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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 9, 2015)
GRAB BAG book shelf • glimpse • wildlife • pop culture • words • q&a • food • fun NW word COLUMBIA BAR nerd Blackberry Mojito By RYAN HUME By RYAN HUME Baggywrinkle Photo by Matt Love The Screw and Brew adds a little punk rock to Cannon Beach. A G LIMPSE I NSIDE An occasional feature by MATT LOVE Screw and Brew I had an hour to kill in Cannon Beach before being interviewed for a top-secret documentary film. Why not kill that hour with a beer? Why not kill it inside the Can- non Beach Hardware and Public House, or Screw and Brew as it’s colloquially known. I’d never been there before, heard great things about it, and well, I also needed some batteries for my camera. I walked inside and took a seat in the bar area. I instantly dug the décor: funky, kitsch, utilitarian, a little Bohemian, a little cheeky, too. The condom packages posted on either side of a mounted, painted, crosscut saw blade were an especially amusing touch. Maybe Cannon Beach is a little more ribald than I thought. There was even a lending library near a window, which soothes my soul as an author. Naturally, I stashed one of my books in there. Maybe someone will steal it. An ale brewed in some desert city of Eastern Oregon appealed to me. I ordered it and looked over to a table hosting an attractive family of five with three children under the age of 8 or 9. Every one of the kids was fiddling on a fancy phone while the parents sipped margaritas in silence. Coloring is dead. The beer arrived, and it tasted good. The NBA finals were un- derway on television, and I heard someone waxing about the Portland Trail Blazers, circa 1977, and how Larry Steele was his fa- vorite member of the franchise’s only league championship. My favorite Blazer on that legendary team was Herm Gilliam, quite possibly the last NBA player to wear white canvas Chuck Taylor hightops while winning a title. I glanced around some more. Almost all the servers sported tattoos. There was even a local young woman with a turquoise streak in her blonde hair. They looked good, kind of tough, kind of punk rock. Maybe Cannon Beach is a little tougher and punk rock than I thought. An hour elapsed, and it was time to hit the road. I walked to the truck and drove away. Five minutes later, I realized I had forgotten the batteries. Matt Love lives in Astoria and is the author/editor of 13 books about Oregon, including A Nice Piece of Astoria: A Narrative Guide. They are available at coastal bookstores and through www.nestuccaspitpress.com. >E JLU,ƾNԥO@ noun 1. nautical: Chafing gear, resembling a mophead, primarily constructed out of short lengths of frayed rope and knotted with two pieces of marline, hoisted into the mast stays and shrouds to buttress the sail from the rigging and pre- vent wear and tear; origi- nally an improvised type of scotchman or batten Origin: Also spelled “bag-o’-wrin- kles,” “baggy rinkle,” “boogy winkle” and so on. No known use prior to the mid-20th century since standardization is not a concern of nautical slang. Though since it is associated with the tall ships of centuries past, it is logical to assume the term has been active on deck well before this date. The current spelling is noted by Merriam-Webster to first appear in 1951, though Richard Mayne, in his “The Language of Sailing,” claims the it was first attested by Bur- gess in his dictionary in 1961. There is no OED listing. Mayne goes on to theo- rize that the current spelling probably arrived from “bag-o’- wrinkles,” which makes sense, as the expression seems as improvisational as the jer- ry-rigged sennit the word has come to represent as it trav- eled the seas from hyphenat- ed idiom to compound noun. For and About Women: On the Beach,” The Oregonian, March 2, 1965, P. 21 “‘They’re called baggywrinkles,’ the captain said. Made from old, un- raveled bits of rope, baggywrinkles help protect the sails. When sails come into contact with standard rope, chafing can produce holes, so soft baggywrinkles provide a cush- ioning barrier between the sails and rigging.” — Rebecca Sedlak, “Out & About: Ahoy, from the Lady Washington,” Coast Weekend, June 14, 2015, P. 3 help but think that Papa would approve. Now located at the historic 14th Street Pi- lot Station and rebranded as a Cafe and Public House, Clemente’s, a longtime Astoria stalwart, has entered its third and perhaps coziest incar- nation yet. To the right of the door of the small dining room sits a 16-foot-long bar cut from old-growth Doug Fir that looks out onto Pier 14 and the mercurial river. The new menu still has plenty of martinis, but on a recent sunny after- noon, chef Gordon Clement had returned from a day off with some hand-picked blackberries and there was fresh mint behind the bar. In other words, all the fixing for an Oregon mojito. “Summer in a glass,” the bartender announced as she presented the final product. It’s said that when Ernest Hemingway wasn’t searching for German submarines from a wooden fi shing boat off the coast of Havana around the onset of the U.S.’s involvement in WWII, he became quite the connoisseur of the mojito. With a rum drink in hand and a boat in the distance, I couldn’t 2 ounces Bacardi rum 1/2 ounce simple syrup 7-10 fresh mint leaves 4 lime wedges One handful fresh Oregon blackberries, to taste Soda water Ice Reserve a few blackberries for garnish. In the bottom of a cocktail shaker, muddle the limes, mint and remaining blackberries. Add ice and mud- dle again. Add the rum and simple syrup and shake until cold. Strain into a pint glass full of ice, then top with soda water. Garnish with lime and reserved blackberries. —Recipe courtesy of Saralee Cokley, bartender at Clemente’s Cafe and Public House, Astoria, Oregon “Presently the [Columbia Riv- er Maritime Museum] is hoping to acquire enough funds to open the building’s second deck. That’s the upstairs to most of us landlubbers who don’t use such terms as bulk- head, baggywrinkle, artificial hori- zons, and all that.” —Maryetta, “Hostess House: News July 9, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 23