Get Outside!
SNOW ADVENTURES
HAPPY
NEW YE AR!
UNDISCOVERED HAWAII
Fresh &
Healthy Recipes
Heart y
Dinner Salads
Guilt- Free
Snacks
Chefs’ Favorite
Citrus Dishes
GLUTENFREE
YOUR DREAM
HOME
on a
BUDGET
P. 40
Orange
Cake
P. 88
EXPERIENCE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
the WEST
¬anuary
49
LET IT SNOW
Experience the West’s
world-class powder
with our guide to cozy
lodges and winter
fun—on and off the
slopes. Essays by Josh
Dean & Pam Houston
62
TREASURED ISLAND
A couple revisits the
backroads and secret
beaches of the Big
Island, where they
fell in love—this time
with a ukelele-mad
10-year-old in tow.
By Peggy Orenstein
70
MEYER LEMON LOVE
Chefs’ recipes for
marrying our favorite
backyard citrus with
crab pasta, braised
chicken, and more.
By Elaine Johnson
ON THE COVER
Snow adventures p. 49
Undiscovered Hawaii
p. 62
The magic of the Big Island
is that it feels both old and young,
harsh and gentle.
TREASURED ISLAND, p. 62
Photograph by
T H O M A S J. S T O RY
Fresh & healthy
recipes p. 70, 79, 84,
90, 94
Dream home on a
budget p. 40
Cake cover: Photograph
by Thomas J. Story; food
styling by Karen Shinto.
Hawaii cover: Photograph by Thomas J. Story.
EXPERIENCE the WEST
6
January
THIS MONTH’S
RECIPES
CONVERSATIONS
BEST OF THE WEST
SNACKS
Furikake Popcorn ..................96
Garlic Parmesan Popcorn ....96
Salt & Pepper Popcorn .........96
Smoked Paprika Popcorn .....96
9 Napa’s
truffle fest (and star
dog), Ted Turner’s ranch deal,
THIS MONTH’S PICKS
new cruise terminal, and more
SOUP, SALADS & SIDE
TRAVEL
Classic spots
17 and
new favorites in San
Diego’s Balboa Park
ASK A LOCAL
33
HOME & GARDEN
Our favorite
33 stone-fruit
trees, from a classic
peach to new hybrids, and
PLANT NOW
Chicken with Preserved Meyer
Lemon & Olives GF/LC .....77
Coconut Milk Shrimp
GF/LC .................................96
Crab Pasta with Prosecco &
Meyer Lemon Sauce LS .....76
Orecchiette with Escarole,
Capers & Olives LC/V.......91
Sablefish with Savoy Cabbage
& Fennel Slaw GF/LC........80
Scrambled Eggs with Meyer
Lemon Salsa Verde GF/V..77
Spicy Lamb Tacos LC/LS .....90
Nature vs. nurture in
92 winemaking
techniques
94 From-scratch
corn tortillas,
instant appetizers, and more
DESSERTS
MASTER CLASS
FAST & FRESH
39 What
to do in your garden
in January
GARDEN CHECKLIST
A PERFECT DAY IN
editions)
North Hollywood (SoCal)
St. George, UT (Southwest
& Mountain)
Read all three on Sunset’s
interactive Digital Edition
(sunset.com/learnmore).
26 pilgrimage
to Aberdeen,
WA, Kurt Cobain’s home-
WANDERLUST Making the
town. By Bill Donahue
How one
40 couple
built their dream house
on a real-world budget
SMART SPACE
46 Adding
character with paint,
plus other tips from our team
IN THE WESTERN HOME
SIP
IN THE SUNSET KITCHEN
FOOD & DRINK
Mild and
79 sweet
savoy will make you
a cabbage convert.
PEAK SEASON
MAIN COURSES
to
84 bake with gluten-freeLearnflours.
90 meals in 30 minutesWeeknight
or less
a guide to growing them
22 San
Francisco’s Presidio
(NorCal & Northwest
Grilled Chicken & Kale Salad
with Tahini Lemon Dressing
GF ........................................91
Lettuce Snap Pea Salad
with Meyer Lemon Cream
GF/LC/LS/V ......................76
Savoy Cabbage Gratin
LC/LS/V..............................81
Savoy Cabbage Soup with
Tiny Meatballs LC/LS ........82
Answers to
102 your
questions, including
a big-city culture fix
ASK SUNSET
Buckwheat Gingerbread
Muffins GF/LC/LS/V ........87
Corn Flour & Orange
Blossom Chiffon Cake
GF/LC/LS/V ......................88
Meyer Lemon Cornmeal
Upside-Down Cake V ........76
Oat Flour & Almond Sablés
GF/LC/LS/V ......................86
PANTRY
Candied Orange Zest ..........89
Homemade Corn Tortillas ....94
Whipped Cream &
Crème Fraîche ....................89
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RECIPE GUIDE
GF: Gluten-free; LC: Low calorie;
LS: Low sodium; V: Vegetarian;
VG: Vegan
Our full guide to nutrition,
ingredients, and techniques:
sunset.com/cookingguide.
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J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5 ❖ S U N S E T
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CONVERSATIONS
NEW YEAR, NEW FACTOIDS
PEGGY NORTHROP, EDITOR-IN- CHIEF
@Peggy_Sunset |
[email protected]
JA N UA RY P HOTO C ON T E S T
Winter in the West
We’ve discovered, via our social media pages, that Sunset readers are fantastic photographers. The proof: This image by Michelle Bird of the fog-encased view from Mt.
Davidson in San Francisco, the winner of our most recent photo contest. This month,
we want to see how you’re playing in the snow. Share shots of your favorite winter
moments around the West for a chance to be featured in the magazine. Follow our
Facebook and Instagram pages for contest details starting January 1, 2015.
6
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Trying to eat
fresh—again
Sugar. Caffeine.
Alcohol. Red meat.
Sarcasm. Last January,
for our Eat Fresh
Challenge, 11 intrepid
Sunset editors atoned
for holiday indulgences
by giving up one vice.
Participants prepared
differently: Some
shopped diligently for
healthy food, while
copy editor Trina
Enriquez scarfed the
last of her chocolate
stash, Mardi Gras–
style. One travel editor
dumped her sweets in a
bag and hid it, and
associate garden editor
Johanna Silver
confessed, “I am
unprepared mentally,
physically, spiritually,
grocery-ly.” Working
here didn’t help:
Sunset.com managing
editor Gina Goff called
the Test Kitchen “a
real-world Temptation
Island.” Some caved
(blame hunger pangs,
internal conflict, and
Barbra Streisand),
while others stayed the
course. In the end, we
rewarded ourselves
with—what else?—Sugar.
Caffeine. Alcohol. Red
meat. Sarcasm. Keep
us honest this year:
Follow along at sunset.
com/eatfresh.
PORTRAIT: THOMAS J. STORY (HAIR AND MAKEUP: PRESTON NESBIT/AUBRI BALK, INC.); BOTTOM: MICHELLE BIRD
Snow fun, then and
now: Working on
this month’s feature
(page 49), we
were inspired by
iconic snowy cover
stories from the
past—like “Sequoia
Winter Magic,”
from December
1981.
With every issue of Sunset, I refresh my store of what I call
cocktail party facts: curious bits of knowledge—sometimes even
useful—that I can’t wait to share with someone else.
If you run into me at a party sometime this season, you might
hear me spout off about the following:
CHICKEN STOCK Who knew, but the best and heartiest is made
from boiling the leg bones only—with kelp (aka kombu) added
for even more body. That one is thanks to food editor Margo
True, who learned this while spending a week in the kitchen
with the genius chefs of San Francisco’s Bar Tartine (you’ll read
that story in an upcoming issue).
TRUFFLE DOGS A good truffle-hunting canine can earn $150,000
a year. (Now if only my dog, Riley, would get with the program.)
And did you know that dogs are not only just as good at
hunting truffles as pigs are—one-third of dogs’ brains are
devoted to the sense of smell, after all—but they also don’t bite
off your fingers the way pigs tend to?
FAKE SNOW Every snowflake is unique—unless it comes out of a snow-making
machine. Snow machines form flakes with identical dendritic arms. Just saying
“dendritic arms” makes me feel like an expert.
THE DEARTH OF SNOW COCKTAILS IN COLORADO It’s generally illegal to collect
rainwater in Denver, so there is some confusion about whether you’re allowed to
collect snow and put it in a glass with some liquor and sell it. Which means that
when we were trying to get a bartender to craft a snow cocktail for our feature
story on page 49, we couldn’t. (But hey, smoke as much pot as you want!)
Here’s hoping you find something startlingly new and deeply useful in our
pages this month. At the very least, your fingers are now safe from truffle pigs.
(You’re welcome.)
CALIFORNIA BOASTS
the freshest local
produce and most
extraordinary wine
in the country and
it’s reflected in
culinary offerings
found throughout
the state.
Join us this January
for California
Restaurant Month
— a celebration of
great destinations,
fantastic food, and
delectable drinks.
Learn more online
at DineinCA.com
BEST
WEST
OF THE
W H AT W E’ R E T R AC K I N G T H I S M O N T H
Were your parents truffle
dogs? Yes—my breed is from
Emilia-Romagna, but my actual
parents are from Sicily, which is
where I was trained when I was
just a little bitty pup.
How are truffle dogs trained?
The way they’ve been training my
breed since about 1540: They
would sew a truffle in some cloth
and they’d throw the truffle for me
and I’d retrieve it, and then they’d
hide the truffle, and they’d say,
“Dove, Rico, dove?” Which means,
“Where, where?” And I’d go look
for it. And then they would bury
it, and they’d say, “Dove, Rico?”
and I’d dig it up—dig dig dig dig.
Have you ever eaten a truffle?
Some of us like to eat them and
some of us don’t. Sometimes, if
we find undesirable truffles, the
handlers give those to us; otherwise we just get a treat.
Which is what? For me, organic
buffalo hot dogs. It’s got to be a
pretty darn good treat for me to
not want to eat the truffle.
BEST
WESTERNER
Rico the truffle dog
The absolute highlight of the Napa Truffle Festival is the truffle-hunting demonstration at Robert
Sinskey Vineyards. (The festival is presented by the American Truffle Company, which convinces
Napa Valley landowners to plant black-truffle orchards—Sinskey’s will be the first to produce
the fungus, beginning this year.) Why? The star of the show, Rico, who’s a four-year-old Lagotto
Romagnolo, an Italian breed of retriever. When he’s not digging for treasure, he lives in the East Bay
with his owner and tartufàio (truffle hunter), Bill Collins, a psychologist whose day job is treating traumatized veterans. (Rico helps him out with that too.) We chatted with Rico recently about his work.
Photograph by
JOHN CLARK
Do you need to be a Lagotto
Romagnolo to hunt truffles?
Any type of dog can learn to do it.
Really, what makes a good truffle
dog is temperament. You want a
dog that wants to please and has
a good sense of concentration.
When I’m hunting and there are
other dogs, I let them know, Hey,
I’ll play with you, but not right
now. When I hear the magic
word, dove—it’s game on. Nothing else matters. That’s what separates me from the others who
just hang out and eat truffle
cheese. Which I do like, by the
way. You got some?
Festival events from $60; Jan 16–19;
napatrufflefestival.com.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
9
David
and
Goliath
BEST
DODGED
BULLET
Pacific Gas and Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant on the
headland above Bodega
Bay, California—and,
ahem, the San Andreas
fault—progressed alarmingly far before townspeople convinced regulators to block it in
1964. (You can still see
the reactor pit, now
filled with water.) Hole
in the Head: The Battle
for Bodega Bay and the
Birth of the Environmental Movement, at Santa
Rosa’s Sonoma County
Museum, tells the almost
forgotten story of arrogant officials, crusading
geologists, and an undercover waitress. No,
this isn’t a blockbuster
exhibition, but big isn’t
always more powerful.
Just ask PG&E. $7;
closes Feb 9; sonoma
countymuseum.org.
Bonanza
BEST
AIRPORT GIFT
SHOPS
You’re waiting for your flight and you suddenly remember ... the cat sitter. Your coworkers. Your kids. Whomever it
is you forgot to shop for. It may not be too late to buy a legit
souvenir of the city you just left. At Sea-Tac, the record label
that brought us Nirvana opened its first airport store in May—
what sullen teen wouldn’t love a Sub Pop knit hat? A clutch
of Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver’s airport highlights
the work of local writers, and at San Francisco’s renovated
Terminal 3, there’s Marin-pressed olive oil at the McEvoy
Ranch pop-up. Now you have an answer to that eternal question. seatacshops.com; flydenver.com; flysfo.com.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
BEST GEAR
WITH
BENEFITS
In 1996, Ted Turner bought a onetime
cattle spread on the northern border
of New Mexico and turned it into his
own private bison reserve. Over the years, he’s opened the 925-square-mile
Vermejo Park Ranch, as it’s called, to small ecotours while continuing to host
the elk-hunting parties and corporate retreats that pay the bills. (The ranch’s
eight-bedroom, LEED-certified Costilla Lodge, added in 2010, costs high rollers a cool $10,000 per night.) For one month each winter, though, the rest
of us can stay at the lodge for a mere $300 a night, which includes not only
three meals a day but also guided snowshoeing and cross-country ski outings.
And this high in the Sangre de Cristo Range, snow is almost a certainty. The
Winter Escape deal starts at the end of January and runs through March 1:
Better book now. vermejoparkranch.com.
WHAT DID YOU
BRING ME?
10
DO-RIGHT
SITE
BEST
WAY TO
GO
MOGUL
BEST
REBOOT
Feel-good story
Two Bunch Palms, the Desert Hot Springs, California, getaway in whose mud baths Tim Robbins
and Greta Scacchi frolicked in The Player, has just
overhauled its guest rooms—trading the Brat
Pack decor for 1970s revival (in a good way).
More important, in a saving-the-world sense, is
the 3.5-acre solar array that is due to come online this month—it’ll provide enough electricity
for the compound’s use and then some, using a
lot less water than would the equivalent conventional power plant. From $219; twobunchpalms.com.
Not quite
a year old,
the Utah-based gear
e-tailer Cotopaxi
is more than just
another outdoorsy
start-up: Formed as
a “benefit corporation,” it’s legally
committed to making
the world a better
place. For instance,
a part of the proceeds from each
backpack, garment,
or water bottle goes
to a specific cause—
for the Pacaya
insulated jacket
(above, $199), it’s
midwife training
in Guatemala; for
the Inca daypack
($109), it’s hiring
a tutor for an orphanage in Bolivia—
and Cotopaxi’s
factories all promise
good working conditions and betterthan-living wages.
Plus, the company’s
goods are well made
and seriously stylish.
cotopaxi.com.
“Being a firefighter, I’ve seen a lot of car accidents.
I feel very safe with my family in the Prius.”
The Plummers, Prius owners
toyota.com/prius
Actual Prius owner made previously aware their likeness and statement may be used for advertising. ©2014 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
BEST
WELLNESS
TECH
You,
new and
improved
A yoga mat wired with
sensors to critique your
poses. A cushion for
your chair that nags you
about your posture and
urges you to take a walk.
A scale that analyzes
the nutritional benefits
of your meals’ ingredients. A glowing orb
(below) that sits on your
nightstand and monitors
your sleep, waking
you at the optimal nongroggy moment. A human
hamster wheel, designed
to be used with a standing desk—way more
exciting than a treadmill!
These products are all
here or coming soon,
thanks to Western ingenuity and crowdfunding
sites like Kickstarter and
Indiegogo. Actually, you
can’t buy the hamster
wheel—but you can build
one with the help of the
website Instructables.
All you’ll need is some
plywood, four skateboard
wheels, a couple of
lengths of pipe, 240 wood
screws, a pint of glue,
“and a good attitude.”
What could possibly
go wrong? SmartMat
yoga mat: $297; smart
mat.com. Darma cushion:
$149; darma.co. Prep
Pad scale: $150;
theorangechef.com.
Sense sleep monitor:
$129; hello.is. Hamster
Wheel Standing Desk:
instructables.com.
Can anyone remember a time when the properly accessorized garden or tabletop tableau
didn’t include succulents? In fact, they’ve become such a crucial decor element that not
having the requisite sedum or sempervivum just might trigger an existential crisis. Dalla
Vita to the rescue! Based in Santa Barbara, the brother and sister floral-design team offers
a same-day succulents-delivery service anywhere in the county—a business idea we’re
sure will be spreading like ice plants on a beach. From $35; dallavita.com.
12
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
BEST
“ONLY IN
THE WEST”
TOP: HEATHER HACKNEY
Succulents on standby
WHERE THE MAJESTY OF ALASKA MEETS THE MAGIC OF DISNEY.
The difference is specialized itineraries.
And hand-selected excursions.
A magical world of natural beauty.
And authentic Alaskan cuisine.
It’s creating the ideal vacation for the whole family.
The difference is Disney.
Visit disneycruise.com/alaska,
call 1-888-325-3819 or
contact your Travel Agent.
Sailing summer 2015
Skagway
Ketchikan
Tracy Arm
Vancouver
Juneau
HERE
COMES
THE
SUN
BEST
EXCUSE TO
HIT BAJA
BEST LOOK
FORWARD
Even in California, land of January citrus (mmm, Meyer lemons—
see page 70), chefs and civilians get a little weary of the kale
and rutabagas cluttering the
farmers’ markets. (When will
the strawberries arrive?) We
can’t accelerate time for you,
but we can suggest you pick up
Maria Schoettler’s Eat Local
Calendar. Her delicate gouache
paintings of what’s available at
her own Oakland markets each
month are a pledge to all of us—
snowbound mountain dwellers
included—that spring and sunshine are indeed on the way.
$34; mariaschoettler.com.
Endless
summer
BEST
LOOK
BACK
A jeweled tower 43 stories tall. A Palace of Agriculture
boasting an 11,000-pound cheese. A “Joy Zone” offering, among
other attractions, burlesque shows and a replica of Old Faithful Inn.
A Fountain of Energy (above) designed by Stirling Calder—yes, Alexander’s father. The wonders of the Panama-Pacific International
Exposition, which began its nearly yearlong run a century ago in
what is now San Francisco’s Marina District, could fill a book. And
they do. From Berkeley’s Heyday Books and the California Historical Society, San Francisco’s Jewel City, by historian Laura Ackley, not
only provides a guide to the 635-acre fair but also tells how it fulfilled its unspoken mission: proving to the world that San Francisco
was back on its feet after the 1906 quake. $40; heydaybooks.com.
Anchors aweigh
When San Francisco’s James
R. Herman Cruise Terminal
opened for business last fall, the
city’s tourism industry cheered. After all, the blue-glass box on Pier 27, below Telegraph
Hill, is a far better billboard than drafty old Pier 35 ever was, and it’ll lure more dollars
too (cruise-ship traffic for 2015 is already up 10 percent). But what will it mean for you,
the passenger? This month, mostly a less gloomy boarding experience for the midsize
Princesses on their traditional midwinter Hawaii–Mexico rounds. But Pier 27 can handle the next generation of monster vessels, the kind with enough space for climbing
walls and ice rinks and ziplines. Not coincidentally, Royal Caribbean, which specializes
in such behemoths, will test the waters, literally, in May with its Jewel of the Seas. Time to
dig out your carabiners? For a list of cruise ships calling this year, go to sfport.com.
BEST
WELCOME
MAT
14
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED
❖ SUNSET
CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT: THOMAS J. STORY, JAY ACH
Calling what takes
place in Todos
Santos for two long
weekends this month
a full-on festival
might be an overstatement, but the
Todos Santos Music
Festival does boast
genuine stars among
its 12 (count ’em,
12!) headliners:
indie rocker Conor
“Bright Eyes” Oberst,
the Drive By Truckers, The Jayhawks,
and M. Ward, who,
with Zooey Deschanel, was She & Him.
Festival founder
Peter Buck—lead guitarist for REM, who
was born in Berkeley
and now splits his
time between Portland and Seattle—
performs too, and
there’s a locals showcase at the Hotel California. Reserved tickets cost only about
$20 a day, it’s January, and you’re in
idyllic Baja Sur ... not
bad. Jan 15–17,
21–24; todossantos
musicfestival.com.
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Travel
ASK A
LO C A L
THE REAL
BALBOA PARK
San Diego’s gorgeous park turns 100
this year. Here’s how to make the
most of its gardens, museums,
restaurants, and
amazing zoo.
Photograph by
D AV E L A U R I D S E N
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
17
Travel
ASK
A LOC A L
At 100, San Diego’s premier
playground has never looked better. It
has 17 museums, 19 gardens, 65 miles
of hiking trails, and that famous zoo.
So where do you start? How about
with two locals who know the terrain.
AS TOLD TO CASEY HATFIELD - CHIOTTI
San Diego
Natural
History
Museum
$17; 1788 El Prado;
sdnhm.org.
RICK SCHWARTZ
Timken
Museum
Free; 1500 El Prado;
timkenmuseum.org.
you can play with
that helps you understand how magnetic fields attract
and repel.
WHAT NOT
TO MISS AT THE SAN
DIEGO ZOO
The
Elephant
Odyssey
$46; 2920 Zoo Dr.;
zoo.sandiegozoo.org.
