The Drishti Blog

For those of you who may not know, the owners and employees of the businesses located at the intersection of Canon Perdido and Santa Barbara Streets commonly refer to our little neighborhood as “the corner”. The corner consists solely of small, local, owner-operated businesses which complement one another and foster a unique sense of community. These stellar businesses include C’est Cheese (an artisan cheese and gourmet food shop whose owners, Kathryn & Michael, practice yoga at the Ashtanga Yoga Shala here in SB), Our Daily Bread (a bakery which produces the best ciabatta in town and whose owner, Laurie, practices at Yoga Soup and the Ashtanga Yoga Shala), The Sojourner (a hot-spot whole foods restaurant whose presence has graced the corner for 30 years), and Drishti (you’re obviously familiar with Drishti if you’re reading our blog, so no description needed. )

Well, we’re happy to announce the addition of a new member to the corner family - the restaurant Julienne. Owned by Emma and Justin, an adorably sweet and relatively young couple, Julienne’s menu proudly declares that the restaurant is “constantly seeking to use local, seasonal and sustainable products to bring you fresh and creative meals.” We had the opportunity to dine at Julienne this past weekend and wow, were we impressed! The ambiance was fresh and sophisticated, the staff was extremely friendly, and our meals were hands-down delicious. As you can see from their menu, dinner at Julienne is not an entirely inexpensive evening, but their prices are actually very reasonable considering the high quality of their food. If you’re a Santa Barbara-dweller, we encourage you to try this sweet new spot when you have the chance. It’s likely that you will run into a Drishti employee (or owner) there because Julienne is officially our new favorite restaurant in SB. After your meal, you can stroll by Drishti and say hello!

Julienne is located at 138 E. Canon Perdido St. (on the literal ‘corner’ of the corner), and they are currently open for dinner (no lunch or breakfast yet) Wednesday through Sunday evenings. See you there!

When Drishti’s owner Jenni mentioned to Catherine, Drishti’s manager, and Amanda, a fellow employee, that she’d like to see some sort of change in the front windows of the store, she didn’t at all expect the stellar, self-motivated job that Catherine and Amanda, both artists, would end up surprising her with. The fantastic result of their hard work blew her away and it just had to be shared with you here on our blog! The front windows of Drishti are now lined with hand-painted, custom-designed crimson lotus flowers which greatly enhance our storefront and add an extra level of beauty to our store. You may have passed by Drishti one day earlier this month and noticed Catherine or Amanda intensely focused on one of the front windows with a paintbrush and an easel in each hand. If so, we hope you said hi to them and noticed what a beautiful decoration they were creating. Just take a look:

Here’s a close-up. Notice the detailing within each lotus!

Okay, okay, our store didn’t look anything like this photo from the LA Times, but we did indeed feel the earthquake! We were in the back office of Drishti, typing away on our laptop, when the ground subtly shook and the shelves swayed from side-to-side. We grabbed a few important items and headed for the door, but in the end, that small tremor was all that occurred. When we returned to our desk and opened our laptop again, we weren’t surprised to see the big, red ‘breaking news’ headline on CNN.com announcing that a magnitude 5.8 earthquake had just hit Los Angeles!

We wonder which yoga classes were taking place in the LA area at the time of the earthquake. How might it have felt to have been holding, say, adho mukha vrksasana (handstand) or sirsana (headstand) in the center of the room and to have suddenly found oneself in the middle of an intensely balance-oriented yoga pose in the middle of an intense, balance-threatening earthquake. We wonder if anyone out there can answer this probing question!

We recently discovered the hip and informative column on Slate’s website called The Green Lantern. The Green Lantern addresses all sorts of environmentally-related questions with a nice mixture of lightheartedness, serious statistics, and real answers. Topics addressed include: “Which is better for the environment - soy milk or cow’s milk?”, “Electric hand dryers vs. paper towels”, and (this topic is especially pertinent to you yoga studio owners who may be perusing the Drishti blog) “Are bamboo floors really that much better than hardwood floors?”

