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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2021)
B Tuesday, February 16, 2021 The Observer & Baker City Herald BETWEEN THE ROWS WENDY SCHMIDT Yucca: a bit of the desert at home Yucca has many alternative names — Adam’s Needle, soap plant, fl annel leaf, among others. The yucca is an impressive desert succulent plant. It’s evergreen, so it doesn’t die during the winter. The ones native to the desert southwest are used to very cold winters and winter snow. Yucca fi lamentosa can be gray-green or variegated green and cream. The plants are impressive, being at least 3 feet wide, often with many offsets growing beside them. Yucca spines are toxic, so allow a lot of space for them in the garden. If you back into their spines by mistake you’ll remember it quite awhile as the punc- tures heal slowly. The spines contain toxins of saponin and euphorbia. From the roots, native Americans would make a very effective soap for clothing, and shampoo for their hair. To grow yucca as a houseplants use loose, well-draining potting mix, or mix two or three parts sand to one part of fi ne peat moss. Full sun or partial sun is required. The yucca will get spindly and sick without enough light. Many medicinal uses have been found for yucca and yucca root. Used for osteo arthritis, high blood pressure, migraines, colitis, diabetes, liver and gall bladder ailments. In the tropics, yuccas are a major source of protein. The roots must be cooked because their peeling contains cyanide. Cooking detoxifi es it, though, and it tastes somewhat nutty with a texture like potatoes. Keeping a yucca as a houseplants is a rather recent trend. If you have garden questions or com- ments, please write to greengarden column@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading! Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch-TNS Classic New Orleans bread pudding with a bourbon sauce is an appropriate Mardi Gras dish. M MMM ... M ARDI G RAS but in America it is inextricably linked to New Orleans — despite the best efforts of The woman eyed me not with suspicion Soulard. Even those of us who are less likely but with curiosity, or perhaps amusement. to partake of the general licentiousness look We were at a grocery store. We were fi rst to New Orleans for inspiration in cooking looking for sausage at the same time, and Mardi Gras food. then we were standing together in front of For my own celebration, I cooked four the shrimp. and a half dishes that represent some of “Are we here for the same reason?” she the Big Easy’s best-known foods. The half- said. “Are you making jambalaya, too?” dish is just rice, but it is unusually good Of course I was. It was Carnival. Mardi rice. And you can’t have red beans and rice Gras was fast approaching (it’s Feb. 16). without rice. Carnival, and especially Mardi Gras, are In some respects, red beans and rice is like a last fl ing, one fi nal chance at debauch- the blood that fl ows through the veins of ery — or at least gluttony and perhaps New Orleans. Louis Armstrong, perhaps drunkenness — before the religious austerity the most New Orleanian of all New Orlea- and meditation of Lent. nians, used to sign his letters “Red beans Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world, and ricely yours.” For that reason alone, I Daniel Neman St. Louis Post-Dispatch knew I had to make it. Also, I happen to love red beans and rice. The secret to making it is time; this is a dish that takes a while to cook. You could speed it up by starting with canned beans instead of dry, but you would miss out on the near-miraculous blending of fl avors that comes with a two-hour simmer on the stove. You don’t even soak the beans fi rst; that would shorten the cooking time. Like so much New Orleans cooking, Red Beans and Rice begins with what is known as the trinity: onions, celery and green bell pepper. Ham hocks and bay leaves add their contributions, with chopped green onions providing a pungent edge just before serving. See Mardi Gras/Page 2B Exploring the surprising versatility of the sweet potato potato is a sweet potato. Its uniqueness is both its There is no mistaking a curse and its charm. Noth- sweet potato. ing else is quite like it, but You can’t eat one and won- that also means its utility is der whether it is, perhaps, limited. It is not something a zucchini. No one has ever you would ever want to use sampled one and confused it as a substitute for another with a turnip. It is impossible ingredient. It is, as they say, to take one for broccoli, or what it is. even a regular potato. One thing it isn’t, inci- Sweet potato is a sweet dentally, is a yam. Though Daniel Neman St. Louis Post-Dispatch both are root vegetables, they are unrelated (for that matter, sweet potatoes are only distantly related to our common potatoes). They don’t even look alike — yams resemble horseradish roots, and can grow to be more than 50 pounds — and yams are much less sweet, drier and starchier. True yams are almost never sold in America, though you can sometimes fi nd them in international markets. In general, if it is labeled either a yam or a sweet potato, it’s a sweet potato. And that is fortunate, be- cause I just cooked fi ve dishes featuring sweet potatoes, and