The Lake Tahoe Federal Advisory Committee meets from 9am to noon on Aug. 23 at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences located at 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village.

LTFAC will address issues related to federal activities at Lake Tahoe.

Items on the agenda include a summary of the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act Round 12 secondary list, a discussion of the role of LTFAC in the future, and a public comment period.

LTFAC consists of 20 members representing a broad array of constituencies.

For more information on the Lake Tahoe Federal Advisory Committee, go online.

Burger King is inviting all Lake Tahoe families to come celebrate the last day of summer with an ice cream party on Aug. 21 from 11am-7pm.

The restaurant in Heavenly Village will be giving away free carmel, strawberry and fudge sundaes with all orders that day.

By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau

CARSON CITY – The Board of Examiners today approved a request for more than half a million dollars from a legislative contingency fund to pay the counties for the cost of the Sept. 13 special election in the 2nd Congressional District.

The board, made up of Gov. Brian Sandoval, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller, approved the $539,000 request, which will be considered Aug. 31 by the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee.

Miller said the other options to pay for the election were to pass the costs on to the counties or to use a dwindling pool of federal funds, but that the request from the contingency fund is the best choice. Requiring cash-strapped counties to pay the costs could lead to cutting corners, and Miller said it is important to ensure the integrity of the election.

Miller said his office made every effort to reduce the expenditures to reasonable levels. Initial estimates put the cost at in excess of $1 million

“We explored every avenue we could to try to reduce costs for the election,” he said. “The counties obviously had not budgeted for this election, so allowing them to be reimbursed from the contingency fund gives us a much greater level of comfort that they will ultimately run the election as the public would expect.”

Miller said the use of federal Help America Vote Act funds was not recommended because the amount of money in the account is dwindling. The money has in the past been used to buy the electronic voting machines used in the state’s 17 counties for elections. The state has used just under $150,000 in HAVA funds for the special election, in part to provide replacement voting machines, he said.

Miller said it is too early to estimate the turnout in the election, which pits Mark Amodei, a former state senator, as the Republican, versus state Treasurer Kate Marshall, the Democrat. The race also includes Independent American Party candidate Tim Fasano and independent Helmuth Lehmann. The candidates are seeking to replace former Rep. Dean Heller, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Sandoval to replace John Ensign, who resigned.

But Miller said he does expect a low turnout in the race, which encompasses 16 of the state’s 17 counties plus a portion of Clark County.

This year’s South Tahoe Wooden Boat Classic drew the largest crowd in its four year history. Nearly 3,000 people attended the July 29-30 event at Tahoe Keys Marina.

A record attendance boosted the cumulative donation to local charities to more than $40,000 for the past four years. This year’s recipients were the Tahoe Maritime Museum, Lake Tahoe Boys & Girls Club, Kiwanis Club of Lake Tahoe, Tahoe Heritage Foundation and the Thunderbird Preservation Society.

This year’s headliner wooden boat was White Smoke which was originally delivered to South Lake Tahoe’s Pope Estate and is currently part of the Tahoe Maritime Museums collection. White Smoke is a 30-foot Sea Lyon, model 45, triple cockpit runabout.

Several awards were handed out at the conclusion of the show. This year’s recipient of the People’s Choice Award went to Curvaceous, a 1938, 24-foot Graevette Streamliner owned by Robert and Madeleine Mount of Santa Rosa.

For more information about ACBS and a complete list of award winners, go online.

Lake Tahoe Boys & Girls Club’s Mini J Drummers will open the “DURGA and the Story of the Drum” multi-media “DRUMGANZA” show on Aug. 18.

Liz Broscoe, drummer, teacher and author, created this original production. Broscoe has been volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club for six years, teaching members rhythms on the African djembe drum.

Liz Broscoe practices with Boys & Girls Club members. Photo/Provided

The event is at Lake Tahoe Community College at 7:30pm, with doors opening at 6:30pm. Tickets are $15. For information about the show and ticket purchase, email infodrumchik@aol.com.

Tahoe Derby Dames are in action Sept. 17 at 2pm at Bijou Community Park.

Lake Tahoe author Janet Smith will be at the Costco in Carson City from 11am-2pm Aug. 20 for a book signing of the anthology “Permanent Vacation: Twenty Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks.”

The collection, published by Bona Fide Books of Meyers, features Smith’s piece “Pretty Enough,” a bittersweet account of coming of age in one of the world’s wonders, Yosemite Valley.

Smith’s piece details her experiences leaving home after high school for life among the granite in Yosemite National Park. “At 12, I fell in love with Yosemite the way other girls in the 1970s fell in love with Bobby Sherman or David Cassidy.” At age 18, she moved to the park in search of meaning, and found something altogether different.

