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HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – This year on the day before Thanksgiving, while most people are busy making last minute dinner preparations, 11-year-old Hidden Valley Lake resident Sarah Riccio will be at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford undergoing a high risk, open heart surgery.
Sarah had her first open heart surgery when she was just two days old, and three more surgeries followed in the next 30 days. She has been fighting for her life ever since.
Originally diagnosed with the rare congenital heart defect of hypoplastic left heart syndrome, her left ventricle is severely underdeveloped.
“She is now once again outgrowing the circulation that she currently has,” explained her mother Suzanne Riccio. “Her blood is getting very thick, which impedes the bloods ability to deliver oxygen to her body. Her oxygen saturation levels are dangerously low and the result is extreme fatigue and brain damage.”
According to her parents, the doctors have said that this upcoming surgery is especially high-risk due to the fact that Sarah’s right lung is no longer working.
“We’ve been told we should expect Sarah to be in the hospital for at least 30 days following the surgery,” said her father, David Riccio. “But last time we were told 30 days, it ended up being that she was in the hospital for three months.”
The Riccios have three children and have lived in Hidden Valley Lake for the past 10 years, where they have been actively involved in the community.
Friends of the Riccio family have set up a special Web site, www.everribbon.com/r/sarahsfund, where people can make donations to assist with the overwhelming medical costs of this delicate surgery.
The goal is $5,000; as of Sunday night, nearly $1,300 had been raised, according to the Web site.
For more information visit the Web site or call Carol Luis at 707-987-8757 for more information.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Local legal and educational leaders met last week to begin laying the groundwork to introduce a new educational program to Lake County.
More than 30 community members – including judges, attorneys, educators and students – met on Thursday, Nov. 10, at the Lake County Courthouse, to discuss the new Mock Trial Program, which will make its debut in the 2012-13 school year.
The Lake County Superior Court and Lake County Office of Education are partnering to bring the Mock Trial Program to Lake County.
The Mock Trial Program is an educational exercise in which young people study court cases and argue them before real judges in real courtrooms as part of mock bench trials. Competitions take place on the county, state and national levels, much like the Academic Decathlon.
Participating students take on the roles of prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, clerks, bailiffs, journalists and sketch artists.
Judge Richard Martin, who hosted the meeting, said the program’s success will hinge on the involvement of community members.
As part of the Nov. 10 meeting there was a presentation by Carolyn Brown, coordinator for the Mendocino County Mock Trial Program – in place for 24 years – and wife of Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Ronald Brown, who made the trip to Lakeport with her.
Lake County Superintendent of Schools Wally Holbrook said he’s very excited about the program.
“All of our children are really going to benefit from this,” he said.
Holbrook said the goal – and the expectation – is that all five of the county’s high schools will participate.
Carolyn Brown explained how the program works in Mendocino County, and touched on its benefits for young people.
“We do truly believe there are so many wonderful outcomes for students participating in this program,” she said.
She said hundreds of Mendocino County students have grown and matured through the program, which teaches them about the intricacies of criminal trials.
Participation requires – and fosters – critical thinking skills, with students also gaining self-confidence and good sportsmanship, as well as the ability to stay cool as they’re under the scrutiny of judges and attorneys, she said.
Spectators are amazed at the participating students’ professionalism, Brown said, adding that the program crafts responsible young adults.
The Mendocino County Mock Trial Program competition will take place over two weekends early next year, Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, Brown said.
Brown said the Mock Trial Program and others like it “are more critical than ever.”
The group also heard from Laytonville High School science teacher Bruce Potter, who leads that school’s Mock Trial Program, and explained that the program is good for self-esteem and teaching students how to solve problems.
Mendocino County Assistant District Attorney Beth Norman, who is an attorney-coach, said, “There’s a place for everyone” in the program.
She said the program teaches skills that she believes open doors for young people, and shared how she had seen the teens she works with in Mendocino County come up with creative legal arguments that surprised and impressed her.
“It’s a blast,” she said. “I love doing it.”
Norman added, “I’m really excited that Lake County is thinking about doing this.”
