Last summer, Michelle McKay started doing pop-ups in Santa Cruz County. Her food, Dutch-Indonesian, is truly unique, and unlike anything else in the county.
She started off doing pop-ups on an occasional basis, but more recently has been ramping up, and now generally produces one a week. This week, she’ll be at PopUp at Assembly on Friday, Aug. 4 from 5:30-9 p.m., and at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music’s Church Street Fair in front of the Civic Auditorium on Aug 5-6 from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. What kind of food does she serve, exactly? We’ll let McKay explain.
What is Dutch-Indonesian food?
MICHELLE MCKAY: What happened in the 16th century is the Dutch colonized Indonesia for the spice trade. Before the Dutch came back from Indonesia, Dutch food was mostly meat and potatoes. More vegetables, little meat. When the Dutch colonists returned to the Netherlands, they brought back all these different spices from Indonesia. Indonesian dishes became more popular in Holland in the 20th century.
The pop-up is named after your mother?
Yes, but my dad did most of the cooking in my household. I think he would be happy that I named it after my mother. Both my parents were Dutch-Indonesian and lived in Indonesia until the end of World War II. They left as refugees with three kids to Holland, where they lived for many years, having three more kids. They landed in Ellis Island on Aug. 10, 1962, where they made America their new permanent home. Having two more kids, I was the baby of eight. Being so young when my dad got sick and retired is why I learned to cook the way I do. I remember sitting with him and watching him cook.
Where is a good place for the uninitiated to start with your menu?
The one thing that I definitely always serve is the satay, because it’s an Indonesian-style satay, which is a lot different than Thai satay. It contains sweet soy sauce, rather than being curry- or coconut-based. But it is served with peanut butter sauce the same way, and rice and a cucumber salad usually. Another dish that is very popular is the bami goreng. When I do these things, when you order it, I make it on the fly. The smells of the spices emanate everywhere. Rissoles are another big one. The rissoles are ground beef and green onions, rolled in a homemade crepe rather than deep fried. That’s a really popular one. Those are my three biggest sellers. At the same time, I’m doing things like the Dutch stamppot, which is potatoes and sausage mixed with vegetables. It’s kind of like a little of both. I’m also doing fusion, because something I’ve noticed is some people come to my booth and they’re like, “I don’t know what that is.”
What goes well with meat and zesty barbecue? The answer is Zinfandel. This spicy, jammy wine is a fine match with just about anything barbecued or grilled—and it’s also fabulous with pizza.
Thanks to the expertise of winemaker Michael Sones, it’s a sure thing that the full-throttle flavor of a good Zin will be captured in every bottle. Sones’ 2013 Zinfandel ($26) certainly garnered a lot of attention at the Dare to Pair Food & Wine Competition in April. It was voted best wine by the public and judges alike. And as one of the judges that day, I ranked this wine highly out of the bevy of excellent varietals we tasted. Students of the Cabrillo College culinary program go to great lengths to prepare dishes to pair with each wine in the competition, resulting in a fun and flavorful day at every participating winery in the Swift Street Courtyard complex.
Sones and his wife Lois Sones say that this classic Zinfandel is made from some of their favorite grapes—sourced from Central California—and resulting in briary cherry aromas and flavors, along with warm spices. All I can add is that this well-balanced and approachable Zin is the perfect libation to go with a plateful of good barbecue.
Sones Cellars, 334-B Ingalls St., Santa Cruz, 420-1552. sonescellars.com.
Art for Africa
Where would we be without the generosity of wineries, breweries and restaurants donating their wares to help people in need? Kobler Estate Winery in Healdsburg has donated much of the wine for an event to be held in Aptos on Saturday, Aug. 12 to raise funds for a research project to help women in Mansa, Africa get access to the health care that they need. Zameen Mediterranean Cuisine in Aptos (and now with a new location on 41st Avenue in Santa Cruz) has donated most of the food. Funds will be raised through a raffle of art from local artists, as well as health and wellness gift certificates. Local artist Sally Bookman will be painting a unique piece of art at the event, which will be the grand prize for a lucky winner. Visit AFnet.org/donations and go to Mansa Health Assessment, or for more info go to amyhanley.blogspot.com.
Free will astrology for the week of August 2, 2017
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I hope you’re making wise use of the surging fertility that has been coursing through you. Maybe you’ve been reinventing a long-term relationship that needed creative tinkering. Perhaps you have been hammering together an innovative business deal or generating new material for your artistic practice. It’s possible you have discovered how to express feelings and ideas that have been half-mute or inaccessible for a long time. If for some weird reason you are not yet having experiences like these, get to work! There’s still time to tap into the fecundity.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano defines “idiot memory” as the kind of remembrances that keep us attached to our old self-images, and trapped by them. “Lively memory,” on the other hand, is a feisty approach to our old stories. It impels us to graduate from who we used to be. “We are the sum of our efforts to change who we are,” writes Galeano. “Identity is no museum piece sitting stock-still in a display case.” Here’s another clue to your current assignment, Taurus, from psychotherapist Dick Olney: “The goal of a good therapist is to help someone wake up from the dream that they are their self-image.”