RS This exhibit is
interesting because
it tells the story of
the Columbian
DANA SPRINGS
Director of San Diego’s
Commission for Arts and Culture
here today. We love
to refer to it as a geriatric herd because
these are all pretty
old elephants—
some are former
circus performers,
some are from other
zoos, and some
have been here in
San Diego for the
past 40 years. It’s
designed so all the
elephant care is
done right in front
of the public.
DS In the evening,
when it’s cooler, you
DANA SPRINGS
I love the comfortable setting at the
Timken Museum.
There’s an abundance of natural
light, so it feels like
you’re walking into
someone’s living
room—except you
can see a Rembrandt and works
by other European
masters. My favorite painting is Veneto’s Portrait of a Lady
in a Green Dress. It
makes me think
about what life in a
royal court was like
and how women
ever got anything
done with their hair
up so tight.
18
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
run around at their
feet. It’s like this crazy elephant/rabbit
cocktail party.
FAVORITE GIFT-SHOP
SOUVENIR
Mingei
museum
1439 El Prado;
mingei.org.
The Collectors’
Gallery started
carrying Maru
Lopez jewelry.
Lopez works at the
museum, and the
shop buyer was so
taken with the
painted brass
jewelry she wore
that she began
stocking it. It’s cool,
like jelly beans set
in gold. Why didn’t
anyone think of this
sooner? I also like
the is-it-stone, is-itglass, is-it-plastic
double takes. The
pieces are elegant
and fun but not silly.
DS
there too. There are
wave machines, and
you can see how
land formations are
created; there’s an
area full of magnets
mammoth, which
once roamed Southern California and
is a direct ancestor
of the Asian elephant herd we have
get to see the elephants feed themselves, which is fun,
but then all the little
wild rabbits in the
park come out and
TOP LEFT: JOHN DURANT; BOTTOM: DAVE LAURIDSEN
MUST-VISIT
MUSEUMS
Maybe it’s because
of my neurotic love
for science and nature, but I’m crazy
about the San Diego
Natural History
Museum. Especially all of the interactive exhibits for
kids. Honestly,
adults should go
RICK SCHWARTZ
Animal care supervisor at
the San Diego Zoo
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Travel
to myself, I’ll stop
there for a bit. It
transports me.
Great Maple
$$; 1451 Washington
St.; thegreatmaple.com.
It’s just outside
the park, over in the
Hillcrest neighborhood, and they
make some fantastic drinks. They do
these half-serving
cocktails that I love.
It allows you to order minis to make
cocktail pairings
DS
the Balboa Park
institutions.
Pigment
MOST OUTSTANDING
PATCH OF GREEN
3801 30th St.; shop
pigment.com.
Fern Canyon
DS North Park
has lots of terrific
shops, and Pigment
is one of my faves.
I love that they have
curated themed sections so that it feels
like there are a
bunch of tiny stores
within one store.
They carry handmade jewelry by
local craftspeople,
and the last time I
was there, I noticed
these cool notecards and leather
bags. Great store to
find gifts. They
have something for
everyone.
$46; 2920 Zoo Dr.;
zoo.sandiegozoo.org.
RS
It’s actually
a walkway with
stairs and it’s kind
of hidden, but Fern
Canyon in the zoo
is pretty great.
Most people ignore
it because there
aren’t any exhibits
there. But take
two or three steps
into the canyon,
with each phase of
your dinner. The
Chanilla Drop
vodka cocktail is
my favorite. I like
the sweet, salty,
smoky flavor of the
burnt lemon.
and you feel like
you’re in the rain
forests of Borneo
or South America.
It’s breathtaking.
There’s a waterfall
and everything.
If I’m looking for
NO -FRILLS LUNCH
The Big
Front Door
4135 Park Blvd.; bfd
sandiego.com.
DS The Big Front
Door is close and
has great variety.
It’s an artisanal deli
with the most delicious roast-beef
sandwich, made on
a roll with provolone, broccoli rabe,
Roma tomato, and
housemade aioli. I’ll
run down there and
end up bumping
into staff from all
20
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
MORE SHOPPING,
PLEASE
a quick moment
WHERE CAN I ESCAPE
THE CROWDS?
Art museum
garden
1549 El Prado; sdmart.
org.
DS There’s a secluded seating area
behind the restaurant Panama 66
with some outdoor
lounge chairs. It’s
in the shade, and
you get to sit next to
this reflecting pool
and look out into
the May S. Marcy
Sculpture Garden,
which is just beautiful. I’ll go there to
catch up on some
work or talk on the
phone, which you
can do now because
the park has Wi-Fi.
BEST PERFORMANCE
SPACE
The Old
Globe
1363 Old Globe Way;
theoldglobe.org.
RS I’ve seen shows
at the Old Globe
and Starlight and
I love them both.
What I like about
the Globe is that you
get a real feel for the
performances. You
can see everything
from the Grinch to
touring Broadway
shows.
BEST VIEWS
ARE FROM ...
The Skyfari
Aerial Tram
$46; 2920 Zoo Dr.;
zoo.sandiegozoo.org.
DS If you take the
tram near dusk,
you’re basically
floating through a
San Diego sunset
with a 360° view
from the zoo. You
can see the lights
of downtown, the
Point Loma peninsula, and all the
way around to East
County. Absolutely
gorgeous.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: JIM COX/THE COMPANY OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, RYAN BENOIT, KEVIN ANDREW FALK
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W W W . P A W S U P . C O M
Travel
D I S C OV E R
1
2
1. The Presidio puts its
barracks to new use.
2. Golden Gate Bridge
Plaza. 3. Traci Des Jardins’ Commissary has a
Spanish accent. 4. California history on display in
the Heritage Gallery at
the Officers’ Club.
3
4
THE PRESIDIO
A PERFECT DAY IN
San Francisco’s former military post embraces its past and looks toward
the future, with new hikes, bites, and sites. By Christine Ryan
The history is alive
The Presidio’s Main Post is finally coming into its own. Site of
the original Spanish garrison
built in 1776, this tidy square,
framed by brick barracks and
white clapboard and stucco
buildings, hasn’t offered visitors
22
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
much beyond The Walt Disney
Family Museum and a bowling
alley. But last fall’s reinvention
of the Officers’ Club has put
the square front and center. The
37,000-square-foot building
acts as a combination visitor
center, museum, and gathering
place; its Moraga Hall is a real
sit-down-and-relax lobby, complete with fireplace, in the tradition of the grandest park lodges.
The Heritage Gallery, though,
reminds you that the Presidio
wasn’t always a place for recreation, but the last stateside stop
for tens of thousands of soldiers
heading to far-off wars. Soldiers
with names like Sutliffe Bither
and Hiram Harlow, who wrote
letters and kept diaries and
whose words came home, even
when they didn’t. Free; 50 Moraga Ave.; presidio.gov.
Photographs by
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Travel
Golden
Gate
Bridge
PRESIDIO
101
1
Park Presidio
Blvd.
GETTING HERE
The Presidio is in the north corner
of S.F., off U.S. 101. From Crissy
Field, take Lincoln Blvd. to Arguello
Blvd. to Moraga Ave.
A mess hall
with roots
Don’t expect to find chipped
beef or military MREs at the
Officers’ Club’s new eatery,
Arguello. Named after the
Mexican governor who once
ruled Northern California,
Traci Des Jardins’ restaurant
serves fish tacos and squashblossom quesadillas in a publike dining room (beamed ceiling, reclaimed-wood tables) and
on an adjacent heated patio. Just
beyond the patio, you’ll find
Earth Wall, the third and latest
Presidio installation by artist
Andy Goldsworthy: a ball of
roots seemingly excavated from
a stucco wall. $$; 50 Moraga
Ave.; arguellosf.com.
After the Gold Rush
Joining the Disney museum in
the barracks lining the western
edge of the Main Post is Des
Jardins’ other Presidio restaurant, The Commissary. Here,
the menu’s inspired by the fort’s
Spanish origins (think jamónwrapped trout and white Rioja
by the glass). Nearby are two
other old-new attractions: the
Presidio Trust Gallery and
the Society of California
Pioneers. Through March 8,
the gallery recaps the imaginative art projects that the ForSite Foundation has staged in
the park. The society’s gracious
main room houses entertainingly curated collections of objects (an amputation kit!) and
paintings, but the real treasure
lies in its library of historical
documents. Don’t miss John
Sutter’s diary, which rode out
the 1906 quake and fire in a safe
in the society’s South of Market
clubhouse (itself destroyed) and
is on view in the vestibule. Commissary: $$$; 101 Montgomery St.;
thecommissarysf.com. Gallery:
Free; 103 Montgomery; presidio.
gov. Society: Free; 101 Montgomery; californiapioneers.org.
Long before the Spanish arrived,
the Ohlone people had settled
what eventually would become
the Presidio, and in Tennessee
Hollow, you can see why: El
Polin Spring. Even during
the driest months of another
drought season, the spring
trickles on. The Presidio Trust
has been restoring it and its
watershed—eventually a trail
will follow the stream as it
heads to the bay. But for now,
hike 1.4 miles from the Main
Post up the Ecology Trail to the
The Society of California Pioneers was originally
a men’s drinking club. It now hosts both sexes,
but to be a member, you have to be descended from
someone who was in California in 1850.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
7
6
Walk this way
FACTOID
24
5
5. Moraga Hall, the Main
Post’s new chill zone.
6. The Vigilante Bell at the
Society of California Pioneers. 7. Whole shrimp with
cilantro rice from Arguello.
8. Andy Goldsworthy continues to bewilder with his third
sculpture in the Presidio.
8
Inspiration Point Overlook,
then drop down the connecting
switchback path to the new picnic area next to the spring. End
of MacArthur Ave.; presidio.gov.
Back to the future
The Main Post isn’t the only
part of the Presidio undergoing
change. Remember that big orange bridge? When the Golden
Gate Bridge Plaza was reconfigured in 2012, a spiffy gift
shop and visitor center replaced
the cramped art-deco Round
House, which in turn became
a staging area for guided tours.
Now the Golden Gate National
Parks Conservancy is turning
the Round House back into
what it was originally and
should have been all along: San
Francisco’s coolest diner. We
can’t wait. Bridge: goldengate
bridge.org. Round House: parks
conservancy.org.
Fall in love
all over again.
Plan your
sunny escape.
visitgreaterpalmsprings.com
9 resort cities. One beautiful oasis.
palm springs | desert hot springs | cathedral city | rancho mirage | palm desert | indian wells | la quinta | indio | coachella
Travel
HERE WE ARE NOW
For 20 years, Aberdeen all but ignored its most
famous son. Now, with a host of new memorials
to Kurt Cobain, the Washington town hopes
to attract adoring fans. Writer Bill Donahue goes
on a pilgrimage.
Bill Simpson, is a sweet older fellow who used to
sell men’s slacks at the local JC Penney. He’s bald and round and when he
laughs, his bifocals ride his cheeks up toward his twinkling eyes. “This is a
very special day for Aberdeen,” he begins.
I’m standing at the back of Moore’s Interiors, a local flooring shop. The
rug samples have been rolled away, and two dozen of the town’s dignitaries
are milling about, nibbling on cucumber hors d’oeuvres. We’ve gathered
here for the unveiling of a new mural, titled Nirvana and Aberdeen, which
stretches 68 feet along the outside wall of Moore’s Interiors and is financed
by Our Aberdeen, a booster group whose recent efforts include the dedication of a healing gallery at the local hospital and Critters on the Map, a selfguided walking tour of the town’s whimsical metal sculptures.
“And it’s my great pleasure to introduce ...”
To the microphone steps Krist Novoselic, bassist for Nirvana, and Aberdeen’s second most famous native son. Novoselic, 49, used to perform barefoot, his pale white, size-14 feet a gleaming statement of punk freedom.
Today he looks dapper in a black bowler hat, with salt-and-pepper flecks in
his beard. “I am very grateful,” he says of the mural, in silky tones. “Here’s
to our great future. Here’s to the future of Aberdeen.”
The future of Aberdeen, a downbeat logging town an hour west of Olympia, Washington, has been a buzzy subject lately. And to understand why,
you’d need to know something about its first most famous native son, Kurt
Cobain. The oldest child of divorced working-class parents, Cobain lived
here in a series of cracker-box homes. As a teenager, he cut class at Weatherwax High and stole stone crosses from a local cemetery. In 1987, he started
his seminal band in a ramshackle garage. At the height of its success in the
1990s, Nirvana was the biggest rock band on the planet, selling some 75 million records worldwide and spawning a new musical genre, grunge.
When I first heard Nirvana in 1991, it fed my veins. The music was such a
pure expression of what it is to be young and angry and unsure, and when I
squint a little in Aberdeen, I swear I can still see Cobain rising from the mist: wraith thin, unshaven, a
The Young Street
ratty mustard-colored cardigan hanging from his slenBridge, one of
der frame as he screams, “Waaaa! Waaaaa!” No words,
Kurt Cobain’s favorite hangouts.
just the throaty, guttural sound of a confused heart
THE MAYOR OF ABERDEEN,
Photographs by
JOHN CLARK
WA N D E R LUS T
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
27
Travel
opening up—the five sequential yells that appear on the
“Intro” track of his second posthumous album, From the
Muddy Banks of the Wishkah. The one we all listened to
knowing that in early April 1994, 27-year-old Kurt Donald Cobain took his own life with a 20-gauge shotgun.
The mural is one of a handful of official Cobain tributes that have sprung up the past few years. On State 12,
there’s now a sign that reads welcome to aberdeen.
come as you are, a reference to a Nirvana song. Cobain’s favorite Aberdeen haunt—the underside of the
Young Street Bridge—has officially become Kurt Cobain
Landing, a well-tended pocket park that annually draws
about 5,000 solemn visitors from all over the world.
Meanwhile, last year on Cobain’s birthday, February 20,
the mayor of Aberdeen marked the city’s first-ever Kurt
Cobain Day by unveiling a concrete statue of the musician. “We hope,” Simpson told a rapt audience, “that
Aberdeen will be just as big as Graceland.”
Certainly, the town needed to reinvent itself. In Aberdeen’s circa-1900 heyday, when its canneries and logging
operations thrived, downtown was a crime-ridden hive
of brothels and saloons. The economy never fully
28
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
bounced back after the Northwest timber industry all
but died in the mid-1980s.
Still, the mayor’s posthumous embrace of Cobain is jarring. For 20 years now, Aberdeen has
largely shunned him, even as fans have trickled
into town to roam the same streets and riverbanks
their idol once did. For one weekend, I’d join them,
riding my bicycle along the flat streets of Aberdeen, through a sleepy town where, it seems, everyone remembers Kurt.
“Kurt used to play in my yard when he was little,”
my waitress, Sue Muhlhauser, tells me, as she refills
my $1 cup of coffee at the VFW hall. “I could probably sell the blades of grass if I wanted to.”
I’ve stopped by for a ham-and-eggs breakfast,
and also to take the town’s temperature on its evolving relationship with Cobain. “I don’t care for his
music,” a woman at my table intones. “But then
again, I’m a country-western person myself.”
Terry Holderman, quartermaster of VFW Post
224, introduces himself. “Celebrating Kurt is a good
thing,” he says. “There’s such creativity in his music.
I think Aberdeen needs to hold on to that, because
for a while it felt like we just gave up.”
We’re outside now, and I notice a man standing
nearby, smoking a cigarette. John Bryant works as
the Post’s janitor. He, too, knew Cobain. “Oh yeah,
Kurt could be sarcastic,” he says, taking a long, contemplative drag. “I was one of the guys old enough
to buy beer for him and his friends. But he was a
good kid. He just pushed the envelope a little too far.”
I leave the VFW and pedal past Rosevear’s Music
Center, where Kurt took his only guitar lessons. I
Mayor Bill Simpkeep going past the elegant Aberdeen library, then
son: “We hope
along modest residential streets to an old armory
that Aberdeen
that’s now The Aberdeen Museum of History. Inside,
will be just as big
as Graceland.”
a concrete statue of Cobain sits, a bit incongruously,
amid an array of old fire engines and Model T cars.
Sculptor and onetime high school teacher Randi Hubbard created the statue in
1994, not long after the musician died, shaping it with the help of local high
school students at her husband’s muffler shop. “It was a raw time,” Hubbard
tells me when she meets me at the museum.
The statue was Hubbard’s attempt to bring about healing. But when she tried
to display it publicly back then, the Aberdeen City Council balked.
Concrete Kurt looks larger than life-size and unnervingly stiff; his fingers are
rigid as they splay on his guitar, and a single tear streams from his eye. “I think we
all have a little Kurt Cobain in us,” she says. “I knew him when he was a boy. He
lived near me, and he was precious. He played with a foster child who lived in
the neighborhood. He just loved the real people in this world.”
We talk for maybe an hour, and by the time we finish, Hubbard is focusing
her bottomless maternal affection on me: “I can’t let you ride your bike back to
the motel,” she says. “It’s just too far.”
So we throw my bike into her husband’s pickup and drive there, a flat mile,
with my bike rattling in the back atop a heap of rusted-out mufflers.
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Travel
I come back across town at dusk,
past Grays Harbor Stamp Works and
Aberdeen Office Equipment Co. and
B&B Appliances, until I’m in a residential district right by the Wishkah River.
There, with its blinds drawn, is the
house Kurt Cobain lived in until his parents divorced. It’s a modest little yellowand-brown affair, built in 1923 and assessed last at $67,000. Wendy O’Connor,
Cobain’s mother, has spent the last year
trying to sell it for $500,000.
When I pull up out front, the place
elicits a dark memory for me. In 1994, I
covered Cobain’s death for a gossip magazine. It was one of the most difficult
things I’ve ever done. At one point, I got
a fax from my editor saying, “Go interview his mother.” I got to the house and
it seemed so small, so sad and lonely,
that I couldn’t bring myself to knock. I
told my editors she wasn’t home, and as
I slinked away in my rental car, I felt
desolate. Nirvana was playing on the
radio, and Cobain’s voice was brooding
and shadowed like the fog-shrouded
hills near town. Every so often, his songs
crackled with a glossy pop riff, sweet as
candy. “Here we are now, entertain us,”
he cried over melodic guitar riffs in Nirvana’s hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
There was something unguarded in his
voice—a purity of spirit that was lacking
in my own little paparazzo mission. I admired him, and
I felt sorry for him.
I consider stepping toward the house to peer in past
the shades. Then I remember the peppy real estate listing: “Kurt left his mark, quite literally, in his upstairs
bedroom, including some artwork drawn directly on
the walls and a hole in one wall where he punched it as
a teen, almost breaking his hand.”
I already know enough, I decide, and I just gaze at the
house from the street. It looks just as it did two decades
ago: still and silent, without a flicker of life in it.
meandering route to the Young Street
Bridge, first climbing through the trees
on Think of Me Hill, then wheeling along
a quiet backroad outside town, toward
Lake Sylvia.
When I get to Kurt Cobain Landing,
there’s a man with a goatee pulling weeds
beside a statue of Cobain’s guitar. A few
feet away, a plaque honors Cobain as “our
beloved hero.” Tori Kovach, 71, tells me
that he spent five years beautifying the
land here, once a blackberry thicket cluttered with years of accumulated refuse.
“I did it for selfish reasons,” says Kovach, whose business card reads “Town
Curmudgeon.” “This place abuts my
property.”
But as he got deeper into the project,
Kovach learned that he and Cobain had
much in common. “I was from a dysfunctional family too,” he says. “Both of
us grew up trying to prove something to
ourselves and to others. He was an underdog, and he deserves recognition.”
As I leave, a group of teens make their
way through the pocket park to the
bridge. I sit there, on a bench, watching
the pilgrims arrive: a couple from Michigan, three women from Spain. Everyone
is solemn, almost silent. “I just needed to
stop,” says one woman. It strikes me
that listening to Nirvana is essentially a
private experience. Unlike, say, The
Grateful Dead or The Rolling Stones, it’s not party music. It’s one person opening up his heart and singing his pain into another person’s ears. And so the
graffiti under the bridge reads like so many solitary prayers to a saint: “Kurdt,
come back as you were.” “Thank you for keeping me alive and letting me know
I am never alone.”
I head back to the mural at Moore’s Interiors, and I meet its principal artist,
Erik Sandgren, a Grays Harbor College instructor with a wispy beard and the
weathered mien of a Norwegian fisherman. We grab a window seat at the Pizza
Hut across the street and look up at his work. Nirvana and Aberdeen is a quarreling medley of images à la Picasso’s Guernica, and it pays homage to history. It
intermingles ’90s-era rock iconography—Cobain playing guitar, a pink MTV
logo—with glimpses of the land where Nirvana’s music took root. Here’s an
18-wheel logging truck rumbling up a hill. Here are a few Native American gillnetters; here are the hourglass-shaped towers of the nearby, never-used Satsop
Nuclear Power Plant.
Sandgren tells me that as he painted the mural, he meditated on that bond.
“The guys in Nirvana were like young loggers,” he says. “They took risks, and
that risk-taking goes right back to the roots of what this place is, back to when
my grandparents came out to the Pacific Northwest to start a new life.”
Cobain roamed the world’s stages in a flannel logger’s shirt. Truth is, he never
really left Aberdeen. In his 2002 biography of Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven,
Aberdeen’s embrace
of Cobain isn’t just
a money thing.
It is also forgiveness.
