In 2021, Joanne Johnson was working as a corporate professional in environmental sciences—but her passion was in decorating with plants. She created Fern Heights to offer unique eco-friendly pots to the masses. Every vessel is 3D-printed in SD using a durable plant-derived material. There are currently 17 different styles offered, including realistic dog and cat planters (and you can even get a custom one featuring your own four-legged friend).

Edible Adornments

The key to looking like a snack? Wearing one. Run by SDSU grad and artist Ilse Almazan, whimsical local jewelry company Resinuendo vends handmade earrings that resemble olives, eggs, baguettes, berries, tomatoes, and more, crafted from mixed materials like polymer clay, resin, and glass beads. Almazan also creates charming necklaces, hair accessories, and trinket trays.

Crossbody Cargoes

Until designers answer the cry for women’s jeans with actual pockets, those of us who refuse to stoop to cargo pants must find creative, comfy ways to haul our necessities. Enter Sash Bag, San Diegan Nichole MacDonald’s crossbody carrier with 10 stacked pockets and built-in wallets to evenly distribute weight. Bonus: The company partners with change making charities, giving back to Monarch Schools, local homeless shelters, and other nonprofits.

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In honor of our 75th anniversary, we’re asking local artists for fresh takes on retro covers. To remind us all of doctors’ daily heroics, we asked Keithan Jones, a local comic book artist and founder/owner of independent publishing company KID Comics, to recreate this past Top Docs cover, touching on many of the medical advancements and STEM-related news happening in San Diego.

You’ll spot references to the Human Milk Institute, which studies how medications impact breast milk; Orchyd, a period-tracking and telemedicine app offering confidential access to healthcare; new scientific research in outer space; the much-discussed Ozempic craze; and groundbreaking lab-grown fish at San Diego company BlueNalu.

San Diego is a hub for science and technology, with companies like Illumina, Erasca, Gilead Sciences, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (to name just a few) calling this city home. If you look close enough, the future of medicine is unfolding before our very eyes. And the doctors, scientists, and researchers leading the charge are actual superheroes.

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If it seems like you’re the only one who didn’t spend their summer sunning on a yacht off the Amalfi Coast, now you can get a taste of Italy right here in SD. Rest your bod upon a made-in-Italy sofa or bed from Natuzzi Italia, a luxury design and furniture brand that recently opened a storefront at UTC in La Jolla. They carry a wide range of sleek furniture for every room in your house. Hey, it might not be sipping an Aperol spritz surrounded by breathtaking views of Capri, but their stunning sofas make being a couch potato something to aspire to.

Finding the Curie

When San Diego–based Sarah Moret was looking for natural beauty and body products that actually worked, she became frustrated by the lack of effective deodorants without aluminum and other potentially harmful ingredients. This (smelly) gap in the market sparked the entrepreneur to start her own line of natural body care. In 2018, she debuted aluminum-free deodorant (available in varieties like coconut nectar, white tea, orange neroli, and unscented for the purists out there). Since then, she’s taken her line to Shark Tank, where she struck a deal with Barbara Corcoran and Mark Cuban, and expanded to offer more products, including body spray and hair freshener. Curie products can now be found in stores like Anthropologie, Walmart, and Nordstrom.

Water Wars

Move over donuts, pizza slices, and alligators. Kids’ swim is over. It’s time for the adults to hop in—and we’re bringing our own toys. Float Factory offers two different styles: one a race car, the other a tank. The tank, a.k.a the Pool Punisher, invites party-goers to engage in high-stakes buoyant battles. The toy comes equipped with a water cannon capable of blasting targets up to 50 feet away. Talk about punishment.

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“To think about playing it in San Diego, where I’m from, where I’ve listened to this album driving down PCH, where I’ve danced to these songs in the gymnasium of where I went to middle school at Tri-City Christian… It truly is the biggest blessing for me.”

As a kid growing up, Melendez’s family had a special love for the music of ABBA. After her parents saw a production of Mamma Mia! in San Diego and bought a copy of the play’s soundtrack, the entire family became huge fans. So it’s only fitting that Melendez will grace the Broadway San Diego stage as the lead role of Sophie Sheridan when the nationally touring musical hits San Diego in November. This is the 25th anniversary of the Mamma Mia! tour, which officially launches in Denver on Oct. 31. The tour will hit 35+ cities through August of 2024.

Melendez has always been an entertainer, despite growing up in a family of chiropractors—both of her parents, two brothers, and their wives are chiropractors. But Melendez didn’t see a future for herself in the medical world. Her family, she said, have never been anything but supportive of her stage aspirations.

