The Brief

Every regional idiosyncrasy has a story. Detroit’s signature square pizza was originally baked in drip pans repurposed from the auto industry. L.A.’s donuts come in pink boxes because Cambodian refugees who started the donut shops needed cheap materials. And so it goes with cashews on pizza, a salty, buttery, crunchy topping that has gained a cult following in the Inland Empire over the past half century.

The Inland Empire, while very much part of SoCal culture, prides itself on doing things differently from its neighbors. Sub sandwiches are called grinders, local restaurant chains like Baker’s and Farmer Boys are largely unknown elsewhere — and, yes, cashews reign supreme as locals’ favorite pizza topping.

The city of Redlands, located over 60 miles east of Los Angeles, is where cashew pizza originated in the 1960s, eventually spreading to neighboring cities like Riverside and Yucaipa.

Kirsten Morningstar, a professional recipe developer and Redlands resident, says, “It’s a point of pride for Redlands people to have our own cultural food, something we invented that’s all ours. It’s how you know someone’s from Redlands.”

Why cashews?

Similar to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, there is no “why”; the creation of cashew pizza was a fortuitous accident.

To understand cashew pizza, you first have to understand the Gay 90s, a former pizza joint near the railroad tracks on Colton Avenue in Redlands. And to understand the Gay 90s, you have to understand its owner, Dave Wilson, and his gregarious and whimsical personality.

Every town needs a local spot to bring people together; in 1960s Redlands, the Gay 90s was that place. Wilson and his wife, Lorna, bought the restaurant in 1967. Cutting his teeth as a cook in the Army, he renamed the restaurant Dirty Dave’s Infamous Gay 90s Pizza Parlor and revamped the menu but kept the 1890s saloon theme (the “gay ’90s” refers to the gaiety and societal progress of the 1890s).

Pizza was the “great leveler,” says Jerry Farmer, a longtime family friend of the Wilsons who wrote Dirty Dave’s Pizza Parlor: An Origin Story (Dirty & Me), about Wilson.

Dirty Dave's Gay 90s Pizza, Redlands, CA, circa 1970s

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Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

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Customers liked the Gay 90s for its cheap beer and tasty thin-crust pies, with recipes perfected by Wilson himself. People from all over came to eat, including college students and out-of-towners attending weekly summer concerts at the Redlands Bowl.

It was a beloved gathering place, and by all accounts, a dive: crowded and lively, the walls and ceilings lined with memorabilia. Roberta Gehring, a fifth-generation Redlands resident, recalls, “The train would come by and rattle the building, and [the staff] would say, ‘Hold onto your plates!’” The pizza was fresh and delicious, and locals loved the chaotic atmosphere.

(It would go on to make an indelible mark on American pop culture — brothers Les and Glen Charles, who attended the University of Redlands in the 1960s, drew upon the restaurant as inspiration for their TV show “Cheers.")

‘Larger than life’

At 6’4” and 200 pounds, Dave Wilson was a physically imposing figure who disarmed people with his impish charm and wicked sense of humor. He’d got the nickname Dirty Dave as a teenager, when he fought back against school bullies using hay hooks, leading other kids to say he was fighting dirty — though some assume the name came from his frequent use of foul language.

“He had this larger-than-life personality,” says Farmer. Wilson’s granddaughter, Stephanie Hemphill, adds, “He was a big papa bear.” 

Dave Wilson

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Courtesy Jerry Farmer

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Wilson had a penchant for stealing bites of everyone’s food. Friends, family, customers — no one’s plate was safe. “Quality control,” he called it. In the late ’60s, he turned this annoying habit into a business decision when, one fateful day, a customer’s pizza order forever transformed the Inland Empire pizza culture.

This customer was a regular of the Gay 90s, but nobody knew his name, including Wilson. One day, he arrived drunk, sat down at the bar, ordered a sausage, onion and pepperoni pizza, then asked for a packet of cashews from the concession rack behind the bar. Farmer writes in his book, “To Dave’s astonishment, the befuddled fellow ripped open the bag and dumped the nuts on his pizza. The look of pleasure in the drunk’s eyes must have triggered Dave’s bite-snatching habit. Dave reached across the bar, grabbed a piece of the poor guy’s pizza and crunched it down. Dave was utterly amazed. It was downright delicious.”

