As long as there are peppers at the farmers market, I can still believe in summer. I sort of understand how, come September, some people start feeling the pull of fall: bowls of steaming soup, glowing persimmons, roasted chestnuts. I love the warm colors of fall and my yearly pumpkin patch pilgrimage; I jump at […]
On the Table
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Hoping to Hang On
When word came Aug. 28 that new tiered state guidelines meant Humboldt restaurants with approved safety plans could offer indoor dining again, Holly Blackwood, co-owner of Sea Grill, was still literally getting the 32-year-old restaurant’s outdoor dining nailed down. In the midst of having sails installed atop the newly installed wooden trellis structure in the […]
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Humboldt To Go
Melissa Harnden has a little time before her next shift at St. Joseph Hospital. Her light brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she’s already in a set of black scrubs with black and white trim as we chat over Zoom, the neat, neutral-toned walls of her home flashing past as she carries […]
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Letting Go and Adapting
For owner Jeni Masaki, the hardest part of closing Masaki’s Kyoto Japanese Restaurant was running into her regular customers and breaking the news to them. But as of last week’s soft opening, she’s happy to spread the good news about the sandwich joint she’s opened in its place: Chuchi’s Old Town Eats, which borrows her […]
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Green or Purple, They All Snap
Snap beans, green beans, string beans and wax beans all refer to the same vegetable: Phaseolus vulgaris. I find the name green beans limiting, since the pods also come in beautiful dark purple and wax beans are yellow. Hence, I prefer to call them snap beans, a name that refers to the sound made by […]
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Summer on a Platter
The peach is the beauty queen of summer. The blend of red, yellow and pink colors brighten up my day. Luckily, my family’s peach tree is right outside our kitchen window. I enjoy looking at it every day while I’m cooking. It brings me so much joy and hope during shelter in place, watching their […]
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Shiso with Everything
I didn’t even hear my cat-footed co-worker leave the bag of shiso leaves on my porch. But, to my joy, there it was: a dozen or more peach-fuzzed, feathery edged, heart-shaped shiso leaves, green on one side, purple on the other. Last week she’d sent me an email asking what I do with shiso — […]
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Pivoting into Produce
Monica Morris is shopping for ingredients to make her annual zucchini relish. Normally around this time of year, farmers have zucchini “coming out their ears,” she says. But finding a large number of affordable zucchinis this July has been a challenge. That’s why Morris has driven from Arcata to Blue Lake, where the small Powers […]
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Hunan Restaurant’s Chinese and Lao Revival
Back in January, Ronnie Worasen was walking through the empty kitchen of Hunan Restaurant (2912 E St., Eureka), rattling off the changes he was planning, from painting the dining room to updating the menu. Behind him, his father John Worasen was shaking a blackened wok over a flame, testing out the dishes they’d be serving […]
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‘Emotional Roller Coaster’
On Monday morning, Jennifer Metz, co-owner of Phatsy Kline’s Parlor Lounge and the Inn at 2nd & C, said she was feeling good about going with the flow and making the best of things despite shelter-in-place restrictions. The hotel had already been open for weeks with guests at half capacity and plans were underway to […]
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Summer, Berries and Baking
The summer sun still shines brightly as it does every summer but this year is missing the sound of children laughing at the playground. Although I can hear the fireworks popping now and then, they are not as festive as they used to be. We are all experiencing this new lifestyle together and we all […]
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Restaurant Mask Drama
Manuel Martinez was only 20 minutes into his shift bussing tables at Golden Harvest last weekend when he spotted a customer walking in without a mask. When Martinez asked if he had one, the man turned hostile. “He said, ‘Fuck you guys,” and just turned around and left,” says Martinez. In 16 years of restaurant work […]