Lyndsey Files, 31, and Stephanie Fry, 36 (back) looked as if they were on a walk when I spotted them downtown one afternoon, what with their sturdy. yet stylish shoes. It turns out the two Chelan County P.U.D. employees were doing just that.

Stephanie then stopped off to pick up a freshly-stretched pair of Keen BLVD shoes at American Shoe Shop and were on their way again. I photographed them at the entrance to Pak-It-Rite before they headed back to work. Who knew P.U.D. actually stands for Punky Urban Dressers!

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Saturday night Applesauce took the missus on a date to a double feature at the Vue Dale Drive-in. I’m happy to report that it was a truly wonderful experience.

Before Saturday night Applesauce hadn’t been to a drive-in movie for more than two decades and it’s not for a lack of trying. You see, drive-in theaters are a rarity. Once massive indoor multiplexes started popping up next to every mall in America, hearing about families spending a night at the drive-in became less and less common. According to this Web site, there were 71 drive-ins in Washington state in 1972. That number was reduced to 13 in 1999.

While Applesauce definitely prefers the comfort of watching a movie in a cushy chair inside an air-conditioned theater with a gut-rocking sound system on a hot summer day, I believe drive-ins have their place in the movie-going experience too.

The two films I saw Saturday night were both mediocre at best (“10,0000 B.C.” and the “The Forbidden Kingdom”), but it wasn’t the movies that made my night at Vue Dale so special, it was the complete package of having the tailgate down, being in the open air and snacking on potato chips that made it such a fun night at the movies. There’s just something special about seeing a movie outdoors under the stars while enjoying a picnic dinner and soda straight out of the cooler.

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I spoke with Becky Sager, general manager of Wenatchee Valley Mall, again yesterday and she gave me more details on the renovations and improvements that are in the works over in East Wenatchee.

The image to the right is a conceptual drawing of what the main entrance to the mall will look like later this year. Painting and landscaping are also in the works for the mall’s exterior.

Sager also told Applesauce the mall’s bathrooms will be relocated to across the hall from their current location. A parents lounge area with televisions and a play area for kids will be installed where the bathrooms currently are.

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Almost every morning, within two hours of waking up, I have an iced mocha in my hand. When I’m not home, I try to seek out a place to get my morning mocha. If I am unsuccessful in my location I will sometimes drink black coffee instead. However, I have been known to add a packet of hot chocolate mix and a couple of little creamers to black coffee for an adequate substitute. It’s the chocolate and coffee combination that gets me going, sort of like a dessert in the morning. The ice really helps to awaken me too.

Every day during college I would sit at Cafe Solstice on The Ave and study for a couple of hours. Occasionally, if I sat at the bar long enough, the people making coffee would treat me to a second 16-ounce iced mocha. I would look up from my book and there it would be, a fresh cool iced mocha. They wouldn’t say anything, it would just appear. Lots of people I knew thought the place was too snobby and hipster, but those guys were sweeties (don’t tell them, they’ll just scowl at you.)

They made their mochas there with sweet ground Ghirardelli chocolate, mixing it with the espresso shot until dissolved, and then adding the milk and ice. The best part of these mochas were the little balls of undissolved chocolate powder that were suspended in the drink. Every so often I’d get one and it would pop open on my tongue — pure delight. Just thinking of the cool glass puts a huge smile on my face.

Anyway, I was telling Emily Reynolds at Caffe Mela about these study mochas more than a year ago and she offered to make me one like it at her coffee shop downtown. From then on, she and everyone else there make me special mochas, sometimes called “A Rochelle.” For a while, a jar there full of ground chocolate was labeled “Rochelle’s Cocoa.” I’m making converts, albeit slowly. I think I convinced Web editor Brianne Pruitt to make the switch.

For me though, the mochas are more than a good drink, they’re a little bit of nostalgia.

What’s your drink?

