With a smile, Suna Lock remembers the first time she went to a meeting for the Downtown Streets Team in San Jose, nearly a year ago.
Theprogram, which provides work to homeless people, filled the whole room with positivity and cheer, as staffers used yoga exercises and stretching to keep people engaged, says Lock, board president for the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz (DTA) and owner of the store Stripe.
The Downtown Streets Team pays stipends for groceries and other basic needs to team members on their cleaning crews, which pick up trash from the streets, sidewalks and parks of Silicon Valley.
“It’s extraordinary, really,” Lock says.
They just needed someone to bring it over the hill.
Since then, Chip, the no-last-name executive director of the DTA, has led the charge to create a streets team chapter in Santa Cruz, one he hopes will kick off in July.
After searching for someone to spearhead the effort, Chip decided to take a crack at it himself. He came up with a goal to try to raise $48,000 by his 48th birthday, which falls on Sunday, Feb. 19, and he’sholding a fundraising concert at Motion Pacific on the 18th, with tickets going for $25.
“It’s always easy to say ‘They should do this.’ And then there’s this realization that we’re ‘they.’ I really believe in this program. I think it’s going to be successful in Santa Cruz. I could have asked the City Council to do it, but if we start it ourselves, they will follow us. I have friends. I’m about to turn 48, I can exploit that,” says Chip—who honestly doesn’t look a day over 46—explaining his fundraising efforts and thought process.
Sunday’s benefit show will feature music from Keith Greeninger, playing with his old Americana group City Folk, and Tammi Brown.
The Downtown Streets Team began in Palo Alto 12 years ago before spreading to half a dozen other communities around the Bay Area. The organization’s website says its goal is to end homelessness “through the dignity of work.”
Chip says the campaign has raised around $40,000 so far, and he’s optimistic they’ll raise the remaining $8,000 by Sunday. To fill out the budget, he’ll ask local governments for the rest of the funding this spring.
If the chapter gets off the ground, it could possibly bring cleaning crews to areas all over town, including to the beaches and river levee. The group strikes a balance, Lock says, between structure and flexibility, offering a number of classes and services to help crew members in need.
“It’s brilliant because it’s remarkably simple in how it’s put together,” she says. “The part of it that’s so exciting is that they give people job interview techniques. And they partner with Goodwill to provide clothes that people can use.”
The Downtown Street Team fundraiser is at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18 at Motion Pacific. Tickets are $25. For more information, visit justchip.com. To donate or learn more about the Downtown Streets Team, visit streetsteam.org.
Lately, many friends, family members, co-workers, strangers on the street—even my therapist—have expressed a certain weighted despair hanging over their outlook. There is an anxiety tattering the nerves of the nation, refueled by each day’s fever pitch of headlines.
Many of these same friends have also admitted that they wish they meditated more—that they mean to, that maybe they even have a reminder set in their phone, but somehow the habit fails to stick.
Indeed, there is something daunting about pursuing a thoughtless calm within the mind’s torrent of chatter—a task that journalist and former meditation cynic Dan Harris likens to “holding a live fish in your hand.” The most common excuse, though, is simply that life is busy. Setting aside a chunk of minutesto do nothing is all too easy to deprioritize.
But the outer chaos of today’s world has aligned with meditation’s extensive list of physiological benefits—which includes salutary effects on depression, addiction, stress, the immune system and worry—in such a way that makes the ancient practice seem as important as eating vegetables and drinking water.
Two years ago, modern science turned up one of its most profound findings: meditation actually changes the structure of our brains. Using MRIs, a Harvard study found that subjects meditating for eight weeks (approximately 30 minutes a day) had thicker gray matter in the hippocampus—the area of the brain associated with learning and memory. This effect flies in the face of the natural aging process, in which the brain shrinks as we get older. The study found that brain structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection had also increased, while the area of the brain associated with stress shrank.
A study out of the U.K. published last month found that the frequency of negative thoughts drastically decreased after 10-minute sessions of acceptance-based mindfulness meditation—a technique in which the meditator takes note of the thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that arise. Attention-based breath meditation was slightly less effective in reducing negative thoughts, but still helpful.
“Two and a half millennia before Eckhart Tolle started cashing his royalty checks, it was the Buddha who originally came up with that brilliant diagnosis of how the mind works,” Harris writes. Among the mental habits identified in Buddhism is the concept of papañca, “mental proliferation,” or the tendency to run away with a thought or worry, entertaining various negative, hypothetical scenarios—something many of us are prone to lately. It’s harmful not just to mental well-being but to our bodies, too.
My own phone has buzzed with a meditation reminder every day at 1 p.m. for more than a year now, ever since I finished reading Harris’ wit-fest of a book, 10% Happier. I’ve come to realize mid-afternoon is an ill-planned time to dive into my mind’s abyss in search of calm; waking up a little earlier to meditate first thing is a more promising strategy, at least for many beginners. And while 30 minutes is a long time, Harris suggests beginners commit to just five minutes a day, and see what happens.
“Every time you get lost in thought—which you will, thousands of times—gently return to the breath. I cannot stress strongly enough that forgiving yourself and starting over is the whole game,” writes Harris, whose meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says, “Beginning again and again is the actual practice, not a problem to overcome so that one day we can come to the ‘real’ meditation.”
