.

Dilated Pupil 2018

Special Publications

GT Staff

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October 22, 2018

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The first time I met David Brissenden, I only knew him by reputation. And that reputation was the Man Who Had Gotten Me Way, Way Too High. So I think I said something like, “Hey man! You got me way, way too high!”

This was sometime last year, after I had eaten admittedly too much of a big, delicious chocolate made by Cosmo D’s Outrageous Edibles. About six hours later, while completely unable to figure out how to reach a glass of water sitting on a desk three feet away from me, I started to understand what was so outrageous about them. But surprisingly, when I ran into Brissenden, he took some of the blame, saying he was still experimenting with his recipes. His stories about the wild road that got him where he is today are strange and hilarious, and you’ll find a lot of them in Lauren Hepler’s interview with him.

Matt O’Brien, the UCSC alumnus who founded the brilliant late-night delivery service Cookie Cruz, has some out-there stories, too, which Georgia Johnson details in her profile. Also in this issue, Christina Waters explains why Cabrillo’s culinary programs are an aspiring chef’s best friend, and Maria Grusauskas explores the retro open road of Santa Cruz’s Westphalia rental fleet. All that, and more student guiding than you can fiat lux at in our student guide!

STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR

UCSC, Union Labor and the Rise of Santa Cruz Renters’ Rights

Local News

Lauren Hepler

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October 19, 2018

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UCSC, Union Labor and the Rise of Santa Cruz Renters’ Rights

On Thursday night at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, the sedate, all-wood decor cut a stark contrast to a blur of activity inside. Several dozen students, labor organizers and landlords buzzed around folding tables stacked with campaign buttons, renters’ rights guides and ever-present voter registration forms, stopping occasionally to pile paper plates with tamales, chips and salsa.

There were the community standbys, like the Homeless Garden Project, SEIU Local 521 and Food Not Bombs. There were also more niche groups: Landlords and Homeowners for Rent Control, Students United with Renters, the Santa Cruz Tenants Organizing Committee, and campaigners for both the $100 million Measure H county housing bond and the Measure M Santa Cruz rent control initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Evelyn Tapia, a 20-year-old sociology student at UCSC, had never been to a housing rally before. She’d secured on-campus housing as a transfer student but was attracted to the “No Place Like Home Event”—named for a new UCSC Center for Labor Studies survey and housing website—after witnessing the strain on Santa Cruz renters that reminded her of growing up in a crowded Salinas apartment with her family of five, often struggling to get by with wages from work in the local ag sector.

“I’ve lived around this. It’s just something that I’m really tired of seeing,” said Tapia, who has heard more recently about families doubling and tripling up to deal with rising costs, sometimes sleeping in closets. “I wanted to get resources that I could share with people.”

The event coincided with a planned Affordable Housing Week and was organized by the Santa Cruz County Housing Advocacy Network, a coalition of groups like the SEIU, Community Bridges, California Rural Legal Assistance and many others. It doubled as an illustration of a growing renters’ rights coalition in Santa Cruz, bringing together students and activists, labor unions, affordable housing developers and property owners potentially willing to risk future financial gains—many for what they say will be a fight well beyond election day to build new housing, preserve existing affordable units and add more legal protections for renters.

“There’s also campaigns going on across the state,” said Dean Preston, head of Bay Area-based renter advocacy group Tenants Together, including National City, Sacramento, El Cerrito and LA County. “We’re going to see a wave of these ordinances moving forward.”

RENTERS RALLY Attendees at an Oct. 18 "No Place Like Home" affordable housing event at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. — **RENTERS RALLY** Attendees at an Oct. 18 “No Place Like Home” affordable housing event at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

There will be a combined total of five city, county and state housing measures on the ballot for Santa Cruz voters on Nov. 6. In addition to Measures M and H, there are two state housing funding measures (Propositions 1 and 2) and a proposed expansion of the types of units cities may be able to regulate under local rent control programs (Proposition 10).

On a stage flanked by a banner with a black and white silhouette of the Monopoly man and the phrase “THIS IS A CRISIS/PICK A SIDE,” speakers on Thursday covered a wide range of factors contributing to a severe lack of area affordable housing: global trends toward buying up once-accessible units as investment vehicles; long-evaporated state and federal funding streams; the unique economics of Santa Cruz as both a vacation rental destination and a relatively small city home to a fast-growing university.

