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According to the Persian legend of King Jamshid, wine was discovered about 8,000 years ago. The story goes that the king banished one of his harem girls after she had angered him. The harem girl became so distraught that she searched for something to end her life. Finding a box of old, rotten grapes, labeled “poison” in the kitchen cupboard - she took a deep drink. To her surprise, she started to feel quite happy and no longer wanted to end her life. The harem girl took her discovery to the king - who also tested the grape liquid. After he, too, became quite cheerful, he proclaimed that from that day forward, all grapes grown in his kingdom would be grown for the sole purpose of making wine.

South Valley residents are invited to an important event at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22. Morgan Hill's Advent Lutheran Church (16870 Murphy Ave.) is hosting a concert to benefit Reach Out, the local food pantry affiliated with the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Emily Mae came to us on a golden day in April 2009. Born 22 months after her sister Gracie, Emily was a bouncing baby girl weighing a hair more than 9 pounds.

Take “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson and add writer Rosa Guy, who loosely bases a Caribbean flavored novella on the story, then add book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty and you have the latest offering from TheatreWorks: “Once On This Island.”

The county water district has announced it obtained $4.1 million from Proposition 84, passed by state voters in 2006, to help offset costs from several upcoming projects.

More than three-fourths of San Benito County adults are obese or overweight compared with the rest of the state, and youths are more at risk to become addicted to smoking or use alcohol because of increased access to those products, according to new data released last week.

San Benito County's unemployment rate increased month over month as expected, but continues showing gradual improvement when compared with prior year statistics.

In a few months, San Benito County will start using a new data management structure with the implementation of its $1 million enterprise resource planning system. According to the county: “The technology infrastructure planned for the project has the capability to store terabytes of fiscal and personnel data. In lay terms, this is enough storage to meet the needs of the County and its partner agencies for the next ten-plus years.” So, what is it?

With shaky finances and a move toward online sales, Staples announced Thursday it plans to close up to 225 stores by the end of 2015.

I can shout with great joy, "We have rain!" It is fantastic news because it will help the drought. Almost as important, there are a few foods that seem better when it rains. Of course, rainy comfort foods take many forms. This week, I feature one of my all time favorites: French onion soup.