This is generally the part of the magazine where the editor or publisher tells readers what to expect in the issue, a teaser of sorts. I’ve always found that approach a bit confusing, though, since you can just skip to the table of contents if you really want to know what’s on the pages ahead.
In my experience—including a year of feedback from Ventana readers—the best recipe for this page requires a dash of behind-the-scenes info and a personal touch. Since my last note, my wife and I had our first child: seven pounds, five ounces of life-changing little girl named Rylie Simone Katz. I won’t bore you with an Oscars-style list of thanks and acknowledgements, and I won’t gloat about how damn cute she is. But she is. And I would like to single out Dr. Terry Cole at Ventura Community Memorial Hospital, whose straightforward manner and direct answers (to questions he’s heard countless times) gave us confidence in our choice of obstetricians. Considering that the new life of Rylie is the most significant personal event I’ll ever experience, I’d be remiss not to share. But don’t worry, I won’t start group-emailing photos to everyone on the Ventana mailing list.
Now, the rest of the story, complete with a behind-the-scenes anecdote: Another event worth waiting for, one that actually ties in to this month’s Food and Wine theme, is the July opening of Watermark restaurant, Mark Hartley’s much anticipated project in Downtown Ventura’s historic Groene Building. I’ve been in and out of the building with Mark and his partner Jim Rice so many times over the last year, I forget that a lot of people in Ventura County don’t realize what’s going on there.
Watermark is more than a restaurant; it’s something of a museum, a celebration of our local bounty. The place is destined to become an icon of Downtown Ventura’s revitalization. And when it finally opens this month—with its unique fusion of old and new (think preserved original details downstairs and a glass elevator ascending to a contemporary third-floor lounge, complete with jellyfish tanks and designer tiles)—it will draw some serious attention to Ventura.
The last time I was in the building, one of the workers pulled me aside and rattled off a list of construction ordeals they’d battled during the course of the project. He finally cut himself off, realizing he could never recall everything. He shook his head, collected his thoughts, and expressed himself with the sort of poetic simplicity I appreciate from the Working Man: “Nothing in this place was easy.”
The best things never are. But they’re worth waiting for.
07-01-08
