This week: The real story behind the Winchester Mystery House, a historic artist’s studio-turned-artwork, a gifted local teenage violinist, and entrepreneurial high schoolers. Plus, hiking via public transit, the Presidio’s native plants, all things ube, and tasty holiday latkes.
Trail lines and transit stakes
Content creator Bike Curious hiked the De La Veaga Trail in Orinda to draw attention to looming transit budget cuts while demonstrating how residents can reach Bay Area trails without a car.
The moderate route sits on municipal land, with permits available online, and was found through Hiking by Transit’s public database. — Bike Curious
Restoring the dunes
About 100 volunteers gathered at the Presidio’s Sunset Scrub near Lincoln Boulevard last weekend to plant native species as part of an ongoing habitat restoration effort. The Presidio Trust planted roughly 2,000 natives, including coastal buckwheat and dune tansy, to help rebuild sections of the city’s historic dunescape.
The work supports insects, birds, lizards, and rare plants such as San Francisco lessingia and spineflower. The newly restored area now connects Sunset Scrub with the north dunes, creating a continuous habitat corridor between Washington and Lincoln boulevards. — KPIX
Blue conversation
Artist Catherine Wagner’s Blue Reverie at 500 Capp Street fills the late conceptual artist David Ireland’s iconic Mission District home with layers of blue. Ireland spent decades transforming the house itself into a sculptural work, altering floors, walls, and objects to explore space and domestic life as art.
Wagner builds on that legacy, adding photography, projections, and subtle installations that play with light, color, and architecture while keeping a conversation with Ireland’s ideas alive. Hidden blue moons, filtered windows, and glowing furniture turn corners of the home into unexpected moments of discovery. Blue Reverie runs through January 10 at 500 Capp Street, with a catalogue launch on December 16. — 48 Hills
Labyrinth of memory
The Winchester Mystery House has long been surrounded by salacious ghost stories, but most of them were urban legends created by locals and later promoters, not Sarah Winchester herself. These tales helped turn her eccentric home into a tourist draw, which in turn preserved it from demolition.
Beyond the myths, the house is a rare glimpse into late-19th-century San Jose architecture, built in popular Queen Anne Victorian styles and shaped further by the 1906 earthquake. — Bay Area News Group
Oven work and open doors
At Miramonte High School in Orinda, special education students are running a small dog treat business as part of their school day. In Asia Pavicich’s essential skills class, students research what’s safe for dogs, design the packaging, bake pumpkin–peanut butter treats, and sell them under the name Matadogs.
Pavicich started the project to give younger students real, on-campus work experience, beyond practice exercises. It’s also created easy points of contact between the students and the rest of the school community. — NBC Bay Area
Quiet strings, wide reach
Sausalito violinist Sydney Li-Jenkins, 15, has been named a winner of the 2026 YoungArts Competition, which recognizes young artists across visual, literary, and performing fields.
A sophomore at the Branson School in Ross, Li-Jenkins joins a national group of artists whose work reflects a rare level of focus and ambition at this stage. — Marin Independent Journal
Crispy threads
Delfina chef Craig Stoll has put a lighter, gluten-free spin on the holiday latke, balancing crisp potato strands with just the right touch of onion and potato starch. His careful prep — starting the potatoes the night before and pressing out every drop of moisture — keeps each patty tender inside and golden outside.
The latkes are perfect for the Festival of Lights, which kicks off December 14, bringing a fresh take to Hanukkah tables. For those skipping the kitchen, the restaurant offers a to-go option with a dozen flash-frozen latkes, plus add-ons like apple-quince conserva, crème fraîche, or Gingrass smoked steelhead lox. — 7 x 7
Purple by way of Alameda
Alameda baker Henry Awayan has leaned fully into ube, the Filipino purple yam he grew up with and now builds an entire cookbook around. Known for custom cakes at Whisk Cake Creations, Awayan’s The Ube Baking Book gathers more than 50 recipes — from classic halaya to ube focaccia, chiffon cakes, and breakfast pastries — tracing both flavor and family history shaped by his Filipino upbringing and years running a bakery a block from his childhood home.
Awayan plans to teach classes from the book at Whisk in 2026, with details to be announced through the bakery’s website and Instagram. — The Oaklandside
Top image: Winchester Mystery House
Previously: Field Notes: The Cockettes’ Tahara, Christmas Bar, and SCRAP Jewelry Pop-Up
