New, Now, Next: Creating a Healthy Mind, Body, and Planet in 2024

If prioritizing health and wellness is a goal in 2024, the new Gold Meditation and Wellness Center on S. Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas is on a mission to cultivate a transformative experience through collective wisdom, purposeful beauty, and an uplifting community. Founded by Rancho Santa Fe resident Isha Gold — who has extensive training in psychology, yoga, hypnotherapy, breathwork, Feng shui, color therapy, and dance therapy — the center curates global guest events, guided group circles, a range of workshops, personalized meditation pod sessions, and a lifestyle boutique offering essentials for a balanced, beautiful life.

Dry January doesn’t need to equate to a bland month. The newly launched Tea Time at Richard Blais’ California English, offered daily from 3-5pm, promises charming afternoons spent sipping a variety of freshly brewed teas while savoring small bites and finger sandwiches. Tiered towers are sure to delight, filled with sandwiches (Smoked Salmon and Dill, Curry Chicken Salad, Deviled Egg) and sweet petit fours (Madeline, Battenberg Cake, Shortbread with Chocolate, Lemon Posset), along with an assortment of jams and marmalades. Tea Time service can be booked by calling the restaurant at 858.201.3461.

Start the new year off on a fresh note with seasonal treatments offered at Spa La Quinta through the end of January including a Harvest Glow Facial, a range of sugar scrubs, and Wine Down massages complete with a wine tasting paired with essential oils. Or, consider the desert getaway’s Fascial Stretch Therapy, an incredible way to get your body moving for activities or to recover from performance. Fascial Stretch Therapy is a pain-free system of table-based assisted stretching that focuses on the fascia — the connective tissue system that surrounds muscles, nerves, bones, and internal organs — rather than just the muscles or joints themselves, to achieve optimal flexibility, strength, performance, and pain relief. 

On Sunday, January 21, from 10am-2pm, Coastal Roots Farm, a nonprofit Jewish community farm and education center in Encinitas that emphasizes the importance of combating climate change, invites community members from all backgrounds to Tu B’Shvat Food Forest Festival to celebrate the Jewish New Year of the Trees. The event will feature live music and hands-on activities for all ages such as Food Forest tree maintenance, climate change education, a kid zone with Tu B’Shvat themed crafts, stories, and microscope activities, and Food Forest Tours featuring chickens, silvopastures, and microclimates. As participants explore the farm, a libation station will offer fresh food and drinks. Tickets are a suggested donation of $18 per adult; $9 per child. Due to limited capacity, pre-registration is required online at coastalrootsfarm.org.

Michelin Star chef Drew Deckman, co-owner of Deckman’s en el Mogor, a sustainable restaurant in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico, which he runs alongside his wife, Paulina Deckman, has long been regarded as the preeminent voice for the country’s ethical farming and slow food culture. Now, more than a decade since opening his eponymous al fresco restaurant in Mexico’s wine region, Drew is preparing to introduce his first concept in the United States with Watershed, expected to open this spring in North Park.

“The name and concept were derived from our desire to preserve the actual ‘watershed’ of Southern California and Northern Baja but also to mark a ‘watershed’ moment in my life, to create an inspiring restaurant in the U.S. that defines the future of sustainable dining,” says Drew. The cause-based concept will donate one percent of monthly revenue to help farmers implement carbon farming projects through various grants in partnership with international nonprofit Zero Footprint.

Watershed’s farm on a 50-acre private ranch in Ramona will serve as the main source of ingredients, growing everything from organic vegetables and produce to herbs and flowers. The restaurant will use livestock exclusively from San Diego County and partner with San Diego/Baja’s advanced sustainable aquaculture to utilize carbon-reducing ocean plant proteins such as seaweed, underutilized species like mackerel and hake, and farmed shellfish. A daily changing menu will feature à la carte plates with a few larger items designed to share. On the sips side, the bar program will offer a heavy selection of Mexico’s agave spirits, and to minimize the restaurant’s carbon footprint, wines will come from no farther north than Santa Barbara and no farther south than Baja, with beers from San Diego and Northern Baja-based breweries. Watershed will include main dining on the first floor, two cocktail bars, a ten-seat chef’s counter and oyster bar bellying up to an open chef’s kitchen, a second-floor private dining room, and a rooftop patio.