One of the greatest things about living in California is being close to such diverse landscapes that are just a hop, skip and—in the case of Sedona—a short flight away.
If you’ve heard of Sedona, then you know that it’s considered a sacred place, one revered by New Age thinkers and lambasted by skeptics. The former believe the town has a unique cosmic energy, a certain electromagnetic force that stirs up something in most people—if you’re open to it. I am open to it, so when I visited Sedona on a recent trip, I was all ears…and eyes…and heart.
I may not have had any earth-shattering realizations or resolved latent emotional issues, but Sedona did make an impression on me. There’s a different brand of silence and stillness there, and it forces you to be a little extra introspective. My mind chilled out and meditating all of a sudden seemed less like a challenge. The place just lends itself to looking inward.
Self-fulfilling prophecy or not, the place undoubtedly makes for a dynamite getaway.
Along with other journalists on assignment, we spent most of our time at the resort—in sprawling luxury cottages with two TVs, three different showers and a fireplace—and got a taste of all the cool stuff Sedona is famous for, like spa treatments, hiking and those famous Pink Jeep tours.
My Rituals has left the building. It’s gone. Done. G’bye! To be honest, it was fun and very interesting to get into the minds of different creatives, but I recently I started thinking about asking different people the same questions to see what kind of answers I’d get. And so I now present to you the weekly series, 7 Questions With. Think of it like a My Rituals 2.0. With 7QW, I’m focusing more on West Coast creatives and asking each seven specific questions—some mundane, some serious—inspired by great series like NYMag’s 21 Questions and the fantastic blog So, How Was Your Day?
We’re kicking it off with the very cool, very talented San Diego-based photographer Chantal Pasag. Today, she dishes on trash rap and a secret San Diego spot…among other things.
Name: Chantal Pasag Age: not 30 yet Neighborhood: North Park, San Diego Professional title: Photographer
What did you eat for breakfast today?
Cafe Au Lait (soy) + le croissant.
What’s the best thing about your job?
Being able to connect with people—strangers, friends, acquaintances. I love the challenge of trying to get people to feel completely comfortable around me so that their photos turn out the best—candid, real and fun.
The worst?
Editing. Sometimes. Only when there’s thousands of images to sift through. When the best are picked out then it gets fun again.
How do you tackle a creative block?
An ice-frothy Manhattan or maybe a gin martini. Sometimes “trash rap,” my guilty pleasure. Or I avoid tackling a creative block at all costs by cleaning the house.
What are you currently reading?
A stack of Time magazines (free subscription that keeps showing up at our house. Not sure why, but I’ll take it) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
What’s your favorite spot in the city and why?
There’s a spot downtown that I cherish, because it doesn’t look or feel like you’re in San Diego. It’s architecture is minimal and modern—it feels very Japanese. It’s also very peaceful on a Sunday evening. It’s my “secret spot” where I go to reflect, and be alone.
What was the most awesome thing about today?
Friday Morning Coffee Times. Every Friday morning I meet with my friend (and tribes woman) Holly Haines, founder and cook for FMITK. Check her out. We do a word jumble over coffee. Sometimes other friends crash our morning coffee times, too. We love it! I don’t do well conforming to any sort of routine, but this is one of the very few things that I make an exception for.
Thanks, Chantal! You can also check out her work on her portfolio site pasagraphy.com.
South Park is hands-down my favorite area of San Diego not just because it has a sense of community where everyone knows each other and a great dog park and almost all small businesses, but also because it has one of everything I need. There’s my pizza place (Buona Forchetta), my coffee shop (Cafe Madeleine), my work coffee shop (Rebecca’s), my ice cream spot (Daily Scoop), a home decor/gift shop (Progress) and a handful of other useful, fun shops. But it now also has something I didn’t realize I needed: a quaint, date-night-ready restaurant.
Piacere Mio recently transformed from a casual gelateria and coffee shop to an intimate, romantically lit Italian trattoria. There are meat dishes and a smattering of typical appetizers, like bruschetta, beef carpaccio and sauteed mussels, but the highlight is the homemade pasta. Servings are seriously huge—enough to serve 3-4—and well priced at $12-15, and I love the mix-and-match option, where you can choose a sauce and pasta style to go with it. Considering how rich and carb-heavy pasta can be, though, if you’re a party of two, I’d suggest ordering one pasta dish (the pesto sauce is phenomenal) and one vegetable or meat.