Among the plethora of helpful, no-nonsense advice for the beginning meditator laid out in 10% Happier is something I’ll be doing a lot of in the coming weeks: “Every once in awhile, do a little reading about meditation or Buddhism,” writes Harris. “Even though the basic instructions are simple, hearing them repeatedly can be useful. It’s the opposite of airplane safety announcements.” He adds that glancing at even a few passages of a good book can be a helpful reminder of the compelling intellectual underpinnings of the practice, and among his recommendations is a title that seems most relevant to the times: Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, by Dr. Mark Epstein.
Last year, Santa Cruz-based author and editor Douglas Abrams was in Dharamsala, India learning meditation techniques from the Dalai Lama and hearing from Archbishop Desmond Tutu about cultivating compassion toward one’s political enemies. Abrams moderated a five-day series of dialogues between the two spiritual icons and social leaders, documenting the discussions in The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, published last year. The book was originally conceived by Abrams and Dr. James Doty, who now heads Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).
The meeting was also documented for a film which is currently in production. Abrams previously worked with Desmond Tutu on a number of books, including the children’s title God’s Dream.
On Feb. 22, Abrams will join Dr. Bruce Eisendorf for a discussion of The Book of Joy,including addressing one of the book’s underlying questions: How do we live a life of joy in the face of adversity?
The presentation—which is from 5:30-7 p.m. at Santa Cruz Support Center, in conference room B—will include a Q&A period and the screening of short videos from the Dharamsala dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu. A suggested donation of $25 (not required) will benefit programs and services of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation for people with chronic pain. I caught up with Abrams to talk about his book.
At the beginning of The Book of Joy, you write, “I am very skeptical about the magical sensations that some attribute to being in the presence of spiritual teachers, but from the very first day I found my head starting to tingle. It was startling, but perhaps it was simply an example of how my mirror neurons … were internalizing what I was witnessing in the eyes of these two extremely lovely men.”
DOUGLAS ABRAMS: The scientific skeptic in me says that the tingling could have been adrenaline. We had this incredible time. The trip was conceived of quite a few years before. The Dalai Lama was supposed to be the guest of honor at Arch’s 80th birthday, and the Chinese government leaned on South Africa, and the South African government would not give the visa, and the Dalai Lama was not allowed to come. So we really wanted to bring the Archbishop to the Dalai Lama for his 80th birthday.
To come back to your original question about the tingling; yes, looking into their eyes for five days, witnessing this incredible gaze of compassion and love and being there as this kind of representative for people was incredibly powerful. I did have this really extraordinary experience of tingling from head to toe. We have these amazing things called mirror neurons, which are the foundation for empathy. They’re what allow us to experience what others experience. That might have been my neurons firing with a kind of receiving from the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop what they experience on a regular basis.
You were in Dharamsala with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu for a week, eating, drinking tea and talking. Tell me about being with these two men.
The night before the dialogues I was thinking, “Who the hell am I to be doing this, five days of interviews? And will the real Anderson Cooper or Oprah Winfrey please step in and take over?” But then I realized I was just there as a kind of ambassador for people. As Arch says, to help me overcome my self-regard. Our insecurities are part of our self-regard as well. We had this amazing opportunity not just to have this incredible five-day dialogue, but also to have the Dalai Lama teach us to meditate. And for Archbishop Tutu to give the Dalai Lama Eucharist, which is communion. That was amazing. We had meals and were able to break bread.
What stands out as one of your favorite moments during this time with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu?
Many Buddhists talk about detachment and separating from worldly distractions and pleasures. I was sitting next to the Dalai Lama during lunch, and he turns to me with a bowl of Tibetan rice pudding in his hands and says, “I love this!” It was just so wonderfully humanizing. You can be the Dalai Lama, and you can still like a good bowl of rice pudding.
INFO: The “Book of Joy” discussion event with Doug Abrams and Dr. Bruce Eisendorf is from 5:30-7 p.m. at Santa Cruz Support Center 1, Conference Room B, 2200 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Register online or call 458-6391. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.
Yuja Wang, the Chinese-born piano virtuoso, turned 30 last Friday, but she’s already spent half of her life as one of classical music’s most celebrated young musicians.
Tackling some of the most demanding works in the canon, particularly Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 29” (the “Hammerklavier”), her fluid and preternaturally mature performances inspire critics to rapturous superlatives. Meanwhile, Wang continues to expand her repertoire and her audience, which has multiplied exponentially via Youtube.
She alights in town for an unprecedented two-day engagement with the Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra, performing Saturday night at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium and Sunday afternoon at Watsonville’s Henry J. Mello Center. The program features Brahms’ emotionally expansive “Piano Concerto No. 2” and Prokofiev’s boisterously magisterial “Piano Concerto No. 5,” which she recorded with the Venezuelan Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
“The fact we’re able to showcase the very final piano concertos of two famously pianistic composers is so exciting,” says Daniel Patrick Stewart, the symphony’s music director and conductor. “This would be an event with any of the world’s great venues or symphonies.”
Indeed, Wang is usually heard in the company of legendary orchestras like the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic. She comes to Santa Cruz to join forces with Stewart, a friend from their student days at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Since taking over the symphony’s reins four years ago, he’s brought in a number of world class artists, but Wang “is the most high-profile concert in our history,” Stewart says. “She simply doesn’t play with regional orchestras. In the classical world, it’s the equivalent of Beyoncé or Taylor Swift playing a small club.”
