Wildland Expands Artisan Pasta Menu as Jazz and Film Benefits Debut

Artisanal Italian dining, a four-decade collegiate jazz milestone, and Indigenous cinema honors are headlining California's culinary and cultural calendar this week. All-day restaurant and bakery Wildland unveiled an expanded five-section dinner menu organized across spuntini, antipasti, pasta, secondi, and wood-fired pizza, backed by the hiring of two dedicated full-time pasta makers.

Operating daily from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for morning bakery and cafe service and from 4:30 to 9 p.m. on weeknights (extending until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays), Wildland introduced seasonal plates including fagiolini, taleggio and winter squash scarponacci, grilled swordfish, and wood-oven blue prawns. As part of the culinary expansion under Chief Executive Officer John Resnick, former Jeune et Jolie chef de cuisine Jacob Ruck was promoted to culinary director overseeing both restaurants, while Wine Director Savannah Riedler broadened the cellar list with Mediterranean and California coastal selections.

On the concert stage, the Santa Monica College Music Department will present a jazz benefit concert titled Some of My Best Musicians Are Friends on Friday, November 13 at 7 p.m. inside the SMC Performing Arts Center Music Hall at 1310 11th St. in Santa Monica. Hosted by KCRW broadcaster Leroy Downs with tickets priced at $30 for general admission and $10 for students with identification (including complimentary campus parking), the reunion performance features pianist Eric Scott Reed, saxophonist Ralph Moore, trombonist Ira Nepus, bassist Edwin Livingston, drummer Marvin Smitty Smith, trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos, and trumpeter Clay Jenkins. Proceeds sustain the college's 40-year Friday Night Jazz Series, curated for the past 22 years by faculty series director Frederick Keith Fiddmont.

In Beverly Hills, actor Lou Diamond Phillips will receive the RNCI Lifetime Achievement Award at the 31st Red Nation Awards at the Beverly Hilton at 9876 Wilshire Blvd., with a 5 p.m. red carpet preceding the 6 p.m. ceremony broadcast to more than 200 territories. Founded by Joanelle Romero, the Red Nation International Film Festival showcases 96 official selections—including 6 narrative features, 28 documentaries, 38 documentary shorts, 14 narrative shorts, 1 animated feature, and 9 animated shorts—and concludes with the closing-night screening of Gangland, directed by Vincent Grashaw and starring Phillips alongside his acclaimed career roles in La Bamba, Stand and Deliver, Young Guns, Courage Under Fire, and Longmire. Additional gala honorees include filmmaker Luis Valdez, documentary director David Alvarado, director John Landis, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, and musical performer Stella Standingbear.