Online Sun gets it right

If you haven't seen the online version of The Kitsap Sun, take a look. I think you'll like it. I do, and I'm not easily impressed. 

While you're there, look for Tristan Baurick's article about Building 200, Bainbridge High School's new green building. Island residents are very proud of their school, and have collectively helped to fund this jewel. 

Finally: good news for ferry commuters!

By Tristan Baurick for The Kitsap Sun, July 6

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND

Ferry commuter Chris Hanacek has found a new fast food stop on his way home from work.

"It's awesome," the island resident said, holding sacks of fresh snap peas and broccoli. "This stuff was picked today and I'm going to take it home and eat it in 10 minutes. And the whole thing took 20 seconds."

Faster than a supermarket stop and healthier than the offerings on a drive-thru menu, the new Wednesday evening ferry farm stand at the Winslow ferry terminal furnished hundreds of commuters with the makings of a locally grown dinner.


"We want to get more people introduced to the idea of what's growing right here, right now," said Sally Maron, who wore a yellow apron and hawked vegetables along with a half dozen other volunteers from Sound Food, a Bainbridge group promoting local farms. "The more we connect people to the local economy and farms, the more we connect them to the Bainbridge story, which is about people who care about the land and living sustainability."

The stand features a different farm each week, with every dollar going directly to the growers. On Wednesday, vegetables from Poulsbo's Farmhouse Organics were on display, along with purple garlic and strawberries from island growers.

"This works great for us," said Farmhouse's owner Anne Webber as she watched the action at the stand. "This is such a good community, and to have people volunteering to do this — the concept is amazing. Honestly, only on Bainbridge."

Ferry riders crowded in after disembarking the 4:40 p.m. boat to snatch up bagged stir fry and salad mixes, garlic scapes, carrots and strawberries boasting a tenderness that cant be matched by the more sturdy, hard-traveling kind.

"Have you tried a farm-fresh strawberry?" said Sound Food volunteer Els Heyne, offering a berry to a customer. "There's nothing else like it."

"The stand provides stuff that's good all-around," Hanacek said, listing healthy food, support for farmers, fewer environmental impacts and stronger community connections. Its stuff he supports, but sometimes a trip to the farmers market doesn't fit his schedule.

"This is easy for me," he said. "All I do is walk off the boat."

The stand aims to bring local foods to people, rather than wait for them to come to growers, Maron said.

"This is for people who may not be regular farmers market shoppers," she said.

On the stand's first day, late last month, produce sold out in 15 minutes.

"The boat wasn't even completely offloaded when we sold out," said Sound Foods' Carolyn Goodwin.

Last Wednesday [July 2], Sound Food came ready with double the produce, and had sold over 100 bags after one offloading. Packed with commuters from all over the region, the Bainbridge ferries helped Sound Food link local edibles to tables in Kingston, Poulsbo and Port Ludlow.

"This brings the whole Kitsap community together and ties us together with something everybody needs and loves, which is food," Goodwin said."

Sound Foods Winslow ferry terminal farm stand is open every Wednesday starting at 5 p.m. The stand offers locally grown produce sold in $5 bags. Visit www.soundfood.org for more information.

Why drive when you can bike?

By Tristan Baurick
For the Kitsap Sun
Thursday, November 29, 2007

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND The wind surges across the water north of Rich Passage, tossing whitecaps into the sheets of an icy rainfall.

In the middle of it all is Nat Hong, pedaling his "water bike" among the waves.

Hong is an amphibious commuter, using pedal power on land and sea to travel between his south Bainbridge Island home and
Olympic College in Bremerton, where he works as an English teacher.

"It just pissed me off, being able to see where I work but having to drive two hours a day to get there and back," the 54-year-old said as he pulled the water bike onto the island's shore north of Point White.

"That's 80 miles each day. It just seemed stupid to be so close and not find a way to cross," he said, pointing to his launch about a mile to the west at Illahee State Park.

"So, I got this thing," he said, patting the yellow vessel's handlebars.

