Health & Home 06/06/2022

JUNE - JULY 2022

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Also: OUTDOOR LIVING Summer Under the Stars Garden Art Brighten Your Yard PAGE 32 SUPPLEMENT TO THE INLANDER

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Inside

JUNE - JULY 2022

ON THE COVER: Patrick Martinez Photo

Etc.

Health

PG. 8

MUSIC TO CELEBRATE • LACE ‘EM UP! WASHINGTON SHINES

Home

PG. 24

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES MIND YOUR MILLET • CALMING THE CAT

Food

PG. 40

A NOW AND FUTURE HOME • CASTING SHADE ART OF PARTNERSHIP • LUMINOUS LANDSCAPES

THE OAXACAN WAY • RECIPE: MOLE SO FAR, SO GOOD • THE CREATION OF BEER

Family

People

PG. 50

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES

Health& Home

PG. 54

NIKE IMORU AND THE MULTIVERSE OF ACTRESS

Inlander.com/Health&Home 4

PG. 10

FLEET FOXES SHORE TOUR Saturday, July 16 First Interstate Center for the Arts

THE MASKED SINGER NATIONAL TOUR Thursday, July 21 First Interstate Center for the Arts

JIM GAFFIGAN THE FUN TOUR Tuesday, August 9 Spokane Arena

JUNE - JULY 2022

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FROM THE EDITOR Stay Connected Email Health & Home Editor Anne McGregor at annem@inlander.com.

The conversation continues on the Inlander Facebook page, and stay in touch with us at Inlander.com/Health&Home.

SPOKANE • EASTERN WASHINGTON • NORTH IDAHO also at inlander.com/health&home 1227 W. Summit Parkway, Spokane, Wash. 99201 PHONE: 509-325-0634

EDITOR Anne McGregor

annem@inlander.com

ART DIRECTOR Ali Blackwood STAFF WRITER Carrie Scozzaro MANAGING EDITOR Dan Nailen

Let it Grow

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Chey Scott

BY ANNE McGREGOR

W

ith all the emphasis on self- and home-improvement, I’m completely delighted to find there’s one area where less is definitely more. I’m talking about lawn mowing. While xeriscaping — landscaping that is drought-tolerant and doesn’t require irrigation — is probably the most eco-friendly thing to do, some of us aren’t able or willing to do that just yet.

Enter the “less mowing” movement. Reducing mowing to once every two or three weeks instead of weekly offers surprising benefits, say researchers in a 2018 study published in the journal Biological Conservation. “Our results highlight a ‘lazy lawnmower’ approach to providing bee habitat.

Mowing less frequently is practical, economical, and a timesaving alternative to lawn replacement or even planting pollinator gardens.”

Isn’t it amazing that the lazy approach may be the best, for once? As a bonus you’ll also reduce emissions from mowers, and because taller grass shades the soil, keeping it cooler, your lawn will require less water. When it is time to mow, set the mower on the highest level and leave the clippings.

With more time to enjoy your yard, be sure to check out our Outdoor Living section (page 32) for ideas on dressing up those spaces with lighting and art. And we are so pleased to share a recipe for authentic molé from Spokane’s Molé restaurant (page 40). You’ll find it’s the perfect make-ahead sauce to elevate your summer barbecue.

Cheers!

CONTRIBUTORS Stacey Aggarwal, Jessica Bell, Erick Doxey, Jonathan Hill, E.J. Iannelli, Young Kwak, Madison Pearson, Lexie Powell, Bob Slack, Daniel Walters, Samantha Wohlfeil ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Kristi Gotzian EVENT & SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER Kristina Smith SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Carolyn Padgham ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Jeanne Inman, Tracy Menasco, Autumn Adrian Potts, Claire Price, Wanda Tashoff ADVERTISING ASSISTANTS McKenna Fuhrman, Colleen Bell-Craig PRODUCTION MANAGER Tom Stover SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Derrick King GRAPHIC DESIGNER Todd Goodner

CONTRIBUTORS

CIRCULATION Frank DeCaro, Travis Beck BUSINESS MANAGER Dee Ann Cook CREDIT MANAGER Kristin Wagner PUBLISHER Ted S. McGregor Jr. GENERAL MANAGER Jeremy McGregor

NATE SANFORD is a staff writer for the Inlander covering a variety of news topics.

He joined the paper in 2022 after graduating from Western Washington University. For this issue, he visited a new brewery in Northeast Spokane and wrote about their adventurous desert-flavored beers. (His favorite was the Apricobb Sour.)

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Health& Home

DANIEL WALTERS is an investigative reporter for Inland Publications, where he’s been writing since 2008. For this issue, he interviewed Nike Imoru, an actor, casting director and acting coach. She spoke with him about her interpretation of Hamlet, what race has to do with acting, and how giving unsolicited advice during auditions might be the kindest thing a casting director can do.

Health & Home is published every other month and is available free at more than 500 locations across the Inland Northwest. One copy free per reader. Subscriptions are available at $2.50 per issue: call x213. Reaching Us: Editorial: x261; Circulation: x226; Advertising: x215. COPYRIGHT All contents copyrighted © Inland Publications, Inc. 2022. Health & Home is locally owned and has been published since 2004.

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JUNE - JULY 2022

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EVENTS

Music to Celebrate

BY MADISON PEARSON

T

he Spokane Symphony wants to party. And you’re invited to check out what they do in a series of free concerts. First, celebrate those dear dads right here in the hometown of Father’s Day with a free family concert conducted by Alexandra Arrieche at the Fox Theater. Arrive early to participate in preconcert activities including an Instrument Petting Zoo. Then join the Symphony on July 4 to celebrate America’s birthday. Patriotic tunes and some light classics conducted by James Lowe are on the playlist, with the music accompanied by a dazzling light show at the Pavilion at Riverfront. The evening will of course be capped off with the city’s fireworks display. Father’s Day Concert, Sun, June 19. Doors open at 1:30 pm; concert at 3. Free, but seating is limited so reserve tickets in advance, Fox Theater 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • July Fourth Concert, Mon, July 4 at 9 pm. Free, 574 N, Howard St., spokanesymphony.org (509-624-1200)

Manito Park Art Festival

The Manito Park Art Festival returns for its second year this June after a successful inaugural festival in 2021. The festival provides opportunity for local artists to sell their work and gives the community a chance to view and buy art, all while spending a day enjoying the beauty of Manito Park. Along with the more than 35 artists in attendance, the event also features numerous local food and beverage vendors, live music, and art activities for children. Sat, June 11 from 10 am-8 pm.

Free. Manito Park, 1800 S. Grand Blvd. thefriendsofmanito.org (509-456-8038)

“Weird Al” Yankovic:

The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour

After almost four years since first dipping his toes into the unfamiliar territory of concerts, Weird Al pushes his luck once more in his return to the stage. Pulling from his extensive catalog of 14 studio albums, Weird Al performs a different, hilarious set list every night of his tour. No costumes, no props, no video screens. Just Weird Al, his band and a night of music filled with comedy and laughs. Fri, June 24 at 8 pm. $40-$322. All ages. NOTE: Proof of COVID-19 vaccine or negative COVID-19 test taken 72 hours prior required; face masks also required. Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org (509-624-1200)

Downtown Coeur d’Alene Brewfest

Quench your thirst this summer with fine craft brews at Downtown Coeur d’Alene’s Brewfest. Enjoy tasting various brews, ciders and libations from breweries near and far at the 5th annual iteration of the festival. Along with the wide variety of over 30 beers and ciders, the festival also features a selection of food from local vendors, yard games and live music for attendees to enjoy all day long. Sat, July 9 from 1-7 pm. $25. McEuen Park, 420 E. Front Ave., Coeur d’Alene, ID. cdadowntown. com/brewfest (208-667-5986)

Crave! Northwest

This three-day food festival is one of the largest culinary events in the Spokane area and is dedicated to uplifting the culinary scene in the Northwest by highlighting local chefs and their dishes. From baked goods to vegetarian dishes, no one leaves the event hungry. Along with the wide array of food available, each night features a selection of beer, wine, spirits and cider from regional tastemakers. July 14-16, Thu-Sat . $49-$179. CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Place Dr., cravenw.com (509-621-0125)

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Health& Home

WELCOME BACK

Lace ’Em Up! The last Hoopfest was in 2019. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO t’s been a long time coming, but like Bloomsday before it, HOOPFEST is finally making its return in all its in-person glory.

Chances are you know at least some of the thousands of players who will swarm all over downtown Spokane June 25-26, with games on every street — along with all the usual fun.

“Such a big part of this is the community involvement,” says Riley Stockton, Hoopfest’s new executive director. “Even if you’re not playing, just come down and enjoy Spokane.

Hoopfest shines a great light on this city.

We want to make this feel like everyone in Spokane has a little skin in this game.”

Food vendors will be spread across the event’s footprint, and downtown restaurants and nightspots will be rolling out the red carpet for the influx of spectators.

I

The Rodda Paint Contest Zone and the Toyota Shootoff are back, along with the MultiCare Slam Dunk Competition — this year to be held for the first time ever inside Riverfront Park’s newly refurbished Pavilion, with plenty of shade for even the hottest afternoon.

“It’s the perfect, perfect venue for us,” says Stockton. “Having Northern Quest Center Court there will really connect the two sides of Hoopfest, the north bank and downtown. It’s going to connect it all together.”

— TED S. McGREGOR JR. Hoopfest will fill the streets of downtown Spokane for the first time since 2019 on Saturday, June 25, and Sunday, June 26.

Details at spokanehoopfest.net.

The last Hoopfest was in 2019.

