The real heat of summer

I got a late start on summer because I did not make my annual batch of barbecue sauce until this week. The event marks a true summer solstice.

For the calendar-bound and celestial-retentive, summer began June 20. Instead of charting the heavens, my seasonal reference is "The ARK, Cuisine of the Pacific Northwest" cookbook.

This 1983 delight, with its introduction by James Beard, was one of several cookbooks written by Jimella Lucas and Nanci Main, owners and chefs of The Ark Restaurant & Bakery on Washington's Long Beach Peninsula. They sold their nationally acclaimed eatery on Willapa Bay in 2004.

The sauce celebrates the year's warmest season, without immolation of the taste buds. You decide. The recipe, posted on the editorial-page Ed Cetera Blog, is good on ... everything.

Recent rainy days cooled the heat of August, which had made us whine and forget how cold summer began. In June, I was standing in Carnation's strawberry fields listening to U-pickers bemoan the rock-hard, sage-colored berries never destined to grace a shortcake.

Summer in the Pacific Northwest has a way of redeeming itself. A true, stubbornly overcast, green-tomato summer is not unknown but rare. For all the derision — dare I say raspberries — directed at the strawberry patch, this past Friday evening I was sitting with friends enjoying fresh-picked blueberries in homemade milkshakes.

A summer secret in the upper, left-handed corner of the country is that September might be the loveliest month of all. An equaniminous equinox will provide the perfect weather for weekend trips, even after school has started. I have a worthy destination.

To get launched down the Oregon coast on Highway 101, one travels Highway 30 along the Columbia River, west to Astoria. This is the next place to be discovered. Or maybe it is only me, raised in Oregon and central coast-centric, who is late in seeing the possibilities. Certainly the cruise ships and art galleries suggest as much.

All I really knew was that an excellent newspaper, The Daily Astorian, and the city of 10,000 was down the road from Clatskanie, where a great-grandfather had been mayor, owned a sawmill and a street is named after him.

Perched on the mouth of the Columbia River, Astoria is the oldest American settlement west of the Rockies. This is the stuff of Capt. Robert Gray, Lewis & Clark, and a fur-trading post established by the grizzled minions of financial titan John Jacob Astor. The British claimed a share of Astoria until 1846, two years after all the Fifty-Four Forty or Fight bluster that defined the Oregon Territory and Washington's boundary with Canada.

The extraordinary Astoria-Megler Bridge, connecting Oregon and Washington, is a 4.1-mile marvel best seen from The Astoria Column on Coxcomb Hill above the city.

This 125-foot column sits on 30 grassy acres with one of the best views on the planet: two rivers, two states, the Columbia River bar and the Pacific Ocean on breathtaking display. The column, dedicated in 1926, is wrapped with a frieze of 22 events in Native-American, U.S. and Oregon history.

On a recent visit, actually my first, I found the column closed for replacement of its 164 cast-iron steps. Later, I ended up on the phone with a mildly exasperated Jordan Schnitzer, Oregon businessman, art patron and philanthropist.

The Portlander's fondness for the coast goes back to childhood summers at Seaside. A place at Gearhart put him near an Astoria mayor who recruited him 20 years ago to organize Friends of Astoria Column. That led to campaigns to clean and preserve the exterior artwork, strengthen the column's foundation and revamp the expansive hilltop plaza.

Discovery last December of hairline cracks in the 83-year-old staircase inspired a cautious, safety-first decision to close the column. Schnitzer, who became conversant in the chemistry of restoration, is now learning the complexities of foundry science and metal fabrication.

Presented with five options, the stairs will be redone in cast steel. Schnitzer said a frustration has been finding a qualified vendor. Oh, and the estimated cost has climbed from $175,000 to $450,000. More time, more money and more headaches than expected. Sounds like a typical remodel.

A good excuse to hit the sauce. I know a recipe.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera