The Applegater

4 Winter 2019 Applegater BOOK REVIEW A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki Penguin Random House 2013 How did I miss this novel back in 2013? Maybe it's correct that the right book shows up at the right time. Such an adage helps explain the unread books in my bookcases and why this title suddenly lit up there, as if its cover had magically burst into fireworks. I didn't know until I'd finished reading that it had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. Nor had I read all the praise from around the world. Just the book and me—no expectations, just the fireworks. Imagine that, like the author, you live on a small island off the coast of British Columbia and every morning take your walk on the beach. One day you see, tangled in the detritus of the sea, something pink. You go to check it out and it is a battered "Hello Kitty" lunchbox. You pick it up, brush off the sand, and take it home to the kitchen table where you open it. Inside are a wristwatch, some letters, and a journal written directly to you by a teenager in Japan. You read: "Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me, right now I am sitting in a French maid café in Akiba Electricity Town, listening to a sad chanson that is playing sometime in your past, which is also my present, writing this and wondering about you, somewhere in my future…" What would you do next? Already, I could not stop reading. By the end of the first two pages I knew this discovery went beyond stories of a note in a bottle. The author was weaving together a tapestry of intersecting time and place in which her character, also named Ruth, enters profoundly into Nao's coming- of-age story, which is funny, sad, gritty, frightening, confusing, suicidal, and compassionate. Quickly the time between the two begins to merge. Can they even exist without each other? "I'm reaching forward through time to touch you…you're reaching back to touch me." Canadian Ruth, an author living "now" on an island in the Georgia Strait off mainland British Columbia, reads Nao's journal, written just before the horrific 2011 earthquake and tsunami off the northern coast of Japan. Can her normal sense of time survive the entanglement she begins to feel with this girl, or will their times merge to give Ruth the chance to intervene? is was the question that kept pestering me as I read. Here's a book that will wring your heart. It will challenge your philosophical, spiritual, scientific, and psychological understandings of time itself. It will ground you in the Bodhisattva wisdom of Old Jiko, a Buddhist nun and Nao's beloved great-grandmother. It will bring you into the quantum realm that renders chaotic many former certainties. You might feel yourself floating around in magical, even mystical psychic waters. You could feel sympathy with the oft- mentioned Marcel Proust and his In Search of Lost Time. You'll learn about Tokyo teen culture, a kamikaze pilot's soul- searching, Old Jiko's compelling version of Zen Buddhism in which opposites are "not same…not different either," the latest theories of parallel universes, and possibly a bit of Japanese language as defined by Nao. But above all, my hope is that you will be taken in, absorbed, and transformed, as I was, by a story with unforgettable characters who come face-to-face with life's most fundamental choices. I hope, too, that you will finish the book feeling larger, more compassionate toward our differences, more hopeful about the future of our world, with a greater sense of adventure into the mystery of our existence and with a deep love for every time being. Christin Lore Weber storyweaver1@gmail.com Poetry Corner Applegate Dam In 1962, the US Congress authorized construction of the Applegate Dam, which would eventually flood the community of Copper (see Diana Coogle's article "Copper Store, in the past" in the fall 2019 Applegater). When the dam was completed in 1980, according to local news reports, the engineering contractors had collected over $2.5 million in gold and gold dust from the Applegate River. e contractors shared the proceeds with the federal government. Among the people whose lives were irrevocably changed by the dam were so- called "recreational miners," many of whom scraped out a livelihood from their mining claims along the river. Hank and Wilma were a couple with a claim in the area where the dam now stands. In 1986, Katy Barber was a high school student from Portland, on a camping trip to the Applegate Valley. Her parents had told her many stories about Hank and Wilma, with whom they had spent a summer before she