A little food love goes a long way
February 19, 2013
Valentine’s Day snuck up on me this year. It feels like yesterday I was planning Super Bowl food. And yet, last week I found myself scrambling to come up with something divinely delicious for the annual day of love.
Creating a special dinner for my family is my way of saying I love you. But alas, my dazzling Valentine dinner didn’t quite happen the way I’d planned. From work to school activities, homework and deadlines, it seemed a momentous task to bring everyone together on a Thursday evening for our Valentine feast.
The lovely celebration dinner was postponed. However, always looking for a good excuse to dine on the delicious, my darling family agreed to reconvene this weekend for our annual evening of food love.
Issaquah innovators earn business honor
January 29, 2013
Innovation in Issaquah is exemplified by a leading apparel manufacturer, a revolutionary process to transform garbage into fertilizer and a theater renowned for fostering Broadway-bound musicals.
Issaquah Chamber of Commerce and city leaders announced the Innovation in Issaquah honorees — apparel manufacturer SanMar, WISErg, a manufacturer of garbage-to-fertilizer harvesters, and the nonprofit Village Theatre — at a Jan. 24 ceremony and luncheon.
Leaders from the chamber and City Hall recognized the entrepreneurs’ accomplishments through the Innovation in Issaquah contest, a showcase for local businesses offering unique services. Honorees demonstrate innovation in product development, services, systems or strategies.
Off the Press
September 18, 2012
It’s not hard to cook up a lasting marriage
David Hayes
Press reporter
My wife Michelle and I celebrated our 17th anniversary in August. While we’ve more than doubled the national average, we’re still young ‘uns compared to some of the couples The Issaquah Press has featured in recent months.
The paper has been celebrating along with some local couples who’ve hit some mighty milestones in their marriages. Each was kind enough to also share their secrets to staying together all these decades since tying the knot.
Preben and Ruth Hoegh-Christensen celebrated their 70th anniversary Aug. 2. Their secret was to make sure there was give and take in their marriage, and after an argument to always kiss each other goodnight before bed, never going to sleep angry.
Donate bicycles for African students at PCC Natural Markets
August 7, 2012
Olympia-based Alaffia Sustainable Skin Care and Seattle-headquartered PCC Natural Markets have teamed up for Bicycles for Education.
PCC Issaquah is hosting a bike drive, accepting functioning, adult-sized used bicycles from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1810 12th Ave. N.W. The bicycles will then be distributed to disadvantaged teens in Africa for transportation to and from school.
Learn more at www.pccnaturalmarkets.com or www.empowermentalliance.org. Learn about volunteer opportunities by contacting Olowo-n’djo Tchala at 360-866-0080, ext. 204, or bikes@alaffia.com.
Issaquah School District, businesses earn ‘green’ honor from King County
August 7, 2012
King County Executive Dow Constantine honored the Issaquah School District and Issaquah businesses for efforts to reduce waste and increase recycling July 25.
Dow Constantine
The school district, Outsource Marketing, PCC Natural Markets, Pogacha of Issaquah and Rowley Properties ranked as Best Workplaces for Waste Prevention and Recycling. Countywide, 92 businesses and government and nonprofit organizations achieved the distinction.
(The school district stretches from Preston to Newcastle, and from Sammamish to Renton.)
“From recycling Styrofoam and cellphones to creating new programs for composting, the innovation these organizations have shown proves that sound environmental practices can go hand-in-hand with a successful business,” Constantine said in a statement.
Issaquah organizations earn King County honor for ‘green’ practices
July 26, 2012
NEW — 8 a.m. July 26, 2012
King County Executive Dow Constantine honored the Issaquah School District and Issaquah businesses for efforts to reduce waste and increase recycling Wednesday.
The school district, Outsource Marketing, PCC Natural Markets, Pogacha of Issaquah and Rowley Properties ranked as Best Workplaces for Waste Prevention and Recycling. Countywide, 92 businesses and government and nonprofit organizations achieved the distinction.
“From recycling Styrofoam and cellphones to creating new programs for composting, the innovation these organizations have shown proves that sound environmental practices can go hand-in-hand with a successful business,” Constantine said in a statement.
The county put Outsource Marketing, PCC Natural Markets and Rowley Properties on a Business Honor Roll for making the Best Workplaces for Waste Prevention and Recycling list for at least five consecutive years.