Check this column out - we recommend it!

Yes, it was indeed Costa Rica’s fault that we haven’t added any new posts to our blog for a little while.  :)  You see, we went to the tropical jungle paradise of known as Costa Rica for a vacation (”we” meaning Jenni - the owner of Drishti and the author of this blog - and her husband Craig), and while we were away, we simply couldn’t keep this fine blog updated.  We apologize for the break in posts and any hardship that this may have caused you or your family.  :)  We’re here to tell you that we’re back in action, though, and you’ll be hearing from us on a regular basis again!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of beautiful Costa Rica for your entertainment.  We took them during our stay.  We would also like to express our newly-formed opinion that Costa Rica is actually more stunningly gorgeous than everyone’s favorite vacation spot, Hawaii, and that a visit to Costa Rica costs about half as much as a similar stay in Hawaii.  Word to the wise for the next time you find yourself planning a tropical trip!

And now, the photos:

There is a compelling article in today’s New York Times about a new finding, reported in the current Nutrition Journal, that a great number of people do, in fact, lie about the amount of vegetables they eat. The tendency to fib about your veggies stems from the widely-emphasized “Five-A-Day” golden rule and the pressure we all feel to eat significant amounts from this all-important food group. Are you surprised? Do you lie (to yourself or others) about your daily vegetable intake?

FYI, the new classes at Santa Barbara Yoga Center beginning July 1st have been announced. You can check them out here (all 33 of them!)

Just in case you were like us and had a general (but not so detailed) idea of which disposable items are recyclable and which aren’t, we found this nifty chart that lays it all out with appealing pictures and to-the-point wording. We printed it out and posted it next to both of our recycling cans for our employees here at Drishti. Now the whole Drishti crew has had a thorough review of what is and is not recyclable, and the next time we have a wrench that we’re done with (that’s right, we said a wrench!), we’ll be sure to put it in the recycle bin and not in the trash. (Look at the poster - in addition to all sorts of household items, it does happen to feature a wrench and a screwdriver. Who throws items like those away, we wonder?)

This chart is specific to Santa Barbara County, but if you don’t live in SB, we’re sure that your local recycling center should publish something similar.

(Click on this small version of the poster to be taken to a full-size, printable version.)

Yoga class schedules are shaking up around these parts as of late. Heather Tiddens, one of Santa Barbara’s most senior yoga teachers who has held her classes exclusively at Santa Barbara Yoga Center for years, is shifting two of her regular classes from SBYC to Yoga Soup beginning in July. This would be her Monday/Wednesday 6:30pm Level 1-2 class. (At Yoga Soup it will be called an “Active Beginners” class instead of “Level 1-2″, but same diff, dude.)

Popular yoga instructor Niav Connor, who currently teaches at Yoga Soup, is taking over the Monday/Wednesday 6:30 time slot at SBYC that Heather is leaving open. Niav has actually taught at SBYC before, but she left the studio a couple of years ago and has since held all of her classes at Yoga Soup. This July will see Niav’s return to her old stomping grounds, where we’re sure she will be very welcomed and appreciated.

The lovely Emily Kligerman, who has taught classes at Source Yoga Studio and Yoga Soup in the past, will also be picking up some classes at SBYC starting in July. We’re not sure which exact time slots will go to Emily, but look for her name on the new SBYC schedule due out by July 1st. Yoga Soup is saying hello to a new yoga instructor, Chloe Conger, who will teach 2 classes a week at the studio beginning tomorrow, June 20th! And as we previously reported, pilates and NIA instructor Ken Gilbert has also just moved all of his classes to the dynamic venue of Yoga Soup.

How much more shifting around of teachers and classes can happen in this town? We’re not sure, but if more developments arise, we’ll be sure to report them to you here on the famous Drishti Blog.

P.S. Denise Zaverdas‘ classes at SBYC are amazing and we highly recommend them.