Dining, Arts & Entertainment

As we start the New Year, we at Chick-fil-A wanted to take the time to share our appreciation of the community of Santa Clarita and express how blessed we are.  It’s hard to believe that 2012 has already passed, and it has certainly been a year to remember. 

Mark your calendar!  The Celebrate Life Festival is coming February 2 and 3.  Presented by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce and produced by High Impact! Event Resources, the two day event is totally free to the public.  The festival will be held at 25300 Rye Canyon Rd., at Avenue  Scott,  just a half mile south of Newhall Ranch Rd.,  where Copperhill becomes Rye Canyon Rd.   The festivities run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Life has a way of rapidly spinning into one colossal twister.  A twister of obligations and deadlines spinning faster than we can track.  We bend and move, we adjust and accommodate to be the best we can without forgetting or faulting.

I recently had the opportunity to go to my son’s school, for a back to school night.  Now a lot of you have done the same thing.  Sometimes you go year after year.  While I was there seeing the classrooms and teachers, I kept running into the same parent going to some of the same classrooms.

Simple and delicious.  Unique and affordable.  High quality foods and full of flavor. Once you try Rustic Eatery, you will be addicted.  While owner Min Han has already made his name in this valley with the popular Fish Tail Grill in Valencia, he is now pleased to present the delicious flavors at Rustic Eatery, a truly perfect place to casually dine and enjoy a good meal.  

I’m always fascinated when I hear some self-proclaimed experts aggrandize their own purported expertise regarding a particular food and they, in so many words, lay unspoken claim to being the culinary cognoscente…the unassailable arbiter whose final decree puts the rest of us on notice that what we like…what pleases our personal palates, apparently matters little.  After all…they know so much more than us about that particular food.  Or do they?

Local Santa Clarita commercial winemakers Steve Lemley and Nate Hasper, owners of Pulchella Winery, are pleased to announce the relocation of their winery from Paso Robles to Valencia, as well as the opening of the first certified winemaking facility of its kind in the Santa Clarita Valley to service the Ventura, Santa Barbara, Central Coast, Southern California Los Angeles and Temecula area vineyard owners, winemakers, distributors, restaurant owners or anyone else looking to have their wines produced in a professional facility by professional winemakers with a proven track record.

A new year is a time to be serious – serious about the importance of art and in particular the visual arts in our lives.  First, we have to understand “why art is part of life!”  Art has existed in all civilizations.  Through centuries, art has been produced in every culture and was a means of communication and self-expression in all cultures.  It is important to learn how ‘visual art’ plays an active role in our lives each day and involves decisions we make.

The presidential election has been on our minds for a long time and is now over and we can now give a lot of our time to other issues that are also important.  One of the things that we do not think about is the amount of creativity that was needed to keep the issues of these national elections relevant to everyone.  You may wonder what creativity is.  How is creativity evident in our lives everyday?

On September 30, 2012 proud parents Karlo and Erin Galloway welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world. 

“Don’t Be Fooled: Not All Yogurts Are Created Equal” – That article headline on the National Yogurt Association’s website aboutyogurt.com really caught my attention, and it should catch yours as well.  One sentence particularly caught my eye: “But yogurt-lovers should take notice: there are products in the marketplace that take advantage of yogurt’s healthful image, but that do not contain live and active cultures.”

It’s so easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and for many of us, the only sane moments we get to enjoy during this time are when we sit to savor a warm meal.  At Piccola Trattoria we try not to let the stress of the season stop us from enjoying time at the dinner table with friends and family.  It’s our favorite method of celebrating and even though we would love to spend days preparing for a holiday meal or a mid-week get together with friends, it’s not always possible.  So what is our solution?  Lasagna of course!

An ice sculpture is formed strictly from… you guessed it, ice.  I remember the first ice sculpture I ever saw, we were at a buffet and there was a giant clam with raw shrimp and cocktail sauce inside.  It was pretty neat but the first time I saw an ice sculpture being sculpted I was blown away!  Our carver Gary whipped out his handy dandy chainsaw and I watched the ice chunks fly.  Sculpting ice is truly an art, ice as the canvas and a chainsaw, die grinder, and razor sharp chisels as the tools to create a masterpiece.

You are flying ahead.  Sprinting down the road.  Traveling with a purpose.  Doing what you have always wanted to do.  Then it stops you.  A difficult memory, a reminder, a person you thought was tucked away in the past.  It knocks you over, takes you down and leaves you struggling to gain your vision back to before.  It happens fast. 

We’re spreading the holiday spirit and warming the hearts (and bodies) of dogs in need this season with our 2nd Annual Blankets for Pups drive at The Poached Pair.

Many local junior high and high schools are taking advantage of Wendy’s of Santa Clarita’s key tag program to actively assist in raising much-needed funds for their schools.  Since last May, guests at any of the four Santa Clarita Wendy’s restaurants have been buying special key tags for a dollar each.  The dollar goes to the Hart District school that the guest designates, and the key tag entitles the holder to a free Junior Frosty with every purchase until school lets out next summer.

As a child I often dreamt of waking up Christmas morning and finding our house and neighborhood blanketed with snow.  Although I knew it was a long shot I still ran to the window to check.  Oh well, I guess the presents from Santa would have to do.  Yes, unfortunately we live in snow challenged city. 

On Monday, October 1, the City of Santa Clarita welcomed the John Lennon Educational Bus to Santa Clarita for the first time.  The Bus, which tours the country, is designed to inspire youth who have a passion for music to learn about the entire digital workflow process by creating an original work in one day.