It’s love in its most
hard-bitten form, and
like all expressions of
love, it opens the door
to new possibilities.
involve expectations. If we go to
London, to tread the same cobbled streets Charles Dickens strolled, we half-want the buildings to be decrepit
and blackened by coal dust. If we travel Cuba for the
Hemingway tour, we keep our eyes peeled for the big
fish. And in Aberdeen, paying homage to Cobain, we
want bleak, we want gray, we want brooding—and, yes,
it’s there, but not unremittingly.
On my second morning in town, I take a long,
ARTISTIC PILGRIMAGES
30
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
writer Charles R. Cross notes that Cobain “rarely did an
interview without discussing [Aberdeen], as if it were a
lover he’d left behind.” Once, driving back there late at
night, after a long time away, he told an old friend how
much he loved the verdant landscape and its unrehearsed people.
So Aberdeen’s embrace of Cobain isn’t just a money
thing. It is also forgiveness. It’s a family taking its runaway kid back into the fold. It’s love in its most hardbitten form, and like all expressions of love, it opens the
door to new possibilities. Like this mural, which is a
piece of robust art sprouted out of the dark wreckage of
Cobain’s ashes. Neither Sandgren nor I say it, but the
mural carries the possibility that maybe in time Cobain’s memory will inspire more hopeful gestures. And
maybe—who knows?—all these gestures put together
will carry Aberdeen to a comeback.
On my last night in Aberdeen, Sandgren invites me to
a party he’s hosting to celebrate the mural. When I arrive at his book-lined home, I find it’s an artists’ party,
with guests spilling comfortably into the kitchen, cradling paper plates of hummus and vegetables. After a
while, two young guys start strumming guitars. Then a
woman begins to sing. Sandgren’s mother-in-law is 87
Freestyling in Big Sky
and bird-boned. She’s a lifelong cabaret singer with her own stage name, Pearl
Coté. She is singing and swaying her arms, belting it out until all conversations
stop and everyone watches, transfixed.
I can’t help but think of another, long-ago performance: Nirvana playing unplugged, with two acoustic guitars, at MTV’s New York studio in late 1993;
Cobain, sleep-deprived, ravaged by addiction, finding it within himself to deliver what many regard as the performance of his life. The show ends with a
Lead Belly cover, and the words, halfwhispered, half-screamed, “I would shiver the whole night through.”
Coté keeps singing: “Sentimental Journey,” The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” then a litAberdeen lies 110 miles
tle impromptu scat. From the doorway,
southwest of Seattle via I-5
her daughter watches, slender and birdand State 8.
boned herself. She is leaning into the
Mural: 201 S. Broadway.
music now, coaxing her mother along.
Statue: The Aberdeen
When the show is all over, she rushes toMuseum of History. $2;
ward the couch. She presses her mom
aberdeen-museum.org.
close to her and kisses her once, fiercely,
Sign: West side of State 12.
on the cheek.
Kurt Cobain Landing:
Young Street Bridge.
MAKE A
PILGRIMAGE
More pilgrimage sites across the West:
sunset.com/memorials.
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Home & Garden
P L A N T N OW
THE GIVING
TREES
Our favorite stone-fruit
varieties deliver big
flavor come
summer.
Juicy fruit
THE BEST PEACH
FOR PIE
P. 35
Photographs by
T H O M A S J. S T O RY
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
33
Home & Garden
THE PICK
OF THE CROP
Even the best store-bought plum
can’t rival one grown in your backyard—
the most flavorful stone fruit is often
too delicate to be grown commercially.
After touring the Modesto, California,
orchards of Zaiger’s Genetics
(the leaders in fruit tree breeding)
and Dave Wilson Nursery (the largest
fruit grower in the country), we’ve come
up with our top backyard picks,
from a classic peach to some
Seussian-sounding new hybrids.
LEAH COT
APRIUM
New this year,
this apricot-plum hybrid
has fist-size fruit
that tastes like candy.
RIPENS
MID-JUNE TO
EARLY JULY
SPICE ZEE
N E C TA P L U M
Prized for being both
ornamental and edible,
this nectarine-plum
has magenta blooms
and bright red
new growth. Ripe
fruit has white flesh,
and both the nectarine
and plum flavors
come through.
RIPENS
MID-JULY TO
EARLY AUGUST
Best
color
DAPPLE
SUPREME PLUOT
This plum-apricot
mix needs only
300 chill hours to be
loaded with fruit,
meaning it’s suitable
for mild climates.
Dappled red skin
covers juicy, sweet
blood red flesh.
RIPENS
MID-JUNE TO
MID-JULY
By
J O H A N N A S I LV E R
Home & Garden
Best
for
baking
S W E E T T R E AT
PLUERRY
This plum-cherry
hybrid—the first of
its kind—mixes
cherrylike sweetness
with plum size and
tartness. The fruit
hangs on the tree for
six weeks, much longer
than a traditional
plum tree.
KAWEAH PEACH
This classic peach tree
yields large fruit
with balanced flavor,
perfect for eating fresh,
baking, or canning.
RIPENS
LATE AUGUST
TO LATE
SEPTEMBER
RIPENS
EARLY JULY TO
MID-AUGUST
Best
overall
flavor
SPLASH PLUOT
Coral and yellow
skin covers juicy yellow
flesh that is perfectly
sweet—and equally
good fresh, dried, or
cooked in desserts.
RIPENS
MID- TO LATE JULY
EMERALD
DROP PLUOT
Medium to large fruit
with green skin
and yellow-orange
flesh. Harvest when
it’s still on the firm side
for more tartness,
or let it turn slightly
soft for an almost
honeylike flavor.
RIPENS
MID-JULY TO
EARLY AUGUST
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
35
Home & Garden
PLANT
NOW
GROWING GUIDE
Twiggy bare-root trees don’t look like much at the beginning, but planting them at
this stage gives them the best kick-start for growth. Here’s what you need to know about
planting and caring for bare-root trees, plus landscaping options for small yards.
Buy
Nurseries are well stocked with bare-root
trees now. You can also order from bay
laurelnursery.com. Trees come with roots
packed in damp sawdust and wrapped
in burlap. You can keep them in the sawdust for a day or two, but it’s best to
plant right away.
CARE
WATER whenever the soil is dry 2 inches
deep—as little as once a week in winter,
or as much as once every three days in
the heat of summer.
PL ANT
FERTILIZE trees in early spring (after
blossom set), midsummer, and early
fall. Use an organic fertilizer formulated
for fruit trees (synthetic nitrogen can
easily burn plants).
Soak
the roots in a bucket
of water for 45 minutes before planting.
Trim
any broken pieces
on the roots.
Clip the rest of the
roots by an inch.
REMOVE any leaves infected with peach
leaf curl (they’ll be thick and twisted);
the next round will grow uninfected. To
prevent this fungal disease, which diminishes fruit production, keep smaller
trees dry during the rainy season by
tenting them with floating row covers.
Dig
a hole twice as deep
and as wide as the
root system; form
a firm cone of soil
to set the plant
on, making sure the
crown sits just
above the soil level.
THIN marble-size fruits to about 8 inches
apart. For any tight clusters, remove all
but the largest fruit. As painful as it may
seem, thinning fruit is good for the tree.
Backfill
the hole with a mix
of 50 percent native
soil and 50 percent
amendment, such
as organic compost.
PRUNE lightly around the summer solstice to control plant size. The waning
season will discourage vigorous growth.
Winter is the best time to prune for
shape and structure. Pruning in late
winter is almost useless for controlling
size, as plants will bounce back.
Form
a basin of soil
around the tree to
keep water concentrated on the roots.
MULTIGRAFTED
TREE
36
Although you’ll be limited to the varieties
the wholesaler offers, a tree grafted with
multiple types of fruit is a great way to get
a whole fruit salad from a single tree.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
DIGITAL BONUS
Learn to care for your
backyard orchard:
sunset.com/fruit-trees.
ESPALIERED TREE
In a narrow, sunny space, train your tree
to grow flat against a wall, fence, or
trellis. You’ll need to tether it to stakes
or wires for support, then prune it to
direct its growth horizontally.
In mild-winter areas,
choose trees with a low chill
requirement.
HIGH-DENSITY
PLANTING
Grow two or even three trees in one
hole, with plants placed 18 inches apart.
Choose varieties that pollinate one another and have successive ripening
times for the longest harvest. (Don’t
plant standard and semidwarf rootstocks together in the same hole.) Prune
as a single tree, so limbs don’t overlap.
KEEP
IT SMALL
Cut your new tree
to knee height.
This creates lower
branching and a
shorter tree later
on. Learn more
in the book Grow
a Little Fruit Tree
(Storey Publishing,
2015; $17).
Illustrations by
J O E M C K E N D RY
Control your lights. Anytime. Anywhere.
Turn lights off while you’re away
Never enter a dark home again
Control lights from your bed
Install a dimmer in minutes.
Place the remote where you need it for convenience and
security. Available for overhead lights or plug-in lamps.
For control with your smartphone or tablet, add a
Smart Bridge and download the FREE Lutron app.
Find out where to buy at www.ChooseCaseta.com
Pico® remote, dimmer, Smart Bridge, and
smartphone with app
EVERY RELATIONSHIP
WAR M S UP
o
UNDER A BLANKET
OF SNOW.
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life, rekindle them here. Visit ParkCityEasyEscape.com to see how quickly and easily you can arrive and begin creating your moments.
U TA H
Home & Garden
CHECKLIST
NORTHERN
C A LIFORNIA
PLANT
Start perennial edibles,
including artichoke, asparagus,
and rhubarb. Put them in rich,
well-draining soil in a spot
that gets full sun, and you’ll
be able to harvest for years
to come.
In mild-winter areas, plant clematis as soon as it’s in nurseries.
Place vining types close to a
trellis or obelisk in an area that
receives at least a half-day of
sun. Dig a hole 2 feet wide and
deep with plenty of room around
it (clematis doesn’t tolerate root
competition well).
For seasonal color, tuck hellebores in partly shaded areas
that get ample irrigation. Their
bell-shaped flowers in soft pink,
purple, or pale green add interest to winter gardens.
I D E A W E LOV E
MAINTAIN
To keep houseplants from
growing leggy, move them to
bright indoor locations. Give
them a quarter turn every week.
Feed grapefruit, kumquat,
lemon, and orange trees every
six to eight weeks during bloom
time with a granular fertilizer
formulated for citrus.
Water garden beds and trees
when frost is predicted at night.
Well-hydrated plants are better
prepared to withstand the cold.
THOMAS J. STORY
Catch rainwater from downspouts in buckets and use it on
houseplants.
Pocket gardens
In this Southern California backyard, garden designer Molly Wood created a series of mini but
mighty planting beds. While laying the Italian porcelain pavers, she deliberately left several empty
spaces for drought-tolerant plants, including silvery green Senecio ‘Orange Puffs’, grassy Miscanthus sinensis ‘Adagio’, and orange-yellow Sesleria autumnalis. The plantings create a graphic pattern
when viewed from the deck, visually soften the expanse of paving, and allow for permeability
when rain falls. mollywoodgardendesign.com.
Prune back overgrown groundcovers such as ivy, periwinkle,
and star jasmine to control their
size and encourage new growth
in spring.
PLAN
For the best selection,
order summer-blooming bulbs,
corms, and tubers like begonias,
Fans of the PBS drama will
dahlias, gladiolus, and lilies
swoon over the new Downton
now. Dutch Gardens USA
Abbey series of roses. ‘Anna’s
(dutchgardens.com) and McClure
Promise’, the first in the series,
& Zimmerman (mzbulb.com)
has a two-toned bloom with
offer a large variety. For dahlias
peach petals that reverse to
only, our favorite source is Swan
bronze. It will ship in spring.
Island Dahlias (dahlias.com).
brecks.com.
What grows in your climate zone? Find out at sunset.com/zonefinder.
Reported by
L A U R E N D U N E C H O A N G & J O H A N N A S I LV E R
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
39
Home & Garden
$
BUDGET TIP
A new build can be
cost-efficient: This
house cost about $100
a square foot less than
the median selling
price in the area.
DIARY OF A NEW BUILD
You’re not Employee Number 2, but you still dream
of building your own home. Learn how one Seattle couple
did it on a real-person budget.
40
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
SM ART
SPAC E
pushed Julia Kuskin and Joel Bell to look for
a new place—one, ideally, with two floors above ground so the
couple could move their home offices out of the basement (Julia
is a photographer; Joel is a private-practice therapist). But a
house with enough room for work and their son, Ian, was out of
their price range. Then the couple discovered a tear-down in Seattle’s Sunset Hill. They bought the lot and decided to build. Julia
tells us the lessons she learned while tracking every penny.
A SEARCH FOR LIGHT
H O M E A T L A S T The couple with
their son, Ian, shown above in
the living room of their new
house. The exterior, opposite,
features cedar privacy
screens—a budget-friendly
alternative to siding the
whole house. The trees were
donated by Seattle reLeaf,
a city greening program.
Photographs by
T H O M A S J. S T O RY
Home & Garden
“We wanted to see if
normal people
could afford to build
a house that was
environmentally
sound—and had nice
wood floors.”
—JULIA KUSKIN
We find an architect who isn’t scared off
by our budget. We met with two architects
we found through the AIA website (aia.
org) and had intense conversations with
each one about our plans and budget. We
feel like Chris Serra (bjarkoserra.com) can
translate our vision into an understated,
modern house. He calls our $170-persquare-foot budget “aggressive”—as in
low—but is willing to give it a try.
FIRST FLOOR
SPRING 2011
UTILITY
Drawing plans, changing plans. Since
I’m visually opinionated, I have clear
ideas of what I want. We started off talking to Chris about basic layout preferences and looking at photos of houses we
like. Then we let him take it from there.
We go through four or so designs, whittling away features to make the budget.
For example, storage is an issue. A basement is too pricey, so we decide we can’t
hold on to too much crap. Every time
friends come over for dinner, we make
them take home a box of books.
42
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
JOEL’S
STUDIO
IAN’S
BEDROOM
JULIA’S
STUDIO
SECOND FLOOR
MASTER
BEDROOM
DEN
KITCHEN
LIVING
ROOM
DINING
ROOM
DECK
K I T C H E N The room,
top left and above, is
free of ornamentation
but gains warmth
from the walnut
cabinets. Julia Kuskin
worked closely with
Nathan Hartman
of Kerf Design
(kerfdesign.com) to
plan cabinetry for
the way they live: The
mugs and glasses are
in short open shelves
by the sink, and the
island bookshelves
are sized for her
cookbooks.
L I V I N G R O O M Lightstarved no more: A
27-foot-long window
that stretches from
the kitchen to the
living room, above
left, as well as
clerestory windows
allow sunshine to
reach across the open
space. The living room
is plumbed for a gas
fireplace, which the
couple hopes to add
someday.
ILLUSTRATION: MARGARET SLOAN
SUMMER 2010
$
BUDGET TIP
Local craftspeople
may be open to a
trade of services
to cover some
costs.
®
M U LT I P U R P O S E R O O M When a separate guest room proved too costly, Julia added a fold-down
sofa to her workspace. The poured-concrete floors on the lower level saved money for big-leaf
maple on the second floor.
SUMMER 2011
Learning our limits. We want a guest
room but can’t afford a house larger than
2,100 square feet. We decide squeezing
in another room that would get used only
a few times a year feels like a waste.
EARLY FALL 2011
Experience the
Lynx Lair, and the
largest selection of
BLUE Wilderness
cat food.
I pick up extra duties. Our great relationship with Chris means we can talk openly
about what we can afford. That’s how I
start keeping the minutes for our monthly
construction meetings instead of Chris.
He says he’s never had a client do it, but
I’m happy to. It makes me more aware
of what has been done, potential issues,
and money spent.
LATE FALL 2011
Exclusively at
We change our minds. A lot. I promised
myself there would be no change orders
[changes that require the architect to
redraw construction plans], but we have
about 12. For instance, we have a tiny
44
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
broom closet in the original design but no
pantry. So we reconfigure the space and
put one in. That translates into paying for
a change in design and to build. Ch-ching!
WINTER 2012
We splurge. Furniture designer Nathan
Hartman built two pieces for our first
house that we loved. So he is my choice
for designing the kitchen for this house.
Oh, and a wardrobe and side tables for
the bedroom, and a bookshelf built into
the stairwell ... that’s all still on the wish
list. But we are getting our kitchen.
FALL 2012
Moving in! Did we keep our initial budget
intact? Honestly, no, but I don’t think anyone does. The house is great, no question,
and we love living here.
DIGITAL BONUS The 10 questions
you should ask an architect before
you build: sunset.com/architect.
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Home & Garden
In the Western HOME
T I PS
FROM OUR
TEAM
“My favorite part about
this project? No need to
paint around ceiling trim.”
JOANNA LINBERG, HOME EDITOR
ASK A DESIGNER
Living in
style
IDEA WE LOVE
Quick
character
This month, Cisco Pinedo
brings his sustainable,
made-in-L.A. pieces to a
new showroom in San
Francisco (ciscohome.net).
We asked him for his living
room do’s and don’ts.
In a room with zero architectural features, try this trick:
Paint two-thirds of the wall
in a color, and the top onethird and ceiling white.
(Strong hues could make
ceilings seem lower, so we
favor neutrals for this.) The
color becomes a frame for
furniture and a hanging
guide for art.
What advice do you
have for pulling an
eclectic style together? Find pieces that
appeal to you—maybe
they remind you of
your grandfather or
you just love the shape.
Then find the thread
that will connect them
in your home. It might
be color. I have one
common thread in my
house: white. And
then trust that you do
have taste.
BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE
On trips to Denver—where we’re building our 2015 Idea House—we’ve
discovered dozens of furniture makers (does everyone in this city know
how to use a block plane?). One to note: Scott Bennett of Housefish.
He recently added the Lock Chair to his line of modular pieces made
from responsibly harvested U.S. wood. The seat has no-brainer assembly: Just click the “locking notch” into place and screw it together
to secure. From $269 ($279 as shown in walnut); housefish.com.
THIS IS SMART
PRIVATE
EYE
46
Renters, behold your “smart” security system. Like many devices, the Canary
captures live video of your home from its wide-angle lens. But unlike other
systems, there are no wall-damaging sensors to install. Simply place the 3- by
6-inch cylinder in a central spot and connect it to Wi-Fi. The app lets you put
the Canary in “privacy mode” (camera off) when you’re home, and choose a
trusted backup to receive alerts when you’re not reachable. $249; canary.is.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Most common mistake
people make when
buying a sofa? You can
not compromise on comfort. And color; if you
pick the wrong color,
you’ll be miserable.
What’s a do-it-all
piece everyone should
own? I’m obsessed with
small end tables. They’re
perfect for when you
have friends over and
they need a place to put
their drink and phone.
I have one called Rotor.
We make it out of the
brake of a car, with a
metal frame and a little
piece of glass on top.
TOP, FROM LEFT: GLUEKIT, THOMAS J. STORY, COURTESY OF CISCO HOME
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The West’s Best
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Choose Your
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DIORAMA PHOTOGRAPHS: JEFFERY CROSS
A Tribute to Snow
by Pam Houston
Let It
Snow
Dioramas by
LISA SWERLING
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
49
SUNSET PICKS
The Best Snow
Town in the West
A great snow town lets you ski fast, sleep well, and eat adventurously. The West has lots
of great ones. And Jackson, Wyoming, is the greatest of them all. By Josh Dean
80 INCHES
3 42 I N C H E S
Average snowfall in Jan
Average annual snowfall
24 INCHES
from one snowfall in Jan 1996
Biggest powder day
70 I N C H E S
Average base depth
Clockwise from above:
The resort; elk-antler
arches anchor downtown; a bull moose.
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
telling you how
much I love Jackson Hole, a place that
until fairly recently was still under the
radar in winter. I’ve had most of my favorite days on snow here, knee-deep in
Teton powder, or slicing around lodgepole pines, as puffs of the light snow that
seems to fall every day from December
through April blast me in the face.
Jackson Hole’s remoteness used to
distinguish it from the other large skiresort areas of the West, with their
direct-air service from both coasts. It felt
exclusive. With 4,139 vertical feet of skiing and a notoriously vast backcountry,
it could also feel intimidating.
But in the past few years, the sleepy
resort where ski bums slept in cars has
transformed into a world-class destination. What hasn’t changed is the gigantic mountain, or the spectacular
Teton Range that contains it. Or the
Old West town of Jackson, an easy
20-minute drive from the resort—if
you don’t get stuck behind a family of
moose in the road.
Jackson has fine dining and honkytonks, designer shops and chaps-andboot sellers, Harrison Ford and Dick
Cheney, and the cowboys who take care
of their horses. Skiing might be the
thing that brings you here the first time,
but it’s not necessarily the reason you’ll
keep coming back.
The test of a successful vacation is
how you feel at the end. A good trip
leaves you feeling like it went too quickly, wishing that you could extend it for
just a few more days. Jackson’s pull is
even more powerful for me. Every time
I get on a plane to head back home, I ask
myself why I don’t just move to the
Tetons full-time.
I ALMOST FEEL GUILT Y
TAYLOR GLENN (3)
(Turn the page for more.)