“Scholars compare the housing crisis to climate change,” said UCSC Sociology Professor Miriam Greenberg, who co-organized the “No Place Like Home” study. “There is no silver bullet.”

UCSC students like 21-year-old Los Angeles County native Jocelyne Alvarez, a senior studying sociology who worked on the “No Place Like Home” project since last spring, presented results of the multi-year survey. They included hundreds of people working in Santa Cruz. Among those surveyed, about 45 percent who worked in the city live in the city, they found. While 60 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent of income on rent, the survey also found that 48 percent of homeowners are similarly burdened by high mortgages. Researchers talked to city and county employees, as well as workers from Community Bridges and Salud Para la Gente. Two-thirds of respondents struggled to pay for basics like food or health care.

For Alvarez, the numbers are personal. To keep up with record-breaking rents in Santa Cruz—currently hovering around an average $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to online rental listing services like RentCafe—she augmented her summer research job with work as a home health aide six days a week, up to 12 hours a day, to pay her roughly $800 share for a three-bedroom apartment split with four other students near the Denny’s on Ocean Street.

“This is another home for me, and I want it to be a home for everyone,” says Alvarez, who changed her voter registration from LA to Santa Cruz in part to vote for Measure M.

SEIU member Cheryl Williams spoke about how even her stable job as a senior clerk for the county’s assessment appeals board hasn’t insulated her from rising costs. Though she’s lived in Santa Cruz since 1979, Williams said she’s had to move four times in the last two years. That includes a recent month-and-a-half in limbo staying with a friend, all her belongings in storage and her adult son with no place to go.

“Cost burden is a big damn deal in Santa Cruz. It has affected me greatly,” Williams said. “There’s trouble in paradise.”

Rent Control

Just as renter advocacy group have coalesced around rent control and new affordable housing funding measures, landlords, realtors, homeowners and, yes, some renters, have also united in recently formed rent control opposition groups led by Santa Cruz Together.

They frame the version of rent control proposed under Measure M as too extreme, since it allows for renters to move in specified family members unlike similar measures in other cities. Anti-rent control groups also contend that new “just cause” eviction protections modeled after those in Richmond and other cities would make it too difficult to remove problem tenants.

Still, campaign rhetoric at the event on Thursday about insidious real estate industry forces profiting off of high housing costs didn’t sit well with all attendees. One woman who said that she is is currently sleeping in a shed while seeking more permanent housing told speakers that, “I don’t think it’s fair to throw the realtors under the bus.”

housing crisis — **CHOOSING SIDES** A banner at the Oct. 18 “No Place Like Home” affordable housing event.

One landlord who spoke, Jack Jacobson, a board member of Community Bridges, said he supports Measure M after operating buildings in rent-controlled jurisdictions like West Hollywood without issue. He also has personal motivations.

“The most interesting people in Santa Cruz can’t live in Santa Cruz anymore,” he said, noting that many friends, especially artists, have been forced to move to cheaper cities.

Speakers discussed several potential political, social and economic models to add to local housing inventory and curb displacement of current residents. Aside from rent control, funding and stronger legal protections for renters, there was talk of more building on public land and whether UCSC might sign a memorandum in the mold of UC Davis, which in September committed to adding housing for all new students and employees in Yolo County.

For now, Diana Alfaro, a project manager with affordable housing developer MidPen Housing, said that capacity has already been far exceeded for the few new income-restricted units that have been built in recent years.

“We received 2,500 applications for 46 units,” Alfaro said of the most recent of the developer’s 13 projects in Santa Cruz County. “Things are not getting easier. They’re getting worse.”

Rosé of Pinot Noir from Wrights Station

Josie Cowden

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October 17, 2018

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If you love Rosé, you will be very happy with the Wrights Station Rosé of Pinot Noir 2017, a delicious pink libation that’s fit for a king’s table.

“We doubled our production this year,” says Carol (aka CJ) Martin, who’s in charge of promotions, events and sales at Wrights Station. “This Rosé is no simple sipper,” Martin says. “It’s primarily 777 clone—our most earthy Pinot—and is complex with its tri-fruit component followed by a little dust of the earth. Though not simple, it’s still soft and easy like Sunday morning … or afternoon!”