City Council bans plastic bags at Issaquah retailers
June 12, 2012
Ordinance goes into effect for most businesses in March 2013
Issaquah joined a string of cities along Puget Sound to outlaw plastic bags at local retailers June 4, after months of sometimes-acrimonious debate about adverse impacts to the marine environment and the regional economy.
In the end, concerns about the environment led the City Council to decide 5-2 to eliminate most retail uses for plastic bags. The legislation — and a 5-cent fee on paper bags — go into effect in March 2013 for most businesses.
The council listened to advocates from environmental groups and the plastics industry in public meetings throughout April and May, and then again before the decision.
The plastic bag ban sponsor, Issaquah Highlands entrepreneur and City Councilman Mark Mullet, presented the legislation as a way to reduce the estimated 10 million plastic bags the city sends to the King County landfill each year.
Issaquah startup transforms trash into treasure at local grocery store
May 15, 2012
City Council President Tola Marts speaks at WISErg’s public unveiling of a food-scrap harvester at PCC Natural Market on May 8. By Autumn Monahan
The castoffs from daily activity in a grocery store — fruit peels from the juice bar, meat trimmings from the deli, discarded vegetable leaves from the produce section — no longer go to the compost heap at the PCC Natural Markets store at Pickering Place.
Instead, employees dump the refuse into a boxy structure tucked near the loading dock. The apparatus, a machine called a harvester, transforms the peels and trimmings into sludge — a building block for organic fertilizer.
Issaquah-based WISErg developed the harvester and built the prototype for the local grocery co-op. The company also uses the sludge to produce fertilizer, a tawny liquid no thicker than water.
Microsoft alumni Larry LeSueur and Jose Lugo founded WISErg in 2009. The startup venture is based across the street from Pickering Place. (The company name is a nod to the erg, a tiny unit of energy.)
“We all know the scraps headed for the Dumpsters are full of nutrients and value,” LeSueur said at a public debut for the harvester May 8. “The last thing we should do is landfill them and create more environmental and community headaches.”
WISErg approached Diana Crane, director of sustainability for Seattle-based PCC, and broached the idea of installing a harvester at a store.
“How exciting it is that the trash produced daily from our juice bar, deli, meat and produce departments that would otherwise be sent to landfills is now being offered in our PCC stores as a high-quality plant food,” Issaquah Store Director Debbi Montgomery said.
Donate sweaters to neighbors in need at PCC Natural Market
January 24, 2012
The spirit of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” has come to Issaquah and the Puget Sound region during a sweater drive for neighbors in need.
PCC Natural Markets and KCTS 9 teamed up for the annual Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Sweater Drive to collect thousands of sweaters for local nonprofit organizations.
The greatest need is for children’s items, but the drive accepts all new and gently used adult and children’s sweaters and coats. Find collection bins at PCC Natural Markets and the KCTS 9 lobby through Feb. 12.
Donors can drop off sweaters and coats at the Issaquah store, 1810 12th Ave. N.W., or other locations.
The sweaters go to Wellspring Family Services, a group formed to help families achieve self-sufficiency.
Donors dropped off more than 6,000 coats and sweaters during the 2011 drive.
The drive is a takeoff on Fred Rogers and the cardigan he donned at the start of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” episodes. The famed red cardigan is enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution.
Halloween pumpkin’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder
October 18, 2011
Picking perfect jack-o’-lantern comes down to preference
Glenn Dutro hoists a pumpkin on his shoulder in the u-pick pumpkin patch at the Trinity Tree Farm in Issaquah. Photo By Greg Farrar
About 50,000 pounds of pumpkins dot the landscape as far as the eye can see.
There are oblong gourds with ample, flat surface areas for carving.
Others are rotund, boasting a sturdy stem and a thick, perfect shell.
Glenn Dutro, who has offered families a chance to pick their own pumpkins for the past three years at the u-pick pumpkin patch at the Trinity Tree Farm near Issaquah, wants something else out of his Halloween pumpkin entirely.
“The perfect pumpkin is all just a matter of personal preference,” he said. “Most people want a big, bright, beautiful thing. I want one with scars on it. I want it messed up and nasty.”
Ken Allison, a produce manager for PCC Natural Markets, said the perfect pumpkin is all in the eye of the beholder.
“It’s all in a person’s aesthetic judgment,” he said. “Typically, what I look for to carve or to sell is the stem to be attached still. That way you know it’s not knocked or kicked around. You want the pumpkin to feel firm so it won’t rot and collapse right away.”
