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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 2020)
B Tuesday, July 28, 2020 The Observer & Baker City Herald Finding The Right Product For Frying Food BETWEEN THE ROWS WENDY SCHMIDT Keeping a garden journal can help you avoid the unexpected The world of gardening is complex or simple — whatever way you want it to be. That is the remarkable thing about it: You can tailor it to fi t your lifestyle. There comes a point in life that things get forgotten if they’re not written down. That’s where a garden journal will help you out. The journal can help make your garden better if things are notated and if you refer back to it to help remember when you fertilized which plants. It is much like taking care of your car. You may get by just fi ne trying to remember when to change the oil, but exactly when did you buy those tires? Did you ever get them rotated? Besides, it’s nice to have a reminder to change the oil. It cuts down the times of panic when the idiot lights shine out from the dash. When you keep a journal you can note the location you plant a new plant and keep track of its name, variety, when you bought it and how it’s doing. The peas are about fi nished (because of the hot weather they’ll soon die back). I’m thinking it would be worth the gamble to plant a row of bush beans in their place. Every year the weather is a bit different, but I’m willing to take a chance this year. Garden chores • Provide water in the garden for birds, especially during dry weather. • While spraying roses with fungi- cides, mix a little extra and spray hardy phlox to prevent powdery mildew. • Water newly planted trees and shrubs thoroughly every week. • Fertilize container plants every 2 weeks with a water-soluble solution. • Keep weeds from making seeds now. Your vigilance will mean less weeding next year. • Keep dead-heading annuals for repeat blooms. • Plant zinnia seed now for late bloom in annual borders. • Stop pinching mums now, or autumn fl owering will be delayed. • Summer pruning of shade trees can be done now. • Divide bearded iris now. • Dig potatoes when the tops die. • Plant fall potatoes now. If you have garden comments or ques- tions, please write to greengardencol- umn@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading! Genevieve Ko/Los Angeles Times-TNS Homemade doughnut holes. C HOOSE T HE B EST F AT F OR T HE J OB over higher heats sputters and can burn you. If you want butter’s distinctive flavor in dishes Using the right kind of fat for different types that require frying, use usli ghee, a staple in In- of frying will make whatever you cook more dian cuisine, or clarified butter. Clarifying butter delicious. — removing the whey and water by applying Generally, the higher a fat’s smoke point — gentle heat — raises the point at which the the temperature at which the fat goes from hot butter smokes from 300 degrees to 450 degrees. and shimmery to smoky and acrid — the more Ghee is cooked longer than clarified butter, giv- versatile and durable it is as a frying medium. A ing it a nuttier aroma. wisp of smoke is fine before tossing ingredients Even though ghee and clarified butter won’t into a wok for a stir-fry or skillet for a sear, but smoke until that high temperature, their flavor a plume rising from the pan means the oil is is more potent when used in medium-low and burning, and the taste of burnt (not browned or medium-heat frying. toasted) fat is rarely what we’re looking for in • Medium to medium-high heat: rendered the kitchen. animal fats (lard; beef tallow; chicken fat To figure out which fat I want to use for which (schmaltz); duck fat) frying job, I think of them in these categories: Lard was fundamental to cooking around the • Low to medium heat: butter (fresh and world until the dawn of processed and heavily clarified) and usli ghee marketed fats like Crisco. It’s a staple of Mexi- Butter’s fat content ranges from 80% to 85%; can cooking, which makes it easy to find in L.A. the rest is 13% to 18% water and 1% to 2% Thanks to the popularity of the keto diet, other milkfat solids and whey proteins. When heated, rendered animal fats are now readily available butter goes from melted to brown to burnt. If it at supermarkets and online too. They taste the hits that last stage, it will ruin whatever you’re richest of all fats and with smoke points that cooking — plus, the fat colliding with the water range from 375 to 400 degrees, they can be used By Genevieve Ko Los Angeles Times for searing, sizzling and other higher-heat cook- ing, including deep-frying. The rendering process may leave some liquid in the fat, so watch out for popping when you heat it. • Medium-high to high heat: refined vegetable- based oils (vegetable, canola, corn, peanut, sun- flower, safflower, rice bran, virgin/light/pure olive, refined avocado and grapeseed) Vegetable oils that are processed and refined after pressing end up with high smoke points, so they can be used in a multitude of ways and last longer in the pantry. What they lack in taste, they make up for in versatility. With smoke points that range from 390 to 510 degrees, these oils can be used for stir-frying, high- heat sauteing and shallow- and deep-frying. Shal- low and deep-frying, when food is partly or fully immersed in bubbling hot oil, require knowing the exact temperature of the oil. If you maintain the correct temperature, you’ll be rewarded with crunchy outsides and properly cooked insides. The food won’t absorb excess oil or feel greasy and actually end up tasting light and crisp. See Frying/Page 2B Erickson and Durland Building has a rich history By Ginny Mammen The building at 1517-25 Jeffer- son Ave. has no historic name but has had many common names and owners over the years. The loca- tion, close to the railroad tracks, made this warehouse building a choice spot for a number of busi- nesses. Some of these were Smith- Noble Produce Co., Smith-Nibarger Produce Co., C. W. Bunting & Son, Erickson & Durland and later as Erickson & Lottes. Only the Erick- son and Durland name has survived through the years in the ghost sign on the building’s wall facing the railroad tracks. The original brick building at 1525 Jefferson was constructed around 1906 as a warehouse originally used for the storage of fl our and produce on one end, and cement, sash, doors, and hardware on the other. Over the years addi- tions were constructed making a unit of 1517-25. In the early 1920s was created as a part of the Blue Mountain Fruit Exchange in this Jefferson Avenue building. These merchants, as their prede- cessors, carried a variety of goods cov- ering just about anything one would need. This included poultry supplies, garden seed, apples, cherries, and potatoes, coal, fertilizers, cement, lime and sprays. In January 1931 Durland sold out to Fredrick Lottes. The new busi- ness, Erickson and Lottes, continued offering many of the same products and adding new ones when the need arose. Erickson left the business in 1945 and in 1946 Lottes offi cially changed the name to Lottes Ware- Photo from the Fred Hill Collection house. The building at 1517-25 Jefferson in La Grande has been the site of August Erland Erickson, born several businesses over the years, including the Erickson and Dur- in Sweden in 1884, came to the land Dealers, which sold grain, poultry supplies and other items. United States in the late 1890s with his family to live in Wyoming. August Erickson was a shareholder interest, Erickson took Benjamin Sometime after 1905 August moved with Nibarger in C. W. Bunting Durland into the partnership and in from Wyoming to Union County and Son. When Nibarger sold his 1924 Erickson and Durland Dealers and worked as a farm hand and later becoming the farm manager. In 1908 he married Lorna Loger, a young woman from Cove. August was a hard worker and before long he owned his own farm and a 7-acre cherry orchard in May Park as well as his growing business on Jefferson. August and Lorna had two children — a son and a daughter. August died in February 1976 in La Grande at the age of 92. His partner, Benjamin Merrill Dur- land, was born in Kansas in 1878. Ben married Nellie Mooney in 1905 and shortly after, as many young couples did during that time, moved West to start their married lives. One of his jobs during the early part of the 1900s was that of manager of the Grande Ronde Fruit Company ranch at the foot of Mount Emily. The Feb. 21, 1916, Observer reported that Mr. Durland had been away from home and Mrs. Durand met him at the train. See History/Page 2B
