Culture
The Creative Growth Art Center, located north of downtown Oakland, has been serving artists with developmental, physical and mental disabilities for over 35 years. Located right next door to the studio is the exhibition space — the first of its kind dedicated to people with disabilities.
Tucked away inside a little market in Fruitvale Village is a small counter-service-only ice cream shop called Nieves Cinco de Mayo. Draped on the wall is a Mexican flag and strings of colorful tissue paper cut into intricate patterns hang from the ceiling. A big chalkboard displays which ice cream flavors are on the menu for the day: corn, spearmint, lemon cream, eggnog, rose petal, cheese and more.
Dough is tossed into a vat of oil and floats to the top once it’s gold. Drenched in honey and sprinkled with walnuts and cinnamon, each bite bursts with sweet liquid as it deflates and dissolves. Loukomades, or honey-dipped pastry puffs, are not a typical dessert in Northern California. But on one weekend in May, Oakland residents are granted the opportunity to explore Greece — and without the purchase of a plane ticket.
On a hot spring afternoon, Javier Delgado Jimenez kneels on the grass in Mountain View Cemetery. He is poised over a flat gravestone wearing a gas mask, knee guards, long work gloves and a white hood with a clear plastic visor. With intense concentration, he aims a rod attached to a round metal canister at the face of the gravestone and plumes of red dust billow into the air.
Xolo, downtown’s newest restaurant, which is open until midnight on Friday and Saturdays, offers an alternative to the standard hot dog that most Oakland Uptown revelers have grown accustomed to for pre- or post- drinking sustenance
Sitting in front of the stage at Yoshi’s, musician Roger Glenn looked up at the portraits of famous players that lined the walls of the legendary downtown Oakland jazz club and was overcome with disappointment. A tear rolled down his cheek as he spoke. “I felt like my whole life, what I was doing, the history of all the people I’ve known, is meaningless,” said Glenn, as he looked out at 50 musicians, reporters and jazz aficionados assembled before him….
Since the 1930s, Oaklanders have been flocking to Temescal Regional Park for swimming, fishing, picnicking and to simply take in the great outdoors.
To Michael Davidson, aka The Grilled Cheez Guy, the secret’s in the brick. This local purveyor of gooey, honest-to-goodness grilled cheese sandwiches cooks his comfort food under a brick wrapped in foil—the pressure, he says, ensures the sandwich cooks evenly and has his signature, perfectly crisp exterior.
On a Sunday afternoon in a living room in Berkeley, three fully grown adults are running in circles around a fourth man, wildly flapping their arms and making bird noises. A woman sits on the couch, directing the scene—when she says she wants to see birds, the group complies. Welcome to a rehearsal with Stone Soup, North Oakland’s very own improv troupe.