About Sally
Recent insight: Were it not for the urgency of trying to save a planet for our children, living sustainably would just be another way to enjoy the good life.
Childhood drama: A snapshot might feature pastures, fields of potatoes and sugar beets, the fumbling pursuit of chickens and horses. Each made their impression, but my grandmother’s half-acre vegetable garden and its sun-warmed tomatoes were the clincher. With the deliciousness of those earliest tomatoes began my visceral relationship with the character of certain foods. I must admit, for example, that I’m involved in a pretty serious long-term relationship with tomatoes.
Destiny: When I began making dill pickles, canning tomatoes and sauce, jam and chutney with produce from our garden and farmer’s markets, I recognized the inevitable, that we do eventually become our mothers and grandmothers.
Past, present & future: A career educator, learning and teaching continue but are revitalized with new tools, my own version of those rural roots, and a vision that includes food, photography and sustainability.
A mission: It seems like the right time to become acquainted with the distinct produce of the Pacific Northwest and seasonal cycles unique to our place on the planet.
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Happiness is a bowl of Sungolds mid-winter
Golden orbs of sublime flavor these Sungolds. We love August and September when their vines are loaded and tomato grazing is prime. I return to the house after such a foray – me and my tomatoes alone at last – with my culinary soul satisfied and hands tinged with tomatoes’ invisible aura, the pigment that, [...]
Full o’ Beans, Wax & Green
My grandmother said that I was full of beans whenever she thought I was stretching the truth or misbehaving. Which, of course, wasn’t that often.
I’m full of beans at the moment and more on the way. I went on a bean-planting binge in May and planted four vines along with that many bush beans. What [...]
Roasted Garlic Bliss . . . or Beast
For me it’s bliss and our garden has just produced a healthy harvest of Duganski & Oregon Blue. It was touch and go there for a while, but it’s back and we’re thinking garlic feast. Some might say beast.
Turn the page if you have an aversion to garlic. One of my friends does and when [...]
Tuna & Bean Italian Summer Salad
I knew that I liked both tuna and beans. Separately. But epiphanies happen and in Venice last spring we had tuna and cannellini beans together in a salad for lunch. Loved it. Insalata di tonno e fagioli. My Italian Connection again. Our friend Mac made it for our lunch one day just before we headed [...]
Headin’ Home from Montana
We’ve just completed a 3-day intensive photo workshop on a GORGEOUS farm just outside Hamilton, MT. When they say Big Sky, it’s the truth. Free-spirited, fun, talented, organized – yeah, all that – Australian photographer Barb Uil, JinkyArt, inspired participants with her own take on photographing children while nudging us toward developing our own style.
Heading [...]
On the Road, the Palouse to the Snake
We’re still getting along and having a great time. Wish you were here. Yesterday we drove – sporadically, due to the call of irresistible landscape – from Walla Walla, through Colfax and Pullman, to Lewiston, ID and on to Orofino where we spent the night serenaded by the Clearwater River just outside.
Stopping/swerving off the road [...]
MixedGreens Road Trip Day 1
We spent yesterday traveling through the state from Seattle to the Yakima Valley, Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and finally dinner in Waitsburg, WA. Winery stops, picnic lunch and stunning scenery along the way. Cool drinks at hand and a fine cocktail at day’s end. Couldn’t have been sweeter.
Sagelands near Ellensburg, WA.
Cornfields now on what [...]
Road Trip, Cool Sip, Rosemary Lemonade
Early tomorrow morning we hit the road, Poppy and I. We’re headed for a workshop middle of the week and we thought we’d veer through Washington’s wine country on the way to Montana: the Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Walla Walla and then wheat country, the Palouse. Truthfully, the photog workshop is [...]
My Italian Connection
He’s not exactly Italian, Irish in fact, but he can speak it and cook it like nobody’s business, plus its history, art, culture, politics. For those of us who don’t get to Italy as often as he does, Mac’s Italian feasts are mouth-watering touchstones for how it might be if we ever get there ourselves. [...]
Montmerency Cherry Joy
Life is not a bowl, but a frosty glass of cherries, hot pink and straight from the garden or the farmers market. Last year I read about the health benefits of Montmorency cherries and that their juice is prized, which might be true of any sour cherry. A sleep aid, better [...]
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