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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2020)
B Tuesday, September 29, 2020 The Observer & Baker City Herald Desserts So Decadent They’re Worth Every Calorie BOB’S THOUGHTS BOB BAUM Those frenetic Phoenix Suns As the NBA playoffs in the Orlando “bubble’’ move toward the conclusion, I decided to write another column on pro basketball. I estimate I’ve covered at least 1,200 NBA games, certainly more than 1,000. I ought to be able to get a few columns out of that. My earlier column focused on my 23 years with the Trail Blazers. This time I’ll focus on my 20 years covering the Phoenix Suns, specifi cally the frenetic “Seven Seconds or Less’’ teams with Mike D’Antoni as coach Steve Nash as the on-court maestro. It was a high-speed, highly enter- taining style. The Suns drafted Nash out of Santa Clara with the No. 15 pick in 1996. But two years later, with Phoenix deal- ing with a crowd at point guard, he was traded to Dallas, where he teamed with his good friend Dirk Nowitzki. See Hoops/Page 2B BETWEEN THE ROWS WENDY SCHMIDT Refreshed by cooler, clearer air Hillary Levin/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS Blue Hill Buffet’s cheesecake. (D IS )C OUNTING T HOSE C ALORIES By Daniel Neman St. Louis Post-Dispatch The weather is cooling down a lot. The hot weather promised to us was snuffed by smoke. Looks like it may be a cool Indian summer. It would be nice if we could order a nice soaking rain so that the “Tree City” trees could better last the winter. It’s really time to drag the hose around to serve our yard trees a long drink before winter arrives. The roses are really into cooler weather as they are now blooming. The brisk mornings are certainly refresh- ing. There’s nothing like fresh air to lift your spirits! The end of summer does not mean fresh fruit abruptly stops. There are still prune plums to consider. See Plums/Page 2B It’s so disappointing. You go to a restaurant or a friend’s house for dinner. All meal long, you are anticipating g the grand event, the crowning glory — a superb dessert, rich and sweet, the perfect ending to an enchanting meal. And then the dessert comes. And it’s, you know, OK. Could be better. Mediocre or not even that. Suddenly, the meal is no longer quite as enchanting. lly when you con- It’s so disappointing, especially dlessly consumed on sider the calories that you needlessly un of the mill. Inad- a dessert that was ordinary. Run equate. Fortunately, you don’t have to take it anymore — at least not when you’re is cooking at home. To remedy this plague of defi cient desserts, I decided to cook four dishes that are fi lled with all the decadent things that make desserts so sublime. I made four desserts that are worth the calories. I would have made fi ve, but I’ve already written about my carrot cake. Of the ones I made, my favorite is the Lemon Marscapone Layer Cake. This is a (relatively) towering four- layer cake worthy of any restaurant or bakery. It is made with three different types of lemony goodness, but they are light and airy and subtle so they blend i into a happy, soft harmony. The base of this cake is a plain old ordi ordinary sponge cake, but don’t let that fool you. F First you make a simple lemon syrup that y you brush on each layer, which eagerly soaks it up. Then you spread each layer with a fi lling m made from mascarpone cheese, whipped c cream ream and lem lemon curd — homemade lemon curd is best (I’ve thoughtfully included a Hillary Levin/St. Louis Post- recipe) but you can use the store- Dispatch/TNS bought version if you like. Pearl tapioca pudding And then each layer of fi lling is further topped with a thin spreading of more lemon curd. Because why not? It’s a sturdy cake, but also delicate in taste and te texture, topped with a gossamer-like frostin frosting. It takes some time and effort to make — I wouldn’t recommend it to a baking novice — but each forkful is sheer bliss. That said, my favorite of the four desserts is the Raspberry and Chocolate Tart. See Decadent/Page 3B An old building reveals one of its long-held secrets By Ginny Mammen When the Orpheum Theatre was completed in 1910 it took up all of lot six and a part of lot seven on Adams Avenue leaving a vacant space between the theater and the next building. One thing Stephen Gardinier could not tolerate was an empty lot. So in the latter half of 1911, he started construction on a 2-story building to fi ll the gap. The lower story would be for commercial oc- cupancy with housing on the second fl oor. The front portion of the second story was developed into a cozy living quarters for Stephen and his wife Madlin. It was said that Ste- phen could go from the mezzanine of the theater into his apartment next door. But how could this be since they were on different levels? Buildings, just like ghost signs, can hold information from us only to be revealed in due time. When 1012 Adams was recently being Fred Hill collection Stairs led from the front apart- ment to the mezzanine level of the building Stephen Gardinier built on Adams Avenue. readied for renovation, it was dis- covered there had been a stairwell going from the front apartment down to the mezzanine level of the theater on one side of the com- mon wall and then allowing entry through the common wall into the theater. This also created a branch to the stairs from the theater mez- zanine going down to the street level. Over the years remodels of both buildings had erased the origi- nal sets of stairs. The fi rst occupant of the lower fl oor of the new building was the Dalton Cash Store, which carried everything from clothing for the whole family to sewing notions, household items to groceries. In fact he carried so many items that the following fall Mr. Dalton expanded his space by adding a balcony that he planned to have ready for displaying a large exhibit of holiday goods. That year he also advertised that Santa would make an appear- ance and would have 2,000 sacks of candy for the “little folks.” Dalton was Sixton Hjalmar Dal- ton, born in Blackford, Sweden, in 1879. He immigrated to the United States in July 1899, just before his 20th birthday. Sixton arrived in Minnesota and went to work as a brickyard laborer. Between 1905 and 1910 he married, and left Min- nesota with his wife Annie Marie (nee Satterberg) and young son Walter to move to La Grande. The Daltons were in La Grande only until October of 1913 when they moved to Naches, Washington, to be nearer to relatives of Anne Marie. In November 1913 it was an- nounced that the George A. Ander- son Company of Boise would open a branch house in La Grande in the former Dalton Cash Store loca- tion. They would carry a full line of ladies’ ready-to-wear and would be open on Nov. 19. Then the unthink- able happened — fi re broke out in the basement of the Gardinier building. Thanks to quick thinking by the fi re department, chemicals were used instead of water to quench the fi re and the new stock of clothing was not damaged. However, by winter of 1914, the George A. Anderson Company was out of business and the new occu- pants coming in were A. B. Cherry, the fl orist, and Eastern Oregon Produce, who were going to share the space. We have covered a number of years and businesses and we still don’t know why the name of the building at 1012 Adams listed on the National Register of Historic Places is shown as C. D. Putnam’s Ready to Wear. (You will note throughout the following, the name of C. D. Putman is spelled “Putman” and “Putnam” in various places. However, though his businesses had his name spelled in two ways, this was the same person. Even offi cial documents differed in the spelling.) See Secrets/Page 2B
