From down the block on Sunday, Oct. 11, it sounded like walking toward any Chinatown on a festival day: the snap of firecrackers, clanging cymbals and rattling drums growing louder along the approach to the foot of Eureka’s E Street. There, at the corner of First and E streets, a crowd gathered as Chinese lion […]
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill is the managing editor of the North Coast Journal. She won the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2020 Best Food Writing Award and the 2019 California News Publisher's Association award for Best Writing.
Posted inScreens
A Very del Toro Spooky Season
Last week, I took advantage of the re-release of writer and director Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) in theaters to see it on the big (well, bigger) screen. The strange, sad, dreamy marvel of it bears as many rewatches as a person’s heart can take. Like so much of del Toro’s catalogue, even those […]
Posted inSeriously?
A Memo from the Department of War
From the extremely large, solid oak desk of Secretary of War Peter Hegseth: Questions regarding the Pentagon’s plans to develop a High-T military are harshing my morning buzz so I will be addressing some of your baby-ass concerns here. Side note: We will also begin construction of a new building, swapping out the five-sided thing […]
Posted inNews
Gold in the Cracks
Conrad Calimpong draws a thumb along the gold seam running through his chestnut brown “Pillow Pot Vase” to where it meets three other metallic streaks, fusing a mottled river rock like a jewel or a heart at its center. Like the other pieces in his show Earthquake Trauma: My Path to Recovery in the Anderson […]
Posted inEditorial
The Good Ones
When Assistant Editor Kimberly Wear reported on the death of convicted violent sexual predator Richard Stobaugh’s death last week (“‘Ski Mask Rapist’ Richard Stobaugh Dies,” Oct. 1), many women and girls released sighs of relief. State law nearly allowed Stobaugh to be housed in Manila in 2025 and he was appealing the eventual decision against […]
Posted inOn the Table
Burger Week Champions
Friends, NCJ Burger Week, our annual 10-day, countywide frenzy with a side of fries, has ended. As W.B. Yeats wrote more than a century ago, “Everything that’s lovely is/ But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.” Granted, he was offering argument for his admonishing poem “Never Give All the Heart,” but it’s just as solid […]
Posted inScreens
‘Onslaught’ Shoots Wide of the Mark
ONSLAUGHT. The trailer for A24’s Onslaught had plenty of flashing signs indicating “slasher movie ahead.” And yet, the plot, as much as a splatter-fest requires one, specifies a former Army sharpshooter defending her daughter when they stumble upon genetically rigged killing machines. How could I keep from getting geared up for a woman-on-a-mission/mom-against-the-world action movie, particularly […]
Posted inOn the Table
Nobody Wants Your AI Food
Not the sunrise-tinted sandwich with its eerily symmetrical drippings of melted cheddar. Not the glossy, alien billboard burger or the frothy not-beer a program spit out. And for the love of all that occurs in nature, not the unholy crustacean nightmare ring I encountered in a local ad. There are so many reasons to reject […]
Posted inArt Beat
‘More of the Moment’
William Pierson recalls his kindergarten teacher giving out brown slabs of rolled clay with which he and his classmates were to form and decorate candy dishes as Mother’s Day gifts. After looking around, he says he picked up a wooden block to form the clay around before trimming and painting the edge. He had, he […]
Posted inNews
Outlaw Rodeo at the Fair Marred by Two Horse Deaths
Without horse racing for its second year in a row, the 130th annual Humboldt County Fair replaced the thunder of hooves on the track with Saturday’s Outlaw Rodeo College Invitational. While it attracted a strong crowd as the largest single-day event, the injury and subsequent deaths of two horses cast a pall over the festivities […]
Posted inBest Of Humboldt
Feeling Lucky?
Granted, choosing — or winning — the Best of Humboldt isn’t a game of chance. But we do feel a little blessed flipping through the list of winners and perusing the bounty of our county. No better reminder to go out and enjoy some of these local gems and mark a few new ones off […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Best of Food and Drink
Best Farmers Market VendorFocaccia by the PietrinisWhen in Rome … make a colorful Roman hand gesture in disappointment, for the Pietrini brothers Fulvio (who does the baking) and Flavio are somehow in Humboldt instead, at the Old Town Farmers Market selling their marvelous focaccia at the stall with the rainbow lettering. The $5 squares of […]