Indy Origins: The 30-Year Hobby Job That Has My Heart

Our Longtime Food (and Arts) Writer’s Reflections on a Lifetime of Writing for the Local

George Yatchisin (center) with Matt Kettmann (left) and Chryss Yost at Carr Winery in 2012. | Credit: Courtesy

One of George’s first Indy bylines back in 1995. | Credit: Courtesy

I came to town with an alternative paper history, having cut my marginally paid journalistic teeth at the Baltimore City Paper while still in college. As an aside, holding the mildly impressive title City Lights Editor there meant I bugged bars for their live band schedules, which in those ancient days involved phone and mail. How a paper came out every week was sort of a miracle.

It all led to a lifetime with a hobby job: writing for the local. Got to do it in State College, PA, where the paper was the Centre Daily Times, something early computer spell-check really wanted to rename the Sinatra Daily Times. Had a host of clips, some already fading newsprint, to prove that I had done this work a time or 20. So in 1995, half a year into my still running Santa Barbara tenure, I cold-called then Arts Editor DJ Palladino, dropping off a clutch of clips, hoping the mélange covering everyone from Rick Danko to Yo La Tengo would convince him I should write about music.

Thanks to his kindness, I did. That’s so long ago the articles don’t live on the internet (horrors!), and that Pee-Chee folder where my hard copy history cache lived I seem to have lost when I retired from my UCSB day job a few years back. (What I most miss from working: an office to hoard more of my crap.)

But I do recall an early interview-based piece with Eric Bachmann from Archers of Loaf before a Ventura gig, and an even greater luxury — the chance to think-piece on Matthew Sweet with nary a quote from the musician before his local show. It was an inkling this place was special, that it valued writing as much as reporting. Just to put into perspective how long ago this all was, Bachmann is just back on the road after a heart attack; Sweet suffered such a debilitating stroke in 2024, he hasn’t been able to play music since.

But I promise not to bum you out or relate every story I authored in 32 years of writing, off and on, for the Indy. It has been such a welcoming home for my wealth of words, even when one day job boss didn’t want me to write for the paper as it might be perceived as a conflict of interest. All I can say is, during that time it is possible a handful of non-work related stories were penned by some mysterious scribe named “Martin I. Junipero.”

George Yatchisin (right) hosted a series of chef and winemaker dinners at his house for an Independent articles. This one featured Chef Brenda Simon and Pali Wine Co’s Aaron Walker, 2013 | Credit: Courtesy
George Yatchisin at the Wine Cask with Patrick McHugh (left) and Antonio Gardella in 2015 | Credit: Bob Dickey
George Yatchisin wrote this book of poems called ‘Feast Days’. | Credit: Courtesy

The big shift in my coverage, from music and performing arts — and a brief run as the book columnist in 2001 — was a move to food and drink. As I adore eating and drinking, they sort of had to become topics for the thing I third most like to do.

Matt Kettmann had noticed I was blogging about food a bunch (remember blogs?) and asked, “You want to write about that for the paper?” Hungry me couldn’t say no.

George Yatchisin is Santa Barbara’s current poet laureate. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

I am also obligated to point out that I came to UCSB as a lecturer in the Writing Program, where I taught Nonfiction Prose Writing for Magazines. One of my brilliant students was Kettmann himself back in the late ’90s. So, be kind to your students; they might be your editors someday.

That means I’m in my 18th year of writing about food and drink for the paper, and no doubt by now have used my 92nd synonym for “delicious.” It’s a delight of a gig. If you ever wondered if it’s good to have people in hospitality like you, the answer is hell yes. Got to help create the late, COVID-killed Foodie Awards. Had to say goodbye to culinary greats (RIP, James Sly).

Now one of my chief assignments is writing 10th anniversary articles about the very places I covered upon their opening. Very few outlets give any writer a run like that. Of course, the outlets are fewer and fewer now, too, as so much of what passes for news floats in listicle boats on an AI slop sea.

Way back when, to kick off my tenure as the book columnist, in a story titled “Another Read World” — inveterate music guy me had to sneak in the Eno allusion — I wrote this: “I cherish a luscious sentence more than any other inanimate thing. Done right it’s the wet towel your lover snaps on your ass — a tingle, a tickle, a playful promise of more to come.”

Thanks, dear Indy, for the oodles of opportunity to snap sentences on Santa Barbarans’ asses. Here’s to the more to come.

As the Santa Barbara Independent celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2026, our staff is sharing their “Indy Origin” stories and other memories. See more of them at independent.com/40.