Born in Beijing to parents immersed in the performing arts—her mother is a dancer and her father a percussionist—Wang demonstrated extraordinary keyboard facility as a child. Only 15 when she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she spent five years under the tutelage of storied pianist and teacher Gary Graffman.
She’s earned numerous awards and distinctions, and Wang seems to embrace the drama of her genius. In a Hollywood-worthy breakthrough, she gained international attention in March 2007 as a last-minute replacement for the brilliant and famously temperamental Martha Argerich. Stepping in, Wang performed Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1” and before long had signed a recording contract with classical music powerhouse Deutsche Grammophon.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18 at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19 at Henry J. Mello Center, $27-$75, santacruztickets.com.
Family relationships are complicated. Especially the one depicted in the Oscar-nominated German film, Toni Erdmann. On the surface, it seems like a mild comedy about a fun-loving, prankster dad who makes life impossible for his workaholic businesswoman daughter. But there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface in this offbeat meditation on family, aging, the passage of time, and the meaning of happiness.
This is the third movie directed by German producer and filmmaker Maren Ade, and her first to get wide distribution in the States. The story revolves around Winfried Conradi (the wonderful Peter Simonischek), a retired schoolteacher who confounds a deliveryman at the door by pretending to be twin brothers, likes to fool around with a set of fake buck teeth, and puts on zombie makeup to lead a chorus of kids at a school musical recital.
Amicably divorced from his ex-wife, Winfried attends a birthday party for their grown daughter, Ines (Sandra Huller). Briefly home from Bucharest, where the German corporation she works for is setting up business interests in Romania, Ines spends most of her time on the phone with her boss. Concerned that his daughter is trapped in a joyless life, Winfried “spontaneously” follows her back to Bucharest and shows up at her workplace.
His antics drive Ines nuts (he dons a mop-top wig and calls himself Toni Erdmann), but he makes some unexpected connections among her business contacts—passing himself off as a “consultant,” or a life coach. Except for the few moments she loses her cool and blows up at him, their time alone together is marked by long silences, his aching worry that she’s wasting her life butting up against her resentment at his interference.
Meanwhile, Ade sketches in a dubious portrait of the business world Ines is so desperate to succeed in. Her bosses exhibit a corporate mentality that’s moving in to gentrify and profit on a country whose people have already been through a lot. Shabby housing squats in the shadows of a fancy office building, day laborers are treated like slaves, and a luxury mall has been erected that few Romanians can afford to shop in.
When the movie’s viewpoint switches away from Winfried for a while to Ines, we begin to understand all the ways that her life is disappointing her, just as her father fears. She gets no satisfaction at work; as driven as she is, and no matter how much time and energy she puts into hatching her ideas and rehearsing her presentation for a big meeting, she’s still assigned to take the client’s wife shopping. The girlfriends she meets for drinks after work are business contacts.
Even her sex life, such as it is, is just another appointment on her schedule, with another colleague from work. She has a sort of belated epiphany when her partner casually jokes that their boss knows about them, and has instructed him not to do it with her “too hard, or she’ll lose her bite.” This has interesting repercussions throughout the rest of their encounter, as she reconsiders how willing she is to participate in their view of who she is.
Winfried counsels everyone not to lose their sense of humor, and Ade herself displays comic audacity. When an exasperated Ines has to open the door to her party guests in the nude, she improvises that it’s a “naked party,” shedding their workplace identities, along with their clothes, as a “team-building” exercise.
At two hours and 42 minutes, the movie feels way longer than it needs to be; boring business meetings in particular seem to go on forever. But what better way for director Ade to make us feel the crushing airlessness of the business world Ines inhabits? Or suggest the complexity of feeling, shared history, and passing time that connects father and daughter?
It is length, accumulation of detail, and, of course, humor, that allows Ade to craft her story with such emotional richness.
TONI ERDMANN
*** (out of four)
With Peter Simonischek and Sandra Huller. Written and directed by Maren Ade. A Sony Classics release. Rated R. 162 minutes. In German and Romanian with English subtitles; also some English.