SNOWSPEAK
POWDER
Lightweight, fluffy, and dry;
freshly fallen.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
51
SUNSET PICKS
YOUR IDEAL WEEKEND:
JACKSON, WY
S TAY H E R E
AT THE MOUNTAIN
A decade ago, there
were only a couple
of hostels and a cluster of condos at the
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Now,
there’s a Four Seasons, the Teton Mountain Lodge, and our
favorite, Hotel Terra,
which melds modern,
eco-friendly design
with a more mountainlike vibe. From
$263; hotelterra
jacksonhole.com.
The Wort
Hotel, opened in
1941, is one of the
few places with the
kind of historical
character that befits
the dusty old cowboy
town Jackson once
was. From $289;
worthotel.com.
IN TOWN
HIT THE
SLOPES
MUST-DO Even if
you’re not a skier,
take the famous tram
to the top of the resort’s 10,450-foothigh Rendezvous
Bowl, then admire
the views with a beer
and a Belgian waffle
at Corbet’s Cabin.
FOR BEGINNER
SKIERS Jackson
Hole’s reputation is
that it’s steep and
challenging. That’s
true, but it’s also
huge, with terrain for
skiers of all levels.
The Après Vous
Mountain side of the
resort is basically
a beginner and intermediate playground,
and Kids Ranch, located in a building
just off the gondola,
is one of the best
programs in the industry for teaching
little ones.
FOR THE MORE
EXPERIENCED Jack-
son Hole is famous
for “sidecountry,”
a term coined to
describe the open
resort boundaries
that lead to trees,
chutes, and other
off-piste terrain that
you can ski and then
still return to the lifts.
You get the thrill of
skiing wilder runs
without the misery
that backcountry
typically requires—
in particular, long
hikes with skis or
snowboards strapped
to your back. From
$104/1-day lift ticket; jacksonhole.com.
MEET THE
L O CA L S
WILDLIFE SPOTTING
You often see the elk
before you see the
town of Jackson.
Most days, they’re
right along U.S. 26
on the way in from
the airport. In winter,
you can see them
(relatively) up close
in safety, on a horsedrawn sleigh ride in
the 24,700-acre
National Elk Refuge.
Tours run daily from
December through
the first week of
April. $20; fws.gov/
nationalelkrefuge.
TAS T E
T H E T OW N
BREAKFAST Housed
in a rustic log cabin
halfway between
town and the resort,
Nora’s Fish Creek Inn
got a James Beard
Award in 2012 for
having one of the
best breakfasts in
America. The huevos
rancheros are justifiably beloved. $;
5600 State 22, Wilson; norasfishcreek
inn.com.
No place in
town has better
views than Couloir,
set at the top of the
Jackson Hole gondola at 9,095 feet.
Start with the duck
wings, no matter
what else you order.
$$; 3265 W. Village
Dr., Teton Village;
jacksonhole.com.
LUNCH
DINNER Transplanted
Chicago restaurateur
Gavin Fine has a
mini empire growing
in Jackson, and
you’re in good hands
at any of his seven
eateries. Rendezvous
Bistro ($$) is the
original, and it’s
home to the best
hamburger around,
topped with bacon,
Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) is served by American,
Delta, Frontier, and United airlines. The town is 9 1⁄ 2 miles south of
JAC via U.S. 191, which is open all winter.
GE T TING HERE
52
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
white cheddar, and
roasted-garlic-anddill aioli. Bin22 ($),
his latest, is a wine
bar with tapas. The
best part? You can
buy wine in the attached shop and
drink it at dinner
with no corkage fee.
jhfinedining.com.
RAISE
A G L AS S
THE CHEERS OF
JACKSON Sure,
it’s
touristy, but it’s also
authentic and adored
by locals. The Million
Dollar Cowboy Bar is
the center of Jackson
social life, with cheap
cans of beer, live
country music, and
Texas two-step.
Commandeer one
of the barstools,
each of which has
an actual saddle in
lieu of a seat, and sip
a bottle of the local
Snake River Lager.
That stuffed grizzly
in the glass case?
It’s allegedly the
largest bear ever
killed by a man with
his bare hands.
25 N. Cache St.;
milliondollarcow
boybar.com.
Clockwise from right: Whiteout bliss; the resort’s
famous tram; Gavin Fine’s salumi and cheese.
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
“In January
and February, you can
always count
on getting
great powder
conditions
and quality
snow—really
light and dry,
just the way
I like it.”
TAYLOR GLENN (4)
—tommy moe, 20-year
resident of jackson and
1994 olympic skiing gold
and silver medalist
SNOWSPEAK
CHAMPAGNE POWDER
Extremely lightweight and
fluffy—the gold standard
for skiers and boarders.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
53
SUNSET PICKS
YOUR PERFECT SNOW DAY
What do you want to do?
Bond with my kids
on the slopes.
I want to
take it easy.
Up on the
mountain.
I have little
ones.
Deer Valley
Resort puts
beginner and
intermediate
skiers at ease
with plenty of
groomed runs
and inviting
views to match.
Take advantage
of the free,
twice-daily
tours, when
guides can
point you to the
best terrain for
your skill level.
$114/1-day lift
ticket; Park City,
UT; deer
valley.com.
Diamond Peak’s
Last Tracks
program grants
bragging rights
and a buzz. For
$34, you get to
catch the day’s
last chair up
the mountain,
enjoy wine and
appetizers at
7,450-foot-high
Snowflake Lodge,
and then ski
down while
watching the sun
set over Lake
Tahoe. $64/1-day
lift ticket; Incline
Village, NV;
diamondpeak.com.
Angel Fire Resort beckons
families with
base-camp babysitting and the
new High Five
deal, which lets
young first-time
skiers earn a free
season pass after
taking five lessons. Kids in
need of a ski
break can make
their own Frosty
with DIY snowman kits. $53/
1-day lift ticket;
Angel Fire, NM;
angelfire
resort.com.
Play in the
snow, sans hills.
Crosscountry
skiing.
Much of Glacier
National Park’s
beloved Goingto-the-Sun Road
closes to cars in
winter. But you
can still see the
route’s beauty by
skis. Glacier Adventure Guides
offers full-day
excursions, including instruction for newbies,
from December
through May.
From $180; Columbia Falls, MT;
glacieradventure
guides.com.
Challenge me.
Off the mountain.
I have teens.
Snowshoeing.
Steep runs, deep powder—
that’s what you’ll find at
Mt. Bachelor. Catch the
Northwest Express lift to
access glades of old-growth
hemlocks, perfectly spaced
for skiing, or venture to the
Low East area, 650 acres of
newly opened terrain.
$79/1-day lift ticket; Bend,
OR; mtbachelor.com.
At Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, revelers
can rent a heated yurt
close to Lee Peak’s 11,289foot summit, ski during
the day, and then hop a
45-minute limo ride to
the Strip. Schuss City
meets Sin City. $48/1-day
lift ticket; Las Vegas;
skilasvegas.com.
Brundage Mountain
Resort is a super place
for older kids to test
their limits. Many intermediate runs sit next to
widely spaced trees,
making it easy for adventure seekers to give ungroomed terrain a try.
$50/1-day lift ticket; McCall, ID; brundage.com.
At Snoqualmie Pass,
U.S. Forest Service rangers will outfit you with
snowshoes, show you
the basics, and guide you
on a beginner-friendly,
90-minute hike through
the Cascades. $15 suggested donation; Snoqualmie
Pass, WA; reservations:
(425) 434-6111.
SNOWSPEAK
BROWN SNOW
Infused with mud,
usually shows up
in spring.
54
Revel in the
après scene.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
SNOW HALL OF FAME
film blanc
Five movies starring
Western snow
SUN VALLE Y SERENADE
(1941) This corny musical
with Norwegian skating sensation Sonja Henie made a
star out of the Idaho resort.
JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972 )
Actor Robert Redford was so taken with the Utah filming locations,
he bought land nearby—to start
a little place called Sundance.
JON MULLEN/GETTY IMAGES; BELOW: EVERETT COLLECTION
Ski, plain
and simple.
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
KNOW YOUR SNOW
WHERE TO GO,
AND WHEN
Have fun—without
breaking a sweat.
Memorable
scenery
and killer
photo ops.
Kick back in
a cozy sled on
a mushing tour
with Jeff Ulsamer’s Dog
Sled Adventures. Ulsamer’s Alaskan Huskies
lead hourlong
rides through
the old-growth
fir of Stillwater
State Forest.
From $100;
Whitefish, MT;
dogsled
adventures
montana.com.
Tony Crocker loves two things: skiing and
stats. His website, bestsnow.net, combines
both, with 40-plus years of snowfall
data—and tips on how to find the freshest
flakes. His advice:
1
2
3
4
Okay, maybe
a few thrills.
Snowtubing provides
the wind-in-your-face
adrenaline boost of
skiing and boarding—
but doesn’t require the
skill. Try the thousandfoot-long lanes at Whistler Blackcomb. $21/
1-hour pass; Whistler, B.C.;
whistlerblackcomb.com.
5
IF YOU WANT TO SKI IN JANUARY …
Mountains that get a lot of sun—like Steamboat and Vail in Colorado, and
Jackson in Wyoming—are good bets right now. Jackson Hole sees more snow
in January than any other month: an average of 80 inches of fresh powder.
FOR PRESIDENT’S DAY
OR SPRING BREAK,
BOOK IN JANUARY.
Make plans too far ahead of time
and you won’t know where the
snow’s going. By January, you’ll
have a clear idea of which mountains are getting a good snowfall.
SNOW HALL OF FAME
Over-the-top
billing
Ski-run names gone wild.
OR, WAIT UNTIL MARCH.
Summit County, Colorado, is a
good spring-break option. It has
numerous high-altitude resorts,
such as Breckenridge and Keystone, that preserve snow exceptionally well.
WYATT’S BURP
(Alyeska, AK)
DEVIL’S CROTCH
(Breckenridge, CO)
HUEVOS GRANDE
(Mammoth, CA)
NAUGHTY GIRL
IN THE LATE SEASON,
AIM HIGH.
Ski conditions in March and April
are driven more by altitude and exposure than by the season’s snowfall. The higher the peak, the colder
it is, and the more snow it’ll keep.
When you need to plan ahead, pick
a high-elevation spot, like Mammoth in California, Mt. Bachelor in
Oregon, or Telluride in Colorado.
(Brundage, ID)
NUTHER MOTHER
(Pajarito, NM)
X-FILES
(Deer Valley, UT)
THE DUMPS (Aspen)
DITCH OF DOOM
(Kirkwood, CA)
BRAIN DAMAGE
(Crystal Mountain, WA)
WIDOW MAKER
AND DON’T PANIC—
THERE WILL BE SNOW.
Despite the drought in California,
Western snow conditions are still
strong. The 2010–11 season was
the best ski season in more than
40 years. When in doubt, Utah’s
Cottonwood Canyon resorts, like
Alta, are a safe choice for good
snow all season.
THE SH INING (1980 ) A family
getaway to a luxury resort? What
could go wrong? Colorado, Montana, and Oregon all claim to be
the true locale.
DUMB AND DUMBER
(1994 ) Lloyd and
Harry take on snowy,
snooty Aspen. And
Aspen loses.
(Heavenly, CA)
SNOWSPEAK
CORDUROY
Groomed by a snowcat
machine into grooves.
FROZEN ( 2013 ) Okay, it was
set in an animated Scandinavia.
The saga of Elsa and Anna is
still the triumphant product of
Burbank-based Disney.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
55
SUNSET PICKS
the new classic lodges
Know where the snow is amazing? Outside the frosted window of a fire-warmed inn.
Here are our top five base camps this winter.
WASHINGTON
SCHOOL HOUSE
HOTEL
Park City, Utah, has
grown over-the-top posh
in recent years, and our
favorite spot to splurge
is the Washington School
House Hotel. Hidden
just off Main Street is
a newly renovated stone
schoolhouse turned
hushed inn that’s well
worth the sticker shock.
Your stay includes
everything from omelets
in the morning to warm
cookies at night, access
to the rooftop heated
pool—and, believe it or
not, all alcohol. Then
there’s the space itself:
16-foot-high ceilings,
100-year-old crystal
chandeliers, and white
marble bathroom floors
(heated, of course). From
$1,125; washington
schoolhouse.com.
S L E E P O N T H I S Every
winter, the Sundance Film
Festival draws 45,000 attendees to Park City—
more than eight times the
town’s population.
BASECAMP
South Lake Tahoe, California, has always
been known more for casino buffets and highrise hotels than for hipness. But when Basecamp opened in 2012, young, budget-minded
snow chasers were first in line, ready to scout
the revamped ‘50s motel within boot-stomping
distance of Heavenly. What they found was
a high-style crash pad straight out of a Wes
Anderson movie. The 50 guest rooms all come
with comfy Pendleton blankets, walk-in showers, and rustic lanterns to help you find your
way to the outdoor firepits for a s’moresathon. New this season: a 20-person hot tub
and a beer garden with Texas-style barbecue.
From $109; basecamphotels.com.
S L E E P O N T H I S The nearby Heavenly
Mountain Resort opened in 1955, 10 years
before South Lake Tahoe existed as a town.
56
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
SNOW HALL OF FAME
THE WOOD
SLED—MADE
BET TER
THE SNOWPINE LODGE
Built in 1938, The Snowpine Lodge in Alta, Utah, is the oldest of
the resort’s five ski-in/ski-out inns—and after years of neglect,
it began looking like it. But a couple of years ago, new owners
gave this intimate, 21-room lodge the love, care, and cozy couches it deserves. Plus: an outdoor hot tub, plush beds, and a relaxed dining room with four-course suppers where slippers are
acceptable and the chef takes requests. From $130 for bunk,
$339 for private room, including meals; thesnowpinelodge.com.
Consider it rideable art. The
heirloom-quality Ultimate
Flyer, from Colorado-based
Mountain Boy Sledworks, is
handcrafted from birch, with
willow handrails, stainless
steel hardware, and customized skids on the bottom for
increased speed. The entire
front section pivots for added
control and steering. $180;
mountainboysleds.com.
S L E E P O N T H I S After a controversial 2014 decision to ban
snowboarders, Alta is one of three ski-only resorts in the country.
VOICES OF THE SNOW
KNOB HILL INN
For years, Knob Hill Inn was too frilly and pink, desperately playing the part of the only luxury hotel in Sun Valley. Then in 2011,
new owners swooped in with $1.2 million to give a town steeped
in tradition something fresh. The contemporary hotel is home to
just 29 rooms—some with wood-burning fireplaces, others with
prime views of Mt. Baldy, all with heated marble bathroom floors.
Best of all: It’s within walking distance of downtown Ketchum.
From $329; knobhillinn.com.
S L E E P O N T H I S The first two chairlifts in the country were built
in Sun Valley in 1936.
LODGE AT VAIL
Back in 1962, when Vail Mountain first opened with one rickety
gondola and $5 lift tickets, there
was just one 30-room hotel in Vail.
Now, that hotel is a 165-room
resort, which sparkles this season
after a big-deal, multiphase renovation: 56 newly redone rooms
with fireplaces and panoramic
views of the peaks. The pool is
fresh off a million-dollar facelift
too, with two new hot tubs and
gas firepits. From $547; lodge
atvail.rockresorts.com.
S L E E P O N T H I S Vail Ski Resort
was established by three WWII
vets who had trained for alpine
combat in a nearby valley.
SNOWSPEAK
SLUSH
Halfway to
melting,
very heavy
and wet.
YES, THERE’S
SNOW IN HAWAII
“A couple of days after a big
front moves in, we might open
the road to Mauna Kea’s
summit. Then you’ll see them,
4x4s full of locals hauling snowboards, inner tubes, Boogie
boards. There are no lifts, so one
person goes down, then waits
to get driven back to the top. It’s
no place for a beginner. We’re at
14,000 feet above sea level,
with very steep slopes and hard
lava rock underneath the snow.
I’ve never done it—no way.
I know my limits.”
—RANGER SCOTTY PAIVA ON DOWNHILLING
THE WORLD’S TALLEST VOLCANO
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
57
VOICES OF THE SNOW
SUNSET PICKS
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SNOWY
“The Sierra Nevada snowpack is like a
frozen reservoir. Its runoff supplies
30 percent of California’s water—and
everybody needs to drink water. We
start measuring the snow February 1.
We ski out to 250 sites across the state
and use snow samplers, poles you stick
in the ground. We also use automatic
snow sensors that emit data electronically. Last year’s snowpack was one of
our worst ever. Maybe I’m delusional,
but I’m hoping this year will be better.”
—DAVE RIZZARDO, CHIEF OF SNOW SURVEY SECTION,
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES
THE BEST
MEALS AT HIGH
ALTITUDE
Everything tastes better
at 10,000 feet, where just getting
to the dinner table is half the fun.
Here are six ways to dine high.
ALPINE MEADOWS,
LAKE TAHOE, CA
KNOW YOUR SNOW
Meet your maker
Expert snowmaker Jon Wax is so good at filling in the flakes
at Washington’s Mission Ridge Resort that Sochi tapped him for the
2014 Winter Olympics. We share his take on the fake stuff.
What is fake snow?
Fake snow is just snow made
from high-pressure water and
compressed air, then launched
140 feet from a machine. The
only real difference is that it
doesn’t have dendritic arms,
which are the crystal structures
that ensure no two snowflakes
are alike.
How do you make good
fake snow?
A lot of hard work and studying
the forecast for temperature,
humidity, and wind. Things can
change quickly. We spend a lot
of time moving the machines
around, then the winds shift and
we have to move again. We joke
and say that it’s “pure magic,”
but it’s not.
Can the average person
tell the difference between
real and manmade?
It depends on the conditions
you had when you made the
snow. Snow made at 26° is
going to be a little different from
snow made at 12°. There’s also
a cure time involved with manmade snow. Ideally, you make
it, then you don’t touch it for
24 hours to let the moisture
evaporate. If you get short on
time, you start pushing stuff
before it’s ready, and the snow
isn’t as smooth.
What was it like to make
snow for the 2014 Sochi
Olympics?
Amazing. They had one of the
largest fan systems in the world.
The firepower was incredible.
The temperature wasn’t always
ideal, but when it got cold
enough, we were full-on. For
perspective, when we’re rocking
at Mission Ridge, we convert
1,800 to 2,000 gallons of water
to snow every minute. In Sochi,
we were doing 12,000!
So without fake snow,
there would not have been
a Sochi Olympics?
I’m confident there wouldn’t
have been.
The Chalet, at midmountain, has been
transformed into
a Swiss-style beer
garden. Ski to the
door for a pint, or
come back via snowcat for a country
meal. New this season: Private Snowcat Dinners ($220;
15 people min.). And
on peak weekends:
Snowshoe Dinners
($69) under the stars
for 50 strangers—
who no doubt leave
as friends. squaw
alpine.com.
SNOWSPEAK
HARDPACK
Densely
packed,
almost icy.
ARAPAHOE
BASIN, CO
If snowshoeing up
to 12,000 feet under
the light of a full
moon for a Bavarian feast sounds
appealing, reserve
now. A-Basin’s
monthly Moonlight Dinners are
insanely popular.
Not down for the
45-minute climb?
Hop the chairlift
and be greeted by
live music, a familystyle spread, and
picture-window
views of the Continental Divide. $85;
arapahoebasin.com.
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
SUNSET PICKS
Elsa. Experienced
guides will take you
through ice tunnels,
ice slides, and a
series of grand
rooms, including
one where lunch
will be served.
It could be fresh
sushi or braised
lamb, paired with
ice wine, of course.
From $10,000
U.S./group of 4;
headlinemountain
holidays.com.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: CAMARA PHOTOGRAPHY, THOMAS J. STORY, LYNN DONALDSON; RIGHT, FROM TOP: NORBERT MILLER/
AFP/GETTY IMAGES, STEFAN WACKERHAGEN/IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY; PAGE 56, BOTTOM LEFT: EVA KOLENKO
LONE MOUNTAIN
RANCH, BIG SKY, MT
ASPEN
The Cloud Nine
Alpine Bistro atop
the Aspen Highlands was a ski patrol station until the
late 1990s. Now it’s
one of the Rockies’
best ski-in restaurants, its menu
packed with local
game, fish, and produce. The signature
raclette (gooey, firemelted cheese
served with potatoes and cured
meats) will make
you want to linger
well after the frost
has disappeared
from your nose. Or
until the ski patrol
sends you back
down the mountain.
Lunch $45 prix fixe;
aspensnowmass.com/
cloudnine.
WHISTLER, B.C.
Looking for an
over-the-top dining
experience? Local
outfitter Head-Line
will helicopter you
to the Pemberton
Ice Fields, where
you’ll snowmobile
to a maze of ice
caves fit for Queen
The weekly Sleigh
Ride Dinners at
this all-inclusive
6,500-acre guest
ranch near Yellowstone’s northwest
gate are legendary.
Hot cocoa and wool
blankets keep you
warm as a team of
2,000-pound draft
horses pulls you
through the winter
wonderland to a
remote cabin in the
woods. For the next
two hours, it’s lamplit ambience, slabs
of prime rib with
roasted potatoes,
and a real-deal cowboy singing tunes
about the Montana
range. $115; lone
mountainranch.com.
SNOWSPEAK
THREE
SNOWMAZING
SPORTS
CORNICE
Balcony-like overhang created by
wind; some skiers
and boarders like to
launch from cornices,
but they can snap off.
1. SNOWKITING
WHAT IS IT? A massive
kite that propels you
and your skis or board
across the snow.
