
The Made In California Lifestyle
Buy Californian. Live Well.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
CALIFORNIA UNIQUE SPIRITS

Saturday, January 6, 2018
CALIFORNIA SNORKLE GEAR

CALIFORNIA WATER SHOES
CALIFORNIA RASH GUARDS

CALIFORNIA PET FOOD
CALIFORNIA SPONGES, SCRUBBERS, AND SCOURING PADS
CALIFORNIA PLASTIC WRAP
CALIFORNIA PAPER TOWELS
CALIFORNIA PLASTIC SANDWICH/FREEZER BAGS
CALIFORNIA NOODLES
CALIFORNIA SNACKS & JUNK FOOD
Annie's: Berkeley-based
Annie's makes a variety of organic -- but not necessarily good for you
-- snacks, including yogurt tubes, granola bars, cookies, bagged
popcorn, and fruit snacks. Their Cheddar Bunnies crackers are difficult
to stop eating.
Natural Value: Sacramento-based Natural Value makes affordable organic, environmentally friendly, fair-trade pretzels. Their brick-and-mortar and online distributors are listed on their website: http://naturalvalue.com.

Natural Value: Sacramento-based Natural Value makes affordable organic, environmentally friendly, fair-trade pretzels. Their brick-and-mortar and online distributors are listed on their website: http://naturalvalue.com.
CALIFORNIA POPCORN
CALIFORNIA PASTA SAUCE
CALIFORNIA MAPLE SYRUP
CALIFORNIA CONDIMENTS
Natural Value: Sacramento-based Natural Value makes affordable
organic, environmentally friendly, fair-trade mustards, sriracha, and ketchup. Their brick-and-mortar and online
distributors are listed on their website: http://naturalvalue.com.
Annie's: Berkeley-based
Annie's makes a variety of organic condiments, including salad dressings, ketchups, mustards, BBQ sauces, and Worcestershire sauce.
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CALIFORNIA COCONUT FOOD PRODUCTS
CALIFORNIA CANNED FOOD
Natural Value: Sacramento-based Natural Value makes affordable organic, environmentally friendly, fair-trade canned food. The sort of food that I used to buy from Amy's, except at a fraction of the price. Their offerings include canned beans, lentils, hominy, olives, tuna, tomatoes, corn, and peas. Their brick-and-mortar and online distributors are listed on their website: http://naturalvalue.com.
Annie's: Berkeley-based
Annie's makes a variety of organic soups and canned meals.

Friday, November 24, 2017
CALIFORNIA ICE CREAM

Straus Family Creamery: Marshall-based Straus provides most of the dairy products that my household consumes. Their ice cream is as good as store-bought ice cream gets -- other brands may be as good, but I've never found one that's better.
CALIFORNIA INTERLUDE -- HOW TO BREAK IN A PAIR OF RAW-DENIM JEANS

Here's how:
1. DO NOT wash them right away. Good raw-denim jeans already will be pretty tight when you get them. If you wash before wearing, then there’s a good chance that they will shrink up so small that you’ll never get them on.
2. DO NOT get them hemmed right away. Raw denim shrinks a LOT when you wash it. If you get them hemmed before you wash them (which you SHOULD NOT DO right away), then they’ll be too short afterwards. Roll them up. Endure the compliments from hipsters.
3. Wear them frequently without washing for at least a month. Raw denim creases and bends a lot like thin cardboard. Your goal is to make the denim crease's match yours -- e.g., the jeans' knees should bend in the exact same place that yours legs do -- and to grow accustomed to bending where you bend. The thicker the denim, the longer it will take. I wore my 11-weight for six weeks before I soaked them, my 14-weight for six months, and my 18-eight for nine months. If they start to smell, then let them air out outside.
4. Don’t fold them. Hang them straight – I loop one of the back belt loops over the neck of a hanger, and let the jeans hang full length. Two reasons: 1. If you fold jeans that you’re not washing, then they won’t air out at all, and they will start to smell. 2. The whole point of raw denim is to let it form to your body. That doesn’t work if you flatten them out every time that you wear them. After a while, hanging them gets a bit creepy, because you keep seeing – out of the corner of your eye – your own torso-less body lurking in your closet. That’s a good thing.
5. Important Yet Optional Step: Once the creases in your raw denim have set, soak your jeans and let them dry on your body. I have done this in two ways: 1. By wearing them in the bath tub while I read a book, then letting the water out and letting them dry on me as I sat outside and kept reading the book. 2. By wearing them into the swimming pool, then letting the dry on me poolside. This step is important because it will shape the denim to your body like nothing else will. It is optional because you will be mocked by anyone who catches you doing it. If the words “fashion victim” sound bad when applied to you, then you may just have to settle for less-comfortable jeans.
6. Wear them for at least another month. Wear them hard. Climb trees. Do yard work. Go backpacking. Sweat lots.
7. Wash them, inside out, on cold. Don’t wash them with other clothes – the dye will stain everything else in the wash. I never wash my Brave Stars with other clothes. I don’t know how long it takes for all of the extra dye to bleed out of raw denim.
8. Tumble dry on extra low.
9. Try them on. Be amazed. Feel bad about rolling your eyes the first time that you read this post.
10. Decide whether you want to get them hemmed. The hipster way is to wear them rolled up, showing off the selvage stitching. I am not a hipster – I get mine hemmed.
CALIFORNIA CANDLES
Friday, November 17, 2017
CALIFORNIA WORKOUT SUPPLEMENTS

