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I was delighted to have my level of fruit and veggie awareness raised through two unexpected finds at last week’s farmers’ market.
One of them, a powerfully nutritious but largely unknown veggie, will be the subject of next week’s column. This week is devoted to the other, the bright, sassy Saskatoon berry.
When I happened upon these little berries, their size, shape and jewel-like red-purple-blue coloration reminded me of a cross between huckleberries and cranberries. Nibbling on a few revealed a sweet-tart flavor, furthering this thought.
Research upon my return from the market showed that they’re related instead to an entirely different fruit, the apple. We call them a berry, but botanically, like the apple, they’re a pome.
Saskatoon berries, more commonly called saskatoons, are native throughout much of Canada, Alaska and the north central United States.
They’re considered “super fruits” because of their high level of health-promoting antioxidants, which have anti-cancer and anti-aging effects.
Antioxidants also contribute against cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases and act as a protective guard to our immune systems.
Since it’s to our benefit to consume antioxidant-rich foods, we should keep our eye on the Saskatoon berry, which has the highest ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) value of any fruit, a method used to determine antioxidant activity.
In addition to its powerful stores of antioxidants, saskatoons are an excellent source of manganese, magnesium, iron, potassium and copper, as well as being rich in vitamins A and C. As to iron, they contain three times the amount as in the same weight of raisins.
They were an important food to indigenous peoples in North America, who – not surprisingly – also used other parts of the plant for medicinal purposes. The wood of the saskatoon bush is weighty and flexible, so was used in the production of arrows, tools, basket frames and cross pieces of canoes.
Early pioneers that settled throughout its native range relied on the saskatoon as a food staple.
Until recently, saskatoon berries grew only in the wild and were foraged, rather than harvested; however, commercially viable methods of farming them now exist.
It was less than 20 years ago that the first orchards were planted, and most of these exist in Canada, where demand far exceeds supply.
In the U.S., these berries are more commonly called serviceberries, June berries, or shadberries. “Saskatoon” derives from their longer but similar-sounding name in the Cree language. The city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada is named for the berry.
They taste a bit like blueberries, but with a meatier texture. They’re described as having a nutty, almond-like flavor, and using almond extract in recipes that include them enhances this.
Saskatoons may be frozen or dried, as well as used fresh.
The culinary uses for saskatoons are similar to those of berries; they’re made into jams (quite possibly their most popular use), baked into pies, tarts and clafoutis, added to muffins, breads and scones, and sauces and relishes are made with them.
I saw a creative recipe at www.PlanetGreen.com utilizing saskatoons in a red wine sauce for roast pork.
I decided to make a fragrant sauce with them for serving over yogurt, which I’ve shared below. The berries held their shape well, making a nice contrasting texture to the smoothness of the yogurt, and the sweetness of the sauce was a perfect compliment to the yogurt’s tartness.
If you plan to use the sauce over a sweet dessert such as ice cream or cheesecake, I’d recommend reducing the sugar in the recipe by about half.
I’m glad to have made the acquaintance of these happy berries. I feel I have a new culinary friend. I hope you’ll enjoy them, too.
Saskatoon berry sauce
2 cups fresh saskatoon berries
¼ cup water
¼ cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
½ vanilla bean
2 slices lemon
4 wide swaths of orange zest
Simmer all ingredients together in a saucepan until berries are flavored through and sauce is warmed, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Note that the sauce will be runny. If a thicker sauce is wanted, thicken with a little cornstarch or arrowroot powder. A thicker (less sweet) sauce would be a marvelous topping for cheesecake.
Store sauce well-covered in fridge.
Recipe by Esther Oertel.
Esther Oertel, the “Veggie Girl,” is a culinary coach and educator and is passionate about local produce. Oertel teaches culinary classes at Chic Le Chef in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., and The Kitchen Gallery in Lakeport, Calif., and gives private cooking lessons. She welcomes your questions and comments; e-mail her at
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 15th annual food and wine event, A Taste of Lakeport, will once again pair Lake County wines with food from local purveyors at various locations along seven blocks of Main Street in downtown Lakeport on Friday, Aug. 19.
The event, which takes place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., encourages a leisurely stroll along Main Street with stops at shops for wine tasting, while enjoying live entertainment and the company of friends, neighbors, and visitors.
Tasting will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., followed by the street dance and no host bar from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Eventgoers can sip premium Lake County wines from more than 20 participating wineries and sample tasty bites of local food.
To keep the fun going, live music will play throughout the evening featuring Blue Collar and The Blind Monkeys during the tasting portion of the event and the LC Diamonds during the street dance.
