San Diego’s largest food and wine experience isn’t just an opportunity for food and beverage enthusiasts to indulge in some of Southern California’s best bites and sips; the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival is host to some serious culinary competitions – Chef of the Fest and Taco TKO. These head-to-head competitions are critiqued by both attendees and hand-selected judges at the Grand Tasting and Grand Fiesta events. Winners get the title, some serious bragging rights, and cash prizes.
From a Braised Italian Beef Ciabatta Sandwich to Pork Belly Pibil Tacos, the 2022 competition was deliciously fierce. The winning tastemakers are dishing out the details from ideation to first bite, and ultimately winning the title.
People’s Choice – Chef of the Fest
Sam the Cooking Guy and the Graze by Sam team took home the People’s Choice award at the Chef of the Fest competition. Grand Tasting attendees were the critics for this competition, and if the line leading to Sam’s mouthwatering Italian Beef Ciabatta Sandwich wasn’t enough to prove to it’s delectability, winning the award confirmed it as fan favorite.
Slow-braised oxtail harmonized with provolone and Sam’s homemade garlic aioli between two toasted ciabatta slices. If that alone doesn’t have your mouth watering, the sandwich was dipped in a decadent jus before hitting plate. Sam describes it best, “It was messy, and it was sloppy, and it was so delicious.”
Known as Sam the Cooking Guy, Sam Zien’s career as a chef started twenty years ago with a two-minute cooking segment and the idea to cook dishes that anyone could enjoy. That exact idea is what brought the award-winning sandwich to fruition. Originally created for YouTube, Sam and the team at Graze by Sam transformed the sandwich recipe into a festival-ready, crave-able dish.
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Judges’ Choice for Most Awesome Taco – Taco TKO
Death by Tequila’s juicy Duck Confit Taco was crowned San Diego’s Most Awesome Taco, with Chef Josue Gutierrez and team receiving the Judges’ Choice award at the Taco TKO competition during the festival’s finale event, Grand Fiesta.
The confit duck was prepared birria-style and perfectly spiced to enhance the flavors of the meat and topped with simple, locally-sourced ingredients like fresnos, chile de árbol, red onion, and cilantro.
What was Chef’s inspiration for this delectable dish? Flavors that remind him of his hometown in Mexico. As he puts it, “I’m inspired by the flavors of Baja-California and the mix of cultures in the region.”
People’s Choice for Most Awesome Taco – Taco TKO
Grand Fiesta attendees put their taste buds to the test and voted for Coco Maya by Miss B’s Pork Belly Pibil Taco as San Diego’s Most Awesome Taco.
Chef Quinnton Austin combined Caribbean flavors with Spanish influence, tapping into traditions from his hometown in New Orleans to create what he calls the perfect taco. He used jerk rub for the pork belly pibil and topped it with mango and pineapple for a touch of island flavor.
Bringing creativity to the competition was Chef Quinnton and the Coco Maya team’s main goal, and winning was the cherry on top. Rising in ranks from third place in the previous year’s competition to taking home top honors, these tastemakers think they finally perfected their Taco TKO recipe. Chef Quinnton Austin says, “We wanted to keep some of the traditions of the basic taco alive but spice it up a little. With this win comes so much pride, especially with Coco Maya being the new kid on the block in Little Italy. “
The San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival returns November 8-12, along with both culinary competitions. Foodies from near and far will gather as chefs from San Diego and all over Southern California put their best bites forward for a chance at one of the esteemed titles.
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Studio S
AUGUST 10, 2026
The Secret to a Home That Feels Just Right
Behind every beautiful space is a thoughtful process, and ASID San Diego is helping homeowners understand the value of professional design.
A perfectly designed home rarely happens by accident. Those kitchens that feel effortless and rooms that seem to tell a story the second you walk in? They’re usually the work of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
It’s knowing which ideas will actually work, which materials will hold up over time, and how to turn a collection of choices into a space that feels intentional. That’s where a professional interior designer comes in.
For the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) California San Diego Chapter, the goal is to help people see interior design as more than just the finished look. Behind every well-designed space is a process built on technical expertise. Designers are educated in everything from professional software and construction details to building codes, space planning, materials, and functionality.
Courtesy of ASID
“People don’t always realize how much goes on behind the scenes,” Kirsten Recce , current president of the ASID California San Diego Chapter, says. “Our designers are not just doing furniture placement and color selection and picking out new fluffy pillows. That’s not what they’re trained for.”
