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Tuesday, March 22, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
WENDY
SCHMIDT
BETWEEN THE ROWS
Eager to
get going
in the
garden
T
his time of year always
seems to be a great time
to start planning and
planting a garden. It’s hard to
wait to watch seedlings grow,
and to be outside with hands
in soil.
Almost nothing should be
done outdoors, yet, for fear of
Jack Frost nipping it or making
an outright kill.
One plant group seems
oblivious to all the worry
and weather, and that is the
legumes. It’s time to plant
peas, sweet peas and fava
beans. To give them a good
start, soak the seeds overnight
in a little dish of water.
Plant sweet peas and snap,
snow, or garden peas under
a trellis, as most of these are
vining in habit. Fava beans
don’t need a trellis, but sup-
port may be necessary later in
locations where wind may be a
problem.
Many people plant their
potatoes around or on St. Pat-
rick’s Day. The only reason I
have for doing that is tradition.
Potatoes do like an early start.
Other garden plants with
longer growing seasons are
more productive with a head
start. A nice, loose seed-
starting planting mix with
extra perlite added will grow
great roots that are easier to
separate when it’s time to
transplant.
Seeds of tomatoes, peppers,
and eggplant should be started
indoors sometime in this next
two weeks. A greenhouse is
not necessary: a kitchen win-
dowsill works just fine.
Potting soil in the cups
should be constantly damp, but
not soppy wet. It is exciting to
see the weather become spring.
This past winter seemed as if
it would last forever.
Plan to support the La
Grande Middle School chil-
dren in their plant sale early in
May. It is a fundraising event
which helps the community.
Good luck in your garden
endeavors and thanks for
reading!
–––
Wendy Schmidt is a
La Grande resident who writes
an occasional column about
gardening topics.
Ben Mims/Los Angeles Times-TNS
Masa harina and sugar give classic cornbread a more vivid corn flavor.
Cornbread:
Fresh take on an old favorite
By BEN MIMS
Los Angeles Times
L
OS ANGELES — One
afternoon, as I was
preparing a Southern
meal for friends coming over for
dinner, I realized I had forgotten
to make the cornbread. But
since I keep all the ingredients
on hand at all times, I knew I
wouldn’t have a problem quickly
baking a round. However, as I
searched through my pantry, I
saw that I had no cornmeal left,
but in its place on the shelf, a
lone bag of masa harina. “Corn
for corn,” I thought and decided
to use it to make my cornbread.
The recipe — my grandmother’s,
ground to varying degrees of coarse-
ness. It is usually made with dent
which I have made countless times
corn, a variety of “field corn” that is
in my life — made with masa harina
covered in a hard starch exterior cov-
produced a cornbread that was dis-
tinctly different from what I was used ering a soft starch center. (Polenta,
to but was equally delicious. It had a
a coarse ground cornmeal, is made
much more pronounced corn flavor
with flint corn, which is mostly hard
and was softer. It was one of those
starch throughout.)
small experiments that turned out to
Masa harina, however, is made by
be a much
first soaking
bigger deal
the corn
It was one of those small
in hind-
kernels in
sight — the experiments that turned out to be a
an alkaline
happen-
like
much bigger deal in hindsight — the solution
stance of
slaked lime
happenstance of its creation opened or lye, which
its creation
opened my
the
my mind to what cornbread could be. dissolves
mind to
hard outer
what corn-
shell and
bread could be.
leaves behind the soft starch center.
Masa harina in cornbread isn’t
This center is then ground fine and
new, but it’s still not as common as
dried to produce the masa harina.
I think it should be. But to under-
The soaking step makes the corn
stand the ingredient’s brilliance in
more easily digestible but it also has
this application, we first must define
the added benefit of making the corn
what it is and isn’t. Typically, the
taste more, well, corny.
cornmeal you and I buy in grocery
See, Cornbread/Page B3
stores is made with dried corn that is
Sprouse-Reitz’s longtime La Grande home
GINNY
MAMMEN
OUT AND ABOUT
M
oving east to 1303-05
Adams Ave. in down-
town La Grande, we
learn, going back to 1888, there
was a two-story frame building
located here. It was identified
on the Sanborn Map as Armory
Hall on the second floor. Com-
mercial space was available on
the street level.
The last two businesses in
this frame building were oper-
ated by a true entrepreneur by
the name of Jack Childs, the har-
ness maker with the shop on the
southwest corner of Adams and
Fir. Here he was operating his
contracting and house-moving
business while at the same time
managing a large department
store called the Emporium,
selling everything from house-
hold goods to clothing.
When the frame building was
torn down in 1900 the Empo-
rium went out of business and
Jack relocated his contracting
and house-moving business. An
Fred Hill Collection
This 1948 photo shows the Sprouse-Reitz store, at right, in the Masonic Building,
1303-05 Adams Ave., in downtown La Grande.
ornate two-story blond brick
building was erected in this
location by the Masons, at the
cost of $20,000, to serve as their
Lodge Hall on the second story
and provide commercial space at
the street level.
One of the earliest occupants
of the new building’s commer-
cial space was Thompson &
Bramwell, Jewelers, in 1902-03.
Later, E.E. Kirtley had a wom-
en’s clothing and dry goods
store in this location. By 1920,
when the Bohnenkamps needed
to expand their showroom space
into 1303-1305, E.E. Kirkley,
the Campbell sisters Ladies
Furnishings, Fisher’s 5-10-15
cent store and probably several
other businesses had all come
and gone. Christie & Amsden
Variety Store was there but
“ready to deal” and move out
leaving the entire commercial
space as an expansion for the
Bohnenkamps.
By the early 1930s the space
again became available and the
popular Norton Kiddy Shop,
offering clothing from newborn
to age 15, moved in and stayed
until mid 1942. It was then when
the occupant with the most lon-
gevity moved into the building.
This was Sprouse-Reitz,
which had first opened its doors
in La Grande on Sept. 11, 1926,
in the Roesch Building at 1408
Adams Ave. At that time it was
advertised as a 5-10-15 cent
store with nothing over 49 cents.
Then on July 31, 1942, it moved
from the Roesch Building into
the newly remodeled space at
1303-05 Adams, with the fran-
chise’s red-and-gray color
scheme showing up on the store-
front tile and awnings as well
as throughout the store. They
remained here until 1974 when
the Big Value Eighty Eight
variety store move in.
During the 1980s this space
was converted back into two
commercial spaces occupied
by a variety of stores including
Charlie’s Sports and Sights &
Sounds Home Theater. JaxDog
Cafe and Books and Find Your
Why Travel are currently housed
in this location.
Sprouse-Reitz was founded in
Tacoma, Washington, in 1909.
It soon became a popular five-
and-dime store that had its base
in Portland. At its peak it had
more than 470 stores in 11 states
in the western United States.
In the 1980s Sprouse-Reitz
was declining in business and
in March of 1994 the last store
closed its doors.
Throughout the years the
La Grande store had expanded
into the second floor and offered
many more items than the orig-
inal five-and-dime. There was
something for every member
of the family. It offered tools,
ties and socks for men; var-
ious undergarments and toi-
letries for women; and electric
trains, dolls, mechanical toys,
and games for the children. And
finally for the whole family they
offered the largest assortment
of candy in town. Sprouse-Reitz
played an important part in
downtown La Grande for nearly
50 years.
Keep looking up! Enjoy!