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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 18, 2020)
B Tuesday, August 18, 2020 The Observer & Baker City Herald BOB’S THOUGHTS Process Isn’t Just For Cucumbers BOB BAUM Getting acquainted with great coaches The old saying goes, coaches are hired to be fi red. And as a sports writer for nearly a half-century, I certainly have been there to chronicle both occasions. From Doc Savage to Lute Olson to Bobby Hurley, I have worked with a lot of excellent coaches. Of course, everyone who’s lived in these parts for a long time probably re- members Doc, who coached La Grande High School to the state football championship in 1974 and later served as county commissioner. I was just turning 18 when I was sports editor of The Observer and he treated me with absolute respect, despite my age. He almost never raised his voice and his players seemed to love him. See Coaches/Page 3B BETWEEN THE ROWS WENDY SCHMIDT Studying your soil Before the advent of soil tests, farm- ers developed a lore about the sig- nifi cance of wild plants in their fi elds. Some of that lore found its way into books. In 1920, the botanist Fredrick Clements stated that each plant is an indicator. The conditions under which the plant grows and fl ourishes are a measure of the conditions. The plant growing in your fi eld furnishes clues as to the composition and quality of the soil it’s growing in. Plants have distinct preferences. E.E. Pfeiffer, one of the practitioners of biodynamic farming, viewed plants as teachers. He stated that weeds are indicating through their mere presence what is wrong. Weeds also indicate what is right with the soil. See Soil/Page 3B Hillary Levin/St. Louis Post-Dispatch-TNS Pickled pears garnished with a cinnamon stick and cloves. G ET I NTO A P ICKLE Let’s begin with green beans, which make straightforward, unfussy pickles. In that Everyone sort of assumes it is the chicken. sense, you can think of them as a skinny ver- Everyone thinks that the process of pickling sion of pickled cucumbers. was invented as a way of preserving food in First, you blanch the green beans; you a time long before refrigeration, and that want them partially cooked, but still crisp. people who tried it decided that it tasted After you have chilled them and put them in great, too. sterilized jars, you make a syrup of vinegar, But what if it were the egg? What if salt and water all simmered together with someone in that long-ago time dropped a an assortment of herbs and fl avorings. Then cucumber in a vat of vinegar and salt because you can them by putting the jars and their he thought it would taste good, and later vacuum-seal lids into a boiling-water bath. discovered to his surprise that the liquid also That’s a standard pickle, and a darned good helped to preserve the vegetables? one. Traditional spiced beets take that same Not that it matters. Pickles are wonderful, formula and adds a small wrinkle, in the and they last a long time. They’re the best of form of the aromatics that they use. both worlds. Ordinary pickled beets are made with And they don’t have to be cucumbers. A nothing more than vinegar, salt and water wide variety of vegetables and even fruit can (and maybe some red wine if you want to be pickled, with excellent results. Even meat get fancy). But the spiced beets I made also can be pickled, if you have a mind to do it. benefi t from cinnamon, cloves, allspice and I don’t. I’ll do anything for food, but I won’t the secret ingredient, star anise. do that. I love pickled beets. I always have. But Instead, I made seven kinds of noncucum- these spiced beets may be my new go-to for ber pickles, covering the spectrum of ingredi- canning. ents and styles — sour and sweet, vegetables Next, I turned to sweet fruit pickles, and and fruit and eggs. I even made a Japanese here is what I learned about them: I really, version of sauerkraut which, when you get really like sweet fruit pickles. down to it, is just pickled cabbage. Pickled cherries — call them cerises au I had one slight drawback in my efforts to vinaigre, if you want — make a delightful be completely diverse in pickles: Three of the snack. Try them with a cheese plate. They varieties I made were fl avored with cinna- are nicely sweet, with just a little hint of the mon and cloves. But what are you going to vinegar that makes them pickles. In fact, do? At least they taste good. the pickling liquid has almost twice as much By Daniel Neman St. Louis Post-Dispatch sugar in it as vinegar. The other ingredients? Our now familiar cinnamon stick and cloves. Pickled pears are less like an hors d’oeuvre and more of a dessert. They are sweeter than the cherries, with just a whisper of vinegar for a contrapuntal edge. And the other fl a- vors? Um, a cinnamon stick and cloves, but also allspice. The other three pickles I made are differ- ent from the fi rst group in that they are not canned — that is, they are not vacuum-sealed in jars. That means they have to be refriger- ated and will not last nearly forever. Picked eggs are kind of a transition from canned pickles to uncanned pickles. Pubs around the world keep a big jar of pickled