When I was 12 years old, I left Oakland for a small town on the southern edge of the Carquinez Strait. The towering buildings of Oakland and neighboring San Francisco were replaced by the smokestacks of refineries.  The East Bay is primarily defined by Oakland and Berkeley, but there is

If you go north of Berkeley, you’ll notice something interesting about the East Bay’s shoreline. It becomes increasingly industrial once you cross the boundary into Contra Costa County. Richmond is the first city you hit (El Cerrito is just rich Richmond) and it serves as a quintessential example of an

It’s Springtime in San Francisco, which means it’s time to put your phone on silent for a while and step out into our fair city to sing, eat, and play with the wonderful people and programming on offer. Whether in the flesh or on a live stream, the journalists and

Earthquakes are as much a part of Bay Area life as fog, hills and cable cars. But for some reason, other than learning about the wreckage of past quakes, the average Bay Area resident doesn’t spend much time discussing how a large earthquake would effect modern Bay Area infrastructure. The Hayward

At the close of 2021, we lost three legendary female writers in a single month. These writers were, of course, bell hooks, Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. The losses followed one another in such quick succession that the world hardly had a chance to give each woman their due in

Carbs are said to be comfort food, yeasty treats that soothe anxious souls. As many of us in days of shelter can attest to, bread has become a staple, a welcome mat at the door of normalcy in an uncertain world. And most of us are also now 15 pounds