San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

I may not still be on TV if it weren’t for Catherine McCord. Nowadays, she’s one of the foremost cookbook authors in the US, with recipe bibles issued under her brand name Weelicious. She helps parents manage cooking without losing their minds and angrily writing off food as a concept, or just loading a Super Soaker with Goldfish crackers and shooting them at their kids as they head to work with stains on their shirts. She’s the CEO of her own nationwide meal delivery service for families, called One Potato. I’ve never made better chicken tinga arepas with slaw and corn salsa in under 20 minutes (if you wanna try it, use the promo code TROY25 for 25% off). Her new book, Meal Prep Magic: Time-Saving Tips for Stress-Free Cooking, is due this April (pre-order it here). And my wife is obsessed with her. But a decade ago, Catherine was just a friendly face in an intimidating crowd. We filmed the pilot season of Guy’s Grocery Games in 2013, in a rented-out grocery store in Los Angeles. I was not entirely sure of my

Look, there are enough excellent brunch restaurants in San Diego that waiting hours for a seat at Morning Glory—Little Italy’s rose-hued bastion of breakfast pork belly and morning booze—feels, admittedly, a little silly. Our out-of-town friends gaze forlornly at happy, well-fed-looking strangers while we assure them that the forthcoming pancakes will be worth the delay. “There’s a Champagne vending machine,” we promise. Maybe it’s the pink tile ceiling. Or the trippy mirrored bathroom. But that doesn’t explain why we’ll join similar queues for a speakeasy in La Jolla or a hi-fi music bar in North Park. The common thread, of course, is the group that owns them: Consortium Holdings, the culinary and social company behind 19 of San Diego’s buzziest restaurants and bars. It all started with an East Village burger bar, and now… well, soon you’ll be able to lay down your head at Consortium’s first crack at an overnight concept. Last year, CH purchased the Lafayette Hotel & Swim Club and set about revamping the

During the pandemic, actor Matthew Arkin got a call from his dad, Alan Arkin. “My dad says, ‘Hey, you know you can make aquavit at home?’” Matthew explains, sipping a damn delicious aquavit tonic in the SDM conference room. Matthew’s response was, essentially, “Uh, thanks, dad.” In Scandinavia, aquavit (the word means water of life) is everything. There are over 200 songs dedicated to it. In the U.S., it’s mostly known as the stuff they drink in Scandinavia—a bracing blast of northern booze that helps wash down the pickled herring. A couple weeks went by and Matthew’s dad called again. He says the thing about the aquavit again. Whether genuinely inspired or just to get his dad to shut up about it, Matthew decided to give it a go. He made a batch—a warmer, smoother version you could sip like bourbon. He stuck it in the freezer and figured he’d forget about it forever. A year later, friends intervened. Visiting one day, Marc Marosi (a stand-in for George Clooney, a dapper fellow) tasted it. Loved it. Told Matth

Jennifer Carruthers is one hell of a sharp brain on wine. Not surprising. She had a successful career as an engineer before deciding she was far more interested in the structure and story of a good wine. So she spent a decade studying wine as a broker and distributor—eventually making it to the Advanced Sommelier level (an incredibly byzantine, difficult and rare knowledge of wine). Finally, she launched her own company, JC Select Wines, which specializes in hand-picking wines for special events and clients. We asked her to come in and share a few things: The top six wines we all have to try, and the story behind them. The biggest trends and myths about wine—explain them and debunk them, please. And so she does. Hilariously. “Wine gets a bad rap from the people who sniff a glass and say ‘this was grown by a river, and there were three, possibly four, golden retrievers on the property,” she says. JC Select connects people to niche, hand-picked wines. Her mission to source wines from sustainable, top-notch make

In the spirit of spirit month, we’re starting out with a well-deserved bang. Let’s talk about the liquor that comes in hot, and leaves us even hotter – sizzling with a well-paletted spice on the tip of our tongue and a soothing warmth in our bellies. I’m talking about tequila, baby. The tip of the iceberg in the Mexican spirits world. Some of the best are distributed right from San Diego. In fact, Happy Half Hour brings on an old friend who’s expanded his company’s rotation since his last feature in 2020. CEO Gaston Martinez of IZO Spirits saw his one stop mezcal leave people craving more from his Durango-based distillery and heart grown message captured in every bottle. Following its launch, backed by seasoned marketing executive and co-founder Linda Belzberg three years ago, Gaston knew they were destined for greatness – expansion. After curating a mezcal that was consumed on a hypnotic level, yet still competed for space with larger moguls, IZO had to change the game in order to keep up. Here are a couple