Martin says their 2016 Rosé of Pinot Noir was equally popular and sold out almost as fast as it hit the tasting room, so don’t expect the 2017 Rosé to linger around very long. With its strawberry, plum and peach notes, it comes with an abundance of flavor—and it’s reasonably priced at $30. Here’s hoping that Wrights Station owner and winemaker Dan Lokteff produces much more of this very drinkable Rosé of Pinot Noir.

Wrights Station, 24250 Loma Prieta Ave., Los Gatos, 408-560-9343. wrightsstation.com. Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday-Sunday.

An Evening of Wine & Roses

Pajaro Valley Health Trust is celebrating its 20th anniversary of putting on An Evening of Wine & Roses—raising funds for health promotion programs for Pajaro Valley residents. This year, around 20 wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains will be pouring their wines—accompanied by many tastes from area restaurants and brewers. The event is from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2 at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds’ Crosetti Hall. Tickets are $75.

Visit pvhealthtrust.org for more info.

Premier Cruz

If you love Cabernet Sauvignon, then head to House Family Vineyards in Saratoga for Premier Cruz, a very special dinner paired with Cabs from a dozen different wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Farm-to-table cuisine will be prepared by Rodney Baca, executive chef at House Family vineyards. The event is 6-9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3 and tickets are $140.

Visit the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association website at scmwa.com.

Love Your Local Band: Janet Croteau

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October 17, 2018

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Janet Croteau loves writing songs. She sees it as a form of therapy that is healing to both the people expressing themselves and those listening. She is currently in the process of becoming a licensed psychotherapist after all.

“I really feel like art is a great way to connect with the self and it’s super therapeutic. I think people hunger to be more real. Songwriting is such a cool way for the individual to self-express,” Croteau says. “It’s mesmerizing to hear somebody exposing the essence of who they are through a song.”

She’s been finding different ways to express herself for years (poetry, comedy, performance art) and discovered songwriting about six years ago. At first, she assumed it would be too hard for her, but once she attended a songwriting workshop at Esalen in Big Sur, the songs started flowing out of her by the second day. She’s since written more than 100 songs and just recently released her full-length album Wild Heart this past July.

“I really believe that everybody is an artist, and that songwriting isn’t some exclusive thing that you can only do if you play the guitar for 20 years,” Croteau says.
Her passion for getting people to experience songwriting is driving her new bi-monthly songwriting salon that is premiering at Michael’s on Main on Oct. 24. This particular show is called “Women Who (Folking) Rock,” and it showcases women songwriters who can write a mean song on their acoustic guitars. Every other month, the theme will change, though she’ll likely come back to this one again.

“Songwriting is a lost art form,” she says. “I think people are missing out on this incredible vehicle for self-expression that we have in our community.”

INFO: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, Michael’s on Main, 2591 S. Main St., Soquel. $10. 479-9777.

Opinion: October 17, 2018

Steve Palopoli

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October 17, 2018

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Before I get into this week’s issue, I want to acknowledge Hugh McCormick, who did a fantastic piece for us about the impending closure of the Second Story Peer Run Respite House (“The End of the Story,” GT, 9/12). You may not have noticed one detail briefly mentioned in our follow-up story last week: the private donors who came together to contribute enough money to pay off a state loan on the Aptos property and ensure the mental health facility will remain open specifically credited Hugh’s piece as the reason they did so. What I loved about that article was the way he laid out exactly what the human cost of the Second Story closure would have been, and clearly the donors felt the same way. It’s great news! Congratulations to the hard-working staff who support Second Story.

Also, I want to mention that we’re looking to satisfy your thirst for knowledge about the hows and whys of our county’s natural world. In a new collaboration with the Science Communication Program at UCSC, GT is inviting readers to submit science or environment questions for the program’s grad students to answer as a course assignment. We’ll publish their responses to the best questions. Send yours to me at st***@*******es.sc.

OK, now to the issue at hand. All I have to say about Wallace Baine’s cover story this week is it made a Jaron Lanier believer out of me. After hearing the title of his latest book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, I was skeptical. After all, a lot of people are telling us all to get off the internet, for a lot of reasons. I wondered if he had anything truly new or insightful to add. But as it turns out, he absolutely does. Give the story a read, and see if you agree.

STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Read the latest letters to the editor here.

