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ci.long-beach.ca.us/district4

American Hasidic Jewish reggae musician Matisyahu (center), who blends traditional Jewish themes with reggae, rock and hip-hop, will perform at this year’s Jewlicious Festival.

JConnect and Jewlicious Festival, in collaboration with Long Beach Hillel and SoCal Jewish Student Services, will present the seventh annual world-famous Jewlicious Music Arts and Culture Festival Friday, Feb. 25 through Sunday, Feb. 27 at the Alpert Jewish Community Center, 3801 East Willow St. The nation’s largest Jewish cultural event, the three-day Jewlicious festival will bring a modern perspective to Jewish culture through world-renowned musicians, artists, speakers, community organizers, change-makers, and other leaders.
The eclectic celebration has been described as a special blend of Jewish summer camp, Coachella, Burning Man, and Sundance. In past years, the festival has attracted more than 1,000 Jewish students and young adults from more than 60 colleges and universities, 20 states, and six countries.
Special performers for the 2011 Jewlicious Festival include The Sklar Brothers (from ESPN’s Cheap Seats), Fool’s Gold (a Los Angeles collective that weaves together Western pop with African rhythms and melodies), the Israeli jam band Acharit HaYamim, New York City’s Soul Farm and Kosha Dillz (which has been featured in performances on MTV and with Grammy-nominated hip-hop artists Snoop Dogg and Matisyahu). Presenters will include Matisyahu, David Fishof (creator of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp on VH1), William Daroff (vice president for Public Policy and director of the Washington office of The Jewish Federations of North America), Emmy-Award winning filmmaker Ezra Bookstein, and award-winning blogger David Abitbol.
The festival will also feature other speakers and educators addressing critical issues, including social justice, alternative energy and ending oil reliance, food equity and ethics, Israel, and Jewish spirituality and sexuality. Activities will include Sabbath banquets, workshops, surfing prayer service, wine tasting, Jewish meditation, henna tattoos, dance, yoga and swimming. In addition, award-winning films from the nationwide Jewish Film Competition for amateur filmmakers will be screened. 
The festival’s culmination on Sunday will be an acoustic showcase with performances by Moshav, Noah Lubin, Leerone, Rav Shmuel and others. 
“It’s year seven, and our momentum continues unchecked,” said David Abitbol, founder of Jewlicious.com. “Our student and young adult leaders have developed a tremendous grassroots-based event, while the festival itself continues to attract some of the biggest and most interesting names in Jewish arts, culture and thought. The stage is prepped, the community is primed, and we are all ready to celebrate.”

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(310) 277-5544
jewliciousfestival.com

Signal Hill’s annual carnival offers a safe environment for families to celebrate the holiday.

The Signal Hill Community Services Department will present its annual Halloween carnival on Saturday, Oct. 30 from 2pm to 5pm on the Signal Hill Park basketball courts, 1780 E. Hill St.
This year’s theme will be “Sid’s Scary Story” from the Toy Story movies. Characters from the films, including Buzz and Woody, will be on hand to be included in photos.
The carnival offers a safe environment for families to celebrate the holiday. Admission for children 12 years and under is $2; adult admission is $1. There will be themed carnival games, prizes, trivia, food, and a Buster Balloon twisting stage show.

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(562) 989-7330

The church’s brass-rubbing event will feature continuous entertainment by court musicians, gypsy dancers, madrigal singers, and St. Luke’s players.

Many old English churches house monumental brasses. Made of flat sheets of brass, the pieces are engraved with figures, coats of arms and sometimes inscriptions. They are set in a stone slab on the floor or wall of the church, and some are more than 600 years old.
In Great Britain during the Middle Ages, the social systems were such that each local lord of the manor dominated the village and the church. When the lord died, he was commemorated in his local abbey, cathedral or village church according to his status.
Through the 12th century, stone and marble memorials, mostly recumbent statues, were the usual forms of memorial. These statues filled every available space, wore badly and probably were not the medium for eternal memorials.
However, memorial engravings on brass plates were more durable and acted as space savers, since they could be walked upon and cost no more than marble or stone.
Brass plates were brought from Cologne, France, and the transportation costs were enormous. Brass was brought slowly and laboriously by horse and cart, or down river by boat to the sea, then by boat across the channel and the North Sea and finally along muddy, stony roads by horse and cart to the engravers’ workshops.
The earliest English brasses date from 1275. The early 15th century produced the finest monumental brasses. The indents in the floors of the early churches remind us of the thousands and thousands of brasses. Many of the finest were destroyed by the wholesale destruction of the great abbeys, the Cromwellians who plundered and the Royalists who used brass for munitions.
Elizabeth I issued edicts strictly forbidding any damage or mutilation of monuments to the dead and demanded restoration and repair of damaged monuments. Brasses that survived other disasters offended Victorians who ripped them up and laid tile.
From the remaining military, ecclesiastical and civilian brasses, we learn much about the life, fashion, armor and customs of the villages, churches, and castles of the Middle Ages.
Since 1986, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church has been offering the unique opportunity for the community, schools and groups to experience the age-old English craft of brass-rubbing.
Until 1995, St. Luke’s brought the brass-rubbing collection to Long Beach from the London Brass Rubbing Centre in Washington, DC. When the owners of the collection decided to retire, St. Luke’s purchased the collection. The London Brass Rubbing Center in Long Beach is the most comprehensive outside of Britain.
St. Luke’s, 525 E 7th St., will host the 24th season of its London Brass Rubbing Centre on Saturday, Oct. 16 from 6pm to 9pm, with a light repast and continuous entertainment by court musicians, gypsy dancers, madrigal singers, and St. Luke’s players.
Tickets are $30 each for the Medieval celebration. Visit stlukeslb.org/StLukes/brass.html for more information.

