Spring definitely brings out the hunger artist in us all. The opportunities to savor find local food and wine (and beer and ice cream) is too tempting to resist. For example, the food scholars of Cabrillo College’s Culinary Arts Program will present their final dining showcase of the spring semester this week, May 15–17, at the beautiful Pino Alto Restaurant in the historic Sesnon House.

With the transfiguration of the Cellar Door bistro into Le Cigare Volant, proprietor/winemaker Randall Grahm plays to his strengths, as well as to his sense of play. Named for Bonny Doon Vineyards’ flagship wine, the restaurant simultaneously debuts chef Ryan Shelton, who brings to the cafe’s exhibition kitchen deep experience in the alchemical ways of tres contemporary French cuisine—molecular cookery replete with scented and spiced foams.

The chickens are happy and squawking in their backyard territory. The kitchen herb garden is loaded with fragrance. And chef Katherine Stern’s seasonal menu sprouts beautiful plates of agnolotti with fava leaves and sugar snap peas, shaved asparagus salad with green garlic, and my new favorite—tender potato gnocchi laced with fava beans, green shallots and wild nettles.

Once again, budding young chefs are looking for vintage inspiration—and that’s because it’s time again for the “Dare to Pair” food and wine challenge, coming up fast on Sunday, April 29. It’s a Westside delight.

Arts student and 2012 Irwin Scholar Louise Leong finds inspiration in her obsession with product design, branding and vintage cartoons. A senior majoring in art at UCSC, Leong recently submitted the design chosen to grace a custom-bottled roussanne white wine made by Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards.

If you savor sustainability in the way of choice seafood and want to sample exciting fish dishes created by celebrity chefs from around the country, mark your calendar for May 18-20 and the latest Monterey Bay Aquarium Cooking For Solutions. It promises to be three days of foodie fish-lover’s heaven.

Funky elegance, laid-back glamor and serious libations are among the many charms of downtown’s 515 Kitchen & Cocktails, located at 515 Cedar Street, as my colleagues and I found out last Friday. Happily ensconced on some of the soft cushions in the downstairs lounge, we enjoyed the wet afternoon from afar.

Two men, father and son, share the name, Flynn. And as we meet them in Being Flynn, father Jonathan (Robert De Niro) and son Nick (Paul Dano) also appear to share a life trajectory—downhill. Jonathan, a self-styled “great” writer, is already well down the road to ruin, his loser status well in progress, whereas twentysomething Nick’s decline is still a rough draft. Paul Weitz’ script and direction tell a familiar tale: loser father abandons wife (Julianne Moore) and son, goes to prison and disappears, sending letters to son claiming to be finishing up the great American novel.

Do you sometimes skip dessert just so you an have another serving of kale salad? Me too! Kale is truly an astonishing member of the brassica family, beloved for its deep green (sometimes purple) color and its wealth of antioxidants and healthy minerals. Its distinctive bitter flavor makes it a hit with savvy chefs all over the world. And it loves to grow right here on our windswept, fog-kissed coast.