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Monday, January 13, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
TRASH TALK
Winter Squash Recipes
GRETCHEN STADLER
Humor can
encourage
us to look
for ways to
recycle
Trash. Plastic. Climate Change.
Death. These are not topics that can
easily be addressed with humor. And
yet my resolution for this year, my chal-
lenge for 2020, is try to do just that. I
started writing this column by looking
for recycling jokes. I’m sure you can
imagine the success I had. The best I
could fi nd was this one:
I’m trying to start a chewing gum
recycling company...
I just need a little help getting it off
the ground!
And that was the best!
So how do average folks move
forward into this new year and decade,
living their values and keeping a
positive outlook while dealing with the
real challenges of modern life? For me,
a couple of people provided the comic
relief and enlightenment I needed.
One of them is Jeb Berrier, “a regular
American man, (who) makes a pledge
to stop using plastic bags at the gro-
cery store and has his life completely
changed.” Jeb is the star of “Bag It,” a
humorous and informative documen-
tary that you can see this week for free.
Baker City Trash Talk and Baker
Food Co-op are hosting a showing of
“Bag It” on Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 6:30
p.m. at the Baker County Library, 2400
Resort St. Free movie. Free popcorn.
Door prizes.
See Humor/Page 2B
BETWEEN
THE ROWS
WENDY SCHMIDT
As winter
bears down,
try some
Brussels
sprouts
It is time to hunker down and endure
the capricious winter weather. Are we
luckier than bears, who sleep all winter
and miss out on thawing cars and
scraping windows?
Bears don’t know the wonder of see-
ing icicles, ice skating, snow ice cream
or frost fl owers. But I totally get want-
ing to sleep.
Lots of things are more or less sea-
sonal. Roast turkey dinners, cranberry
sauce, fruitcake, and pumpkin pie. An-
other seasonal item is Brussels sprouts.
In many parts of the world they are
a vital part of Christmas dinner. I won-
dered why. It turns out the sprouts are
fresh from harvest at about Christmas
time.
Brussels sprouts have an extremely
long season. They are supposedly
sweeter after the fi rst frost. In the
U.K., Brussels sprouts are an industry
worth more than 650 million pounds.
Space devoted to growing only Brus-
sels sprouts covers as much as 3,240
football fi elds.
Sprouts were fi rst grown in ancient
Rome, and elsewhere in Europe since
the 13th century.
See Sprouts/Page 2B
E, Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune-TNS
Acorn squash with cheesy rice and poblanos.
S QUASH IN S EASON
By JeanMarie Brownson
Chicago Tribune
Winter squash, in all shapes, colors and sizes,
fill the market bins at this time of the year. I like
to display a variety on my kitchen counter like
pieces of art. All too often, I skip cooking these
hard beauties because the task feels daunting.
However, a beautiful tower of golden roasted,
sliced delicata squash at St. Lou’s Assembly in
Chicago jolted me out of my kitchen laziness.
Fantastic. As we gobbled up the tender, slightly
sweet squash, skin and all, I vowed to rethink
squash at home. Especially since the squash in
my display basket clearly mocked me.
Looking for insight, I turned to Deborah
Madison’s stunningly beautiful tome “Vegetable
Literacy” (Ten Speed Press, $40, 2013). In her
chapter on the cucurbit family she says there’s
no apparent reason to avoid, shun or fear this
plant family. Winter squash sports more nutri-
tive value, loads of fiber and vitamins than
summer squash. They also prove a great value
for the dollar, in part, because, they keep well
for weeks. Most squash — winter and summer
alike — make fine soups, add texture to stews,
bronze beautifully on a grill or in the oven and
take to savory seasonings as well as acid and
sweet additions.
OK, that’s enough of a sales pitch. I say let’s
cook ‘em while we can!
