There are many kinds of beer drinkers in this world, and Sacramento Beer Week caters to each and every one of them. Starting Friday, restaurants, bars, cafes and brewpubs all around Sacramento will be stocked with great beers for great prices. Beer Week will continue through Sunday, March 6. Until then, the citizens of Sacramento and the surrounding areas will be able to satisfy their liquid palate with regional and local brews, world brews and even a few rare and vintage brews. While their website is a wonderful place to browse for the perfect SBW event, it can be difficult to orient yourself among the 300 or more events. In hopes of eliminating any stress the plethora of drinking event

Last night, John Irving, National Book Award-winning author of twelve novels, including The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules and his latest, Last Night at Twisted River, appeared in conversation with UC Davis Director of Creative Writing, Pam Houston, before an appreciative full-house at downtown’s Crest Theater, as part of California Lectures’ 2009-2010 line-up of literary speakers. Irving told the audience he writes according to novelist Herman Melville’s warning, “Woe to him that seeks to please rather than to appall,” saying that his goal is “not only to frighten readers, making them anxious for the fates of characters I have made them like,” but

Mark Miller admitted being flattered when Life magazine named him one of America's most influential chefs of the 1980s alongside Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck and Paul Prudhomme. But he isn't comfortable with his celebrity chef status. Miller is most famous for popularizing the southwest cooking style worldwide. He's written 10 cookbooks altogether, and seven of them deal with southwestern-style cooking, including The Great Chile Book and Coyote Café, named after his famous Santa Fe café. However, what Miller really wants is to inspire people to cook. "Sometimes we watch too much television, and we are preordaining what the [culinary] experience is," Miller said. "People should really de

Still no new year's plans? For once, you don’t have to plan anything much. Just drive downtown to 10th and K to see the new year in at Sacramento’s newest nightlife center: 10th Street between J and K. This New Year’s Eve will mark the official debut of Sacramento’s newest, and in some ways, finest, nightlife block. While the moaning and arguing continues about the K Street Mall between 7th and 9th, a single block of 10th Street between K and J is poised to impress. With this month’s opening of the Citizen Hotel and its gorgeous, elegant restaurant The Grange - following the November opening of The Cosmopolitan, with its restaurant, bar, upstairs club Social and theatre the Cosmopolitan