Laytonville High School junior Colten Gover, one of Mendocino County’s Mock Trial Program stars, explained that the competition requires dedication, but teaches many skills.
There are other pluses as well, he said. “You make friends, and that's the biggest part I like.”
Another attorney-coach, Matt Finnegan, who for the last two years has worked with the team for the Redwood Academy of Ukiah and the Accelerated Achievement Academy, said at first he was reluctant to take part due to the time commitment.
However, he added, “For me, it’s well worth it,” and said he believes the adults who will take on the teaching and mentoring roles in Lake County also will find it rewarding.
Holbrook said a lot needs to be done in order to have the program’s setup complete by the end of this school year, in preparation for the first Lake County competition in the fall of 2012.
With the Academic Decathlon already well established in Lake County, Holbrook said he doesn’t want to see the two programs compete, and wants students to be able to compete in both.
He said he anticipates meeting with local school superintendents about the program on Monday, Nov. 14.
For more information, call the Lake County Office of Education, 707-262-4100.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
A bit of a discrepancy exists surrounding the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. Many of us will serve sweet potatoes as an accompaniment to our Thanksgiving meals, perhaps candied or mashed, but will refer to them as yams.
And who can blame us? Orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are sold in stores as yams. Even promotional Web sites, such as the one which markets Louisiana sweet potatoes, contribute to the confusion with recipes such as yam bisque and a mascot named “Yamster the Hamster.”
The truth is that what we know as yams in North America is almost always a version of sweet potato. True yams, native to Africa and Asia, are another genus of plant, completely unrelated to sweet potatoes, which have their origins in South America.
So why does this overlap in names exist?
Several decades ago when orange fleshed sweet potatoes were introduced in the southern United States, producers and shippers dubbed them yams to distinguish them from the traditional lighter fleshed ones. Although the terms are generally used interchangeably, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that the label "yam" always be accompanied by "sweet potato.”
True yams may be found in Latin or Caribbean grocery stores, and I’ll write about them separately in another column.
Not only are the sweet potato’s large, tuberous roots edible, but the young shoots and leaves are sometimes used as greens. Sweet potato blossoms reveal the plant’s membership in the morning glory family, as they bear a striking resemblance to that climbing garden flower.
The smooth skin of the long, tapered roots can be purple, red, brown, or beige, with flesh that ranges from beige through yellow, orange and purple.
They’re beloved around the world, where they hold a place in the cuisines of Africa and Asia, as well as in the Americas.
They’re a favorite street food in places such as Egypt and Japan, where vendors typically bake them.
Dried slices of sweet potato roots are a staple food in Uganda, and in West African counties, such as Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, the young leaves and vine tips are widely consumed as a vegetable.
In Asia, a variety of cuisines utilize the sweet potato, including in China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Singapore.
Sweet potatoes are important in the typhoon-prone countries of the Pacific, as they’re not as affected by flooding as other staple crops.
Sweet potato soup flavored with ginger is made in China, Koreans use sweet potato starch to make cellophane noodles, and the Japanese use it in tempura and to make pastries, particularly the purple variety, which was developed there.
Multinational pizza chains in Korea use sweet potatoes as a topping.
There’s an interesting twist to the sweet potato story. While the center of origin and domestication of the sweet potato is thought to be in Central or South America, it was also grown in Polynesia before western exploration there.
Current thought holds that the sea-faring Polynesians brought the sweet potato back from travels to South America. From there it likely spread to Hawaii and New Zealand, where the Maori people also cultivated sweet potatoes before European contact.
I just experimented with making a sweet potato soup that turned out to be surprisingly delicious in its simplest form. I boiled three peeled, cubed orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (marketed as garnet yams) in a quart of vegetable broth until tender and pureed the mixture in batches in a blender.
It was perfect just as it was, rich and flavorful, even with no added seasonings. With a little less cooking broth, it would have made a nice side dish of pureed sweet potatoes.
When I attempted to develop it further by adding coconut milk, it took some time to balance the flavors with curry powder, peanut oil and lemon juice. I was happy with the end result; even so, it didn’t quite measure up to the soup in its purest evolution.
