By Kathryn Reed

Carb loading has long been said to be beneficial before an athletic endeavor. I think it works after the fact, too.

After coming back from the district tennis tournament last Sunday the last thing I wanted to do was fix dinner. Sue came through with a concoction that was wonderful. Since I have a thing for mushrooms – as in I think I could live off of them – she was already on the right track.

I must have worked up quite an appetite because I helped myself to seconds. Either that or I was drowning my sorrows in good food. While the 7.5 women’s doubles team out of Zephyr Cove went undefeated in the regular season and in playoffs, we went 1-2 at districts in Folsom. Sectionals will have to wait until next season.

The fig balsamic vinegar adds a unique flavor to this dish. It also complements the sesame oil. Regular balsamic would work, too, but it will change the flavor profile.

Keep the mushrooms and sundried tomato pieces large enough to get a good mouthful with the pasta. Wild mushrooms would make this dish even more rich and complex.

Post-match Pasta

Olive oil

Sesame oil

Fig balsamic vinegar

½ C onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

Handful of sundried tomatoes

1½ C mushrooms, sliced

1 C peas

Parmesan cheese

Parsley, optional

Pasta

Cook pasta according to directions.

In large frying pan cover bottom with combo of olive and sesame oil. Start light, more can always be added later.

Cook onion and garlic until opaque. Add mushrooms and sundried tomatoes. Add fig balsamic vinegar. Add peas. Cook until heated all the way through.

Smother veggie concoction over pasta. Sprinkle with Parmesan and parsley.

Serves 4.

• There’s a free blues show at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe every Tuesday at 7:30pm.

• Viking Construction of Rancho Cordova has been awarded the contract to construct a bridge on Highway 50 at the Sly Park Road undercrossing in Pollock Pines. Viking submitted the lowest bid at $5.2 million. The total cost of the project is estimated at $7.6 million. Construction will start in April. During construction, one lane of Highway 50 in each direction will remain open at all times.

• Design Workshop is hosting a Nevada wayfinding workshop March 17 from 4-5pm in the conference room of the Douglas County offices in Stateline.

• Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s March 18 Tech Tuesday is about email marketing via Constant Contact. The meeting is from 5-7pm in the chamber’s conference room in Stateline.

• North Tahoe Fire Protection District received a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for $1.6 million over two years. This grant will allow the district to hire nine additional firefighters and increase coverage at two of the five fire stations that are currently staffed part time.

About three dozen marijuana plants were seized from a South Lake Tahoe residence this week, one person was arrested and a dog was shot.

The Rottweiler-pit bull mix seized the arm of an officer, but did not wound him. The dog ran off after being shot. It was eventually caught and taken to a vet to be treated for a wound he is expected to recover from.

Arrested was Joseph C. Parenteau, 26, of South Lake Tahoe. He is accused of illegal cultivation of marijuana and other drug charges. He has since posted bail.

Parenteau is not the owner of the two dogs at the residence. He was dog sitting the mix and a pit bull.

South Lake El Dorado Narcotics Enforcement Team members executed the search warrant Feb. 25.

Matt Underhill, SLEDNET commander, told Lake Tahoe News that Parenteau did not have a permit to cultivate marijuana, but he does have a medical marijuana card.

The investigation is ongoing.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Bethany Clough, Fresno Bee

The California Restaurant Association urged restaurants Wednesday to conserve water as the state deals with a historic drought, including only serving water to customers upon their request.

Local association representatives say there’s even more that restaurants can do, despite an existing emphasis on water conservation learned in past droughts.

Many valley restaurants stopped serving glasses of water to customers unless they requested them years ago after drought put a spotlight on the practice. And although Fresno homeowners recently had water meters installed, restaurants have had them for as long as restaurateur Tom Ferdinandi can remember.

Read the whole story

Tahoe-Truckee local Jen Gurecki will share what it’s like to work hard and play hard in Kenya. Her latest adventure – Summit for Our Sisters – took her up Mount Kenya, an ancient, extinct volcano that boasts the second highest peak on the continent of Africa, towering more than 16,000 feet.

With 12 glaciers that are expected to disappear within the next 30 years, Gurecki seized the opportunity to summit and make turns down the Lewis Glacier, while also raising more than $12,000 to help women start small businesses in Kenya through the nonprofit she founded, Zawadisha.

On Ladies’ Night at Tahoe Mountain Sports, Gurecki will talk about her experience and present a slide show. The event is March 5 from 6-8pm.

The shop is at 8331 North Lake Blvd., Kings Beach. For more info, call 866.891.9177.

Little snow equated to declining revenues for Stateline casinos in January.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board on Friday released the revenue numbers for the first month of the year. Statewide revenues dropped 2.76 percent to $884.2 million compare to 2013.

Stateline revenues fell 12 percent to $15 million. Washoe County numbers were up 1 percent at $38 million.

It’s likely February numbers will be better because of the Super Bowl.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By USSA

KVITJELL, Norway — Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley) knifed through rugged snow and limited visibility Friday to earn the first Audi FIS Alpine World Cup podium finish of his career with third in the first of two Kvitfjell downhills.