Growing up, she performed in local shows at school, community theater, and church while idolizing stars like Miley Cyrus and Bernadette Peters. Her room was papered with photos of her favorites, including a photo of Sophie from Mamma Mia! hanging just above her bed.

Melendez said she has been lucky enough to know what she wanted to do in life since middle school. After a year at Coronado High School, she convinced her family to let her attend the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) for high school, commuting each day from Carlsbad. She would wake up at dawn to catch the train to the OC, and would often not return until after dark due to rehearsals.

“It was hard leaving a school where I knew everyone to go to a new to go to a new school… part of me didn’t want to leave. But [my family was] like, ‘You love this so much. You’re really passionate about it,'” she said. “They encouraged me to go.”

Following high school, Melendez made the big move to the Big Apple. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from Pace University in New York City, where she currently lives.

Since graduating, Melendez’s theatrical career has taken off, with roles in plays like Rent, Les Miserables, and Almost Famous right here at the Old Globe. But the role of Sophie is close to her heart.

“The first tour I ever saw was Mamma Mia! in San Francisco for my 16th birthday. I begged my mom to take me. And I was like, ‘I want to play Sophie one day,’” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”

Tickets for Broadway SD’s production of Mamma Mia! are currently on sale. The show runs from Nov. 7 through Nov. 12 at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

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Swchbak Athletic Apparel San Diego Trending Local Stokes September 2023

Courtesy of SWCHBAK

Get SWCHBAK, Save Lives

While having fun in the sun is a San Diego staple, protection from harmful rays is a top priority. Enter SWCHBAK, a female-owned, SD-based company offering an array of functional athletic apparel and accessories made from sustainable materials in prints designed by artists from around the country. The brand’s line of gaiters (a neck and face scarf) are UPF 50, with a percentage of sales going to local nonprofit Stage Free Melanoma.

Scratch House Vegan Cheese San Diego Trending Local Stokes September 2023

Courtesy of Scratch House Vegan

Grate Things

Whether it’s shredded, sliced, shaved, or melted, cheese is the essential star ingredient or finishing touch on many a meal. But for some folks, delicious dairy tops their dietary no-fly list because of the havoc it wreaks on their system (or on the planet). And let’s be honest: Most plant-based cheeses just don’t taste the same. Enter chef Anthony Howe of Scratch House, who has set out to prove that plant-based cheeses can be as satisfying as their cream-based counterparts.During Howe’s tenure at SD vegan spot Donna Jean (see our vegan roundup), he saw the Swiss cheese–like holes in the vegan cheese market and decided to reinvent the standard. Today, he produces dairy-free dill havarti, fermented Fresno jack, smoked gouda, parmesan, and baby goat cheese made from cashews, refined coconut oil, water, rice flour, tapioca starch, and more. Whichever way you slice it, Scratch House has proved that good queso doesn’t have to come from a cow.

Yasukochi Family Farms Oceanside San Diego Trending Local Stokes September 2023

A Fruitful Bounty

Do you like being awash (nay, drowning) in quality produce? Do you like when it’s affordable and local? Do you like it delivered to your door at no additional cost? So do we. That’s why we dig Yasukochi Family Farms. Based in Oceanside, the family operation grows a broad diversity of flavorful, seasonal vegetables, and supplements their CSA box with picks from other local producers.You can opt for a subscription-based jumbo or regular-sized box, or just order on the weeks you need it (there’s no price difference). There are also plentiful add-ons like eggs, extra fruit, and live basil plants. For many of us here at SDM, it’s basically made shopping for produce at the grocery store obsolete.

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Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Tastemaker

Courtesy of Epic Gardening

Kevin Espiritu has never been one for convention. To pay for college, he didn’t rely on scholarships or his parents to foot the bill: instead, he played online poker and used the winnings to finance his education. Post-college, when Espiritu had graduated from playing online poker to playing video games with his brother, he felt the need to challenge himself to come up with a hobby that would take him and his brother outside and away from their screens. That challenge turned out to be gardening.“I grew up in San Diego in the Rancho Penasquitos area. I really did not grow up gardening, so it took until I was in my early twenties to start growing my first plant,” he says.

