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Special Show with Scars on 45 at the Brewery Sunday Page 5
Debate Champ, Ryan Buell, in the Spotlight Page 7
Air Day Raises nearly $40,000 Page 11
J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 2 • V o l . 5 • N o . 4 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Ashley Judd will visit the Valley on Feb. 20 & 21 on behalf of NAMI-WRV read about it in our health & Fitness Section
Yulan’s Chinese New Year PHOTOS & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
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John Griffith prepares to cast his vote—a wad full of Monopoly-type money—to indicate which areas he thinks warrant the most priorities.
Focus Groups Construct Wish Lists PHOTOS & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
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he last time Ketchum crafted its comprehensive plan, the town was riding a real estate and construction boom. Now, the world looks different, thanks to the Great Recession. So the city went back to the drawing board this week, trying to remake its image and its goals to fit what one person called “the new normal.” Nearly 100 businesspeople and residents attended two focus groups to define what needs to go into the new comprehensive plan. Their input will be used to draft the plan in the next few weeks, said Joyce Allgaier, planning manager. Participants identified tourism as one of the biggest areas Ketchum needs to focus on, along with preserving Ketchum’s small-town character, becoming a greener community, offering housing diversity, boosting community vitality, attracting a younger demographic, assuring transportation mobility and strengthening the economy. On people’s wish lists: providing a year-round economy, getting second homeowners to make Ketchum their primary homes and even enticing second homeowners to bring all or part of their businesses here. The area has been undermarketed for so long, said Arlene Schieven, the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance’s chief marketing officer. And with just $1 million to spend on a national marketing campaign, Ketchum needs to get creative in the way it presents itself, said Jim Keating, director of the Blaine Recreation District. Traditionally, Sun Valley has focused on its downhill skiing and golfing. But the area needs to tout its affordable recreational opportunities, such as Nordic skiing and mountain biking, as well, he said. “We have high value, low awareness,” he said. Existing events need to be bundled and expanded, such as the Nordic community did recently, parlaying a number of existing events into a nine-day Sun Valley Nordic Festival. The mountain biking community did something similar during last summer’s national mountain bike
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hen Jinglan Yu gets homesick for her native China, she mixes together a little flour and water. She whips it into a dough, then presses that dough into hundreds of Chinese dumplings in the shape of half-moons. “Like everyone here remembers Christmas from childhood, I always remember the Chinese New Year,” said Yu, who is known in Sun Valley simply as Yulan. “My whole family gathered together around the table to make dumplings. Mom was the one always making the dough and wrappers. My sisters and I would make the dumplings. It took me years and years to make them the perfect look of a half moon.” Today, Yulan shares her dumplings with countless Wood River Valley residents through occasional cooking classes and at lavish parties she throws in her home north of Hailey. She is especially fond of showing the tricks of the trade in a Chinese class she teaches during summer at The Community School and to the Valley’s native-born Chinese and Korean children who were adopted by Wood River Valley residents. Yulan did not set out to be a cook. Instead, she was a TV reporter for 10 years in China after getting a director’s degree at the Beijing Broadcasting University. Needing a break from work, which kept her on call 24 hours a day, holidays and weekends, she came to the United States to improve her English and found herself at the University of Idaho where she studied public relations. She moved to Sun Valley seven years ago to pursue her newfound passion for skiing—something she’d never tried in western China where she was raised. “She’s an amazing resource for our children,” said Liz Schwerdtle, who adopted her daughter Caroline Corker from Korea 10 years ago. “She taught a cooking class at a birthday party showing the girls to make pot stickers. And it was so much fun the boys wanted to join in.” Ditto for adults. Yulan’s class last year at the Sawtooth Botanical Garden turned into an assembly line. Some students rolled the dumplings out with a rolling pin scarcely bigger than a giant Tootsie Roll while others pressed stuffing into them. “It’s fun doing the dumplings,” said Tony Chapman. “One of the reasons I chose to take the class was that I knew I’d be involved.” Chinese cooking is time consuming, Yulan notes. It can take all day to make hundreds of dumplings if you don’t have help. And even the salad can be time consuming since everything has to be sliced fresh. But it’s worth it, she added. “One day I realized that putting a
Clockwise from above: Yulan scrapes a dish out of a wok onto a plate. Yulan serves up a colorful plate of Chinese salad, fried rice and barbecued pork. Yulan’s colorful Chinese salad includes lotus root. As a child, Yulan recalled, her family would hide coins into the dumplings and those who found them were guaranteed to have good fortune during the coming year. No one does that anymore for fear of biting into a coin and breaking a tooth. The Chinese started their 15-day New Year’s celebration heralding the Year of the Dragon on Monday.
wonderful meal on the table or making a beautiful story on the air is the same—all you have to do is chop all the ingredients into pieces, mix them together and remake them into what you want.” Last year Yulan threw a Chinese New Year’s party for the children she teaches, their families and other friends in her home. Paper Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling of the log home. Chinese characters were pasted on the window next to an antique Chinese cabinet. And the dining room table was full of colorful nametags for the dishes she piled high there. Among them, a Chinese salad sporting lotus root that is her signature dish. The lotus root, which can be obtained in Seattle or Portland, is harvested when koi ponds are cleaned out in winter. Come summer, when she can get fresh nasturtium, Yulan makes spring rolls. Yulan cooks without recipes, instead choosing to reach into the cabinet above her stove where she can grab a bottle of teriyaki chicken marinade, squid fish sauce, Koon chin soy sauce, Szechuan hot and spicy marinade, hoison garlic and sambal oelek fish chile paste to flavor her dishes. Her dishes favor northern Chinese cooking, she said. But she typically combines northern and southern Chinese flavors since she doesn’t care for the salti-
Opera
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Sun Valley
7cZURj 7VScfRcj "! )a^ Sun Valley Opera House General Admission Tickets $40 Diva Tickets $125 includes cocktail party and priority seating at Concert
PRESENT
Love is in the Air
For tickets: TEL: 208-726-0991 or online: www.sunvalleyopera.com