Food

Fall 2012

Summer Blues

In 1944, when Glenn Aldrich was 12, he helped his father carry blueberry plants into an old sheep pasture next to their home. The family then planted the first commercial blueberries in Lewis County and some of the first in the state.

Maybe it was fate, says Aldrich ’58, ’62, but somehow his father had found the perfect crop for the soft acid soils along the Cowlitz River. The berries flourished there in Mossyrock, a pretty pocket of the valley.

Sixty-eight years later those berry bushes tower over Aldrich. In the intervening years, he has added some 20 more acres, spent time in the Air … » More …

Summer 2012

Recipes: Raspberries

Raspberries can add a tartness and zing to any number of dishes. Try out these recipes from the Washington Red Raspberry Commission, and visit their website for more recipes, health and nutrition information, and storage and cooking tips.

Read about raspberries in the Summer 2012 In Season.

Raspberry Frozen Custard

Makes about 1 quart or 8 to 10 servings

Call it frozen custard, call it gelato—by any name this smooth and intensely flavored frozen dessert is fantastic. You can freeze the custard in an old-fashioned ice cream maker using ice and salt, but it’s … » More …

Summer 2012

Raspberries

The cultivation of raspberries is, compared to that of other fruits, a relatively recent endeavor. Rubus idaeus, “the bramble bush of Ida,” purportedly grew on the slopes of Mount Ida and was enjoyed by the residents of the city of Troy. Ida, the nursemaid to the infant Zeus, pricked her finger while picking the originally snow-white berries, staining them red from that time forth. But it was not until the last four or five hundred years, writes D.L. Jennings in his Raspberries and Blackberries, that raspberries have been domesticated.

Today, nearly 60 percent of U.S. red raspberries are produced in Washington. Almost all of the … » More …

Spring 2012

How to cook lean beef

Most of us are accustomed to eating beef from cattle finished on grain. The finishing process builds up intramuscular fat and can result in tasty, fat-marbleized meat. But many of Washington’s small and medium-scale cattle ranches finish their cattle on forage and pasture, resulting in a much leaner beef with lower levels of fat and cholesterol. And this leaner meat requires a different approach to cooking.

Here are a few tips from 3 Sisters Cattle Company and the American Grassfed Association to achieving the best results with pasture-fed beef.

Because the meat has less fat, it … » More …

Spring 2012

Recipe: Swiss Chard with Garlicky Chickpeas

It was hard to pick just one recipe from Tender. But given the winter season, the ingredients (chickpeas, chard and garlic) that we’ve recently featured in our magazine, and the smart simplicity of this dish, we chose this one to share.

Serves 4 to 6

Garbanzo Beans

1 cup or more garbanzo beans, drained (canned are fine)
5 garlic cloves, peeled
1 sweet onion or 2 large shallots, sliced thin
2 bay leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil to coat

Swiss chard

2 bunches of Swiss chard
2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and … » More …

Spring 2012

A delicious dilemma: Ingredients for a photographic still life

With Washington’s abundance of food, we struggled to limit the still life photo for our feature “A Feast of Good Things” to just a few ingredients. Besides the native, naturally occurring foods like shellfish and salmon, our state rates second in the nation in sheer number of crops produced. Here’s a sampling:

Olympia oyster While clams and other oysters reach market size in two years or less, the Olympia can take four to five years. Even then, it’s still quite small. Native … » More …

Spring 2012

A Feast of Good Things

Fall was a fortunate season at the Tonnemaker farm in Royal City, Washington. A warm October provided brothers Kurt ’84 and Kole a few extra weeks of squash, tomatoes, and peppers to load into their trucks and deliver to farmers markets and restaurants around the state.

This family farm has changed since the current generation took charge of it. It was established by WSU extension agent Orland Tonnemaker ’22 and his wife Pearl. In 1962 they planted orchards of cherries, pears, and apples. Like many of the farms around them, they sold their fruit to area warehouses.

During cherry harvest in 1981, Orland died, and … » More …

Ron ’86 and Shelly Muzzall with their daughters

Spring 2012

A Cattle Drive

Penn Cove may be known for its mussels, but just across the Whidbey Island bay from Coupeville is another operation—the Muzzall family farm, known to local grass-fed beef fans as the Three Sisters Cattle Company.

The farm was founded in 1910 by Ron Muzzall’s great-grandparents. For generations it was a dairy. When Ron ’86 returned from college, the farm had 50 cows. With his wife, Shelly, who grew up with family farming in Eastern Washington, he planned to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

But the dairy business was changing so fast. To keep up, the Muzzalls had to continuously add to their herd—something … » More …

Spring 2012

Video: How Feeding Styles Work

Most parents work hard to prepare nutritious, well-balanced meals for their children. But, once the children sit down to eat, what can parents do to help them learn how to eat healthy? What can parents say and do to encourage children to try new foods and to prevent them from overeating?

Research has identified three common feeding styles among parents of young children. By observing families, we have found which of these styles is the most successful in helping children eat healthy.

See how these feeding styles work—or don’t work—in common situations in the home.

Spring 2012

Eat your broccoli or no cookie: Feeding styles and childhood obesity

Ever try to get a child to stop munching potato chips and eat some carrots? That push toward healthier foods can sometimes contribute to familial strife, make it difficult for children to tell when they are full, and even increase the possibility of children becoming obese.

“Parents struggle all the time to get their kids to eat the right foods or to try their fruits and vegetables,” says Thomas Power, chair of Washington State University’s Department of Human Development. And a child’s innate ability to determine how much to eat can be compromised in these situations, he adds.

» More …