During a typical year, aquifers provide around 40 percent of the water the state uses; in drought years, that percentage soars to 60 percent or more. The state’s aquifers can hold a lot of water, but that number isn’t infinite, and California’s current rate of overdraft isn’t sustainable.

The story of The Workshop, the popular 600-square foot Cajun-Creole walk-up restaurant in Benicia, starts with a teen romance between Danny Glassmaker and Naomi Buskirk more than 30 years ago. 

There are many clues that Stand Up Kabob, a Persian restaurant literally welded onto the side of a used car dealership on the outskirts of Davis, is no ordinary kebab shop. 

Hustling to adapt, farmers around the state are experimenting with new, more sustainable crops and varieties bred to better tolerate drought, heat, humidity and other elements of the increasingly unruly climate.

When the restaurant opens in late spring, you will still be able to get a chili dog or a hamburger griddled to a dark sear on the flat top grill. But you can also order a hot dog called a “Catalina wine mixer”: chicken based and topped with kale, avocado and pungent garlic-anchovy mayonnaise. 

Insect infestation affects crops worldwide, and manually monitoring food processing and storage facilities is a costly and time-intensive endeavor. SmartProbe technology aims to make pest control easier, cheaper and more effective. 

The coffee ceremony at Kind Bean Cafe and Ethiopian Cuisine unfolds like a sacrament, each tool imbued with significance like objects on an altar. The beans, roasted and ground throughout the day, steep in a jebena, an ebony-colored earthenware vessel developed more than 800 years ago.

Go by the business that recently opened in the former home of Waffle Square Country Kitchen and there are still some remnants from what was there before, such as the brown pleather booths. Otherwise, though, something very different is going on here.

Inspired by its proprietor Brynn Wooden — known to all as Miss B — and Woody, her husband of 40 years, the lodge is a beacon in the tight-knit Gold Rush communities of Colfax, Iowa Hill and Foresthill.

Just as meat alternatives have expanded, so have the eating patterns of people interested in plant-based food. A diverse set of diners are embracing plant-based restaurants, thanks to the proliferation of less restrictive plant-based diets.