Welcome to our annual Home & Garden special issue, the edition run each spring where we explore ideas and designs for indoors and out.
In this year’s collection, we feature a new book all about that most iconic of Montecito gardens, Lotusland, and explain how you can create your own sustainable garden in the backyard. Then we turn to a new Home & Design Collective in the downtown Arts District, head to the library to find free decor resources, and take a look at what it takes, and why, to electrify your house.
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotusland Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
Looking for some inspiration for your next home improvement project? For when Pinterest isn’t quite cutting it, our Santa Barbara Public Library librarians Lisa Neubert and Kimberly Crail (have curated this list of books to check out.
Small Spaces
Small Space Style: Because You Don’t Have to Live Large to Live Beautifully by Whitney Leigh Morris: Interior design maven Morris shares her ideas and practices for making any tiny space efficient and stylish — whether it’s a rustic A-frame in the woods or a chic micro apartment in the city.
150 Best Tiny Interior Ideasby Francesc Zamora Mola: A smaller living space doesn’t have to mean sacrificing sophistication or comfort. Here are loads of ideas for maximizing space while creating warm and inviting homes.
Interior Design
Design a Healthy Home: 100 Ways to Transform Your Space for Physical and Mental Wellbeing by Oliver Heath: Simple, practical advice on how to design your home for health and happiness through modifications in lighting, air quality, acoustics, temperature, color, and more.
Design the Home You Love: Practical Styling Advice to Make the Most of Your Space by Lee Mayer: A fresh and accessible guidebook to the complicated world of interior design.
Credit: Courtesy
Made for Living: Collected Interiors for All Sorts of Stylesby Amber Lewis: Tricks of the trade from a trendsetting designer known for creating effortlessly layered looks and modern eclectic styles.
Home Stories: Design Ideas for Making a House a Homeby Kim Leggett: Everyone has a story worth telling, and every room can become part of that story. Learn how to create rooms filled with warmth, meaning, and your own unique story of home.
Feels Like Home: Relaxed Interiors for a Meaningful Lifeby Lauren Liess: Explore the emotional connection between home decoration and one’s daily life through the lens of a popular social media and TV star.
House to Home: Designing Your Space for the Way You Liveby Devi Dutta-Choudhury: A modern guide to home improvement that will help you create a dynamic, comfortable space that supports your life and the way you want to live.
Hygge & West Home: Design for a Cozy Lifeby Christiana Coop and Aimee Lagos: These notable tastemakers have curated a look into 20 covetable homes designed to promote feelings of coziness, companionship, and comfort.
Bringing the Outdoors In
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Home Sweet Houseplant: A Room-by-Room Guide to Plant Decor by Baylor Chapman: Houseplants have the ability to instantly elevate the look of your home and add your own special flourishes. This book shows you where — and how — to begin.
Wild Interiors: Beautiful Plants in Beautiful Spaces by Hilton Carter: A journey in greenery led by the bestselling author’s unique eye and love of plants to show you how to create luscious interiors that not only look amazing but are good for your well-being, too.
Decorating with Plants: What to Choose, Ways to Style, and How to Make Them Thrive by Baylor Chapman: Nothing can add energy, style, and that essential “lived-in-ness” to home spaces better than a little bit of green. Chapman shows us where to begin.
Houseplants for All: How to Fill Any Home with Happy Plants by Danae Horst: A useful guide to selecting and growing plants for your home, including a plant profile quiz.
Handpicked: Simple, Sustainable, and Seasonal Flower Arrangements by Ingrid Carozzi: Organized by season, Carozzi’s book reveals her secrets for creating flower arrangements that are modern, original, and organic in style.
Mindfulness and Minimalism
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson: In Sweden, there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning (dö =“death” and städning = “cleaning”). Magnusson gives instructions for this surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings sooner, rather than later.
Minimalista: Your Step-by-Step Guide to a Better Home, Wardrobe, and Life by Shira Gill: Help to find your own style with this fresh and accessible guidebook to the world of interior design.
The New Mindful Home: And How to Make it Yours by Joanna Thornhill: Our spaces can play a big part in our emotional well-being. This book explains how to harness the power of mindfulness to help your home support a more considered lifestyle.
The Home Edit Life: The No-Guilt Guide to Owning What You Want and Organizing Everything by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin: The New York Times best-selling authors of The Home Edit show you how to contain the chaos and organize every aspect of your life.