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Sometimes, Gemini, loving you is a sacred honor for me—equivalent to getting a poem on my birthday from the Dalai Lama. On other occasions, loving you is more like trying to lap up a delicious milkshake that has spilled on the sidewalk, or slow-dancing with a giant robot teddy bear that accidentally knocks me down when it suffers a glitch. I don’t take it personally when I encounter the more challenging sides of you, since you are always an interesting place to visit. But could you maybe show more mercy to the people in your life who are not just visitors? Remind your dear allies of the obvious secret—that you’re composed of several different selves, each of whom craves different thrills.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Liz, my girlfriend when I was young, went to extreme lengths to cultivate her physical attractiveness. “Beauty must suffer,” her mother had told her while growing up, and Liz heeded that advice. To make her long blonde hair as wavy as possible, for example, she wrapped strands of it around six empty metal cans before bed, applied a noxious spray, and then slept all night with a stinky, clanking mass of metal affixed to her head. While you may not do anything so literal, Cancerian, you do sometimes act as if suffering helps keep you strong and attractive—as if feeling hurt is a viable way to energize your quest for what you want. But if you’d like to transform that approach, the coming weeks will be a good time. Step One: Have a long, compassionate talk with your inner saboteur.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Each of us comes to know the truth in our own way, says astrologer Antero Alli. “For some it is wild and unfettered,” he writes. “For others it is like a cozy domesticated cat, while others find truth through their senses alone.” Whatever your usual style of knowing the truth might be, Leo, I suspect you’ll benefit from trying out a different method in the next two weeks. Here are some possibilities: trusting your most positive feelings; tuning in to the clues and cues your body provides; performing ceremonies in which you request the help of ancestral spirits; slipping into an altered state by laughing nonstop for five minutes.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Would you scoff if I said that you’ll soon be blessed with supernatural assistance? Would you smirk and roll your eyes if I advised you to find clues to your next big move by analyzing your irrational fantasies? Would you tell me to stop spouting nonsense if I hinted that a guardian angel is conspiring to blast a tunnel through the mountain you created out of a molehill? It’s OK if you ignore my predictions, Virgo. They’ll come true even if you’re a staunch realist who doesn’t believe in woo-woo, juju, or mojo.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): This is the Season of Enlightenment for you. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will achieve an ultimate state of divine grace. It’s not a guarantee that you’ll be freestyling in satori, samadhi, or nirvana. But one thing is certain: Life will conspire to bring you the excited joy that comes with deep insight into the nature of reality. If you decide to take advantage of the opportunity, please keep in mind these thoughts from designer Elissa Giles: “Enlightenment is not an asexual, dispassionate, head-in-the-clouds, nails-in-the-palms disappearance from the game of life. It’s a volcanic, kick-ass, erotic commitment to love in action, coupled with hard-headed practical grist.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Some zoos sell the urine of lions and tigers to gardeners who sprinkle it in their gardens. Apparently the stuff scares off wandering house cats that might be tempted to relieve themselves in vegetable patches. I nominate this scenario to be a provocative metaphor for you in the coming weeks. Might you tap into the power of your inner wild animal so as to protect your inner crops? Could you build up your warrior energy so as to prevent run-ins with pesky irritants? Can you call on helpful spirits to ensure that what’s growing in your life will continue to thrive?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The fates have conspired to make it right and proper for you to be influenced by Sagittarian author Mark Twain. There are five specific bits of his wisdom that will serve as benevolent tweaks to your attitude. I hope you will also aspire to express some of his expansive snappiness. Now here’s Twain: 1. “You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” 2. “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.” 3. “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” 4. “When in doubt, tell the truth.” 5. “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “My grandfather used to tell me that if you stir muddy water it will only get darker,” wrote I. G. Edmonds in his book Trickster Tales. “But if you let the muddy water stand still, the mud will settle and the water will become clearer,” he concluded. I hope this message reaches you in time, Capricorn. I hope you will then resist any temptation you might have to agitate, churn, spill wine into, wash your face in, drink, or splash around in the muddy water.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1985, Maurizio Cattelan quit his gig at a mortuary in Padua, Italy and resolved to make a living as an artist. He started creating furniture, and ultimately evolved into a sculptor who specialized in satirical work. In 1999 he produced a piece depicting the Pope being struck by a meteorite, which sold for $886,000 in 2001. If there were ever going to be a time when you could launch your personal version of his story, Aquarius, it would be in the next ten months. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should go barreling ahead with such a radical act of faith, however. Following your bliss rarely leads to instant success. It may take years. (16 in Cattelan’s case.) Are you willing to accept that?
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Tally up your physical aches, psychic bruises, and chronic worries. Take inventory of your troubling memories, half-repressed disappointments, and existential nausea. Do it, Pisces! Be strong. If you bravely examine and deeply feel the difficult feelings, then the cures for those feelings will magically begin streaming in your direction. You’ll see what you need to do to escape at least some of your suffering. So name your griefs and losses, my dear. Remember your near-misses and total fiascos. As your reward, you’ll be soothed and relieved and forgiven. A Great Healing will come.
Homework: When they say “Be yourself,” which self do they mean? Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com.
Monday, Aug. 7, is a lunar eclipse, full moon (15.25 degrees Leo) and the Leo/Sirius Festival. At lunar eclipses, something in our outer material world disappears, it’s work complete. Leo is always the heart of the matter. During the month of Leo, love streams forth from the blue star Sirius to the heart of the Sun and into all hearts on our planet. Everywhere, the golden lotus petals of the heart, 12 in all, begin to unfold.
It is in the heart where the inner and the outer worlds meet. Like the color green (Earth) blending with violet (the etheric), here the visible becomes the invisible. In the heart is the Life Thread (Sutratma). The heart is the anchoring point of electric fire, a point of Love, the “Jewel in the Lotus.” At this Festival, the New Group of World Servers makes contact with Sirian force from Sirius, the blue-white star where Love originates.
The great avatars, masonry, the hierarchy, and all evolutionary energies originate from Sirius, the brightest star in our heavens. Sirius streams through Regulus (the Lawmaker), the heart of the Lion. The Leo-Sirius connection is central to humanity’s spiritual evolution and the building of the new unifying world religion.
During the Sirius-Leo Cosmic Festival, the Soul light within us becomes aware of the Spiritual light emanating from Sirius. This great Sirian light offers humanity a direct pathway to the heart of God, and new opportunities to build the Aquarian culture and civilization. Jupiter is the heart lotus (unfolded chakra) unfolding within us the Love/Wisdom needed for the Aquarian Age. An open heart and mind, with intention, helps us make contact with Sirius. The heart of all that matters.