Tomato Garden Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Products

Courtesy of Epic Gardening

What began as a hobby has now blossomed into Epic Gardening, a one-stop-shop for growing guides and products—whether you’re looking for advice on propagating orchids or you want to learn how to plant pecan trees. And when you need to buy gardening supplies, Epic’s online store has just about everything you’d need to become a master gardener. Their bestsellers include the product that started it all: a galvanized raised garden bed. “I had featured [it] in some of my content, and everyone wanted to know where to get it. I decided, instead of telling you, why don’t I just offer it to you since no one seems to know how to get it. That’s how it started,” Espiritu says.Epic Gardening also sells seed trays, grow lights, planters, and 650 different varieties of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. With nearly 2.5 million YouTube subscribers, 955k Instagram followers, 2.7 million TikTok followers, 673k Facebook followers, and 81k Pinterest followers, Epic Gardening’s social media presence has blossomed into influencer status.We asked Espiritu for his favorite must-have products that he can’t live without, whether in the garden or everyday life. Here are his current faves:

OluKai ‘Ohana Men’s Beach Sandals Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Products

Courtesy of OluKai

OluKai ‘Ohana Men’s Beach Sandals 

$75

“I’m a flip flops guy, despite my best efforts to move to more sophisticated shoes,” he says. “[These are] easy to toss on in the garden and I like a more rugged style because I beat mine up like crazy.” 

Gozney Dome Outdoor Pizza Oven Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Products

Courtesy of Gozney

Gozney Dome Outdoor Pizza Oven 

$1,999

“Completely changed my cooking game. I make fresh sourdough pizza and roasted garden-fresh potatoes and veggies in this a couple times a week in the summer. Great for parties, too!”

Felco Hawkbill Knife Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Products

Courtesy of Felco

Felco Hawkbill Knife 

from $24

“The hawkbill style knife blade makes pruning really easy, with a pulling motion towards the body. [It] makes short work of my tomato and veggie pruning tasks, along with harvesting greens, etc.”

Birdies Garden Products raised Garden Bed Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu Products

Courtesy of Epic Gardening

Birdies Garden Products Raised Garden Beds

from $99

“The original metal raised bed from Australia, loved by hundreds of thousands of gardeners around the world and proudly carried by us here at Epic Gardening. Aside from the gardening use case, it’s my favorite product of all time because it made Epic Gardening what it is today. Very grateful!”
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CEO of the San Diego LGBT Community Center, Cara Dessert (left), and Youth Queer Leadership Council Coordinator, Ibeth May (right), put together flags to bring to a community event

Photo Credit: Cole Novak

As a queer youth growing up in El Centro, Cara Dessert says that having a place like the Hillcrest Youth Center would have been invaluable—and unimaginable.

“A place like this was beyond my wildest dreams,” says Dessert, now the CEO of the San Diego LGBT Community Center. “It’s our love letter and survival guide [for] the next generation.”

Just one of the several vital facilities operated by the SD LGBT Community Center, the new 2,500-square- foot Hillcrest Youth Center opened in April. It’s the latest and largest iteration of the center, which was originally founded in 2001 and has changed locations multiple times throughout the years. Whenever they outgrew a space, they’d search for a new one to provide much- needed services to LGBTQ San Diegans ages 10 to 14.

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A post shared by San Diego LGBT Center (@lgbtcenter)

There are nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in this country. In an environment like that, we’re under attack,” Dessert says. “Some youth want a space [where it’s] safe to be their full selves and hang out in community with other youth, and some youth need help.”

The location provides emergency shelter and critical housing, along with behavioral and sexual health services, therapy, and support groups.

“No matter what happened in your day, you walk in here and you’re safe, you belong, you have friends, you have support, and you have guidance for your future,” Dessert emphasizes. “We’re committed to building the next generation of LGBTQ leaders here in San Diego. To be able to purchase and open this building, it’s a symbol of our hope for the next generation, it’s a sign of our investment in their future, and it’s how we are actively combatting the hate that is in this world.”

The new HYC is located at 514 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The San Diego Foundation has issued The San Diego LGBT Community Center a challenge grant to raise funds for the Hillcrest Youth Center. San Diego Foundation will match every donation up to $100,000 to support the Center’s outreach and programs for LGBTQ youth. You can visit their website if you’d like to make a matched donation to support the Center.

The post Hillcrest’s Youth Center Serving SD’s LGBTQ Community appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Panca July Covering 75

Illustration by Paola Villaseñor aka Panca

The cover of San Diego Magazine’s February 1965 issue pointed readers towards the pristine, “unplundered” beaches in Baja, boasting of potential undiscovered gems to be found by “intrepid” visitors.

“On this beach,” reads the cover description, “a ‘mystique’ is made possible by the fortuitous lack of too many people and intrepid campers can find Nirvana in the cool breezes of that more southerly Pacific as well as a trove of cast-off treasures.”

Nearly 60 years later, San Diegans’ relationship with Baja has grown more complex, but we’re as enchanted by the peninsula as ever.