they were all delicious, down to the last orange crumb. I started with chili, which is a good place to start in all circumstances. A friend had recommended a vegan sweet potato chili recipe that he likes, and he recommended it so strenuously that I decided to give it a try. I don’t always see eye- to-eye with this friend, though we have been close for nearly 50 years. But I’ll give him this: He knows his vegan sweet potato chili. Sweet and hot fl avors al- ways go well together, as long as they are not too sweet and not too hot. In this chili they are a perfect blend, with the mild natural sweetness of the sweet potato bringing out the best in the mild heat of the chili powder, and vice versa. See Sweet/Page 3B Caviness Building preserves legacy of a local leader By Ginny Mammen Our next building as we continue east is 1116 Adams Ave., known as the Caviness Building on the National Historic Register, and currently the home of the Golden Crown restaurant. It was con- structed in 1892 by John Caviness to house his meat market, and the building is identifi ed as such on the 1893 Sanborn Map. A February 1893 edition of the La Grande Weekly Gazette reported that “John Caviness’ new butcher shop is completed and ready for occupancy. It is the best and most conveniently arranged shop in eastern Oregon.” Over the next few decades it remained a meat market and was home to both the City Meat Market and the Grande Ronde Meat Market. John Lafayette Caviness was born on Dec. 7, 1839, in Morgan County, Indiana, to Fredrick Caviness and his wife Zerilda. Like many other families they heard the call of the West. In 1852, when John was only 13, Fredrick and Zerilda with their four children crossed the plains and arrived in Linn County, Oregon, John ready to take it on. He had no formal education, but while driving cattle through Eastern Oregon he studied his fi rst books. He was close to Salmon, Idaho, when the fi rst gold rush was on there and he hired out to a freighting company hauling supplies for the miners. Saving his wages, he bought a freighting outfi t of his own and hauled the fi rst steam boiler from Umatilla Landing to Walla Walla. Finally at the ripe old age of 22, John Caviness arrived in the Grande Ronde Valley and set up his home- stead in what is now Island City. The Richard Hermens and John Turner collection year was 1862. A year later he mar- The Caviness Building at 1116 ried Casandra (Cassie) Stotts, who Adams Ave. is named for John had also come to the valley in 1862 Caviness, a pioneer of the by wagon train from Iowa, her birth Grande Ronde Valley. state. Her stepfather was the captain of the wagon train and was wounded south of Salem. They settled into in a battle with the Indians. It was a communal type of living with said that Cassie drove one of her Fredrick working as a carpenter. stepfather’s four-horse teams most of Between 1852 and 1860 Fred- the distance. Casandra’s mother had rick and Zerilda added fi ve more married John Stott in 1836 and after children to their family. John was his death married John K. Kennedy still living at home in 1860 while in 1849, when Cassie was about 5 working as a farm laborer. However years old. wherever there was work, there was John Caviness and his wife were not what you would call socialites. Cassie kept the home and raised fi ve children — three daughters and two sons. John was a man of many interests. It was said of him that he became the busiest man east of the Cascade Mountains. He was a prominent farmer, businessman and civic leader. John sold his fi rst crop of wheat for $1.50 a bushel to John Wilkinson, who in 1863 had built the fi rst mill in the Grande Ronde Valley above La Grande in Mill Creek Canyon. In 1871 John Caviness harnessed the waters of the Grande Ronde for his own mill. He constructed a fl our- ing mill and operated fi ve farms in the valley plus a 1,000-acre ranch near Joseph. He constructed the fi rst schoolhouse in Island City and provided the salary for the teacher as well as other expenses for the school. He also constructed a church in Island City. He owned the fi rst telephone company in this area, was a director of Island City Bank, direc- tor of the United States National Bank of La Grande, president of the County Fair Association for 10 years, operated two sawmills and had interest in the Minam Lumber Company. He also had mining interests in the Malheur Gold Min- ing Co. In 1902 he was looked to be the nominee of the Republican Conven- tion for “joint Senator from Morrow, Umatilla and Union counties.” The Observer reported on March 21, 1902: “He has shown by his indus- try, and intelligent application to his own business that he will be a safe representative to send to Salem.” Caviness was a leader and his actions caused other farmers to follow suit. As a farmer in 1904, he constructed three silos 9 feet in diameter and 22 feet high to store feed for not less than 20 cows to be able to furnish the La Grande Creamery “with product.” This resulted in many other silos being built in the area. John and Cassie Caviness were true pioneers in the Grande Ronde Valley, coming when it was just a wilderness and staying to see it grow into a thriving and prosper- ous city. They were married for 60 years. Cassie died in 1923 and John in 1925.