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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!