If sublimity is a perfectly ripe watermelon, then where do 101 varieties take you?
I used to think watermelon was pretty much watermelon. Aside from some variability in ripeness and sweetness, you taste one, you taste them all. I am pleased to report that, as with a select few other things, I was wrong.
Last August [2005] I was fortunate to be in Vancouver on the day that Carol Miles hosted her watermelon tasting. That summer, as well as the previous, Miles had conducted variety trials of small “icebox” watermelons, in order to determine their suitability for organic production by small farmers in western Washington.
In March, Don Olmstead Jr. (’70 Hort.) watches over his cherry trees night and day, ready to activate a heating system or switch on the wind machines to protect the tender buds from a killing frost. It’s a task he shares with his son and business partner, Don Olmstead III (’98 Hort.).
In April, the Olmsteads worry about pollination, which only works if pollen is on the blossoms and the weather is right for insect activity. Since most cherries can’t self-pollinate, there must be another variety close by and in bloom. To facilitate cross-pollination, the Olmsteads hire one beehive per acre, inviting a few million … » More …
In a wooded spot a half-mile from Washington State University’s Pullman campus, an older woman with long braids and an apron emblazoned with the words “got buns?” tended an alderwood fire. Geraldine Jim, a salmon expert from the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, used the back of a pickup truck as her staging area. She threaded the salmon halves lengthwise onto long, stripped sticks of dogwood and ironwood. While the fish roasted, she circled the fire, running her hand up the skin side to feel for doneness. She pointed out how a half-section of the fish is threaded down the stick, the thin tail end … » More …
Skillfully sidestepping the busy wait staff, Mylene Barizo circulates among the 100 diners attending the Cougar Etiquette Dinner in the Todd Hall atrium. She stops, chats casually with student-athletes seated around tables for eight, then moves on. Members of the athletic department, other University units, and Pullman community leaders are table hosts.
Barizo encourages questions, offers advice. Trying to catch people between bites is tricky. The three-course meal includes grilled Coho salmon, mai-fun noodle lace, oven-roasted game hen, garlic potato puree, and sautéed seasonal vegetables. Dessert is raspberry sorbet.
Barizo is regional human resources manager for dinner … » More …
Barry Swanson, professor of food science, and I see eye to eye on at least one significant issue. We like our rhubarb pie to be made exclusively with rhubarb. NOT strawberries. Just rhubarb.
However, Swanson actually prefers his rhubarb as sauce, over ice cream. Although Swanson does no research on the tart vegetable, he is an avid enthusiast and considers it an acidic parallel to his work with cranberries. And obviously, given his rhubarb enthusiasm, Swanson is from the Midwest, where every old farmstead has a rhubarb patch. “Mom always made rhubarb pie in the spring,” he says.
Rhubarb is also known by Midwesterners as … » More …
Washington may not yet have reached cheese heaven. But we're now well
past the purgatory of cheese sameness. And we have the WSU Creamery,
and Cougar Gold as a delicious standard, to thank for much of this
progress. » More ...
While Listeria monocytogenes accounts for only 1/100th of 1
percent of all food-borne illnesses in the United States, it's
responsible for a whopping 28 percent of annual deaths. Development of
a quick test for the pathogen promises to drastically reduce that
statistic. » More ...