PLAY HERE Telluride
Snowkite School,
Telluride, CO. $75/
3-hour clinic; telluride
snowkite.com.
INTRODUCING
THE ROVING
CHAMPAGNE
BAR
There’s skiing Champagne powder, and
then there’s sipping
Champagne in the
powder. The Oasis
on Aspen Mountain
lets you do both.
How it works: Skiers
and snowboarders
check Twitter or
Facebook to find
where the mobile bar
will pop up next—and
then show up in their
boots ready to kick
back in actual lounge
chairs, listen to solarpowered tunes,
spoon fresh caviar,
and tilt back flutes of
bubbly. Because skiing at 11,000 feet
doesn’t make you
light-headed enough.
From $15; thelittle
nell.com.
2. SKIJORING
WHAT IS IT? A combi-
nation of cross-country skiing and dog
sledding. Your pooch
does the pulling; you
do the steering.
PLAY HERE Devil’s
Thumb Ranch Resort,
Tabernash, CO.
$40/2-hour clinic;
devilsthumbranch.com.
3. SNOW BIKING
WHAT IS IT? Mountain
biking in the snow,
using bikes with
special oversize tires.
PLAY HERE Jug Mountain Ranch, McCall,
ID. $50/day bike rental,
$10 trail day pass;
jugmountain
ranch.com.
DIGITAL BONUS
From snowy
wonderlands to urban
fun, the very best places
to visit in winter: sunset.
com/wintertravel.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
59
KNOW YOUR SNOW
LEADERS OF THE PACK
The West has always had the best snow in the whole country—and we have the stats to prove it.
MT
S N O Q UA L MI E
L ARGEST SKI RESORT
IN THE U.S.
SNOWIEST YEAR IN THE U.S.
CA S CA D E S
1,140 inches
(95 feet)
BEND
mt. baker ski area, wa
elevation: 5,089 feet
jul 1, 1998–jun 30, 1999.
5,800-acre
Big Sky Resort
M CC A L L
big sky, mt
elevation: 11,166 feet.
WY
JAC KSON
ID
R O C KY M O U N TA I N S
S I E R R A N E VA DA
BIGGEST SNOWSTORM
IN THE U.S.
189 inches
(15.75 feet)
CO
PA R K C I T Y
BRECKENRIDGE
NORTH
L AKE TAHOE
mount shasta
ski bowl, ca
elevation: 3,554 feet
feb 13–19, 1959.
SNOWIEST DAY IN THE U.S.
RED RIVER
75.8 inches
(6.3 feet)
silver lake, co
elevation: 10,220 feet
apr 14–15, 1921.
SNOWIEST MONTH
IN THE U.S.
DEEPEST SNOW
IN THE U.S.
390 inches
(32.5 feet)
451 inches
(37.6 feet)
tamarack, ca
elevation: 7,000 feet
jan 1911.
tamarack, ca
elevation: 7,000 feet
mar 11, 1911.
NM
SUNSET PICKS
THE BEST SNOW EVENTS
INTERNATIONAL SNOW SCULPTURE CHAMPIONSHIPS (CO)
JAN 27–FEB 8
60
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
At first, there’s nothing but a half-dozen blocks of snow, pressed
into enormous cubes. Then the teams arrive—trios from around
the globe—and unwrap the strangest batch of tools ever to make
it past airport security: serrated saws, garden spades. For days,
they saw, scrape, and sand, until the night before “tools down,”
when judging begins. The sculptures are smooth as glass, all traces of snow swept away. Team Netherlands is finishing a mash-up
of a corkscrew and a beer opener. “You better pick a design you
like,” says one of its sculptors. “Because it’s days of cold, hard,
wet work.” In the morning, the sculptures will stand white and
gleaming against a bluebird sky, until, winners and losers alike,
they soften, start to drip, and collapse under their own weight.
Get the scoop firsthand in Breckenridge. gobreck.com.
SUNSET’S 2015 WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE
SNOWSPEAK
CORN
Springtime snow,
melted and
refrozen into
icy pellets.
VOICES OF THE SNOW
AFTER THE FALL
B Y PA M H O U S T O N
M C CALL
WINTER
CARNIVAL (ID)
JAN 30–FEB 8
FROM LEFT: CARL SCOFIELD (2), TAYLOR GLENN; MAP ILLUSTRATION: SUPRIYA KALIDAS
Opens with
snow sculptures, ends with
a fireworks display. mccall
chamber.org/
winter-carnival.
NORTH
LAKE TAHOE
SNOWFEST
(NV)
FEB 27–MAR 8
Get all goosebumpy at
the Polar
Bear Swim,
or chill out at
the parade.
tahoesnow
festival.com.
FUR RENDEZVOUS (AK)
FEB 27–MAR 8
Snow-packed
activities in Anchorage, from
sled dog races
to the crowning
of Rondy royalty. furrondy.net.
WINTER
CARNIVAL &
PARADE OF
ICE (NM)
JAN 9–11,
16–19
Ice sculpting,
parades, and
snowmobile
races in Red
River. redriver
newmex.com.
I live at 9,000 feet above sea level in Colorado, near the headwaters of the Rio Grande,
in a high horseshoe-shaped valley wrapped on three sides by the Continental Divide.
The air is thin, dry, and cold up here. The snowstorms get stuck in the dip and swirl of
the basin, turning back and back again on themselves, sometimes dropping as much
as 4 inches an hour. On a morning in mid-November, we can wake to dry frozen
ground and flurries, and by dinnertime, the split-rail fences have all gone under. We
might not see the tops of them again until March.
That is the day that launches four solid months of worry. I fear for my elderly geldings who get so depressed standing on that frozen moonscape with their achy old-man
legs that they sometimes stop eating, stop taking the short walk to the trough. You can
lead a horse to water, you can carry a bucket of water to a horse and stick it right under
his nose, you can float carrot bits on the surface to make it more appealing, you can
even lie down on the ice in front of the bucket and pretend to slurp up water yourself,
but it turns out to be true that you cannot make him drink.
I worry, too, about the mini donkeys, who are far jollier than the horses but no taller
than the split-rail fences. They have to power through the pasture like Tonka trucks,
leaving their belly marks in the fresh powder, and I imagine them high-centered in a
drift some howling night, their little legs spinning but gaining no purchase.
I worry about my Icelandic sheep, especially Jordan, the ewe, who is prone to respiratory illness brought on by sudden cold snaps, and my chickens, who tend to attack
(and sometimes kill) each other in extreme weather of any kind. I’ve been spotted
heading out to the chicken house at 5 a.m., dressed in my giant Denver Broncos coat,
mushing gloves, and pack boots, toting a space heater. I sit cross-legged under the red
lamp with the humming heater in my lap for a couple of hours while the chickens
gather around and jockey for position under my armpits.
What edges out the worry, of course, is the wonder. Because what could be better
than 48 inches in 24 hours, than a young Irish wolfhound leaping though bottomless
powder with a giant smile on his face, than a herd of 200 elk making their stately way
through the pasture toward the river? What could be better than knowing the aquifer
is getting replenished, that summer wildfire fear is assuaged, if not abated, that the
rivers will be full of trout and the pastures full of wild irises come June?
What follows the storm is utter stillness, in which nothing is moving, every living
being in the county is resting. It’s a quiet so complete that I can hear when a car crosses
the cattle guard 2 miles and three bends of river canyon away.
This is my home, a place where nature still controls how we spend our days and
how we spend our lives. September is for filling the barn with hay; October for loading
the porch with firewood. It’s 6 degrees below zero, but according to The Weather Channel, it feels like minus 20. There’s a pot of green chile stew in the oven, and the dogs are
snoring by the woodstove. There’s nothing I would trade this for. Now, let it snow.
Pam Houston is the author of five books, including Cowboys Are My Weakness and her latest,
Contents May Have Shifted. She lives in Creede, Colorado.
Additional reporting by Alexandra Deabler, Peter Fish, David Hanson, Rachel Levin, Megan McCrea, Andrea Minarcek, Nino Padova & Lisa Trottier
Way back when, they met cute in Hawaii.
Now, they’re trying to reconnect with this land of lava, white-knuckle
drives, dolphins gone AWOL—and each other. Can they
find the magic again while chaperoned by a ukulele-mad 10-year-old?
BY PEGGY ORENSTEIN
brought my husband and me together.
It was 1991. I was still new to San Francisco, enjoying
myself in that aimless, vaguely miserable way endemic
to one’s 20s—unsure of what my life added up to,
where it was heading. A friend who was writing about
the rise of the Native Hawaiian rights movement invited me to tag along on a reporting trip to the Big Island.
A free hotel room? Sign me up! Steven, as it happened,
was there making a documentary film on the same
subject. We had friends in common back home, and I’d
always thought he was kind of cute. So, on the pretext
of our mutual interest in hula heiaus and petroglyphs,
I wangled an introduction.
About a year later, we returned to the Big Island as a
twosome, to screen his film and, not incidentally, to
THE BIG ISLAND
marry. In a photo from that trip, I’m
The Kona
Coast: palm
standing on the rim of the Kilauea
trees, soft
Volcano caldera, gazing at the steam
white sand,
that rises from its floor. Life was bethatched
roofs, gentle
ginning down there, molten and untradewinds.
predictable. I wonder if I realized that
my own life was being forged as well.
So much has happened since then: years of infertility
followed by the birth of our daughter, Daisy; professional
triumphs and disappointments; illnesses and the deaths
of parents; shared jokes; inevitable resentments. Our
marriage turned 21 last year, old enough to drink (and
some days it probably would—heavily). That seemed the
perfect moment to return to the Big Island, the place it all
began. As with love itself, I hoped to rediscover what had
Peggy Orenstein is the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, a New York Times best seller. She is also a contributing
writer to The New York Times Magazine. Hear her read this story on voqel.com/sunset.
62
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Photographs by T H O M A S
J. S T O RY
always drawn me to this place—and, perhaps, even after
all these years, to find a few surprises.
The day did not start off well. We woke at 4 to catch
an early flight and all of us—Daisy, now 10, Steven, and
I—were grouchy. Steven and I quarreled over something tiny. I can’t recall what, exactly, though I am quite
sure he started it and I was in the right.
by the time we landed,
but we’d let our irritation go. After all, we were in Hawaii! We dumped our things at our Keauhou Bay hotel,
assured our daughter that, yes, she could try the really
cool waterslide later, and grabbed our snorkeling gear.
Our longtime favorite spot, Honaunau Bay, was farther
south, past sleepy, polysyllabic towns chockablock with
junk stores and local dives. There was the Aloha Theatre, erected in 1932, where Steven’s film once showed.
There was Kaaloa’s Super Js, home of the island’s best
plate lunch; officially a restaurant, it doubles, I suspect,
as the owner’s living room. There was the Painted
Church, the legacy of a priest and self-taught artist who
hoped his vibrant imagery would lure a nonliterate
population to Catholicism. There was the sacred
Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau, where, in the ultimate game of
WE HADN’T EXACTLY RECONCILED
The thing about the
Big Island is, it’s a big island.
A really big island.
All the other islands put
together would fit
onto it nearly twice over.
tag, ancient Hawaiians condemned to death could find
refuge—provided they got there before being caught.
Just before the parking lot, we turned down the road
leading to Two-Step, a snorkeling spot named for the
worn lava rocks that ease entry to the ocean.
When Daisy was 18 months old, she leapt gleefully
into a swimming pool; I ducked beneath the surface to
find her fully submerged there, eyes wide open, grinning.
When she was 4, we strapped a mask, snorkel, and fins
on her for the first time; by 6, she could say humuhumunukunukuapua‘a (Hawaiian for reef triggerfish, its
literal translation is “fish with a snout like a pig”). Now
Daisy is a mermaid, free-diving into the ocean’s depths,
checking beneath ledges for bashful parrot fish.
I, meanwhile, scanned for sea turtles. At some point,
Steven and I decided they were lucky, so not seeing one
64
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
somehow became the opposite. They often frequent
Two-Step, but today there were none. The pod of spinner dolphins that hangs out on the north side of the
bay was AWOL as well. Daisy didn’t mind. She delighted in everything she saw: the schools of butterfly
fish, the glowing yellow tangs, the unicorn fish. After
an hour, I had not seen anything exotic and was slightly
disappointed; she had seen only the commonplace
yet was thrilled. I don’t think I need to tell you who
was better off.
at The Coffee Shack, in the
town of Captain Cook, were so fresh, we could almost
taste the sun and soil that grew them. I tell you this not
only because our meal was great, but also so you won’t
think that all I ate was pie. Because that is the real reason we always stop for lunch here. Yes, there is the
homemade bread and earthy mushroom soup, fabulous
breakfasts with french toast the size of my head. But the
mac nut pie at The Coffee Shack is, as the locals say,
broke da mouth. Sweet and golden, it is suffused with
rich, creamy macadamia nuts, a nut that puts all others—
the lowly pecan, the humble walnut, the basic almond—
to shame. (Let us not begin to discuss the peanut, which
is not even a nut but a legume. Feh.) Steven and I showed
uncustomary restraint by ordering one slice for the two
of us, then dove for it as if it were the last weapon in The
Hunger Games. It was gone within seconds.
THE GREENS IN THE SALAD
about surprises? The Keauhou
Store, along a backroad recently tagged the Kona Heritage Corridor, turned out to be one of them. Hand-built
in 1919 by Yoshisuke Sasaki, an immigrant from Japan,
and lately refurbished by California transplants Thea
and Kurt Brown, it was, in its heyday, akin to the Selfridges of the Big Island, selling a little bit of everything.
There were the requisite groceries and dry goods, but it
also peddled the first Schwinn bikes in Kona and
stocked band instruments, furniture, even sleds for the
snowy peaks of Mauna Kea. Business evaporated when
the main highway came through; when Sasaki’s middle
son, Ricky, who had taken over the store, died at 84, he
left behind a crumbling building packed with archaeological layers of outdated merchandise.
The Browns had been sifting through those relics
for four years, displaying the best of them in what has
become a hybrid of shop and history museum. Everywhere one looks, there is something remarkable: a
shelf of vintage Japanese baby shoes, antique radios
and telephones, children’s toys, 1950s pop records
from Japan, a scorebook for the 1956 Chicago White
Sox, a box from a Park Avenue hatter. Not all the
antiques are for sale, but the store does feature
REMEMBER THE PART
Clockwise from
above: The
author on her
wedding day;
Waipi‘o Valley;
Sheraton Kona;
mac nut pie;
a shy couple
bayside; Painted Church;
Pu‘uhonua o
Honaunau.
Center: Kaaloa’s
Super Js.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
65
I floated alone. Until I was not.
I saw a dark shape, and
suddenly a manta ray appeared
just beneath me.
Clockwise from top: The coast just off
Mamalahoa Hwy.; four-string bliss in
Holualoa; the Volcano Rainforest
Retreat; breadfruit; line-caught tuna
at the Suisan Fish Market. Center: A
young customer at the Keauhou Store.
vintage-look T-shirts as well as replicas of old maps
and theater posters. The Browns also sell produce and
coffee grown on their own land as well as home-baked
cookies (try the snickerdoodle).
We pulled over again farther down the road at the
Holualoa Ukulele Gallery, housed in the town’s original
late-1920s post office. Inside, instruments are displayed
like artworks, as well they should be. These are no touristtrap tchotchkes: Handcrafted by members of the Big Island Ukulele Guild, they are made of koa, mango, myrtle,
African mahogany. A few are even built from old cigar
boxes, a time-honored technique. They run from about
$500 to $1,650. Owner and former goldsmith Sam Rosen
offered Daisy his business card, printed with four easy
chords on the back, and within minutes, she was plunking
away, the waterslide, at least for now, forgotten.
the Big Island is, it’s a big island. A
really big island. All the other islands put together
would fit onto it nearly twice over. To truly experience
it, you have to move—a lot. After another day of snorkeling, mac nut pie, and, yes, waterslides, we pointed
our rental car southeast. Lush coffee farms gave way to
clusters of tiny houses with rusted corrugated-tin roofs,
then to scrubby ‘ohi‘a trees. The blue skies darkened
with ominous clouds. A shaft of god-light broke through
just as a song by Darden Smith, an Austin singersongwriter, came on the car stereo: “Skin, love is the one
true skin, we all wanna walk around in …”
I’d listened to that tune incessantly on our wedding
trip, when Steven’s skin still felt new against mine. Back
then, we canoodled in a rain forest B&B whose name we
subsequently forgot; because we could never find it
again, it attained Holy Grail status in our joint imagination. After three nights at the Volcano Rainforest Retreat, however, we have called off the quest. The Swiss
Family Robinson–meets-Zen aesthetic of its four cabins
is the closest we’ll get to life in an enchanted forest. Ours had a loft bed under a
peaked roof and a cozy, propane-fueled stove for (needed) nighttime warmth.
Through our windows, we could see the rain forest surrounding us in a veritable rainbow of green: a canopy of tree ferns, moss, bamboo. Maybe someday,
years from now, a moment like that will once again lead to romance. But now,
during these precious years of traveling as a family, our daughter flung herself
in between us, and the three of us popped in a DVD of The Simpsons.
In the morning, we struck out on the Kilauea Iki Trail, which descends 400
feet through the rain forest, then across the still-steaming crater floor. The first
time I hiked it, a mere quarter-century after the eruption that formed it, I was
unimpressed: It felt like little more than a jaunt across a badly paved parking lot.
You have to get into the science, the spirituality, the flow of the volcano to appreciate it; it is a window into the beginning of time, simultaneously ancient and new.
That is the paradox, the magic of the Big Island: It feels both old and young,
harsh and gentle. This is a land where, because there were no predators, mint
plants evolved without their minty flavor, nettles lost their sting, flies their
THE THING ABOUT
flight. It is a land where spiders have markings on their
bellies that resemble a smiling human face. And it is a
place, where, beneath decades of cooled rock, there is
still plenty of blazing heat.
I have a favorite treat. On
Maui, it’s dry noodles at Sam Sato’s in Wailuku. Shaveice? Only at Matsumoto on Oahu’s North Shore—
anything else is just a snow cone. Here on the Big Island, I dream of poke from Hilo’s Suisan Fish Market:
cubed raw seafood alchemized into onoliciousness
through some combination of onions, seaweed, sesame
seeds, and spices, then dressed (or not) with soy sauce
or sesame oil. We loaded up on marlin, on ahi poke with
spicy, tobiko-studded mayo, on kimchi octopus and the
obligatory two scoops of rice and macaroni salad, then
picnicked beneath a banyan tree in Lili‘uokalani Park.
Our meal tasted like the ocean, and I pondered which I
love more: snorkeling with fish or eating them. The omnivore’s dilemma indeed.
Hilo, on the rainier east coast of the Big Island, is famous for its two tsunamis, which struck in 1946 and
1960. Entire neighborhoods were swept away; 220 people died in the two catastrophes. The stories of the disasters as collected by the Pacific Tsunami Museum are by
turns devastating and miraculous. I’m partial to the tale
of Marsue McGinnis, a young teacher who relocated
from Cincinnati just before the 1946 tsunami hit. The
wall of water tore her cottage to bits, killing her three
housemates. McGinnis somehow survived, bobbing
among the debris half-clothed, clinging to a plank of
wood. Hours later, a small boat spotted her. On it was
the man she had been dating and would later marry.
When we checked into Shipman House, our host,
Barbara Andersen, said she remembered the shock she
had experiencing the 1960 tsunami. She grew up on
Oahu but spent every summer in Hilo at this sprawling
19th-century mansion owned for generations by her
extended family. Barbara and her husband, Gary,
bought the place in 1994 and converted it to a bed-andbreakfast. She pointed out the Steinway grand piano
that Queen Lili‘uokalani once liked to play, and she read
from a 1907 letter introducing Jack London to the family. “Both he and his wife are plain, commonsense people,” its author said. Barbara waited a beat, then deadpanned, “That was a lie.”
ON EVERY HAWAIIAN ISLAND,
not only the highest peak on the Big Island, it is also the tallest mountain on the planet—
unlike Everest, much of it is underwater. Its 13,796-foot
elevation, clean air, and minimal light pollution make it
ideal for astronomy. Eleven countries have telescopes
on its summit, peering past our stars and planets into
MAUNA KEA IS
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
67
galaxies far, far away. It’s possible to hike to
its peak, but you can also join the free stargazing program at the visitor center, a mere
9,200 feet above sea level.
First, however, you have to get there,
which for us involved a white-knuckle
drive in the dark, through dense clouds
and driving rain. When we broke through,
though, the night sky was crystalline. The
area around the visitor center’s telescopes
was unusually packed, the draw a bright
speck that was hurtling across the sky: the
International Space Shuttle. We craned our
necks to see as it passed through Leo’s
mane, Scorpio’s fishhook, the bow of Sagittarius, and then it was gone.
I peered into the viewfinder of a giant
telescope and saw a perfect, tiny blackand-white Saturn. It looked fake, though
of course it wasn’t: I was looking at an
actual planet! Impressive. But the temperature had dropped into the 40s. We grabbed
cups of cocoa and hustled back to the car.
In travel, as in love, not every adventure
proves worth it.
To distract ourselves for a bit from the
treacherousness of the road, Steven and I reminisced
quietly about other trips, to this island, to others, to
places farther flung. “It’s been a fun ride,” he said as we
turned into the Shipman House driveway.