Living Simply: A Teen Guide to Minimalism by Sally McGraw: A discussion of minimalism as a way of living for teens, this book provides a number of suggestions and resources for young people who want to scale down their carbon footprints.
Color and Creativity
Credit: Courtesy
A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer by Louise Sandhaus and Kat Catmur: The designer Gere Kavanaugh is an irrepressible force of nature who epitomized the craft and folk vibe of the ’60s and ’70s California design scene and remains a larger-than-life personality today.
My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovationby Donald M. Rattner: Written by a noted architect, My Creative Space turns the rich trove of psychological research on workplace productivity and innovation into practical techniques for shaping a home.
Jungalow: Decorate Wild by Justina Blakeney: A guide to designing creative and personal interiors with bold choices in color and patterns, cues from nature, and inspiration from personal heritage and travels.
Wonder Walls: How to Transform Your Space with Colorful Geometrics, Graphic Lettering, and Other Fabulous Paint Techniquesby Phoebe Cornog and Roxy Prima: Learn DIY wall-painting techniques to help discover the possibilities of paint and see walls as a canvas. This book covers wall preparation and paint selection, as well as step-by-step instructions.
Living in Color: Color in Contemporary Interior Designby Stella Paul and India Mahdavi: An inspirational visual journey along the color spectrum, brought to life via the best contemporary residential interior design.
A Sense of Place
At Home in Joshua Tree: A Field Guide to Desert Livingby Sara Combs and Rich Combs: This beautifully illustrated lifestyle guide from the creators of The Joshua Tree House shows you how to infuse your life with desert vibes, from home designs and entertaining plans to wellness rituals.
Home Sweet Maison: The French Art of Making a Homeby Danielle Postel-Vinay: A lively, sophisticated, and practical illustrated lifestyle guide that shows how to live like the French every day, transforming your house into a home defined by beauty, family, and accessible elegance.
The California Casaby Douglas Woods: A sumptuous and comprehensive look at Spanish Colonial Revival design, presenting a lavish portrait of the style through more than 300 color photographs.
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Living in Mexicoby Barbara & René Stoeltie: A breathtaking look at some of Mexico’s most remarkable abodes. The authors have traveled far and wide, from Costa Careyes to the Yucatán Peninsula, seeking out homes to surprise, delight, and inspire.
Red Tile Style: America’s Spanish Revival Architecture by Arrol Gellner: A comprehensive survey of one of the most widespread and popular forms of American architecture. From bungalows and mansions to gas stations and government buildings, Gellner explores this diverse category of design.
Santa Barbara Style by Kathryn Masson: Explore the work of such architectural luminaries as Addison Mizner, Bertram Goodhue, Reginald D. Johnson, and George Washington Smith, among others.
Santa Barbara Living by Diane Dorrans Saeks: A beautifully photographed book that takes readers inside the mansions and estates of contemporary Santa Barbara.
Historical Influences
Making Midcentury Modernby Christopher Kennedy: This book features 100 tips for bringing the principles of midcentury modern style to any home, from the acclaimed interior designer.
American Bungalow Style by Robert Winter: Showcasing two dozen American houses that capture the bungalow spirit that enticed thousands of buyers during the form’s heyday from 1880 to 1930.
Spanish Colonial Style: Santa Barbara and the Architecture of James Osborne Craig and Mary McLaughlin Craigby Pamela Skewes-Cox and Robert Sweeney: An ode to these influential architects, whose designs included the historic Casa de la Guerra and the Plaza Rubio complex across from the Mission Rose Garden.
Outdoor Living
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Private Gardens of Santa Barbara: The Art of Outdoor Living by Margie Grace: A peek into 21 distinctive private gardens: large estates, modest homes, and surf retreats that run the gamut from sublime and naturalistic to bold and urban.
Organization Tips and Tricks
Martha Stewart’s Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines by Martha Stewart:Tips, projects and ideas on how to organize everything from America’s most trusted lifestyle authority.
In addition to a wide selection of books, the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Databases & Resources page has information on how people can get signed up for free with LinkedIn Learning, which offers a number of courses on interior design and related skills. It also has information about accessing Skillshare (provided courtesy of the California State Library’s Career Pathways initiative), which has a great offering of interior design courses as well.