eggs on the bar and away from a refrigerator. Don’t do that. Pickled eggs use a simmered syrup, so the pickling liquid is concentrated. Even so, the eggs are subject to causing botulism if they are stored at room temperature. In the fridge, they will begin to lose their fl avor after about three or four months. But only if they last that long. Salt and vin- egar are perfect complements to hard-boiled eggs, so pickling them produces egg perfec- tion. I like to add a cooked beet to the pickling liquid, too, which not only turns the eggs a beautiful red but also tempers the sharp (but not unwelcome) fl avor of vinegar. See Pickles/Page 2B Sommer Building’s ghost sign is especially elusive By Ginny Mammen As we have been touring La Grande looking for a ghost — sign, that is — we have found that they can sometimes be quite elusive. The sign that is the subject for this article is more than elusive. It is nearly impossible to see, let alone identify. Yet there is enough to know that it is there, hiding from us. This is the ghost sign located on the upper portion of the north side of the Sommer Building. I am hoping that learning a bit more about this building, its builder and its occupants will entice the ghost to come forward and identify itself. The building at the north- west corner of Adams and Depot, known on the National Register of Historic Places as the Sommer Block, was constructed in 1891 by Aaron Sommer. It replaced a two- storied, wood-frame general store built in the late 1880s and later destroyed by the fire of July 1891. This was the same devastating fire that had also “home remedy treatment for whiskey and beer habit.” Around 1923 Glass Drug replaced Silverthorn Drug- store. Its neighbor on the fi rst fl oor, Westenhaver and Gilbert Men’s Store, offered clothing placing men of La Grande “on a par with the best dressed men of London and New York.” Many of those La Grande men were the ones working in the various offi ces on the second fl oor. For some of you who have been around La Grande for a Photo by Ashley O’Toole while, names of some of the Ghost sign on the north side of the Sommer Buildings. second fl oor occupants will be familiar — Drs. Ralston, Hill, destroyed the area of the Bryan the Sommer Building has Richardson, Woodell and Ingle. and Dumphy Block and many been the home to a number The Sommer Building more downtown structures. of drugstores over the years. was constructed following a The new two-story blond As early as 1883 La Grande fi re and it could have been brick structure soon became a had Wright’s Drug Store, destroyed due to a fi re. In May beehive of activity for down- but it is not known if it was of 1966 fi re struck again. town La Grande. Some of the ever located at this location. This time the structure was earliest occupants included a We know by 1911 that O. E. saved and brought back to life. drugstore, a meat market and Silverthorn had a drugstore The fire, however, may have a saloon on the first floor while on this corner. Mr. Silverthorn been the reason the ghost sign a variety of offices for medical offered much more than drugs went into hiding for all these and legal services occupied the for what ailed you. He carried years. second floor. everything from razors to Who was Sommer? He has The fi rst fl oor corner of fountain pens, and Bibles to a been almost as elusive as the ghost sign on his building. Aaron Sommer was born in Alsace in 1836, later claiming Germany as his home country. As a young lad of 19 he came to the United States to find his fortune. By 1862, at age 26, he had arrived in the Grande Ronde Valley. He became one of the first merchants in old town as shown in the city directories of 1863 and 1864, listing him as having a grocery on C Avenue. In 1866 he married 20-year-old Bertha Wutherines, a young woman from Rodersweir, Ger- many. The 1880 Census still had him listed as a grocer, but the 1900 Census listed him as a “Capitalist.” What had happened in those years between 1880 and 1900? Aaron was a hard worker and he knew when to take advan- tage of a good opportunity. The railroad arrived in La Grande in 1884 and Aaron Sommer, like his fellow entrepreneurs, moved into the area closest to the railroad, buying property that would best service that industry. Following the fire of 1891 he built both the Sommer Block and the Sommer Hotel, located on the corner of Depot and Washington. Mr. Sommer was one of the original stockholders in the La Grande National Bank which was founded in 1887. Of his personal life we know very little. He and Bertha had five daughters and three sons. His obituary stated that he “had hundreds of friends who would miss him dearly.” Aaron Sommer died in La Grande in 1902 and Bertha died in 1909. Their daughters, Fannie and Mary, took over for their father and in 1926 remodeled the part of the building housing Glass Drug, putting in new fixtures, updating wiring and plumbing and installing eight modern show windows and a “hand- some center entrance” to the drugstore. For now however, the ghost sign peeking out from the side of the Sommer Building seems to have chosen to remain a mystery for for us to ponder. Keep looking up! Enjoy!