“Up the mountain?” I asked, incredulous.
“No,” he said. “The last 21 years. All of it. Together.”
with its high-end resorts,
for last. I knew that once we reclined into lounges on the
white sand of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, we were
done for. Not for nothing had this been voted—twice!—
the world’s best beach. The Mauna Kea was the first resort on the Big Island, built in 1965 by Laurance Rockefeller. It has a luxe Mad Men vibe to it, a midcentury
elegance. But the real appeal is that idyllic crescent of
sand, its irresistible turquoise water. I swam out until
the umbrellas on shore were mere pin dots, then floated
in the warm water alone. Until, that is, I was not: Out of
the corner of my eye I saw a dark shape, and suddenly a
manta ray appeared just beneath me, its wings stretching
slowly and gracefully. I remained motionless as it circled
me once, then disappeared out to sea.
A few minutes later, I saw a “lucky” sea turtle; in fact,
I saw two. But by then, I had realized I no longer needed
them. I already had as much good fortune as I could
want. So I turned in the limpid water and started swimming for shore, back to my daughter and my husband.
WE SAVED THE KOHALA COAST,
68
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Mauna Kea is not only
the highest peak on the Big Island,
it is also the tallest mountain
on the planet—unlike Everest, much
of it is underwater.
Hawaii is called the Big Island for a reason. It’s 93 miles north
to south, 76 miles east to west, more than 4,000 square miles
all told, and, with continual volcanic activity, growing every year.
When you visit, give yourself time; there’s lots to explore.
DAY 1
Clockwise from far
left: The Mauna Kea
Beach Hotel; Hilo's
Shipman House;
the breakfast buffet
at Shipman House;
stellar sightseeing
from Mauna Kea.
Center: The pool at
the Mauna Kea
Beach Hotel.
your tropic idyll
in Kona, famed for
coffee but a region
that has a lot more
percolating than just
java. First thing, check
into the Sheraton
Kona Resort & Spa.
From $199; sheraton
kona.com.
HIT the ocean next.
You’re on the dry side
of the island, but you
don’t have to forgo the
water. The snorkeling
is excellent at both
START
Keauhou Bay
and, farther south,
Honaunau Bay.
SPEND part of your
day shopping—or
simply gawking—at the
Holualoa Ukulele
Gallery and the
Keauhou Store.
84-5140 Painted
Church Rd., Captain
Cook; thepainted
church.org.
GET the perfect plate
lunch at Kaaloa’s
Super Js. $; 83-5409
Mamalahoa Hwy.,
Captain Cook; (808)
328-9566.
POLISH it off with
a slice—or two—of
macadamia nut pie at
The Coffee Shack. $;
83-5799 Mamalahoa
Hwy., Captain Cook;
coffeeshack.com.
SEE what’s playing at
the Aloha Theatre,
which hosts community
theater and live music.
79-7384 Mamalahoa
Hwy., Kainaliu;
apachawaii.org.
DAYS 3 & 4
Gallery: 76-5942 Mamalahoa Hwy., Holualoa; konaweb.com/
ukegallery. Store:
78-7010 Mamalahoa
Hwy., Holualoa;
keauhoustore.com.
STEER
DAY 2
Hawai‘i Volcanoes
National Park, find
DRIVE
to Pu‘uhonua
o Honaunau National Historic Park to
see the restored Royal
Grounds, complete
with a fish pond,
thatched-roof canoe
houses and burial
sites. $5/vehicle; State
160, Honaunau; nps.
gov/puho.
STOP to visit the
Painted Church,
whose more formal
handle is St. Benedict
Roman Catholic
Church. More than
110 years ago,
a Belgian priest decorated the walls with
bright 3-D paintings
that tell biblical stories.
yourself to the
southern tip of the
island and then swing
through the Ka‘u District, a region that’s
making a name for itself with prize-winning
coffee beans. At
Crater Rim Drive and
then park at the
Kilauea Iki Overlook.
STRAP on your hiking
shoes, grab some
water, and head out
on the 4-mile Kilauea
Iki Trail. It will take
you right through the
middle of the Kilauea
Iki Crater, which includes an erstwhile
lava lake. $10/vehicle; nps.gov/havo/
planyourvisit/hike_
day_kilaueaiki.htm.
REST your weary
legs at the Volcano
Rainforest Retreat.
4 cottages from $180;
2-night min.; volcano
retreat.com.
DAY 5
north to Hilo,
the island’s most populous town and the
home of the Merrie
Monarch Festival,
which holds the world’s
top hula competition
every April. $5; merrie
monarch.com.
LINE UP at Suisan Fish
Market for a plate full
of poke. $; 93 Lihiwai
St.; (808) 935-9349.
WALK the grounds at
WANDER
Lili‘uokalani Park
& Gardens, a 30-acre
Japanese garden. $8;
Banyan Dr. at Lihiwai
St.; (808) 961-8311.
VISIT the Pacific
Tsunami Museum to
understand the ocean's
destructive potential.
$8; 130 Kamehameha
Ave.; tsunami.org.
CHECK IN at the 19thcentury Shipman
House Bed & Breakfast. 5 rooms from
$219; hilo-hawaii.com.
DRIVE toward the middle of the island to the
Mauna Kea Observatories and get in
line to look into deep
space. 9 a.m.–10 p.m.,
stargazing program
6–10; Onizuka Center
for International Astronomy, Mauna Kea
Access Rd., 6 miles off
Daniel K. Inouye Hwy.;
afi.hawaii.edu; (808)
935-6268 for weather
and road conditions.
DAY 6
northwest to
the Waipi‘o Valley
Lookout and over
to the Mauna Kea
Beach Hotel. End your
trip as you began it,
at the ocean. From
$550; princeresorts
hawaii.com.
HEAD
DIGITAL BONUS Our guide to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park:
sunset.com/hawaiinp.
how
to
love
a
lemOn
BY E L A I N E J O H N S O N
FOOD STYLING: KAREN SHINTO; PROP STYLING: KELLY ALL
P H O T O G R A P H S BY N G O C M I N H N G O
70
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Scratch the skin of
a Meyer lemon and
sniff. There’s citrus,
of course, but heady
flowers too—narcissus,
perhaps—and a hint
of pine. Just the scent
of a Meyer lemon,
a low-acid cross between an orange and
a lemon, evokes sunny
California. Cooks and
gardeners in the state
have loved the Meyer
lemon for decades,
growing trees in their
yards—or seeking out
generous neighbors
for the fruit (which was
long deemed too
soft for shipping).
But thanks to a growing number of farmers
planting them, Meyer
lemons are now
turning up in supermarkets across the
country. So fill up
your bag. These inventive recipes from
California chefs
show you how to
use Meyers in everything from morning
eggs to dessert.
C HE F HANNAH BUOYE
OF A16 ROCKRIDGE, OAKL AND
Meyer Lemon Cornmeal
Upside-Down Cake
As L.A. chef Suzanne Goin of Lucques puts it,
“meyer lemons
smell like
a california
backyard.”
CHEF SUZANNE GOIN
Lettuce Snap Pea
Salad with
Meyer Lemon
Cream
72
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
CHEF ROCKY MASELLI OF A16
ROCKRIDGE, OAKL AND
Crab Pasta with Prosecco and
Meyer Lemon Sauce
1908
The year Frank Meyer,
a USDA plant
explorer, brought the
lemon from China to the
United States.
750
The number of acres
devoted to Meyer lemons
in California and
Arizona—up from just 5
acres in 2005.
6
The number of months—
from November
through April—you can
find Meyer lemons in
markets. (Farmers are
finding ways to make
that season even longer.)
74
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
C H E F - O W N E R S GAY L E P I R I E & J O H N
CLARK OF FOREIGN CINEMA,
SAN FRANCISCO
Scrambled Eggs with Meyer
Lemon Salsa Verde
COOKBOOK AUTHOR PAUL A WOLFERT,
BERKELEY
Chicken with Preserved Meyer
Lemon and Olives
MEYER LEMON CORNMEAL
UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
SERVES 8 / 1 3 ⁄4 HOURS, PLUS 2 HOURS
TO COOL
A polenta cake from pastry chef Hannah
Buoye, of A16 Rockridge in Oakland, was
the model for this dense, moist dessert. As
the sliced lemons bake under the cake and
absorb butter and brown sugar, they take
on a marmalade-like quality. Be sure the
cake is fully baked before you remove it
from the oven (see step 6), or it may sink.
Cooking-oil spray
3⁄4 cup butter, softened, divided
3⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 or 3 whole Meyer lemons, plus zest of
2 large Meyer lemons
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup flour
3⁄4 cup fine cornmeal, such as Bob’s Red Mill
2 tsp. baking powder
1⁄4 tsp. salt
1⁄ 2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray inside of
a 9-in. springform pan with cooking-oil
spray. Snugly line pan with a 12-in. circle
of parchment paper*, pressing pleats
flat. Spray parchment with oil; set aside.
2. Bring 1/4 cup butter and the brown sugar
to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Pour into
lined pan and spread evenly.
3. Thinly slice 2 lemons crosswise, using
a handheld slicer and removing seeds
with a knife tip as you go. Discard ends.
Set a small lemon slice in center of butter
mixture in pan. Arrange more slices
in overlapping circles to fill pan (each slice
should overlap the previous one by half).
Save any extra lemon for other uses.
4. Beat remaining 1/2 cup butter, the granulated sugar, and lemon zest in a large
bowl with a mixer on medium speed to
blend, then on high until pale and fluffy,
3 to 4 minutes. Add 1 egg at a time,
scraping inside of bowl and beating well
on high speed, about 1 minute per egg.
76
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour,
cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
5. Add a third of flour mixture to butter
mixture and blend on low speed; scrape
inside of bowl. Blend in half of milk
mixture. Repeat to incorporate remaining ingredients, ending with flour mixture. Pour batter into pan; spread evenly.
6. Bake until cake springs back in center
when lightly pressed, 50 to 55 minutes (it
will be well browned). Let cool in pan on
a rack at least 2 hours. Run a thin knife
between parchment and pan; release rim.
Invert cake onto a plate. Remove parchment and cut cake with a serrated knife.
*For an even circle, use a pencil to trace
around a 12-in. plate onto parchment.
MAKE AHEAD
Up to 1 day.
PER SERVING 466 Cal., 37% (174 Cal.) from fat;
4.7 g protein; 20 g fat (12 g sat.); 69 g carbo (2.5 g fiber);
352 mg sodium; 100 mg chol. V
LETTUCE SNAP PEA SALAD
with MEYER LEMON CREAM
SERVES 6 / 25 MINUTES
In winter, when most of the country hunkers down under gray skies, Suzanne Goin
serves sunny Meyer lemon salads like this
one at Lucques in West Hollywood. To enjoy the whole lemon slices, cut them very
thinly; if your knife skills aren’t restaurantready, use a handheld slicer.
1 Meyer lemon
11⁄4 lbs. mixed whole small lettuces (4 to
6 in. long), ends trimmed; or use 10 oz.
salad mix
About 3⁄4 cup Meyer Lemon Cream Salad
Dressing (recipe opposite)
1 cup sugar snap peas, thinly sliced on
a diagonal
3⁄4 cup thinly sliced radishes
1⁄ 2 cup torn fresh mint leaves
1. Very thinly slice lemon crosswise, using
a handheld slicer and removing seeds
with a knife tip as you go. Discard ends.
2. Toss lettuces in a large bowl with
about 1/2 cup dressing. Add snap peas,
radishes, and a little more dressing and
toss again. Arrange salad on chilled
plates and tuck in lemon slices and mint.
Serve with more dressing if you like.
PER SERVING 187 Cal., 80% (150 Cal.) from fat;
1.8 g protein; 17 g fat (3.8 g sat.); 8.4 g carbo
(2.8 g fiber); 136 mg sodium; 11 mg chol. GF/LC/LS/V
CRAB PASTA with
PROSECCO AND MEYER
LEMON SAUCE
SERVES 6 / 45 MINUTES
West Coast Dungeness crab and Meyer
lemons, both in season now, come together
deliciously in this special-occasion pasta.
At A16 Rockridge, chef Rocky Maselli
made it with housemade squid-ink tonnarelli; we opted for fettuccine since it’s
easier to find.
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, sliced
1⁄ 8 tsp. red chile flakes
About 3⁄4 tsp. kosher salt, divided
11⁄ 2 cups dry prosecco
1 cup crème fraîche
Zest of 2 Meyer lemons
2 to 3 tbsp. Meyer lemon juice
1 lb. shelled cooked Dungeness crab
1 lb. fresh fettuccine
1⁄4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a large saucepan
over medium heat. Cook shallot, stirring
occasionally, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in chile flakes and 3/4 tsp. salt;
whisk in prosecco and crème fraîche.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat
and reduce to 1 3/4 cups, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Gently stir lemon zest, 2 tbsp. juice, and
the crab into prosecco sauce and remove
from heat. Boil pasta until just tender,
2 to 5 minutes.
3. Drain pasta, return to pot, and gently
toss with crab sauce and parsley. Taste;
add more salt and lemon juice if you like.
PER SERVING 595 Cal., 33% (198 Cal.) from fat;
30 g protein; 22 g fat (10 g sat.); 58 g carbo (2.9 g fiber);
492 mg sodium; 119 mg chol. LS
SCRAMBLED EGGS with
MEYER LEMON SALSA VERDE
SERVES 2 / 15 MINUTES
The combination of a vibrant Italian-style
sauce and three robust cheeses makes these
scrambled eggs nothing short of spectacular. The recipe comes from chef-owners
Gayle Pirie and John Clark of Foreign
Cinema in San Francisco.
5 large eggs
2 tbsp. crème fraîche or sour cream
Pinch of kosher salt
1⁄4 cup shredded Comté or gruyère cheese
2 tbsp. shredded fontina cheese (preferably
Italian)
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
Meyer Lemon Salsa Verde (recipe at right)
Freshly shredded parmesan cheese
Toasted bread, such as pain au levain
1. In a small bowl, using a fork, beat eggs,
crème fraîche, salt, Comté, and fontina
until thoroughly mixed, 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Heat butter in a 10-in. nonstick frying
pan over medium heat until it melts and
bubbles. Add egg mixture. Very gently
stir with a wooden spoon, folding egg
curds onto themselves in a figure eight,
until they thicken, 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Decrease heat to low and continue to
cook without stirring until eggs are
creamy and barely set, 2 to 3 minutes, or
another 30 seconds or so for firmer eggs.
Spoon onto warm plates, spoon salsa
verde on top, and serve parmesan and
toasted bread at the table.
PER SERVING WITH 2 TBSP. SALSA VERDE 614 Cal., 84%
(515 Cal.) from fat; 22 g protein; 58 g fat (22 g sat.); 2.7 g
carbo (0.3 g fiber); 602 mg sodium; 595 mg chol. GF/V
CHICKEN with PRESERVED
MEYER LEMON and OLIVES
SERVES 4 / 1 3 ⁄4 HOURS, PLUS OVERNIGHT TO
SEASON CHICKEN
This bright and earthy braise, adapted
from Paula Wolfert’s The Food of Morocco
(Ecco, 2011; $45), is a regular on the cafe
menu at Chez Panisse, in Berkeley. The
restaurant cures its lemons the traditional
way; for our shortcut, see “Speedy Preserved Meyer Lemons,” below right.
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp. each minced fresh ginger and hot
paprika
1⁄ 2 tsp. ground cumin
1⁄4 tsp. pepper
1⁄4 cup olive oil
2 lbs. bone-in chicken thighs (4 or 5)
1 pinch saffron threads
1 large onion, coarsely shredded on
a box grater
1 cup pitted green olives, such as Lucques*
or picholine
2 pieces (1⁄ 2 lemon) Speedy Preserved Meyer
Lemons (recipe at right) or 1⁄ 2 store-bought
preserved Meyer lemon*, sliced crosswise
1⁄ 2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1⁄4 tsp. turmeric
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
Hot couscous
1. Mix garlic, ginger, paprika, cumin, pepper, and oil in a bowl. Ease fingers under
chicken skin to loosen. Add chicken to
bowl; rub garlic mixture under skin and
all over outside. Chill, covered, overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 500°. In a small bowl,
combine saffron with 2 tbsp. hot water
and let sit 5 minutes. Set chicken, skin
side up, in a deep 10-in. or regular 12-in.
ovenproof frying pan. In same bowl used
for chicken, combine onion, olives, and
preserved lemon; put on top of chicken.
Combine broth, saffron water, and turmeric in bowl and pour over chicken.
Cover tightly with foil.
3. Braise chicken in oven, turning in sauce
every 20 minutes, until tender when
pierced, 60 to 70 minutes. Skim fat from
sauce. Sprinkle chicken with cilantro
and serve with couscous.
*Find Lucques olives at well-stocked grocery
stores. To pit, set on a work surface, set flat
side of a wide knife on top, then smack with
your hand and pick out the pits. Find preserved lemons at well-stocked grocery stores
or robertlambert.com.
PER SERVING 428 Cal., 72% (309 Cal.) from fat;
21 g protein; 35 g fat (6.2 g sat.); 11 g carbo (1.8 g fiber);
2,369 mg sodium; 68 mg chol. GF/LC
MORE
L E M O N L OV E
These condiments are essential for several
dishes in this story, but fortunately the
recipes make plenty, so you can use them
in all kinds of ways.
MEYER LEMON SALSA VERDE
MAKES 1 1⁄ 3 CUPS / 1 HOUR
Combine 1 small minced shallot, 11⁄ 2 tbsp.
Champagne vinegar, and 11⁄ 2 tsp. kosher
salt in a medium bowl and let sit 10 minutes
to soften and lightly pickle shallot. Stir in
1⁄ 2 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
and 2 tbsp. rinsed, chopped brined capers.
Thinly slice 1 small Meyer lemon with a
handheld slicer, removing seeds; stack, cut
in half, then into very small triangles. Add
lemon, then 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil to
parsley mixture and stir to combine. Let sit
30 minutes.
MAKE AHEAD Up to 5 days, chilled airtight
(color will fade).
TRY WITH Scrambled eggs (at left), grilled
bread, steaks, or sardines; roast chicken or
vegetables; or sandwiches.
MEYER LEMON CREAM
SALAD DRESSING
MAKES 1 1⁄ 3 CUPS / 10 MINUTES
Put 2 tbsp. finely diced shallot, 1⁄4 cup
Meyer lemon juice, and 1⁄4 tsp. kosher salt
in a bowl; let sit 5 minutes. Whisk in 1⁄ 2 cup
plus 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, then
whisk in 1⁄ 2 tsp. more kosher salt, 1⁄ 8 tsp. pepper, and 1⁄ 3 cup heavy whipping cream.
Taste and add more salt or pepper if you
like. Stir before using.
MAKE AHEAD Up to 3 days, chilled.
TRY WITH Lettuce and snap pea salad (opposite) or any other favorite green salad.
SPEEDY PRESERVED MEYER LEMONS
MAKES 1 PT. / 1 WEEK
Lemons usually need a month at room
temperature to cure, but we swear by
this shortcut, from caterer Jo Kadis of Palo
Alto, California.
Quarter 1 lb. (4 large) Meyer lemons
lengthwise, put in a medium bowl, and
freeze, covered, overnight. Thaw, then toss
with 6 tbsp. kosher salt. Pack lemons and
salt into a 1-pt. jar, pressing as you go so
some juice flows into the jar. Cover with lid;
let sit at room temperature, shaking occasionally. After 24 hours, add enough
Meyer lemon juice to completely cover
fruit. Let sit until skins look translucent, about
6 days total.
MAKE AHEAD Chill up to 1 year; lemons will
gradually get softer and darker.
TRY WITH Braised chicken (at left) or other
roasted or braised meats, and in salads and
risotto.
DIGITAL BONUS 13 Meyer lemon recipes: sunset.com/meyerlemons.
TABLE
NEW FOR
OF CONTENTS
JANUARY
THIS MONTH ON
SUNSET.COM
Go behind the scenes on our blog
Check out the new Editors’ Extras section of our Westphoria blog for bonus photos, audio,
and video on Sunset stories. In January, we dive into Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s
Aberdeen, Washington, which writer Bill Donahue profiles in “Here We Are Now” (page
26). Learn how photographer John Clark captured moody images of the old logging
town, and hear Donahue read his story for our Sunset Voices series. sunset.com/extras
WALLPAPER 101
The right wallpaper can take a room
from boring to bold. Explore a photo
gallery of our favorite designs and
spaces to find pattern inspiration.
sunset.com/wallpaper
EAT FRESH
CHALLENGE
Follow along as our editors give
up food vices for our annual
Eat Fresh Challenge at sunset.
com/eatfresh. Share your own
experiences by posting on our
Facebook wall or tweeting
@SunsetMag with the hashtag
#SunsetEatFresh.
