M Magazine Sept 2022 Los Altos

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SEPTEMBER 2022

| mdigitalbayarea.com

LOS ALTOS, LOS ALTOS HILLS & MOUNTAIN VIEW

GOING

SOLO TIPS FOR

Female Travelers

TRAVEL:

Food for the Soul

TRAVEL ESSENTIALS

MUST-PACK TRAVEL ITEMS

SALAD FOR DINNER

&

HEALTHY

Delicious Recipes

: PLUS Keeping Teen Drivers Safe &

Back-to-School Must-Haves

A Cool Stay in

BODEGA BAY

Landscapes for Living

Beautiful Gardens • Custom Stonework • Quality Woodworking • Pool & Spa “Working with Lifescape was seamless. We’re constantly astounded at its transformation from a typical suburban backyard to an absolute oasis.”

- Megan Blitzer

650.948.4485 www.LifescapeWeb.com LIC 913269 — LIC 1073878 Licensed, Insured & Bonded

don’t leave home without it ·

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HERE ARE OUR MUST-TAKE TRAVEL FAVORITES FOR WHEN WE’RE ON THE GO.

TRAVEL MEDIA POUCH This handy pouch lets you keep all of your gadgets together in one organized spot. It’s such a nice change from having your phone, tablets, watches, readers, and all of the accompanying cords jumbled and tangled together in a random bag! From $30 at greatusefulstuff.com.

BLISS BLOCK STAR INVISIBLE DAILY SUNSCREEN

Never set foot outside without sunscreen!

This lavender-scented, tinted, SPF 30 sunscreen protects skin from the sun’s harmful rays while offering natural-looking coverage and minimizing the appearance of pores. Infused with an Antioxidant Blend, it helps protect against free radicals and does not contain Parabens or Phthalates. $25 at Target, Blissworld.com, amazon.com, Ulta/Ulta.com, Walmart.

HANDZIES SOAP + WATER WIPES

I love that these sanitizing wipes are individually wrapped – they are super compact and there’s no chance of them leaking in your bag or drying out. Plus, they’re made with natural ingredients – no alcohol or toxic chemicals – and they’re super gentle and won’t dry out your skin. From $7.99 at handzies. com/collections/all.

LEFT COAST ORIGINAL TIDY TRAVEL MAGNETIC STAND

The TidyTravel is the only device display stand you'll ever need. Take this stand on the go by sliding the two pieces apart and snapping them together to protect your accessories.

Magnets keep the stand pieces securely clamshelled in place until you are ready to use it again. The best part?

The scorched strand bamboo has a great subtle aroma similar to cedar with a hint of smoky mildness. $50 at leftcoastoriginal.com.

WHY WE TRAVEL: 100 REASONS TO SEE THE WORLD

by Patricia Schultz R.RIVETER PATTON HANDBAG

I never leave home without my R. Riveter crossbody bag. It’s so compact and perfectly fits a smartphone and a wallet. If you want to travel light and have your hands free, this cute little bag is a must. Plus, components are crafted by independent military spouses in their homes around the nation and shipped to R.Riveter's shop for assembly. $138 at rriveter.com.

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I love reading about travel while I’m traveling, so if you’re like me, you’ll love this book full of affirmations, quotes, travel hacks, and stories about the author’s travels around the world. And the photos – beautiful. The book is actually quite compact and perfect for reading on a plane or at the beach. $25 at book sellers.

HYDRALYTE

These are great for taking on the plane or on the road to help keep you from getting dehydrated. Just pop a tablet or powder stick into bottled water and enjoy. They’re super portable and precisely formulated to activate rapid hydration while increasing electrolyte absorption. Made with vegan ingredients that are free of artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners.

Best of all, they taste great and are refreshing. From $28.99 at Hydraly te. com and amazon.com.

GOODWIPES

Goodwipes All-Over Body Wipes are a must for on-the-go freshening. Whether you’re camping, stuck in the car, stranded at the airport, or anywhere where you just can’t get to a shower right now– these wipes are a lifesaver. From $6.99 at goodwipes.com/collections/body-wipes.

MERMAID TRAVEL SET

The most gorgeous zero waste set you'll ever see! The kit contains a straw, fork, spoon, butter knife and even a set of chopsticks—all contained in a travel wrap. Perfect replacement for single use plastic utensils and straws so you're always prepared (and eco-friendly!) while you're on the go! $32 at mermaidstraw.com.

