By Eleanor Goldberg, Huffington Post

A single restaurant in the U.S. wastes about 100,000 pounds of food a year, according to the Green Restaurant Association, making them auspicious donors for hunger relief groups. But many restaurants are reluctant to give away their edible leftovers, citing fears of getting sued.

But they shouldn’t be so worried about backlash, experts say.

Because no such lawsuit has ever been waged.

There is no available public record of anyone in the United States being sued because of harms related to donated food.

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A workshop in Tahoe City will focus on Tahoe’s native herbal and edible plants.

The Sierra is home to many plants that are delicious and beneficial to one’s health. People will be taught which native plants are easily grown in the Tahoe garden and can provide homegrown teas for the kitchen.

Bring containers or bags to take home ingredients.

Registration for this workshop is requested. This program will begin at 11am on July 30 at 2400 Lake Forest Road in Tahoe City. Parking is limited.

This event put on the the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center is free, although donations will be accepted.

For more information, call 775.881.7566.

By Kathryn Reed

I’m lazy when it comes to making pizza. I never make my own dough and I want as few ingredients as possible, but lots of flavor.

A homemade crust is going to make any pizza taste better. This is one of those occasions where my time is more important.

The tomatoes, squash, basil and garlic are at farmers’ markets.

I grated the squash just enough to use the color of both.

This left the flesh part. I ended up getting two recipes out of all of these ingredients. I chopped up the squash, threw in the extra tomatoes, tossed them lightly with olive oil in a pan, then added garlic, the left over ricotta, some chopped basil and put all of that over pasta with feta.

Zucchini-Ricotta Pizza

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1 T canola oil

¾ C part-skim ricotta cheese

3 T basil, chopped (or more)

2 T 1% milk

4 garlic gloves, minced

1 medium zucchini, grated

1 yellow crookneck squash, grated

½ C feta, crumbled

Pizza dough

Combine tomatoes and oil, then place on foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 500 degrees for 7 minutes.

Combine ricotta, basil, milk and garlic. Spread on dough. Put tomatoes on cheese, then add grated squash. Top with feta. Bake at 500 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

Bloody Mary’s at the Hard Rock are original on weekends with consumers making them. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – The beauty of the bottomless bloody Mary bar at Fire Break inside Hard Rock Lake Tahoe is that if you don’t like the first one, the second can be totally different. And if the first was delicious, go make another one.

The Stateline eatery recently started the bottomless mimosa and bloody Mary bar on the weekends from 10am-3pm.

While every bloody Mary has the same basic ingredients, they don’t all have to taste the same.

What’s fun about this bar is the imbiber is in control of what the final drink tastes like. It can be a bit daunting, even dangerous (at least to the digestive system) with all of those choices.

On this particular Sunday Joey B. was the bartender. He is responsible for rimming the glasses with one of four salts (Sriracha is the most popular), adding ice and the Tahoe Blue Vodka (regular, bacon or jalapeno), and then the juice – one of which is green. (Stick with the red ones.)

“We make our mix here so it’s fresh,” manager Olivia Van Heusen told Lake Tahoe News. “The vegetables are cut fresh each morning for the bar.”

Once Joey is done, it’s up to the consumer to finish the drink.

It’s time to choose which hot sauces to add, as well as Worcestershire sauce. And the vegetables – it’s not quite like being at a farmers’ market, but the choices are better than any bar I’ve to. There’s cheese and Slim Jim’s, too. Who knew those were bloody Mary fixings?

The goal for the Hard Rock was to provide something different to consumers; there is no other bloody Mary bar on the South Shore, and to have something new to complement the revised brunch menu. (Not a drop of the burrito or carnivore skillet was left on LTN’s plates.)

The cost of the bottomless bar is $15. A single bloody Mary is $10, so it’s a bargain for the imbibers. Van Heusen said some people have stayed for the entire five hours the special is going on. Sitting outside, well, it’s hard to want to move even if you can.

By Amy Graff, San Francisco Chronicle

Let’s face it. Bay Area residents rarely zip up to Tahoe. Most of the time, we inch and crawl through traffic that moves at the rate of molasses.

