Merle Axelrad says she fell into the medium of fabric collage 27 years ago when she was nine months pregnant, on maternity leave from her job as an architect, and made a baby quilt. Now, most of her works are public art, corporate and private commissions.

With as much as 10 percent of all food products sold around the world mislabeled, experts at UC Davis and elsewhere are working hard to ensure what’s on the label accurately represents what’s in the food.

“We are flower nerds to the max here,” Melissa Cowan, owner of Placerville Flowers on Main says. “We squeal on the daily when new products come in or when seasons change.” 

Colonized in the late 1800s, Fair Oaks Village is the quaint, charming center of town. It is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely driven by a burgeoning dining scene.

Outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento, tower cranes rise above the skyline, harbingers of the city’s burgeoning building boom. Inside, the designers who are determining the new face of our city took to the runway to envision our future through fashion. 

Though Legado Whiskey is a dark American rye, the company is as unaged as moonshine. The owners have leveraged their story — homegrown, women-owned — to reach consumers around the Capital Region, a key strategy in the crowded craft beverage market.

Across the Sacramento region, food truck owners are riding their mobile success into more stationary ventures, from sit-down restaurants like Culinerdy Kitchen to food-court outposts and drive-through kiosks.

Amid the clatter of machinery and the beeping of forklifts, workers wearing white hair nets tend their stations around the assembly line in the warehouse-like production kitchen of Mad Will’s Food Company on the outskirts of Auburn.

Defining “outsider art” isn’t easy — the term encompasses work by self-taught artists and the artwork of the developmentally disabled — but its popularity is soaring. In Sacramento, Short Center North’s art program is one example.

It’s around 1992, and a long-haired dude in his early 20s is sitting with his friend at Taco Loco, a popular Mexican eatery on J Street in Sacramento. They’re eyeballing the customers, waiting to pounce.

After several weeks of rumors, two years of lobbying from Visit Sacramento and over a decade of fruitless attempts by local chefs to capture the attention of the most influential food guide in the world, Michelin finally rolled into town in March.

Throughout the region, public and private-sector players are rethinking women’s health, expanding and diversifying their approach to maternal and infant health.

How are Sacramento’s restaurateurs appealing to new diet preferences?

Corti Brothers’ Rick Mindermann is bringing a new-school mentality to the old-school market. 

Mike Appezzato has only been in business for a year, but he’s already uprooting his company to move it to Sacramento.  

Realty One celebrated the grand opening of their second office in the Capital Region with the new Sacramento headquarters at 2335 American River Drive. More than 150 guests enjoyed the festivities including a ribbon cutting, photo booth, red carpet entrance, live DJ, prizes and more.

There are good reasons to focus on the special challenges posed by family businesses, like how to keep family resentments from turning to business rivalries and avoid nepotism that results in the wrong people working in key positions. But for some Sacramento immigrant family businesses, blood ties have been the key to survival.

Out on County Road 26, just west of Interstate 505 in Yolo County, Park Winters sits holding court against a backdrop of the Vaca Mountains as it has since George Washington Scott built the mansion in 1865. Now under the ownership of partners John Martin and Rafael Galiano, this 151-year-old 10-acre property is thriving with new life. 

How did Nagle, now 62, go from weed-puller to angel investor? He shares his maxims of leadership, including how he somehow reads 300 emails a day, makes work an obsession and why he feels soccer is the future of America.

A veteran’s inability to find and keep employment is a main cause of homelessness, according to Bettis. A stable income and stable housing go hand-in-hand. That’s where the VOA of Northern California and Northern Nevada comes into play.