Sweet potatoes are versatile in that they may be cooked by many processes, including baking, steaming, boiling, deep-frying or pan frying, microwaving, and cooking in hot ash or coals.
To cook them in the ash or coals of a barbecue or fire pit, prick them several times and wrap in aluminum foil (use a double wrapping if they’ll be among coals) and place them among the coals or immersed in hot ash. (Use a double wrapping of foil if among coals). Check them for tenderness after about 20 minutes.
If desired, they may be rubbed with spices prior to cooking. Chef Jamie Oliver suggests a mixture of crushed chili peppers, cumin, and salt, and served with a squeeze of lime after they’re done.
Sweet potatoes are full of beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A in our systems. They also contain good amounts of dietary fiber, vitamin B6 and vitamin C.
Sweet potatoes are beautiful when baked into a pie, and having one on your Thanksgiving dessert table may be a nice change from (or an addition to) the pumpkin pie that’s typically served. Maple syrup or bourbon are flavorful additions to sweet potato pies.
Today’s recipe is a unique one, a sweet potato “butter” that may be used as a dip or spread. It’s wonderful with corn bread or a nutty whole wheat loaf.
Sweet potato butter
2 garlic cloves
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 to 3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
Put unpeeled garlic cloves on aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees F. for about 10 minutes, until soft.
Boil potatoes and carrots until tender; drain.
Put vegetables in a food processor and squeeze in the baked garlic. Add 1/2 cup broth and blend. With motor running, add oil and keep blending, adding more broth until puree is fairly smooth and full.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in optional chopped fresh herbs if using dip immediately. Otherwise, see below.
Dip can be made as long as a day in advance, covered and refrigerated. Bring to room temperature for serving and stir in the optional herbs right before serving with raw vegetables and bread sticks.
Makes six servings.
Esther Oertel, the “Veggie Girl,” is a culinary coach and educator and is passionate about local produce. Oertel gives private cooking lessons. She welcomes your questions and comments; e-mail her at
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Back in the 1970s, biologists were amazed to discover a form of life they never expected. Tiny microorganisms with ancient DNA were living in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park.
Instead of dissolving in the boiling waters, the microbes were thriving, ringing the springs with vibrant color.
Scientists coined the term extremophile, which means “extreme-loving, to describe the creatures – and the hunt was on for more. Soon, extremophiles were found living in deep Antarctic ice, the cores of nuclear reactors, and other unexpected places. Biology hasn't been the same since.
Could astronomy be on the verge of a similar transformation?
Researchers using a NASA space telescope named GALEX have discovered a new kind of extremophile: extreme-loving stars.
“We’re finding stars in extreme galactic environments where star formation isn't supposed to happen,” explained GALEX project scientist Susan Neff of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is a very surprising development.”
GALEX, which stands for “Galaxy Evolution Explorer,” is an ultraviolet space telescope with a special ability: It is super-sensitive to the kind of UV rays emitted by the youngest stars. This means the observatory can detect stars being born at very great distances from Earth, more than halfway across the Universe.
The observatory was launched in 2003 on a mission to study how galaxies change and evolve as new stars coalesce inside them.
GALEX accomplished that mission – and more.
“In some GALEX images, we see stars forming outside of galaxiesin places where we thought the gas density would be too low for star birth to occur,” said GALEX team member Don Neil of Caltech.
Stars are born when interstellar clouds of gas collapse and contract under the pull of their own gravity. If a cloud gets dense and hot enough as it collapses, nuclear fusion will kick in and – voila! – a star is born.
The spiral arms of the Milky Way are a “Goldilocks zone” for this process. “Here in the Milky Way we have plenty of gas. It’s a cozy place for stars to form,” said Neil.
But when GALEX looks at other more distant spiral galaxies, it sees stars forming far outside the gassy spiral disk.
“I was dumbfounded,” he said. “These stars are truly 'living on the edge.'”
Spirals aren’t the only galaxies with stellar extremophiles.