Fresh off what was a career-best fifth at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games downhill in Sochi, Ganong wiped his goggles mid-run as rain and wet snow pelted the fog-shortned course.

Olympic super G champion Kjetil Jansrud of Norway and Austrian Georg Streitberger tied for a unique victory.

Bode Miller (Franconia, N.H.) finished 16, Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah) 18 and Marco Sullivan (Squaw Valley) 21.

The cover of the draft Tahoe Valley Community Plan from March 2007. The area of study is largely the same today. Photo/LTN

By Kathryn Reed

A greenbelt going behind McDonald’s and CVS at the Y in South Lake Tahoe. Another on the other side of Highway 50. Both being multidimensional by being stormwater basins, greenways and recreation conduits.

Those are ideas being floated in the Tahoe Valley Area Plan.

More than 60 people interested in what South Lake Tahoe is going to do with the Y attended a meeting Feb. 27 to offer input and hear what the city is thinking. Area plans are the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s latest planning tool for jurisdictions.

The city for years has tried to come up with a plan for what is considered the locals’ side of town. It has never happened.

A team of community members in 2007 came up with a plan only to have the city wrestle it from their grip.

In a September 2009 Lake Tahoe News story Pat Frega, who served as a city planning commissioner and a Tahoe Valley Community Plan committee member, said at the time that even after two years, a majority of the dozen citizens who served on the community group still felt the project “was hijacked” by a council subcommittee because “we were going on a different course than what they wanted.”

The city took over and came up with a plan. It, too, went nowhere.

City officials say they are determined to have a plan approved, with the goal of it being completed by the end of the year.

Another idea is to have a health care campus concept for Barton Health.

“We are encouraging the hospital to create a master plan for the whole district,” John Hitchcock, city planner, said. “It would integrate all of their facilities.”

The original plan talked about having a mountain feel. But it was acknowledged that could mean different things to different people.

Paul Brusso, owner of Ernie’s restaurant, and Dan Passaretti of Passaretti’s restaurant both voiced concern about whether their businesses would conform to whatever zoning rules the city implements. “Yes” was the answer.

People had the opportunity to place sticky dots on pictures of mountain architecture they liked. The Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee had the most dots.

One person expressed a desire to have mountain architecture, but hoped that there would still be room for originality so everything did not look the same.

Architect Keith Klein said it’s important to take into consideration what people see at eye level, especially if eye level is from the seat of a vehicle.

“You can put up a 3-foot fence and hide cars,” Klein said in a veiled reference to Runnels Automotive.

John Runnels said he has wanted to make improvements since the 1980s. Interest rates stopped him in 1981 and then the city said wait until the 1993 plan was done. But no plan has ever been approved for the Y.

While people embraced connecting the areas of town, several said they never see the Y area as someplace that will be pedestrian oriented, especially when it comes to locals going to stores via foot from their residences.

Height of buildings has been an issue with other area plans in the basin. On Thursday it did not present a huge dilemma. People wanted to understand what 56 feet would look like. That is what the TRPA Regional Plan allows for in town centers.

Embassy Suites is 80 feet, the parking garage is about 50 feet.

Chuck Nelson had a handout of an elevated circular bypass for cyclists that Holland has built that he could see being put in at the Y.

Jerome Evans, who worked on community plan, told Lake Tahoe News, “There is no reason to believe any of this will happen. They are making everyone feel good and nothing is happening.”

The area plan is not a project, but instead a blueprint for what the Y could evolve into. It will be up to the city and private individuals to devise projects that will go through a separate approval process.

—

Notes:

• The South Lake Tahoe Planning Commission will discuss the area plan March 13.

• The City Council will talk about it April 1.

• Another public workshop is set for late April.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Feb. 19, 2014, Fresno Bee.

The California drought has finally gotten the attention of state and federal officials, and they are even taking actions that could be helpful in the short term. Earlier this month, President Obama announced drought relief assistance for California and then Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats offered their drought legislation.

The prolonged drought has serious implications for the state’s economy. In addition to threatening the state’s agricultural industry and driving up food prices, a lack of water could reduce availability of water for urban uses across California.

While agriculture has been feeling the impact of the drought for several months, mayors and city council members of California’s cities have been conducting business as usual when it comes to limiting urban water use.

This head-in-the-sand approach shows a remarkable lack of understanding of the crucial need for all of us — farmer or city dweller — to save water.

Read the whole story

By Philip Ross, International Business Times

Canadian ecologist Patrick Moore, known as one of the co-founders of the activist group Greenpeace, has a history of sharply dissenting from policies supported by major environmental groups, including the one he helped create. Moore’s latest departure is to assert that climate change, particularly the gradual warming of Earth’s surface temperature over the last century, is not caused by humans.

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” Moore said during an appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday. “If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.”

The ecologist, who worked with Greenpeace from 1971 to 1986 and left “not necessarily by his own choice,” went on to found Greenspirit Strategies, an environmental and sustainability consulting firm in Vancouver.

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