What do you call it? Newgrass? Jamgrass? How about alt-bluegrass? However you want to describe it, this is some seriously high-energy roots dance music. The five-piece Dusty Green Bones Band, which formed in the Bay Area a few years back, has made it a mission to get folks all over the West Coast stomping their feet wherever the band plays. The bluegrass energy and string interplay is there, but the group incorporates electric instruments and drums, so it’s got everything you love about traditional bluegrass—and more. Opening the show is Eugene, Oregon’s Blue Lotus, a heavier, bluesier band that will give Dusty Green Bones Band a run for their money in terms of infectious danceability. AARON CARNES
One of the choice acts of the 1970s roots reggae scene, the Gladiators worked with legendary Jamaican producer Coxsone Dodd in the late-70s. When the group teamed up with Studio One it had its biggest hits with “Bongo Red,” “Jah Jah Go Before Us,” “Mr. Baldwin” and “Roots Natty.” The Studio One stint launched them into the international spotlight and attracted the attention of major labels, critics and fans alike. On Thursday, the band returns to town, fronted by vocalist Droop Lion, nephew of founding member David Webber. CAT JOHNSON
The whole Southern California garage rock scene gets a bad rap as a bunch of bands that all sound the same. It’s just not true. A great example its diversity is the Growlers, a band that has a dark, moody pop sound. The members call it “beach goth,” which might be a bit of hyperbole. But they do manage to cram elements that are dark, hooky, depressive, and dance-party fun into each song. This unique sound has helped the band build an impressive fan base. They are playing the Catalyst twice just to please all of their rabid fans. AC
A ripping banjo player who received the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass award in 2015, Danny Barnes is no slouch when it comes to traditional music. But Barnes is not your run-of-the-mill bluegrass player. The road-tested artist, who plays 150 dates per year, sidesteps traditional confines to create what he calls “barnyard electronics,” a unique sound made from combining bluegrass, noise, rock and electronic music via a custom computer program. Bridging experimental techniques with a mastery of bluegrass and folk techniques, Barnes is one of the most groundbreaking roots artists around. CJ
A rough-around-the-edges outfit that is impossible to pin down, El Radio Fantastique throws pop, international, psychedelia, rock and New Orleans funk into a musical stew that is unpredictable, engaging, odd, and completely danceable. Hailing from Point Reyes Station, El Radio Fantastique, led by charismatic frontman Giovanni Di Morente, who also plays flute, guitar, sax, theremin and percussion, is one of those see-it-to-believe-it acts. As one review put it, “If Anton LaVey, Frank Sinatra and David Bowie dropped acid in New Orleans and had an orgy with the Beatles, their unholy offspring would be El Radio Fantastique.” CJ
Jazz and country music are too often cast as antithetical cultural currents, with the former representing the bustling urban experience and the latter standing in for white rural and suburbanites. But great musicians can find inspiration anywhere, and the insistently creative guitarist John Scofield harkens back to his early love of Nashville on his recent album Country For Old Men. Simultaneously paying loving homage and reinventing classic songs by master tunesmiths like Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, and George Jones, Scofield makes each piece feel like it was conceived as a vehicle for jazz expression. For this West Coast tour, he’s joined by longtime collaborators Larry Goldings (piano) and Bill Stewart (drums), who both perform on the album, and ace bassist Vicente Archer (taking over legendary Steve Swallow). ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 and 9 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $30/adv, $35/door. 427-2227.
ROCK
GAMMA
GAMMA was an underrated early metal band. What’s kept the music potent is the mix of guitarist Ronnie Montrose’s heavy blues licks and singer Davey Pattison’s piercing vocals. The band’s original run was from’ 78 to ’83, but started back up in 2000. When Montrose passed away in 2013, the remaining members put on a powerful tribute show for him in San Francisco. It was such a success that the group has managed to continue on, even without Montrose slinging the axe. Anyone that likes ’70s metal should check this out. Pattison still leads this band with ferocity. AC
When asked what she’d tell people to get them to come out to her show at the Crepe Place, singer Natalie Mering simply replied, “I have a really good voice.” I think she said it half-jokingly, but it’s true regardless. Her voice is beautiful—haunting, elegant, dramatic, and a perfect match for the power-pop psych-folk she performs with her L.A.-based band, Weyes Blood. The lyrical content of Weyes Blood’s most recent album, Front Row Seat to Earth, reflects on current events, effects of technology on society and culture, and our changing environment. Joni Mitchell and Enya are clear influences. Sharing the bill are Fatal Jamz (L.A.) and Plush (San Francisco). KATIE SMALL
INFO: 9 p.m. Crepe Place, Santa Cruz. $10/adv, $12/door. 429-6994.
TUESDAY 2/21
INDIE ROCK
THE PALMS
Indie rock duo the Palms is from L.A.—if the band’s name wasn’t enough of a giveaway, its sound and aesthetic should be. Think leather jackets, tight jeans and perfect hair. The Palms’ sound matches that clean but cool L.A. hipster vibe: minimal melodies blended with elements of pop, blues, hip-hop, psych rock, and even a hint of reggae; nasally vocals feature prominently. Formed in 2015, the duo has gained an impressive online following in a short amount of time, all without a label, publicist, or budget to speak of. For fans of Cage the Elephant, Portugal. The Man, and the Kooks. KS
There’s not a lot of music on local trio Bitter Buffaloes’ Soundcloud page—in fact, as of right now, there’s only one song. It’s a surprisingly mature, genre-tinkering, tripped-out mellow rock tune. But it’s not the group’s first. They’ve gone through several lineup and style changes, and now as a trio, they’re really starting to land a sound all their own.
“We’ve never been able to identify really strongly with a specific genre,” says guitarist/singer Chris Halasz. “I think the more we started realizing that we were kind of synthesizing different parts of blues and rock and jazz, and even some punk stuff, we just bottled it up into what we liked.”
The group started years ago as a duo, with Halasz on guitar and vocals, and Josh Hewett on drums. At one point, there was a saxophone and a bass player. When the bassist left, keyboardist Curtis Murphy altered his parts to cover the low end, while still playing some more traditional high keyboard fills and leads. The tighter, slightly offbeat sound worked to the group’s advantage. The song on Soundcloud is a result of this new lineup shift, which happened less than a year ago. They removed all older music from their Soundcloud page, and are currently working on an EP in the vein of this tune.
“I think what makes the trio thing work so well is, on a personal level and chemistry-wise, and just from an artistic and creative perspective, the three of us have this really strong connection. I feel like these two guys are like my brothers,” says Halasz.
