Gap Fire: $1 Million Dollars a Day

US-WILDFIRES
Originally uploaded by lengwa55.

That's what it is costing California to fight the Gap Fire, alone.

Per the news conference that was just held:

• $6.2 million cost, approximately, thus far.
  
• Type 1 "Incident"
• 16 helicopters.
  
• 15 air tankers with 6 air tankers on order.
  
• 1,200 personnel.
  
• 9,400 acres burned.
  
• 28% contained.
  
• No guess as to containment date.
  
• 2 or 3 injuries, only.
  
• No homes destroyed, yet, although some sheds and out buildings have been burned.
  
• 3300 structures threatened.
  
• HUMAN CAUSED. Starting point is around Lizard's Mouth off of West Camino Cielo.
  

We're now experiencing power outages in various parts of Goleta and the city, again.

Wine isn't just for drinking, ya know!

There was some fantastic winebased jellies at the Santa Barbara Wine Festival yesterday from Preferred Jams & Jellies (4123 Mayfield Street, Orcutt, CA / 805-310-4566.) They had several varietals they used in jams, Chardonnay, Barbera, Cabernet Sauvignon, but I was particularly partial to the White Zinfandel jelly. Seems like it could be a great holiday gift giving item. I'm not a real "jam or jelly" maker myself, so I will probably put in some orders, but, I found a recipe for making your own on Recipezaar if you want to concoct your own!

WHITE ZINFANDEL JELLY

3 cups white zinfandel wine
1 (1 3/4 ounce) box sure-jell fruit pectin
1/2 teaspoon butter or margarine (optional)
4 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl

Bring boiling water canner, half-full with water, to simmer.
Wash jars and screw bands in hot soapy water, rinse with warm water.
Pour boiling water over the flat lids in saucepan off the heat.
Let sand in hot water until ready to use.
Measure the wine into a 6 or 8 quart saucepan.
Stir pectin into wine in the saucepan.
Add butter (if desired) to reduce foaming.
Bring mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that does not stop bubbling when stirred) on high leat, stirring constantly.
Stir in all sugar quickly.
Bring to full rolling boil and allow to boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Skim off any foam with metal spoon.
Ladle quickly into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8" of rim.
Wipe jar rims and threads.
Screw bands tightly.
Place jars on elevated rack in canner.
Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches, add boiling water if needed.
Cover, bring to a gentle boil and process for 5 minutes.
Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely.
After jars cool, check seals by pressing middle of lid with finger, if it springs back, it did not seal completely and refrigeration would be necessary.

My Beloved Big Sur

might just become a shadow of our tears instead of smiles....if the flames continue to move forward.

(Opening scene of the 1965 film, The Sandpiper, starring Liz & Dick....showcasing the amazing beauty of "the Sur.")

California officials closed a stretch of the state's scenic coastal highway around historic Big Sur on thursday as a wildfire threatened 500 homes in the remote area known for its contemplative retreats.

Firefighters have been battling hundreds of blazes across California sparked by lightning strikes over the past weekend, including two that merged into the single fire around Big Sur, an artists' haven that was once home to writer Henry Miller.

The Big Sur fire has burned more than 23,500 acres (9,510 hectares) and destroyed 16 homes and two other buildings.

Big Sur, on California's central coast, is heavily wooded, with steep slopes running down to the Pacific Ocean. The terrain creates one of California's most dramatic landscapes -- and slow going for almost 700 firefighters on the scene. - Reuters

Say a little prayer for those up in The Sur and hope that legendary spots like Nepenthe, Esalen, Big Sur Lodge, The Campgrounds, The Post Ranch Inn and Bixby Bridge remain standing...uncharred.

Keep abreast of the fire via Xasauan Today

Flickr Photo Friday

Hearst Castle Kitchen detail
Originally uploaded by santa barbarian.

Details in the kitchen of Hearst Castle.

Salmon Season...Cancelled?

For the Love of Salmon (eagle_DSF4289.jpg)
Originally uploaded by Larsthrows.

This news could be financially devastating for so many here on the West Coast. Fisherman. Restaurants. Stores. Local economies. Our ecosystem, for we are not the only ones who enjoy the deliciousness of the fishies....

So few salmon are living in the ocean and rivers along the Pacific Coast that salmon fishing in California and Oregon will have to be shut down completely this year unless an emergency exception is granted, Pacific Fishery Management Council representatives said Tuesday.

It would mark the first time ever that the federal agency created 22 years ago to manage the Pacific Coast fishery canceled the coast's traditional salmon fishing season from April to mid-November.

Such a move would jeopardize the livelihoods of close to 1,000 commercial fishermen from Santa Barbara to Washington State and would significantly drive up the price of West Coast wild salmon.

...The doom and gloom brought on by the poor run was made worse by news that the number of jacks - 2-year-old fish that return to the river a year early to spawn - is the lowest ever recorded in the Central Valley fall run. Scientists use the number of jacks that return as an indicator of what next year's spawning season will look like.

Fisheries experts expected 157,000 jacks, but counted only 6,000 - SFChron

A complete closure of salmon fishing in California and Oregon this year appeared more likely Tuesday after federal managers grappled with the hard facts.

