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Tuesday, July 6, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
ANN
BLOOM
NUTRITION: IT’S
ALL GOOD
Don’t let food
poisoning ruin
your barbecue
Simple steps can
prevent foodborne
illnesses
Summer is the season for
barbecue. Perhaps the fi rst
thing people think of when
they think of barbecuing is
tri-tip roasts and steaks, then
maybe it is hamburgers. Of
course, there are hot dogs,
chicken and even the occa-
sional pork chop or fi sh that
turns up on the grill. All are
delicious served with their
respective trimmings — buns,
lettuce, tomatoes, pickles,
onion and condiments. And
let’s not leave out the sides,
right? Potato and macaroni
salads, fruit salads and baked
See, Barbecue/Page B3
WENDY
SCHMIDT
BETWEEN THE ROWS
Surviving
the summer
doldrums
Stickiness and needing a
shower 24/7 seems to be the
new normal. It’s only slightly
better than being asleep under
the grass, but you can’t call
this quality living. Every living
thing needs extra hydration
and air circulation and peaceful
coolness.
Icy drinks and the enticing
clink of ice in a tall glass are
the next thing to erotic. It’s
most defi nitely summer and the
season of hot.
Most of our summer gar-
dens are fi lled with plants that
won’t survive winter here.
They’re tropical plants, whose
prime growing conditions
resemble our summer.
The so-called “cool season
vegetables” still don’t survive
winter here. Many because
they’re annuals, not perennials,
and genetically programmed to
survive only one short season.
I’m thinking carrots, fava
beans, beets and some greens.
Then there are what I think
of as deciduous or dormant
perennials like artichokes,
peonies (only the herbaceous
kind), four o’clocks, bulbs,
rhubarb, day lilies, and sev-
eral others that lose all foliage
above ground level, then
regrow all of their herbaceous
stems and leaves every spring.
When planting in the
autumn, be mindful of the
location of these types of dor-
mant plants, as they may not
survive being cut into while
they are invisible from above
ground.
Garden Chores
• As garden catalogs arrive,
look through them on hot
summer afternoons. Ordering
what you need promptly
assures that you will get the
things you want. Some pretty,
popular and/or rare items are
sold out if you wait too late.
• You can plant cool season
vegetables now in place of
early produce such as peas and
radishes which are fi nished, to
extend your growing season
into autumn.
• Try succession planting
corn to have several harvests.
For instance plant more seeds
every two weeks.
• Hoping for a late frost, it’s
possible to plant fast-maturing
vegetables such as cucumbers.
• Deadhead annuals to
encourage blooming.
If you have garden ques-
tions or comments please write
to Schmidt.wendy1948@gmail.
com. Thanks for reading!
Hillary Levin-St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS
Homemade Touch of Grace biscuits.
By DANIEL NEMAN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Talking about biscuits
can get downright sensual.
Even a little naughty.
They’re warm, fl aky,
steamy, soft, rounded, fra-
grant, buttery, golden,
glistening and immensely
satisfying.
Basically, they are
everything you could ever
want in a breakfast bread,
a luncheon carbohydrate
or even a dinner roll. They
are fun to make, as well,
and not too hard.
The best part, though,
is smelling them as they
cook, with the anticipation
of biting into them when
they are still warm enough
to melt butter and soak up
jam or honey.
Recently, I made dozens
of biscuits in an assort-
ment of styles, sizes and
textures. This experience
has given me insight into
certain biscuit facts:
• As with pie crusts and
bread, the more you work
a biscuit dough the tougher
the results will be. The dry
and wet ingredients in bis-
cuits are always mixed just
until they come together to
form a ball.
• Biscuits are leav-
ened with baking powder
Hillary Levin-St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS
They aren’t necessary for
making biscuits, but they
sure help and are fun to
use.
• Biscuit cutters should
be pressed down through
the dough. Twisting them
essentially seals the bis-
cuit’s edge, which keeps
them from rising evenly.
• Biscuits have more
calories than you think.
I’m sorry, but it can’t be
helped. That’s why they
taste so good.
Here are the biscuits I
made:
Homemade Cream biscuits.
or both baking powder
and baking soda. They
are never made with
yeast. But as with all good
rules, there is an excep-
tion: Angel biscuits are
made with baking powder,
baking soda and yeast.
• Self-rising fl our,
which is essential in many
Southern biscuit recipes, is
fl our with baking powder
mixed into it, along with a
couple of phosphates.
• In the South, bis-
cuits are usually made
with White Lily brand
fl our, which is made from
soft winter wheat. Winter
wheat has less protein than
spring wheat, which means
baked goods made from it
are softer and lighter than
those made from other
brands.
• Shirley O. Corriher,
a native Georgian who is
something of a legend in
the culinary world, has
devised a clever work-
around for people who
want Southern biscuits but
can’t fi nd White Lily self-
rising fl our: Mix together
a national brand of self-
rising fl our with cake fl our
(which has very low pro-
tein) and add some baking
soda.
• The biscuit cutter,
which resembles a taller
version of a cookie cutter,
was invented in 1875 by
Alexander P. Ashbourne.
Buttermilk Biscuits
These rose the highest
of all the biscuits I made.
Why? Buttermilk is fairly
acidic, and when mixed
with the small amount of
baking soda in the dough
it reacts the same way
baking soda reacts when
mixed with vinegar: It bub-
bles. The bubbles create
tiny air pockets, which
make the biscuits rise.
