Date Night in Columbia County PAGE A10
Clatskanie wrestling prepping for districts | PAGE A9
Chronicle & Chief THE COLUMBIA COUNTY
Wednesday, February 7, 2024 | Columbia County, Oregon
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Victorico’s pitches in for Community Meals WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
Attendees of the weekly community meal at the First Lutheran Church enjoyed a special treat Jan. 30, with Victorico’s stepping up to provide food for those in attendance. In a gracious move, part owner of Victorico’s, Yesenia Sanchez, worked with organizers of Community Meals of St. Helens to donate a full dinner for a recent meal. “We decided to get involved with Community Meals after volunteering a couple of times and witnessing first-hand all the hard work, heart, and dedication that volunteers and First Lutheran staff put into making a meal for all to share week after week,” Sanchez said. “I was very impressed and simply wanted to give them a thank you, and thought, what better way than with food? While volunteering at Community Meals during Thanksgiving week, one of the patrons shouted at us, ‘Hey, when are we doing tamales or tacos?’ and I thought, what a great idea!” Community Meals of St. Helens is a 501(C)3 tax-deductible organiza-
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Yesenia Sanchez (black apron) and Victorico’s donated dinner to feed attendees of Community Meals’ weekly meal.
tion that aims to provide free meals to people in need in the community. Community Meals provides free meals weekly at the First Lutheran Church at 360 Wyeth Street in St.
Helens. Sanchez said that seeing the satisfied faces of the dinner’s patrons was a rewarding experience. “It was so neat to see people’s
of the cart have stopped for the moment, Gregory still offers “artisan heat and eat soups.” “For winter, we moved it here. Now, I’m not doing the cart day-today, like the tacos and the gyros and cooking to order; I’m doing graband-go soups,” Gregory said. “Like, think of Safeway signature soups; I do that. Some bread, and I’m doing cooking classes which is my true passion.” While Gregory needed to close the cart temporarily, her soup idea allowed her to cook for the community while dealing with the cart’s challenges. Gregory said she may reopen the cart in the spring or summer. While circumstances partially dictated Gregory’s transition to offering soups, she also wanted to offer something unique to the community. Though she got discouraged at the lack of engagement from the community when she first made the leap to making soup, Gregory said she’s seen an uptick in business in recent weeks. The recipes for the soup are all Gregory’s creations, and she strives to come up with new and creative options.
“My ideas for soup, I’ll come up with an idea based off an entre,” Gregory said. “Yesterday’s soup was chicken parmesan soup. You take the components of that dish and make it into a soup. So it was a tomato-based soup with diced chicken, and I served it with some crispy breadcrumb topper so you would get the crunch of the breading. It had mozzarella cheese and fresh basil on top, just like chicken parm would.” Other soups that have been offered recently are Swedish meatball, chicken tortilla, clam chowder, and lemon chicken soup with orzo, among others. Gregory makes about eight quarts of each soup. She sells 16 oz bowls for $7.50 and a quart of soup for $14. Soups are available until they sell out. Gregory said she offers soups on a “two-week schedule.” Pick-up times for people who have ordered soup are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Friday. She said she does this so people can see what soups are on the menu for the coming weeks and order ahead.
