At least one person died in accident on Interstate 70 Monday that involved more than 60 vehicles near Vail Pass.

Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gilbert Sullivan confirmed the fatality and said there were several others seriously injured.

'We have up to 60 to 75 cars involved,' Sullivan said.

The main east-west highway through Colorado was closed in both directions.

Sullivan said the accident happened during snowy weather in the westbound lanes about a mile west of the summit. He said it appeared a semitrailer jackknifed and caused the original crash. Read more

One of Springfield's major employers will close down after Willow Brook Foods was sold to a Kansas-based company. via KMOV-TV Saint Louis

The product recalled by Stonyfield's has a UPC code # 0-52159-00044 with product codes printed along the cup bottom that start with the following dates: -- April 13, 2008 -- April 14, 2008 -- April 15, 2008 -- ... via Snack Food/Wholesale Bakery

"The sales representatives usually get a lot of gifts at these shows, but they were begging us to sell them our products because they loved them so much"

SALINAS, Calif. - Frank and Lucille Biggio can remember when their son Bruce moved from his home town of Steubenville to Monterey, Calif. via Herald Star Online

When the San Francisco skies are clear, bright, and blue I like to pop into Greens Restaurant where in addition to table service, they have a robust take-out menu. I usually grab a tofu sandwich on seeded bread, a side of their famous black bean chili and then walk the short distance to a nearby picnic bench where I enjoy the sailboats, seagulls, and sunshine. As I was reaching for my sandwich the other day I noticed a stack of containers packed with peanut-slathered noodles - inspiration strikes. It has been ages since I've had a good peanut noodle salad, so I decided to throw one together today for my lunch. I couldn't be bothered to walk to the store for ingredients (hence the lazy title), so I tapped my pantry for inspiration. In the end I had myself a perfect, colorful bowl of peanut-slathered soba noodles punctuated with spring onions, tofu, more peanuts, and asparagus.

This makes a big chunky batch of peanut noodle salad. Serve it up family-style on a platter at a potluck, party, or buffet - it holds up perfectly at room temp. I'm taking the leftovers with me on a flight tomorrow. :)

My favorite line in Alice Medrich's buckwheat butter cookie recipe is when she writes, "these cookies can be stored in an airtight container for at least 1 month." I had to smile and then wonder where Alice hides her cookies. Friends and neighbors in my vicinity polished off a batch of these in under an hour. I'm excited to highlight Alice's Pure Dessert book (along with her nibby buckwheat butter cookie recipe) for a few reasons. I'll start by saying, I don't find myself buying dedicated dessert books much anymore. I suspect part of the reason is because it is hard to find ones that use the types of ingredients I like to use. This book is more my speed. Alice uses many fresh ingredients and interesting underutilized flours and sweeteners - today's twist on a traditional butter cookie is a great example.

These nibby buckwheat butter cookies couldn't be easier to make, and the recipe is indicative of the type of treats you'll find in Pure Desserts. In this case, a handful of ingredients and a sliver of active time yields dozens of cacao freckled, butter-bronzed buckwheat cookies made from a blend of all-purpose and buckwheat flours. You can slice them or do as I did and roll and stamp them into whatever shapes you please. Those of you who have been readers for a long time know I have a weakness for a scalloped edge, so that is the route I took.

Other recipes in the book highlight and explore the flavors of some of my favorite grains, nuts, and minimally processed sweeteners as well. She does a shortbread and pound cake using kamut flour, a whole wheat sable cookie, and corn flour tuiles. On the sweetener front Alice serves up a honey ice cream and panna cotta, she also writes of muscovado bread pudding, a raw sugar toffee sauce, and a raw sugar flan. Don't get me wrong, this book has it's fair share of white sugar and all-purpose flour, but for those of you who are looking for a gateway book into delicious, fool-proof baking with some percentage of whole ingredients, Pure Desserts is a great place to start.

Give the cookies a try, if you like them consider trying some of the other recipes from her book as well. There is an amazing range of more minimally processed ingredients out there to explore - the flavors, colors, textures are exciting, unique and unfamiliar to many. Alice's book is a great place to dabble a bit, see what you think, without having to overhaul your entire pantry.

Related Links:
- Traveler's Lunchbox Q&A with Alice Medrich
- Cook & Eat: No Quince-idence
- Molly's take on these buckwheat cookies
- Luisa does Alice's whole wheat sables
- Grace highlights Pure Dessert on her favorite cookbooks list.

It's unfortunate, but aside from the holiday season wild rice seems to be all but ignored. For an eight week stretch as the year comes to a close I typically see it used in two ways -in stuffings, or as a side salad punctuated with dried cranberries. Then nothing for another year. Wild rice is such a unique and nutritious ingredient, I made a note-to-self to try to work it in to my day to day cooking more often. As we start getting more warm days, the nuttiness of the rice plays beautifully off many springtime ingredients. For lunch yesterday I decided to make a spring inspired wild rice salad - vibrant asparagus, yellow split peas, and wild rice tossed in an almond butter dressing and finished off with a bit of goat cheese and chives.

For those of you who don't cook with wild rice often, there is a whole world of wild rice to learn about. The first thing (and many of you already know this), wild rice isn't actually a rice - it's an annual aquatic grass. There are a wide range of wild rices available. Some come from their native upper Great Lakes region, others come from Idaho, Washington, and California. You can buy hand-harvested wild rice, you can buy cultivated wild rice. Connoisseurs will be quick to tell you that wild rice hand-harvested from a canoe is like a fine wine, the creme de la creme, others counter that at $10-$20 per pound not everyone can afford it. As I mention in SNC it can be surprisingly light in color and often takes much less time to cook than it's cultivated cousin - the darker, glossy, brownish black wild rice you are likely familiar with.

We talk a lot about cooking times on this site, and as with most grains (or grain-like ingredients), cooking time can vary greatly from rice to rice depending on the type of wild rice you buy, when it was harvested, and so on - so keep that in mind as you go into any recipe that features wild rice.

Semi-related rice recipes:

- Poached Eggs Over Rice
- Red Rice Salad
- Coconut Rice
- Ten Minute Tasty Asparagus and Brown Rice