The Gay 90s special — pepperoni, sausage, onions and cashews, Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

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Courtesy of Dirty Dave's Pizza Parlor

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“Perhaps his body was just craving more salt,” Farmer muses. “Excessive alcohol consumption leads to dehydration.”

Wilson was stubborn and stern, and if you were close to him, he’d steal your ideas and claim them as his own. However this time, he gave credit where credit was due. He also had an astute sense of what people liked and strove to please his customers’ palates. He figured that, if he liked something, other people might like it too. He put the man’s spontaneous invention on the menu and called it the Gay 90s special, inspiring a culinary phenomenon that has stuck around for generations.

A new market

When the Wilsons’ house in Redlands burned down in the summer of 1971, they sold the Gay 90s and headed north to start anew. They landed in Washington state, where Lorna Wilson’s family lived, and opened the new Dirty Dave’s Pizza (eventually dropping the Gay 90s in the name, but not on the menu) in Olympia in March 1972. Dave Wilson passed away in 2013, but his children and grandchildren still own and run the restaurant, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022.

Wilson’s piano is still there, along with the 1890s theme and the eclectic mix of posters, old menus and photos on the walls. “So many places change with the times,” says Hemphill, who is the Washington restaurant’s marketing manager. “We want the menu and the vibe to stay the same. If you had a Gay 90s pizza in 1970 in Redlands and another one in 2023 in Washington, it will be the same, and that’s the key.”

Wilson’s legacy

The first cashew copycat appears to have been Don Frisbie, owner of Pizza Chalet, a now-defunct Inland Empire chain that had locations in Redlands and Riverside. Patti Johnson, who worked at a Pizza Chalet on Magnolia Avenue in Riverside in the early 1970s, clearly remembers her restaurant’s iteration of the Gay 90s Special, the #14 with pepperoni, cashews, sausage and onions.

Unlike with pineapples, a polarizing pizza topping, there doesn’t seem to be a large contingent of anti-cashew detractors. Rather, those who have tried it have quickly fallen in love and bonded with other cashew aficionados. However, there is some debate about which cashew combination is best (the Gay 90s special or a cashew Hawaiian) and which kind of cashews to use (salted, lightly salted, or unsalted). Everyone agrees that you should use roasted cashews and add them on top of the cheese in the final minutes of baking for a perfectly toasted crunch.

Morningstar, the recipe developer who now lives in Riverside, says cashews were a ubiquitous pizza topping in restaurants and at school pizza parties during her youth. Cashews, she says, are buttery and crunchy: “It’s exactly what pizza was missing.”

Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

Gehring’s son David Copher is also a huge cashew pizza fan — so much so that the Inland Empire resident brings cashews with him on extended winter ski trips to Colorado. At Pazzo’s Pizza in Colorado, Copher asks staff to add the cashews to the deep-dish Sicilian-style pizza toward the end of baking. This year at Christmas, Gehring got him a two-pound bag of lightly salted, whole cashews to ensure he was well-supplied.

Copher isn’t the only one to bring his own cashews to restaurants, either. Members of a Facebook group called “Cashews on Pizza” discuss their love for the topping and lament that they can’t find cashew pizza outside of the IE. People are seldom confused about its origins: Everyone knows it started at the Gay 90s, though they may not know how or by whom.

Gay 90's menu from 1972

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Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

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Washingtonians, at least those in the Olympia area, have gained a similar fondness for cashews. The area’s pizza places have followed Wilson’s lead and put the Gay 90s special on the menu. In areas not touched by Wilson’s influence, though, cashew pizza remains unheard of.

“It’s super cool that something as simple as cashews on pizza can bring a community together. It’s exactly what my grandpa would have wanted,” Hemphill says. “Dave wasn’t self-centered. He didn’t think of himself as an inventor of cashew pizza. He just wanted to feed people and make them happy.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Inglewood police officers could soon be outfitted with body-worn cameras.