ARIES: There may be that tug-of-war in all interactions – with intimates, close family, partners and friends. A new creative cycle begins in all relationships. Love and equality will be needed by and for everyone. You can help this occur by offering freedom, the result of unconditional love. With children, freedom is offered through loving disciplines and intelligent structures. Like Montessori. A question for you to ask yourselfis,”How can I love more?”
TAURUS: It is time to begin a new cycle of planning, new structure and new goals concerning your health, daily work and interactions with co-workers. Each day, it seems there’s a change or emergency. Adaptation is needed. It’s important to know everyone is always in service. Articulate this so everyone understands. New skills will be developed as new opportunities come forth. Family resources need tending.
GEMINI: Jupiter in your house of creativity calls you to greater self-expression along with “being more of love than of everything,” all of which prepares everyone around you for the unexpected future. Mercury, your very own planet, retrogrades mid-August. You (everyone) will assume the qualities of Virgo, pondering upon things deeply, especially your communication. You must communicate creatively, with love and wisdom.
CANCER: You ponder upon home and family, partners and parents. You remember early childhood years and wonder if there was love enough for you to thrive. You consider what you are doing where you presently live and if you are to expand from there. You seek a more abundant foundation. You want to live, work and garden in a true community. You need a gate to walk through, a sense of leadership to lead with and rose bushes.
LEO: Do all of your environments need tending? Walk through the rooms of your home to see what care and upkeep they need. Be in touch with siblings, family and relatives, creating a deeper level of communication. If this week is your birthday, talk with your angels. They want to help you navigate the new times to come and direct you to the Raincloud of Knowable Things.
VIRGO: If you listen quietly to your heart and mind and observe carefully your daily life and values, you will realize much has changed over the years. You are different now. You no longer maintain previous values. Your values will eventually expand into greater, more mature and responsible levels of harmony toward all. You lovingly serve always. Step more closely to the Path of Return.
LIBRA: Something is occurring in the way you think and in your physical body. Perhaps it’s a health-discipline that will change the shape of your body. Perhaps it’s your self-image where you begin to value yourself and begin to understand your childhood and purpose within the family. Perhaps you’re forced to adopt newer disciplines to maintain a better quality of your life. Whatever is changing, it’s good and loving and purposeful. You are always forgiven.
SCORPIO: Something in your life is being gathered into a bountiful harvest. Perhaps the result of great sorrows or death, perhaps it’s from a realization of all you’ve done and all there is yet to do. Perhaps it’s a gathering of gifts offered to those in need. A great compassion is opening your heart. You realize life isn’t a movie or film. It’s real and you play the leading role. And this life determines your next one. A benevolent meditative thought.
SAGITTARIUS: You may soon find yourself going to and fro between old and new. Between previous hopes, wishes and dreams, and new ones. The latter will appear slowly. Some already have. You will also consider what goals, ambitions and views of the world are shifting. You realize you need a new group to work with, new people, creating a new future that better defines your new self. Balance, work with, and tend to finances.
CAPRICORN: In the public eye you are a rarity, a person of many gifts and talents. Sometimes you’re not quite fully understood. You bring both a special force and stability to all you do in the world. A new cycle, an expansion begins with your work and profession, and who you are in the world. There will be more responsibilities, praise, recognition, perhaps a promotion. Allow your intuition to come forth more and more.
AQUARIUS: There are many possibilities for Aquarians in the coming months based upon their states of awareness. Influenced by a new cycle of learning, possible teaching, long and adventurous journeys, and for some, the building of the new era community. For all Aquarians, a wider view of reality emerges and this propels you into new areas of work and a different daily life. One you hoped for.
PISCES: It’s good to begin to eliminate what is unnecessary in your life, especially what has not been used in the past many months. This will allow newer, finer energies and resources, infinite and abundant, more appropriate to the coming times, to be available. Be prepared for unexpected losses. But this has been occurring for a while now and you have become somewhat adaptable. Take Ignatia Amara (homeopath) for grief. Learn mudras.
The fitness industry, notoriously fickle and ever-changing, requires amphibian-like levels of versatility and adaptability in order to thrive. Christophe Bellito opened a gym in downtown Santa Cruz in 1997 under the name Frog Fitness. Two decades and one name change later, he and his wife Cecile now own a total of five Toadal Fitness locations around Santa Cruz County.
The first gym Bellito opened was actually a women’s club in Richmond, California. “It was a wonderful experience,” he says. “I worked a lot, six days and 80-90 hours per week, and slept on the floor. I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot.” But when his first child was born, he realized the value of his time and that he was tired of commuting, so he looked to open a gym locally. That is when his mentor and business partner Bill Rose pushed him to take over the space in Santa Cruz that would become the first Toadal Fitness.
“I opened more clubs because I didn’t want people to wait for equipment. It didn’t feel right,” says Bellito, whose most recent club opened in Scotts Valley in July of 2015. For him, it’s all about the user experience and the individual person. In fact, he says that one regret that he and his wife have about opening multiple clubs is that they can’t meet everybody personally. “We don’t see people as dollar signs, we see them as people with names and faces,” he says. “We like to learn about each person’s story, and learn from them.”
Bellito believes in the importance of a variety of user-friendly equipment and classes that cater to all levels. He is excited to be offering a new class called Toadal Loser (a play on NBC’s The Biggest Loser) that utilizes a group setting combined with nutrition training to turn intentions into actions. He believes that diet is very important—when people eat well, they feel good and exercise more. And the more they exercise, the better they eat and feel, and that this positive spiral is crucial to achieving optimal health and fitness.
