By Kathryn Reed What’s up with all this talk of chicken? My Cooking Light and Bon Appetite magazines arrived this week with chicken on the cover. An issue of Single Leaf Winery’s newsletter I picked up last weekend featured a chicken recipe. Food photos can really sell a person on a recipe. Even...

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee Putting farmers onto underused land was once a matter of creating homesteads. Now it has entered the computer age, with nonprofits using the Internet to match farmland with growers. The need, advocates say, comes in part from an aging farm population. California farmers...

By Kathryn Reed Between 4 million and 6.5 million pounds of wild rice are harvested each year in Minnesota. A few ounces arrived in my post office box the other day. In the package was a recipe for wild rice casserole. With the recipe and wild rice (which is actually an aquatic grass and not rice) came...

By Sophie Brickman, San Francisco Chronicle Before my inaugural ski trip last year, I assumed that people who got a thrill by hurtling down icy mountains on unwieldy runners were deranged. After my first day on the bunny slopes, I knew they were deranged. I did, however, find unexpected joy in a physical...

By Kathryn Reed FAIR PLAY – Not a cloud in the sky, not many people in the wineries. From a consumer standpoint the first day of the El Dorado County barrel tasting event was great. From the viewpoint of some of the 27 wineries that are part of the event, Saturday was disappointing. Coming off a harvest...

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee The grass-roots (and grass-fed) agriculture revolution that Patty Chelseth started last summer is picking up steam. Chelseth, of My Sisters’ Farm in Shingle Springs, has launched a campaign to get a “Local Food and Community Self-Governance” ordinance....

By Roger Diez, Northern Nevada Business Weekly Career counselors say that if your work is your passion, you will be happy and successful. If that’s true, Courtney Barnes — founder and owner of Gourmet Rooster, a line of savory sauces and spreads — is one of the happiest and most successful people...

The Community Education department at Lake Tahoe Community College is having a Get Fresh and Healthy workshop series in February. Take one, all four or any combination. Cooking with Spices is Feb. 2 from 6-9pm. Winter Soup is Feb. 10 from 6-9pm. Food the Kids will Love too is Feb. 16 from 6-9pm. Gluten...

By Kathryn Reed Even though it didn’t seem like winter in Lake Tahoe until a few days ago, that was not stopping me from making soup. But something about the snow falling on Monday made it even more appealing to create something hot to eat. It was easy to forget about work as the aromas from the kitchen...

By Shelley Giannotta First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released the new standards for school meals Jan. 25. While I support and encourage ongoing changes and improvements to school meals, I am disappointed to read what Obama had to say. It is unfortunately a generic statement...