Find your perfect winter getaway
On a gray winter day, do you daydream of swooshing down ski slopes or snorkeling tropical waters? Sailing away on a cruise ship, or spending the weekend
shopping and dining at the hottest restaurants? Take our winter vacation quiz
to find the destination that’s perfect for you. sunset.com/wintervaca
MORE WAYS TO START FRESH,
FROM OUR SISTER MAGAZINES
COOKING LIGHT DIET
Turn Cooking Light recipes into
a customized meal plan.
cookinglightdiet.com
DIY succulents guide
See why you should practice
gratitude—and eat more chocolate.
realsimple.com/health
HEALTH’S VIDEO CHANNEL
Watch quick fitness-boosting tips
and learn new stress-busters.
health.com/videos
ANNABELLE BREAKEY
REAL SIMPLE’S HEALTH GUIDES
With their eye-catching forms and low water needs,
succulents make a great addition to your home. Our
new guide will teach you everything you need to know,
from the best varieties to care tips. Dig deep into all
things succulent—or just watch our quick video to
learn how to make the bright centerpiece at left.
sunset.com/succulents
Food & Drink
Chop, chop!
A FRESH
WINTER SLAW
p. 80
PEAK
SEASON
A NEW
LEAF
FOOD STYLING: GEORGE DOLESE
Mild, sweet savoy will
make you a cabbage
convert.
Photographs by
ANNABELLE BREAKEY
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
79
Food & Drink
SABLEFISH with SAVOY CABBAGE and FENNEL SLAW
PEAK SEASON
SERVES 4 / 45 MINUTES
Savoy cabbage is mild and tender even when raw, making it ideal for this light accompaniment to rich sablefish.
The recipe is also excellent with 4 boned trout fillets, and the slaw tastes good with chicken or pork too.
21⁄ 2 tsp. fennel seeds
11⁄4 tsp. kosher salt, divided
3⁄4 tsp. pepper, divided
4 skin-on sablefish (black cod)
fillets, each about 6 oz. and
1⁄ 2 in. thick; or use 4 skin-on
trout fillets
1 medium fennel bulb with a lot
of feathery greens attached
5 cups very thinly sliced savoy
cabbage (from a 1-lb.
cabbage)
5 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil,
divided
Zest of 1 lemon
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. orange zest
1 orange, cut into segments*
1⁄4 cup sliced chives, divided
By
K A T E WA S H I N G T O N
1. Toast fennel seeds in a 12-in. nonstick frying
pan over medium-high heat until fragrant,
about 1 minute. Set aside 1/2 tsp. Finely grind
remaining seeds with 3/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp.
pepper in a mortar or clean coffee grinder.
Rub mixture evenly all over fish and set aside.
2. Chop enough fennel greens to make 3 tbsp.
Tear off any remaining small fronds; set aside.
Trim and discard fennel stalks and any tough
outer layers from bulb. Cut bulb in half lengthwise, core, and slice very thinly crosswise.
3. In a large bowl, combine cabbage, sliced fennel, and chopped fronds.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together 3 tbsp. oil, the
lemon zest and juice, orange zest, reserved 1/2
tsp. whole fennel seeds, and remaining 1/2 tsp.
salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Pour dressing over cabbage mixture and toss with your hands until
well combined. Add orange segments and 3
tbsp. chives and toss gently. Set aside.
5. In the frying pan, heat remaining 2 tbsp. oil
over medium-high heat. Add fish skin side
down (it may spatter) and cook, occasionally
tipping pan and basting flesh with oil, until
skin is well browned and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes.
Reduce heat to low and continue cooking and
basting until flesh is no longer translucent in
center (cut to test), 3 to 4 minutes longer. If
fish is thicker than 1/2 in., or if it isn’t done yet,
cover pan and cook 5 to 7 minutes more.
6. Spoon slaw onto 4 plates. Top each mound
with a fish fillet. Sprinkle with reserved fennel
fronds and remaining 1 tbsp. chives.
*To segment orange, cut off peel and outer membrane,
following curve of fruit. Then cut segments (also
called supremes) free from inner membranes.
PER SERVING 466 Cal., 69% (321 Cal.) from fat; 23 g protein;
36 g fat (6.6 g sat.); 16 g carbo (6.4 g fiber); 611 mg sodium;
69 mg chol. GF/LC
SAVOY CABBAGE GRATIN
SERVES 6 TO 8 AS A SIDE DISH / 45 MINUTES
Think mac ’n’ cheese—but with vegetables instead
of noodles. This gratin is a warming winter side
dish, though it’s so good you might be tempted to
call it dinner.
About 4 tbsp. butter, divided
1 small head savoy cabbage (about 11⁄ 2 lbs.),
cored and cut into 8 wedges
About 3⁄4 tsp. kosher salt
About 1⁄ 2 tsp. pepper
1 garlic clove, chopped
11⁄ 2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme leaves, plus thyme
sprigs
1⁄4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. flour
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3⁄4 cup shredded aged gouda cheese*
1⁄ 2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1. Butter a shallow 2-qt. baking dish (about 8 by
11 in.) and preheat oven to 400°.
2. Melt 2 tbsp. butter in a sauté pan* or large frying pan over medium-high heat and add cabbage
wedges cut side down. Sprinkle with 3/4 tsp. salt
and 1/2 tsp. pepper; cook, turning once, until
lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Add 1/4 cup water to pan. Partially cover and
cook cabbage until it’s just tender, 3 to 5 minutes
more.
4. Transfer cabbage and any stray leaves to prepared dish, arranging wedges so they lie flat
(they should fit snugly).
5. Return pan to medium heat and melt remaining
2 tbsp. butter. Add garlic, chopped thyme, nutmeg, and flour. Stir until thoroughly combined,
add cream, and cook, stirring, just until thickened and bubbling, about 2 minutes.
6. Pour cream mixture over cabbage. Top with
cheese and bread crumbs. Bake until browned
and bubbling, about 20 minutes. Garnish with
thyme sprigs and season to taste with more salt
and pepper.
*Look for a gouda that’s light golden or caramel
colored and aged at least 18 months. A sauté pan is
a frying pan with sides about 2 in. high.
PER SERVING 235 Cal., 74% (173 Cal.) from fat; 5.8 g protein;
19 g fat (12 g sat.); 11 g carbo (2.5 g fiber); 349 mg sodium;
66 mg chol. LC/LS/V
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
81
Food & Drink
SAVOY CABBAGE SOUP
with TINY MEATBALLS
SERVES 4 TO 6 (MAKES 10 CUPS) / 1 HOUR
Bite-size meatballs and tender vegetables make this soup
satisfying; the touch of cream and nutmeg stirred in at
the end rounds out the flavors. Homemade broth will add
depth, but store-bought works fine.
1⁄ 3
cup fresh bread crumbs
cup milk
3⁄4 tsp. each kosher salt and
pepper, divided
1⁄4 tsp. plus 1⁄ 8 tsp. nutmeg
5 tbsp. minced flat-leaf
parsley, divided
1⁄ 2 lb. each ground pork and
ground beef*
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
2 medium carrots, sliced into
half-moons to make 1 cup
1⁄4
2 medium leeks (white and
pale green parts only),
trimmed, halved
lengthwise, rinsed well,
and sliced into half-moons
1 small head savoy cabbage
(about 11⁄ 2 lbs.), cored and
thinly sliced
7 cups chicken broth
(reduced-sodium if
store-bought)
1⁄4 cup heavy whipping
cream
1. Make meatballs: In a medium bowl, stir together bread
crumbs and milk. Add 1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper, 1/4 tsp.
nutmeg, 1 tbsp. parsley, the pork, and beef. Mix gently but
thoroughly with your hands. Scoop mixture by slightly
rounded teaspoons and roll into small balls, dipping spoon
occasionally in water to keep mix from sticking.
2. Heat a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Add
1 tbsp. oil and swirl to coat. Brown half of meatballs, turning once and reducing heat if they start browning too fast,
5 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining
oil and meatballs. Meanwhile, continue with soup.
3. Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add carrots
and leeks and cook, stirring, until leeks are soft but not
browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
4. Stir in cabbage and remaining 1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper
and cook until slightly wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Add broth,
cover, and bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat
and simmer until cabbage is quite tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Gently stir browned meatballs into soup and cook, stirring
occasionally, until meatballs are cooked through and flavors are blended, about 5 minutes. Stir in cream, 3 tbsp.
parsley, and remaining 1/8 tsp. nutmeg and ladle into
bowls. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tbsp. parsley.
*Choose ground beef with at least 20% fat for the juiciest
meatballs.
PER 11⁄ 2-CUP SERVING 370 Cal., 61% (225 Cal.) from fat; 20 g protein; 25 g fat
(10 g sat.); 16 g carbo (3.9 g fiber); 452 mg sodium; 92 mg chol. LC/LS
tOss it.
mix it.
spRead it.
stiR it.
bleNd it.
tOp it.
eveRyONe,
meet eveRythiNg.
Discover great recipes and get inspired at Mezzetta.com
Food & Drink
MASTER CLASS
BAKING
BREAKTHROUGH
Legendary baker Alice Medrich
unlocks the potential of gluten-free
flours. By Margo True
shunning wheat flour
is almost heresy—but that’s what master baker
Alice Medrich has done in her newest book,
Flavor Flours (Artisan, 2014; $35), written with
Maya Klein. “I love to play with new ingredients, especially if they’re challenging and interesting,” says Medrich, winner of more cookbookof-the-year awards than any other author. In
her expert hands, whole-grain flours like oat
and buckwheat—plus rice, corn, and more—
yield not the gritty, crumbly baked goods that
have plagued gluten-free baking, but startlingly delicious desserts. “Each [flour] has a very
distinct flavor—a voice, really,” she writes.
Rather than thinking of them as wheat substitutes, she’s learned how to work with them on
their own terms, “as though wheat never existed!” Baking with Medrich in her Berkeley
kitchen, we felt, for the first time, that standard
wheat flour has some serious competition.
FOR SOME PASTRY CHEFS,
Alice Medrich
making sablés in her
Berkeley kitchen,
as gingerbread muffins
cool on a rack.
CORN FLOUR and
ORANGE BLOSSOM
CHIFFON CAKE
Power flours
Each flour has its own character, so it doesn’t always work to substitute. Also, it’s key to weigh the flours—they can fluff up or settle, which throws
off a volume measure. (For more, see sunset.com/weighing.) Find at well-stocked grocery stores, bobsredmill.com, or authenticfoods.com.
84
WHITE RICE FLOUR
BROWN RICE FLOUR
OAT FLOUR
BUCKWHEAT FLOUR
CORN FLOUR
XANTHAN GUM
Milled from rice
that’s had the bran
removed. Produces
fine-crumbed cakes
and silky puddings;
amplifies flavors.
Has the structurebuilding properties
of white rice flour,
plus a slight graininess and toasty
caramel flavor.
Powdered oatmeal,
with a sweet, butterscotchy flavor.
Makes tender
cakes and delicate
cookies.
From roasted whole
buckwheat seeds.
Typically earthy, but
can be delicate and
floral depending on
how it’s used.
From whole kernels;
not to be confused
with cornstarch. Yields
baked goods with
sweet corn flavor and
lovely pale gold color.
Not a flour but a
natural bacterial
by-product. Often
used with gluten-free
flour to thicken and
give structure.
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Photographs by
T H O M A S J. S T O RY
N
EW
No
t
C ontrac
r d ife
tte n L
Be d a tery
un at
So r B
e
ng
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OAT FLOUR and
ALMOND SABLÉS
MAKES ABOUT 36 COOKIES / 45 MINUTES,
PLUS 4 HOURS TO CHILL
These delicate French-style butter cookies melt
in your mouth—a surprise, given oat’s reputation
for sturdiness. For more about the ingredients,
see “Power Flours” (page 84).
1/2
A
B
“To form
the dough
into a neat
log, wrap it
in waxed
paper and
push against
it with a
ruler until
it’s smooth.”
TIP
C
D
86
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
cup (70 g) whole almonds (with skins or blanched)
tsp. almond extract
1/3 cup (56 g) white rice flour
11/4 cups plus 2 tbsp. (142 g) oat flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. (75 g) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. baking soda
2 oz. (60 g) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (11/2 sticks; 170 g) unsalted butter, softened
3 to 4 tbsp. coarse sugar, such as turbinado or
demerara
1/4
1. Put almonds, almond extract, and about 2 tbsp.
rice flour in a food processor [A] and whirl until
almonds are very finely ground. Add remaining
rice flour, the oat flour, granulated sugar, salt, and
baking soda. Pulse to blend thoroughly. Add cream
cheese and butter, cutting both into chunks as you
add them. Pulse just until mixture forms a smooth
dough. “If you work it too long, the cookies
will be too crumbly.” Scrape bowl and blend in
any stray flour at the bottom with your fingers.
2. Turn dough out onto a sheet of waxed or parchment paper and form it into a rough log about 10
in. long. Lay a long side of the waxed paper over
dough log and set a ruler lengthwise against the log
[B]; then press the ruler against the log, squeezing
it until it’s smooth (it will get longer). Twist ends
to seal. Chill until firm enough to handle, 30 minutes, and roll into a rounder shape. Chill at least
31/2 hours more (preferably overnight).
3. Position racks in upper and lower thirds of oven
and preheat to 325°. Line 2 large baking sheets
with parchment, or butter them.
4. Unwrap dough and roll log in coarse sugar to coat
it completely [C]. Use a thin, sharp knife to cut
1/4-in.-thick slices [D]. “It’s good to use a ruler,
because thinness makes a difference in baking
time and texture. Also, if the dough is cracking,
don’t panic. Just let it warm up at room
temperature for a few minutes before slicing.”
Place cookies about 1 in. apart on baking sheets.
5. Bake cookies, rotating pans from top to
bottom and from front to back halfway
through. “This is so important because
the heat in ovens isn’t even.” Bake
until golden brown at the edges and well
browned on the bottom, 20 to 25
minutes. “Most people underbake
their cookies. You want them to get a
toasty flavor.”
6. Set pans on cooling racks and let cool
completely.
MAKE AHEAD At least 2 weeks at room
temperature in an airtight container.
PER COOKIE 84 Cal., 60% (51 Cal.) from fat; 1 g protein;
5.7 g fat (2.8 g sat.); 7.3 g carbo (0.7 g fiber); 27 mg
sodium; 12 mg chol. GF/LC/LS/V
BUCKWHEAT
GINGERBREAD
MUFFINS
MAKES 12 MUFFINS / 40 MINUTES
Earthy buckwheat is blended with ginger,
spices, molasses, and toasty-tasting brown
rice flour to make an unexpectedly light
muffin that’s great with sour cream or butter. Be scrupulous in your timing with the
food processor; “overprocessing buckwheat
flour can make the muffins mushy,” Medrich says. For more on the ingredients, see
“Power Flours” (page 84).
3/4
cup plus 2 tbsp. (110 g) brown rice flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. xanthan gum*
1/2 tsp. each cinnamon and ground ginger
1/4 tsp. each ground allspice and salt
A 11/2 by 11/2 in. piece fresh ginger
(about 40 g)
2/3 cup (140 g) packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick; 115 g) unsalted butter
1/3 cup (120 g) light unsulfured molasses
1 large egg
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. (110 g) buckwheat flour
1. Position a rack in lower third of oven and
preheat to 375°. Line 12 muffin cups with
paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk brown rice flour,
TIP
“Use your finger to neatly cut
off the flow of batter.”
baking soda, xanthan gum, cinnamon,
ground ginger, allspice, and salt together
until well blended. Set aside.
3. Peel fresh ginger. “I like to use a spoon
because it gets around the curves
better than a peeler. I peel toward
me for the most control.” Slice ginger
very thinly across the grain until you
have 1/4 cup (30 g). Put ginger slices and
brown sugar in a food processor and
pulse into a purée.
4. Cut butter into cubes and melt it in
microwave. “Cubing it helps the butter
melt evenly and helps keep it from
spitting as it heats.” Add hot butter,
flour mixture, molasses, and egg to food
processor with ginger-sugar purée and
whirl 20 seconds. “Process any longer,
and the xanthan gum could lose its
thickening power.” Scrape bowl, add
buckwheat flour and 1/2 cup hot water,
then process exactly 5 seconds more.
5. Pour batter into a liquid measuring cup,
then divide it among lined muffin cups,
wiping your finger across the rim of
the measuring cup to cut off the flow of
batter without dripping all over the pan.
The cups should be 3/4 full, using every
bit of batter.
6. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out with a few dry
crumbs, 15 to 20 minutes. Set muffins on
a rack for a few minutes to firm up, then
carefully remove from pan (tilting it
helps) and set on rack to cool completely.
*Find xanthan gum at bobsredmill.com.
MAKE AHEAD Up to 4 days at room
temperature in an airtight container; up to
3 months, frozen airtight. Bring to room
temperature before serving.
PER MUFFIN 215 Cal., 36% (78 Cal.) from fat; 2.5 g
protein; 8.8 g fat (5.2 g sat.); 33 g carbo (1.5 g fiber);
171 mg sodium; 38 mg chol. GF/LC/LS/V
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
87
Food & Drink
CORN FLOUR and
ORANGE BLOSSOM
CHIFFON CAKE
SERVES 10 TO 12 / 1 1/2 HOURS
“If cornbread were transformed into a sweet, moist,
fluffy golden cake, this would be it,” says Medrich. She
tops it here with whipped cream and crème fraîche,
and curls of candied orange zest, but she likes it plain
too. You’ll need a 10-in. (10 to 12 cup) tube pan with
removable bottom for this recipe. For more about corn
flour and rice flour, see “Power Flours” (page 84).
FOR CAKE
1 cup (200 g) sugar,
divided
1 cup (120 g)
corn flour
1/2 cup (80 g) white
rice flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 cup flavorless vegetable
oil, such as corn or
safflower
1 or 2 organic or
unsprayed oranges
8 large egg whites, at
room temperature
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup (6 oz.) light, floral
honey, such as orange
blossom
Generous 1 tsp. orangeflower water*
Whipped cream and
crème fraîche (optional;
see opposite)
Candied orange zest
(optional; see opposite)
1. Put sugar into a large mixing bowl, then set aside
1/4 cup. “You need a really big bowl to give you
enough room, later, to fold the batter without
deflating it.” Weigh in or add corn and rice flours
to bowl. Add baking powder and salt, then egg yolks,
oil, and 1/2 cup water. Add zest of 1 orange and whisk
to blend thoroughly. Set batter aside 15 minutes to
hydrate corn flour.
2. Meanwhile, position a rack in lower third of oven
and preheat oven to 325°.
3. Combine egg whites and cream of tartar in bowl of
a stand mixer. Using whisk attachment, beat whites
on medium-high until they’re creamy white and the
beater leaves tracks. Slowly sprinkle in remaining
1/4 cup sugar, beating on high speed just until egg
whites hold a firm peak when you lift the beater
(they should not be dry). “If you’re in doubt, think
about the egg whites as balloons. The more
beaten and expanded they are, the more likely
they are to break in the oven (since the heat
will expand them even more). Underbeating
88
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
TIP
“Beat your
egg whites
just until
they hold a
firm peak.”
DIGITAL BONUS
For more gluten-free
recipes, including Medrich’s
pancake recipe (which
can be used to try out any
flours you like), see
sunset.com/gluten-free.
“To avoid pith, sweep
the orange over the
zester; don’t scrub.”
TIP
is better than overbeating.”
4. Scrape half of egg whites onto cornflour batter and fold in until they are
partially blended, using this gentle technique to keep from deflating the whites:
“Cut down the center with your spatula, scrape under the batter and up
the sides of the bowl, and then lift
the batter and let it drop over on itself.” Fold in remaining egg whites just
until batter looks blended. Scrape batter
into a 10-in. (10 to 12 cup) tube pan with
removable bottom (ungreased) and
spread evenly. “An ungreased tube
pan lets the batter climb the sides.”
5. Bake until top of cake is golden brown
and a toothpick inserted into the center
comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, squeeze enough orange
juice to measure 6 tbsp. In a small bowl,
stir orange juice, lemon juice, honey,
and orange-flower water together.
7. When the cake is done, set the pan on
a rack. Immediately slide a very thin
spatula around sides of pan, and a thin
skewer around center tube, to detach
them. Poke cake all over with skewer and
slowly spoon orange mixture over cake,
letting it sink into holes and run over
the sides. Let cake finish cooling in pan.
8. To remove cake from pan, lift tube, then
slide a thin spatula between cake and
removable bottom, pressing against the
bottom to avoid tearing cake. Lift cake
off bottom: Cut a manila folder in half
crosswise, then slide on either side of
cake between pan bottom and cake. Or,
use two metal bench scrapers. Slide your
hands underneath the folders or scrapers,
and lift cake off tube to a serving platter.
Top with whipped cream topping and
candied orange zest, and slice with a serrated knife.
*Find orange-flower water at well-stocked
grocery stores and online.
MAKE AHEAD At least 3 days at room
temperature, still in pan and wrapped as
airtight as possible; up to 3 months frozen,
removed from pan and wrapped well. Bring
to room temperature before serving.
PER SLICE (1/12TH OF CAKE) 287 Cal., 35% (102 Cal.)
from fat; 5 g protein; 12 g fat (2.1 g sat.); 43 g carbo
(1.3 g fiber); 316 mg sodium; 87 mg chol. GF/LC/LS/V
WHIPPED CREAM
and CRÈME FRAÎCHE
MAKES ABOUT 1 1/4 CUPS / 5 MINUTES
Crème fraîche adds a subtle tang to ordinary
n_`gg\[Zi\Xd%N_`g,fq%crème fraîche
with 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream and
1 tbsp. sugar until soft peaks form.
CANDIED ORANGE ZEST
MAKES 1/2 CUP / 20 MINUTES
Bring a small saucepan of water to boil.
Meanwhile, using a channel (cocktail)
zester, zest 2 large or 3 small firm, bright
oranges to make long, curly strips of zest.
Or, using a vegetable peeler, cut wide strips
of zest and then slice into ¼-in. strips. Boil
zest 5 minutes. Drain; repeat. Put 1/2 cup
sugar and 1/4 cup water in pan and bring
to a simmer over medium heat, stirring
until sugar dissolves. Add blanched orange
zest, cover, and simmer 3 minutes. Transfer
zest and syrup to a small jar, let cool,
then chill overnight. Drain zest on paper
towels before using. Keeps at least 2
months, chilled.
SUNSET
❖ J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
89
Food & Drink
FA S T & F R E S H
WEEKNIGHT COOKING
Recipes in 30 minutes or less
SPICY LAMB TACOS
SERVES 4 / 20 MINUTES
3 cups thinly sliced cabbage (from 1 medium head)
1 bunch radishes, sliced into half-moons
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
3 tbsp. lime juice
Salt
1 lb. ground lamb
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
1 tsp. ancho chile powder
1/2 to 1 tsp. chipotle chile powder
1/4 cup beer
1 tsp. cider vinegar
8 warm corn tortillas
Toppings such as crumbled queso fresco (fresh
Mexican cheese), crema (Mexican sour cream) or
sour cream, chopped cilantro, pickled jalapeños,
and lime wedges for squeezing
1. Combine cabbage, radishes, cumin, cilantro,
and lime juice in a large bowl. Add salt to taste
and transfer to a serving bowl.
2. Sauté lamb, garlic, and oregano in a large frying
pan over high heat, breaking up meat with a
wooden spoon until very little pink remains,
about 5 minutes. Drain excess fat. Add chile
powders, beer, vinegar, and salt to taste and
cook, stirring, until most liquid has evaporated,
2 to 3 minutes more. Transfer to a serving bowl.
3. Set out tortillas and toppings in separate bowls
and let everyone make their own tacos.
MAKE AHEAD
Cook meat and prep toppings the
night before.
PER 2-TACO SERVING 455 Cal., 56% (255 Cal.) from fat; 23 g
protein; 28 g fat (12 g sat.); 28 g carbo (5 g fiber); 249 mg sodium;
83 mg chol. LC/LS
90
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
Recipes by
J E S S I C A B A T T I L A N A , K A T E WA S H I N G T O N & A D E E N A S U S S M A N
PHOTOGRAPHS: ANNABELLE BREAKEY; FOOD STYLING: RANDY MON
EASY SWAP
Any ground meat
works well with
the seasoning in
these tacos.
Lamb makes for an interesting flavor break from
beef. If you prefer less spice, just reduce the amount
of chipotle powder.
ORECCHIETTE with
ESCAROLE, CAPERS,
and OLIVES
SERVES 4 / 30 MINUTES
Adding a bit of the cooking water at the end melts the
cheeses into a creamy sauce that lightly coats the pasta.
GRILLED CHICKEN and
KALE SALAD with
TAHINI LEMON DRESSING
SERVES 4 / 30 MINUTES
Grilling the kale leaves whole makes them slightly crunchy and
smoky tasting. Just make sure they’re completely dry or else they’ll
steam and wilt.
11/4 lbs. boned, skinned
chicken breast, halved
lengthwise
1 tbsp. plus 1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. each salt and pepper,
divided
1 large bunch (10 oz.) flat
kale, such as dinosaur
or Lacinato, spines intact
3 tbsp. tahini (sesame
paste)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. honey
1 garlic clove, minced
2 small firm, crisp apples,
cored and chopped
1/4 cup chopped toasted
almonds
4 Medjool dates, pitted
and chopped (1/4 cup)
1. Heat a grill to medium-high (about
450°). Brush chicken with 1 tbsp. oil
and season with 1/2 tsp. each salt and
pepper. Grill chicken, turning once,
until just cooked through, 4 to 5 minutes total. Transfer to a plate. Grill
kale until edges are charred and kale
is softened, about 2 minutes.
2. Whisk remaining 1/4 cup oil in a large
bowl with tahini, lemon zest and
juice, honey, garlic, and remaining
1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper.
3. Roughly chop chicken, thinly slice
kale crosswise, and add both to bowl
of dressing. Add apples, almonds,
and dates and toss gently but
thoroughly.
PER 2-CUP SERVING 573 Cal., 48% (275 Cal.) from
fat; 36 g protein; 30 g fat (4.5 g sat.); 45 g carbo
(6.8 g fiber); 791 mg sodium; 91 mg chol. GF
12 oz. dried orecchiette pasta
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. red chile flakes
1 bunch (12 oz.) escarole, leaves separated and coarsely
chopped
1/3 cup chopped pitted kalamata olives
1 tbsp. brined capers
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup shredded fontina cheese
2 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
1. Bring a pot of generously salted water to a boil. Cook pasta
according to package instructions.
2. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan over medium-high heat,
heat 1 tbsp. oil. Add garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook
15 seconds, then add escarole in batches, tossing with tongs
until it wilts and shrinks in the pan, about 6 minutes. Stir
in olives and capers; set aside.
3. Drain pasta, reserving 3/4 cup pasta-cooking water. Set frying pan of escarole over low heat, add pasta and 1/4 cup cooking water, and toss to combine. Stir in remaining 1 tbsp. oil,
the butter, and cheeses. Stir to combine, adding more cooking water as necessary. Serve with more parmesan.
PER SERVING 492 Cal., 36% (177 Cal.) from fat; 16 g protein; 20 g fat (6 g sat.);
66 g carbo (3.1 g fiber); 1,716 mg sodium; 26 mg chol. LC/V
Food & Drink
NATURE
VS. NURTURE
SIP
Do you know what’s in your wine?!
(And should you care?) By Sara Schneider
right? Just crush some grapes,
and the natural yeast on the skins will start eating the sugar in the
juice, producing alcohol. Once the sugar is gone, press the wine off
the skins and seeds, let it mellow, then siphon it off the sediment
and bottle it.
I’m being simplistic, of course. There’s a little more to it than that.
And increasingly—given the mind-boggling technological tools
available—much more than that.
Let’s say you’re a winemaker who doesn’t trust the natural yeast
to be strong enough to see fermentation through to the end. You can
inoculate with a strain of yeast that’s been commercially bred to
lend a particular flavor profile. What if you think your wine is too
pale? Add Mega Purple or Ultra Red; these color- and textureenhancing concentrates are derived from grapes, and therefore
natural (or so the argument goes). Acidity too low? Add acid from a
bag. Alcohol too high? Take some out with reverse osmosis. Wine
too cloudy? Clarify it with anything from egg whites to isinglass.
I’m only scratching the surface of the processes winemakers are
using these days. And to be fair, they’re turning out some decent
affordable wine with these tools. But where on the spectrum of manipulation does a bottle lose its connection to a particular place and
time, and become the wine equivalent of a McDonald’s burger?
Voices in the “natural wine” movement, especially strong in the
West today, would have it that even the first step away from basic
winemaking is a violation. The geek in me appreciates the argument;
I love a wine full of the nuances that come through from a special
vineyard in a great year. But Mother Nature is seldom a perfect nanny, and I believe that sticking with the purists’ “nothing in, nothing
out” mantra is to risk making wine that goes beyond funkiness that’s
interesting, to funkiness that’s downright revolting.
A conversation with Santa Cruz, California, winemaker Nicole
Walsh assures me that I’m not alone in my position. “I’m not an absolutist,” she says. “I’ll make simple adjustments if I have to. For
myself, I could make a completely ‘natural’ wine that’s very interest-
WINEMAKING IS A SIMPLE PROCESS,
1
ing even with huge flaws, but I wouldn’t be able to sell it.”
Walsh’s “smart minimalism,” as I call it, is the result of a decadeplus evolution at highly regarded Bonny Doon Vineyard. Collaborating with iconoclastic proprietor Randall Grahm in the early
2000s, she threw every tool in the book at their wine, which
quickly grew from a 50,000-case production to somewhere in the
neighborhood of 400,000 (including the enormous Big House label). “Additive city” is how she describes those days. Almost as
quickly, though, Walsh and Grahm started moving away from
intervention—selling the Big House label along the way—in the
quest to produce true wines of place (terroir-driven).
Walsh continues to make Bonny Doon wines. But she’s also
bringing a gentle touch to her own Ser Wine Company. Her approach is an anachronistic mash-up of tradition and science. On the
one hand, she still loves using her feet to punch down the cap on
fermenting wine. On the other, when she crushes grapes, she
doesn’t just send a prayer to the gods that the natural yeast on them
will start—and finish—fermentation. She cultures it to produce a
strong “starter” to ensure success.
Wines like Ser—every vintage different, all fascinating—are the
reason my hat is off to winemakers who work hard to keep their
hands off their wine but know just when to step in with simple adjustments in the cause of deliciousness.
More great picks! Get award-winning wines from the Sunset Wine Club: sunset.com/wineclub. And follow Sara’s tweets @SaraAtSunset.
92
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5 ❖ S U N S E T
Six
minimalist
picks
Bonny Doon 2010
“Le Cigare Volant”
(Central Coast; $45).
Savory and earthy
(violet notes excepted); plum and dusty
berries layered with
pepper, black olive,
and cured meat.
2
3
THE WINEMAKER
AT WORK
4
5
1. Nicole Walsh of Ser Wine Com-
pany shining a light on a Pinot
Noir that’s ready to be siphoned
off its spent yeast cells (“racked
off the lees”).
2. Adjusting the racking arm so it’s
just above the lees in the barrel.
3. Stirring Cabernet Franc rosé gets
the yeast up into the juice to
keep the fermentation going.
4. Checking the population of an
indigenous yeast colony to see
if it’s large enough to inoculate.
5. Walsh and her tools—a wine thief
(to pull wine from the barrel) and
a glass.
6. Checking sulfur amounts using
an aeration/oxidation machine.
6
“I’m not an absolutist.
I’ll make simple
adjustments if I have to.”
—NICOLE WALSH, SER WINE COMPANY
Cowhorn 2012
Grenache 20
(Applegate Valley,
Oregon; $45).
Tart red fruit—juicy
Rainier cherries—with
crushed herbs, white
pepper, baking spices, and mocha.
Deovlet 2011
“Sonny Boy” (San-
ta Barbara County;
$40). Earth, pepper,
smoke, and mocha
on the nose of this
Merlot blend give
way to cherry, violet,
and fresh herbs.
Ser 2012 Cabernet
Pfeffer (Cienega
Valley; $35). Forget
your Cabernet reference points—this rare
variety is earthy and
floral at once. Bright,
spicy red fruit (cranberry, strawberry)
gets a hit of pepper
worthy of the name.
Siduri 2012 Pinot
Noir (Sonoma
Coast; $32). A
velvet-packed palate
of cherry, strawberry, and orange peel
under intriguing
cola and forest-floor
aromas.
Sojourn 2012
Gap’s Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir
(Sonoma Coast;
$54). Loam and
violet aromas lead
to rambunctious
cinnamon-cherry
with hints of cola.
Photographs by
E VA K O L E N K O
Food & Drink
In the SUNSET KITCHEN
TIPS FROM
OUR TEAM
KN OW -HOW
Homemade
corn tortillas
SARA SCHNEIDER, WINE EDITOR
TO P TO O L
PRECISION
DRINKING
W E ’ R E LOV I N G . . .
Instant
appetizers
In the Test Kitchen,
we’ve found that
a good jigger makes
a big difference in
getting precise
results—for, say, a
Sparkling Mai Tai on
New Year’s (drink
recipe on sunset.com).
Our pick, the Danesco
multilevel measuring
jigger ($13; amazon.
com), is unbreakable
and marked off by the
half-oz., ml., and tbsp.
These apple, pear, or citrus crisps aren’t just an upgrade on
dried fruit—they’re cocktail party–worthy. Sunset wine editor
Sara Schneider’s favorite combo: the apple chips ($5/15 slices;
simpleandcrisp.com) with Laura Chenel goat cheese and Iron
Horse Russian Cuvée 2009 ($40).
A recent visit to the Santa Fe
School of Cooking
(santafeschoolofcooking.com)
reminded us how amazing—
and easy—homemade tortillas
can be (try them with our
Spicy Lamb Tacos, page 90).
You’ll need a tortilla press
($20; surlatable.com).
1. Put 2 cups masa harina and
tsp. salt (optional) in a bowl
and slowly add 11/4 cups hot tap
water, stirring until dough becomes a ball. Knead a few times.
Shape into 13/4-in. balls and cover
with plastic wrap until needed.
1/2
2. Line a tortilla press with 2
circles of thick plastic (cut from
a resealable plastic bag). Press a
ball between plastic to 6 1/2 in.
COOKBOOK OF THE MONTH
Green
evolution
If there’s one cookbook that can hold us to our healthy-eating resolution
this year, it’s Greens + Grains: Recipes for Deliciously Healthful Meals
(Chronicle, 2014; $20). By former Sunset staffer Molly Watson, the
book turns these nutritional powerhouses into dishes that taste anything
but dutiful (here’s to you, Farro, Chard, and Ricotta Casserole ). To start,
remember her rules for cooking greens: 1. Cook leaves and stems
separately (stems take longer to get tender). 2. To tone down bitter flavors of sturdy greens while preserving their color, blanch the greens by
boiling briefly, then cooling quickly. 3. Soften raw greens like kale by
massaging with salt and a bit of oil.
94
J A N UA RY 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
3. Toast tortilla on a lightly oiled
hot griddle or cast-iron skillet
over medium heat, turning once,
until speckled brown, 4 minutes.
Repeat with remaining tortillas.
Wrap in a kitchen towel to keep
warm. Makes 10.
ANNABELLE BREAKEY (3); ILLUSTRATIONS: JOE MCKENDRY
“Apple chips echo the fruit in
the sparkling wine, and they’re
delicious with cheese too.”
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©2014 Time Inc. SUNSET is a trademark of Sunset Publishing Corporation,
registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Food & Drink
In the SUNSET KITCHEN
KITCHEN TALK
A
HEALTHIER
YOU
This month we
asked you, our Facebook friends, to tell
us about the one
change you want to
make in your cooking this year.
Add your ideas at
sunset.com/
kitchenconversation.
F O U R WAYS W I T H …
Flavored
popcorn
Sure, you can buy a bag of flavored popcorn, but a homemade version tastes a whole
lot fresher (and steers clear
of neon orange “seasoning”).
SEASONINGS
Furikake Use 3 tbsp. furikake (a mix of sesame seeds,
seaweed, and dried fish, sold
at well-stocked grocery stores
and Asian markets).
Salt & pepper Use 1 tsp. salt
and 11⁄4 tsp. pepper.
Garlic & parmesan Add
2 finely shredded or minced
garlic cloves to the melted
butter. Season popcorn with
1⁄ 2 cup grated parmesan
cheese and 2 tbsp. chopped
flat-leaf parsley.
Smoked paprika Add zest of
1⁄ 2 lemon to the melted butter.
Season popcorn with 1 tbsp.
chopped fresh thyme leaves
and 4 tsp. smoked paprika.
For Indian Spiced and
more fresh-popcorn
recipes, see sunset.com.
96 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5
❖ SUNSET
—KARINE
MARCHAND
“Make meatless Monday a standing tradition. If everyone
commits to just one
less day of consuming meat, it would
have a significant impact on the Earth.”
—PAMELA FLICK
WINNING READER RECIPE
COCONUT MILK SHRIMP
from
PERLLA
FONVIELLE
Seattle
SERVES 4 / 30 MINUTES
“I grew up with this recipe in northeast Brazil,” says Perlla Fonvielle. These
days, she makes it with wild Oregon shrimp.
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, cut into matchsticks
1 tsp. red chile flakes
1 can (15 oz.) coconut milk
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 lb. shelled and deveined medium
shrimp (26 to 30 per lb.)
Steamed rice
1⁄ 2 cup chopped cilantro
Lime wedges
1. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook onion,
carrot, and chile flakes until onion is softened and translucent,
about 3 minutes. Stir in coconut milk. Add tomato and shrimp and cook
until mixture is simmering and shrimp are pink, about 4 minutes.
2. Spoon shrimp mixture over rice and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with
lime wedges for squeezing.
PER SERVING WITHOUT RICE 369 Cal., 75% (277 Cal.) from fat; 18 g protein; 31 g fat (21 g sat.);
8.4 g carbo (1.2 g fiber); 669 mg sodium; 143 mg chol. GF/LC
“To eat more colors
of the rainbow. To
get my kids on board,
I like to have colorthemed nights—all
orange and purple
meals are fun!”
—KARIN ANDERSON
FROM LEFT: THOMAS J. STORY, ANNABELLE BREAKEY (FOOD STYLING: RANDY MON), JEFFERY CROSS
Heat 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
in a large pot over high heat,
add 1⁄ 2 cup popcorn kernels,
and cover. Shake pot often as
corn pops. When popping
slows to a few seconds between pops, remove from heat
and let sit until popping stops.
Transfer to a large bowl and
drizzle with 4 to 7 tbsp. melted butter. Toss well to coat
evenly. Sprinkle with kosher
salt and seasonings (below)
to taste; toss again. Makes
4 quarts.
“To take more time
to eat my meals and
enjoy them!”
Go on, indulge.
SAVE
20%!
*
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you enjoy your food while still eating smart. Healthy has never tasted so great!
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*For new Cooking Light Diet subscribers. © 2014 Time Inc. COOKING LIGHT is a trademark of Time Inc. Lifestyle Group, registered in the U.S. and other countries.
ASK SUNSET
H AV E A Q UE S T I O N A B O U T L I F E I N T H E W E S T ? W E H AV E T H E A N S W E R S .
FIND ART
INSIDE AND OUT
AT LACMA.
Q: Whenever I bake
brownies, I burn the
bottoms. What am I
doing wrong?
—H.L., BREMERTON, WA
running hot (check it with an oven
thermometer), there are two likely
culprits. First, oven position: Don’t
put the rack on the bottom rung. In
most ovens, that spot gives extra
browning on the bottom of food—
great for a pie crust you don’t want to
be soggy, but not good for brownies.
(Setting a rack on the top rung will
brown food more on the top—nice for
a gratin, say.) The best place for
brownies is in the middle of the oven.
Second, consider your pan. Dark
ones tend to brown food faster than
shiny metal ones. Some people feel
that glass pans cook faster, and they
turn down the oven temperature 25°
when using them or bake for a shorter
time. By the way, it’s easy to overbake
brownies. Check for doneness early,
and take them out of the oven when a
toothpick stuck in the middle comes
out with crumbs attached—if it comes
out clean, you waited too long, and
the brownies are going to be dry.
Q: For our anniversary, my husband agreed to a big-city
cultural weekend trip. Where should we go? —R.D., VISALIA, CA
DEAR R.D. We suggest you head down to Los Angeles. Here’s why: Through June 7, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (lacma.org) is hosting Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River
School, a major showing of paintings from the New-York Historical Society. After they got done
painting the Hudson, member artists like Albert Bierstadt traveled West to portray Yosemite and
the Rockies. The exhibit includes these unforgettable works. For a nearby place to stay, try the
sleek Hotel Wilshire (hotelwilshire.com), which also has a good restaurant. And about 8 miles east,
the postmodern Walt Disney Concert Hall is well worth a visit for the architecture alone (tours are
available most days), to say nothing of hearing a concert by the great L.A. Philharmonic (laphil.com).
Q: Visiting
the South
of France,
I fell in love with
the pines in Juanles-Pins. Will they
grow where I
live? —MELANIE
WOODWORTH,
NEWPORT BEACH, CA
DEAR MELANIE The trees you swooned over are
Italian stone pines (Pinus pinea)—and they are
magnificent, each maturing into a tall, flat-topped
umbrella of limbs as broad as 60 feet across (these
are very big trees). Like most Mediterranean native plants, they’ll thrive in much of the West and
particularly in Newport Beach (your stretch of
coast isn’t dubbed “Southern California Riviera”
for nothing). Your stone pine will need little water
once established and no fertilizer—however, it will
require well-draining soil and lots of room.
Email your questions about Western gardening, travel, food, wine, or home design to
[email protected].
SUNSET (ISSN 0039-5404) is published monthly in regional and special editions by Sunset Publishing Corporation, 80 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025. Periodicals postage paid at Menlo Park and at additional mailing
offices. Vol. 234, No. 1. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2015 Sunset Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. Sunset, The Magazine of Western Living, The Pacific Monthly, Sunset’s
Kitchen Cabinet, The Changing Western Home, and Chefs of the West are registered trademarks of Sunset Publishing Corporation. No responsibility is assumed for unsolicited submissions. Manuscripts, photographs, and
other submitted material can be acknowledged or returned only if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sunset, Box 62406, Tampa, FL 33662-4068, or call
(800) 777-0117. U.S. subscriptions: $24 for one year.
FROM TOP LEFT: MASCARUCCI/CORBIS, DAVE LAURIDSEN; ILLUSTRATION: ERIN O’TOOLE
DEAR H.L. Assuming your oven isn’t
Stock to Custom.
Change for the better.
Switch and you could save with GEICO.
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Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states or all GEICO companies. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance
Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. GEICO Gecko ©1999-2014. © 2014 GEICO
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