The drastic proposal – which would mean fresh local salmon would not be available in stores, restaurants or farmer's markets – is driven by a dramatic decline in Central Valley fall-run chinook populations. The total has dropped by more than 90 percent since 2002. - Sacramento Bee

I absolutely love salmon, but there comes a time when we all need to sacrifice for the success of a bigger cause.

Happy Birthday, Montrose!

Montrose
Originally uploaded by santa barbarian

A big 95 years for Glendale's first suburb!

More at LAist and the Crescenta Valley Sun

"Travel back in time to Montrose, California......cream sodas still rule in Glendale's Mayberry in the Foothills, a place to spend a lazy day - Sunset Magazine

Some of my favorite places to visit while i lived down there,

Jane's Cakes / Swork Coffee / Rocky Cola's / Divina Cucina

Tyler Florence

is living in California, Mill Valley to be exact. He is opening up a retail store in Mill Valley and he's opening up a restaurant in San Francisco at 940 Sutter Street (currently the York hotel...soon to be Hotel Vertigo.)



Ah. The "Land of Food and Wine" a little tastier today.

Torrential Rains. Hurricane Force Winds.

"Paralyzing amounts of snow."

It's going to be more than cats and dogs that come down from the skies this weekend in California. It's going to be a super soaker. Mother nature style. Watch the wet come in.
5 - 10 inches of the stuff, projected.

"A storm of historic purportions." Guess it's not the best time to have a convertable.

Reminds me of when I lived up in San Francisco during the horrible storms of 1995 when they laid waste to both the Conservatory of Flowers and the beautiful redwoods Golden Gate Park.

Well....got some flashlights. Got some good books. Guess I'll plan on taking it easy (and hopefully dry) this weekend.

What happens when wired magazine co-founder

finds chocolate too irrestistible. And, being "Silicon"esque....it's in "Beta"

TCHO chocolate.

TCHO is a new kind of chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts.

TCHO is where technology meets chocolate; where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture.

TCHO is obsessively good dark chocolate.

TCHO is a direct, transparent connection between the farmers and the consumers, from the pod to the palate, from high concept to sensual experience.

TCHO is an innovative method for you to discover the chocolate you like best.

The Company.

TCHO is serious about chocolate, we aren’t just “re–melters” (like the majority of people who work with chocolate), we are manufacturers, with our very own factory capable of producing 4000 metric tons per year — joining only a dozen other major manufacturers in the US.

TCHO was founded by a Space Shuttle technologist turned chocolate maker and a grizzled industry veteran who set up chocolate factories for 40 years from Costa Rica to Germany.

TCHO’s team has deep experience from Silicon Valley to Berlin, from Fair Trade to Ferraris, from chocolate start up to Web start up.

TCHO isn’t funded by VCs or investment bankers, but friends and families brought together to invest in a dream. And every employee is an owner.

TCHO is scrappy and high tech – recycling and refurbing legacy chocolate equipment and mating it with the latest process control, information, and communications systems.

TCHO’s social mission is the next step beyond Fair Trade – helping farmers by transferring knowledge of how to grow and ferment better beans so they can escape commodity production to become premium producers.

My Heroes

The Firefighters

unbelievable photo by wally skalij from latte times

The City of Del Mar is now advising evacuation

for it's residents.

Del Mar Fairgrounds/Race Track is where thousands of animals and people have been evacuated to from the other burning areas of San Diego County.

Oh, this is horrific.

California's on Fire Again

malibufire_2.jpg
Originally uploaded by Sundogg.

It is horrific.
250,000+ people evaculated.
Over a 1/4 of a million people.
Countless animals.
The San Diego Wild Animal Park put on alert.
The 1,800 stalls of Del Mar Racetrack overflowing with evacuated animals.
The smoke and ash are easily seen by satellite. Gusts of 112mph winds have been recorded.

It's just too large a disaster to fathom.

Loved my little "holiday" in Cambria

Ventured up to San Simeon to see Hearst Castle. I knew they had zebra wandering around (no, really) I didn't know that their cattle were grass fed and "sustainable."

Welcome to the Hearst Ranch Store. Since 1865, the Hearst family has raised cattle on the rich sustainable native grasslands of the Central California coast. Hearst Cattle are grass-fed and grass-finished and humanely raised. Our animals are not given growth hormones or antibiotics, ever. The result is beef with extraordinary flavor that’s as memorable and natural as the surrounding landscape. - Hearst Ranch.

Guess I know where I'm going to buy my tri-tip, now. Wish I could only pick it up by hand everytime.


Hearst Castle
Originally uploaded by bnm_1972.

Got Moo-lah?

You might have to pay a load for that 1/2 caf double splash of non-fat extra dry latte.

Effective Sunday, the California department of food and agriculture has set the price California dairy operators will be paid at a record $1.98 per gallon of milk, up from $1.06 a year ago. The minimum retail price for a gallon of low-fat milk, said the Department, will be $3.10, compared to $2.10 in January.

The State posts the "lowest reported lawful retail price'' for milk due to a law that says milk cannot be sold below cost.