When it comes to staying on the cutting edge of the fitness industry, Bellito again stresses an open mind and ear to member feedback. “That’s an advantage of being a small, local club. We can make changes and adapt to what each club’s members want.” Bellito says this flexibility in the constantly changing fitness landscape is one thing that sets them apart from larger corporate gyms, and that another is their individualized approach. Three free personal training sessions are offered to each new member so that he or she can meet people, learn how to use the equipment properly, and help get totally acclimated and comfortable.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
One trend Toadal Fitness is following is clients’ desire for shorter, more efficient workouts, and classes like Yoga, Zumba and Spin. A major trend that Bellito has seen recently is people using apps on their phones to guide their workouts and bring structure and plan to their exercise regimens. In terms of equipment and machines, he also sees the trend toward shorter, more intense workouts. He says one new machine that accomplishes this is called the TG6, an easy-to-use recumbent bike that also works the upper body. Treadmills, he says, are also making a comeback, and classes are as popular as ever, with his clubs collectively offering about 350 a week.
Another budding trend he’s seen is that people are starting to realize the value of variety. “People are more open to new things and how it’s good to keep the body guessing,” he says. “More people are utilizing cross-training and varying their workouts. You shouldn’t be doing the same thing for 20 years; not only do the muscles get bored, but you yourself get bored, as well.” And whereas in the past, 20-40 year olds made up most of the membership, Bellito says he has recently seen a surge in the number of older adults that are coming to the clubs.
Bellito emphasizes the importance of a warm and welcoming environment, and a feeling of communal familiarity that provides the backbone for the clubs’ ethos. “My favorite part is doing what I want, whenever I want, and having more time for my family and kids,” he says about owning Toadal Fitness. “Even when I go into the clubs, I’m still around family because of the members and staff, so I’m always around family. Ever since I opened the club, it feels like I haven’t worked a single day, because I’m doing something I love.”
You don’t have to be a slimy yellow hermaphroditic mollusk to take advantage of one of the finest features of UCSC—its natural beauty. UCSC’s campus covers a whopping 2,000 acres of hilly terrain, and there are miles and miles of hiking trails weaving in and out of the redwoods.
Why more non-slugs don’t visit the City on a Hill is a question that has confounded UCSC admissions officer Dianne Brumbach for almost a decade. “It’s like visiting a national park,” she says. “It’s an underutilized, underappreciated gem of natural beauty and amazing, sublime resources.”
For visitors to the university, finding paths and trails around campus isn’t hard. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful paths clearly visible to the general public, but in order to reach the good stuff—the crème de la crème of hikes on UCSC’s campus—you need to be in the know. In the interest of keeping things manageable, as there is seemingly no end to the trail possibilities, we’ll focus on two of the largest and coolest areas, the Pogonip and Upper Campus.
Explore, have fun, and watch out for the banana slugs—they’re slow and can’t get out of your way.
Pogonip
Probably best known to the general population among UCSC’s natural gifts is the splendid 640-acre natural reserve known as Pogonip. Both town and gown types have long used the eight miles of trails that weave through Pogonip’s ancient redwoods, oaken woodlands, grasslands, and prairies as an escape—a stress-free place for exercise, retreat and relaxation. The “nip’s” lush city greenbelt and mind-bending ocean views make it a prime hiking destination for the general public, but there are spots that are lesser-known to the public outside of Slugdom.
Getting to Pogonip from UCSC is a piece of cake since the park hugs the entire left half of UCSC. You’ll want to park your car and enter the park at Stevenson College, and then make your way to McLaughlin Drive. Follow McLaughlin Drive from Stevenson and the entry to Pogonip will be on your left. This is the Lime Kiln Trail, a path that, while not labeled, is pretty noticeable and clear from the road. It will lead you into Pogonip and eventually connect you to every major trail system in the park. Navigating the complicated system of paths and trails can be frustrating without a guide. Luckily, there is a pretty amazing online map of all of the trails in Pogonip—one that even includes miles and ranks the difficulty of each and every trail—at cityofsantacruz.com.
If you intend to spend a day in Pogonip, print out the map and then use the guide below to navigate the park and reach every secret spot.
Koi Pond
REFLECTING POOL The Koi Pond or ‘Buddha Pool’ is Pogonip. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
Much cooler than the one at Porter College, a natural spring feeds this small, peaceful koi pond where small fish dart in and out of the clear water under a canopy of trees. Colorful prayer flags that weave in and out of the majestic greenery signal that you have arrived at your destination. Also called “the Buddha Pool” or the “Spring Box,” there is a tranquility and holiness to this place that is impossible to ignore. Tufa rock, formed by calcium carbonate from the area’s limestone-rich rocks, lines the perimeter of the pond. Students and hikers use the koi pond as a place of meditation and introspection. It’s a relatively easy hike that is well worth it in the end. The fish here may look small, but they will grow larger—legend says they swim upstream and become dragons. It’s pretty easy to find this little piece of paradise, just a few minutes from campus. Enter the Lime Kiln Trail from McLaughlin Drive and walk until you see a trail on your right. The Spring Box Trail leads to the stream that flows into the Koi Pond, and inner peace. Twenty feet from the koi pond is another UCSC legend: the 1500-year-old tree. No one really knows the tree’s true age, but students have long stood at the foot of this ancient redwood, marveling at its twisted limbs and huge bulbous growths. It’s one of four old-growth redwoods living in Pogonip—spared the axe by loggers in the mid-1880s.
Lime Kilns
In the 1880s, Santa Cruz was lime central. Abandoned lime kilns and quarry sites are scattered throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains, especially in Pogonip and around the campus of UCSC. Ferns and mosses now shroud the walls of most of the kilns, and it takes a keen eye and an adventurous spirit to find them all. Reach the Lime Kilns by crossing McLaughlin Drive and entering Pogonip through the Lime Kiln Trail. Walk around a half-mile until you see a stone wall and wooden fence on your left. There is a haunting beauty here that is hard to describe, and really must be experienced firsthand.
Rock Garden
There is a special place near the Lime Kilns where students make “birdies”—impossible little rock stacks—and sculptures. This is a secret and revered site, where scores of carefully executed rock formations are placed among towering trees and ferns and moss-covered cliffs. Art and craft are respected here, and students and visitors are encouraged to add their own rock masterpiece, without disturbing other people’s creations. To reach the Rock Garden from the Lime Kilns, leave the trail and walk toward the mountain. With a little sleuthing, you should find what you’re looking for.
