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2 weeks ago | 
sfgate.com | Timothy Karoff |Dan Gentile |Victoria E. Sepúlveda
Even in the midst of the eggpocalyse, San Francisco cultural life continues. To step away from the churn of the hard news cycle, we started Fogcutter, our weekly chronicle of local events, slices of life and other odds and ends. This column is our respite from the harsh mood of the times — a place to remember that, in spite of it all, life goes on in the Bay Area.
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2 months ago | 
sfgate.com | Timothy Karoff |Victoria E. Sepúlveda |Kasia Pawlowska |Silas Valentino
The first dazzling pinks of the glorious annual magnolia bloom have started at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. (Open daily at 7:30 a.m., closes an hour after last entry; last entry at 4 p.m. in January, then 5 p.m. in February through mid-March.)Stretch, sip sparkling wine and get unlimited kitty cuddles at Purrlates – a Pilates class at SF’s only cat cafe, on Friday night, Jan. 31.
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Dec 13, 2024 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
At the opening of the Bay Area’s first Chicken Guy restaurant on Thursday night, a cheerful employee worked the door, handing out menus showcasing celebrity owner Guy Fieri’s food, letting diners in gradually and half-joking that she had to limit the number of people inside to avoid the wrath of the fire marshal. Then the firefighters showed up. They got in line like everyone else, but when they found out it would be an hour wait, they left.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
sfgate.com | Kendra Smith |Victoria E. Sepúlveda |Dan Gentile
As the myth goes, the origin of Halloween pumpkins traces back to an Irish folk story about “Stingy Jack.” Jack played a trick on the devil, who banned him from entering hell when he died. But God didn’t want him in heaven either, so Jack walked the earth in his afterlife. People lit candles in turnips to ward off his spirit, and then Irish immigrants in the U.S. switched to pumpkins. Thus, a seasonal industrial complex was born.
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Dec 22, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
I was on the way to the movies when the earthquake hit. The magnitude 6.5 quake would change the face of my hometown and the Central Coast, but at the time, I just wanted to see “The Lord of the Rings.”On the morning of Dec. 22, 2003, my mother and I bundled into our minivan to catch a matinee of “The Return of the King.” It was three days before Christmas, our house was strung with lights and my middle school was closed for winter break.
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Oct 18, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
The English-language voice cast for Hayao Miyazaki’s highly anticipated new film, “The Boy and the Heron,” was unveiled Tuesday, to the excitement of Studio Ghibli fans. The film’s premise is similar to that of 2001’s “Spirited Away,” but Miyazaki takes the story of a child traveling to a magical world to save their family in an entirely new direction. “The Boy and the Heron” is scheduled to hit theaters Dec. 8.
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
In many ways, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film, “The Boy and the Heron,” resembles his 2001 masterpiece, “Spirited Away”: A displaced and homesick child takes a journey through a magical portal to a dangerous, dreamlike land to save their family. “The Boy and the Heron” bears allusions to Studio Ghibli’s vast 37-year body of work, but it’s notable that Miyazaki has once again returned from retirement to create this film.
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Jul 29, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
One of the best parts of summer is the arrival of ripe strawberries. Every year, I watch the grocery store price of strawberries drop as they come into season and the berries get bigger, redder and tastier. But sometimes, grocery store berries are not enough, and lucky for us in the Bay Area, we live only a short drive from some of the country’s biggest strawberry producers. Watsonville is a small city in the Pajaro Valley, just south of the Bay Area in Santa Cruz County.
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Jun 2, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
Ten hours into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and I’m running down leads on some missing farm equipment with my reporting partner, Launchpad McQuack. The latest installment in the Legend of Zelda series and a direct sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom has been heralded as an immense artistic and technological achievement in gaming.
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May 17, 2023 | 
sfgate.com | Victoria E. Sepúlveda
My favorite show of the year so far opens with an extended, subtitled sequence of the Knights Templar being burned at the stake for heresy in the 14th century. It’s a bold move for any television show, let alone one streaming on Peacock, but it’s the perfect start to the wild ride that is “Mrs. Davis,” a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants romp that bounces from Reno to Scotland to Rome to the middle of the ocean on a quest for “the most overused MacGuffin ever”: the grail. “The holy one.” “Mrs.
