Nick Bastone Contributor Profile

Surfing Silicon Valley: tour the beaches that attract techies and locals alike

Surfing Silicon Valley — tour the beaches that attract techies and locals alike From Pacifica to Pescadero, this stretch of coastal California scratches Silicon Valley’s itch to surf more than just the web. Photographs by John Baehr Randy Schmidt grew up in Washington state and moved to San Mateo two years ago to work as a Production Artist at GoPro. Schmidt and his friends often surf Pacifica after work for the convenience, but on this night, they gave ...

This Bay Area blind man ran the SF marathon tethered to his trusty guide

Lord Frederick and Madeline Kirch are an unlikely running duo making great strides together Lord Frederick and Madeline Kirch celebrate crossing the finish line at the 2018 Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon in San Francisco this February. (Image via Madeline Kirch’s Instagram) With less than a week until the San Francisco marathon, a local running duo prepares. An agreed-upon music playlist for Madeline Kirch, 28, and Lord Frederick, 51, is essential. Electronic dance remixes of ...

Why the Bay Area’s hottest restaurants look to this Half Moon Bay farm as their secret source

Why the Bay Area’s hottest restaurants look to this Half Moon Bay farm as their secret source for produce They can be tough to grow, but the beans at Iacopi Farms have garnered rock star status with in-the-know local chefs and foodies alike Mike Iacopi shows off his English peas. Iacopi Farms is best known for their dry beans and shelling beans, but also grow an array of veggies like artichokes, Swiss chard, kale, ...

The Peninsula’s newest pro basketball player is quickly becoming a (virtual) NBA superstar

The Peninsula’s newest pro basketball player is quickly becoming a (virtual) NBA superstar Meet Nidal Nasser—AKA Mama Im Dat Man—the San Bruno native tearing up the new NBA 2K league “Before the league I had no idea what I was gonna do. I was at SF State for business and marketing but I had no clue on where I was going. I had no idea. I was just going with the flow.“ (Image ...

Serving up the freshest beer (daily!) with Fieldwork Brewing in San Mateo

It’s all about the craft (and a little about the bocce, too) at the popular Bay Meadows beer garden Draft Kings: Kristen Wandryk pours (very colorful) beer at Fieldwork Brewing in San Mateo. (Photo by Natalia Nazarova) The first job of the day for any Fieldwork Brewing Company general manager is to update the website’s current beer list. It’s a task that cannot be skipped. That’s because any of the 16–17 offerings at Fieldwork’s five ...

How two filmmakers with a camcorder and a jet ski made Mavericks famous

How two filmmakers with a camcorder and a jet ski made Mavericks world famous El Granada locals Eric Nelson and Curt Myers started filming local surfers on public access TV. Today their Powerlines Productions counts Kelly Slater as a fan. Still frame of Ion Banner tackling a Mavs monster on January 18, 2018, while Powerlines staff photographer Tony Canadas documents it all from the water. (Courtesy of Powerlines Productions) It’s early on a chilly January ...

The pigs of summer: Roasting artisanal pork with Delfina’s Craig Stoll

Pizzaria Delfina owner, Caig Stoll (right), carefully carving away. For Delfina owner Craig Stoll cooking outdoors on warm summer nights brings him back to his childhood, growing up in New Rochelle just above New York City’s northern border. That’s why, come late May, he escapes the “freezing and miserable” climate of San Francisco and barbecues on the patio of his Palo Alto pizzeria. His meat of choice? Swine. “Roasted pig and beers on the ...

Meat in heaven: Silicon Valley’s biggest, baddest sandwiches

The Adam Richman from Ike’s Place, properly named after the Man vs. Food host. We admit it. After a certain amount of time in the Bay Area, our carnivorous, carb-heavy ways have receded some. We often opt for the salad bowl over the burrito, the tofu over the kalbi beef. We’ve come to think of avocado as a major food group. But there remains something visceral about a sandwich: meat and bread, ...

Hunting down the last great five dollar lunch in Silicon Valley

Al pastor tacos and a cheese quesadilla from El Charrito in San Carlos. Lunch on the Peninsula can sometimes feel like a negotiation in which you hold no leverage. You’re pressed for time, looking for parking near downtown and when you find it you’re often treated to the kind of meal that prompts a discussion about how high the rents must be. Well, cheap, good food does exist in Silicon Valley and ...

Can Floating Naked Inside a Redwood City Strip Mall Simplify Your Life? We Found Out.

Illustration by Shannon Corey “What if there’s a fire?” my girlfriend asked. “Would anyone come and get you?” Not the positive re-enforcement I was hoping for before stepping into my first float in a sensory deprivation chamber, the latest wellness fad to come to the Peninsula. I had psyched myself out all weekend, watching the 1980 movie Altered States and a Vice News documentary, both about bad trips in sensory deprivation chambers. Now structure ...