Big Rock Hole
It’s a legend, a mystery, and a state of mind. It’s fake! Big Rock Hole, also known as the “Student Garden of Eden” or the “Fake Garden of Eden,” is a famous swimming hole on the San Lorenzo River. Surrounded by stunning redwood panoramas, it’s extremely popular with the UCSC crowd, who often confuse it with the real Garden of Eden spot further down the river. This locale is all about recreation—a slightly scary rope swing tied to a large tree provides the necessary equipment for a fun day of cannonballs and flips. On hot days and weekends, the trail to Big Rock Hole gets crowded with adventure-seeking Slugs in need of escape and a place to cool off. If there are too many partying college hooligans for you, walk a ways down the river and claim a quieter spot of your own. To reach UCSC’s top-secret recreation destination, park around Stevenson College, cross McLaughlin Drive and enter Pogonip through the Lime Kiln Trail. On a hot day, the whoops and hollers of students will guide you to Big Rock Hole, but just to be safe, print a map to guide you on your journey. (This hike will take a while, so wear your walking shoes and bring water and caloric fuel.) After a short jaunt down the Lime Kiln Trail, you’ll see the Rincon Trail tailing left. Take it, then veer left onto the Rincon Connector Trail. Follow that to the Rincon Fire Road, a trail that meanders downhill through the redwood forest. Once you reach the bottom of the hill, walk past the signs (no lifeguard on duty) and down a relatively steep sandy path to the riverbank. Keep your eyes out for the unassuming path on the other side of the river. When you see a fallen tree, step across the rocks or wade over to the opposite bank and follow a narrow, sandy footpath. Soon, you’ll enter a glorious meadow and encounter a sand-lined section of the river. You’ve done it! Through the branches of trees, Big Rock Hole should be visible.
Other Pogonip trails of note:
Brayshaw Trail (0.5 mi.), Moderate, unpaved service road with steep climb near Spring Trail. Fern Trail (0.8 mi.), Moderate to difficult, trail not improved or well-marked in vicinity of Redwood Creek.
Lime Kiln Trail (0.3 mi.), Easy to moderate.
Lower Meadow, (0.4 mi.)
Easy Ohlone Trail (0.3 mi.), Moderate, some steep climbs.
Prairie Trail (0.3 mi.)
Easy Rincon Trail (0.7 mi.) Moderate, unpaved service road, hiking only between Coolidge Drive and U-Con Trail.
Spring Trail (1.6 mi.), Easy, unpaved service road Spring Box Trail.
Upper Campus
At the top of UCSC’s campus—and on the top of most students’ lists of favorite hiking and chill-out spots—is Upper Campus, also known as North Campus. It’s a beautiful place complete with rolling meadows, vibrant and fragrant chaparral, fern-filled gullies, and ancient redwoods. Funky places like the Cat Shrine, the Buddha Hut, and the Graffiti Tanks make incredible hiking destinations, and worthy additions to any Slug Hike bucket list.
Getting to Upper Campus is pretty basic—park at College 9, College 10, or Crown and walk north, away from the buildings and toward the forest. West Road, Fuel Break Road, and Red Hill Road are probably the easiest entry points, but walk a while anywhere in Upper Campus and you’re sure to find yourself back on a main path or road eventually. Navigating it is difficult without a map, but if you print one, you should be able to find your way through the network of trails and roads and have a great time.
Buddha Hut
Definitely one of the coolest and most spellbinding parts of Upper Campus, the Buddha Hut, or Buddha Pit, has been captivating wandering Slugs for many years. An incredible series of structures, the Buddha Hut is actually a giant fort built with thousands of intertwined manzanita trees, sticks, and branches. Hard to find, but completely recognizable once you happen upon it, the Buddha Hut is a go-to destination for those seeking a peaceful place to meditate, ruminate, or peacefully congregate. Dreamcatchers, Buddha statues, trinkets, and ornaments are woven in and out of the branches and sit in the corners of individual “rooms.” The serene oasis in the woods is respected and revered by UCSC students and other visitors who visit and revisit the “Hut” for spiritual enrichment and inner peace. No one takes the valuable Buddhas that are left behind for other seekers. Leaving an “offering” of good heart is an unwritten law of the Buddha Hut, and one of the coolest parts of visiting this Upper Campus gem is seeing the gifts others have left behind. It’s hard to find—some students spend days looking for the Buddha Hut and never find it. Take Fuel Break Road behind College 9 and 10, and when the trail widens, follow a small trail to your right. With a bit of exploring, and some luck you’ll come across it.
Graffiti Tanks
Rogue UCSC art students have long used the gigantic abandoned water and fuel tanks that dot Upper Campus to create Banksy-esque masterworks. These aren’t random tag signs and rushed monochrome scrawls. Painted and repainted, the water and fuel tanks that line Fuel Break Road have become artistic showcases, and go-to destinations for street and guerilla art enthusiasts. To reach the series of Graffiti Tanks in Upper Campus, follow Fuel Break Road from the top of Merrill and Crown colleges.
Cat’s Cradle and Caer Ellillon
Freaky. Dark. Mysterious. Haunted? The series of sacred circles that lies deep within the dense forest of Upper Campus has long captivated, enthralled, and scared the bejeebers out of hiking UCSC students. The carefully orchestrated ritual sites and pet cemetery to the north of campus are actually products of a small Wiccan coven that called UCSC home more than 25 years ago. Since then, the legend of the “weirdness in the woods” has grown steadily, and generations of wandering Slugs have given the funky, creepy, circular redwood rings many names: Cat’s Cradle, the Cat Shrine, the Pagan Circle, Caer Ellillon, the Cat Graveyard … But each meticulously planned site has a real name, says Dany, who, as a key member of Coven Coil Sidhe (Elven Wood), helped create the Wiccan wonderland we see today. Dany and her coven built two distinct sacred areas in Upper Campus: Caer Ellillon and Cat’s Cradle. Because they are relatively close together and follow the same circular pattern, she says that there’s a common misconception that they are one and the same.
