Home Living
Flavored
Popcorn
1B
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
WENDY
SCHMIDT
BETWEEN THE ROWS
Welcome
summer,
and farewell
to readers
Summer is good because annuals
and perennials are all blooming. The
grapes are growing like mad and then
the fruit is here for jam and canning
and preserving. Freezing produce is
the easiest, but if the freezer or elec-
tricity quit, you are up a creek unless
you have a friend with a freezer, or
you can drop everything and can the
produce to save it. Unless of course
the freezer goes out on your vacation
and is undiscovered before everything
thaws.
Who wants to can all the vege-
tables and meat? Produce with low
acid requires a pressure cooker and
long canning times. It seems until
COVID-19 came along (everyone iso-
lated with too much time on their
hands) preservation by canning has
somewhat gone out of fashion.
Of course, some of us seem to have
a “canning switch” embedded in out
nature. When produce piles up, we
hate to see food wasted, so we give
produce away to save ourselves work
then start canning whether we need it
in the pantry or not. Then there are the
realistic theories that there are tough
times coming.
Fall is the time of harvest and col-
ored leaves and great weather. Time
to put the garden to bed for the winter.
Walnuts, ﬁ lberts, grapes, plums, late
apples and burning leaves scent the air.
Frost is nippy and woods and forests
are wonderful for hikes (summer heat
is gone).
Winter has become one of my
favorite seasons. Using the produce
to make soup, and cocoa after a chilly
walk are memorable.
Spring is exhilarating with the
garden and whole earth coming to life.
This seems a good time to stop
writing my column. Time for you
to stop hearing my opinions and let
someone else have their chance to tell
you their perspective and information
they have that is diﬀ erent and new.
From time to time I may submit a
guest column. If you have garden com-
ments or questions, please write me
at Schmidt.wendy1948@gmail.com
or google either my name or “green
garden column.” I do plan to have a
website or blog when things start to
slow down in autumn. I have enjoyed
writing, thanks for reading!
NO
PASSING
FAD
Hillary Levin/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS
Maple bourbon popcorn.
Simple recipes that could
become your go-to snack
By DANIEL NEMAN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A
ny tortoise will tell you:
Slow and steady wins the
race.
When a new food fad comes
racing down the pike, its ﬂ oppy
ears folded back and its cute little
nose twitching, I usually step
aside to let it zoom past me. I
know that if I keep a steady pace,
I’ll catch up to it in time.
Only then, as I chew thought-
fully on a piece of lettuce, will
I determine whether the fad is
worth my participation — even if
the fad is over and the hares have
gone on to the next hot chocolate
bomb or baked feta pasta.
And that is how I have come
to start making ﬂ avored popcorn.
Flavored popcorn was a thing
maybe ﬁ ve years ago. People
served it at parties. Bars oﬀ ered
it for free for a little while, and
then they started selling it in
little paper bags.
Tortoiselike, I bided my time.
I knew I would eventually want
to try making it myself one day.
That day is ﬁ nally here. I
made some ﬂ avored popcorn and
I have only one question: What
took me so long? This stuﬀ is
amazing. Does everybody know
that? I’ve been eating it by the
ﬁ stful.
Why did people stop making
ﬂ avored popcorn and go on to
other forgotten fads, such as uni-
corn ice cream, acai berries and
rainbow bagels?
Eager to rectify the problem,
I have recently been making
more than my share of ﬂ avored
popcorn. It’s time to get the fad
going again.
I did my part by making nine
diﬀ erent types. Sometimes I
have more ambition than sense,
but they all looked so good. And
it turns out I was right: They all
were indeed so good.
I began with the only one of
the nine that I had made before.
I’m calling it Spiced Popcorn,
because the real name (Curry
Popcorn) is also the name of
another type that I made, and it
ﬁ ts that batch better.
Spiced Popcorn is amazing.
The last time I made it, a vid-
eographer and I ate the entire
batch before my wife could have
a single kernel. I made it again
now so she could ﬁ nally try it.
It’s an unexpectedly com-
plex dish, sharply assertive and
piquant and curiously addic-
tive. With a spice mix composed
of cayenne and black peppers,
cumin and turmeric, it packs
a fair amount of heat, which I
crave. If you don’t want it that
hot, simply dial down the amount
of cayenne and maybe black
pepper.
But try it. It will soon become
your go-to snack.
Or maybe your go-to snack
will be Parmesan and Chipotle
Popcorn, which hits your palate
ﬁ rst with a salty shock of Par-
mesan cheese before yielding
to the smoky warmth of the
Hillary Levin/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS
Black and white chocolate popcorn.
chipotle powder. All you need
beyond that is a little salt and a
lot of butter.
If a visitor from another
country, or planet, asks for the
meaning of the word “savory,”
simply whip up a batch of Par-
mesan and Chipotle Popcorn. It
is like a deﬁ nition you can eat.
Perhaps it is natural, then, that
my next few batches would be
sweet.
The one that I kept going back
to again and again (and again
and again and again) was Peanut
Butter Popcorn.