The Inglewood City Council will vote Tuesday on a $6.3 million purchase from police tech company Axon to kit out the city’s police department with body cameras as well as drones, Tasers and 98 stationary Automated License Plate Recognition devices, known commonly as ALPRs. 

Activists have been calling for Inglewood police to wear body cameras since Bryan Bostic’s unexplained death in police custody March 10. Video of the incident captured by a bystander shows police pinning Bostic to the ground. Investigations by the offices of the L.A. County District Attorney into the police use of force and L.A. County Medical Examiner into Bostic’s cause of death are ongoing. 

The city says it has been researching the tech additions, including the body cameras, since last August, and the police department began chasing grants for body-worn cameras and drones in January. 

The L.A. Police Department began widely using body cameras in 2015, followed by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department in 2020. 

Activist Najee Ali, who has helped coordinate recent demonstrations calling for Inglewood officers to wear body cameras, said the devices would be a game-changer.

“We are optimistic this is going to happen,” Ali said. “Certainly this is long overdue.” 

Ali said activists had been planning to put forward a city ballot initiative to mandate police body cameras. He remains concerned about how the city will set police body camera policy. 

City staff wrote in meeting documents that the new tech would enhance the department’s capacity ahead of a string of mega-events — including this summer’s FIFA World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics. 

The city has not yet finalized contract terms with Axon. Councilmembers could vote Tuesday to authorize city staff to wrap up negotiations and execute a final agreement. 

The city estimated Inglewood could pay an average of $1.3 million annually over the life of a five-year agreement with Axon, which would provide software platforms along with the new equipment. 

Here’s the tech that comes in the package

The package would include body cameras as well as new Tasers, meeting documents indicate. The Inglewood Police Department has 186 sworn officers, according to the city website. 

Twenty-five vehicles would be outfitted with Fleet 3 video cameras that can automatically read and look up vehicle license plates. The ALPR tech will also be rolled out via 98 stationary cameras affixed to light posts and mounted in other locations.

Stationary ALPRs scan license plates and log a vehicle’s location at a given time. Police tout their ability to rapidly locate stolen vehicles or fleeing suspects. Critics say they lack oversight and that their data can be too broadly shared, including with federal immigration agents.

The devices Inglewood is purchasing also have livestream video capability, according to Axon’s website. 

The city will also get a total of seven camera drones, including the Skydio 10 and its indoor-focused cousin, the Skydio R10. 

How to make your voice heard

The Inglewood City Council meets at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Inglewood City Hall, 1 W. Manchester Blvd. Members of the public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed purchase ahead of the city council’s vote.  

Limited seating is available in council chambers. Members of the public have been directed to watch proceedings and deliver public comment from an overflow room during some recent meetings.

If people can’t make the meeting, they may submit written comments to the city clerk at athompson@cityofinglewood.org, or to the deputy city clerk at dwesley@cityofinglewood.org.

Comments must be submitted by 8 a.m. Tuesday in order to be distributed to councilmembers ahead of the meeting. 

Full meeting documents are available at cityofinglewood.org.

Staff with The Plant Chica were busy the day before the event receiving, labeling and preparing indoor plants at the open-air shop in Leimert Park. The company’s co-founder, Sandra Mejia, said everyone should have a plant in their home.

“Plants aren't necessarily something that people are going out of their way to buy,” she said.

And many people who’ve come to her adopt-a-plant events have never had plants in their homes and, therefore, have not experienced what it’s like to take care of a plant and see it grow.

“If we're giving them out for free, then people come and they take them, and then now they're plant people,” which means, she said, that some become advocates for more plants indoors and outdoors as well as public green space.

The giveaways have grown

Mejia’s first plant giveaway started in her home, she said, in 2018. It was an effort to clear out the less popular plants. It didn’t go so well, but after she moved it to her shop, which has been in several locations around South L.A., near where she was raised by Salvadoran parents, the plant giveaway has grown.

Her family first instilled a love of plants, and she keeps them involved.