AVANA BECKRIDGE WATER BOTTLE

We love this sleek insulated water bottle that comes with a builtin straw, preventing spills and will keep drinks hot or cold for hours! The bottles are attractively designed and come in many pretty colors. Plus, every purchases helps provide water to communities in need. $40 at avana.com.

NOMADIQ GRILLS

KNOURS KOMPLETE

This luxurious skincare kit will make you feel so pampered, even your skin will feel like it’s on vacation. Comes with cleanser, toner mist, two masks, and a rich moisturizer all in cloth bag that you can easily throw in your purse or suitcase. $26 at amazon.com.

nomadiQ is the ultimate portable, lightweight gas grill. This sleek sexy bad boy allows you to grill anytime, anywhere. Weighing in at an impressively feather light weight of just 12 lbs. nomadiQ may be small, but it sure is mighty. Transport and grill it up anywhere you please; campsites, RVing, boating, parks, the beach, road trips and more. $299 at amazon.com.

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Tips for Women Traveling Alone

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september calendar

T HIN GS TO D O

September 15th – October 9 th

August Highlights

Passengers

Concours at Pasadera

Attention car enthusiasts! The annual Concours at Pasadera is an annual event that should not be missed! This year, the Coachbuilders of Ferrari were featured at the weekend-long car show. Set against the elegant backdrop of the Pasadera Country Club, guests wandered among the mostly vintage automobiles while sipping champagne. This event supports charitable events including CASA of Monterey County, The Bridge addiction recovery program, and The Laguna Seca Raceway Foundation. For more information, visit pasaderaconcours.com.

Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy

Guo Pei, the Chinese-born fashion designer, best known for creating Rihanna’s extraordinary golden gown for the 2015 Met Gala, was featured at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

The Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy exhibit featured over 80 of the designer’s stunning works, highlighting dazzling embroidery, structure, styling, and truly unique dressmaking techniques. It’s no surprise that one of Guo Pei’s works of art sells for around $600,000!

routines, juggling, tightrope walking, and more to explore the intricate connections between all of our lives.

The Geary Theater will become your personal quarters as life happens along this track of sorts, twisting and turning through valleys and plains. Experience tearful goodbyes, anticipatory reunions, and fateful encounters inside the cabin.

Single tickets are available at the A.C.T. Box Office at 415-749-2228 or online at act-sf.org.

September 7th – October 2 nd

September 20 th – 25th

California Shakespeare Theater, Orinda Set in San Francisco’s Fillmore District from the eminent domain crisis through to the subsequent displacement of the 1960s, LEAR is Gardley’s deeply personal deconstruction of the classic story of power, betrayal, and madness.

The production—infused with live jazz music accompaniment—reckons with uncomfortable legacies, with the consequences of our actions, and with the vulnerability and ultimate resilience of the human heart to find its way back again.

Center for the Performing Arts, San Jose Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the record-breaking musical spectacular has captivated audiences in over 30 countries and 15 languages! Featuring new sound design, direction, and choreography for a new generation— experience CATS for the first time as it begins a new life, or let it thrill you all over again! Tickets are available online at broadwaysanjose.com or by calling 408-792-4111.

Lear

September 15th – October 9 th Passengers

Geary Theater, San Francisco You have never experienced a train ride quite like this! Created, directed, and choreographed by Bay Area native and The 7 Fingers co-founder Shana Carroll, Passengers features a cast of worldclass acrobats who use feats including aerial

CATS

September 30th – October 31st

UNHINGED: Nightshade’s Curse Winchester Mystery House, San Jose Featuring a new storyline, characters, and scares through the house and the estate, Unhinged: Nightshade’s Curse will be Winchester Mystery

House’s scariest Halloween haunt to date. The terrifying house tour will include multiple routes where guests will encounter numerous scare actors and become immersed in the world’s most famous haunted house. Before entering the home, guests will be entertained at Madam Nightshade's Spirit Carnival, a vintage traveling carnival that includes themed midway games, Axe Throwing at the Stables, Fortuna's Tent of Mystery, the Spookeasy Bar, strolling entertainment, and more.

