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Matt Kettmann's 2021 in Review

Of the more than 150 articles I wrote this year, here are nearly two dozen of my favorites.

Matt Kettmann's 2021 in Review

Amid the cavalcade of digital panels , podcasts , and social media posts that I worked on in 2021, I still put pen to paper — or fingers to keys, as the modern case may be — to publish more than 130 articles for the Santa Barbara Independent this past year. Then there were the two dozen newsletters that I wrote under the banner of Full Belly Files, another couple dozen stories for Wine Enthusiast , 805 Living, and other publications, and more than 2,500 wine reviews on top of that. Granted, many of these stories are not the complex news investigations carried out more regularly by my colleagues, but yeah, it feels like I could use a break.

Long Reads

Only about one in 20 purple urchins are viable in nature, but the aquaculture process makes about 19 in 20 of them ready for market. | Credit: Courtesy

As usual, the bulk of my work was in the food & drink realm, even when it came to longer, more newsworthy cover stories.