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Washington Shines Counting the weeks in a diverse and splendid state

I

t was actually hard for me to sit still and read Lauren Braden’s new book, 52 WAYS TO NATURE: WASHINGTON, because nearly every page had me reaching for the calendar to see when I could find a time to try out some activity or fighting the urge to text someone, “Let’s try this!”

The cheerfully designed book is divided by season, and each season’s section features more than a dozen activities that, while they often aren’t particularly obscure, are for me often wistful musings: “Wouldn’t it be fun to try crabbing/ clamming/sailing a boat/summiting a mountain/ foraging for wild food/biking around an island?”

Braden offers all the necessary info to make those daydreams into reality. She also includes numerous activities I hadn’t even considered, such as sleeping in a fire lookout or going on a history hike. (But who could resist a four-mile trek to poke around an abandoned mining town east of Everett, Wash?)

Each activity comes with detailed how-to’s — equipment checklists, advice on staying safe while having fun, and nuts and bolts like parking info. But what’s most impressive are the numerous locations Braden has scouted for each and every

activity. As a result, the book contains far more than 52 adventures. Formerly the communications director for Laura Braden ISAAC HOSEY PHOTO the Washington Trails Association, Braden seems to have developed firsthand knowledge of every crevice of our diverse state, and while her suggested locations are somewhat skewed toward the west side, there are plenty of Central and Eastern Washington locales sprinkled in as well.

Each activity also includes a Nature Notebook section — a page or so that’s left mostly blank for adventurers to document their own experiences, including a writing or drawing prompt to guide the creative interlude. In the process, the guidebook will develop into a unique journal, offering a vicarious revisit when it’s not practical to venture out.

— ANNE McGREGOR

JUNE - JULY 2022

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles

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Health& Home

How to roll with the punches and make sure you have the time of your life – with the people you love most – on vacation

BY MADISON PEARSON

L

et’s face it. Despite all the glorious photos, a vacation with kids in tow can turn into a pretty stressful experience for parents and children alike. We’ve all dashed through an airport to reach a gate that seems to be getting farther and farther away with every labored breath; we’ve all left much later than we planned; and we’ve all forgotten phone chargers on our nightstands. (And we often don’t realize they’re missing until we have only 43 percent battery remaining. Not speaking from personal experience or anything.)

In spite of all that, there are plenty of good reasons to go on a vacation, and there are also ways to reduce stress and enjoy time away.

For Macie Pate, vacations are a crucial part of her life as a school counselor at North Central and mother of two.

“We all live under the same roof,” Pate says. “We see each other everyday. We’re in such a routine — chores, making dinner, etc. — that we often don’t stop to connect with each other on a deeper level. It’s so easy to get caught up in that day-to-day routine.”

Pate says that removing yourself and your family from the daily routine and the stressors that come with it helps you appreciate moments and understand your family members without anything to cloud your mind.

“When you’re away from the dishes, the looming chores and the unmade beds, you get to stop and fully focus on each other,” Pate says. “Family vacations show your kids that you’ve intentionally carved out time to spend with them. They’ll see that you’ve made them a priority and that you want to understand who they are and keep up to date with their changing interests. It makes time for relationship development and refreshes everyone on the idea that you love the people you’re around every day.”

With benefits like a reduction in stress levels, improving social awareness in children and building lifelong memories with your kids, it’s time to start planning your next family adventure. ...continued on next page JUNE - JULY 2022

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“PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES,” CONTINUED...

WHERE IN THE WORLD?

The first hurdle to tackle is choosing where to go.

Though this might seem to be the most enjoyable part of planning a family trip, there are plenty of hurdles to jump before settling on your destination.

“I have a running list of places that I want to go,” says Donna Garrison, founder of PackedForLife, a family travel blog based in Canada. “It’s a family decision, so we all sit down together and have a discussion about what a trip to each destination could look like.”

planning... can save you big bucks in the long run.

Garrison started her travel blog because of her passion for travel and for helping people. PackedForLife details her exploration of the world with her partner and children by her side. She shares tips on how to effectively plan, budget and enjoy trips with family while keeping calm and living in the moment.

Including the kids in the planning process gets them involved and excited!

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“Including your kids in the planning process is so important,” Garrison says. “It makes them get involved and excited about everything that’s to come.

Traveling became a bit difficult once my partner and I started a family, so having them involved in every step of the way is a great bonding experience.”

Choosing your travel destination based on mere desire is one way to go about the planning process, but some may not have that luxury. Choosing your destination based on what you and your family can afford is a more practical approach to family vacation planning and can save you big bucks in the long run.

“We ask ourselves questions like ‘How long do we have to save for the trip?’ and ‘What activities do we want to do?’” Garrison says. “We use this strategy when we have more time to plan, and it pays off because we often have more time to get excited, which improves the overall mood and attitude of the family in the months leading up to the trip.”

...continued on next page

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Traveling in a group can add tension to an already potentially stressful situation.

Logistics are more complicated as you try to keep track of kids, and all that luggage, while getting from your point of origin to your port of call.

But more than the logistics, dealing with the constant outflow of money associated with taking your merry band on the road can ratchet up stress.

So if there’s ample time before your vacation, consider taking a certain amount of money out of each of your future paychecks and stashing it in an account specifically for vacation funds.

That way you won’t be tempted to use it for anything else, and once you’re on vacation, knowing that the money that’s flying out was earmarked just for this occasion can help keep sticker shock under control.

In a time crunch? Look for deals on airfare by setting flexible travel dates and destinations, bundling your hotel and airfare, or considering a road trip.

Here in the PNW, we’re lucky enough to have multiple nearby destinations that make for unforgettable vacations.

Arriving at your destination is actually a part of your vacation, so try to make it enjoyable.

“No matter how we’re getting to our destination, I always make sure to have a few comfort items for my daughter.” Garrison says. “In stressful environments and situations, it’s a good idea to have familiar items for your kids to engage with.”

Things like coloring books, favorite stuffed animals, books, playing cards and, yes, even a tablet loaded with games and shows are essential to keeping kids occupied during long trips in the car or aboard an airplane.

“Long-haul trips can easily wear down on your patience,” Garrison says.

“For the good of your own stress levels and for the sake of your kid’s memories, prepare activities that can keep everyone level-headed. Sometimes we even sing songs together in the car or we just have a steady conversation that keeps everyone on an even keel.”

If you’re traveling with your school age kids, it’s also important to check with their teachers to see what the expectations are for their schoolwork, Garrison states. Ask if there are any worksheets or specific activities that your kids can be sent home with and complete during travel or during downtime on vacation.

...continued on page 16

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CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT: Despite its name, you won’t be disappointed by the rich history of the Columbia River and the sprawling landscape.

SEATTLE: Explore Washington’s largest city from the gum wall to flying fish at Pike Place Market.

PAINTED HILLS: See the gorgeous, colorful striations in Oregon’s John Day Fossil Beds.

CRATERS OF THE MOON: Visit a 750,000acre lava bed in Idaho that truly looks like the surface of the moon.

PALOUSE FALLS: Marvel at the massive waterfall that appears out of nowhere and also do some serious bird-watching.

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“PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES,” CONTINUED...

LET THE FUN BEGIN

Congrats! You’ve made it to paradise. Whether it’s warm and sunny or you’re hiking over snow-covered ground, it’s time to have some fun and throw your dayto-day routine out of the window for a little while.

Now’s the time to figure out just what to do with all of the free time you’ve been granted.

“It’s good to be realistic about what you can accomplish in one day,” Garrison says. “One major activity per day with some scattered smaller activities is a recipe for success. Too much stimulation can lead to cranky kids and stressed out parents.”

It’s good to be realistic about what you can accomplish in one day Make sure to carve out some “me time” as well.

“You don’t necessarily have to choose a specific day to be a rest day,” she says. “But if you start to notice that energy is low, maybe take the next day and just hang

Vacation is about having fun, and also being refreshed and relaxed.

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out by the pool or sit in your accommodation and read a book for a while. While vacation is about having fun, it’s also about being refreshed and relaxed.”

With all the expense and planning involved, it’s still most important to remember that flexibility is key to having a successful vacation. Don’t plan every moment, and be ready to roll with the punches and take things as they come. Things may not work out just the way you anticipated, but you might just discover something amazing along the way.

“I really like to make sure that my kids grow up to be good global citizens,” Garrison says. “Vacation is an incredible way to connect with other cultures and other ways of being, so always keep an open mind.”

Whether you’re getting on a plane, driving through the mountains or taking family selfies by the pool, remember that vacation is a time for rest and relaxation and the time after vacation should make you excited for the next one. Enjoy the memories made with your family, look back and laugh at photos, and then… start planning the next one.

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SUPERFOOD

Mind Your Millet A tiny grain with a wealth of nutrients

A

lthough millet may be considered an ancient grain, to modern Western society it’s still an up-and-coming food trend. In America, millet has been commonly viewed as bird food or livestock feed. However, in recent years these round little grains have started to gain popularity with us humans, too.

ATTRIBUTES

A member of the grass family, millet has been a staple food in Asia, Africa and other Eastern regions for centuries. In fact, traces of millet have been dated back more than 4,000 years on ancient bowls discovered in China. Millet is a small but powerful grain that can grow in nutrient-deficient and drought-prone lands. Although they may only be the size of a seed, millet is indeed considered a grain, similar to sorghum. The most common varieties are pearl, foxtail, finger and white millet — these varieties can vary in flavor, texture, size and even color. Millet can be eaten as a whole grain, processed into flour or made into noodles.

SUPERPOWERS

Even though millet can thrive in nutrient-deficient soil, it’s known for its high nutritional value. Millet is high in carbs, fiber and plant proteins; in fact, it’s packed with more essential amino acids than most other cereals. These tiny ancient grains also pack high levels of antioxidants and insoluble fiber. Millet may also be good for bone health and nutrient absorption with high levels of phosphorous, and its abundant magnesium can help regulate blood pressure and blood sugar. Compared to other common grains, millet is notoriously low in glycemic index and doesn’t contain gluten, making it suitable for folks with diabetes and Celiac disease or other gluten sensitivities.