ONGOING Through December 30 Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story

Club Fugazi, San Francisco Powered by exhilarating acrobatics, choreography, spoken word, video projections, shadow play, and original music, Dear San Francisco invites locals and visitors alike on a heartstopping romp through both the essence and the myth that has San Francisco indelibly etched on our collective imagination. From the 1906 earthquake and Summer of Love to beat poetry and the mysterious fog, San Francisco comes vividly to life through a series of tableaus (acts), including hoop diving, Chinese pole, juggling, and “hand-to-trap,” performed by an international cast of world-class acrobats. Tickets: clubfugazisf.com or 415-273-0600.

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FE ATURE

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Travel

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is food for the soul experienced this epiphany at an early age.

In fact, my earliest memory is not of my first bike or my first visit with Santa; it is of the morning we set off from my small hometown of Beacon in New York’s Hudson Valley to Atlantic City and the Jersey Shore. I was four years old, sitting in the back seat of the family station wagon with my sister, Roz, the window rolled down and the wind on my face. I felt like the luckiest kid on the block. I loved the sound and smell of the ocean, the comical dive-bombing seagulls, and the long, sandy stretch of beach that beckoned me with the promise of the unknown. One day I wandered off alone just far enough for my mother to call the lifeguards into action. I was quickly found, though I never really considered myself lost. I remember how I did not want our summer adventure to end, and on our last day stood outside the car in a histrionic display of I-don’t-want-to-go-home tears. It would be the first of many times I felt that way.

And just like that, Beacon was in my rearview mirror, and I was off to our nation’s capital and a collegiate chapter that felt both exhilarating and enlightening.

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y senior year saw everyone busy making plans for life after graduation. With no real career plan in mind, I accepted my diploma, grabbed my passport, and set off for a gap year—which quickly turned from singular to plural—in Italy. A stint as a nanny for a dysfunctional but charming Florentine family, with two precocious children who forced me to learn Italian very quickly, led to gigs as a tour guide, translator, leather goods salesperson, and instructor of TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language). It was also a gateway to explore every corner of the country and much of Europe and northern Africa. I gained a different perspective on the United States and learned much about myself and what I valued—and I glimpsed the possibilities my future offered. I realized that travel needed to play a big role in my life—though it would take me a while to figure out how.

As a twentysomething back home, between travels and still unsure of my path, I dabbled as a freelance fashion stylist. During a shoot in Key West for an Italian men’s magazine,

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the editor was suddenly called back to Milan; with few options, he asked me to do a scheduled interview with a local personality—an eccentric sunkentreasure hunter of considerable fame.

Thankfully the treasure hunter loved to talk about himself—a lot—and gave me plenty of material to write the piece.

What a thrill when I finally saw that first article published and my name in print! Proud and encouraged, I would spend the next many years blazing this new trail and saying yes to just about any assignment I was offered. It wasn’t always easy, but it was always rewarding. And now, one thousand places later, I’m still at it and thankful every day.

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ravel teaches us empathy, humility, patience, gratitude, and how to enjoy experiences over things; it is the ultimate classroom without walls.

But travel is also just plain fun. It’s a chance to cut loose, leave all the realworld stuff behind, and tap into your inner adventure seeker. On a recent trip to Southeast Asia, Elizabeth—a favorite traveling mate—and I were sailing down the Mekong River in Laos, and I felt a wave of contentment wash over me that I rarely feel at home. I felt both recharged and serene as we drifted through the legendary Golden Triangle,

past scenery unchanged for centuries, a local captain at the helm of our polished wooden longboat. Children washing the family elephant on the sandy banks waved us on, their smiles contagious, while golden temples peeked out from densely forested hilltops.

We stopped to visit villages stuck in time, explored a cave that had been transformed into a Buddhist temple filled with hundreds of statues, cooled off in hidden multitiered waterfalls, and eventually disembarked in Luang Prabang, a city whose name will always make me smile. Sometimes it is about both the journey and the destination.

Wherever you go, however you travel, allow it to enrich you, connect you to others, challenge your preconceptions, and open your head and heart. If you do, you’ll understand why we travel, and why we should never stop.

It is an investment in ourselves and makes us better people. When we get home, home is still the same, but we have changed. And that changes everything.᯽

Patricia Schultz is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers 1,000 Places to See Before You Die and 1,000 Places to Se e in the Un i te d S tate s and Canada Before You Die.

Timeless...

yet modern

51 UNIVERSITY AVE, LOS GATOS, CA 95030 | 408.354.9500 | BLACYS.COM

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Air Fryer Cooking

FO OD

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Dinner Salads

It’s still too hot to cook and you want something healthy, delicious, and simple to

prepare. One word: Salad! Try these fresh and hearty salad recipes from The “I Love My

Air Fryer” Three-Step Recipe Book by Michelle Fagone. It’s almost like not cooking at all!