Best known as vocalist for legendary rock band Santana, Tony Lindsay is a Grammy-winning singer and bandleader in his own right. Born in Kingston, New York, the now-Bay Area resident is one of standouts of the local soul, rock and jazz scenes. On Feb. 27, Lindsay brings his Soul Soldiers, featuring vocalists Fred Ross and Will Russ, Jr., to town to perform the hits from Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, Lou Rawls, Sam Cooke and Donny Hathaway.
INFO: 7 and 9 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $25/adv, $30/door. 427-2227. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the show.
While most Santa Cruz restaurants embraced the farm-to-table movement early and easily—thanks in part to the more than 4,000 acres dedicated to organic farming in Santa Cruz County—other culinary trends seem to arrive belatedly, or pass by our sleepy beach town altogether. It seems odd, because while Santa Cruz is home to many adventurers, the dining experience here can be … well, not very adventurous.
But there is actually a fine tradition of Santa Cruz culinary innovators. Some, like Oswald and Charlie Hong Kong founder Charlie Deal, have left town, while others like Jozseph Schultz of India Joze, and farm-to-table-dinner pioneer Jim Denevan are still here. That tradition is continuing with a new generation of chefs and others working to expand the world of Santa Cruz dining.
Danny Mendoza and Justin Williams brought a new business model to the Santa Cruz food scene with their delivery-only kitchen. With a diverse background and a preference for flavors from Asia and the American South, Dare Arowe is bringing multi-cultural fusion to the Octagon building. Deeply committed to the bounty of exceptional products available year-round and inspired by seasonal changes, chefs Brad Briske and Jessica Yarr are the driving forces behind the next wave of Santa Cruz fine dining, elevating Santa Cruz food culture. Liz Birnbaum takes diners even deeper into the farm-to-table philosophy that you can’t really know a thing about a meal without knowing where it comes from.
All six of these individuals are 35 or under and looking to make their mark on the Santa Cruz dining experience. Here are their stories.
Dare Arowe, 27
There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s going to go into the historic Octagon building now that Lulu Carpenter’s has vacated, especially since whoever opens its doors will be adjacent to a newly renovated Abbott Square—one of the largest downtown undertakings since the earthquake. Wonder no more: the site will be home to the Kitchen at the Octagon, the newest project from local chef Santos Majano, and will be headed by Majano’s sous chef, Dare Arowe.
As Arowe sits across from me in the back room at Lúpulo, she’s tempered any excitement about this transition with an air of cool pragmatism. But the pale burn scars that freckle her forearms among clean lines of ink reveal how hard she’s worked to get here. Arowe came to work for Majano in July of 2015 after stints at Cremer House, Chaminade, private catering and pop-ups. It’s clear from the way Arowe describes Majano that she holds him in high regard. She praises his intensity and acute attention to detail, which has made her a resilient, high-performing cook—as has working in a less-than-100-square-foot kitchen. The 500-square-foot Octagon will be a significant upgrade.
“He’d rather have you dump something and start over than try and pass it. Your croutons are a little toasty? Don’t even bother,” says Arowe of Majano. “Do it right or do it twice. If you want to improve quickly, that’s how you do it.”
Although Majano and Arowe are similarly committed to using only the best local products available seasonally, Arowe’s tastes run more toward Asia and the American South, and she enjoys pickling and making kimchi, a spicy, fermented vegetable condiment from Korea.
“A lot of black South and Asian communities have a lot in common—they’re really poor, and have to make use of things like fermentation, pickling, different kinds of fats and braising cheaper cuts of meat.” This cross-cultural flavor play results in dishes like braised short rib and kimchi tacos, fried catfish po’ boys with kimchi aioli, mixing techniques like Southern dredging and frying with Asian spices, and bao dumplings with distinctly non-Asian flavors.
“I love fusion. I have a lot of respect for the traditional way of doing things and the techniques, but young people are multiculturally infused, and our food should be, too,” asserts Arowe. “I don’t understand food that’s not fusion anymore. My mom is a black woman who was adopted and raised by Jews from New York. My niece is Chinese. That’s American food now. It’s not a chili dog. It’s a kimchi taco.”
Arowe is excited to incorporate more of these flavors in the menu she and Majano are creating together, which she hopes will also include opportunities to give back to the community. “I asked him about doing Nasty Fries”—a reference to Donald Trump referring to Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman” during the election—“and giving half the proceeds to Planned Parenthood,” she says.
Liz Birnbaum, 30
Last summer, as each guest slipped into a backyard garden in San Francisco, they were handed a gin and tonic with black assam tea simple syrup. The theme for this Curated Feast was “Botanical Imperialism,” and as they sipped the floral libations, Santa Cruz-based Curated Feast founder Liz Birnbaum explained that each ingredient illustrated the movements of edible plants around the world as a result of colonization. The presence of sugar was made possible by the brutal sugar trade; British explorer Robert Fortune smuggled the first tea plants out of China in the mid-1800s; tonic was included in the rations of British troops in India because it contains quinine, an antimalarial; the label of Bombay Sapphire boasts the image of Queen Victoria, whose reign marked great expansion by the British Empire. And there were four courses yet to come that evening.