The price spike -- the result of a drought in Australia, tightening supplies from Europe, higher demand in asia and the diversion of feed corn to ethanol plants -- also threatens to jack up the cost of cheese, lattes, chocolate bars and pizzas. - SFGate

It's going to be a long, hot

and expensive summer. We're on fire...again.

A 400-acre brush fire on Santa Catalina island was moving toward the city of Avalon this afternoon as authorities were evacuating some residents and preparing to ferry additional fire crews to the island using a military ship. - latte times

and...just in time for all this....Allstate breaks some news.

Allstate corp., the State's third-biggest home insurer, will stop selling to new residential policies in California. - latte times

The fire had threatened to enter the city of Avalon.

Don't Eat the Fish

Citing concerns over the domoic acid poisoning that has already sickened hundreds of birds, state health regulators on Friday urged people not to eat certain types of seafood — including shellfish and sardines — caught by recreational fishermen off most of the Southern California coast. The warning also covers the organs of commercially sold lobster and crabs as well as those caught by recreational anglers.

...Tom Raftican, president of United Anglers of Southern California, was not surprised to learn of the quarantine. But he was concerned for the health of anyone consuming seafood containing the toxin.

"We see sea lions washed up on the beach from the domoic acid poisoning," he said. "It's hard to escape the consequences when you see large mammals like that in a state of such illness.

"We're also concerned for the health of our ocean," he added. "These are forage fish. They are key to the health of the whole ecosystem. If you take out an important piece of the food chain, it will affect the other parts." Domoic acid is a naturally occurring toxin that can cause humans to get sick. Dogs, cats, birds and other household pets also are susceptible to such poisoning and should not eat the seafood either, officials warned.- Latte Times

Not Looking Good

California provides a good portion of food to the rest of the States, let alone the World. Growing that produce requires water. Water that might not be there.

The snow pack, an essential part of California's water supply, is far below normal, ranging from 55 percent of the average in the north to 40 percent in the south.

Authorities say there is enough water in California's reservoirs to assure normal deliveries to cities and farms this summer. But the scant expected runoff also means that reservoirs will be abnormally low in the fall, and another dry winter could spell dire water shortages throughout the state.

"If things are about the same next year, we could be looking at tight times," said Frank Gehrke, chief of the state Department of Water Resources' Snow Survey.

The lack of water could also mean an early start to fire season this year. - SFGate

We as a society MUST come to accept that just because there is a tap to turn, does not mean there is water available to come out of it. Just because you want a lawn in a desert area doesn't mean that you should be able to have one if it ultimately endangers the community or society as a whole.

Santa Barbara has experienced some serious drought years. I remember when there were pebbles coming out of the faucet along with the yellowish water. Folks were getting arrested for watering their lawns and stealing their neighbors water. Spray paint was used to "touch up the green" of the lawns.

We've also had our shares of fires that generally take out 200-400 houses in a single session.

This news does not bode well.

A Toast to a California pioneer

who has passed. Salud, Ernesto. Love him or hate him....you have to admit, what an amazing life.

Ernest Gallo, who with his late brother Julio created a post-Prohibition wine business that became one of the most dominant in the world, has died. He was 97.

.. Gallo "put California on the wine map of the United States and then, through exporting, put California on the wine map of the world," said Nat DiBuduo, president of Fresno-based Allied Grape Growers, the state's largest wine-grape-growing cooperative.

.. Ernest, who was the power behind the company, handled the marketing and business end, while Julio, sometimes called the farmer at Gallo, oversaw wine-making.

When the Gallo brothers first started the business, the joke was that Ernest's goal was to sell more wine than Julio could make, and Julio's was to make more wine than Ernest could sell.- LATimes

Ernest Gallo -- who, it is said, once told his brother "you make the wine and I'll sell it'' -- was a ruthless businessman. He reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 1976 for using strong-arm business tactics such as forbidding his wholesalers to carry non-Gallo brands. He played hardball with the United Farm Workers union, earning himself and his company widespread enmity that has never dissipated. Gallo was the subject of a long UFW boycott in the 1970s and another in 2005. - SFGate

The stock market crash of 1929 decimated the elder Gallo's finances. In 1932, he retreated to a rundown raisin-grape ranch south of Fresno, while Ernest and Julio tried to keep his Modesto vineyard going.

On June 21, 1933, hired hands discovered the bodies of the elder Gallos at the Fresno ranch, dead from an apparent murder- suicide. The father's debts totaled almost $30,000, while his assets were scarcely a 10th of that amount.

Ernest Gallo sought a probate judge's permission to continue his father's grape-growing business. He persuaded Julio to start a winery in a leased building in Modesto with equipment bought on credit. It was Ernest who devised a profit-sharing plan to pay grape growers only after their wine was sold. Then he went to a local public library to research commercial winemaking.

The shelves were bare of helpful books, in the same way Prohibition had decimated the ranks of experienced winemakers. But in the basement, a librarian unearthed pre-Prohibition pamphlets written by a research scientist at the University of California at Davis. - Bloomberg.com

Ah...the power of libraries.