Most of you know Troy as our fearless leader and a frequent flier—or as the guy you wish you could text for recommendations on where to take your finicky mother-in-law to dinner in San Diego. (I just asked him for you; he suggests Fort Oak in Mission Hills). His college classmates, on the other hand, knew him as the guy who couldn’t cook. “I knew how to turn the knob on the microwave to the right,” he admits on this week’s podcast. The two women across from him on the mic are working to make sure more kids don’t turn out like Troy. They are Jen Nation and Angelica Gastelum—executive director and marketing manager of Olivewood Gardens, respectively. Olivewood is seven acres of gardens and an agricultural learning center surrounding a historical 1896 Victorian home—the former estate of Christy and John Walton (you might have heard of their family’s company, WalMart). It’s located in National City, an area with a disproportionately high rate of food-related health conditions, due in large part to a lack of acces

Over the last few decades we’ve really started to ask questions about what we’re eating. Does the green label really mean organic—or was it grown on an organic “section” of a farm, gobbling up pesticides in the wind? If I’m buying this tomato in January, and it was grown in Florida sand, picked unripe, and gassed on the train on the way to California—what, exactly, am I getting out of this? Why do some eggs look like mandarins and some look like a vague notion of the color yellow? Farmers markets definitely make us feel better about what we’re putting on our tables. You get to meet the people who grew what you eat. Look ‘em in the eye. See if you get any frankenfood vibes. On this week’s episode of Happy Half Hour, Troy and David talk to one San Diegan whose life was altered pretty radically when Stefani de Palma visited his farm stand. His plot of land in Escondido—Sage Hill Ranch Gardens—was fairly small, three acres. But De Palma—then chef de cuisine of Addison—saw the promise. She worked with Spencer, use

Listen, I know it can seem like some of us at San Diego Magazine basically eat tacos and taste beer for a living. But it’s in pursuit of the story. Whatever it takes to get to the grist of it all. For you. You deserve this. And if that raises our BAC a tad, we’re there for you. For Stone Brewing’s Laura Ulrich, on the other hand, sampling IPAs is a major part of a hard day’s work. Officially one of Stone’s “small batch brewers,” it’s Laura’s job to research and develop new suds, tweaking recipes—and naming brews after her favorite songs—using Stone’s seven-barrel system in Escondido. She devised two new versions of our beloved Delicious IPA: Delicious Citrus and Delicious Double, both as perfect with a Wagyu patty as their forerunner. Laura’s now one of the key creatives in the Stone brewing operation. But it didn’t happen overnight. She started out 19 years ago on the packaging line. She was a brewer, then a brewery trainer, before landing her spot among the small-batch masterminds. “I’ve seen the whole hous

This cafe is one of the better places in San Diego to eat clean, sure. It’s also parents’ love for their daughter. This damn good salad—loaded with all kinds of greens and seeds and micronutrients in various natural forms—was all for her. Every parent knows the feeling. When your kid is sick or hurt, you will do the wildest things you never thought you’d do, uproot your life, quit jobs, take four extra jobs, do whatever it takes to help them regain their health. Parakeet Cafe is what Carol Roizen could do. When she and her husband Jonathan Goldwasser found out their then-young daughter Michelle had tumors on her spine, Carol uprooted their lives and dedicated everything she was to creating the healthiest food she could possibly get her daughter to eat. And it turned into a healthy breakfast/lunch concept that started in La Jolla, then Little Italy, and now they’re about to open four more locations across Southern California (Carlsbad, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Newport). For wellness month at SDM, we invit

Oh man. Dear god. Thanks, you all. This year, you downloaded episodes of our podcast 276,977 times. As a San Diego media company just trying to create things of value where you’ll learn something, think about something in a different way—that’s a huge number. I’m sure Joe Rogan sneezes that number, but for us it’s pretty great. A lot of sneezes. When we launched “Happy Half Hour” in 2016, we had zero or near-zero idea what we were doing. Flailing at mics. Loghorrea-ing our way into the digital void. All we knew was that to stay relevant in media, you have to embrace new forms of storytelling. So much tire kicking. David Martin was (and is) in a band (Weight of the Sun who you should listen to). He knew how to record stuff. Our friend, Arsalun Tafazoli (who owns CH Projects, which is restaurant Jesus now in San Diego, but at that point was more of a midsize pack of creative lunatics), agreed to be our first guest. Former editor in chief Erin Chambers-Smith and I sat and talked with him—randomly about food and