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotus- land Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
The road to zero carbon is being paved by elected officials, builders, and activists. And an increasingly important part of the journey is getting rid of gas furnaces, water heaters, ranges, and other appliances and replacing them with electric alternatives that make buildings safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly — especially as more renewable power is added to the grid.
Last summer, the Santa Barbara City Council voted unanimously to enact a new building ordinance (known as a “reach code”) prohibiting natural gas infrastructure in newly constructed buildings (with the exception of restaurants and applications where there isn’t yet a viable electric alternative to gas). There are also many rebates and incentives available for existing homes to make the switch to electric.
Heat pumps, which control household climates by extracting and moving the heat in the air, are extremely energy-efficient. According to the Department of Energy, installing an air-source heat pump can cut your electric bill in half, and heat pumps are generally considered more comfortable than traditional heating and cooling. “The other big advantage that heat pumps offer in our warming climate is that they can provide both heating and cooling in your home, so they can essentially be used to replace both a furnace and an air conditioner,” said Michael Chiacos, energy and climate program director at CEC.
If you’re considering a new furnace or installing air conditioning in your home, TECH Clean California is currently offering up to $3,000 per unit rebate on central heat pumps or mini-split heat pumps. That same group also has a $1,000-$3,100-per-unit rebate on heat-pump water heaters. Other vendors offer incentives for air sealing, insulation and ductwork, whole house fans, smart thermostats, and electric backup power units (see switchison.org/incentives for more information).
Heat induction cooktops are another innovation that has come a long way in recent years. Unlike traditional electric stoves that heat with coils, induction cooktops use magnets to transfer heat directly to the pan through the process of induction. These ranges heat up faster (they can bring water to a boil in half the time of gas), allow you to cook at very specific temperatures, and are safer. Induction burners only heat the pan and not the cooktop surface, which means the rest of the stove remains cool when it’s on. Without an open flame, people are less likely to burn themselves or accidentally start kitchen fires.
“I am a total covert,” said Dennis Allen, founder of Allen Construction. He’s been cooking on a five-element magnetic induction cooktop for more than a decade. “It is fabulous,” he said. “It’s so responsive, and it is so good for the environment because it’s about double the efficiency of natural gas, because natural gas is heating all of the air around the pot and this power only heats the pot.” He also likes that it’s safer to cook with his granddaughter because she won’t get burned by the cooktop.
If you’re interested in trying before buying, many vendors offer portable models to take home and test. The Santa Barbara Public Library’s Library of Things also has an induction cooktop you can check out.
As more and more information comes out that electric homes are safer and healthier to live in, they are also becoming more practical and affordable, especially with the various incentives. There are some federal incentives for solar installation that are expiring soon, so the time to act is now, said Chiacos.
“Having an all-electric home with solar is definitely the way to go, because then you are using your locally generated sunshine to run your house, and hopefully power your car, too,” he said.
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotusland Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
Longtime Santa Barbara Wholesaler Takes a Voyage into Retail
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Boho chic meets vintage flair at Tamara and JP Cajuste’s colorful new Indian Pink store (indianpinkpillows.com), a home furnishing haven stocked to the rafters with an inventive assortment of goods.
Pillows made from exotic textiles from around the world are the mothership that launched the couple’s wholesale enterprise in 2007, and there is certainly a vibrant collection of these one-of-a-kind creations. But with the new store (their first) comes a plethora of new merchandise, including tablecloths, napkins, upcycled lampshades, throw rugs, and a variety of vintage furniture covered in the same gorgeous fabrics that first inspired Tamara when she traveled the world as an American Airlines flight attendant.
“We take 19th-century old-fashioned chairs and couches from France and England, so they’re really well-made, and then have them reupholstered in a pretty fabric,” says Tamara. With supply chains still a mess from the pandemic, “the fact that you can get something that is repurposed and beautiful and available is a big asset,” she explains.
During lockdown, she even created a new line of super-comfortable yet still fashion-forward dresses (with pockets!), pajamas, and reversible robes — all of which are on colorful display at the store. “I wanted to have something cute to match my house to put on,” she laughs. “I had no idea they would be so popular.”
These days, Tamara sources her fabrics from four different vendors in Rajasthan and Shahpur, India. She relies primarily on instinct to make her selections. “I just fall in love with certain things when I see them,” she laughed. “I could never be an interior designer, because I can’t do modern things. I can only do what I do and what I like.”