“My dad is at home right now, printing the information sheet for the plant so people know how to take care of the plants, and he's cutting them for me,” Mejia said.

Some of the plants are donated by local greenhouses and the rest are paid for, about $2,500 she said, out of her business’ marketing budget.

Staff at The Plant Chica, Philip Bucknor and Odessey Osteen-Diluca

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

/

LAist

)

What kind of plants are we talking about

The giveaway includes philodendrons, like pink princess, which are good starter plants because they’re low maintenance, tradescantia plants, which have green and purple leaves, as well as prayer plants, whose scientific name is maranta leuconeura. These get their nickname from the opening of their leaves during the day and closing at night, like hands in prayer.

“Everybody deserves a plant that's cleaning the oxygen around them. Everybody should have some sort of thumb in the green somewhere,” said Philip Bucknor, who started out as DJ at events for The Plant Chica and began working for the shop last year with the unofficial title of “vibe curator.”

That includes helping people through a feeling he hears a lot — “I don’t want to kill the plant.”

“My thing is helping people understand the right plant for them and not overthinking these tasks of taking care of a plant,” he said.

That means, he said, don’t overdo watering, be chill and feel your plant’s vibe.

He’s set to do that with people who come to the plant giveaway Saturday.

As the story goes, it started with eight women in India.

A small group of runners in bright flowing saris darted through the streets of Bangalore to show that fitness doesn’t have to be about running gear and race culture but can look like anything you want it to.

Ten years and thousands of participants later, the Saree Run is crossing the ocean.

The U.S. edition of the Saree Run debuts Sunday in Huntington Beach Central Park East, where 5K runners and walkers are encouraged to drape themselves in saris in a celebration of health and culture.

The U.S. edition is the brainchild of L.A.-based Indian American event organizer Aanal Patel. She discovered the Saree Run through an Instagram video, one of many online, sent by a friend urging her to bring it to the U.S.

“I thought it was really, really cool,” Patel, 35, said. “But I was like, I don't know if people in the States would be interested in this because mainly here we wear saris for special occasions like weddings and receptions."

In contrast to India where the sari is part of everyday wear for many women, the sari is worn in the U.S. more for special occasions like weddings.

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Courtesy of Aanal Patel

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By contrast, saris are part of everyday dress for many women in India. But the idea stuck with Patel, who’d run plenty of races herself. She’s also spent years organizing events for the South Asian diaspora like Bollywood trivia games and singles mixers.

The Saree Run, she reasoned, could be another place for the diaspora to connect and spotlight urgent issues. Like how South Asians face higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions. And how many women, she said, don't prioritize their health.

“We are consistently putting other people in front of our own health – our husbands, our children, our community, our households,” Patel said.

Another driving force for Patel — and a point of departure from the event’s origins in India — is the lack of South Asian visibility in fitness and wellness branding in the U.s.

“India is the birthplace of yoga. We're also the birthplace of Ayurveda, and you still don't see us represented in those spaces,” Patel said. “I wanted to bring representation into that space.”

Where it began

Before Patel moved forward with putting on a Saree Run, she sought the blessing of the event’s founder Pramod Deshpande.

A Bangalore-based tech consultant specializing in A.I., Deshpande is also a former competitive runner and long-time running coach focused on getting Indians to move more.

The 63-year-old “Coach Pramod,” as his runners call him, came up with the Saree Run after noticing how in India women rise to top roles in government and boardrooms but are noticeably missing from the fitness world.

When he and his trainees ran through neighborhoods, women would stare at them “like we are somebody from another world.”

“Then we realized that these ladies are really interested in doing this, but are held back because of other social pressures and family responsibilities,” Deshpande said.

Safety concerns about running alone as a woman is also a big issue. The Saree Run offers strength in numbers as well as a sense of ease. Running in saris – about six yards of fabric which can be draped to fit every body type – takes the pressure off the women to feel that they have to look like models in fitness ads, Deshpande said.

The Saree Run has held nine editions in six cities across India since 2016.