Acorn squash are everywhere, but these
E, Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune-TNS
Roasted delicata squash rings
days, butternut, spaghetti, delicata, blue Hub-
bard and sweet dumpling appear regularly at
supermarkets and produce stores. I chose small
specimens, free of blemishes and soft spots. Look
at the stem end — where it was attached to the
vine — it should not be too dried out or bruised.
Most winter squash enjoys a steamy environ-
ment for cooking. So, cook them whole (pierced
to allow steam to escape) in the oven or micro-
wave, or speed up the cooking by cutting them
into pieces and adding moisture (water, broth,
oil) during cooking.
See Squash/Page 3B
Quaker Oats containers continue to serve
This isn’t a pitch
truck to go to the Fox Hill
for Quaker Oats
dump for disposal. I always
DORY’S DIARY
per se but about
thought it a shame for some
the box in which
unknown reason to destroy
DOROTHY SWART
they come.
such a perfectly nice box and
FLESHMAN
As a child the
the smiling face it wore. Oc-
container caught
casionally I would rescue an
my interest
emptied one in which to carry
because it was so unlike the others in which
my small toys for play or storage.
we received fl our and sugar and other eatable
When I grew up and married, the Quaker
items.
Oats regime went with me to feed my own
The oats box was shaped round and tall of
family the traditional oats breakfast to fi ll
thin sturdy cardboard and wore the smiling
our tummies and send us all out on a healthy,
face of a gentleman in a wide-brimmed hat
hearty day at work or school or myself at home
that seemed to suggest welcoming me to a
to do housework.
pleasant day once I had eaten my bowl of hot
Then came the days of boxed ready-to-eat
oatmeal and milk.
cereal and their enticing prizes and clubs. The
It was all done in shades of blue and white
Quaker boxes were fewer but I still thought the
on a red background, perhaps suggesting the empties should have another life, another use.
colonial day or to instill patriotism. I can’t
When winter hits the calendar and snow
recall that the design of it has ever changed,
normally covers the ground I most often have
which I appreciated as something stable in an felt the need to do sewing, crocheting, knitting,
unstable world.
or embroidery work of some kind. It follows the
When the box fi rst appeared on our pantry days when school starts and I used to search
shelf I can’t remember, for it just always
for school shirt patterns and fl annel materials
seemed to be there and connected with hot
to be sewed and readied for my boys on open-
cereal and toast most every morning when
ing day.
served in place of hotcakes, eggs and syrup,
Yarn for making afghans, caps and mittens,
or when Mom baked and I found her oatmeal or sweaters used to come in skeins that had to
cookies tucked in my lunch box for school.
be rolled into balls with which to work into use-
When the box was emptied, my mother
able items for winter. The balls then rolled and
would toss it out on the burn pile in the back
unrolled in boxes or sacks awaiting use.
yard or into the trash boxes loaded in the
Finally came the machine-readied skeins of
yarn with a strand to pull at one end of the fl at
skein lying on the fl oor.
That’s when I searched my sewing cupboard
for a way to get the yarn off the fl oor and found
my perfect answer in an unused Quaker Oats
container among those in which I had gathered
many small balls of unused yarn neatly carted
away.
A current skein of yarn, upended, fi t perfect-
ly in its identifying wrapper into the opening of
the tall round cardboard box with the working
end upright and ready for use with the one end
of the yarn hanging out for my use beside my
chair.
Now, as one of the original recyclers, I note
a row of Quaker Oats tall boxes, each bearing
a skein of upended yarn at my color-selected
dispersal, each color in its own box and visible
for selection.
And, may I say, the container comes with a
lid that fi ts on the bottom of the oat box until it
is needed again as a lid on top for a dust protec-
tor of unused yarn, ready for its next use.
Now I have a neat row of smiling faces to
brighten my day whenever the urge to do
handwork beckons me. And, there are days
when I need to see a happy, smiling face to
cheer me on. I hope he never changes.
Editor’s note: Dory, a longtime columnist for the
Home & Living section, offi cially retired at the
end of August 2019 but she will contribute an
occasional column.