Cornucopia: Stephen Facciola's Edible World “You’re eating bug excrement.” Stephen Facciola and I are standing in the parking lot of a Middle Eastern grocery in disheartening Anaheim. The streets are eight lanes wide. The blocks, …

Candy Man Stephen Traino’s life is sweet. "I was crossing the street in my old hometown of Fairport, New York, to get some candy," Stephen Traino admits, "and the next thing I knew, this car …

Crazy About You A former UCSD psychiatric resident with questionable habits. The date was September 27, 1991, and Dr. Stephen Gould, a La Jolla psychiatrist in private practice, wrote a memo regarding an unpaid assignment …

Foul Ball: The local mood of our national pastime It’s six o’clock in the evening on July 21, and the brilliant blue of the late-afternoon sky over San Diego is bleaching at the edges as …

What is Beauty to the Blind? They were being murdered by the light. I watched and said nothing. When we began our lunch, the sun was just burnishing the windowsill. It was a hot day …

Tacos Are a Tiny Taste of Temptation Eat up, little burros. Fancy wimmen are okay, but there's nuttin' like the real thing: a nice warm adobada taco on a nice cold night beside a nice …

Greetings from Tijuana A mile east of the Tijuana International Airport is an area police call El Fin del Mundo, the End of the World, where drug-cartel assassins dump their victims. Both Mexican and American …

The Hardback Lester Bangs Somewhere between life and literature. I think it’d really be groovy to give the readers an idea of what it was like growing up in El Cajon and reading Burroughs and …

Udo was gone German cyclist killed at Camp Pendleton by North County Transit bus Udo and his new cyclist companions were riding on a shoulderless stretch of a two-lane road, between two low-lying heavy guardrails. …

Everybody's Got a Favorite Bug "I asked Bob Parks to name his favorite wasp. Ammophila: after all these years. Perhaps it was her (the wasp Parks was observing was a female) shape that first drew …

Adventurous eaters know to dig deep into Kearny Mesa, Clairemont Mesa, Mira Mesa, Linda Vista, and Miramar for hidden joys and authentic Asian restaurants. And while some are launching more convenient outposts closer to a …

Food chains and family restaurants once dominated the dining hours of Escondido, Rancho Bernardo, and Poway, and the rest. But a growing foodie movement looks to change this. They've added some quality midrange fare to …

If BEACH TOWNS never offered better than fish tacos and carne asada fries, we'd all be fat and happy. But gentrification always brings a taste for something more, and even the Beaches Ocean and Pacific …

From Mission Hills to Kensington, in Heights both Normal and University, and in Parks North and South, UPTOWN residents don't rest on good looks or thick pocketbooks. They thrive on personality and artful presentation. So, …

The ultracompetitive restaurant landscape around the DOWNTOWN neighborhoods of Marina, Gaslamp, and East Village leaves little room for error in what's already a risky enterprise. The mere fact these restaurants survive recommends them. That they …

These days Little Italy offers some of the best food in town, or at least the most photographed. The neighborhood keeps serving up hits, almost eclipsing the tried-and-true eateries that sit between its shiny new …

Along 20 miles of coastline between Del Mar and Oceanside you can find food aimed at surfers, yogis, young families, and millionaires. Del Mar and Solana Beach give fine dining spectacular views, Carlsbad embraces the …

Foodies living close to the city's center are waking up to the fact that there are excellent reasons to drive all over this county. Reader feasters have caught on to worthy spots in East County, …

When Shirts Talk Clothes make a statement. I have this shirt because my husband says that I'm the slowest mountain biker in the world. [The shirt] says, "Behold the Turtle." By Cruz Medina, June 30, …

For Whom the Bell Tolled A Spanish Civil War story Dave Chriss balances a Scotch and water on the arm of a crushed-velvet chair in his Mira Mesa living room. He awaits the arrival of …

Apple Knows Who Stole Your iPod Anti-Big Brother attitude runs through technological community "Apple could go so far as to mess up an iPod internally, making it useless." By Cruz Medina, Aug. 31, 2006 | …

Stay Away From Pinto Canyon Surreal signs of life in the desert. The drawings were stick figures of men, rectangular grids, and most notably, a tall sailing ship, complete with a mast and furled sail. …

What You Do To Get Ahead Juan Vargas’s lobbyist love-fest Vargas has continually hit up industry lobbyists for campaign cash, although he runs virtually unopposed in a safe Democratic district. State disclosure records show Vargas …

Block Party In 8 years, home prices went from $320,000 to $750,000 and back. How to build an old-fashioned neighborhood. By Matthew Lickona, Nov. 10, 2010 | Read full article North Park vs South Park …

The World Is a Cactus The dramatic evolution of evolution. “A cactus will take a bullet just like a person, because of the thickness of their skins and all the water in them.” By Geoff …

There Is One God We’re not Arabs or Hindus or Muslims, we’re Sikhs. "The equality of all people and all religions is central to our faith. We didn't want to seem as though we were …

More Than Support Breasts and bras. “I first started to notice breasts when I was ten years old. Not my own, because I didn’t have any yet, but my mother’s. I had seen my mother …

The Smell of the Crowd Who goes to theater and classical music concerts, broken into types. "Her pierced earlobes hold up elaborate, finely wrought mobile sculptures with the most cunning miniature Japanese temple bells in …

American Primitive A Julian shoot-out Memorial Day is the anniversary of a gold fields shootout [in 1989] known in the Julian back country as "The Chariot Canyon Massacre." Five men opened fire with assault rifle, …

Follow Me What’s going on in City Heights’ Waldorf School? On a hilltop playground in City Heights, a woman in a pink wraparound apron and straw hat is walking. She looks like an American mother …

Old Town to Downtown Based on the TV show Amazing Race, this scavenger hunt is designed to put a little excitement and adventure into what might otherwise be your average tour of the town. Create …

Fish Lake Cuyamaca About an hour’s drive from San Diego, Cuyamaca is a 110-acre, manmade lake situated in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. Lake Cuyamaca is stocked with over 38,000 pounds of trout annually. Due …

Seal Tours When you’re on a boat with wheels, you can tour both the streets of San Diego and splash through the bay without ever having to change seats. Similar to Duck Tours in other …

Cactus Park BMX Cactus Park BMX is a 900-foot-long dirt race track with banked turns and jumps located in San Diego’s East County. First-time visitors can purchase a temporary membership for $25, good for 30 …

Ride a Segway through Coronado Lookyloo at the lush landscaping and gorgeous homes of Coronado from your perch atop a Segway. Because such experiences are best enjoyed with a friend, opt for the deals for …

Tour with Let’s Go Clandestino San Diego, Tijuana, Valle de Guadalupe, Ensenada Whether it’s Baja’s food, breweries, or wineries you’re looking to cozy up to, Chula Vista native Angel Mirón has had you covered since …

Nowhere Zone The rise, fall, and rise of Normal Heights “I’d been renting an apartment over on Georgia Street, the sort of border area between North Park and Hillcrest. From one month to the next, …

Marathoners of the Sky Hormones speed pigeons. Today, Hamilton and his “grandson,” John Timmerman, have about 750 pigeons in Jamul, the largest collection in San Diego County. As we sat on the deck of their …

From the Archives is the Reader's new series spotlighting articles from over 40 years of the Reader's journalistic history. This week's theme is investigative reporting. Masters of Deceit Padres' bribes of councilwoman Valerie Stallings “On …

For author celebrities, click here. For thinker and artist celebrities, click here. For public figure and fraud celebrities, click here. For sports celebrities, click here. Janet, My Mother, and Me A story about author William …