The future of seafood might be in San Diego. Not in Point Loma or Oceanside, but in a bioengineering facility in Sorrento Valley. From a single cell, BlueNalu is growing toro—bluefin tuna belly, the prize delicacy of most high-end sushi—in a perfectly hygienic bioreactor that looks like the giant stainless steel structures in the city’s top breweries. Their goal is creating world-class seafood without the need for fish. In turn, transforming a limited and unpredictable resource (seafood) into an unlimited and predictable one. Today on HHH, we talk to CEO Lou Cooperhouse. It’s part of our month-long focus on people in San Diego doing inspiring work in the green space (our “Environment Issue” of San Diego Mag is out now). “The issue today is that wild-capture fisheries in general have been flat for decades, but bluefin tuna is such a loved, prized product that we all really enjoy,” says Cooperhouse. “It’s the wagyu of the sea. That’s what BlueNalu is all about—high-sensory, culinary quality seafood. But really

They don’t have a trash can in their kitchen. A fully operational, busy restaurant kitchen without a trash can. OK, that’s hyperbole. They do have a small one that is rarely ever used. The Plot in Oceanside keeps 99% of what they do out of the landfill. That is not normal. December is our “Environment Issue” of San Diego Magazine. As I wrote in my note at the beginning of the issue, it’s not about being perfect and it’s not an evangelical radical screed against any and all industry. The issue is dedicated to people in San Diego doing small and massive things to try to minimize our negative impact on the environment. That’s why for the restaurant review I headed up to the fully plant-based restaurant run by Davin and Jessica Waite. The husband-and-wife duo own not just The Plot but also Wrench & Rodent (sushi), White Noodle (ramen), and Shootz Fish & Beer. They join us on the podcast to talk through how, specifically, they’re trying to not only minimize waste in restaurants, but go beyond that and pave

Mashed potatoes are the bedrock of Thanksgiving. If you do not have a creamy pile of spuds, you are exhibiting a flagrant disregard for the rules of the feast. Mashless people seem more like thanks takers. And Josh Mouzakes—the executive chef of Arlo at Town & Country, who trained for four months at French Laundry (lived in a garage nearby, eating peanut butter sandwiches for the honor), then at Joel Robuchon in Vegas, a couple years at Hotel Del, and two recent appearances on Food Network—swears smoking your butter is easy and will help your mash win the annual food-off holiday. “You just put some woodchips in a pan with a ramekin of butter, and cover the thing with foil,” he says. Woodchips, butter, a Bic lighter, and a heat source. That’s all you need to take your Thanksgiving mash to the level of Arlo or Josh’s house. We asked Josh for three of his favorite tips for home cooks at the big feast. That’s one. We also talk about his favorite dishes at Arlo, talk about the fully resuscitated vibe at one of

As a kid growing up in La Jolla, Annemarie Brown-Lorenz had swordfish bills sticking up out of the ground in her backyard. Her dad was a fifth generation local fisherman who believed in using every part of the fish. If you take a life from the sea, have the respect to use every part of that life. And Annemarie’s grandmother (a first-generation American from Slovenia) grew all her own food; believed if you stuck swordfish bills in the garden it would lend its nutrients to the soil. So forget the garden gnome. That ethos—sustainable fishing, old-world farming (now they call it biodynamic)—was what The Fishery was built on. Annemarie’s parents, Judd and Mary Ann, opened the restaurant in 1996. Judd had already built a successful business delivering seafood caught by local boats to San Diego restaurants. For The Fishery, they just knocked a hole in the wall of that seafood warehouse (called Pacific Shellfish) and passed the day’s best catches into the kitchen. The Fishery turns 25-years-old this month. During the

There is a house in La Jolla that is almost entirely food. It overlooks Black’s Beach. It is a very, very nice house. Walk its grounds, and you come across blueberries and strawberries and cabbage and habañeros and herbs and goats and bees and chickens and greenhouses. What was once a tennis court on the grounds has been filled in with more food growing. It is a house-farm, an Eden on the sea cliff, and it’s become an epicenter of San Diego’s food scene. It’s owned by Michelle Lerach and her husband, Bill. Michelle took a sabbatical during law school to live and work on a goat farm in Northern California. There, she saw how connected farmers and ranchers and makers were to restaurants, grocers, distributors, lawmakers (who endorse public spending on agriculture), media, etc. She wanted to bring that to San Diego. She wanted to bring them all to the same plot of land (or house, in this case) to start fostering good, local foodways. So she opened her home—affectionately called the Castle of Chaos—to all of them