HOW TO USE IT

Prepared most simply, whole grain millet can be boiled and used similarly to rice.

However, many countries with millet as a staple use this versatile grain in other ways.

In southeast Asia, you’ll find unleavened flatbreads, similar to tortillas, used as an accompaniment to stir-fries and curries. In eastern Asia, these grains are processed into noodles to be used in soups or sauteed with veggies and spices. In Africa, millet is a staple crop that can be cooked into a porridge, steamed or used in a variety of breads.

For us in the Western world, many varieties of millet are now easily available, even if they’re not packing the shelves of your local grocery store, you’ll likely find millet in all forms at some local bulk natural food departments and online.

— STACEY AGGARWAL Stacey Aggarwal received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Washington. She writes about biology, health and nutrition while running a lavender farm in North Idaho.

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STAY WELL

Not Gonna Miss This Shot E

arlier this year, recommendations for vaccination against pneumococcal pneumonia were updated. Why is this important?

Influenza and pneumonia were the ninth-leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risk of getting pneumonia is higher for older adults, those who smoke and people with certain health conditions.

Pneumonia can be caused by viruses including influenza, but also by fungi or bacteria.

The most common type of bacterial pneumonia is pneumococcal pneumonia, and it can be a serious problem, causing an estimated 150,000 hospitalizations each year.

One of the best preventive methods is to get vaccinated against the different types of viruses and bacteria that can cause pneumonia including influenza, COVID-19 and pneumococcal.

There are two different types of pneumococcal vaccines: PPSV (PPSV23) and PCV (PCV13, PCV20, PCV15). Vaccination is recommended for everyone over the age of 65 and recommended earlier for those with certain health conditions. The type of shot and timeline is different depending on your age and conditions.

Conveniently, you can get either of these shots at the same time as your flu or COVID-19 shot. If you think you may be eligible for a pneumococcal vaccine, visit your pharmacy to talk to your pharmacist about which option would be best for you.

— LEXIE POWELL Lexie Powell is an academic fellow at the Department of Pharmacotherapy at the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences based in Spokane.

JUNE - JULY 2022

19

CRATECRAFT

Calming the Cat Tips to avoid a panicked vet visit

BY JESSICA BELL

I

t’s usually no fun taking a cat to the veterinarian.

Once feline anxiety kicks in, the constant vocalizing, defensive measures and fearful behavior — like scratching, urinating and defecating — can be just about enough to make any owner regret, or even cancel, a veterinary visit.

In addition to the cat’s survival instinct to hide symptoms of illness, poor cat-to-veterinarian trips are one of the biggest reasons why, when it comes to the veterinarian, cats just don’t get the same attention as their canine counterparts.

In the past year, Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital — the largest veterinary referral center in the Pacific Northwest — saw 12,471

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dogs come through the door compared with 3,067 cats. That’s 9,404 more dogs than cats.

While a cat’s stress can get the best of it, there are a few easy tricks owners can do to manage stress during veterinary visits, starting with taking the steps to ensure they get safely to and from the clinic.

The first thing any cat owner should do, for the sake of their cat and themselves, is to start addressing stress early by getting cats comfortable in a safe and secure cat carrier.

Since cats cannot be called back like dogs, cat carriers are a veterinary visit necessity, as a loose cat can be an extremely traumatic experience for the cat and the owner. Cats wandering freely inside a moving vehicle also pose a safety threat to themselves, riders in the car, and other motorists and pedestrians.

With kittens requiring veterinary visits every three to four weeks until 16 weeks old, the opportunities are plentiful at a very young age to familiarize them with a carrier. It can be trickier with older, rescued pets, but letting cats explore and experience the crate before trips to the veterinarian will help put them at ease. Bringing the crate out regularly, or just leaving it out, will reduce the panic attacks some cats experience when the carrier comes out of storage.

It’s key to pad the cat carrier with a familiar and consistent blanket. Many cats also prefer a towel over their carrier, or even over them, to help them feel hidden and safe in a dark space.

Home veterinarian visits are easier on cats, especially those not adapted to a cat carrier, but it’s still best to introduce a cat carrier for unexpected situations, trips to the groomer and other car rides.

Medication and cat calming pheromone sprays are also options for cats with uncontrollable stress. While pheromone sprays and some medications can be purchased over the counter, the strongest and most effective drugs must be prescribed by a veterinarian.

With a cat’s survival instinct to hide symptoms of illness, it’s key they see their veterinarian regularly. It’s why an old dog may not want to play fetch or tug-of-war and, at some point, may refuse to learn new tricks, while an old cat may continue to run and play even in their final years.

It’s also why it is critical that cat owners take initiative to manage their pet’s stress, and that the veterinary visit is not a daunting one that is put off. Preventive care is just as important for a cat as it is for a dog.

Jessica Bell is an assistant professor at WSU College of Veterinary Medicine and a small animal veterinarian in community practice at WSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

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Big Dog vs. Little Dog Small dogs with big attitudes can get themselves into a pack of trouble

BY BOB SLACK

R

eflecting on my years as a veterinarian, I recall too often the times I found myself in surgery suturing up the damages done by large dogs beating up on the smaller ones of their species.

I experienced this dilemma directly when I adopted Sadie into my canine family. As a Shih Tzu, Sadie found herself at the smaller end of the canine spectrum. The problem

with Sadie was she failed to realize her size mattered when it came to rivalry with other dogs. Sadie had managed to deceive herself into believing her rightful role in life was to be the alpha dog, the boss dog of whatever pack she found herself in — regardless of her petite size.

Unfortunately, this delusion was encouraged by her two housemates — Shilo,

a yellow Labrador retriever and Bailee, a Springer spaniel. They cowardly surrendered to her bossy nature as just a soft snarl from Sadie’s curled lips would send them scurrying for cover, encouraging her dominant personality.

I thought living out in the countryside, far away from all those city “big-dogs” would keep her safe. The nearest big dog lived on the farm next to us, but Gus was too old and too arthritic to be of any threat to Sadie. This was all to change early one spring morning when I noticed Sadie quietly staring at the front door, which was her way of telling me nature was calling.

I followed her out and stood patiently waiting on the porch as she wandered about the yard sniffing to find that perfect spot to mark her territory.

The morning chill kept the forest surrounding our home shrouded in a mist.

My eye suddenly caught sight of something in the haze just at the edge of the yard.

Looking closer I realized what I was seeing was a big-dog sitting quietly on its haunches, staring intently at Sadie, mouth open… it was a coyote!

I knew as soon as Sadie caught sight of this intruder her alpha nature would kick in. As I leaped from the porch, Sadie, still in her squatting position, suddenly noticed the big-dog and let out her best alpha, little-dog snarls.

Wisdom was not Sadie’s strong suit. Fortunately, I was able to grab her by the collar before she could muster an attack. I glanced over to see how the coyote was responding to all the commotion, and I was dumbfounded by the coyote’s composure. He was still placidly sitting, staring at this little-dog as if I weren’t even there.

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Then, calmly rising off his haunches, he turned and leisurely trotted off into the morning mist. Just before he disappeared, I noticed another one, his partner in crime, follow him quietly into the woods. I had no doubt whatsoever that Sadie narrowly missed becoming a morning meal for these two hungry marauders.

Sadie never changed, never learned that her alpha nature was not an asset. I never took her on walks without bringing along a leash, just in case we might encounter another big-dog somewhere along the way.

Surprisingly, she lived a long, full, happy life.

Heather King FNP, MSN, owner, CNI

(208) 699-7936 • spastpierre.com

5” wide by 5” high

Shilo and Bailee enjoy some R&R. BOB SLACK PHOTO She succumbed to a rare kidney disease in her 16th year — 80ish in human years. She was a lucky little-dog indeed!

Over the years I’ve had a number of my rural clients wonder what happened to their cat or small dog, saying, “I just let him out to do his business, but he never came back.” A coyote just might have been responsible.

So, a word of caution: Coyotes, like deer, have adapted to our human world and are frequent visitors, especially around our rural areas. They are wily critters that challenge us to keep a close eye on our small pets.

Robert Slack is a retired veterinarian living in Spokane. He currently works with people struggling with addiction.

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A Now and Future Home 24

Health& Home

Designer Shaleesa Mize prioritized natural light in the design of her own home.

PATRICK MARTINEZ PHOTO

Designer Shaleesa Mize makes her childhood dream a reality in a home that’s ready to grow with her family

BY ANNE McGREGOR

A

s a child, Shaleesa Mize liked to draw floorplans of her dream home. It had big windows and rolling hills beyond, with various features she’d mentally tack on as she grew up and pursued becoming an interior designer for real. As a young adult, Mize interned with Spokane-based Integrus Architecture PS and HDG Architecture and completed her interior design degree from Washington State University. In 2017, she opened her own firm: Pacific Design Co. (formerly Little Pacific Design Studio).

At that point, at least part of her dream had come true. ...continued on next page But designing her own home proved elusive until 2019.

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The cabinet doors and drawer fronts feature inset, single-slab front panels with aligned wood grain. (detail below) PATRICK MARTINEZ PHOTO

Project Profile

APPLIANCES: Ferguson (Fisher & Paykel brand) CABINETS: Faber Built COUNTERS: Capaul Stoneworks FIREPLACE: Falcos FLOORING: Duchateau GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Timofey Solodyankin, Solo Homes Co. HARDWARE: Spokane Hardware Supply, Inc. PAINT: Miller Paint TILE INSTALLATION: Design Tile & Flooring WINDOWS: Andersen Windows JACIE VAN B PHOTO

PATRICK MARTINEZ PHOTO

“A NOW AND FUTURE HOME,” CONTINUED...