The observatory has also found stars being born in elliptical and irregular galaxies thought to be gas-poor, in the gaseous debris of colliding galaxies, in vast “comet-like” tails that trail behind some fast-moving galaxies, and in cold primordial gas clouds, which are small and barely massive enough to hang together.
So much for the Goldilocks Zone. According to GALEX, stellar extremophiles populate just about every nook and cranny of the cosmos where a wisp of gas can get together to make a new sun.
“This could be telling us something profound about the star-forming process,” said Neff. “There could be ways to make stars in extreme environments that we haven’t even thought of yet.”
Will extremophiles transform astronomy as they did biology? It’s too soon to say, insist the researchers. But GALEX has definitely given them something to think about.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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The Lake County Sanitation District and Preston Pipeline Inc. are constructing a new lift station and force main as part of improvements to the Southeast Regional Wastewater Collection System.
From 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, and Tuesday, Nov. 15, Preston Pipeline will set up a traffic closure to install a force main sewer line across Old Highway 53.
The affected roadway area will include a portion of Old Highway 53 west of Highway 53. Specifically, the closure will extend from Cache Creek Way to Old Highway 53, the county and contractor reported.
Officials said the general public will be detoured north to Lakeshore Drive. The only through access will be granted to emergency response vehicles.
County officials said the project is meant to improve the Southeast Regional collection system’s capacity and reduce sewer spills, which have been an ongoing problem for the system, especially during heavy rain.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Despite the rain, hundreds of people turned out on Friday morning to mark Veterans Day and show their gratitude to the men and women who have donned the uniform in service to the nation.
The annual Lake County Veterans Day ceremony returned to Konocti Vista Casino in Lakeport, where community members packed the showroom.
Receiving special honors this year was Lake County Vet Connect, formed earlier this year to help veterans get a “hand up, not a hand out” with everything from medical care to housing assistance. The group received this year’s “Friend of the Veteran” award.
Griff Ratterree, past commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2015 in Lakeport and a member of the United Veterans Council’s Military Funeral Honors Team, was honored with the “Veteran of the Year Award.”
“First time in my life I’ve been speechless,” Ratterree said after being handed the award by United Veterans Council President Frank Parker.
The turnout appeared to be even larger than last year. Parker noted that he could remember the first ceremony held in front of the Veterans Service Office in downtown Lakeport many years ago, when only a handful of people showed up.
Young McKenna Rose Enger sang the national anthem to start off the event, and Supervisor Jim Comstock, a Vietnam Navy veteran, noted that it was for people like her that veterans serve.
“It’s about America – what we love and defend fiercely,” he said.
Comstock read a letter from Congressman Mike Thompson, another Vietnam veteran, who thanked the county’s veterans for their service both in wars and in peacetime.
The day’s featured speaker was Ginny Craven, founder of Operation Tango Mike, which sends care packages to soldiers overseas. Craven is a previous Friend of the Veteran Award winner.
The daughter of a World War II veteran who died when she was still in high school, Craven described growing up in Lake County and meeting veterans whose service she knew nothing about until years later.
She said those men she met didn’t speak about their service; neither did her father. “Many vets don’t.”
While he may not have spoken about it, her father’s service was evidenced in other ways, including how shrapnel oozed from his body until the day he died.
In describing veterans, she quoted G.K. Chesterton, who wrote, “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”
Craven received a standing ovation from the crowd.
In presenting the Friend of the Veteran Award to Vet Connect, Comstock said the group’s goal is to make sure veterans in need aren’t forgotten.
Parker, who helped form the group and accepted the award on its behalf, said Vet Connect will mark its one-year anniversary this coming Jan. 6. Ten weeks after it formed, it began serving veterans, he said.
“We are vets helping vets,” he explained. “We are a hand up, not a hand out.”
Parker, in turn, presented the award to Ratterree, saying, “This is one award that is long overdue.”
Ratterree said of his award, “I feel it’s an honor to be a vet in this great nation.”
The Military Funeral Honors Team, which has given honors at the funerals of more than 800 veterans, helped close the ceremony with a rifle volley, followed by the playing of “Taps.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at