Tickets for the event are $30 in advance and may be purchased at the Lake County Chamber of Commerce. Tickets also may be purchased the day of the event for $35.
Ticket purchase includes a wine glass and a map showing all participating wineries and restaurants. The map may be stamped at each location and guests who visit each stop throughout the course of the evening qualify to enter a drawing for prizes.
Presented by the Lakeport Main Street Association (LMSA), A Taste of Lakeport is a benefit for the revitalization of downtown Lakeport. LMSA maintains large flower-filled baskets that hang from the lampposts along Main Street and hangs seasonal and holiday banners from the proceeds of this fundraising event.
For visitor information, contact the Lake County Visitor Information Center at 800-525-3743 or www.lakecounty.com.
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NASA's Dawn spacecraft is closing in on Vesta, and from now until the ion-powered spacecraft goes into orbit in mid-July, every picture of the giant asteroid will be the best one ever taken. What will researchers do with this unprecedented clarity?
“For starters,” said Dawn chief engineer Marc Rayman, “we're going to look for an asteroid moon.”
You might think of asteroids as isolated bodies tumbling alone through space, but it's entirely possible for these old “loners” to have companions.
Indeed, 19-mile-wide Ida, 90-mile-wide Pulcova, 103-mile-wide Kalliope and 135-mile-wide Eugenia each have a moon. And 175-mile-wide Sylvia has two moons.
Measuring 330 miles across, Vesta is much larger than these other examples, so a “Vesta moon” is entirely possible.
Where do such moons come from?
Rayman suggested one source: “When another large body collides with an asteroid, the resulting debris is sprayed into orbit around the asteroid and can gradually collapse to form a moon.”
Another possibility is “gravitational pinball”: A moon formed elsewhere in the asteroid belt might, through complicated gravitational interactions with various bodies, end up captured by the gravity of one of them.
Hubble and ground based telescopes have looked for Vesta moons before, and seen nothing. Dawn is about to be in position for a closer look. On Saturday, July 9, just one week before Dawn is set to go into orbit around Vesta, the moon hunt began. The cameras will begin taking images of the space surrounding the asteroid, looking for suspicious specks.
“If a moon is there, it will appear as a dot that moves around Vesta in successive images as opposed to remaining fixed, like background stars,” said Dawn Co-investigator Mark Sykes, who is also director of the Planetary Science Institute. “We'll be able to use short exposures to detect moons as small as 27 meters in diameter. If our longer exposures aren't washed out by the glare of nearby Vesta, we'll be able to detect moons only a few meters in diameter.”
While you won't see “find a moon” among the mission's science goals, a moon-sighting would be a nice feather in Dawn's cap. Not that it will need more feathers. The probe is already primed to build global maps and take detailed images of the asteroid's surface, reveal the fine points of its topography, and catalog the minerals and elements present there.
Besides, Dawn will become a moon itself when it enters orbit around Vesta. And the probe's motions as it circles will provide a lot of information about the rocky relic.
Sykes explains: “We'll use the spacecraft's radio signal to measure its motion around Vesta. This will give us a lot of detailed information about the asteroid's gravitational field. We'll learn about Vesta's mass and interior structure, including its core and potential mascons (lumpy concentrations of mass).”
As you read this, the spacecraft is gently thrusting closer to its target. And with the navigation images alone we're already watching a never-before-seen world grow ever larger and clearer.
“The pictures are beginning to reveal the surface of this battered, alien world,” said Rayman. “They're more than enough to tantalize us. We've been in flight for four years, we've been planning the mission for a decade, and people have been looking at Vesta in the night sky for two centuries. Now, finally, we're coming close up to it, and we'll be getting an intimate view of this place.”
This is not only the first time a spacecraft has visited this alien world, it's also the first time a spacecraft has visited a massive body we haven't approached previously. In the past, rocket ships have orbited Earth, the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury.
“In each case, flyby missions occurred first, providing a good estimate of the target's gravity along with information on other aspects of its physical environment, including whether any moons are present. This time we're much less certain what we'll find,” said Rayman.
At a recent press conference, NASA Planetary Science Deputy Director Jim Adams told reporters that Dawn will “paint a face on a world seen only as a 'fuzzy blob' up to now.”
What does Rayman think Vesta's face will look like?
“Wrinkled, ancient, wizened, with a tremendous amount of character that bears witness to some fascinating episodes in the solar system's history,” he said.
If a new moon is among the episodes, Rayman has a name in mind.
“How about 'Dawn'?”
Dauna Coulter works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Office of Education has been selected to receive a grant to participate in “The Big Read.”