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Courtesy of the Saree Run

)

Saree Run participants who kept at it typically shed their saris for lighter running gear like Deshpande’s own mother-in-law. She started running at 78 and now at 82 recently completed a half-marathon in pants and a T-shirt.

Stories like hers have helped fuel the Saree Run’s growth. Since 2016, the Saree Run has held nine editions across six cities with tens of thousands joining so far.

At the most recent event in Pune, more than 5,000 women turned out, Deshpande said.

A call from abroad

When Patel reached out to Deshpande about bringing the concept to the U.S., he was surprised – and impressed.

“I thought, this girl has some guts,” he said, noting it took years for the Saree Run to gain traction in India.

Patel, who moved to L.A. a year and a half ago from Denver, has gamely taken on challenges of organizing a run for the first time with a small team of volunteers.

She scouted a dozen parks across L.A. and Orange counties before settling on Huntington Beach's Central Park East because it could accommodate both the run and a full day of free programming.

Aside from the 5K, there will be yoga sessions, dance classes, wellness workshops and a speaker series.

Tickets to participate in the run will be $50 a person and includes a swag bag. After expenses, proceeds will go to the Artesia-based nonprofit South Asian Helpline And Referral Agency for abuse survivors.

Run participants are strongly encouraged – but not required – to wear South Asian cultural attire which could also include a dupatta, a traditional scarf, or a kurti, a long tunic.

“Because our goal is to break the stigma,” Patel said. “Our goal is fitness without inhibitions.”

Most, though, will come in saris. Given that there are over 300 draping styles, what will Patel choose?

She’s opting for the dhoti style, which "does allow a separation between the legs for movement."

Interest has already come from other cities like Austin, Denver and Chicago with people online asking when the event might come their way.

Deshpande is also looking ahead. From India, he’s hoping to assist Patel with growing the U.S. version by tapping into diaspora networks.

“I'm here to help Aanal make it big,” Deshpande said.

With fewer than six weeks to go before the June election, candidates running for City of L.A. and Los Angeles Unified School District offices have raised a combined $19 million, according to records from the L.A. City Ethics Commission.

Campaigns for mayor, District 11 City Council member and city attorney have emerged as the most funded races.

Here’s how they stack up:

L.A. mayor

Mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Adam Miller are leading all L.A. city candidates in fundraising, with $3.7 million and $2.7 million raised so far, respectively.

The candidates have tapped into very different sources to fund their campaigns.

Miller, a tech entrepreneur and leader of multiple nonprofits, has loaned $2.5 million to his own campaign and raised just $223,000 from donors since entering the race in February.

Bass, on the other hand, had already gathered more than $2.3 million in contributions by January. She’d received some of those donations as far back as July 2024.

The city’s matching funds program has also given Bass a nearly $874,000 boost over Miller, who did not qualify to receive a 6-to-1 match from the city on donations that meet certain criteria.

Nithya Raman, City Council member for L.A.’s District 4, has had the quickest growth in donor support out of all candidates for mayor after entering the race in February.

She’s received a combined $1.1 million from direct contributions and matching funds from the city.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has received about $538,000 in contributions, and Presbyterian minister and community organizer Rae Huang has taken in about $273,000.

District 11

Traci Park, who is the current City Council member for the 11th district, has brought in about $1.4 million so far through contributions and matching funds.

Faizah Malik is an attorney at the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel and is challenging Park for her council seat. She has raised about $632,000.

This race also has the largest amount of outside spending across the city and LAUSD.

About $972,000 has been spent in support of Park, including about $634,000 from the Los Angeles Police Protective League and $297,000 from a committee sponsored by United Firefighters of L.A. City.

Unite Here, a labor union representing hospitality workers, has spent more than $220,000 in support of Malik.

City attorney

Hydee Feldstein Soto, the incumbent city attorney, has raised nearly $1.2 million in contributions and matching funds.

Marissa Roy, deputy attorney general, has raised nearly $1 million in her race to unseat Feldstein Soto.

Deputy District Attorney John McKinney and human rights attorney Aida Ashouri have raised about $73,000 and $14,000, respectively, in the race.