Re: “Up in Smoke” (GT, Oct. 3):

I was just reading the e-cigarette article in the latest issue, and I had to come write immediately to ask how it’s possible that GT could publish such a biased piece? How could Hugh McCormick not even touch on the great numbers of teens who are addicted to e-cigs, and the egregious fruity-flavor marketing campaigns of the manufacturers? Well, he did touch on “scary stories about … grade schoolers getting hooked,” but in a brushing-off way. If Hugh wants to enlighten the public on their smoking cessation benefits, he needs to tell the whole story about e-cigs. Hugh just gave an endorsement of e-cigs, and now people can feel good about their vaping choices since they read about their safety and benefits in the Wellness section of the local free paper.

EHF
Santa Cruz

Open Streets, Closed Minds

Wouldn’t it be nice if our community was safe for biking, walking, and skateboarding every day instead of a few times a year?

Santa Cruz County ranked first for wrecks with cyclists involving injury or death in 2015, the latest rankings from the California Office of Traffic Safety. 

Considering these bicycle safety statistics, it’s disconcerting that Bike Santa Cruz County’s (BSCC) vision states, “Bicycling in Santa Cruz County is a safe, respected, convenient, and enjoyable form of transportation and recreation for people of all ages and abilities.”

Greenway acknowledges that our county is not yet safe for biking. We need to look beyond painting the street, giving helmets to children, and teaching bicycle safety, and focus on physically protecting bicyclists.

The City of Watsonville has adopted a Vision Zero goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy and equitable mobility for all. The City of Santa Cruz has considered Vision Zero but has yet to approve it.

While BSCC and Greenway both envision a climate-friendly community where more people choose bikes and public transit over cars, Greenway is advocating for more realistic, affordable, and meaningful solutions with the potential to help alleviate gridlock soon.

If we table the unfunded passenger rail idea, we could railbank the corridor, recycle the tracks, and build a greenway designed to separate faster and slower modes with money already allocated in Measure D. This wide, effective trail could become the backbone of a countywide bicycle and pedestrian network. Such a network combined with a modern, effective bus system would be a cost-effective, achievable transportation plan for our county.

Greenway was not at last Sunday’s Open Streets. We were again denied participation in this Bike Santa Cruz County (BSCC) event. The fact that BSCC, a nonprofit operating a program on public streets with grant funding from the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC), should pick and choose who should be allowed freedom of speech shows how RTC funding of local nonprofits is leading to censorship and watering down local bicycle advocacy efforts.

The RTC hopes to approve the Unified Corridor Study (UCS) deciding the fate of the rail corridor and steering county transportation options for decades on Dec 6. RTC Staff will likely recommend Scenario B (Passenger Rail) on Nov 15.

It’s no surprise that local advocacy groups with strong ties to the RTC and FORT are advocating in unison with the RTC. However, if we hope to address our near-constant traffic congestion and the fact that cyclists and pedestrians are dying on our streets, we need to ask the RTC to slow down and take the time to come up with sustainable, realistic solutions we can afford to implement and maintain over time.

Visit sccrtc.org to view the Unified Corridor Study and get information about the Oct. 15 and 16 UCS workshops and the next public meeting on Oct 18. Share your thoughts with the RTC at in**@****tc.com.

Gail McNulty | Executive Director for Santa Cruz County Greenway

PHOTO CONTEST WINNER

Submit to ph****@*******es.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.

GOOD IDEA

Santa Cruz County officials are preparing to host their second Broadband Service Forum, which will give residents a chance to ask about existing and upcoming services. Residents will get a brief overview of county efforts to expand broadband, and will also be able to meet representatives from at least six internet providers—AT&T, Comcast, Cruzio, Etheric Networks, Loma Broadband, Ridge Wireless and Surfnet. The forum will be at Aptos Junior High School on Oct. 18, 6-8 p.m.

GOOD WORK

A recent Smart Solutions to Homelessness workshop drafted new ways to communicate messages surrounding homelessness. Rather than thinking of homelessness as “unsolvable,” for instance, locals might instead focus on the need to fix known problems. Instead of saying “not in my backyard,” residents could say, “I am an ally.” Instead of focusing on scarcity of resources, they might celebrate the tools available, and instead of pinning fault on individuals, they might emphasize shared responsibility throughout the community. For more information, go to smartsolutionstohomelessness.com.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Looks like the victim was tweeting ‘More like the bland canyon’ and fell in.”
-Bob Vulfov

Matt de la Peña’s ‘Carmela’ Writes the Book on Watsonville—For Kids

Wallace Baine

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October 17, 2018

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Matt de la Peña’s ‘Carmela’ Writes the Book on Watsonville—For Kids

There is no explicit mention of Watsonville in Matt de la Peña’s new children’s picture book Carmela Full of Wishes. To most readers, the reference to “Freedom Boulevard” early on in the story of a young Latina girl’s birthday outing with her older brother may be merely a particularly on-the-nose socio-political metaphor.

But residents of Santa Cruz County know otherwise. Carmela is clearly a Watsonville story.

Celebrated children’s and young adult author de la Peña—who won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 2016 for his book Last Stop on Market Street—is not exactly a Watsonville guy. But he does have a direct connection: about a decade ago, his parents Al and Roni de la Peña moved there from their longtime home near San Diego. Roni has been working as a teacher at Starlight Elementary School ever since.

In fact, it was during a visit with his parents in Watsonville that de la Peña, the author of several award-winning picture books for pre-adolescent readers and novels for teens, got the idea for Carmela. “I was kinda new to picture books at the time,” he says. “And one time, I heard this little boy say to his teacher, ‘Hey Miss, look. The sky is full of wishes.’ He was pointing to the spores of a dandelion floating in the wind. From that day on, I’ve been trying to write this book.”

On Oct. 21, de la Peña and Robinson will again visit Watsonville to mark the book’s publication and celebrate Watsonville’s role in it. The free event, to take place at the Watsonville Veterans Memorial Building, begins at 4 p.m. and features a book signing, visual art and drama centered on the book, and a dinner. The event is sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Carmela Full of Wishes is about a young girl following her brother through the streets of Watsonville on his round of errands. With a dandelion in her hand, she is contemplating what her birthday wishes should be. One of them is to see her father once he gets his “papers fixed.” De la Peña, who is of mixed-race heritage, has made it his mission to write stories of families in what he calls “mixed-status” circumstances in which at least one family member is undocumented.

“This book is kinda about immigration,” he says. “But it’s also not about immigration. It’s about a brother and a sister. I like having picture books with layers.”

The book evokes Watsonville’s agricultural orientation—it may have more references to manure than any other picture book on the market—while also serving to depict the experiences of a child engaged in the daily life of the city.

“I definitely wanted the grit of the neighborhood to be there,” says de la Peña, who was born and raised in National City, a predominantly Latino community between San Diego and the Mexican border. “I grew up right next to this massive stretch of greenhouses and we would ride our bikes through them. One of the memories that sticks with me the most is the smell of manure. I knew where I was when I smelled that. That’s what home smelled like.”

Like many writers of color, de la Peña hopes to present Carmela to two audiences: “It’s really important for a Mexican-American girl to see herself as the hero of a story. But it’s equally powerful for other people to read about Carmela to have more empathy and understanding. The opportunity to see the world through someone else’s eyes is a great gift of literature.”

Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson will talk about their new book on Sunday, Oct. 21, 4 to 7 p.m., at the Watsonville Veterans Memorial Building, 215 E. Beach St., Watsonville, free. www.bookshopsantacruz.com.

Santa Cruz Ayurveda Explains Autumn’s Seasonal Body, Mind Shifts

Maria Grusauskas

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October 17, 2018

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Santa Cruz Ayurveda Explains Autumn’s Seasonal Body, Mind Shifts

Ah, fall, with its dry Indian summer days and golden light, and its basement of secrets. It’s the time of year, some say, when the veil between the living and dead is at its thinnest. Surely, it’s the season when the passage of time is felt most potently. And just when the sense of nostalgia and foreboding starts to darken the days’ edges, pumpkin spice everything emerges from its dormancy. As do viruses and bugs.

In Ayurvedic medicine, the autumn transition is a powerful time for adjustments to keep the body and mind healthy.

“Just like the cold and the hot in the air creates rainfall, the same thing is happening internally,” says Manish Chandra of Santa Cruz Ayurveda. “We have accumulated a lot of heat in the summer. Confronted with this cold front in the fall, the body creates mucus. We are nothing but nature, and our bodies are reflecting nature.”

Ah, mucus. A valuable component of the immune system, this fall secretion defends against viruses, which, like most evil things, are incubated by the cold. The gut is the body’s ultimate epicenter for immune defense, and in Ayurveda, the fall is a time to prepare the body’s digestive fire, or agni, to burn a bit hotter.

