For "My Santa Monica," a new series, we ask prominent figures in the community what they most enjoy about the city. For this installment, we caught up with Louise Jaffe, a member of the Board of Trustees at Santa Monica College. She served as chair of the board in 2009.

(For a full list of Jaffe's extensive credentials, scroll below.)

Jaffe's list of favorite things to do in Santa Monica revolved around food, exercise - and, of course, SMC.

She began with a Main St. activity: "I like to go to the Sunday farmers market, because I can park at the beach lot, walk at the beach a little bit and buy my organic produce."

In terms of eating out, she said, "I like to eat at Wolfgang Puck's on the promenade, to sit above, overlooking the Promenade. It's fun, it's pleasant. They use real plates."

Her favorite dish at Wolfgang Puck's?

"I get the half-salad/half-pizza."

Jaffe revealed another way she's learned to counterbalance eating with the burning of calories: She and her husband "have a new plan: We don't park close—we park far away and walk. That's really improved the quality of life."

As far as entertainment goes, Jaffe deferred to SMC's Broad Stage—and picked out a few performances in particular.

"The [Mikhail] Baryshnikov performance last year was very moving, because it was like the older Baryshnikov paying tribute to the younger Baryshnikov without being pathetic about it," she said. "It was really well done.

"My husband's become a big fan of Baroque music, because we saw Music Angelica there. He's become an opera fan because we saw the Domingo-Thornton Singers. It's really opened our cultural horizons—and it [only] takes us five minutes to get there."

Finally, as her final Santa Monica "fave," Jaffe extended her love of the Broad Stage to SMC in general.

"I'll take more classes here," she said. "My friends and their children take classes here."

Louise Jaffe's credentials:

• current member of the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees
• former chair of the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees
• current board member of the California Community College Trustees, an advisory board to the Community College League of California (CCLC)
• current member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Council of PTAs (Parent Teacher Associations)
• founder of the Santa Monica Lifelong Learning Community Project
• current member of the Santa Monica Lifelong Learning Community Project
• past president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Council of PTAs
• past PTA president for Santa Monica High School
• past PTA president for Will Rogers Elementary School
• founding member of Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS)
• CEPS co-chair (2003 to May 2006)
• current member of the Santa Monica Childcare and Early Education Task Force
• current member of the Santa Monica Youth Collaborative