The U.S. Navy recently threw the world's largest pizza party ever to celebrate the completion of the construction of the USNS Lewis and Clark. A total of 13,500 Papa John's pepperoni pizzas were delivered to 6,000 workers at the shipyard in San Diego. The previous Guinness record for pizza delivery was a mere 13,386 pies.

The enormous takeout order required enlisting the ovens of all Papa John's San Diego restaurants and used over one ton of cheese. What I'd like to know is how many 55-gallon drums of garlic powder and crushed red pepper they needed.

Surfing is big in California, but for me, I'll stick to surfing on the web. We have lots of good food blogs - cooking and recipes, restaurant coverage, and some that do a little of both - out of San Francisco and LA, but we can't forget about San Diego! There are quite a few food blogs based out of San Diego! Here's a list of several I've come across, but let us know if there are more.

• crazy salad - "fine women eat a crazy salad with their meat"
• firefly fifty five - "eating my way through san diego"
• good eats in San Diego - "all manner of other eating experiences from a half vegetarian couple"
• gourmetish - "a food object, idea, or activity that somebody is irrationally obsessed with or attached to"
• journey of a culinary student - in san diego
• milk and honey - "diary of a dilettante"
• mmm-yoso - "as in, yoso-silly, yoso-hungry, yoso-full, or best of all; mmm-delici-yoso!"
• tabemochi - "love your mochi as you love yourself"
• what we're eating
• zen-foodism 

Today was the first day that three new Viticultural areas, or wine regions, in Washington (Wahluke Slope), Texas (Texoma) and California, can be noted on wine labels. NPR has a nice piece on how this happened in Ramona Valley, near San Diego, Calif. In order to be designated as its own appellation, a region must prove that it has unique topography and climate; that there is some history of the area being called, in this case, "Ramona Valley"; and that wine grapes can, and are, being grown there.

Ramona Valley is distinct thanks to its position about 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and about 20 miles from the desert. It cools off quickly during the evening, but the days provide long hours of warmth and good ripening time. Grapes that do well in Ramona Valley, says a winemaker, include Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc.