Lisa Morehouse

Bears in places like Yosemite are hot on human food — because we introduced it to them in the first place. We’ve been inventing solutions to keep them out of our food ever since.

Tourists to the Napa valley may visit their favorite exclusive wineries and fine dining restaurants. But locals love a more humble dish: malfatti. It’s a little spinach and cheese dumpling, shaped like a pinky finger and smothered in sauce. And where do you find the most famous malfatti? In the back of a liquor store in the town of Napa.

Rosa Hernandez left Oaxaca when she was 20 to work in the fields in Madera, California. Now, she co-owns a restaurant, Colectivo Sabor a Mi Tierra, where she cooks the food of her homeland for the many indigenous Mexicans who live in the area. She did it, she says, after realizing the cultural value of her food through inter-ethnic friendships and connections.

Trinity County isn't in the news much, unless it’s wildfire season. It’s beautiful, remote, and rural. It’s also one of the state’s most food insecure places, where many people don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The county’s food bank director delivers food to the region’s most isolated — and hungry — residents.

The West Side of San Bernardino is one of those neighborhoods where people still live in the houses their Mexican-American great-grandparents bought in the 1930s. Today, on the once-thriving commercial strip, there are plenty of vacant lots and storefronts, but one business is still a magnet for customers: the Mitla Cafe. It’s proof that sometimes a restaurant is more than just a restaurant. Since the ‘30s, the restaurant has born witness to and played a role in political change. It also happens to be an unlikely inspiration for how mainstream America sees — and eats — Mexican food.

Right now, there are backpackers crossing into Canada after five months of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. They're called thru-hikers, and they started the trail in Mexico and will traverse 2,650 miles. Now, the lazy among us might have just read "Wild," Cheryl Strayed's memoir about the Pacific Crest Trail. The even lazier among us may be waiting for the movie to come out in December. The hikers who actually make this trek see toenails fall off and their feet can swell whole shoe sizes. They say the only thing they talk about more than their feet is food.

Before the Gold Rush, the Central Valley in California was like a bathtub. Rivers filled with water which then slowly spread out through natural wetlands. This created a rich feeding ground for migrating species: salmon going to and from the ocean, birds flying from Alaska and Argentina.

“Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!”