Food

"Putting food by" during the growing season to eat during the inhospitable winter is a tradition as old as farming. In days of yore people had to rely on root cellars, salting, pickling, drying, smoking and canning to make perishable food last, but we've got it easy: we have freezers. Some of my first food memories are of the sultry summer days my entire extended family spent at my grandparents' farm, processing sweet corn to freeze. The trick was to get the perfectly ripe produce into the freezer as quickly as possible, and that is still true today.

Knorr is helping Moms and Dads sneak a few extra vegetables onto dinner plates. And it's working. Most of the children on our tasting panel gobbled up the new Knorr Sides Plus Veggies in the Roasted Chicken Rice Flavor, giving it 4 1/2 stars for flavor.

Here are some ideas and guidelines for freezing foods. Meats and fish

It takes some moxie to call your cookbook the "ultimate," authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough acknowledge that right in their introduction.

Pig Out in the Park - 28th annual food and music festival with 50 food booths and three beverage gardens. 75 entertainment acts perform on three stages for all six days of this event. Arts, crafts and commercial booths located in "Vendor's Village." Today though Monday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Riverfront Park. Free admission. Food prices no higher than $7.95. Visit www.spokanepigout.com. (509) 921-5579. Rockin' B Ranch Cowboy Supper Show - Thursdays-Saturdays, 5:45-9 p.m., through Sept. 29. Fun-filled family atmosphere with fiddlers, a cowboy shoot-out, a kids' posse, and after dinner, boot-tappin' Western music by the Riders of the Rockin' B on the main stage. Reservations required. 3912 Spokane Bridge Road, Liberty Lake. (509) 891-9016.

Columbia Basin Farmers' Market and Bazaar - Wednesdays, 2-6 p.m. and Saturdays, 8 a.m.-noon, through Oct. 27. Moses Lake Civic Park, Fifth at Balsam, Moses Lake. (509) 766-6751. Colville Farmers' Market - Wednesdays, noon-6 p.m., through Oct. 17. Third and Oak streets, one block east of Main (Highway 395), Colville. (509) 732-6619.

Farm-fresh produce is for sale on the Washington State University campus. The WSU Sustainability Club, in partnership with the school's organic farm, is selling produce from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Wednesday through Nov. 14 on the Terrell Mall across from Holland Library.

Eating well on weekday mornings can be rough, no doubt about it. Too often we rush out of the house hungry, and then succumb to something from a vending machine. If your family does take time to eat at home, the appeal of an instant yet nutritious breakfast is hard to resist. But instant doesn't necessarily have to mean cold cereal from a box, or a packaged breakfast bar.

I was at a friend's house last night and everyone brought a bottle or two of wine. So far, so good. Then people started noticing that one of the wines – an excellent pinot blanc from Oregon's WillaKenzie winery – had a screw-cap.

A few weeks back, we explored the glorious world of Kool-Aid pickles. That column prompted a request from Kathleen Riley of Spokane. Seems she's developed a taste for a sweet-hot pickle. She says they're great on tuna and meat sandwiches, and, she wrote, even on peanut butter. I'll take her word on that one.

Columbia Basin Farmers' Market and Bazaar - Wednesdays, 2-6 p.m. and Saturdays, 8 a.m.-noon, through Oct. 27. Moses Lake Civic Park, Fifth at Balsam, Moses Lake. (509) 766-6751. Colville Farmers' Market - Wednesdays, noon-6 p.m., through Oct. 17. Third and Oak streets, one block east of Main (Highway 395). (509) 732-6619.

What do kids love more than sugary cereals? Fruity or chocolate-flavored cereal tubes to help them slurp up the very last of the flavored milk in the bowl. Kellogg's new Cereal Straws even brought out the inner child of some of the adult tasters at our annual back-to-school reader food panel. Others turned up their noses at the snack tubes.

I just had the best breakfast. There's nothing like frying up a bunch of bacon, then going out to the garden to pick tender lettuces from a late June planting and ripe tomatoes, fresh off the vine. Cheap white bread, lightly toasted is just the ticket, as I like it to have just a bit of softness still in the middle. Mayo on the toast, a little freshly cracked black pepper on the tomato slices and lettuce, and you're de-BLT-iciously ready to eat. Then I picked a big bowl of basil, for pesto, and a couple of Costata Romanesca zucchinis, an Italian heirloom variety known for its flavor. I'm so-so about most summer squash, but this one is really good, reminding me of a no-salt Vegemite (yes, that's a compliment), and good either cooked or just chilled and sliced raw. All of my basils are doing well, but my lemon basil, Sweet Dani, a new tryout this season, has a nice pungency without the least bitterness, with easy-to-use 2-inch leaves.