The staff of Comstock’s is deeply saddened by the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 children and two adults dead. 

On the same day as the school shooting in Texas, a student brought a gun and loaded magazine to Edward Kemble Elementary School in Sacramento, the Sacramento Bee reported today. Thanks to students who came forward and alerted the staff, the incident did not escalate to a tragedy. The Bee shared the following statement excerpt from Sacramento City Unified School District officials: “As you hug your child tighter tonight, we encourage you to remind them that when they see a threat or a potentially dangerous situation, they must tell a trusted member of their school community.”

—

The way we package these newsletters with the week’s stories, we sometimes see a theme. Other times we recognize opposing moods or happenings in our region. This week we’re celebrating the rebound of live music and dreading the return of wildfire season. For better or worse, both are a hallmark of summer in the Capital Region. The latter has threatened not just our rural areas and homes but also one of the gems of Northern California — our wineries. 

Thanks to Cal Fire, no wineries were lost in the 2021 Caldor Fire. The owners of these summer season destinations are resilient, but anxious. We hope you’ll read Scott Thomas Anderson’s cover story on how winemakers from the San Joaquin Valley to the Sierra Nevada foothills are thinking about their relationship to the land — and their futures.    

One thing that never left is the pop-up restaurant. Chefs and owners of these concepts are innovating, thriving and growing thanks to ingenuity and community support. 

Here’s the latest Capital Region Rundown:

We go behind the scenes of the region’s pop-up-palooza with a reading of our latest Taste column; three distinct ramen houses in Sacramento balance tradition and experimentation to develop cult followings; Northern California winemakers grapple with the ways wildfire and drought affect their crops and products; pop-up restaurateurs enjoy the model’s flexibility and sometimes convert their popularity to permanent spaces; and downtown Sacramento concerts and music festivals are back with a bang after a two-year hiatus.

Recommendations from our editors:

In this section we editors share what we’re reading, listening to, watching or even eating. Here’s what we’re consuming this week:

Vanessa: I finally saw the action-adventure-comedy-drama “Everything Everywhere All At Once” at DOCO over the weekend. If you have multiverse plotline fatigue, rest assured this movie approaches the genre like no other — with a lot of heart, absurdism and impressive martial arts choreography. I will say, it was a tad overstimulating for me and about half an hour too long, but I won’t be forgetting this experimental film any time soon!

Judy: My daughter Alana visited from Los Angeles so I spent time with her. We enjoyed the “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” food documentary on CNN where we learned the secrets to an authentic bolognese sauce (I never knew carrots were involved). I want to eat my way through Italy!

Jennifer: Remember The New York Times’ scathing 2012 review of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, which went viral for such gems as “When we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?” The magazine recently published a gentler, if equally honest, profile of the man behind the flavor jets. I see my mission as a food writer as similar to Fieri’s — showcasing the hard work of diverse small business owners — so I loved seeing a more positive spin.

Odds and ends

Congratulations to our incredible contributors and staff who have won California Journalism Awards over the past week for their work in Comstock’s. Awards are still being given out, so expect a complete list next week!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the magazine to stay up to date on the region’s business trends, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for daily stories and extras.