faces light up when they saw our logo or our name on the board, some didn’t expect we were coming,” Sanchez said. Though they needed to pause in
March 2020 because of the pandemic, Community Meals resumed offering meals in March of 2023. Currently, each meal now averages 80 guests, but Bauska hopes more will attend because there is room for 100. To date, over 113,000 meals have been served. Currently, there are 40 active volunteers serving one meal per week every Tuesday night from 5:306 p.m. However, the doors at First Lutheran open at 5 p.m. Kathy Bauska is one of the key organizers of Community Meals and a member of the First Lutheran Church. Bauska said that in May of 2009, a group came together at the church and resolved to help people going through the hardship of the Great Recession by feeding them. Bauska was grateful for Sanchez and Victorico’s contribution. “[Sanchez] was a server at our Thanksgiving meal, and Yesenia helped; they saw what was happening, and fell in love,” Bauska said. “She just thought the Community Meals was the cat’s meow, and so she wanted to volunteer. She offered See VICTORICO’S, Page A5
Chef Court’s offering soups, classes WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
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or people looking for a quick artisan soup or wanting to learn some new skills in the kitchen, Chef Court’s is focused on delivering quality food and lessons to the Clatskanie community. Courtney Gregory is the owner and operator of Chef Court’s, and what started as a food cart coming out of the pandemic has turned into a business venture that aims to deliver good food to the community while expanding to offer culinary classes. Gregory opened her food cart in 2021 and quickly began offering tacos, gyros, and healthy food items. Gregory said she’s had great community feedback on her food, but she moved her cart to the driveway of her home when it became known that water would be unavailable at the cart’s location for the winter. Gregory lives at the Evenson house at 580 NE Poplar St. in Clatskanie, which has a professional kitchen. With that being the case, Gregory now cooks out of her home kitchen. Though the daily operations
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See CHEF, Page A5
Learn to make tacos just like these with classes offered by Chef Court’s.
Bethany Lutheran Church’s 43rd Annual Quilt Show WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
People from around Columbia County and beyond will flock to Bethany Lutheran Church as the parish’s 43rd Annual Quilt Show returns. The show is on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10 and will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days. It is located at 34721 Church Road in Warren. All funds that the show raises are used to help support the church in the coming year. Chris Mollenhour is one of the show’s organizers and a parish member, and she said it’s an event that brings people together year after year. “It’s a really fun big event,” Mollenhour said. “It brings people in. People drape quilts on the benches upstairs, fill the whole church. It’s beautiful to come see. Quilters love it.” The show will see the church pews covered with quilts from attics and trunks, rescued, remade, old, new, and unique quilts from around the area. Organizers didn’t have an exact number of people who display
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People come from all over Columbia County to check out the unique quilts on display at Bethany Lutheran Church’s Quilt Show.
their quilts, but the church will be filled with original works and the quilters who made them. The quilt show has cross-generational connections, with many of the organizers becoming part of the event because their parents were part of it previously. In addition to the quilts on display, this year’s show will allow quilters to sell quilts they are willing to part with. Organizers said there was a demand for purchasable
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quilts in years past. The show will also have food and refreshments. There will be chicken soup, sandwiches, and clam chowder made with Valerie Lotter’s famous recipe. There will also be a bake sale, including homemade pies made by Vi Brown, Virginia Erickson, and Pat Lang. “The social aspect is a big thing,” Mollenhour said. “People come, look at the quilts, they have lunch, they visit. I mean, people
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will sit here forever just visiting and having coffee.” In recent years, the quilt show has also featured vendors selling locally-made art, crafts, books, and puzzles. Mollenhour said they have lined up about seven vendors for the event this year. The show will feature a raffle, and attendees can buy tickets for a chance to win three handmade quilts & a Valentine’s Basket. Drawings will be held Feb. 10 at 2:30 p.m. In a good year, organizers said they typically raise about $2,000 on the lower end and about $4,000 in good years. Organizers also said that if attendees are curious about Bethany Lutheran Church, Pastor Ingrid Aderhold will be at the show to speak with people about the parish and assist with the event. Featured quilter Each year, the quilt show has a featured quilter who displays their work at the front of the room. Organizers said it is an honor to be selected for the role and that in the 43 years the show has been going
on, they have never had the same featured quilter twice. “It’s really nice because we have the featured quilter who is sitting up in the front, and then quilters that have questions can go and ask her,” Organizer Deanna Grogg said. “Many times, she shares how she came up with some of the ideas. The women really like that because, well, your creativity keeps growing if you can hear someone talking about how they came up with their ideas.” Sharon Walker is the featured quilter this year. She is a recent transplant from Washington, and is a retired message therapist. Walker gave up her short-arm computerized machine & started hand quilting when she and her husband began traveling in an RV. Now, they have settled in St. Helens to be near family. Walker has made mostly patterned quilts for her family but recently took up Artistic Quilting after meeting a fellow Art Quilter in Bremerton, WA. Walker is also a member of Columbia River Piece Makers. Twice a week, she delivers Meals on Wheels for St. Helens Senior Center.
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