Cat’s Cradle began as a simple burial site for Dany’s cat Andy, and quickly blossomed into a full-on pet cemetery. Walls of intertwined redwood branches create two connected circles, which overlap and create the two distinct areas of the Cradle. In the middle of the smaller circle is a waterproof box containing a journal and art supplies. Visitors are encouraged to share their thoughts, memories, pictures, and prayers; over the years, seven complete volumes have been filled with amazing artwork and heartwarming/breaking stories. The keepers of Cat’s Cradle save every journal and eventually intend to make PDFs and put them online for posterity.
Steps from Cat’s Cradle stands Caer Ellillon, a ritual circle built by Coven Coil Sidhe more than two decades ago. The perfect circle stands alone, in a clearing bordered by a thick wall of fallen redwood branches, under an odd, seemingly out-of-place totem pole. For the sacred circle’s creators, Caer Ellillon was a place of seriousness, wisdom, and magic. It was also a sanctuary. The carefully placed redwood walls held the coven’s secrets and sheltered it from the outside world. “Caer” literally means stronghold or fortress in Old Welsh, and that’s exactly what the founders created in the Upper Campus of UCSC. Four stumps serve as altars in the cardinal directions and the circle holds just as much power now as it did back when it was created.
To get to Caer Ellillon and Cat’s Cradle, enter Chinquapin Road at the access point to Upper Campus near the top of Crown College and Merrill College. After a moderate hike on Chinquapin Road, you should be able to see Cat’s Cradle from the trail, on your right.
When they’re young, kittens romp around until they collapse into a sleepy ball of fur. They pounce with boundless curiosity at every toy, paper bag and hand within a paw’s reach. They seek cuddly companionship with nearby people friends.
Then they grow into adults, and can still be cute, but such a pet’s newfound independence and growing aloofness may feel bittersweet to its human kin, begging the question: How might a kitten lover keep young cats in their lives—without ever worrying about them growing up?
Kay and Dana Mackenzie think they have found the answer, and it lies in fostering kittens, which allows the couple to play with baby cats, while doing some important animal welfare work along the way.
The Mackenzies volunteer at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, and over the course of the eight years that they’ve spent fostering kittens until they’re ready for adoption, the Mackenzies have seen a steady flow of youngins—155 so far—come through their home.
The vast majority of pets in need of fostering are puppies and kittens. “They only need a two-to-three-week stay, sometimes a month or two, to become adult enough that we can vaccinate them and spay or neuter them,” says Jen Walker, programs and development manager for the shelter.
The shelter also organizes home visits, which can be anything from an overnight to a three-week stint, to learn how each animal interacts with others. The visits provide valuable information in matching a pet with the appropriate new home.
Working with a team, Kay Mackenzie has created a goals sheet focusing on health and behavioral outcomes for the fostering period. Each new foster volunteer gets as much support as they need, she says.
During kitten season (running from late spring through the summer), the Mackenzies and volunteers like them help the shelter by taking the tiny kittens into their homes until they are old enough to get adopted out. The Mackenzie’s Finishing School, which she and husband Dana created, operates just as a boarding or finishing school for humans operates: It prepares them for their next stage in life. “It helps socialize the kittens by getting them familiar with living in a house—the sound of a dishwasher, touch of a hand, movement of a broom,” she explains. Their goal, Mackenzie says, is to “get them relaxed, feeling comfortable, social and purring.”
Mackenzie, who has earned the nickname “the Kitten Flipper,” says one benefit to fostering is that volunteers get the cats when they are the cutest. Some people ask her how she doesn’t hold on to all of the kittens forever and ever. She does have one male cat, a graduate of the finishing school, that she has adopted. For her, letting them go is easy, she says. “It’s so they can make room for the next batch that is in need,” she says. “It’s my favorite thing to do. I enjoy the kittens so much, and it makes me feel like I’m really making a difference in the lives of animals.”
The shelter also has adult pets who, for varying reasons, need foster care. For example, some animals have special needs, and a home is usually much less stressful than a noisy shelter, where their recovery would be slower, Walker says. The shelter provides all needed medicine. “A home environment allows their immune system to kick in. All support is provided by the shelter,” Walker says.
Santa Cruz Animal Shelter is an open-admission shelter, so no creature—whether domestic, exotic or farm animal—ever gets turned away. The shelter is even a temporary home to two friendly pot-belly pigs named Suzie Q and Shirley, as well as a flock of chickens in the property’s barn.
Walker credits the close to 400 volunteers with keeping the shelter thriving. The outreach and education is funded by grants and donations, and local tax dollars take care of the basic operating costs.
Volunteers photograph pets, help care for them, and manage the property’s landscaping—in addition to fostering. One volunteer put herself through a paid apprenticeship to learn how to groom the pets that come into the shelter. “Without our community support we wouldn’t be able to offer the astounding level of care we do. We could cover the basics and make sure everyone is comfortable, but a lot of these animals are coming out of situations that are much worse than the shelter environment, and we see them blossom,” Walker says.
“Everybody here is crazy about animals,” Mackenzie says.
Eight years ago, Pearl Grey, who has a grey and white coat, was one of the kittens the Mackenzies fostered during their first year. She has recently returned to the shelter as an adult after her adoptive parent passed away. Kay Mackenzie says she remembers her as a kitten for her spunk and feistiness. Pearl Grey is up for adoption. Her adoption fees, like many of the older cats, are sponsored by Shelly’s Angels, an organization that covers the cost of adoption for older cats.
“I’ve really always been fond of senior cats,” Walker says. “People often overlook them because their eyes are glazed over by the kittens. We’ve had adult cats stay here four, five, six months.”
Ounce of Prevention
About 75 percent of the approximately 5,000 animals that come to the shelter annually are strays. “We are finally seeing the numbers come down in a consistent manner due to a very aggressive spay-and-neuter program,” Walker says. Santa Cruz County was the first county in California to pass a mandatory spay-and-neuter ordinance for all pets. But Walker says that many middle- and low-income pet owners couldn’t afford to do the right thing, which is why the shelter started a new program to help out.
Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter’s Planned Pethood Program makes it affordable for people of all income levels to get their pets spayed or neutered, vaccinated and even outfitted with microchips. “Planned Pethood is good for the animal. It keeps them healthier so they can live longer lives and gets them vaccinated,” Walker says. “It’s good for the household because you don’t have cats spraying and dogs wandering, and it’s good for the community because we are bringing down the overpopulation problem.”
It is especially hard to get older cats adopted during kitten season, from May to September, Walker says. Sometimes they see up to a dozen per day come through the doors, often brought in as strays.
Appropriately named, queen cats can produce two to three litters per year, with between two and eight kittens per litter. By the time she’s having her third litter, the babies from her first litter are often producing. One unfixed queen and her babies can produce around 40 kittens in a year. Walker says that’s why it’s so important to get queens spayed before they become four to six months old and they start going into heat.
“Getting pets adopted is fabulous,” Walker says. “It’s the joy of our work, but it’s reactive. It’s not proactive. So, we know what the problem is. We also know what the solution is and that’s educating the public about spay/neuter and getting them involved in making sure their pets are fixed.”
For information about how to adopt, volunteer or get involved with fostering, visit scanimalshelter.org/foster.
Disc jockey Jeff Juliano is leaning into the desktop computer before him. His eyes wander from the monitor screen as he listens carefully and laughs.
It’s a morning in late July, and Juliano—better known by his KPIG handle “Ralph Anybody”—is playing a fake commercial over the airwaves. The uproarious segment is an announcement from a hot dog company about the secret ingredients in their sausages.
It ain’t pretty.
“Piglets, cow hooves—you wish!” the fake sausage CEO says in the recording, one of Juliano’s favorites. “If you knew the kinds of crap we put into hot dogs, you’d puke your guts out. You’d be begging for rat parts! Let me put it this way. Does the word ‘anus’ mean anything to you? Go on, look at the end of a hot dog sometime. See how they pucker? Both ends! All-natural casing, my eye!”
It’s dark humor, sure, but Juliano can’t help shaking his head and grinning. As the segment continues, Juliano waves his forefinger—almost playing the part of a choir conductor—and hangs on every word, savoring this, as if he won’t hear the parody commercial for another year. Because he probably won’t. Juliano—who’s celebrating 25 years at KPIG, with ajubilee this Saturday at Kuumbwa Jazz—notes that the bit mentions the month of July. He refuses to play it any other time of year.
“Every July, I get to play it a few times,” Juliano, a former comedian, says, smiling.
He’s sitting in the studio, affectionately known as “the Sty,” wearing black shorts and a navy blue t-shirt, with two pens in his breast pocket, and his flip-flops kicked off.
Although he hasn’t done stand-up in several years, comedic sensibilities run through much of his work at KPIG, where he serves as music director and “production wizard,” as well as the morning DJ. Within KPIG’s rock and alternative country format, Juliano plays a wide range of little-known funny tunes. That field includes everything from “Sixty Minute Man”—a 1960s doo-wop song about a lover revered for his stamina—to the Austin Lounge Lizards’ “Little Minivan,” a Beach Boys-esque homage to car songs from the perspective of a dad who never bought the sports car of his dreams, but is doing his darndest to make the most of his path.
Juliano also airs old comedy routines. And more than a decade ago, he introduced a now-well-known segment called “Here’s What Longtime Listeners are Saying About KPIG.” Each snippet features an insult-filled sound bite, usually an old movie clip. KPIG is essentially the butt of each joke.
Many diehard fans, aka “Piggies,” still remember legendary KPIG cofounder Laura Ellen Hopper, who died 10 years ago this past May, as the all-time voice of the station, which first popularized the genre of “Americana” music. In recent years, Juliano has embodied that quintessential KPIG style as well as any other DJ—his sets are eclectic, often irreverent, sometimes beautifully moving and always surprising, as he keeps listeners guessing about what’s next.
His voice—in the tenor range, heavy in the bass—plays often on the station, even when he isn’t in the studio himself.
Before and after his morning slot begins, Juliano records the station’s commercials for companies like the Healthy Way, a local dieting business that he swears by, as it helped him lose 100 pounds. He’s since gained some of that weight back, because of medications he took for anxiety and depression—a strange irony, he says, given that weight gain can cause anxiety and depression. (He’s excited to be losing the weight all over again.)
“I’m bipolar, OCD, ADD—I have all the fun disorders. I think all of those together help me do this as well as I do,” he says pointing back to the computer monitor. “Being OCD is very helpful.”
Watching Juliano work leaves little question that he’s a meticulous perfectionist.
Even though he insists he will never be a morning person, he wakes up every morning at 2:30 a.m. to get to studio at 4, two hours before he goes on air. That allows him to get a head start on commercial production and ensures he’ll never be late getting on the air.
By the time I show up to meet him at 9 a.m., he’s in the middle of his daily “Make the Connection” listener-call-in game, and he already has all the songs picked out for rest of the show, which wraps up at 10 a.m. At around 9:45, he starts working diligently on a segue between two songs—Griffin House’s “Yesterday Lies” and Mick Jagger’s “Wandering Spirit.”
When the moment comes, he turns up the dial to hear whether or not the transition works. “Plus,” he says. “I want to see: Is it as good as I think it’s going to be? Yes, it is.”
Ralph Anybody’s KPIG 25th Anniversary Extravaganza will be at Kuumbwa Jazz on Saturday, Aug. 5 at 7:30 p.m., with Sherry Austin headlining. Juliano will MC the event and sing. Tickets are $25-$40.
