Food

Beneath the nodding sunflowers in the late summer heat, a group of volunteers uses its lunch break to pick vegetables for dinner. Someone else's dinner. By the time the hour is over, the dedicated group of employees has harvested the week's bounty from the Avista Employees' Community Garden and delivered it to the Women's and Children's Free Restaurant: Donations that will be stirred into the dinners or lunch served there, sent home in bags so women can prepare their own meals and even pureed and frozen in small batches so it can be served to the babies who come for food their families can't afford.

So what is the secret to prize-winning pizza? Fresh ingredients? Scrumptious cheese? Crispy crust?

Sandra Gunn wanted some good olive oil, like the kind that her Sicilian grandmother kept in her kitchen when Gunn was growing up. She couldn't find it. Anywhere. That started to change a few years ago when Gunn and her husband, Brad, were living in Temecula, Calif., an hour north of San Diego. Some people they knew were getting into the olive-growing business.

"Lentils are friendly – the Miss Congeniality of the bean world." – Laurie Colwin, food writer, novelist and author of "Home Cooking"