This variety reminds me of
a Payday candy bar with a pop-
corn core. More than just peanut
butter goes into it, of course, it is
also ﬂ avored with honey, vanilla,
peanuts and — because it is pop-
corn — butter.
This peanut-butter version
was stickier than the others and
tended to clump together, like
a popcorn ball, but with ﬂ avor.
I did not let that bother me; it
simply led to more opportunities
to lick my ﬁ ngers.
If you like Payday bars, you
will love Peanut Butter Popcorn.
Also, if you don’t like Payday
bars.
The favorite choice of a teen-
aged neighbor taste tester was
Maple-Bourbon Popcorn (hers
didn’t have much bourbon in it).
It is easy to see why, and hard to
dispute her.
Not only does it feature the
absolutely classic combination
of maple syrup, brown sugar,
butter and a varying amount of
bourbon, but it also has the most
intriguing texture. I dried the
mixture in the oven at a rela-
tively low temperature to give it
a satisfyingly crisp crunch.
Fans of cinnamon and sugar,
which I assume is pretty much
everyone, will want to try my
Cinnamon Sugar Popcorn. I
simply mixed together a batch
of cinnamon-sugar, such as you
would use for cinnamon toast,
and sprinkled it over hot buttered
popcorn.
And yes, it is just as amazing
as you think it would be.
See POPCORN, page B2
La Grande building emerged from the ashes
By GINNY MAMMEN
The last building on this block,
currently Red Cross Drug at 1123
Adams Ave. in La Grande, but
known on the National Register
of Historic Places as the Sommer
Building at 1119 Adams, was
constructed in 1891 by Aaron
Sommer. It replaced a two-story
wood-frame general store, built in
the late 1880s, and destroyed by
the ﬁ re of July 1891 which dev-
astated many other downtown
structures.
The new building, constructed
by Sommer, was an imposing
two-story structure of red brick
with a Queen Anne-style deco-
rative frieze and cornice. There
were many windows on the
second ﬂ oor and large display
windows on the Depot side of the
lower level. The current building
at the northwest corner of Adams
and Depot bears no resemblance
to the original.
The Sommer Building soon
became a beehive of activity for
downtown La Grande. A variety
of businesses occupied the ﬁ rst
ﬂ oor. The 1893 Sanborn map
indicates that a tailor, a jewelry
shop, a dry goods and clothing
shop, a meat market and a saloon
were located on the ﬁ rst ﬂ oor.
The original tailor in the tailor
shop is unknown but by 1885 this
was the home of Paul Lederle and
his daughter Pauline’s cleaning
Fred Hill Collection
Silverthorn and Mack’s, shown in this 1909 photo, is one of the many businesses that have occupied 1119 Adams Ave. in La Grande.
and tailoring business.
The other shops were J.H.
McLaughlin’s jewelry store, Ash
Brothers’ clothing store, Wallace
and O’Toole’s meat market and
an unknown saloon. By 1903 the
jewelry shop was also gone and
Paul and Pauline shared adjoining
rooms with the Western Union
Telegraph oﬃ ce.
The second ﬂ oor housed
oﬃ ces for numerous medical and
legal services. Among them were
Willard W. Hindmen and John
W. Knowles, both lawyers, and
Dr. Fred E. Moore, an osteopath.
Over the years they were joined
by dentists J. L. and L. D. Reavis,
and attorneys C. H. Finn and F. S.
Ivanhoe and many others.
By 1910, O. E. Silverthorn’s
Drug Store occupied the corner
space of the ﬁ rst ﬂ oor of the
building where Ash Brothers’
store had been. Mr. Silverthorn
oﬀ ered much more than a cure
for what ailed you. He carried
multiple other items including
razors, fountain pens, goldﬁ sh
and Bibles, plus a “home remedy
treatment for whisky and beer
habit.” And if that wasn’t enough
he oﬀ ered cantaloupe sundaes at
his soda fountain that was open
every night until 11 o’clock.
In May of 1922, Glass Drugs
replaced Silverthorn’s Drug Store.
The Sommer building over the
years has undergone a number
of renovations. In September of
1922 The Observer reported that
“The interior and front of the
store have been completely ren-
ovated and present a modern,
eﬃ cient and pleasing appear-
ance.” Into this newly created
space recently vacated by the Ash
Brothers’, and oﬀ ering clothing
placing men of La Grande “on
a par with the best dressed men
of London and New York” was
Westenhaver and Gilbert Mens’
Store, which had moved from
1309 Adams.
Some of the second ﬂ oor
occupants of that era were
Drs. Ralston, Hill, Richard-
son,Woodell and two of my
favorite people, Dr. Margaret and
Dr. Joe Ingle.
Some time between 1922 and
1942 the building took on its cur-
rent facade with the white bricks
and a much more subtle cornice
and frieze than the original.
The original Sommer Building
was constructed following the
ﬁ re of 1891. In May of 1966 ﬁ re
struck again. This time the struc-
ture was saved.
The building provides the
place, but the people provide the
heart and soul. So who were some
of these people?
See BUILDING, page B2