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotusland Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
Michelle Beamer’s Retail Showroom Is a Beautiful New Space for Inspiration
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Being in the right place at the right time is often the key to success.
As the principal designer at MB Interiors and a faculty member of the interior design department at Santa Barbara City College, Michelle Beamer had long toyed with the idea of opening a retail showroom. Lonetree (lonetreesb.com), her stunning new space stocked with upscale yet comfortable home furnishings, lighting, art, and accessories, comes on the scene just as the downtown Arts District is seeing a renaissance in home design shops and services.
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Cleverly merchandised as a series of vignettes and “rooms” combined with a spacious, courtyard-facing design studio, Lonetree is actually based on Beamer’s master’s thesis at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C. The plan included having ever-changing curated vignettes where clients could sit on furniture and touch fabrics and envision what it would be like to live with them. Check. She also envisioned storytelling design opportunities such as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art–inspired Van Gogh desk display now on view. Check. And she wanted to be able to provide a space for community engagement such as 1st Thursday parties — featuring a recent raffle to benefit CALM (Child Abuse Listening Mediation) — and collaborations with community groups like Jane Chapman’s Communal Table gatherings (communaltablesb.com). Check.
Not to mention, a beautiful space for her to create, work with her team, and meet clients. Checkmate.
A Nebraska native, Beamer says the name Lonetree is a nod to her hometown. “When I was doing research, I found out about traders in the 1800s traveling by boat along the Missouri River to bring their goods to market,” she said. “The trader was told that once he glimpsed the lone tree on the hill — there weren’t a lot of trees in Nebraska — he knew they were close to the right place to sell their goods.”
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Leslie Dinaberg
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotusland Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
Downtown Santa Barbara has cemented its place as a design destination, and several businesses have banded together to form the new Santa Barbara Arts District Home & Design Collective. The cooperative marketing efforts by six businesses within walking distance of each other — all located on the 1200 and 1300 blocks of State Street — is quickly making an impact.
“You can park once and shop easily,” said Michelle Beamer, owner of Lonetree. “The community is very supportive. We’re always talking each other up. Stephanie Payne-Campbell at Domecíl sends people over here all the time. We’re really reaching out to designers too, and they’re sending people over. Even people from out of town. We’ve given maps to people from hotels and things like that, too.”
This appealingly illustrated map (by graphic designer Irene Ramirez; orangeladybird.com) guides shoppers to visit:
Domecíl: This shop showcases items for the home that highlight both traditional and contemporary craft, including fiber arts, ceramics, woodwork, fine art, and original bespoke, small-batch clothing. (Victoria Court #7, 1221 State St.; domecil.com)
Lonetree: This showroom for interior designer Michelle Beamer of MB Interiors features furniture, art, and new and vintage home decor items. (Victoria Court #24, 1221 State St.; lonetreesb.com)
Sofa U Love: Choose from more than 1,000 fabrics and dozens of sofa styles to customize or reupholster couches, chairs, ottomans, and other furniture. (1227 State St.; sofaulove.com)
Celadon House: This full-service interior design studio and furniture/decor showroom serves residential, hospitality, and commercial design needs. (1224 State St.; celadonhouse.com)
Indian Pink: This home and lifestyle boutique features reimagined vintage furniture, tabletop accessories, lighting, art, handmade pajamas, robes and bathrobes, and a gorgeous assortment of pillows. (1307 State St.; indianpinkpillows.com)
Maune Contemporary: This new gallery specializes in limited-edition fine art prints and unique works by renowned international artists whose work has been exhibited and is in the collections of museums worldwide. (1309 State St.; maune.com)
Santa Barbara Independent, May 19-25, 2002. ON THE COVER: Madame Ganna Walska, taken c. 1958. Photo by J.R. Eyerman/Lotusland Archives. Design by Ava Talehakimi.
Originally published in the May 19-25 issue issue of the Santa Barbara Independent. To see the story as it originally appeared click here.
Santa Barbara is a great place to live no matter your age, but it takes many people a number of years — and perhaps a successful career or two — to start calling our shoreline home. That means there are plenty of people living their best later lives here, which is why we started our Active Aging Guide in 2018 to help navigate the endless options for staying healthy, striving for wellness, and living even longer.