“We are preparing the body for the harsh winter,” says Chandra. “From eating salads and lighter cold foods at night, we are starting to cook warm, nourishing foods—root vegetables and grounding foods.” Accumulating some extra weight this time of year is considered an acceptable buffer by Ayurvedic standards, but it’s a cautious green light: no more than can be shed in spring.

Oleation, or massaging the skin with oil, is an Ayurvedic remedy and transdermal buffer against the dry air and wind, and Chandra recommends retiring cooling coconut oil for sesame oil, which is warming, in the fall and winter.

Ayurveda’s panchakarma—a 21-30-day detox that involves sweats, yoga, meditation, multiple-handed massages, enemas, and eating for one’s dosha—is traditionally set for fall and spring. It’s a total reset that Chandra, who will soon be enduring panchakarma in India, says can’t really be done in a few days. Chandra typically works with patients for at least six months in his Gut Healing Protocol program, which is customized to each individual’s doshic balance. But one of panchakarma’s primary intentions—to detox the body’s ama, or toxins built up in fat cells from undigested food—can be achieved through dietary shifts.

Warming foods, explains Chandra, refers to their post-digestive effect. Unlike summer’s watermelon, mint, cilantro and fennel, he says, spices like cumin, fenugreek, clove, mustard seeds, cinnamon, and ginger have a warming effect on agni. Could this explain mainstream America’s ravenous appetite for pumpkin spice everything?

While the long list of ingredients used in Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte includes, as of two years ago, actual pumpkin puree, it also includes about 49 grams of sugar—and the only real spices are those dashed on top. Chandra is not actually against sugar, but at such high doses, it’s downright harmful. We crave sugar because of stress, which depletes the doshic principle of vata, says Chandra. “And two, because we are not getting enough healthy fat. Fat burns like a log, and sugar burns like kindling,” says Chandra. Healthy fat, like ghee—“the best, if we are doing dairy”—curbs our cravings for more instant gratification.

One crisp morning after I speak with Chandra, I make his recipe for chai tea—a surefire stand-in for the sugar-laden grande to-go. Spilling across my friend Annica Rose’s kitchen counter, I measure half-teaspoons of fennel seed, black pepper, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, and a generous grate of fresh ginger and (improvised) nutmeg. After the pungent mixture simmers for 10 minutes, add black tea, nut milk (or milk of your choice) and a dab or five of raw honey. Strain and serve. Only after I pour the steaming liquid into two mugs does Annica open her cupboard to reveal a secret, along with a burst of contagious laughter, that anybody reading this far deserves: a jar of chai tea spices already mixed and ready to go from Staff of Life’s bulk bins.

For more information on Santa Cruz Ayurveda’s programs, massage offerings and cooking workshops, visit santacruzayurveda.com.

Ashby Confections: Yes, Virginia, There is Healthy Candy

Georgia Johnson

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October 17, 2018

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Ashby Confections: Yes, Virginia, There is Healthy Candy

The term “healthy candy” never fooled anyone, until Ashby Confections came along.

Jennifer Ashby began making chocolates and other confections over 10 years ago, and her superfood sour strips are a reason to go back for seconds and thirds in the name of health.

Ashby’s most recent additions to the superfood sour strip family are boysenberry, and wild sea buckthorn, a berry found in cold, harsh climates that tastes like a cross between orange and mango. She uses only five ingredients, with no artificial anything.

Last year, Ashby began sourcing some chocolate from Mutari for its truffles and other chocolate treats. Ashby also uses Bay Area-based Guittard organic chocolate. Ashby spoke to us about the latest developments.

Why sea buckthorn?

JENNIFER ASHBY: I was looking for organic sour cherries, because around here we don’t get sour cherries—we get black cherries and Rainiers and other types. Those don’t give a strong enough cherry flavor, and I was looking for strong flavors. I love experimenting with different fruits and trying new things, so I was so excited when I found this website that sells all kinds of wild and organic berries, and I saw wild seabuckthorn. I’d never tried it. They are an exotic superfruit, extremely high in vitamin C and omegas and loaded with antioxidants. It’s really cool to get this good stuff in your system in a way that’s delicious.

Any other new stuff?

