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.