Since 2015, Birnbaum has held five feasts in Santa Cruz and one in San Francisco, each focusing on a different culinary theme and featuring a collaboration with a different chef. The elaborate meals are realizations of an idea that had been simmering for the better part of a decade, inspired by her career in organic and ecological agriculture and a class she co-taught on Botanical Imperialism at Lake Forest College in Chicago. She says she couldn’t unsee the stories she uncovered through her research. “Once I saw them, I realized that there was an infinite thread to be pulled upon. And they made my experience eating and drinking, both alone and socially, way more interesting,” says Birnbaum.
Every dish in these intimate, multi-course feasts is steeped in the historical context of the ingredients, inviting the feaster to think critically about our food systems and glimpse what the future might hold. Similarly to how Jim Denevan, who works closely with Birnbaum as a member of her advisory team, changed the dining scene when he connected guests to the origins of their food through his Outstanding in the Field dinners, so does Birnbaum, but she goes beyond modern farming and reaches through time. “There’s a beautiful movement going around farm-to-table, but we’re also not digging in in the way that I feel is the most interesting way to dig in,” she explains.
While the breadth of fact and legend each guest is exposed to could easily stray into classroom territory, it doesn’t. Birnbaum and a team of collaborators deftly present the educational side of each feast by wrapping it in romance. The venues, whether a private home or boutique locale, are stunning; thematic attire is encouraged; live music gently strums in a corner; floral decorations and candlelight abound, creating a magical tableau.
Growing up in Chicago and raised on food stamps, Birnbaum says the canned and processed food she ate was disassociated from a true origin. Her research for the Curated Feast has given her a new relationship and deeper understanding of food, which is what she ultimately hopes her guests will walk away with.
“Understanding the history of food in terms of food origins, mythology and symbolism is important because whether you’re interested in this thread or that thread, or this ingredient or that ingredient, you could make your kitchen or your plate a classroom,” says Birnbaum. “And it’s so fun.”
Jessica Yarr, 32
As I take a seat at one of the wide, dark tables at Assembly to meet with newly appointed executive chef Jessica Yarr, she reaches across to show me a picture on her phone. On the screen are two deep-fried chicken feet presented cross-legged on top of a pile of fiery wings.
“The chicken feet came today!” she says excitedly.
She’s been waiting for the ingredient, a popular snack in other cultures that has yet to catch on in the U.S., to arrive for a few days. Yarr plans to test them out on the menu by using them as a garnish on her popular chicken wings. Despite her enthusiasm, she’s not without her reservations.
“I’m not sure what people will think,” she says.
The chicken feet are one of the quirkier additions Yarr plans to make to the menu at Assembly. Since she took over the kitchen in November, she’s streamlined the New American menu, keeping most of the original dishes that customers already love in place while tailoring them to her own tastes, which can run toward the more adventurous. She hopes to continue to build on the strong relationships with farmers established by owners Kendra Baker and Zachary Davis, while bringing in some edgier ingredients, including house-fermented vegetables and pickles, “more exciting” vegetarian dishes and house pâtés and rillettes.
“Maybe a little offal,” Yarr muses. “Nothing crazy.”
Cooking with local ingredients comes naturally to Yarr, whose childhood in the Santa Cruz Mountains included digging up potatoes and picking lettuces for dinner. Although she says she hated these chores at the time, the lifestyle gave her an appreciation and high standard of flavor. “I already started off with that standard of food flavor that came directly from the ground, and I feel like that’s a huge part of why I like to cook the way I do,” says Yarr.
After graduating from culinary school, Yarr returned to Santa Cruz to intern at Theo’s (now Home), attracted to the large on-site kitchen garden where fresh herbs and greens were grown to garnish their farm-to-table offerings. “It’s so easy to grow beautiful things here because of the climate. It’s easy to make good food, because it’s all around us already,” says Yarr. “We don’t have to do too much to it.”
Yarr believes restaurants committed to this practice are what is bringing the Santa Cruz culinary scene to the next level. Not only does it allow chefs to play with incredible flavors, it also invigorates communities. Now Yarr wants to take it one step further and increase collaboration within the industry.
“That’s what the younger generation of chefs is about. They’ll work at several different restaurants, and the farmers market, and they’ll have their own farm. There are a lot of younger people with their hands in a bunch of different food operations, and that lends itself to collaboration,” says Yarr. “We’ve been doing name-dropping on our menus for years. People are starting to be like, now what? Well, how about Brad Briske’s back there cooking with Jessica right now?”
Brad Briske, 35
It’s the middle of winter when I meet with Brad Briske, chef and owner of Home in Soquel, but he’s excited for warm weather, so he can make use of the garden at the back of his new restaurant, which opened last fall.
“There are kiwis, roses and perennial herbs—20-year-old plants that have deep root stocks,” he says. “There are eight vegetable beds. And we’ll plant flowers and things like lemongrass all around, little boutique-y vegetables you can’t really get anywhere else—things people aren’t used to seeing but also things that are just beautiful.”
That Briske has chosen this space for his first restaurant, which has previously housed La Giaconda, Main Street Garden & Café, and Theo’s, feels appropriate not only because Briske was a sous chef at Main Street Garden before going on to command attention for his flavorful cuisine as the chef at Il Grillo and La Balena in Carmel, but also because of his passionate dedication to local ingredients. The deep relationships he’s formed with local farms even transformed this one-time vegan into a skilled butcher after he participated in his first pig slaughter at Everett Family Farm.