The agency received a $2,500 award that was part of $1 million the National Endowment for the Arts awarded nationwide in support of The Big Read.
The only other organization on the North Coast to receive funding for the program was The Rural California Broadcasting Corp. in Rohnert Park, which received $17,000 for its Big Read effort, centered around the book, “Bless Me, Ultima.”
The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.
Through the efforts of local partner agencies, businesses, schools and service organizations, Lake County's Big Read steering committee produced a well attended cash match fundraising event this past January, and the grant application was successfully submitted in February.
The Big Read is designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.
A 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts found that, not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.
The Big Read aims to encourage reading on a local level with events that are diverse in both audience and format. The local steering committee selects one book that will be read by the entire county.
This year’s selection is “The Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.”
According to the preface on The Big Read Web site, “Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective story, perfected the horror tale, and first articulated the theory of the modern short story as well as the idea of pure poetry.”
Activities for the Lake County Big Read will incorporate Poe’s works as well as his influence on the genres of mystery, horror and poetry.
Programming will occur primarily in the month of October, with the official kickoff at the Kelseyville Pear Festival on Sept. 24.
Schools will be contacted this summer with a teacher’s guide and ideas for classroom involvement. A “Little Read” is planned to include younger readers at schools and libraries.
An art contest, a film festival, discussion groups and many more activities will be available for Lake County residents to enjoy.
Volunteers also are needed for various events and activities. Creative and fun ideas are welcome as well.
For more information, or to volunteer to host a discussion group of your peers, please contact Robin Shrive, program director for The Big Read at
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The 82nd annual Lake County Rodeo arrived on Friday evening, bringing with it a new rodeo queen and plenty of contests, from “mutton bustin'” for the kids to the serious business of the traditional rodeo events for adults – barrel racing, bull and bareback riding, saddle bronc, steer wrestling, and calf and team roping.
The rodeo is held at the grandstands at the Lake County Fairgrounds, 401 Martin St., Lakeport.
The annual rodeo parade will take place beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 9, in Lakeport.
The procession will begin at the baseball fields at the fairgrounds on Martin Street, travel to Main Street and follow that road north to Ninth Street, and return on Main to the fairgrounds.
The rodeo events will continue starting at 6 p.m. Saturday, with more mutton bustin', cowchip bingo, local barrel racing, local team roping, CCPRA Bull Riding, CCPRA Bare Back Riding, CCPRA Saddle Bronc Riding, CCRPA Steer Wrestling, CCPRA Calf Roping, CCPRA Barrel Racing and CCPRA Team Roping.
Admission to the rodeo costs $9 for adults, $6 for seniors age 60 and over and $4 for children ages 7 to 12. Parking is free.
At 9 p.m. Saturday the rodeo will host a dance that's free with a Saturday rodeo ticket. Tickets for the dance only cost $6 after 8:45 p.m. Dance to the sounds of Dean Titus & The Coyote Cowboys.
For more information on the rodeo, visit www.lakecountyrodeo.com.
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COBB, Calif. – The service of a search warrant by the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force on Friday morning has resulted in two arrests and the seizure of methamphetamine and narcotics paraphernalia.
Arrested were 58-year-old Ladawn Mary Scott and 45-year-old Eric Von Taylor, both of of Whispering Pines, according to a report from Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
On July 1 narcotics detectives secured a search warrant for Scott's person, home and vehicles, and served the warrant at 8:30 a.m. Friday, July 8, Bauman said.
After entering Scott’s home detectives found Taylor sitting on a couch in the living room. Bauman said Scott was located as she was exiting a bedroom. Both were detained without incident.
During a search of the home, detectives located a glass “meth” pipe concealed beneath a cushion in the couch where Taylor had been sitting, Bauman said. Taylor was determined to be under the influence of a controlled substance and arrested.
A search of the bedroom Scott was exiting when detectives entered the home revealed a small toiletry case containing methamphetamine. Bauman said the toiletry case also contained more meth pipes, digital scales, packaging materials consistent with the sales of controlled substances, and other narcotics paraphernalia.
He said Scott also was determined to be under the influence of a controlled substance and arrested.
Both Scott and Taylor were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked, Bauman said.
Scott was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of narcotics paraphernalia and being under the influence of a controlled substance, he said, while Taylor was charged with possession of narcotics paraphernalia and being under the influence of a controlled substance.
Jail records indicated that Scott's bail was set at $10,000, while Taylor's was $3,000. Both posted bail later on Friday and were released.
Anonymous tips about drug trafficking in Lake County can be phoned in to the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force at 707-263-3663.
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