Sarah Lemon
Journalist and food writer turned cooking instructor who believes that healthy food is within anyone’s reach — and can taste delicious.
A wealth of walnuts makes meals richer
Fall in Southern Oregon brought a windfall of walnuts. Conditions this year clearly favored these hardwoods historically planted by the region’s homesteaders. But walk through most neighborhoods, and there’s a good chance you’ll encounter a walnut tree presiding over a yard or sprawling over a fence. Suburban foraging is one of my favorite pastimes. A tree just down the street from my house...
Leave pumpkins on the porch – Celebrate Southern Oregon’s squash season with butternut
Pumpkin may be autumn’s icon, but America’s favorite fall flavor arguably is butternut squash. Those little sugar pumpkins — aka pie pumpkins — certainly are cute in their corpulence. Their taste and texture, however, don’t appeal as much as their aesthetic. So food processors figured out years ago that marketing squash as “pumpkin” fulfilled consumers’ culinary expectations while preserving...
Fresh mint makes cool condiments
The time has come to baby basil. Lest they blacken once nights turned frigid, my garden’s lushest, least leggy basil are ensconced in terra cotta pots indoors. For mint, there’s no such accommodation. A persistent perennial, the herb will wait out winter in its pot by the kitchen door — sheltered on the back patio. Long after the basil has dropped its leaves, mint will impart bright, fresh...
Gardeners, cooks in Southern Oregon treasure ‘red, white and blue’ potatoes
I’m ordinarily not one to dig potatoes — unless I literally get to dig potatoes. Ambivalent to the average supermarket spud, I couldn’t be more passionate about potatoes homegrown in Southern Oregon. Far from the bland filler I associate with long-keeping russets, specialty varieties tickle my fancy with diverse shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Freshly dug from the earth, these tubers taste...
Need a new zucchini recipe?
Since an early-season infestation of squash bugs was squelched, my garden has been resplendent in zucchini. My vigilance against the pests yielded a bounty of not just yellow zucchini but also “tromboncino” an Italian heirloom cultivar that we tried for the first time this year. Requiring less space than a zucchini, this variety is trellised, which has shaded some of our other plants. The payoff...
Carrot kraut is a signature salad topper
The pop of coriander seeds, the piquant bite of fresh ginger, the tang of lemon that never could have come from a mere tablespoon of juice. I just jarred another batch of my family’s favorite carrot kraut. The condiment that started as a savvy way to use up a surplus of homegrown carrots has now become a household staple. If too many weeks pass without our signature carrots for salads, my...
Farm-fresh eggs are eat-local essentials
Eat-local enthusiasts hunger for springtime’s start to local open-air farmers markets. The calorie payoff, however, is still months in the making as leafy greens, herbs and even garden starts constitute the vast majority of freshly grown items for sale. Asparagus is still a good two months off. Peas? About three months in the making. Don’t even mention tomatoes or cucumbers … Even...