After years of renting, living with others — friends, her husband’s parents — and even a fantasy about buying her childhood home and moving it onto a piece of property, Mize got to design her first home, start to finish. And as she did so, she learned that big dreams come with big challenges.

“It’s given me a lot of empathy,” Mize says, noting the process has spanned years.

Mize spent a long time perfecting the house’s design while she and her husband, Connor, searched for the perfect lot. “The concept was there pretty early, of what we wanted, but there were lots of little tweaks over the years while we were waiting to find land,” says Mize. Ideally they wanted 10 acres and – if the stars aligned – a stream.

Over those years of tweaking, as Mize clicked away at her home computer, adding and subtracting from the design, “I was (working) night shift,” says Connor, “so I bought her a silent mouse.”

In fall 2019, they found the land they had been looking for: an 11-acre plot in the Wandermere neighborhood known as Dartford Creek. “We had actually been looking for probably five, six years before finding something close to town,” Mize says. And

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yes, there was a creek.

But they were too late; someone beat them to it. The Mizes experienced the roller coaster of disappointment followed by elation when the original buyers backed out and the couple’s offer was accepted. “It’s a blur,” Mize says with a laugh.

W

ith the land secured, and financing – after a few hiccups – lined up, it was time at last to finalize the house plans.

Although Mize says the single-story home she designed looks nothing like what she remembers drawing as a kid, it does thoroughly reflect her concern with how people move through and use each space in a home, as well as how those spaces are connected.

“I remember daydreaming about how I would welcome people into the entry or gather in the kitchen and living room,” Mize says of her childhood sketches. And indeed, the entry of the new home offers a gentle landing zone, before opening gradually to reveal an expansive great room with eightfoot windows. “A lot of natural light was important to us,” Mize says, easing open the three-panel, 13-foot sliding doors that span the width of the living room and allow

unfettered access to the back patio. “I love sitting here in the evenings,” Mize says, noting the house is oriented to allow sunset views year round.

A fireplace anchors the room, flanked by large windows, with purposely low sill heights that Mize designed to allow their young children to peek out.

On the opposite side of the great room, the kitchen highlighted a classic challenge in home design: how to proceed when couples have different design aesthetics. Connor preferred a more modern “ultra stark” look, says Shaleesa, while “I’m personally more inspired by Scandinavian stuff, so I just wanted it to be all kind of uniform, a quiet modern feel.”

“So we’re like, ‘OK, how can we blend it to feel like warm and cozy, but still have those modern lines?’” Mize says.

The couple settled on wood cabinets with inset, single-slab front panels set in matching boxes. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is a really clean simple look. This should be easy!’”

Mize says, but as she learned, “Nobody does this and it’s for a reason.” The veneer doors took stain differently from the solid wood

...continued on page 28

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“A NOW AND FUTURE HOME,” CONTINUED...

The powder room near the entry features a custom panel vanity. (Inset) The spacious primary bath and closet area provides separation from the bedroom to accommodate the couple’s different sleep schedules. PATRICK MARTINEZ PHOTOS

BDRM 2

BDRM 1 PRIMARY BATH

PRIMARY CLOSET

MUDROOM

BATH 1.

HALL

PRIMARY BEDROOM

DINING

KITCHEN

PANTRY

POWDER

ENTRY

FAMILY ROOM

COVERED PATIO

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boxes, leading to an unanticipated and, to Mize, unacceptable “twotone” look. “I finally found a cabinet guy who understood what I was wanting to achieve, and basically we had to do veneers on everything so that the stain would read consistent,” Mize says. “So they did a beautiful job grain-matching everywhere.”

The counters are a subtly polished quartz, while the Fisher Paykel appliances include a smooth top induction range instead of gas. “I got to go down to the Fisher Paykel showroom in California, and the chef there talked a lot about it, and that’s where I first kind of decided on that,” says Mize. A trip to the Monogram Design Center in Chicago confirmed her choice, as the chef there told her, “Induction is where you need to be,” she says, noting she appreciated its safety features. “It’s good to hear their opinions when they’re cooking on stuff every day, but for me it just came down to cleaning it. Like, I’m not cleaning out those grates every day, and I know he won’t either!

So it’s really nice for that.”

At the far end of the kitchen, somewhat tucked away, is a little pantry, one of Mize’s favorite elements in the home. Rather than being closet-style, the pantry also opens on its far side into the large mudroom as well as the bedroom hallway. “I loved that on the floor plan, our house is a circle… It’s great for Nerf gun fights,” Mize says.

T

he hallway to the bedrooms features a windowed breezeway, with a carefully crafted surprise along the way: a small courtyard.

“When we were laying out the angle of the house we factored in the view from here and what it was going to capture… It’s going to feel like a separate, little more intimate courtyard here, that’s right off of our primary suite, and then it will come out to a more public, outdoor seating area,” says Mize, who’s waiting for the final finishing touches on the courtyard areas.

The private zone of the home features three bedrooms, although one room was originally slated to be Mize’s home office. “Right when I was like, ‘Yay! I finally get an office,’ then I found out I was pregnant, and I was like, ‘OK, this will be an office for six months,’” she laughs. She quickly altered the original floor plan that had featured a guest bath in the private wing to include instead a Jack-and-Jill bathroom between the two kids’ rooms, and then she added a powder room for guests near the front entry.

EXPERT ADVICE At the far end of the hallway is one of Mize’s favorite spaces in the 3,250-square-foot house. “This is another example of what was important for us layout wise,” Mize says. With Connor working the night shift, being able to close off the room during the day was important. “We can feel like we’re out there living a normal life and not tiptoeing

favorite room of the house.”

Mize is the first to note that even after more than two years, there are a number of projects left to complete at the home.

The basement is unfinished, and while a garage is planned, it’s not even started.

And that’s OK. Mize says the couple prioritized finishing elements that would be hard to change out later, such as the win-

I love starting my mornings here and ending my days here. It’s probably my favorite room of the house. around while dad is sleeping – but also… basically as he is coming home and going to bed, I am getting up and getting ready, so I wanted to have our bathroom and closet all in space that I could come in, get ready, close it off and then sneak out,” she says. With sweeping views from the tub, and yes, even the toilet, Mize says, “I love starting my mornings here and ending my days here. It’s probably my

dows, while recognizing their home could mature along with their family. It’s a philosophy she also conveys to her clients.

“You can have what you want that’s really important to you … And then the things that are easy to add later can be done …

It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece right when the construction is completed.”

Designer Shaleesa mize’s tips for designing your dream home Daydream! Designing a home can be overwhelming once you get into the logistics of things, so I think it’s really important to spend time just being free with your wildest dreams before starting.

View your home as a work in progress. Not all of those amazing things you daydreamed about will fit within your budget. Oftentimes, there are many ideas that can be completed at a later time or easily added on.

Build a cushion into your budget.

Find the right team. Everyone gets to a saturation point where after that point hits, decision fatigue is REAL. Have an architect and/or designer do the heavy-lifting of sourcing and bring your visions to life!

Be realistic. Our current building climate is a whirlwind of many less-than-ideal factors, and those preparing to embark on a building journey during this time should be over prepared … with extra funds, extra time and extra patience.

— SHALEESA MIZE

Additional reporting by Carrie Scozzaro.

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DEAN DAVIS PHOTO

SIMMONS PHOTO

SIMMONS PHOTO

The Simmons’ work encompasses the large soaring figures at the First Interstate Center for the arts (top), a work titled Powerhouse that can be seen at the westbound Lincoln Street I-90 off-ramp, and smaller scale outdoor artworks like this snail and illuminated lantern.

SIMMONS PHOTO

CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO

Art of Partnership Valleyford couple creates a living and a life making art inside a live-work space they designed and built themselves

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

S

erendipity may have brought them together, but art has been the weld-bond between Bill and Karma Simmons’ lives and livelihoods for three decades.

Shortly after meeting at a mutual friend’s card game, Bill invited Karma to dinner — her last name was Lloyd at the time — and remembers asking her: “Are you the kind of person that could quit your job and just go sailing or something?”

“In a heartbeat,” she remembers responding.

Six months later they set sail, traveling from Canada to Mexico, dreaming about a life made with art.

“We started designing this place while we were ‘on the road’ in Mexico,” says Karma of the barn-like structure they

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Health& Home

built around 1998 to match an existing house on the Valleyford property where Bill’s parents used to live.

The barn is divided into the road-facing artist studio, and the couple’s living space at the rear of the building, accessed via a sloping gravel path.

“The studio has 16-foot ceilings in it,” says Bill, explaining how their loft bedroom and office were an afterthought in the initial home design process, but made possible by the exceptionally high ceilings in the barn.

A ground floor bedroom is in the works, “because we’re getting old,” Bill adds with a laugh.

The ground floor is all open-plan living space, brightly

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Bill and Karma Simmons (left) live and work in this studio, with its unique cord-wood-and-mortar wall. CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO lit and full of plants and artwork, some of it Karma’s, but mostly what the couple has collected.

The kitchen has an enviably large, curved island, a rolling metal table from the old Swackhammer restaurant and other furnishings that — like nearly everything in

This giant cowboy is a work in progress. CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO their home — the Simmons have repurposed or fabricated themselves.

“We knew we wanted to do art,” says Bill, who once owned an auto body shop and has no formal art training, yet constructed much of the couple’s home, including the studio’s unique cord wood-and-mortar walls.

The Simmons figured functional art, especially furniture, was their best way to make a living, but found it nearly impossible to do so, says Karma, who grew up in Spokane, attended Spokane Falls Community College, then moved away to pursue her associate degree in credit and financial management.