But it’s delightful even beyond mamma-mia-good pasta. The setting is charming—check out the beautiful pendant lamps and snug bar space—and feels like the kind of place Eaman and I would go to for weeknight dinners during the cold New York City winters. It’s warm, cozy and very fitting as San Diego starts to turn towards “fall.” Check it out:
From what I’ve heard and read, Minneapolis has undergone a huge change in the last 10 or so years. Thanks to growing food, design and blogging scenes, the one-half of Minnesota’s Twin Cities has become quite the creative hotbed. So when Eaman needed to me to tag along on his work trip to Minneapolis, I was more than happy to join.
Armed with suggestions from my friend and Minneapolis native Annie D’Souza of Worthy Pause (and the new site The Midwestival), here’s what I indulged in while there:
“Floral, event and art design. Teach yoga by day. Dinosaur by night. ” As soon as I real Natalie Gill’s Instagram profile, I knew she’d be a good fit for this series. What I didn’t know is that she teaches yoga at my studio, and—wait for it—I’ve been to some of her classes and had no idea yogi Natalie was the same Natalie of Native Poppy, a floral and event design company with a wild and natural aesthetic.
What a cool, serendipitous surprise, no? And I had no idea this talented, petite gal was chock full of so many thoughtful and unique rituals, like morning yoga practice in a garage, former training in the San Francisco Ballet and beautiful floral arrangement made with dead flowers found outside an auto mechanic’s shop. Yes, really!
I ran into a blogger friend Sunday night and almost immediately we started talking about restaurants in San Diego, as foodie bloggers tend to do. After rattling off a list of our favorites, she asked me what I thought about one particular restaurant I had blogged about. Did I really like it or was I just saying I liked it because I had to, she asked.
Ah, so there it was. Can you really trust a blogger who gets free stuff? It’s a valid question, considering how many unethical practices are thrown around in the blogging world these days, and it motivated me to address it point blank.
So here’s the deal: I’m in a more unique position than most bloggers. When I get invited to try a new restaurant, visit a hotel or sample a product, I’m getting pitched for my day job as a freelance writer, where I write about food, travel, style, weddings and entertainment for different magazines and websites. The understanding is that I’m trying it in consideration for a magazine story, not my blog. It’s research.* But this blog is a happy little synergy between my day job and my hobby, so it becomes this lucky second child who can reap the benefits from the first born.
I’m very rarely contractually obligated to blog about something, but when I do, it’s because I believe in the brand (and will also tell you if I didn’t like something). I really like what Whole Foods stands for, so I partnered on a blog post with them. I’m very committed to natural beauty products (as much as I can and afford), so I partnered with Beauty Counter and Simple Skincare.
Are there restaurants I don’t like and places that just don’t jive with me? Of course. I just don’t find it productive to devote a whole post to a restaurant or product I didn’t like. Wouldn’t you rather have news you can use? If I don’t love it, I won’t write about it, and you can count on that.
So thanks for listening to this minor detour. I think it’s an important issue to address, so dear blogger friend, thanks for unintentionally inspiring me!
*There’s of course a discussion of ethics in relation to that, but that’s a line I like to tread carefully on my own and not on this space since, well, it doesn’t have anything to do with the blog.
On the one hand, this summer has been a psychotic beast that just won’t quit. On the other hand, I’d much rather be hot, hot, hot than cold and miserable. Last week I was cold and miserable in Minneapolis, so even though it was a scorcher this past weekend, I was loving the heat and warmth on my skin. We took Teddy and our friend’s pup Tilly to the Coronado dog beach so we could all cool down. Teddy behaved, Eaman bodyboarded and I played with a 3-month-old English bulldog puppy. It was one of the most perfect beach visits. And T was so exhausted he fell asleep on Tilly’s bum.
1. Forget about favorite September memory—going kayaking with Eaman and Teddy in Mission Bay was one of my favorite life moments. Photos sometimes make life seem so straight up joyous even when it’s not, but whenever you see a snap of us three, rest assured that it’s all real because it’s then that I’m at my happiest. When we came across the dog-friendly Aqua Adventures, we brought Teddy along for an afternoon on the water. Life jackets aren’t required for dogs and even though golden retrievers like Teddy are very capable swimmers, the handle on the jackets make it easier to pick him up when he jumped out of the kayak, which was often. At one point we didn’t allow him back on for a while half to teach him a lesson and half to swim himself tired.