ASID members bring formal education, continued learning, and industry knowledge to their projects, helping create spaces that are not only beautiful, but designed to work. A paint color that changes completely depending on the lighting. A material that looks beautiful in a showroom but doesn’t make sense for everyday life. A layout that photographs well but doesn’t function for the people living there. These are the details where professional guidance can make all the difference.
Still, one of the biggest misconceptions about hiring an interior designer is that it’s reserved for massive renovations, luxury homes, or people who already know exactly what they want. The process can feel intimidating. Where do you begin? Is a designer worth the investment? What if you only need help with one room?
ASID’s answer: start with one hour.
ASID’s Spruce Up events break down one of the biggest barriers between homeowners and professional design: knowing where to begin. Held twice a year, the community program gives homeowners the chance to work directly with an ASID designer through a one-hour, $125 consultation in their own home. Whether you’re looking for advice on furniture placement, window treatments, kitchen and bath updates, remodeling ideas, vacation rentals, color selections or something else entirely, the upcoming September 2026 event offers an approachable way to get expert guidance before committing to a full project. Signups are open through Sept. 7, with consultations taking place Sept. 21 through Oct. 31. Proceeds benefit ASID San Diego’s educational and community programs. Register here!
Courtesy of ASID
“It’s a great opportunity for people who are in that exploratory phase,” Recce says. “Maybe they’re not sure they want to hire an interior designer yet, or they think it sounds daunting or expensive. This gives them a chance to discover what working with a designer is actually like.”
Design is personal. A good designer isn’t just creating a beautiful room; they’re helping create a space that fits the way someone lives.
“We’re a resource to all of San Diego County,” Recce says. “It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the phone and call and ask. We’ll answer.”
Mai Vue was just 34 weeks pregnant when she delivered her baby. Her pregnancy had been complicated, and she’d had a recent second trimester pregnancy loss, which led to her receiving specialized care from Sean Daneshmand, MD, a Scripps Clinic perinatologist who oversees high-risk pregnancies. Dr. Daneshmand and his team took care of Mai during her pregnancy, through the birth of her healthy baby girl and beyond. Mai was part of a program Scripps launched to provide support to new moms in the weeks and months after delivery. The postpartum program, known as Scripps Health’s Fourth Trimester Continuum of Care, provides care for women with high-risk pregnancies to optimize their health after childbirth and reduce the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Click here to learn more.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
It’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. When you factor in living in a sun-soaked city like San Diego and the outdoorsy lifestyle that comes with it, that figure can jump to as high as one in three, which makes early detection and intervention all the more important. Dermatologists at Bighorn Mohs and Dermatology Center are using innovative imaging methods and advanced surgical techniques to diagnose and treat skin cancer. For certain cancers in sensitive spots, like the face, dermatologists perform Mohs surgery, removing skin tissue layer by layer until reaching healthy, cancer-free tissue. They also use a process called immunohistochemistry to view tissue samples taken during Mohs surgery in far greater detail than previous methods. Read more about how Scripps is advancing skin cancer care here.
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When endurance athlete Isaac Sanchez learned he had cancer, he felt blindsided. He was healthy, surfed often and was training for an Ironman triathlon. But he had to put that on hold to undergo treatment. His physicians at Scripps Cancer Center developed a plan to treat the cancer in his tonsil and lymph nodes that included six-and-a-half weeks of near-daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. He also worked with a Scripps Cancer Center dietitian to enhance his nutrition to promote strength and healing. Today, Isaac’s back to doing what he loves. Read more of his story here.
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While glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agents have been used to treat Type 2 diabetes for more than 20 years, their recent emergence as weight-loss wonder drugs marked a new frontier in medicine. But their effectiveness has left some patients wondering what to do once they’ve reached their goal. Stopping the medication could mean regaining some, if not all, of the weight. A Scripps Clinic internal medicine physician recently conducted a small study of whether GLP-1 patients who had reached their goal weight could maintain that weight by taking their regularly prescribed injection every other week instead of weekly. Spoiler alert: 30 of 34 patients did. Read more about the study here and what that may mean as pharmaceutical companies roll out oral GLP-1s.
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Chemotherapy and radiation have long been considered gold standards of cancer treatment, but they can cause severe side effects. A promising new approach called theranostics—a combination of “therapeutics” and “diagnostics”—could offer patients with certain types of metastatic cancers new hope. It’s a two-step process that uses a drug that binds to specific receptors on cancer cells. Advanced imaging detects this radioisotope, allowing doctors to then use a second radioisotope that binds to the cancer cells and destroys them. Click here to learn more about how specialists at Scripps Cancer Center are using theranostics.
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