“It’s not impossible,” she corrects herself.

“It’s very difficult.”

So the couple regrouped. Although they continue to make furniture, as well as architectural items like fencing, screens and the columnar lamps outside their home, the Simmons mostly do large-scale sculpture like Beer Tank at the base of the I-90 westbound Lincoln Street off-ramp.

Pool Day at Comstock Aquatic Center features a woman and two children, which locals occasionally “dress up” with clothing.

Before they installed Pool Day, says Karma, they brought the sculpture of the “mom” to ArtFest, where the late Sister Paula Turnbull stopped to admire it.

“It was the cutest thing,” says Karma, remembering how Turnbull, a revered sculptor, tapped the sculpture on the backside, remarking, “She’s got a good butt.”

The Simmons’ largest and most recent piece, Opening Act, hovers inside the First Interstate Center for the Arts. It is three massive, mesh-like hands of welded aluminum, from which hang four dancing figures of varying colors.

Typically the Simmons’ artmaking process starts with a drawing created on Sketchup software. “That allows me to take measurements from all sides and angles,” explains Bill, who does most of the fabrication.

Then they determine how they’re going to build the sculpture, sometimes working solidly, like a current dragonfly destined to adorn a Spokane Valley roundabout. A massive cowboy being built in two parts uses organic-shaped templates welded from the inside to create the hollow form.

Both projects are visible from the couple’s living space directly above and adjacent to the studio but separated by a wall of safety glass. It’s from this vantage point that they reflect on the day’s work over a cup of coffee or glass of wine.

“Together,” Bill and Karma say in unison.

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Outdoor LIVING

A unique curved pergola along the side of the house was supplemented a few years later with a complementary outdoor living area shaded with a new pergola. Both pergolas were designed by Hanson Carlen Architecture and Construction. HANSON CARLEN PHOTOS

Casting Shade Blunting the sun’s rays adds beauty and function to a backyard patio

BY ANNE McGREGOR 32

Health& Home

W

hen it comes to sunshine, it’s easy to think “The more the better!” after a cold dreary winter. But with long summer days, all that sunshine can become problematic.

That was the issue facing North Spokane homeowners when they contacted Hanson Carlen Architecture and Construction to help build in some shade around their back patio. “In this particular project they get a lot of heat gain on that part of the house,” says architect Janette Hruban. “They had an existing deck there, and it was so hot in the summertime in the afternoons that they couldn’t really use it.”

So Hruban designed an 840-square-foot deck topped with a pergola to filter the sunshine and create a transitional outdoor room between the house and a backyard pool. A previous project for the family included a unique curved-top pergola on the side of the house, designed in part to add shade but also to mitigate problems with snow. Hruban designed

5” wide by 5” high

the new outdoor room’s pergola and arched gateway to the pool to integrate with the previous project. “We’ve got the curved beam that reflects the other one, that is kind of the entrance into the pool area,” she says. The clever connection helped garner the project a 2021 Chrysalis national award in the Outdoor Living Under $75,000 category.

The decking was laid to minimize issues with the material contracting and expanding, which occurs despite the partial shade from the pergola. “It has concealed hinges,” explains Hruban.

And rather than using random joints, “We ran the boards straight and then put another board in the opposite direction so that the expansion and contraction comes all at the same spots so you don’t notice it like when you do random boards.”

To help the outdoor room’s usefulness stretch into the evening hours, Hruban added lighting, including dimmable lights on the beams of the pergola and small lights along the edge of the deck. “We also have some bollards that are also on the deck, so they have

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WE BELIEVE IN THE GREAT ARTISTS OF OUR REGION

a variety of lighting options,” Hruban adds. The homeowners completed the design by adding local art from their collection as well as outdoor furniture and an assortment of colorful plantings.

The project was completed in about six months in late 2020, though now Hruban says similar projects would now take about 18 months from design to completion.

www.theartspiritgallery.com | 415 E. Sherman Ave | CDA, ID 83814

JUNE - JULY 2022

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Outdoor LIVING

Jon Booze creates outdoor art using found materials.

TWISTED BOOZE PHOTOS

All-Weather Art Unleash your whimsical nature to transform your yard or garden with outdoor decor

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

H

ome décor adds personality and liveliness to our interior spaces, from rugs to furnishings to artwork on the walls.

Outside, however, Mother Nature has already created a living landscape, with carpets of greenery and seasonal splashes of color. Though lacking in “walls” like the interior of your home, the yard lends itself to all manner of décor, from garden gnomes to vibrantly colored planters to metal silhouettes placed atop slender stakes.

Using metal objects he buys in odd lots from auctions or sources from such spots as Pacific Steel and Recycling, TWISTED BOOZE founder Jon Booze makes both sculptural works like his

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Health& Home

popular sea creatures and fanciful garden stakes.

Booze’s artworks range in size and complexity and are priced accordingly. One of his 3-foot-tall “flowers” using spoons for the petals, for example, might sell for under $100. A 6-foot-tall sunflower with petals from colorful screwdrivers might sell for six or seven times that.

Booze started Twisted Booze in May 2019 as a sideline to his day job as operations manager at Skils’kin.

“I had some parts, and I was just goofing around in the shop,” says Booze, who has a background in horticulture but no formal art training. “I tell everyone I’m an artist that welds; I’m not a welder.”

...continued on page 38

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Outdoor LIVING

Luminous Landscapes TONY ROSLUND PHOTO

Simple ways to incorporate lighting elements into your outdoor spaces

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

O

“Our two most popular applications are ‘downlighting’ on a pathway or driveway surface and ‘up-lighting’ on existing or new tree canopies,” says Collin Schweikl of Blend Outdoor Design.

BLEND PHOTO

utdoor lighting is a necessity around our homes, promoting security and safety as we navigate nighttime pathways, driveways and entries. Beyond its functional contribution, however, lighting can add a valuable aesthetic element to our external living spaces, from directing the eye toward a particular landscape feature to creating ambiance ideal for a festive evening on the patio.

Residential owners can learn from companies whose business is creating a nighttime vibe, like Commellini Estate, an elegant venue with numerous indoor and outdoor event sites. The patio, for example, is lovely during the day; at night it becomes the stuff of fairy tales, transformed through twinkle lights along the railings and throughout trees.

Michael Paul, Commellini Estates’ general manager, employs a combination of string lights, and solar and motion-sensing lights in the backyard of his Mead-area home for a variety of effects.

“Interesting things and plants deserve a little respect in the night as well as the day,” says Paul, who restructured his modest yard to create levels “so that it adds dimension and a feeling of space.”

Paul uses light to add focal points, such as a wicker peace sign under the eaves of his roof or to cast shadows on his Japanese maple.

“Mine is cast on a wall approaching the steps to the front door. It’s awesome,” says Paul, who likes the shadows cast by assorted cacti around his yard, too.

Lights can be used to promote safety, such as on or near stairs where hardwiring makes them more reliable. ...continued on page 38

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Outdoor LIVING

“ALL-WEATHER ART,” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34 Booze has participated in Terrain’s Brrzaar, Custer’s arts and craft shows, and regional garden shows. Look for his booth at Pend Oreille Arts Council’s 50th annual arts and crafts fair in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Aug. 13-14. Or find Twisted Booze online at facebook.com/twistedbooze.

FOREVER FLOWERS also makes flowers but from repurposed glass, china and crystal, ranging in price from $40 to several hundred dollars. They can even create a “heritage” flower from your beloved heirloom china or dishware.

Carol Baxter and her sister Louise Baxter are the talent behind the lustrous compositions, which can be hung on a fence, placed on a garden stake — delightful to have in the garden before the “real” blooms come up — or displayed indoors. Find them at foreverflowersbycarol.com.

Your regional garden centers can be another ideal source for finding all-weather artworks to add visual interest, create a focal point or enhance your outdoor environs.

WESTWOOD GARDENS NURSERY & GARDEN ART works with a rotating selection of local hobbyists, with ever-changing inventory of unique, all-weather items: a driftwood trellis, metal silhouettes to dress up a fence area, weathered wood signage with cutouts revealing glass inserts for a little sparkle in your ’scape.

Westwood is also a showroom for national brands, such as outdoor products online retailer H.Potter, which allows customers to

Expert Advice Assess your needs. Are you motivated more by safety, like lighting pathways, or aesthetics, like increasing curb appeal by illuminating the evergreens in your front yard?

Decide whether you want to go with a larger transformer now so you can add on to the system or just deal with additions later as needed.

Check out lighting styles, finishes, colors and options and have some fun daydreaming how this might look in your yard.

Get help with the parts you’re least knowledgeable about, whether that’s design, installation or both.

— CARRIE SCOZZARO

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Health& Home

JUDY’S GARDEN CENTER 2628 W Northwest Blvd.

Facebook: Judys-Enchanted-Garden NORTHWEST SEED & PET 7302 N Division St. 2422 E. Sprague Ave. nwseed.com RITTERS GARDEN & GIFT 10120 N. Division St. 4ritter.com RIVER RIDGE HARDWARE 2803 W. Garland Ave. Spokane riverridgehardware.com Jon Booze’s silverware flower blooms in the garden year round. TWISTED BOOZE PHOTOS see the real product versus buying from a photo.

“You can look at them and buy them here and not have to wait,” says Westwood founder Jodee Fyfe, who started Westwood 22 years ago in a spot tucked behind the Super One Foods in Rathdrum.

Sourcing materials to make it through the region’s harsh winters is important, says Fyfe, who gets durable fountains and birdbaths from Campania in Pennsylvania, which has a similar climate. Also look for durable wrought iron seating, benches and garden flags for any occasion.