was born. at camping trip inspired her to write this poem. Today, Katy Barber is a history professor at Portland State University and author of two books about Celilo Falls and its inundation, Death of Celilo Falls (2005) and In Defense of Wyam: Native-White Alliances in the Struggle for Celilo Falls (2018). Margaret Perrow della Santina • perrowm@sou.edu Applegate Dam by Katrine Barber (1986) barberk@pdx.edu It had rained for three days straight leaving the tent roof like the underbelly of a frog, full and soft. We hiked to the Applegate, gathered BB-hard huckleberries, swam among the pickerelweed pregnant with another generation of damselflies, and prepared ourselves for a hot one while old Hank kept cool with his home brew. When the mosquitoes started humming Wilma would get out her soft-as-leather cards and we'd play poker hearts gin rummy and she'd clank her chips together, reminding everyone that she had a good deal of the pot. Now I see why her hands hurt— she tried to rinse gold from the river bottom, tried to crack the dam open with a shovel and a couple of pans. And Hank used his hands to pick up Styrofoam along the highway, to refund beer bottles in Jacksonville. ey held onto their claim and waited for damselflies while the river swallowed the canyon. ■ HOLIDAY CATERING Continued from page 1 Chef Emily Moore of Emily's Kitchen. Chef Kristen Lyon of Jefferson Farm Kitchen. See HOLIDAY CATERING, page 6. loves to eat, so be sure to invite him for a bite in exchange! Chef Emily Moore Chef Emily Moore, of Emily's Kitchen, was educated in Paris and has cheffed and consulted for many restaurants, in addition to teaching at Le Cordon Bleu in Seattle. Emily and her husband, Mark Solomon, moved to the Applegate three years ago to build a creamery for him and a commercial kitchen for her. On their half-acre of vegetables, she hopes to cultivate a particular variety of mini gherkin cucumbers for pickling into cornichons. Emily's Kitchen offers catering and added-value products (her pickled blueberries are wonderful!) while Mark runs Toucan Tango Creamery. He makes bloomy rind cheeses (think camembert) among others, and they both teach classes through Rogue Community College Extension, at their kitchen, and at clients' homes. ey hope to offer classes at the Jacksonville Community Center as well. Holiday f o o d s a r e s o m e o f E m i l y ' s f a v o r i t e s , although in the past she was always w o r k i n g during the h o l i d a y s . She recalls celebratory meals, with h e r a l l - Latino staff, of turkey mole ("moh-lay," an aromatic, dark sauce) or tamales. She has another fond memory, of an all- night Christmas dinner in Paris featuring oyster stew, lobster, champagne, foie gras, tarts, custards, and many bottles of wine, which finished at daybreak with coffee and a croissant, before everyone headed to work. is holiday season, Emily recommends brining your bird in a salt solution to retain moisture, making a juicier final product. T h e n , b e c a u s e h o l i d a y s a r e a b o u t celebration, she suggests a s k i n g o t h e r s t o bring what t h e y d o best. Don't be so over- w h e l m e d t h a t y o u can't enjoy yourself, she says. Invite a friend to cook with you or have a second dinner with friends only! Chef Kristen Lyon Chef Kristen Lyon, owner of Jefferson Farm Kitchen, in Jacksonville, is passionate about healthy, local, organic, and seasonal foods that provide both comfort and nutrition. Kristen's meal support sets you up for success. For winter holidays, she provides appetizers, soups, and desserts, all packing a nutritional punch while remaining rich and decadent. For a stress-free meal, choose from vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or classic dishes. Have you tried her weekly menu selections for pickup or delivery? Order bone broth, chicken pot pies, quiche, take-and-bake treats, and more online. Stop by her storefront (next to GoodBean Coffee in Jacksonville) to pick up fresh, quality eats to take home or devour on-site. A holiday meal while she was growing up consisted of latkes (potato pancakes) with applesauce and sour cream. She also had manicotti, a hand-rolled pasta tube filled with fresh cheese and ladled with tomato sauce. Now she relishes an organic chicken liver pate, locally sourced and homemade. Her food advice: make ahead. Gravy can be made from bone broth, which you add drippings to later. Prepare your mise en place ("everything in place") by cleaning and chopping vegetables ahead. And take advantage of her gluten-free or regular

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