San Diego Food + Wine Festival to showcase La Jolla chefs
La Jolla restaurants will be well-represented in the upcoming San Diego Food + Wine Festival, which is scheduled for Nov. 2-9. It will include pop-ups, specialty dinners, lectures, wine tastings and more throughout San Diego County.
An event honoring Bernard Guillas, former chef at The Marine Room in La Jolla, is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 6, at the Marriott Marquis hotel in downtown San Diego. “Les Amis de Bernard: Louis Latour Signature Dinner” will bring together Suzette Gresham of Acquerello, Rafael Corniel of the Marriott Marquis, Katsuya Fukushima of Daikaya, Bantam King and more, and Aaron Schwartz of APS Hospitality Group to create a five-course dinner.
Also, the Grand Tasting event on Saturday, Nov. 8, at Embarcadero Marina Park North in downtown San Diego will include representatives of La Jolla’s Lucien, Roppongi, Piazza 1909, Beach Break Market, Red O Taste of Mexico and Le Coq.
The next day at the Grand Fiesta at Liberty Station in Point Loma, representatives of Red O and La Jolla’s Lucrezia will be in attendance.
To find out more and buy tickets, visit sandiegowineclassic.com.
Application filed to redevelop Spindrift Drive property
An application has been filed with the city of San Diego to demolish a three-story, 3,221-square-foot house at 1855 Spindrift Drive in La Jolla Shores and replace it with a three-story, 2,759-square-foot home and a detached two-story, 778-square-foot accessory dwelling unit.
The project also includes a basement, an attached subterranean garage, a swimming pool and associated site improvements including about 150 linear feet of retaining walls.
The proposal is undergoing environmental review, and a decision to approve or deny it will be made at a public hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
Prestwick Drive home project approved by San Diego hearing officer
A city of San Diego hearing officer approved a development plan for 8283 Prestwick Drive in La Jolla Shores that calls for a 12,577-square-foot house.
Hearing officer Antoinette Gibbs OK’d the item Oct. 15 on the consent agenda, meaning there was no presentation or discussion.
The project requests coastal development and site development permits to demolish a two-story, approximately 3,400-square-foot house and build the new two-story house with a basement, an attached garage and a terrace with an outdoor kitchen, a patio area with a swimming pool, a pool deck, an outdoor grilling area and associated site improvements.
The plan also includes vacation of a public service easement for a utility line along the southern property boundary that has been abandoned and is no longer in use.
Local artist takes her cyanotypes to Catalina
The work of local photographer and marine scientist Oriana Poindexter is making its way to Catalina Island.
After creating artworks for exhibitions at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla and the La Jolla/Riford Library, as well as an installation at La Jolla’s Birch Aquarium, Poindexter will present “The Blue Forest” at the Catalina Museum for Art & History starting Saturday, Nov. 8.
For the exhibition, Poindexter collected native kelp/seaweed from the waters near Avalon and created life-size cyanotype photograms printed on flowing silk panels, then layered an underwater soundscape recorded on her dives. The result is a walk-through “kelp forest,” according to the museum.
Poindexter created similar works for the “Hold Fast” installation at Birch Aquarium.
Art museum gets grant to help improve access for local groups
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla was recently awarded a $200,000 grant from the Prebys Foundation to support a new program that invites area nonprofit arts organizations to apply to use various museum spaces for workshops, training, meetings, fundraisers, screenings, performances, exhibitions and more.
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is at 700 Prospect St. in La Jolla. (File)
The program aims to enhance access to the venues and spaces and help build the capacity of arts and culture organizations to use them.
MCASD will waive rental fees and cover costs for event staff, security, cleaning services and basic audio-visual equipment.
Organizations will remain responsible for all direct program costs, including artist fees, travel, honoraria, supplies, materials, food, beverages, additional AV and lighting equipment, and supplementary services such as extended hours, extra staffing or gallery activations.
Applications will be reviewed and selected by MCASD team members who develop and produce events and programming at the museum.
Participation is limited to about 15 organizations. The deadline to apply is Friday, Nov. 21. Learn more at mcasd.org/page/rentals.
Interfering with quorum sensing could hold key to healing wounds, study suggests
A previously unrecognized mechanism by staphylococcus aureus, a key driver of skin and soft-tissue infections, that delays wound healing has been discovered by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers, and interrupting the process, they believe, can promote healing.
The process is quorum sensing, the way bacteria can communicate and coordinate behavior. Interfering with it, researchers say, could help wounds heal without antibiotics.
Using mouse and human models, researchers activated the bacterium’s accessory gene regulator, or agr, quorum-sensing system — “a molecular ‘switch’ that controls bacteria communication and virulence,” according to a statement from UC San Diego Health Sciences. Even when bacteria were present at high levels, disrupting the agr system restored healing, the researchers say.
The findings were published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Researchers say these developments, paired with future research, could help manage wound infections and transform care.
$6.2M grant to help launch whole-person health center at UC San Diego
With the help of a five year, $6.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, UC San Diego’s Centers for Integrative Health is launching a new center focusing on what is called whole-person health.
Whole-person health addresses a web of physical, social and emotional factors that can promote well-being. The focus is on personalized care coordinated across different health institutions.
UC San Diego Health says the center will run “strategic partnerships” between UCSD and institutions that specialize in things such as physical therapy, East Asian medicine and complementary and integrative health.
The funding will allow for at least 26 research scholars to go through a two-year career advancement program and will fund 15-30 pilot grants to help scholars and faculty members launch careers in translational science.
The goal is “to generate innovative, evidence-based approaches that improve health outcomes and inform national health care policy,” according to UCSD Health.
San Diego vacation-home tax measure moves forward
A pitch for heavier taxes for vacation rentals and second homes moved ahead Oct. 22 as a San Diego City Council committee voted 3-1 for further analysis. But a majority of those who voted in favor had some questions they want squared away.
The proposal, which could appear on the June ballot next year, would levy a $5,000 per-bedroom tax on most vacation rentals and on second homes that owners decline to rent out long-term.
Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera said it would impact only about 2% of city properties after a series of exemptions and would raise revenue for the city budget while pushing property owners to rent out their second homes long-term rather than let them sit unoccupied, helping to ease the local housing shortage.
But critics say the tax would hurt tourism and the broader local economy, punish locals who rely on vacation rental income and result in an overall drop in city revenue rather than the jump that supporters promise.
City Council President Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla, and Councilman Kent Lee joined Elo-Rivera in voting to move the proposal forward, citing the prospect of revenue from the tax helping to stabilize the city’s shaky finances.
“We need more revenue to provide the services our communities are asking for,” said LaCava, expressing regret for recent budget cuts to libraries and parks. “We can’t continue to under-resource this city.”
But LaCava and Lee said they would need much more information before potentially voting this winter to place the measure on the ballot.
Councilman Raul Campillo dissented in the committee vote and was harshly critical of the proposal, including what he called a lack of adequate analysis.
The new tax would require support from only a simple majority of voters because the money would be used for general city purposes, not a specific priority. — The San Diego Union-Tribune ♦