Buttermilk also hap-
pens to have just the right
taste for biscuits. That
slight tang gives them a
fl avorful warmth and hom-
iness that biscuit-lovers
crave.
Fabulous Biscuits
The name sounds a
little bit too much like
shameless self-promo-
tion, right? And in fact,
the biscuits themselves
are kind of ordinary — if
anything as transcendent
as a biscuit could ever
be considered ordinary.
But just before baking,
you dip every piece of
dough all the way into
melted butter. As a result,
the cooked biscuits are
the most buttery things
ever. And that makes
them fabulous.
Touch of Grace Biscuits
• “Touch of heaven” might
be a better name. These
lightly sweet Southern
specialties are impossibly
light and delicately fl a-
vored. You don’t reach
for them on the platter as
much as grab them as they
fl oat up to the ceiling.
Cream Biscuits
These are classics. If
you close your eyes and
picture a biscuit, this is
probably what you see.
The cream makes them
rich and a little decadent.
They are also the fastest
and easiest to make of the
bunch, if you want a hit of
decadence on the fl y.
See, Biscuits/Page B2
Cool, sweet and healthy: watermelon is the ultimate summer treat
Experts say the fruit is a rich source
of vitamins and other nutrients
By MICHAEL MERSCHEL
American Heart Association News
Whether they’re serving
as snacks at a family
reunion or props in a late-
night comedy act, water-
melons and fun just seem
to go together. But how
does watermelon hold up
health-wise?
Smashingly, you might
say.
“I’m defi nitely
impressed by its health
benefi ts,” said Tim
Allerton, a postdoc-
toral researcher at Loui-
siana State University’s
Pennington Biomedical
Research Center in Baton
Rouge.
Fruit is always part of
a healthy diet. But water-
melon’s combination of
nutrients makes it special,
Allerton said.
It’s a rich source of min-
erals such as potassium
and magnesium. It’s also
a good source of vitamins
C and A (plus beta caro-
tene, which helps produce
vitamin A), and it has fair
amounts of vitamins B1,
B5 and B6. You get all of
that for only 46.5 calories
per cup.
Befi tting its name,
watermelon is about 92%
water, which suggests why
ancestral watermelons
were carried in Africa’s
Kalahari Desert as long as
5,000 years ago. This is a
treat with a lineage: Mod-
ern-looking versions are
depicted in ancient Egyp-
tian tombs.
Where watermelon
really stands out is in its
concentration of certain
antioxidants, which reg-
ulate cell-damaging free
radicals in the body. “Our
body has its own antioxi-
dant system, but it helps to
get a boost from our diet,”
Allerton said. “And water-
melon is a good source of
those antioxidants.”
Lycopene, which gives
watermelon its reddish
color, is one of those anti-
oxidants, along with vita-
mins C and A. Lycopene
also works as an anti-in-
fl ammatory and has been
linked to lower stroke
risk. It is most abundant in
cooked tomato products,
but watermelon’s lyco-
pene levels are about 40%
higher than raw tomatoes.
Watermelon also
has glutathione, which
Allerton called a “versa-
tile, global antioxidant.”
And watermelon is
high in an amino acid
called citrulline, which has
been a focus of Allerton’s
research. “Watermelon is
pretty unique because not
a lot of foods are high in
this,” he said.
In a small 2013 study
published in the Journal
of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry, citrulline in
Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times-TNS
Watermelon is not only sweet, but experts say it’s also healthy.
watermelon juice was
credited with helping
relieve sore muscles in
athletes.
Citrulline also is linked
to the production of nitric
oxide, which is important
for the health of blood ves-
sels. Several small studies
suggest citrulline in water-
melon extract could lower
blood pressure, although
those eff ects were seen in
people eating the equiva-
lent of more than 3 pounds
of watermelon a day for six
weeks.
That’s a lot of water-
melon. But aside from the
general idea that overin-
dulgence in anything is
a bad idea, Allerton said
there’s no downside to
enjoying it.
Even though it has nat-
ural sugar and a high gly-
cemic index — a measure
of how fast sugar enters the
bloodstream — it has a low
glycemic load. That means
its actual eff ect on blood
sugar is small. And it will
fi ll you up faster than, say,
a bowl of cookies.
All nutrition and sci-
ence aside, affi cionados
of the fruit just enjoy the
taste. Superfan Mark
Twain wrote, “It is the
chief of this world’s luxu-
ries, king by the grace of
God over all the fruits of
the earth. When one has
tasted it, he knows what
the angels eat.”
Allerton prefers his
straight up, but he adds
that watermelon juice
retains many of the ben-
efi ts of the whole fruit
because so much of the
fruit is water already.
That makes watermelon
work well in smoothies. Or
you can turn it into a fruit
salsa.
Experts agree the secret
to fi nding a ripe one is to
look for a creamy yellow
spot from where the water-
melon sat on the ground.
If the spot looks more
white than yellow, then the
melon may not be fully
ripe. Weight also is a sign
of quality – the heavier the
better.
But most experts say
you can’t learn much about
a watermelon’s ripeness
from thumping one. So
you can probably leave that
to the comedians.
If you have ques-
tions or comments about
this story, please email
editor@heart.org.