“One of the things we’re kind of known for is our containers,” says. Whatever your style, says Fyfe, Westwood Gar-

SCULPTURED GARDENS 15614 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane VANHOFF’S GARDEN CENTER 1844 N. Government Way, Coeur d’Alene facebook.com/vanhoffgc WESTWOOD GARDENS NURSERY & GARDEN ART 15825 N. Westwood Dr., Rathdrum westwoodgardensid.com dens has a container for it, from rustic to galvanized metal and from wall baskets to vibrant ceramics.

And if you don’t have a yard or a garden in which to put artwork, no problem.

Create a mobile garden with portable containers, including fabric-based Smart Pots that let you and Mother Nature collaborate to grow anything, anywhere.

“LUMINOUS LANDSCAPES,” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36 “We cannot always depend on the sun to give us enough light to energize these things either,” Paul says. “That is why I have placed battery-powered motion sensor lights here and there,” such as behind his garage.

Blend Outdoor Design often includes outdoor lighting packages in its design projects, such as the outdoor living space for the HDG Architecture remodel of revered local architect Moritz Kundig’s 1971 South Hill rancher.

“Our two most popular applications are ‘downlighting’ on a pathway or driveway surface and ‘up-lighting’ on existing or new tree canopies to create some ambient light reflection on the surrounding area,” says Collin Schweikl, who co-owns Blend with Chris Sothen.

The lighting they do, explains Schweikl, is hardwired to a transformer installed somewhere on the exterior of the home. Amenities include sensors that

“automatically turn lights on and off at dusk and dawn, (and) Wi-Fi capable transformers that allow you to manually control your lighting from inside,” he says.

The other advantage of higher-end systems, explains Schweikl, is that light fixtures are less likely to suffer from weather damage. “If water can get in, then the freeze-thaw cycle we get in the Inland Northwest can damage the fixture.”

Removing portable lighting fixtures like string lights or staked solar lights at the end of the season is one way to get around this, of course, but that’s more work and you’re missing out, says Schweikl.

A permanent system “allows you to enjoy and see your outdoor space longer into the shoulder seasons,” he adds, while also maximizing the safety features outdoor lighting can provide.

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The Oaxacan Way 40

Health& Home

At Molé, chef-owner Fredy Martinez introduces diners to mole sauce and other classic southern Mexico dishes he grew up with STORY BY CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTOS BY YOUNG KWAK

N

ame one of the 50 states, and there’s a good chance chef Fredy Martinez has been there to open or work in a restaurant: Claim Jumper in Minnesota, Chevy’s Fresh Mex in Arizona, a Tri-Cities steakhouse called Fredy’s, of which he was part-owner. In Spokane, Martinez helped open QQ Sushi & Kitchen, Nudo Ramen, Wasabi Asian Bistro, and Umi Kitchen & Sushi Bar before opening Mole Restaurant in Kendall Yards with Umi’s chef-owner, Tong Liu. Along the way, Martinez has learned to love all kinds of food, including Italian, Chinese and Thai. He has a soft spot in his heart for Oaxacan food like the kind he grew up with in Cuilapam, Mexico, where as a young man, he learned to cook out of necessity. (It's pronounced "wah-HAH-can.")

“My parents got divorced when I was young,” Martinez explains. “They made me cook.”

Given a choice, Martinez would have preferred playing soccer or daydreaming about becoming a firefighter or joining the army. But after a horrific car accident as a teenager, his life changed dramatically.

“I almost died,” Martinez says. “It took me years to recover and after that, it wasn’t the same.”

With fewer career options open to him in Mexico, Martinez decided to take all he’d learned from watching his mother and grandmother in the kitchen and relocate to Spokane, where his brother lived. Although he took classes for volunteer firefighting, he felt a stronger pull to the culinary industry and started building a career as a chef.

“At the end, you know, I love what I’m doing,” Martinez says.

He is especially excited to bring Oaxacan food to the Inland Northwest. Mole Restaurant is Martinez’s — and Spokane’s —

first Oaxacan eatery and introduces diners to mole, a thick and flavorful sauce that gets its coloring from the chile and other complex assortment of ingredients.

Every town has its own variation on mole, says Martinez, listing the six types with which he’s most familiar: negro (black), rojo (red), amarillo (yellow), verde (green), estofado (a kind of stew) and coloradito.

Making mole is labor intensive with upward of 20 to 30 ingredients, so if Martinez were to make it at home, he’d make it in a large batch.

“If you have mole today, you have mole tonight, tomorrow.

Sometimes three to four days.”

At the end, you know,

I love what I’m doing.

More typically, however, Martinez makes a simpler meal at home for himself, his wife and her children. Black beans over eggs with Oaxacan string cheese. Or memelas, similar to what’s served at the restaurant: rustic, toasted tortillas with a kind of pork lard called asiento, topped with queso fresco and salsa, and sometimes meat or black bean paste.

“Some of my friends say, ‘You own a restaurant and you can eat whatever you want,’ but I don’t feel that way,” Martinez says.

“I like very simple things.”

Recipe on next page JUNE - JULY 2022

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Mole Colaradito de Oaxaca goes well with roasted chicken accompanied with plain rice and fried plantains. (opposite) Chef Fredy Martinez preps ingredients for mole sauce.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

TRY IT YOURSELF

Mole Coloradito de Oaxaca Mole (pronounced MOE-lay) is a staple of Oaxacan cooking and a versatile, thick sauce that can be used over vegetables, seafood or meat. The sauce is not cooked, although many of the ingredients are toasted or roasted to amplify flavors before being pureed. There are infinite varieties of a handful of basic Moles. Coloradito, which is a deep red color, features sweet-savory qualities similar to barbecue sauce, but with more depth of flavor and the distinct punch of chiles. Customize the recipe according to your tastes, such as more or less sweet or spicy. Most ingredients are available at your local grocer, including Winco, URM Cash & Carry or DeLeon’s Foods.

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INGREDIENTS • 1 pound whole dried guajillo chile • ½ pound whole dried ancho chiles • 5 dried whole puya chiles • ½ tablespoon dried oregano • 1 teaspoon dried thyme • 4-5 whole cloves • 2 ounces or roughly 1/4 cup walnuts • 1 ounce (roughly 2 tablespoons) unsalted peanuts • 1 ounce (roughly 2 tablespoons) almonds • 1 ounce sesame seeds, plus additional for garnish • 1-2 cinnamon sticks

• • • • • •

6-8 cloves garlic ½ white or yellow onion, chopped ½ cup raisins 6 roma tomatoes, quartered 2 plantains, peeled, rough chop 2 pieces of bolillo bread, sliced to 1-inch thicknesses (or up to ½ of a loaf of crusty French bread) • 4-5 animal crackers, crumbled • Vegetable oil for frying • Chocolate to taste (Ibarra brand or try a combination of ½ semi-sweet chips and cocoa powder)

DIRECTIONS 1. Organize all your ingredients and have ready a blender, saute pan and several nonreactive bowls.

It may seem complex, but this recipe is really only two steps: preparing the ingredients by roasting, toasting or frying them, then pureeing everything together.

2. Roast the guajillo, ancho and puya chiles over an open flame or under the broiler until the skins blister slightly. Do not allow them to burn. Remove from heat and let cool enough to handle.

3. Break open the roasted, cooled chiles to remove seeds, which are the spiciest parts. Cut and discard

the stems, which are tough and inedible. Put chiles in a nonreactive bowl and cover with water to soften them for a few minutes.

4. Working in batches, you’ll saute ingredients over medium heat until the aroma blooms, then place sauteed items into a bowl and continue cooking. Work through ingredients from dry to wet in this order: herbs, spices; nuts, seeds; garlic, onion; raisins, tomatoes.

Your goal isn’t to “cook” these items, but rather heat them to enhance flavor.

5. Saute the plantains until you notice them begin to caramelize.

Add the plantains and the soft-

ened chiles to the bowl with the other ingredients.

6. Pour oil into a deep-sided saute pan or shallow stock pot, up to about an inch (depending on size of pan). Fry the bread in batches over medium until golden, flipping once. Set aside to cool.

7. Put all ingredients except bread and crackers into the hot oil and fry 2-3 minutes until the aroma blooms again. Stir frequently to keep from burning and to coat all the ingredients.

8. Remove fried ingredients from oil and place into a blender, pulse a few times and add bread, then crackers, tasting as you go (crack-

ers add sweetness).

9. Puree until you get a very smooth paste. If it’s too thick, add some chicken stock. If it’s too thin, add more fried bread.

10. Add chocolate to taste and blend one more time.

11. Serve hot over prepared food (Martinez recommends salmon, shrimp or bone-in chicken) and garnish with sesame seeds.

This recipe keeps well refrigerated for several weeks.

— RECIPE COURTESY OF FREDY MARTINEZ, MOLE RESTAURANT

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(left to right) Valley of the Shadow, Raspberry Cheesecake and Peaching to the Choir are on tap at For the Love of God Brewing.

Below, owners Dawn and Steve Moss created a brewery with a cozy atmosphere that celebrates their Audobon neighborhood.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

E

The Creation of Beer For the Love of God Brewing offers community and adventurous pastry-inspired beers in northwest Spokane

BY NATE SANFORD 44

Health& Home

ver since he first started drinking craft beer, Steve Moss has been frustrated by inaccurate tasting notes.

It’s a common pet peeve, he says, to open a can with bold flavors like “pineapple” or “mango” written on the side, only to find that the beer itself tastes nothing like that.

“It just makes you kind of scratch your head like, ‘What were they drinking?’”

Moss says.

That’s not the case at For the Love of God Brewing, a craft brewery in northwest Spokane that Moss opened in 2019. The flavors there are strong and bold. Their Raspberry Cheesecake Sour actually tastes like raspberry cheesecake. And even if you didn’t know the name beforehand, you’d instantly be able to identify the apricot cobbler flavors that burst from their Apricobb Sour.

