Chocolates That Have Fiery Flair
What do cowgirls, candy and culture have in common?
Plenty, in the creative mind of Marilyn Lysohir. Lysohir is co-publisher of High Ground, a high-class annual arts journal - sort of a cross between a magazine and a book - that covers the Moscow-Pullman scene.
To help raise money for the project, Lysohir borrowed an idea from her brother and came up with Cowgirl Chocolates. They’re as distinctively packaged as her publication, coming in a cloth pouch with a picture of of an actual cowgirl - May Lillie, circa 1900 - from the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyo.
But the real grabber is what’s inside. The rich chocolates, handmade in Moscow by Hunter’s Candy, start out sweet but finish spicy, thanks to hot pepper flavoring. You soon discover that the bag doesn’t say “sissies stay away” for nothing.
“I think of it as a performance piece, in a way,” says Lysohir, a ceramic artist.
She’s been tinkering with an even hotter version, by popular demand from hard-core fiery food fans. Also in the works is a “delicately hot” caramel dessert sauce.
At $10 for a quarter-pound - about seven or eight candies - Cowgirl Chocolates are definitely a novelty item, but one that makes an unusual gift. Look for them in Spokane at the Cheney Cowles Museum.
Red scene
If you like dried cranberries, you ought to see them when they’re wet - when they’re harvested each fall from bogs of floating berries.
The winner in the Craneberry’s Cranberry Harvest Getaway Drawing gets to join in the harvest at Bandon on the Oregon Coast in early October as part of an expense-paid weekend.
To enter, write “Craneberry’s Dried Cranberries” on one side of a 3- by 5-inch card and your name, address and telephone number on the other. Or send in an empty Craneberry’s bag or a receipt for a bulk purchase plus an index card with your name, address and phone number, to Craneberry’s, 606 N.E. 20th Ave., Portland, OR 97232. Entries must be received by Aug. 31; the winner will be selected in a drawing Sept. 3.
Butter or verse
Congratulations to Korah Quinn of Sandpoint, one of only eight youngsters nationwide who were chosen in a contest to attend last month’s Land O’Lakes Camp Cookie baking program in Minneapolis.
Entrants had to explain in 25 words or less, “I’m a smart cookie because …”
Wrote Quinn, 11: “I’m a smart cookie because Grandma taught me butter’s better, she’s made great cookies since I met her. Cookie camp’s where I should go-ta, since my grandma lives in Minnesota!”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
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