Honey Mustard ChickenArugula Salad This is a salad that’s both easy to prepare and sure to impress. This can be a weekday go-to while working from home, or it can be the dish you serve with friends paired with a fun drink and warm weather. Either way, it’s sure to satisfy.

Hands-On Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 9 minutes Preheat Temperature: 350°F Preheat Time: 3 minutes Accessories/Prep: Fryer basket sprayed with cooking spray Serves 2

Ingredients

2 (4-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced into 1" cubes 2 teaspoons olive oil 1⁄2 teaspoon salt 1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1⁄4 cup mayonnaise 2 tablespoons yellow mustard 1⁄4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon honey 3 cups arugula

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, toss chicken in oil. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Place chicken in prepared fryer basket and cook 4 minutes. Shake basket gently and flip chicken.

Cook an additional 5 minutes. Check chicken using a meat thermometer to ensure internal temperature is at least 165°F. 3. In a separate large bowl, combine mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, and honey. Toss with arugula and divide evenly between two bowls. Top salads with chicken, pecans, and blueberries. Serve immediately.

PER SERVING Calories: 527 | Fat: 36g | Protein: 30g | Sodium: 1,170mg | Fiber: 6g | Carbohydrates: 14g | Sugar: 5g

Lobsta Cobb Salad Forget the sad, boring salads of the past. This special dish will have you reaching for salad again and again!

If you’re looking to really indulge, don’t forget the artisanal bread and chilled rosé to go with it.

Hands-On Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 8 minutes Preheat Temperature: 400°F Preheat Time: 3 minutes Accessories/Prep: Fryer basket lined with parchment paper Serves 2

Ingredients

2 (5-ounce) frozen uncooked lobster tails, thawed 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted 3 cups mixed greens 1⁄4 cup red wine vinaigrette

2 large eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, and halved 2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled 2 medium Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced 1⁄4 cup crumbled blue cheese 1 medium avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced

Preparation

1. Using kitchen shears, cut down the middle of the lobster tails on the softer side. Care- fully run your finger between the lobster meat and the shell to loosen meat.

2. Place tails cut side up in prepared fryer basket. Cook 4 minutes. Brush with butter and cook an additional 4 minutes.

Transfer tails to a cutting board and let sit until cool enough to handle. Remove meat from shells. Dice lobster meat into 1" bites.

3. Divide greens between two bowls and toss with vinaigrette. Top with remaining ingredients for a decorative presentation. Serve.

PER SERVING Calories: 446 | Fat: 31g | Sodium: 1,830mg | Carbohydrates: 18g | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 2g | Protein: 23g

Fried Halloumi Caprese Salad Who knew that anything could compare to the angelic buffalo mozzarella in this southern Italian specialty? Halloumi crisps up so nicely and pairs beautifully with the freshness of the tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Don’t forget to serve this with some artisanal bread.

Hands-On Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 10 minutes Preheat Temperature: 350°F Preheat Time: 3 minutes M

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Accessories/Prep: Fryer basket sprayed with olive oil cooking spray Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided 8 ounces Halloumi cheese, cut into 1⁄2" slices 2 medium Roma tomatoes, sliced 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1⁄4 cup chiffonade of fresh basil

FRESH BASIL CHIFFONADE For a beautiful presentation and flavorful impact, simply stack the basil leaves one on top of the other before rolling them up. While they are rolled into a cigar-like shape, use a sharp knife to thinly slice.

This will create long ribbons.᯽

Preparation

1. Brush 2 teaspoons oil over Halloumi slices.

2. Place Halloumi in prepared fryer basket. Cook 10 minutes until golden brown.

3. Divide Halloumi slices evenly among four plates. Add tomato slices in between Halloumi slices. Drizzle with remaining oil and vinegar. Garnish with basil.

Serve immediately.

PER SERVING Calories: 257 | Fat: 21g | Protein: 12g | Sodium: 569mg | Fiber: 0g | Carbohydrates: 4g | Sugar: 3g

Excerpted from The “I Love My Air Fryer” Three-Step Recipe Book by Michelle Fagone. Copyright 2022 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Photographs by James Sefiuk. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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SV K

FEATURE

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Your TEEN DRIVER

SAFE

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