We have the harvest cup made with Mutari dark chocolate shell and housemade marzipan and a piece of dried apricot. On top, there’s a dried cherry and pistachio. All of that is delicious. I always want to grab one for the drive home, they aren’t too sweet with the dried fruit, dark chocolate and marzipan. It’s the best. We also have more vegan stuff now, particularly more vegan truffles. We also have a blonde Kahlua coffee truffle, which is made with Mutari caramelized white chocolate—all organic, local and fresh. Kahlua, coffee, and caramel chocolate. What could be wrong with any of that?

In the last two years, we’ve also really developed brittles from my family recipe. My mom always told me she made the best peanut brittle, I grew up with her telling me that. I’ve tasted a lot of brittles, and have to admit, it’s really good. So I took her recipe and tweaked it. I use local beer or wine instead of water. The alcohol leaves behind the great flavor and robustness.

INFO: 16 Victor Square, Scotts Valley. ashbyconfections.com.

Q&A: Santa Cruz’s James Durbin on Moving to Nashville, New Album

Jacob Pierce

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October 16, 2018

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Q&A: Santa Cruz’s James Durbin on Moving to Nashville, New Album

James Durbin’s new release represents a clear departure from his image as the metal-loving singer who took American Idol by storm seven years ago. The album also strikes a different chord than the time he has spent with the hard rock group Quiet Riot, who made him their lead singer last year.

For Durbin’s mostly acoustic Homeland, which comes out Friday, Oct. 19, the Santa Cruz native laid down most of the instrumentation and all of the singing. Durbin, who recently moved with his family to Nashville, also wrote all of the songs except for the final track, a cover of “House of the Rising Sun.”

The first song is about learning to play guitar as a kid, the second is about your love for California and the third is about an awesome-sounding road trip. Were you feeling nostalgic at all when you wrote this album?

JAMES DURBIN: This is definitely the most nostalgic-feeling music I’ve written—not just lyrically and thematically, but the sounds I was going for, getting a few different violin players from Santa Cruz and Dale Ockerman on the keys. I wanted it to feel like you could put this on in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s.

Another theme is travel. Did you work on it while you were on the road?

A lot of these songs were written in the back of a van or the back of a tour bus or airports during six-hour layovers. They were also written during our move from Santa Cruz, my hometown, to Nashville. The song “Resist” was written right there on West Cliff—the last song I wrote in Santa Cruz. There’s a lot on there about going somewhere, where I don’t know if it’s right, but it feels right. It’s all for the adventure.

Does Nashville still feel right?

Some days. It’s a daily, monthly back-and-forth kind of thing. We definitely miss our friends and family—the familiarity. But at the same time, it’s nice to see different things and have different experiences. Santa Cruz will be there when we get back. That’s what we have to remind ourselves. In our absence, nothing’s really gonna change. We go back, and everything feels the same way. Maybe we’ve changed from it. The beach’ll still be there.

Lots of country vibes on the album. Did those bring you to Nashville, or did Nashville bring them out of you?

It’s a coincidence. I was going for more of an Eagles, John Mellencamp, stripped-down sound—the Eagles if it was just one guy. I was listening to a lot of Chris Stapleton, Eric Church, John Mayer’s Born and Raised album, Arctic Monkeys’ “A.M.,” the Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit. I just wanted to record within my means, and I love playing acoustic guitar.

Do you ever wonder what people who used to bully you think when they see you now?

I don’t really care. I never stop to think about what they would think, because I never did it because of them or in spite of them. They were just another obstacle. I try not to hold grudges, because I’ve met people from those days that changed. Most kids are dicks. That’s your free pass. Some people took it a little far, but I’m all for forgiveness—and I wasn’t the best kid, either. If I could meet myself as a kid, I’d have some choice words for myself, as well as those other guys. It made me who I am today. I hope everyone’s found success and that everyone can be happy. Everyone’s worth a beer and a pat on the back.

You’re a wrestling fan. WWE comes to you and asks if you have an idea for a new wrestling star played by you. What do you say?

There’s a wrestler named Darren Corbin, and online people have mistaken old pictures of me from Wrestlemania for him with his hair bleached. We ran into each other at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, and we were basically wearing the same thing. We took a selfie. It was creepy. My wife was like, ‘He looks like your brother.’ I don’t have a brother. So we would definitely have a tag team, Durbin and Corbin.

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