“It gave me an understanding of how food is and how it can be,” says Briske. “It doesn’t have to be mass-produced, high-commodity. It makes you much more appreciative of the animal and make sure you don’t throw anything away. You find a way to use everything.”
The delicious cuisine that Briske offers reflects that ethos, from the house-made salami curing in the wine cellar to making carrot “chips” from the ends that would normally be discarded. He even stopped serving the heads of spot prawns when too many of them returned to the kitchen. Now, he roasts them and pulverizes them into a flavorful oceanic powder, which he’s experimenting with as a flavor enhancer.
As a result, the menu at Home is one of the most adventurous available in Santa Cruz right now, a simultaneous expression of Briske’s exceptional talent and an homage to the bounty available in the Monterey Bay. An extensive list of small plates may offer Miyagi oysters from Marin with Guwurztraminer granita and chili oil, a salad of abalone and Monterey Bay seaweeds, beef tongue with anchovy aioli and mustard, or any manifestation of his creative whims—as well as handmade pastas, locally caught seafood and sustainably raised meats. “We don’t serve the food that people make at home. What would be the point of going to a restaurant if you could cook it yourself? That’s why so much of the stuff we do has so much time put into it, whether we’re butchering, brining or curing a whole animal, or serving exotic ingredients,” says Briske.
Briske reports that the restaurant has so far been well received by the community. How can he tell? “At the start, half a pig per week sustained the restaurant. I could make some salamis and have chops to serve. Now it’s January, when we should be slow, and we need to purchase a whole pig. That’s a good thing, to see that support. That’s what allows us to do more.”
Danny Mendoza, 25 and Justin Williams, 29
One of the most daunting factors for food entrepreneurs is the often prohibitively high cost of opening and sustaining a brick-and-mortar restaurant. So in order to open the doors to Kickin Chicken, business partners Danny Mendoza and Justin Williams decided that their restaurant didn’t need an actual door.
Focusing on fried chicken, waffles and home-style sides, Kickin Chicken is a delivery-only restaurant. Guests order their meal online, choosing à la carte fried chicken, sandwiches and a number of creative sides like kimchi fried rice, brussels sprouts and bacon, cornmeal waffles or macaroni and cheese dusted with hot Cheetos, and in under an hour their meals arrive at the door.
It’s a decision that has allowed the young entrepreneurs to grow sustainably, tweak their recipes and get a better understanding of their customer. Operating Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. to midnight, they’ve attracted a lot of business from UCSC students, while frequent pop-ups at local breweries and the Food Lounge, as well as catering for private events and festivals like the Santa Cruz Music Festival, allow them to reach a larger Santa Cruz audience.
“We weren’t modeling our delivery format off anything else, other than there was nothing like it in Santa Cruz,” says Mendoza. “It was the only way we could manage sustainable growth without a kitchen or brick-and-mortar,” adds Williams. “There’s a lot of risk in the food industry. It’s really hard to throw your whole nest egg out there without seeing if the market works.”
Now that Kickin Chicken is more than two years old, Williams and Mendoza finally feel their restaurant is ready for a permanent location. As Williams puts it, “We’re looking for place to roost.” But while they’ve entertained several offers to move their business over the hill to the larger Bay Area, the two Southern California transplants say the reason they started their business in the first place was to build a community here in Santa Cruz—and after the support their business has received, they’re committed to finding a storefront locally.
When these fowl folk finally do find their nest, the concept will expand, but generally be the same—a home-style meal with late-night delivery service.
“Our goal from the get-go was to try to offer as creative food as possible for less than $10,” says Williams.
“You don’t always get pot de crème or crème brûlée delivered straight to your door,” says Mendoza, referencing two desserts they periodically have on their menu. Williams adds, “The only time you even need to get out of bed is to answer the door.”
Update 2/15/17 10:17 a.m.: The name of the restaurant going into the Octagon building was corrected to The Kitchen at the Octagon.
Dennis Banks, the 79-year-old Anishinaabe man who once faced down armed FBI agents and helped found the American Indian Movement (AIM), is wearing an apron and waving a spatula in the bustling kitchen of the Oakland Intertribal Friendship House.
“We don’t need any help back here,” he insists. He returns his attention and his spatula to the massive skillet filled with frying rice, onions, garlic and jalapeños. “It’s the women’s day off in the kitchen!”
Banks helped found AIM in 1968. Ten years later, he helped organize the Longest Walk, a journey from the West Coast to Washington D.C. to protest legislation that would have abrogated native treaties. Sunday evening, he led the kitchen crew in a traditional chant as they whipped up a meal at the end of the first day of the 39th annual Longest Walk.
“This walk is a prayer. It’s an honor,” explains organizer Ray St. Claire, an Eagle Clan Ojibwa. “This walk is serious stuff. If you believe in us, if you want to come with us, we welcome you.”
Taking a Stand
The Longest Walk will take a significant detour this year to visit the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, where Banks has worked hard to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). One of President Barack Obama’s final acts was to instruct the Army Corps of Engineers to deny an easement where the pipeline would cross the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation until a full environmental impact report was completed. One of President Donald Trump’s first acts was to reverse that decision. Construction of the final segment began on Monday, though the flow of oil may be halted with a court injunction.
Roy Murphy, a Muckleshoot native, says he was at Standing Rock for six months, but left to participate in this walk. “I’m walking for my people that have been hurt at Standing Rock, whose voices still aren’t being heard,” says the 23-year-old. He’s never undertaken a feat like this, but plans to go all the way to D.C., which will involve walking more than 20 miles a day, every day, for about five months.
