Voy de compras

I’m off to Pescadero today, to get dried beans at Phipp’s Country Store. I’m sure it will be a beautiful drive up the San Mateo County coast; the NY Times even has an article about it, although from the other direction. And the whole Sunday Magazine is about food again.

Thanks to Rebecca Thistlethwaite who gave a shout out to the Bounty of Heart’s Delight in her TLC Ranch newsletter this week. On Sunday I’m picking up the pork from the Mountain View Farmers Market, where I’ll also get mushrooms from Far West Fungi for the vegetarian entree.

And, in more miscellaneous links, the Coastal Commission reversed its August vote and decided to give San Diego a waiver from the Clean Water Act after all. A new commissioner from San Diego joined the body after the last vote, and

San Diego didn’t offer any substantive changes to its waiver application. There was speculation that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported another exemption, had pressed the commission to override itself.

“The politics in the last 60 days changed the vote because there was absolutely no new information,” said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, an environmental group in Santa Monica that opposed the waiver. “It’s not like all of a sudden the marine environment got cleaned up.”

This new waiver is supposed to let San Diego focus on wastewater recycling, but

several commissioners voiced concern about what they saw as a lack of accountability from [Mayor Jerry] Sanders.

“The city hasn’t set any goals or milestones,” said Commissioner Sara Wan of Malibu, who cast a no vote. “There is no commitment here to actually implement the (wastewater) recycling.”

As for what it was really about,

“I feel very good about it,” Sanders said. “It’s the most important issue we have going right now — saving $1.5 billion for the ratepayers.”