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With the temperature gauge pushing 90 degrees on Saturday, grilling was on my mind. And so were veggies. I headed out to the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market on Saturday morning hoping to find something to eat. One of the few things offered this early in the year were some small, sweet grilling onions, perfect for my dinnertime plans. While I didn’t really get anything else there for dinner, I did find promise of summertime beauty in the North Central Washington Dahlia Society’s tuber sale.

Taking inspiration from some portobello mushrooms my boyfriend brought over a couple of days before, my plan was to make stuffed portobello burgers. So, after planting the dahlias and taking a break indoors, I grabbed some more mushrooms, gorgonzola cheese and a yam and headed into the kitchen. Rummaging around, I found a half-jar of roasted red peppers, some balsamic vinegar, barbecue sauce and asparagus and decided to season everything and fire up the grill.

A quick brush of olive oil and salt on the onions, asparagus and sliced yam prepared those guys for grilling. The mushrooms were almost as easy. Veggies for dinner doesn’t sound like much, but I’ll take that mushroom over a beef patty any day.

Recipe

Gorgonzola-Stuffed Portobello Burgers

Olive oil for brushing over mushroom

Two bun-sized portobello mushrooms, stems removed, gills scooped out with a spoon

2/3 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese

3 tablespoons chopped, roasted red peppers

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

2 hamburger buns

1/4 cup barbecue sauce

Prepare mushroom by brushing oil on cap. Combine cheese, peppers, vinegar, lemon juice, basil, thyme salt and pepper. Let sit for 1/2 hour, until flavors meld. Spoon half of mixture into mushroom cap. Turn grill to medium high. Place mushrooms, cap side down, onto grill. Cover and cook until edges start to get crispy and filling is bubbly. Heat hamburger buns. Spread barbecue sauce on buns. Place mushrooms between buns and enjoy.

Yield: Two large burgers

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Fellow staff photographer Kathryn Stevens made an image of me at the Apple Blossom Grand Parade earlier this month. Thought you might like to see what the video camera that I’ve talked about looks like in use.

I’ve got a shotgun mike on the camera, a simple pair of headphones, extra tape and batteries in the backpack and fanny pack. I’m fairly steady without a tripod and unless I’m going to be confined to one area, I don’t like to pack it around because it really impedes my mobility.

It’s a different look from shooting the parade with two still cameras in 2004 (photographed by staff photographer Kelly Gillin)

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The nice part about soccer - when a team actually does score, they get excited about it!

This goal was less than a minute before the first half as Quincy takes the lead, 1-0. I had on a 300mm 2.8 lens, shooting horizontally, and later, cropped it to a vertical image, including the opponent  with dejected body language on the left. The only problem with the image is the distracting light pole in the background.

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I found an interesting angle covering the criterium Saturday afternoon from an underground parking garage near Orondo Avenue. I had hoped to, and actually did photograph people walking by while the bikes when down the race course, but thought this photograph was better.

I ended up sitting on the company’s news car to get another foot high  so I could see the wheels of the bike in the photograph. Then it was a matter of taking about 100 frames to get the bikes in the right position in the frame. Most of the pictures have just one bike, but I wanted more so the thought of it being a race would come out. The biggest problem was I couldn’t see the bikes coming so had to hit the button at the first sight of a bike in the frame.

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Always looking for that one image that tells a larger story, I think I came up with one Friday night at the Knight’s baseball playoff game. It was a game just not going well for the home team as Columbia Basin scored five runs in the first inning to take a commanding lead. When CBCC’s Brady Farrington tagged out WVC’s Zane Bator, the facial expressions of each after the play told the story of the game and WVC’s frustration.

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Heels at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, even in DOWNTOWN Wenatchee aren’t an everyday occurrence here-especially not watermelon pink ones with 3-inch stillettos, but there they were gracefully making their way into Caffe Mela and I had to find out to whom they belonged.

It turns out Kimme Hawkins, 46, of Wenatchee sports these and other trés façionable footwear on a regular basis along with an outfit to match. p.s. Kimme purchased this pair at Macy’s for 9 bucks!

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