“It’s always been a focus of ours,” Cobb says. “If we say it tastes like something, we want it to actually taste like that.”

The brewery has options ranging from hazy IPAs to stouts, but Moss says the sours are generally the most popular. The sours are often pastry or fruit flavored, which gives them a taste comparable to a fruity cocktail or a cider. They appeal to everyone, Moss says, even people who don’t generally like beer.

For the Love of God is especially

Drawing on his prior work in construction, Steve Moss built the brewery's furniture.

known for its creative pastry sours. Moss frequently experiments with new, whimsical flavors like berry pie and lemon tart — one time he even made a Froot Loop flavored sour. (“It was actually super popular,” Moss says, “but it was pretty sweet, and pretty Froot Loopy.”)

Moss is the sole brewer at For the Love of God. He’s also deeply passionate about beer. Moss first got interested in brewing about nine years ago, when a friend randomly invited him to try out his new homebrewing kit.

“I didn’t even realize people could do that,” Moss says. “I was like, ‘Wait, you can just brew beer at home? That’s weird.’”

After making a couple of batches with

his friend, Moss bought his own homebrewing kit, and a hobby quickly turned into an obsession. After a few years, his whole basement had been taken over by brewing equipment, and he was producing so much he didn’t know what to do with it. That’s when it hit him: Why not just open his own brewery?

Moss was working in construction at the time. The pay was good, but he was feeling uninspired. In 2019, he decided to take the plunge and buy a property near Audubon Park in the Audubon-Downriver neighborhood. Moss and his wife had been living in the neighborhood for years, and he says it was important for them to find a place in the community.

The brewery was successful as soon as it opened. Moss was forced to scale back when COVID-19 hit just six months after opening, but the business was able to recover and has been steadily growing over the past year.

For the Love of God isn’t a religious company, but the brewery is deeply informed by Moss’ faith. The name itself is inspired by his religious upbringing, and the logo is meant to evoke the two outstretched hands depicted in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” The hand on the right side of the logo — God’s — holds a bushel of hops and wheat. Moss says he thinks of beer as a gift from above.

“God gave us these things, why wouldn’t we use them?” Moss says. “Make something special with them and share it with others?”

Moss says he doesn’t buy the old-school perspective of beer as a tool for partying and getting wasted. Instead, he views it as a deeply spiritual thing with great power to bring people together.

That sense of community is evident in the design of For the Love of God. Moss says he intentionally avoided the industrial feel that many breweries have, instead opting for a cozy, communal atmosphere. He drew on his background in construction to design the interior and build the chairs and tables himself. They’re made of rustic wood and repurposed metals, illuminated by warm hanging lights above. The taproom has games and puzzles. They also regularly host trivia nights and live music.

Moss is continuing to experiment with new, adventurous flavor combinations.

The beer menu is constantly evolving and generally features a new beer every couple of weeks. For the Love of God currently has a small selection of appetizers, but Moss says they’re looking at expanding to include a more substantial menu.

“I’m always searching for something different, something special,” Moss says.

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LOCAL GOODS

So Far, So Good Two local beekeepers embark on a journey growing mushrooms as Far Land Fungi

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

“B

ees are the gateway drug to mushrooms,” says Chelsea McFarland, who lives on Medical Lake acreage she and husband Rob call HoneyLove Homestead.

The comment is a total non sequitur, unless you know that the couple’s startup mushroom business, Far Land Fungi, sprouted from their intense interest in beekeeping.

Roughly 10 years ago, when they were living in Los Angeles pursuing careers in tech and media, the McFarlands became interested in bees. But Los Angeles didn’t allow residents to keep bees, so the McFarlands started HoneyLove, an educational nonprofit, to set about changing public perception.

Various Los Angeles neighborhood councils they dealt with cited fear of getting stung as a barrier to beekeeping, says Chelsea, who’s allergic to bees. Using her own experiences to address people’s fears head-on, she and Rob successfully swayed the city to change its ordinances to allow residential beekeeping.

In 2015, when the couple relocated to Eastern Washington, where Rob grew up, the McFarlands brought with them their honeybee hives and a dream to expand from beekeeping to creating a suburban homestead.

The five acres they own on the shore of Medical Lake allow them to do just that, both indoors and out. Chickens roam freely, finding shelter underneath a trampoline left on the property by the former owner. A fence secures berry bushes against deer. Nearby, a 50-foot hoop house for a large-scale floral garden is under construction. Next year, the McFarlands plan to transform the front yard into a lavender field — blissful for the bees.

Inside the McFarland’s home, an entirely different crop is in the works: mushrooms.

Currently, Far Land Fungi offers a wide range of mushrooms, which are fungi with plant-like traits such as stems and cell walls. Lion’s mane, golden chestnut, and three types of oysters are relatively easy to grow, as well as fast-growing, Rob says. Oyster mushrooms, for example, take around 10 days to reach maturity.

Rob has also undertaken more challenging varieties, such as golden enoki and shiitake, which can take more than three months to mature and require more steps to achieve a solid harvest. The McFarlands hope to incorporate their turkey tail and reishi mushrooms into medicinal applications like ...continued on next page

Rob and Chelsea McFarland at HoneyLove Homestead in Medical Lake. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

46

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Mushroom grower Rob McFarland says he's always been "fascinated with fungi, specifically how they work with plants and soil microbes symbiotically." ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

“SO FAR, SO GOOD,” CONTINUED... tinctures once the processing kitchen they’re building has been approved by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

R

ob is the driving force behind Far Land Fungi’s growing operations, transforming the home’s daylight basement into mushroom central. He created a HEPA filter-controlled airspace for sterilizing the growing medium (usually sawdust) into which mushroom spores — think of them as baby mushrooms — are injected.

In another area, Rob has installed a zipup tent with shelves for holding dense bags of mushrooms in various stages of growth known as fruiting. Rob maintains moisture and temperature through a system he designed and is still tinkering with.

“I read a lot,” he says.

He’s taught himself about mushrooms, much like he did about bees. “Mostly I learn

by making mistakes,” he admits.

“Mushrooms and bees are great teachers,” Chelsea adds. “They’ll let you know instantly where you’ve done something wrong.”

“I’ve always been fascinated with fungi, specifically how they work with plants and soil microbes symbiotically,” Rob says. “Once I started figuring things out and began to understand how magical mycelium is, growing mushrooms quickly took over my life.”

Rob’s interest in mushrooms, bees and growing things in general stems from a lifelong interest in nature.

There’s a photograph over a fish tank in the home’s basement — another of Rob’s interests is growing underwater plants — showing a young Rob at Cannon Hill Park pond, specimen net in his hand. His mother had forbidden him to go to the pond, so when a Spokesman-Review photographer who happened to be nearby clicked the shutter,

Rob knew he’d have to fess up.

After graduating from Gonzaga Prep, Rob attended Eastern Washington University for political science, but his heart belonged to the wild outdoors. After college, Rob volunteered for the Orangutan Foundation International in Borneo. There he helped map Tanjung Puting National Park, videotaping and documenting habitat loss due to natural and human impacts.

Chelsea, meanwhile, had been working in Delhi, India, editing cultural dance documentaries. A University of California Santa Cruz graduate with an independent spirit and ebullient personality, Chelsea was all ears when an acquaintance told her about a tall guy “who had 12 hours of orangutan footage who needed an editor.”

“I was like, ‘You had me at tall,’” Chelsea says, laughing.

While Rob handles the growing operations, Chelsea puts her considerable marketing background to use (when she’s not working in real estate) promoting mushrooms.

It was Chelsea, for example, who reached out to Little Noodle restaurant chef-owner Kadra Evans about incorporating a rotating variety of Far Land mushrooms into its dishes.

Currently, diners can find Far Land mushrooms in Little Noodle’s pho ($12).

If all goes according to plan, Far Land Fungi mushrooms should be available at area farmers markets this summer, as well as the farm stand at HoneyLove Homestead. Visit farlandfungi.com for more information.

Far Land mushrooms are available this summer at the HoneyLove Homestead farmstand (farlandfungi.com) and at Garland Summer Market (weekly, Tuesdays), Kendall Yards Night Market (weekly, Wednesdays) and at Medical Lake Farmers Market (on the first and third Saturdays from 8 am to 12 pm).

Living Well in the Health

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Inland Northwest Food

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People

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JONATHAN HILL ILLUSTRATION

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Health& Home

Developmental Stages Children’s theater can be a fun, varied and rewarding activity for all types of kids — and their families

I

BY E.J. IANNELLI

t’s a rainy Saturday morning, and Kearney Jordan is standing at the front of the main stage of the Spokane Civic Theatre. She’s running through cues and movement — a process known as blocking — with a group of teens and preteens for a production of Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town. The scene they’re rehearsing calls for some of the cast to cross from one side of the stage to the other when a school bell rings.

The bell sounds, launching the young actors on their different trajectories.

“You’re pros!” Jordan shouts. “You got this!”

For the past eight years, Jordan has led the Civic Academy, one of several local outlets for children who want to try their hand at theater. Like many of its counterpart organizations throughout the region and across the country, the academy makes a point of welcoming all comers — whether it’s their first or their 15th show, and whether they prefer to participate onstage or behind the scenes.

But there’s much more to children’s theater — whether that’s via school productions or with a local theater organization — than learning the basics of acting and set design. Participants are introduced to a wide range of life skills that can benefit them in school and everyday socialization.

“One of the things that I see kids learning is time-management skills,” Jordan says. “They really have to pace their energy and practice long-term goals. Another one is memory recall, which helps so much in school.”

Sadie Overstreet, an eighth grader who’s appearing in Our Town, lights up with an anecdote about how she was able to commit a lengthy Spanish passage to memory in record time, thanks largely to her experience with memorizing dialogue in productions like this one.