It wasn’t that long ago that when you’d ask French electronic musician Chloé Herry, aka CloZee, to describe her music, she’d say “glitch-hop,” referring to a mashing together of hip-hop and glitch music. Those days are passed, as is immediately obvious upon listening to her EP Harmony, released earlier this year. Glitch and hip-hop barely register. In their place is a blend of bass and world music, simultaneously spiritual, hypnotic and cutting edge.
“It’s becoming very hard to define the music of an artist in only one genre now. Mine oscillates between trip-hop, tribal trap, dubstep, future bass, and downtempo,” Herry says. “So when people are asking me, I just call it ‘world bass.’”
Her current interest in finding the lines where bass and world music overlap is a much more natural space for her. Herry’s first instrument was the guitar, which she picked up at age 11. As a kid, she would listen to music from all over the world. Her tracks are about 50/50 in terms of computers and live instrumentation, but it’s hard to determine where one ends and the other begins.
“I couldn’t stop listening to flamenco, gypsy jazz, so I started to play the guitar,” Herry says of her childhood. “World music is the kind of music that makes me vibrate the most. When I listen to it, I’m transported.”
Years later, she developed the same fervor for electronic music, and would go down YouTube rabbit holes of artists she discovered, like Bonobo, Amon Tobin and Eskmo. These artists weren’t the standard EDM big house producers that pressed play on their laptops. They used an array of instruments, and created dynamics within the electronic space. (“Real instruments are what makes the music more vibrant and colorful.”)
She recorded her Harmony EP after coming home from her summer 2016 tour, during which she played festivals in multiple countries, including Japan. Herry has always gotten inspiration for her music from a multitude of sources. Her 2015 record Revolution was inspired by a dream, and her song “Collapsed Purity” by a dancer named Mansour.
The festival vibe spoke to her on Harmony, especially the diversity of music. She wanted to create a “harmonious musical story with all kinds of sounds and elements.” She also drew from the sounds of nature. In some cases, she inserted ambient sounds from the natural world into the songs. “It gives the listener an atmosphere and an idea of where I want them to travel through: next to a river, on the beach, in a forest,” Herry says.
The festivals were particularly inspiring for her because in France, she felt like she didn’t have room to fit on. The festival scene is huge, but focuses on trance and techno music, and books mostly famous names, not emerging artists.
In the U.S., there’s a lot more interest in bass music, as well as an open-mindedness to experimental artists that whip our guitars and violins alongside their bass-thumping laptops. However, unlike when she plays locally, and is able to bring instruments and other musicians along to add live instrumentation, for this coming U.S. tour she’ll be only bringing her computer.
“I don’t have enough hands to carry everything, so I’m only with the machines,” she says. “I’d like to bring more soon though.”
Herry has already had the opportunity to collaborate with a bunch of different artists. There’s one artist, Scarfinger, also from France, with whom she has an ongoing project called CloZinger. He’s an MPC (Music Production Controller) master and brings an element of hip-hop and electro-soul to the music. Folks in the U.S. could get a glimpse of this project very soon.
“We will be working on that project when I’m back in France with the idea to bring a live show in America. It’s very exciting.”
INFO: 8:30 p.m., Aug. 9, Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way. Santa Cruz. $15/adv, $20/door. 479-1854.
One of my favorite summer day trips has always been to drive south for about an hour, turn left where the lazy Carmel Valley begins to thread its way through those steep coast ranges, and inhale the radiant California countryside. If you need an excuse to wend your way southward, read on!
The splendid Pinot Noirs from Windy Oaks Estate have a way of lingering long in my memory. It was love at first sip the day I visited the estate vineyards in Corralitos and realized that winemaker Jim Schultze knew his way around the graceful style of Burgundy. For the past 20 years Schultze has transformed his hillside estate grapes into nuanced examples of Santa Cruz Mountains terroir. Current releases include at least half a dozen Pinot Noirs, each one distinctive and accessible. In addition to the estate tasting room—perched on a spectacularly beautiful hillside—Jim and Judy Schultze opened a tasting room in oh-so-charming Carmel-by-the-Sea a few years ago. But that just wasn’t enough. And in the spirit of oenological generosity, Windy Oaks has just unveiled its newest tasting room in Carmel Valley Village. Surrounded by gorgeous coastal foothills, terrific restaurants, and major celebrity vibes, the new tasting room offers pours of the splendid estate Pinot Noirs as well as other varietals from Monterey County appellations. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the new Windy Oaks Tasting Room is located at 19 East Carmel Valley Road (formerly occupied by Joyce Vineyards). 298-7083. Grand opening Sunday, Aug. 27—check windyoaksestate.com for details.
Al Fresco Aptos
The Saturday, Aug. 5, the Community Bridges Farm to Fork Gala Dinner gives us a chance to swill live music and enjoy a freshly created multi-course dinner with beer from World Beer Cup winner Discretion Brewing and award-winning wines from Beauregard Vineyards. Enjoy a long evening of midsummer pleasures in support of the many worthy causes engaged by Community Bridges. This summer is the philanthropic program’s 40th anniversary, marking four decades of support for 10 programs that collectively serve 22,000 children, families and seniors in Santa Cruz County each year. But not all community causes are this delicious. For the special evening, ace caterer Marina Carmalinghi’s menuincludes: appetizers of skewered spicy prawns, baked brie in puff pastry, and tomato, mozzarella, kalamata skewers.
Entrees of heirloom tomato, burrata and basil, or lemon thyme chicken with artichokes, or grilled salmon with pineapple salsa. The dinner wraps up with chocolate Kahlua cakes with fresh California Giant Berry Farms berries and cream. Tickets are $125 per person, $750 for a table of six, or $1,200 for a VIP table of eight. Tickets and event details are available online at eventbrite.com. Aug. 5 from 5:30-10 p.m. at Aptos Village Park (100 Aptos Creek Road, Aptos).
