On the Menu

January 23, 2025

The Soup Chronicles: A comprehensive guide to the perfect vegetable soup

By Sneha Cheenath

The Soup Chronicles: A comprehensive guide to the perfect vegetable soup I moved into my Isla Vista apartment in June 2023 for the summer session after my freshman year. My roommates were only joining me in the fall, so ...

January 20, 2025

New year, new pasta salad

By Pihu Jain

  As the new year begins, I find myself looking back on my food favorites of 2024. The late-night kimchi fried rice and grilled cheeses were up there, but it was the truckloads of pasta that sustained me through mos...

January 16, 2025

The Scoop: Recent Food News

By Nina Timofeyeva

In case you haven’t been keeping up, here is the top food-related news so far in this new year.

January 16, 2025

Super Antioxidant Tea Recipe

By Pihu Jain

This recipe is highly colorful, refreshing and energizing early in the morning, with cooling effects that are much to be desired as the weather (hopefully) starts to get warmer.

December 29, 2024

2024 in Cookies

By Nina Timofeyeva

While holiday cookies are often shaped like Christmas trees, presents, snowflakes and other holiday-themed imagery, this year I encourage you to explore other silly shapes to reflect on what a year 2024 has been.

November 21, 2024

A Santa Barbara gem: La Super Rica Taqueria

By Stella Rhodes, Piper Cheney

In a charming neighborhood northeast of downtown Santa Barbara, sits a bright blue taqueria. The enticing building is none other than the famous La Super Rica Taqueria. The restaurant was founded on Milpas Street in 1996...

November 21, 2024

Potato au gratin

By Tawama Rai

This recipe is ideal for special events, but it also serves as the ultimate comfort meal! Creamy potatoes, velvety cream and melty cheese is never a bad idea — unless you’re on a diet. Even so, as Thanksgiving ap...

November 18, 2024

Spice up your life with these fiery-peanut noodles

By Pihu Jain

Everyone has a vice that gets them through the winter months, whether that be pumpkin spice lattes, chai, a favorite scarf or a partridge in a pear tree, you know the stuff. For me, I especially lean into the spice facto...

November 18, 2024

Panino: Your Next Best Sandwich

By Nina Timofeyeva

On a warm, sunny autumn afternoon this weekend, I made my way through downtown Santa Barbara towards my long-awaited destination. I had heard stories from some friends that around this area exists a sandwich shop by the ...

November 7, 2024

Holiday cheer salad: a recipe to remember

By Pihu Jain

I don’t know about you, but the moment the clock strikes midnight on Nov. 1, it’s “White Christmas” and hot cocoa all the way until Jan. 1 (honestly, most years I even start in August, but that can be our secret)...

November 7, 2024

Hochaya: a refreshing boba experience

By Zachary Robinson

Nestled just off Hollister Avenue in Goleta, Hochaya is a boba shop that stands out for its delightful drinks and friendly staff. The menu offers a variety of boba options, showcasing both classic and innovative flavors....

October 31, 2024

Trick or treat: drink edition

By Piper Cheney, Stella Rhodes

Happy Halloween Gauchos! With our favorite holiday just around the corner, we have concocted some hauntingly-mouthwatering cocktails and mocktails to get in the Halloween state of mind. Afterall, what’s a good part...

October 31, 2024

Recipe for Chicken Flautas

By Erick Ruvalcaba

In the heart of my childhood home, the kitchen was always alive with the sounds of sizzling and laughter. On Sundays, the delightful aroma of frying tortillas would beckon us, drawing my family to the kitchen to get a ta...

October 24, 2024

Pumpkin Spice & everything nice: Santa Barbara’s best PSLs

By Rosalia D'Acquisto

Happy fall quarter Gauchos! It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Pumpkin Spice Latte season! Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte made its debut back in October 2003, and in the 21 years since its creation, it has...

October 24, 2024

Celebrate October’s Food Holidays in I.V.

By Nina Timofeyeva

October is a fruitful month when it comes to food: we eat squashes and pumpkins, Halloween candy, drink Pumpkin Spice Lattes and cook cozy comfort meals such as soups. October has certainly understood the assignment and ...

October 17, 2024

Everything I ate on my 31-hour Amtrak journey

By Rosalia D'Acquisto

Yes, you read that correctly, 31 whole hours on a train! I discovered Amtrak’s Coastal Starlight route via TikTok and I was instantly intrigued. My roommate Sophia is originally from Seattle and she invited me to come ...