...continued on next page

JUNE - JULY 2022

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A

re your kids interested in treading the boards or running the lights? There’s plenty of choice when it comes to children’s theater organizations. Here are some from around the Inland Northwest.

Christian Youth Theater Spokane cytspokane.org Christian Youth Theater North Idaho cytnorthidaho.org Spokane Valley Summer Theatre Camps svsummertheatre.com Theater Arts for Children theaterartsforchildren.weebly.com Spokane Civic Theatre Academy spokanecivictheatre.com The cast of CYT’s 2019 preformance of Newsies.

CYT PHOTO

Hesperus Arts hesperus-arts.com

“DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES,” CONTINUED...

“Projection has helped me a lot in my classes, too,” she says, as has learning how to ad lib when things don’t go to plan.

That prompts Connie, her brother and fellow Our Town cast member, to share his own experience drawing on the techniques he’s learned in academy productions. The soft-spoken sixth grader recently stood up in front of an entrepreneurial group and delivered an impromptu pitch for a software idea.

Audrey Overstreet, Sadie and Connie’s mother, credits their recreational theater experience with the cultivation of less obvious “soft skills” like imagination, cooperation and compassion: “Does anything teach empathy more than being onstage and embodying a different person?”

The longer-term takeaways of children’s theater are apparent to Kristine Lyons. Now the executive artistic director of Christian Youth Theater (CYT) Spokane, Lyons has two adult sons who were regular participants in CYT shows throughout their childhood and into their teens. Her eldest son later chose to pursue a career in theater education, whereas her youngest has gone into construction.

“Our motto at CYT is ‘Building character, one stage at a time,’ which kind of builds on Shakespeare’s, ‘All the world’s a stage…’ But

when we say ‘building character,’ it doesn’t necessarily mean an actor, a singer or a dancer. It’s building character as an individual.”

Lyons says that since its founding in the 1980s, CYT’s participants have ultimately gone on to a wide variety of careers, including

Does anything teach empathy more than being onstage and embodying a different person? politics, medicine and education, all of which inevitably draw on the skill sets that they acquire both onstage and backstage. Some even return to CYT as adult volunteers.

Unlike some extracurriculars, kid-oriented theater activities can be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of interests, socioeconomic backgrounds and time commitments. The core of CYT’s

at the MAC MARCH 27 – SEPTEMBER 11, 2022 Buy tickets in advance at northwestmuseum.org DreamWorks Shrek © 2022 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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programming is three discrete 10-week sessions during the academic year plus an annual summer camp. Within those sessions, participants can opt to be cast or crew in musical and nonmusical shows. They can also choose between improv, voice or dance training. Scholarships are available for families who could use a little help.

Similarly, the Civic Academy offers musical and straight shows throughout the academic year in addition to summer camps. Rehearsal schedules are relatively light, often amounting to two hours per day or just a few hours per week depending on the course or production. Although the specifics might change, both the CYT and Civic Academy programming and financial aid are representative of what other children’s theater organizations offer.

And, contrary to popular belief, it’s not just for aspiring actors and extroverts.

“People think that because you’re going to theater, you’re a very outgoing person — that you want to be onstage and be in the spotlight,” says Audrey Overstreet. For her, the appeal of these shows is that they double as an opportunity to spend some extra time with Connie and Sadie. She’s performed alongside them several times before and is appearing with them again in Our Town.

“Being onstage with your kid? That’s special. That is a unique gift,” she says.

What’s more, this particular show has become a family affair for the Overstreets.

After years of applauding his wife and children from the seats, Audrey’s husband, Chip, decided that Our Town provided the ideal entry point for his first-ever foray into acting. He also joins three generations of the Gerhardt-Michaels family — “ages 7 to 70,” Jordan happily points out — who are participating in this same show.

Who ever said that children’s theater was just for kids?

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Nike Imoru and the Multiverse of Actress Local casting director Nike Imoru on how a theatrical role can let a person escape their identity — or deepen it

BY DANIEL WALTERS

C

asting director Nike Imoru was born to Nigerian parents, speaks with an English accent and lives in Spokane.

She’s always straddled multiple identities, multiple roles, multiple possibilities.

It was exactly the kind of self-conception that primed her to fall in love with the world-hopping magic of theater as a 14-year-old. Credit Macbeth.

“Shakespeare happened for me. I wasn’t expecting it,” Imoru says. “It was an encounter. It was fiery and lifelong.”

Some connect with Shakespeare because they see parallels to their own lives. But for Imoru the appeal was the opposite. Shakespeare was nothing like her life as a teenager in working-class East London.

“These characters had big emotions.

And the landscapes were massive, emotion-

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ally and environmentally. Nothing happened in a room. It was on a ‘blasted heath…’”

Imoru says. “I wanted to wear a sword and a cape and say, ‘my honored Lord.’ It sounded so much more interesting than, ‘Yes, Ms. Diamond.’”

In other words, identity isn’t frozen or static. It’s something that can be constantly reinvented.

She’s lived in Italy. All over Europe. In Africa. She’s spoken five different languages.

Even that London community she grew up in crackled with the possibility embedded in being surrounded by people of different backgrounds.

“How I was born, where I was born — just the nature of my reality is shifting between cultures. Often,” Imoru says. “Where I live is in a place of multiverses that are

infinitely diverse.”

And that, of course, is theater itself: It’s transporting yourself to a new reality in the multiverse, into a new culture, a new world, a new mind. And then it’s infusing that audience with that reality.

For Imoru, that’s sometimes meant acting on the stage in Greece, giving a one-woman show in Delphi, the birthplace of Western theater.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my god, the Olympian gods are here. Wow!’ And I communed with them. And then I got to give this one performance.’”

That’s sometimes meant acting for film, such as when she played Samuel L. Jackson’s therapist in 2006’s Home of the Brave, a movie released shortly after Imoru’s two-year stint as the director of Interplayers.

Casting director Nike Imoru decided that hopeful actors deserve feedback on their performances. She makes sure everyone who auditions for her leaves with “a gift about themselves.” ERICK DOXEY PHOTOS, AT SPOKANE’S FOX THEATER

But other times it’s meant the art of selecting other artists, as a casting agent.

Casting, say, DJ Qualls — the scrawny guy from Road Trip — as “Citizen Z” in Z Nation? That was Imoru’s doing at least, in part.

But Imoru, she went beyond simply selecting someone for a role. She melded casting actors with coaching actors.

“I decided that every actor that auditioned for me would leave with something,” Imoru says.

“Anyone that came in to audition would leave with a gift about themselves.”

She’d zero in on something they could improve. Sometimes it was as basic as their posture or the way they breathed.

Sometimes it got at something deeper.

“The anxiety that they’re bringing in,” Imoru says. “How they’re armored. What weapons they’re carrying. How they’re self-sabotaging, self-critiquing.”

She put them under an exacting critical microscope: And they loved it. It was like a mini-workshop, she says. They were getting feedback by an actual casting director, not just performing into a void.

Some people came to audition just to get feedback from her.

The advice can be different, of course, depending on the medium.

“I describe theater as a polygamous experience,” Imoru says. “I describe acting for the camera as monogamous.”

Camera work is deeply intimate — it’s more like you’re putting on a personal

performance for an audience of one. But in theater, you need to act big enough for the nosebleed seats and subtly enough to impress those in the front row.

You need to perform on all levels — with your voice, with your face, with your body, at all times.

The identity of the face or the body doesn’t always have to match society’s expectation, to be clear. Sometimes, it’s better if it doesn’t. Imoru herself has

caught her eye at the audition, she says, was Brandon Marino, who moved very “powerfully.” But Marino, unlike Elivs Presley, was Black.

And so, along with a slate of White Elvises, she presented Z Nation showrunner Karl Schaefer with Marino.

“I thought, ‘This is such a risk,’” Imoru says. “Why would he choose a Black Elvis — a brilliant Black Elvis?”

But Schaefer went with it, Imoru says.

He took the risk.

She recalls speaking with students in Britain about who they thought could play which roles.

“They didn’t feel that a Black person, for example, could be the queen of England or aristocrats, but they thought it was OK that a White person played Gandhi,” Imoru says.

In some ways, that’s been reversed today. The Netflix series Bridgerton actually does have a Black queen of England and several Black aristocrats. The original Broadway run of Hamilton had a Black Thomas Jefferson. But at the same time, these days, there’s been a ton of criticism leveled at, say, Scarlett Johansson playing an Asian character. Directors, actors and

How I was born, where I was born — just the nature of my reality is shifting between cultures. played Hamlet — the Danish prince.

“I certainly didn’t play Hamlet as a ‘Nigerian woman,’” she says. “I didn’t play Hamlet as an English woman, or a Black woman. I just embodied the essence, the struggle, the journey, the arc. The rest of me came along with that, right?”

As a Black woman, she says, she believes anyone can play any role.

“Why can’t this person be Black or Asian-American?” Imoru asks. “Why can’t this person in a wheelchair be in a zombie apocalypse?”

Take the moment when Z Nation wanted to cast an Elvis impersonator for a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest homage set in an asylum. And one of the actors who

critics have been debating about whether straight actors can play gay characters or cisgender actors can play trans characters.

They certainly can, Imoru says. But the question is whether they should.

Here’s where identity does matter, she says. An actor who really has experienced the “very-alive-trauma” or racism and discrimination tied to their identity can sometimes access that and create a deeper and far more profound performance.

“We’re in a time where the authentic — the authentic experience of the ‘other’ — is what is needed in order for that community to be seen, heard, healed, represented,” Imoru says. “I think it’s needed at this time.”

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Life, we see the miracle in you.

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We see the life in you.

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