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(562) 570-6816
longbeach.gov/district6

Expert gardener Pat Welsh

Creative chef Cathy Thomas

Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens (RLA) will bring together the pleasures of the garden, the essence of the palate, and the art of the landscape with its 2010 Garden Series, during which experts throughout the year educate and delight garden enthusiasts.
The next program in the garden series will be a lecture and book signing by expert gardener Pat Welsh, who will offer helpful tips, hints and little-known but important information on growing winter crops, plus a culinary demonstration, sample tasting and book signing by creative chef Cathy Thomas, who will present a program dedicated to the benefits of organic gardening and organic food preparation, on Saturday, Sept. 18 from 10am to 12:30pm.
Thomas will introduce her new publication Melissa’s Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce: A Guide to Easy–to-Make Dishes with Organic Fruits and Vegetables, and Welsh will present her book Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month.
Admission tickets, which are $15 for the general public and $10 for RLA members and students, can be purchased online at rancholosalamitos.com or by calling (562) 431-3541.
Rancho Los Alamitos is located at 6400 East Bixby Hill Rd. Parking for the garden series events will be available on-site at the Rancho.

As a benefit for Signal Hill youth programs, the City of Signal Hill and Sultans Car Club of Long Beach hosted a car show Sunday at Signal Hill Park, featuring cars and trucks from 1975 and before. Against the backdrop of food booths and other vendors, Johnny Rocket and the V-Twins performed tunes by the likes of Pink Floyd and the Beach Boys.
Terry McWeeney returned as announcer of the event. “I think it was the best one we ever had,” he said. “We had about 215 cars, and it was good quality stuff. It’s the most cars since I’ve been doing it.”
McWeeney said that, near the very end of the car show, a mysterious white box was brought out, a raffle-type ticket was pulled from it and its number was announced. Everyone looked around at each other, a bit confused, until a woman indicated that she’d had the winning ticket. She went up to the stage and was given a box.
“It was a ring from her boyfriend,” McWeeney said. “He got down on his knee and proposed to her. I think that was a nice touch.”

The South Garden at Rancho Los Alamitos

Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch’s garden series features experts throughout the year to educate garden enthusiasts, focusing on the pleasures of the garden, the essence of the palate, and the art of the landscape. The Rancho’s next program will be a lecture by Tom Spellman entitled “Antioxidants from Your Garden” on Saturday, July 24 from 10am to 12:30pm.
Spellman’s message emphasizes that different types of antioxidants can protect our tissues from damage and that it is best to eat a wide range of antioxidant-rich foods. He will guide attendees through a selection of edible ornamentals and decorative fruit trees that have delicious fruits that are rich in antioxidants while being beautiful and complementary to edible and ornamental landscapes. Following the presentation, participants will enjoy healthy refreshments.
The cost of general admission for the lecture is $15 per person and $10 for students and Rancho Los Alamitos members. Reservations, which are required, may be made online rancholosalamitos.com or by calling (562) 431-3541. Rancho Los Alamitos is located at 6400 East Bixby Hill Rd. Parking for the garden series events will be available on-site.

In the last few years, food trucks have seen a vast increase in popularity among teens and adults alike. Capitalizing on the recent boom, several food trucks are coming together for Long Beach’s first Street Food Fest on Saturday, July 24 at Rainbow Lagoon Park (on the northern side of Shoreline Drive). The participating trucks will set up their stations side-by-side to serve the city’s diverse eaters from 10:30am to 5pm.
The event is being promoted through social networking on Facebook and Twitter, and through word of mouth from fans of each involved food truck. The goal of the festival is to raise funds for the Jaycee Foundation’s Adopt-a-Teacher program, which provides local teachers with funds for classroom supplies which normally must be purchased with the educators’ own money. A percentage of the funds raised will also be donated to Long Beach City College’s student scholarship programs.
Twenty-two vendors are scheduled to appear at the festival: Border Grill, a chain of Mexican restaurants with locations in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Las Vegas, in addition to its truck (Border Grill’s chef, Susan Feniger, recently finished Bravo’s second season of Top Chef Masters in fifth place.); Buttermilk, a truck specializing in breakfast foods; Calbi, serving Korean influences on Mexican dishes; Cool Haus, selling ice cream sandwiches; Del’s, a frozen lemonade truck; Don Chow, a Chinese/Mexican fusion truck that appeared on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives; Fresh Fries, serving several varieties of French fries; the Greasy Weiner, bringing New Jersey-style hot dogs to the west coast; Great Balls on Tires, with their meatball menu items in tow; the Grilled Cheese Truck, whose name speaks for itself; Kabob and Roll, bringing Mediterranean dishes; King Cone, an ice cream parlor on wheels; the Knockout Taco Truck, another Mexican taco truck; Lomo Arigato, a Japanese/Peruvian fusion truck; Louks, Greek gourmet to-go; LudoBites, a guerilla-style pop-up restaurant event created by Chef Ludo Lefebvre; Reggae Chicken, a Jamaican-American fusion truck; SliceTruck, pizza on wheels; Sweets Truck, taking sweets to the street; Uncle Lau’s Island BBQ, a taste of Hawaii; World Fare, the first double-decker bus to enter the world of food trucks; and Yatta, taking sushi on the road.
In addition to the food trucks, arts-and-crafts vendors and live music will be included at the event. The groups performing are rock band Blue Steel and funk band Delta Nove.
Tickets for the festival are available at the event’s website, lbstreetfoodfest.com, for $6 pre-sale and $8 at the gate.