This is the fourth annual edition of this promotional section, in which sponsors suggested trends, techniques, and talented experts from their organizations to our editorial team. Then Leslie Dinaberg took those nascent ideas, put on her reporter’s cap, and turned
them into engaging articles that cover a wide range of topics, from bone, brain, and sexual health to volunteering, nutrition, and even drum circles.
Originally published in The Santa Barbara Independent on August 12, 2021. Cover photo by Erick Madrid. To read this special section as it originally appeared in print, click here.
Providing a voice to the vulnerable is the role of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman representative, a volunteer program of the Family Service Agency (fsacares.org).
Through regular visits to Santa Barbara County’s 14 skilled nursing facilities and 119 assisted-living facilities for the elderly, Ombudsman representatives get to know the residents and advocate to improve their quality of life.
The program covers the entire county, from Carpinteria to Santa Maria, with more than 5,000 people under its watch. “We are the extra pair of eyes and ears who help them and advocate for them,” said Marco Quintanar, who started working in elder care as a kitchen worker in a long-term care facility 30 years ago. Today, he is a leader in senior care and advocacy as the supervisor for the Ombudsman program, visiting facilities himself as well as providing training and support to volunteers.
Retired aerospace engineer Mike Leu would be considered a “super volunteer” by any measure. “I was looking for a way to stay active and reapply my skills to something that was new and useful,” said Leu, who stumbled on a newspaper article about the program
(run by a different agency at the time) about 10 years ago and thought it looked interesting. He reached out, was trained, and jumped right in, enjoying the work so much that he now covers 23 different facilities and puts in about 70-80 hours a month in volunteer time.
But both Ombudsman superstars caution that prospective volunteers should not be intimidated by Leu’s level of work. Volunteers can commit a little time, or a lot, depending on their interest and availability. “Part of the beauty of the Ombudsman program is you can scale it up or you can scale it down pretty much as far as you want,” said Leu. “If you only want to put in a few hours a week at three or four small facilities, you can. And then, if you’re like me and you’re out of control, you put in a lot!”
Today, there are just seven volunteers covering the entire county, so Quintanar hopes to double that number at his next Ombudsman volunteer training this fall. “You have to be wanting to help other people,” said Leu of what they’re looking for in volunteers, which
also includes being self-motivated, comfortable in communicating with people, and then ready to solve problems in complex situations. “The reward in this thing is you’re demonstrably improving somebody’s quality of life.”
In his 30 years, Quintanar has seen a wide range of residents and issues. “Nowadays,
because of the advances in technology and everything, people are living longer,” he said, which means caregivers have to deal not just with aging but with advanced mental illnesses, like someone living for 20 years with Alzheimer’s. “That makes things harder because … they have some behavioral challenges. It is hard on the families, and it is hard on the resident and hard on everybody who is around them. It’s not their fault, but they need care. So that’s why we are there.”
Both men agree that this work is very rewarding. “If you make a difference in the life of someone, even just listening to that person, that makes you feel very good,” said Quintanar. “And you don’t need anybody to say thank you.”
To learn more about becoming a Certified Ombudsman volunteer, or other ways to support Family Service Agency’s programs for seniors, call Marco Quintanar at (805) 922-1236 or visit volunteer4seniors.org.
Originally published in The Santa Barbara Independent on August 12, 2021. Cover photo by Erick Madrid. To read this special section as it originally appeared in print, click here.
People of all ages benefit from music therapy, with especially positive changes for people with autism; visual, motor, emotional, hearing, or cognitive disabilities; or high stress levels. With these benefits in mind, the residents and staff at Summer House —which is the memory-care unit at Vista del Monte retirement care community (vistadelmonte.org)
— regularly participate in drum circles.
“The sound waves and the sound of the drums and the feel of the drums are very
powerful for those who have cognitive issues,” said Helene Hellstern, the life
enrichment director for Vista del Monte, where residents gather in a common area called The Alcove every Tuesday and Thursday. “When we tell people we are doing a drum circle, they are very willing to come to that activity, and we typically have at least a dozen
people if not more.”