February 1965 San Diego Magazine Cover

In celebration of SDM’s 75th birthday this year, we’re asking contemporary artists we love to recreate classic covers. This month’s cover is a modern depiction of Baja from celebrated binational artist Panca. In her illustration, a solo female traveler races in a convertible towards Baja’s newest hot spot—the wine country of Valle de Guadalupe— seemingly without a care in the world, windswept hair and all.

“The Valle has developed big time. You can go to the Valle and you’ll run into somebody from San Diego. Before, it was kind of hush-hush,” Panca says.

“I think, like everything, it can get burned. But I also think there’s a lot going on and it’s very much worthy of [exploring] and preserving at the same time. There has to be a balance of acknowledging this beautiful area, but …. not just using it up until it’s gone.” —JI

The post Covering 75: July 2023 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Tina Turner Broadway San Diego Evan Zimmerman

Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman

Tina’s Curtain Call

The world lost an icon when the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner, passed away on May 24. The trailblazing singer, actress, and author’s life is celebrated in the new musical, TINA–The Tina Turner Musical, which runs July 25–30 at the San Diego Civic Theatre. From her humble beginnings in Brownsville, TN, to her tumultuous relationship with Ike Turner and a triumphant comeback that cemented her reputation as one of the greatest musical acts of our time, Tina was simply the best.

Pickleball Courts Westfield UTC

Pickleball’s In Your Court

The pickleball craze shows no signs of slowing down, and, for a limited time, you can hit the courts at Westfield UTC. Open through July, the mall’s three regulation-size pickleball courts (located above True Food Kitchen) are available on a first-come, first-serve basis—no pun intended. Bring your own gear and show off your skills during regular daylight hours. Use of the courts is complimentary.

Oddish Wine Bay Park Winery

Photo Credit: Danielle Adams

Nothing “Oddish” About It

As co-founders of Lost Cause Meadery, Bill and Suzanna Betz know their way around a fermenter. Recently, the duo opened another drinking establishment: Oddish Wine in Bay Park. Specializing in minimal intervention wines made with Southern California grapes, Oddish also offers an array of ciders, spritzes, vermouth, and amari (gotta catch ’em all). Nestled next to Lost Cause, Oddish is located at the Gärten, a multi-vendor space that also includes Pizza Cassette and Deft Brewing.

Malibu Dream Lounge SDCC 2023 – XLE Productions

Courtesy of XLE Productions

Come On, Barbie, Let’s Go Party

Bring your retro, Barbiecore dreams to life at the Malibu Dream Lounge pop-up during San Diego Comic-Con (July 19–21). To get in on the plastic action—held beneath Parq nightclub—reserve entry into any of XLE Productions’ Comic-Con parties (they all take place at Parq). During the day, reservation-holders can visit the lounge and enjoy themed cocktails (non-alcoholic sips are also available), photo ops, and immersive experiences. After dark, VIP guests can dance the night away to the sounds of DJ Atomic Blonde and get dolled up with glitter and cosmetics from viral TikTok sensation Designer Dust Co. Prices vary.

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Covering 75 June 2023 July 1977 Cover

Photo Credit: John Oldenkamp

Summer 1977 Superguide,” screamed the cover of the July 1977 issue of San Diego Magazine, splashed over a photo of a woman enjoying a multi-flavored, triple-scoop ice cream cone. And enjoying it she is, her tongue lapping at the highest scoop.

Tongues might not be the most visually appealing body part to some, but they certainly conjure reactions. Magazine covers are meant to get people talking. They should be provocative, memorable, and get tongues wagging. This on certainly seemed to.

Beneath the ’77 cover photo, which was shot by John Oldenkamp, is the explanation for the tongue-in-scoop shot: “The Scoop on the Yummiest Ice Cream in Town.” Vital information in sunny San Diego, whether it’s 1977 or 2023.

Covering 75 June 2023 San Diego Magazine

Photo Credit: Hannah Bernabe

To commemorate 75 years of SDM, we’re taking inspiration from old covers and updating them with a modern twist. Paris Max, a local drag performer, embodies modern with a twist. You can catch her at her day job as manager and co-owner of InsideOUT, Hillcrest’s quirky indoor-outdoor (hence the name) restaurant, or at one of her many drag shows around town.

For Paris, shot here by Hannah Bernabe, the whole world is a stage from which she can entertain and share the art of drag.

“My audience on one night might not be surrounded by drag or may have never seen drag, and then the next night, my audience is full of regulars who watch my shows every week. Everyone comes with an open mind and with the goal of being entertained,” she says.

Entertainment with a dose of social awareness? Well, isn’t that the cherry on top.

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