OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. To keep you sated between episodes, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week, to toast the waning days of summer, she shares a zero-proof negroni recipe from an award-winning bartender.

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Oh summer, we just can’t quit you. The longer rays of sunshine and flattering golden hours are numbered, and we’re just not quite ready to give up our lazy afternoon porch drinks. Nonetheless, it is getting real with all the food preservation projects around here — the warm days and cool evenings have set our ant-brains into high gear and we’re socking away all manner of jam, pickles and dried fruits and seeds for the winter. We came this close to picking up a bunch of stinky ginkgo fruits from a schoolyard to mine the nuts out and heck, we even started a 2-gallon batch of miso even though it’s totally the wrong time of year for it — such is our powerlessness to the pull of late summer putting-up. Urban homesteading and home food preservation seem to have enjoyed a resurgence over the past decade or so, but one common preserved food in particular has been a Northwest staple for nearly two centuries — do you know what it is? Read on to find out!

Teetotally awesome drinks, a busy month for food lovers, the Oregon Grange’s sesquicentennial, all dogs go to heaven, and good things in gardens and markets

Freshly picked morsels from the Pacific Northwest food universe:

Booze-free options go beyond Shirley Temples and soda pop

Mocktails are having a moment, and this week “Superabundant” narrator Crystal Ligori spoke with a few folks pioneering the zero-proof cocktail movement in Oregon. Read the story here (and find a recipe at the end of this newsletter).

A delicious weekend just got busier

Last week we reminded you to mark your calendars for Oktoberfest, but we wouldn’t want you to miss out on a couple other events coming down the pike: The Portland Polish Festival (aka Pierogi Party!) from Sept. 16-17 will offer Polish foods and wares (including cookbooks), and Wellspent Market will host the Culinary Breeding Network’s third annual Tomato Festival on Sept. 16, with free samples and food available for purchase.

Vegan restaurant Fermenter releases new cookbook

From chef Aaron Adams and “Dumplings = Love” cookbook author Liz Crain comes a new cookbook chronicling the myriad ways to improve vegan fare through the act of fermentation. Stop by the launch party on Sept. 19 at Fermenter.

The Oregon Grange turns 150 this month

Maybe the closest thing you’ve come to a grange is the “A Fuss at the Ag Hall” episode of “Letterkenny,” but for the uninitiated, a grange hall is basically a nonprofit community center for farm families. The Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, was started as a national movement in 1867 and each state has numerous local chapters. Though they are mainly focused on supporting members of the agricultural community, granges have the occasional pancake breakfast or spaghetti dinner fundraiser open to the public.

It takes work to make a good doggo

Our favorite ag-lit newsletter, Ambrose Research, included a story about livestock guardian dogs who become aggressive toward those they’re tasked with protecting, and featured an interview with Oregon-based livestock dog trainer Cindy Benson (turns out farm dogs aren’t just born knowing what to do, but even dogs with bad habits can learn new tricks). Read the story here.

In the “Superabundant” garden this week

We’re still getting a trickle of Chester blackberries, about a dry pint a week, while the recent rain sent the cucumbers into overdrive. And hoo, boy, have the fruit trees got us in the weeds! We spent the better part of Labor Day weekend processing figs, apples and pears (a Facebook acquaintance offloaded a couple grocery bags on us) and now we’ve got a five-year supply of cardamom pear butter, fig rugelach filling, spiced applesauce and dried apples. (Our new favorite toy is this old-fashioned apple peeler/corer — we love the analog hand-crank and it even makes short work of wormy apples since the worms tend to stay in the cores; in proper “waste not, want not” mindset, we stuffed the apple skins and bug-free scraps into a crock to ferment into vinegar.)

Today dried apples might seem like one of those crunchy hippie nature snacks like date nuggets and carob clusters, but they were once a pioneer staple and agricultural commodity. The newspapers reported on the price of them as a matter of course, just as they did corn, barley and oats, from the frontier days of the 1850s well into the citified grocery store days of the 1920s.

Good things in markets

Melons, fresh beans and corn are ruling the produce stands this week, and wild huckleberries are making their first appearance too. Every type of late-season stone fruit seems to be on offer — juicy and fragrant nectarines and various plums and plum hybrids are superb right now (though we found the apriums from California to be bland and mealy).

Now is also the time to get roasted chiles for salsa or the freezer — West Wind Gardens (which uses 40 different varieties of chiles they grow locally) and Los Roast (which imports Hatch chiles from New Mexico) will be roasting peppers on site at various farmers markets and grocery store parking lots all month long. (Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter, when we’ll be talking with Portland hot sauce maker Sarah Marshall of Marshall’s Haute Sauce.)

Recipe: Nora Furst’s NEWgroni

This week we have a guest recipe from award-winning bartender Nora Furst, co-founder of West Bev Consulting, which works with various folks in the Northwest hospitality industry. OPB’s Crystal Ligori spoke with Furst about nonalcoholic spirits and blazing the trail for zero-proof craft cocktails in fine-dining spaces, and Furst shared a recipe with us. Makes 1 cocktail

Ingredients

1 ½ oz Wilderton Bittersweet Aperitivo

1 oz Verjus Blanc*

¾ oz Wilderton Lustre

½ oz Simple Syrup **

1 very small pinch salt

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass, fill with ice and stir 10-15 rotations. Strain over a large ice cube in a double old fashioned glass. Garnish with a trimmed orange peel.

*Note from Furst: “I usually use this stuff because it is readily available and pretty clean tasting, but anything that calls itself “Verjus Blanc” should work.” (Editor’s note: lemon juice will also work in a pinch.)

**To make simple syrup, combine 1 part white sugar to 1 part hot water and whisk together until sugar dissolves. Allow to cool.

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