Selkirk Conservation Alliance Film Fest to highlight area’s underwater residents

By Reader Staff

The Selkirk Conservation Alliance will host its second annual film festival on Saturday, June 17, inviting the community to join in an afternoon of films that celebrate North Idaho’s wild residents and fundraising that will further SCA’s mission to support the ecosystem of the Selkirks.

This year’s film festival will be held at The Inn at Priest Lake (5310 Dickensheet Road) with doors opening at 3 p.m. and films showing 3:30-5 p.m.

This year’s film selection, according to organizers, invites attendees to “dive into your lakes, rivers and streams and meet the wild things that live there” — so expect frogs, fish and more water-dwellers to be the stars of the show.

General admission is free for 2023 SCA members and by donation for non-members. VIP ticket options are also available, and listed in more detail at scawild.org/film-festival.

Funds raised will be used to support the nonprofit’s mission of promoting environmental causes surrounding local land use issues.

Selkirk Conservation Alliance Film Festival

Saturday, June 17; doors at 3 p.m., films at 3:30 p.m.; general admission tickets by donation at the door or online; VIP ticket options viewable at scawild.org/film-festival. The Inn at Priest Lake, 5310 Dickensheet Rd., 208-443-2447. For more about SCA, call 208-448-1110 or email sca@scawild.org.

By Marcia Pilgeram Reader Columnist

In a feeble attempt at downsizing, I devoted much time this week to more cookbook purging. The last time I downsized my cookbook collection, I gave away a couple hundred cookbooks. Now I’m down to 600, and it’s still too many. It’s a time-consuming project, settling beside a shelf and browsing through a well-worn book. It’s a lot of trips down memory lane that invariably involve a few false starts and detours.

On my shelves are at least 50 books devoted entirely to chocolate in numerous categories. Some are dedicated to baking; others are professional cookbooks purchased over the years when I attended various chocolate-making classes (including courses at the renowned French Pastry School in Chicago). Others are more detailed and scientific, diving deep into specific gravity and precision techniques for tempering and molding chocolate (if you read Brenden Bobby’s column, “Mad About Science: Chocolate,” in the May 17 edition of the Reader, you can learn about the science involved in chocolate making).

A couple of years ago, I did a house swap with a young couple and their adorable young son, Arlo. Karma delivered them from a brownstone in Brooklyn to my front door in Ponderpoint. Kia is a high fashion jewelry designer (Harry Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels), and her husband Michel is a Swiss chocolate distribu-