Each year, the Longest Walk chooses an issue that highlights challenges faced by natives. In 2017 they are tackling the twin issues of opiate addiction and domestic violence.
Less than a year and a half ago, Banks’ granddaughter Rose was brutally murdered by the father of her child. Her body was buried in a shallow grave, covered with 3,000 styrofoam plates, doused in five gallons of gasoline and torched, in a failed attempt to destroy the evidence. That sense of loss isn’t unique to Banks’ experience.
“My girlfriend’s best friend was murdered last year by her boyfriend,” says St. Claire, shaking his head. “Every native person I know has a relative or a friend who’s suffered from domestic violence.”
In response to the brutal tragedies in their own lives, St. Claire and Banks visited 52 treatment centers and women’s shelters during 2016. They were stunned by what they discovered. “Native women aren’t just getting beaten, they’re getting annihilated,” explains St. Claire. “Domestic violence knows no color, no borders, no race. It doesn’t discriminate.” He exhales and falls silent for a moment. “Just like heroin.”
“One out of two babies on my reservation is born addicted to heroin,” St. Claire continues. “Opiates are the biggest threat to natives since smallpox. Our cemeteries are littered with people under the age of 21.”
Meal Life
Quite a few people under the age of 21 are gathered in Oakland on Sunday, Feb. 12, to celebrate and prepare for the long months of walking ahead. Before dinner, 80 people bow their heads in prayer. The group spans three generations. Young people bring meals to the elderly. Laughter and conversation buzzes around the room. The atmosphere is part mess hall and part reunion. Many have traveled far to see their old friend Dennis Banks.
“Dennis is an icon,” says Wounded Knee, an elder from the Me-Wuk tribe. “He stands with Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK. He’s of that same stature.”
Everyone present knows his history; how he participated in armed occupations at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, spent 10 years fleeing federal charges and appeared in Hollywood movies like The Last of the Mohicans and Thunderheart. A charismatic but quiet man, Banks is best known for his thoughtful and sober leadership with AIM.
In its first year, AIM’s priorities were jobs, housing and protection from police brutality for the thousands of bewildered natives forcibly relocated to urban centers. Its purpose and achievements quickly expanded.
“AIM was a movement to let the world and other Indians know we still existed,” says a young Oglala Lakota woman named Olowan Martinez. “It woke up indigenous people in this country. Old people tell us that after AIM showed up they started seeing people in long braids again.”
Banks was highly visible in that movement to reclaim native ways. “Dennis is a warrior, he’s always making history. But he’s also a peacemaker,” explains Banks’ friend, Santa Cruz artist Daniel Owen Stolpe. “Russ Means liked to mix things up, but Dennis would come in and sweep the floor, make things right, calm things down.”
Though the 39th annual Longest Walk won’t come to Santa Cruz, Banks has a long history here. “I’ve been friends with Dennis for over 40 years,” says Stolpe, who has devoted his life to exploring traditional Native American culture through art. In 1974, Stolpe started the Santa Cruz-based studio Native Images to teach printmaking to native youth. “Dennis used to come stay at my apartment all the time, bringing freedoms runners and AIM supporters. He wrote the foreword for my book, Images and Myths.”
“Dennis raised the money for the first ambulance and fire truck on the Pine Ridge Reservation right here in Santa Cruz,” adds another old friend David Lommen. “Me, Daniel and Dennis drove those vehicles all the way from Santa Cruz to Pine Ridge.”
Lommen and Stolpe haven’t seen Banks in years, and they listen with rapt attention as their old friend addresses the crowd of walkers, runners and supporters after the meal at the Intertribal Friendship House.
“I will still be a principal elder on this walk,” says Banks. “But my main job will be to work until I see Leonard Peltier free.” In 1977, after an extremely controversial trial, Peltier was convicted of the murder of two FBI agents. He has spent 40 of his 71 years behind bars.
“Remember, after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, the government gave 16 medals of honor to soldiers who murdered unarmed women and children. Our strategy is not to grovel before them,” says Banks. “I want to file punitive damages for all those years of keeping Peltier away from his children and grandchildren.”
Banks yields the floor to younger speakers and musicians. He seems ready to abdicate his leadership role, but not his tireless service. As the passionate voice of a young warrior from Standing Rock fills the room, Banks circulates through the audience, offering cleansing sage smoke to each individual before he sits quietly. His eyes twinkle as he silently surveys the room from the sidelines.
There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s going to go into the historic Octagon building now that Lulu Carpenter’s has vacated, especially since whoever opens its doors will be adjacent to 
Last summer, as each guest slipped into a backyard garden in San Francisco, they were handed a gin and tonic with black assam tea simple syrup. The theme for this Curated Feast was “Botanical Imperialism,” and as they sipped the floral libations, Santa Cruz-based 
As I take a seat at one of the wide, dark tables at 
It’s the middle of winter when I meet with Brad Briske, chef and owner of 
One of the most daunting factors for food entrepreneurs is the often prohibitively high cost of opening and sustaining a brick-and-mortar restaurant. So in order to open the doors to Kickin Chicken, business partners Danny Mendoza and Justin Williams decided that their restaurant didn’t need an actual door. 
