December 2025

How Shelly La Fata is Rewriting the Rules of Restaurant Ownership

Shelly La Fata is a rare blend of entrepreneur, community-builder, and artisan. Shelly graduated from the University of Missouri in 2009, with a degree in International Peace Studies and also played rugby at Mizzou. Those two points seem contradictory but then again, Shelly doesn’t seem to follow the normal way of doing things. She then spent a couple of […]

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Holiday Mishaps and How Insurance Can Help

December 2025, In This Issue, Living, What the Home Pros Know

The holidays are a time for joy, celebration and making memories with loved ones, and keeping your home and family safe adds peace of mind to the festivities. While we all hope the season goes off without a hitch, it’s reassuring to know that your auto and home insurance can be a lifeline if unexpected

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Cheeseburgers, Pizza, and the Healing Power of Food

Gourmet, Online Exclusive, The Dish

In October, my dad was hospitalized in his home of Boise, Idaho, for an acute kidney episode. Initially, the doctors expected him to recover, but instead his condition got worse. He suffered from low electrolytes and an acute delirium episode. He couldn’t speak more than a few words, stand or walk, or understand much. Doctors

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COMO Magazine represents at the Missouri Women Who Write Retreat. Pictured left to right: Sunitha Bosecker (freelance writer), Kelsey Winkeljohn, and Karen Pasley (contributing copyeditor)

The COMO Mojo: ‘Celebration,’ Track 3

Community, December 2025, In This Issue, Voices

Some of my favorite memories are the ones that, at first glance, might seem random and insignificant — as in, they just feel like weird little blips of consciousness. Birthdays, school plays, and vacations are fun to rediscover in hazy VHS tapes, but the moments that carry little dramatic emotion are equally meaningful to me.

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Steamed Mussels

December 2025, Gourmet, In This Issue, Living

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or rather it has been for some time now. But we’re getting to the serious phase, when all the holiday parties and other such gatherings are happening. Some will be fully catered affairs; some potlucks, where each guest brings an item to share; and others will fall

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Pulling Together  

COMO Creature, December 2025, In This Issue, Living

A short drive from the small town of Clark, Missouri, best known for its Amish community and rich agricultural landscape, Cedar Hollow Farms has upheld one tradition for more than a century and across four generations: working with draft horses. This month marks patriarch and landowner Ray Smith’s seventy-second year on the property. For as

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Listening, Learning, and Moving Forward — Together

Community, December 2025, In This Issue, Voices

Each year, the city of Columbia conducts a citizen survey to understand how residents feel about our community and their local government. The 2024 results gave us a lot to think about — and even more to act on. Residents told us they value Columbia’s sense of community and quality of life but want to

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Celebrating Christmas

Community, December 2025, In This Issue, Voices

This month, we celebrate the events that happened thousands of years ago, events centered around the town of Bethlehem, the city where King David was born and raised. The city that the prophet Malachi prophesied would be the birthplace of the Messiah. We marvel at the wise men who came from the East and encountered

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Limited-Edition Ornaments Tell COMO’s History  

Community, December 2025, In This Issue, The Scene

Central Bank of Boone County has commissioned holiday ornaments commemorating famous Columbia landmarks every year since 1988, with the first ornament depicting Jesse Hall at the University of Missouri. Since the program’s inception, Central Bank’s intricate metal ornaments, with their multi-layered, three-dimensional appearance, have celebrated thirty-seven Columbia-area institutions and landmarks, including the nearly 400-year-old state

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Columbia Native Publishes Children’s Christmas Book

Community, December 2025, Friends & Family, In This Issue

I would love to say that my foray into the world of children’s publishing was a labor of love, but the truth is that the actual book-writing part took less than a day. The concept for my newly released book, Edwin’s Perfect Gift, developed during one of those 9 p.m. try-anything-to-get-your-child-to-bed moments. A time when pure exhaustion

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