First are exercises to warm up their hands and get energized. Then Hellstern uses a 70-inch computer screen to broadcast images of nature or from a particular country or culture that’s especially stimulating. “Then we start the drumming,” she said, explaining that groups are typically led by Karen Rojas. “We’ll just do different rhythms, and we’ll have the residents repeat those. And we always incorporate having the residents do their own little rhythm, and so it’s just one person doing their rhythm, and we all repeat it.”
The music, the exposure to community, and the physical activity are all beneficial. “A lot of our residents have mobility issues or are non-ambulatory, so we tend to just use hand movements — although if people want to tap their feet, that’s definitely encouraged,” said Hellstern. “The movement of the arms or the drumming itself is a really good movement. It energizes the whole body and the sound waves, because the drum is on their body—they really feel it as well as hear it.”
And there’s science as to how this helps people with memory issues. “They have
determined that music in particular sets off most areas of the brain,” she said. “And not just drumming, but other music often triggers their long-term memory.”
The drums have become a therapy tool beyond the circles as well. “Sometimes, we will just get the drums out if whatever we have planned isn’t quite working — everyone responds really well to that,” she said. “A truly holistic healing approach, group drumming breaks down social barriers, promotes freedom of expression, nonverbal communication,
unity, and cooperation.”
Originally published in The Santa Barbara Independent on August 12, 2021. Cover photo by Erick Madrid. To read this special section as it originally appeared in print, click here.
Diet and exercise is the key to good health at any age, but particularly as you grow older. Current research says a brain-healthy diet encourages good blood flow to the brain, is low in fat and cholesterol, and includes vibrant foods rich in antioxidants. Like the heart, the brain needs the right balance of nutrients to function well. To be most effective, a brain healthy diet should be combined with physical and mental activity and social
interaction.
Peter Do, senior director of Culinary Services at Westmont Living (westmontliving.com), which owns Mariposa at Ellwood Shores in Goleta, says there are a variety of foods that help to maintain brain health. He recommends:
· Eat in moderation; increase intake of protective foods that may reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke and protect brain cells.
· Avoid artery-clogging saturated fats and cholesterol that can put you at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease. “Remember to stay away from trans-fats, and stick with mono- and polyunsaturated fats such as olive oil or avocado oil that are very good for you,” said Do. “The preferred preparation is to bake or grill and not to fry. But if you want to fry something, then use canola oil, which is cholesterol-free. Also, when eating something like chicken, it is okay to grill it with the skin on to keep the meat moist, but remove the skin before serving and eating it.”
· Eat dark-skinned fruits and vegetables, which have the highest levels of naturally occurring antioxidants. These include kale, spinach, Brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, beets, red bell pepper, onion, corn, and eggplant. “Celery is also a great
source of antioxidants,” said Do. “Garlic also plays an important role in healthy eating. Chinese dishes have a lot of ginger and garlic, both of which makes them more healthy.”
· Choose vibrant, antioxidant-rich fruits such as plums, prunes, raisins,blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, red grapes, and cherries.
· Cold-water fish containing beneficial omega-3 fatty acids are the best. Some
examples are halibut, mackerel, salmon, lake trout, and sardines.
· Eat nuts, such as almonds, pecans, and walnuts, which are a good source of vitamin
E, an antioxidant. “Nuts can be a good substitute for people who need omega-3
but do not like the taste of seafood,” said Do.
When asked about nutritional supplements, Do explained, “Not all food experts mention supplements because they are focused on a healthy eating program. However, we know that there are supplements which are especially supportive of brain health such as vitamin E, or vitamins E and C together, vitamin B12, and folate. All may be important in lowering your risk of developing Alzheimer’s. A brain-healthy diet will help your body use these vitamins effectively. Remember, for the best absorption, always take vitamins with food. You should check with your medical provider about which vitamins and how much are
safe for you.”
Westmont Living communities such as Mariposa at Ellwood Shores customize their dining program and take advantage of seasonal produce. “Santa Barbara has great
local produce, and we work with many local companies,” said Do, who frequently offers
salmon and fresh fish from nearby waters. “Our residents enjoy the trout and halibut
and love tuna. There are also more vegetarian options such as tofu and eggplant dishes.”
The facility’s Dine Your Way program connects culinary directors with residents
on a monthly basis. “So there are no one-size fits-all menus,” said Do.
Originally published in The Santa Barbara Independent on August 12, 2021. Cover photo by Erick Madrid. To read this special section as it originally appeared in print, click here.