Food stops are a must on most weekend trips between the Bay Area and Tahoe (unless your boss lets you get off work at noon so you can be on the highway by 1 p.m.)—and so we’ve rounded up a collection of the best ones.

Our list that takes you from the Bay Area to the Sierra foothills (along Highways 50, 80 and 88) includes a variety of spots, from cheap and quick taquerias to fruit stands where you can pick up car snacks and groceries.

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By Kathryn Reed

It seems like I can live off salads for most of the summer. This particular one I keep making over and over.

The greens and beets are available at farmers’ markets. I have been using a mixed blend that is available at the Tuesday market in South Lake Tahoe. Using arugula or spinach would be just as yummy.

Using different colored beets just adds to the look, but won’t change the taste. What I love about this recipe is using the microwave to cook the beets. It so much faster than the oven and then it doesn’t heat up the whole house.

Beet Salad with Avocado and Feta

3 medium beets, trimmed

1 tsp lemon rind, grated

1½ T fresh lemon juice

¼ tsp pepper

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1 large shallot, thinly sliced

2 T olive oil

4 C salad greens

1 avocado, sliced

¼ C feta cheese, crumbled

Individually wrap beets in parchment paper. Put in microwave for 3 minutes, turn, and cook for 4 more minutes. When cool, peel and slice in to bite-size pieces.

Combine lemon rind, juice, salt and pepper, and shallot. Gradually add oil. Whisk together.

Add beets to greens. Toss with dressing. Top with avocado and feta.

By Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times

Salt can lurk in surprising places.

Consider bread. One slice of Arnold Specialty Brick Oven Premium white bread has more sodium (160 milligrams) than about 20 Utz Kettle Classic Original potato chips (120 milligrams).

The average American adult, who consumes 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day — more than 1,000 milligrams more than the recommended daily allowance of 2,300 milligrams — may not know that more than 70 percent of the sodium consumed in this country is already in food before it reaches the table.

Too much sodium, a main component of table salt, can raiseblood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

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By Mark Glover, Sacramento Bee

Back in 2007, the nation was sliding into recession and a seismic shift was occurring in the beer-distribution business.

Big-name brewers that once depended on a wide network of relatively small, local distributors were shifting gears and turning to so-called mega-distributors who could handle millions of cases of beer on a grand scale.

Jason Mussetter, barely out of his 20s and a second-generation employee of family-owned Mussetter Distributing in Auburn, studied the Northern California beer industry and decided that the local company needed to do some shifting of its own. He convinced the family that future success could be found in craft beers.

The distributorship serves a swath of Northern California craft purveyors stretching from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe.  Clients include Hoppy Brewing Co. in Sacramento, Grand Teton Brewing in Victor, Idaho and Tahoe Mountain Brewing Co., which has a brewpub in Tahoe City and a brewery in Truckee.

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By Kathryn Reed

Chives are rarely the star of any dish. However, I have so many of them growing in my herb garden I needed to start finding something to do with them other than chopping them into salads and seemingly every other dish.

The concoction below would be great on veggies other than mushrooms.

I created this as a side dish. However, I could imagine the mixture working extremely well on portabella mushrooms as an entrée. I used crimini mushrooms.

It would be easy to make this on the stove or in the oven as well. As with barbecuing anything, it just gives it a different flavor.

Mushrooms with Chives

1 C chopped chives

½ C olive oil

1 T lemon juice

Parmesan cheese, grated

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

Combine chives and olive oil in blender.

Place mushrooms in a bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice; coat with chive mixture.

Cook on grill over medium-high heat until mushrooms are a little shriveled.

Drizzle mushrooms with lemon juice, then sprinkle with cheese.

By Chris Macia, Sacramento Bee

The sheer amount of sipping makes it look like a bacchanal of the highest order. We’re talking 2,854 wines from from than 750 California producers, a veritable ocean of fermented grape juice.

But for the 55 judges at the 2016 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, evaluating all these wines isn’t an excuse to get loose, but a serious exercise in wine sensory analysis.

Many local wines fared well in the “best of California” categories, which acknowledge the best wines by varietal.

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