Mariana Cardenas went home that day, gathered her five kids, told them the news. Then she called all the government assistance programs and informed them the Cardenas family no longer needed their help. “My oldest son is autistic,” she explains. “Two weeks earlier he’d told me he wanted to go to art school and I had to tell him we couldn’t afford it. So I got to tell him he was going.” The this that happened is one of my favorite stories of good I’ve come across in the San Diego food and drink scene. Mariana shares her story on today’s podcast. How she’d taken a job as a janitor for the Navy in Chula Vista, and worked her way into the kitchen. How she spent 16 years in the Navy, eventually becoming executive chef of the region. When the pandemic hit, she left and took a job at beloved local burger joint, The Balboa. She’d been working there for four months when the owner called her to his office. “I thought I was gonna get fired,” she says. He asked her if she wanted The Balboa. “Of course I like working here

About a week ago, I sat down for splashes of mezcal with Amar Harrag, who’s now successfully launched a few different drinks-and-dinner concepts on both sides of the border. His first, Tahona, created an unparalleled mezcal tasting bar to Old Town. He then opened Wormwood, the French-Baja cuisine and absinthe bar in North Park, which preserves the soul spot that was Jayne’s Gastropub. Finally, Tahona Baja in Ensenada—transforming two dry-docked, ark-looking wooden boats into mezcal tasting rooms on the grounds of a Mexican winery. Over mezcal he explained the inspiration for next week’s unveiling—Botanica, the gin- and genever-based concept going into the small restaurant space attached to beloved North Park art and cultural center, Art Produce. It’s an NFT restaurant. A what? Exactly. Before you write it off as a gimmick, listen to Harrag’s inspiration and ideas for the place on this week’s podcast. It’s fascinating, and shows a lot of thought and heart. He’s creating a modern art bar based on blockchain tec

On this new podcast, we get a lesson on natural wines from Chelsea Coleman—co-founder of the Rose Wine Bar in South Park who just opened Mabel’s Gone Fishing, a gintoneria and oyster bar that also has natural wines. Seems like just a few years ago, natural wines were what your kooky friend with the urban chickens and the Wendell Berry tattoo drank. The nat-wine ethos was always noble: wines made from grapes grown on sustainable and ideally organic methods, inoculated only with naturally occurring yeast, with nothing added (there are currently over 100 legal additives often used in commercial wine, everything from lab-grown yeasts to mega purple to oak chips and copper and anti-foaming agents) or taken away (no filtering or fining, a process that is often achieved by using animal products like egg albumen or isinglass, aka fish bladder). Ideally, grapes are grown on a permaculture dry farm (one that doesn’t use irrigation, using only rain) by operators who are passionate about fair trade and treating the earth

The story of Skrewball deserves its own biopic, if not a 30-part Netflix series. On the surface, you see a good-time peanut butter whiskey from San Diego—one that defied all naysayers and became one of the top-selling spirits in the country. And then you talk to co-owner Steve Yeng and every twist of his life story makes your eyes bulge and your heart alternately sink and soar. His family fled the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, living in Thai refugee camps. In the San Diego Magazine offices for this podcast, he pulls out a few photos from those days. In one, the family is standing in a foot of muddy water (the town routinely flooded). In another, children eat lunch near a fence made of sharp, deadly spears (it’s the cafeteria of the makeshift school). “My father saw his own father shot in the camps,” says Steve, whose grandparents were both killed. The Yeng family—mom, dad, three boys—stayed in the camps for six years. As Steve explains it, Russia’s Red Army would routinely bomb the camps, forcing everyone int

Restaurant openings, restaurant closings, and Manny Machado becomes a nail tech. Just kidding, but only about the restaurant closings. Gotcha again. There will be no Manny-pedis in the near future. On this episode of Happy Half Hour, David and Troy talk to vice president of ticket sales and membership services for the Padres, Curt Waugh. Waugh joined the franchise in June 2014 after being with Spurs Sports and Entertainment where he managed ticket sales for the San Antonio Rampage ice hockey team. Waugh filled us in on the 70 newly renovated suites where you can customize your experience with in-suite dining food and beverage packages. The suites are not only available for Padres games, but also for any concerts or events that take place. This season broke a Petco Park and Padres record, with more than 20,000 people opting for season tickets, including our very own Troi Boi (the SDM’ers have dubbed him as such, and he’ll no longer respond to any other name). Troy (Troi) dishes on his favorite perks, like movi