From a Mistake to Food Legend: Napa's Pasta Malfatti
If you're going to visit the Napa Valley and you're into food, you're probably going to check out the exclusive wineries and fine dining restaurants. But locals? They love a more humble dish: malfatti. It’s a little spinach and cheese dumpling, shaped like a pinky finger and smothered in sauce. And, you might ask, where do you find the most famous malfatti? In the back of a liquor store in the city of Napa. Lisa Morehouse brings us this story from the series California Foodways.
Undocumented Ph.D. Makes History at UC Merced
Yuriana Aguilar is 26 years old, bright and ambitious, a medical researcher whose work may help people with heart disease. She's also the first undocumented student to get her doctorate at UC Merced. She came to California with her farmworker parents when she was five. None of them have immigration papers. Aguilar has worked her way through school picking watermelons, cleaning hotels and selling produce at flea markets. We find out what motivates her, and her parents. Sasha Khokha reported this story, which first aired in May, just as college students were graduating across the state.
A New Generation Competes in Traditional Games to Preserve Washoe Culture
This week, the mountains of Lake Tahoe are teeming with skiers and snowboarders. But long before Tahoe got its first chair lift, different sports were popular with locals. Games like Baloyap Sugayuk or Hinoyowgi. These are the games of the Washoe people, a group native to the mountains and valleys straddling the California-Nevada border. As The California Report's Laura Klivans tells us in this story from this past summer, they're critical for sustaining Washoe culture and language.
Meet the City Kid Turned Rodeo King
Cotton Rosser owns the Flying U Rodeo Company, and he's produced nearly every Rodeo in California, for decades, including the Grand National Rodeo in San Francisco. He's also a rodeo legend. Reporter Lacy Jane Roberts caught up with him at the Monterey County Fair this fall.