Thursday, November 9, 2017
CALIFORNIA SKATEBOARDS


Body Glove: Redondo Beach-based Body Glove claims that its founders used insulation from the back of a refrigerator to invent "the first practical wetsuit." I have no idea whether that's true. But I do know that the Body Glove logo makes me stop, smile, and reminisce. Their surfing (or, in my case, boogie boarding) wetsuits brought much affordable joy to my Central Coast surf-town childhood, and that Body Glove's diving wetsuits were there for me when I learned to scuba. They also make affordable cruiser and longboard skateboards.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
CALIFORNIA DEODORANT
Saturday, October 21, 2017
CALIFORNIA FOOD CANISTERS
Thursday, October 19, 2017
CALIFORNIA FLASHLIGHTS & HEADLAMPS
SureFire: I have mixed feelings about including Fountain Valley-based SureFire on this list. They make a host of useful products, including handheld flashlights, headlamps, and even lights you can wear on your wrist. And the quality of their offerings looks good. SureFire markets themselves, however, as gun nuts serving gun nuts -- everything they sell was designed with shooting in mind.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
CALIFORNIA CARDIGANS
Sunday, September 10, 2017
CALIFORNIA HOUSE-CLEANING PRODUCTS

Grab Green: Camarillo-based Grab Green makes reasonably priced, eco-friendly all-purpose cleaners, kitchen degreasers, and glass cleaners.
CALIFORNIA DISH SOAP

Grab Green: Camarillo-based Grab Green makes reasonably priced, eco-friendly dish soap.
CALIFORNIA DISHWASHER DETERGENT

CALIFORNIA DRYER SHEETS
Sunday, July 30, 2017
CALIFORNIA GRAPPA
Saturday, July 29, 2017
CALIFORNIA BITTERS
CALIFORNIA MEZCAL
Thursday, July 27, 2017
CALIFORNIA AGAVE SPIRIT (CALIFORNIAN TEQUILA)

Venus Spirits: Santa Cruz-based VS imports organic agave from the Jalisco highlands, and distills it into award-winning agave spirits.
Channel Islands Distillery: Ventura-based CID makes small-batch tequila.
Greenbar Distillery: Los Angeles-based Greenbar Distillery's organic IXÁ Tequila really is tequila, as in, they make it in Tequila, Mexico. It is the only one of their spirits that they don't make in their downtown-L.A. distillery.
Saint James Spirits: Irwindale-based SJS makes a 100% Blue Agave, distilled in California, and aged in French Oak.
CALIFORNIA ANISE-TASTING LIQUOR

Venus Spirits: Santa Cruz-based VS makes an award-winning, organic-wheat-based "interpretation" of the Scandinavian liquor Aquavit.
Bear & Eagle Products: Santa Ana-based Bear & Eagle brews three flavors of Persian-style Arak.
CALIFORNIA GROWLERS

Klean Kanteen: My household relies heavily on insulated bottles from this Chico-based B Corporation. Klean Kanteen bottles keep my coffee warm, my drinking-water room temperature, and my to-go cocktails cold. Now -- according to their website -- they also make growlers. I probably will buy one soon.
CALIFORNIA CORD ORGANIZERS (AKA CORD WALLETS)
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
CALIFORNIA BRANDIES
In Distill of the Night Spirits: Central Valley-based IDotNS makes brandy from Central California wines.
Channel Islands Distillery: Ventura-based CID makes small-batch brandy.
Pendrays Distillery: Templeton-based Pendrays makes a port-barrel-aged brandy from viognier grapes.
Bear & Eagle Products: Santa Ana-based Bear & Eagle distills two brandies from California grapes.
Channel Islands Distillery: Ventura-based CID makes small-batch brandy.
Pendrays Distillery: Templeton-based Pendrays makes a port-barrel-aged brandy from viognier grapes.
Bear & Eagle Products: Santa Ana-based Bear & Eagle distills two brandies from California grapes.
CALIFORNIA DEODORANTS
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