The book also features essays from Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Denali, and Grand Canyon National Park among others.

Copies of “Permanent Vacation” will be available at the Carson City Costco, located on 700 Old Clear Creek Road. “Permanent Vacation” is also available at online.

A website allows park workers and visitors to share their stories and learn more about the contributors and their current adventures.

Bona Fide Books is seeking essays about national parks east of the Mississippi for a second volume of “Permanent Vacation.” Submissions are open through Jan. 1. Go online for more information.

A high-priority bike path project in South Lake Tahoe has received the necessary funding — the El Dorado Beach to Ski Run route.

This is a missing link in South Lake Tahoe and is listed as the highest priority project in the Lake Tahoe Region Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan.

South Lake Tahoe, Caltrans, and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency officials worked together earlier this year to re-route supplementary funds from the ongoing Highway 50 water quality project to the bike path project.

Approximately $2 million was rescued when the bid for the Caltrans Highway 50 water quality project from Trout Creek to Ski Run Boulevard came in under the engineer’s estimate. This money was going to return to original grant sources outside the Lake Tahoe Basin when the agencies worked together to re-allocate the funding to the bike path.

The move will also help free up other funds which can go toward other projects such as sidewalks along Pioneer Trail and other high priority transportation projects in the city.

By Kathryn Reed

I need another lesson – or lessons.

I did OK following the recipe, but it just wasn’t the same as when I made it in Beijing earlier this year. I needed my two Chinese instructors telling me how to chop, stir and what to add. But that wasn’t happening no matter how hard I tried to channel their wisdom.

Still, I think I did pretty well with this recipe. (See below.)

First, I had to shop for the ingredients. Oh darn, a trip to San Francisco. I pointed to the recipe for what I needed – some is written in English, some in Chinese. And the guy at this particular shop read the Chinese better.

Next stop was the Chinese grocery store to get soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. Yes, you can get these at a regular U.S. store. But what amazed me is the price difference. I wish I had bought more while I was in the The City because it’s so much cheaper even being imported from China.

While my sister, mom and I visited my niece this spring in Beijing, one of the things we did was take a cooking class. It included shopping for the ingredients, a lesson in condiments, and then the cooking.

One of the dishes we chose (maybe I chose it!) was the Five Spices Doufu. I learned that tofu is the Japanese word for the soy product and doufu is what they call it in China.

At the market it was amazing to see the varieties of tofu, uh, doufu. I’m used to it in a container with the three choices of firmness. In Beijing it was like being at a small meat counter with the variety of doufu available.

While the recipe calls for pork, we left that out to accommodate my vegetarianism.

I don’t know what is in the five spice powder that I bought in San Francisco. And it might be available closer, but I was in SF for a Giants game, so no biggie to buy some.

Five Spices Doufu

Firm tofu, 500g

Minced pork, 50g

Spices:

Ginger minced, 1 T

Garlic minced, 1 T

Spring onion, 2 pieces finely chopped, separate green part and white part

Five spices powder, 1 tsp

Seasoning 1: (add during cooking)

Sugar, 1 tsp

Light soy sauce, 4 tsp

Dark soy sauce, 2 tsp

Wine vinegar, 2 tsp

Seasoning 2: (add at the end of cooking)

Green part of spring onion

Sesame oil, 2 tsp

Method: Cut doufu into 0.5cm thick slice.

Season wok with 1 T oil, medium heat, add doufu inside, pan fry doufu until both sides become light golden color. Take out.

Season wok with 1 T oil, add minced pork, stir until all separate and change color, about 20 seconds, add ginger, garlic, white part of spring onion and five spices powder, stir until fragrant, about 10 seconds.

Add rice wine 2tsp, then water 300ml, add sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, add doufu, mix, cover. Cook over medium low heat until water is gone, about 20 minuets.

Add seasoning green spring onion and sesame oil, mix, serve.

Various types of doufu at market in Beijing. Photos/Kathryn Reed

Pam (sister), Cleo (mom), and Veronica (niece) prepare the ingredients.

Veronica, Pam and Cleo cook up several dishes in Beijing.

Tess is a sweet 3-year old Labrador-poodle-spaniel mix, as best we can tell.

She had been at another animal shelter since June, and came up to Tahoe to change her luck. She is affectionate with people and likes other dogs, but she does not like to share your attention and so must be an only pet and cannot go to a home with children under 10 years old.

Tess is is spayed, microchipped, and vaccinated. She is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.

Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.

— Karen Kuentz