Manufactured in Minnesota by HydroBikes, Hong's model looks like a stationary exercise cycle crossed with a miniature catamaran. A small propeller in the rear takes the vessel forward or backward, depending on the direction Hong pedals. Steering is accomplished using a rudder mounted under the handlebars.

Typically marketed for recreational users at lakeside resorts, water bikes can withstand more robust use. Hong knows of one rider who took his water bike from New York to Panama.

"It's a pretty stable boat," Hong said. "On a day like to today, it's a steady rock and roll — kind of like riding a slow mechanical bull."

He does a rubbery hula dance for added emphasis.

"It's not bad, but I check the paper every day to see what the waves are going to do," he said. "If they're over two or three feet, I won't go out."

He's been barked at by gangs of sea lions, laughed at by dockside teenagers and pointed at by wonder-struck children.

"The kids fishing at Illahee dock with their parents think I'm some kind of Willy Wonka of the waves," he said.

Hong, who has taught at OC for 12 years, starts his morning commute with a short bike ride from his house on Baker Hill to a friend's beachfront property on Crystal Springs Drive. Pedaling across the water takes about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the weather.

At Illahee, he unlocks his second road bike for a climb up the park's steep switchbacks. He hits another two hills and then coasts down Warren Avenue to the college.

Added up, the trip takes about 10 minutes less than by car. Hong said the mode of transportation also comes with three added benefits: it's good for his health, better for the environment and easy on his pocketbook.

While still driving work one or two days a week, Hong has saved 1,440 miles in car mileage since he started using the water bike in late September. He now fills his car's tank every three weeks rather than once a week, saving more than $500 in fuel costs per month.

"I feel like I'm doing a tiny bit of good by not driving so much," he said. It's fantastic exercise, (and) in the land of obesity, it's nice to keep active."

The water bike cost $1,200, but the two landlubber models parked on either side of Rich Passage amounted to $70.

"This jacket cost more than the two bikes combined," he said, shaking out of a few waterproof layers once inside his house.

He locks his bikes up and receives an added level of security from the fishermen who frequent the Illahee park dock.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the regulars said: "Anyone but you gets on the bike, we call 911," Hong said.

"It's nice to have a security posse being vigilant."

Once his dripping coat is hung in the closet, Hong kicks off his shoes and wrings out his socks in the kitchen sink. He blows his nose, rubs his hands and pours a shot of whiskey to warm up his insides.

His wife, Anne, calls to see if he made the crossing safely.

"I think he's a little crazy," she said. "I call to make sure he gets home, especially on days like today when its dark and I know there's waves and it's cold. But I admire what he's doing. It's a pretty challenging commute."

The dwindling daylight hours may force Hong to dry dock the water bike for the rest of the winter. But by spring, he expects to be pedaling the waves again.

"It really puts me out there," he said. "I've gone past baby seals and through birds strewn like confetti over the water. I get a fantastic view and I get an hour of vigorous exercise each way.

"It feels right and it feels good."

Local Business: My Kids' Cookies

Business Is Coming Along Nicely, In The Oven

By Rachel Pritchett rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND

Barbara Reininger is baking up a business, and she hopes this holiday season will be the starter.

With My Kids' Cookies, the Bainbridge mom is beginning to sell her cookies not only online, but here at home, too, with eight varieties of chocolate chip cookies each as big as her dream to eventually fund her two children's college educations with the proceeds.This morning, Reininger was aproned up and at work at Farm Kitchen in North Kitsap, where she rents time at the facility's commercial kitchen.



The aroma of melting semi-sweet morsels and fresh-from-the-oven cookies filled the kitchen as the petite baker deftly measured, stirred and placed ample ball after ball onto parchment-lined trays. These were to be samples she'd hand out this afternoon outside Bainbridge Cinemas. Her cookies will be sold behind the movie concession stand there, just in time to be snatched up by the hoards of Bainbridge kids descending on the holiday movies.


"I've been baking cookies forever," said the San Francisco-area transplant, whose first careers were in the finance and Internet industries. Husband Len came along, and then children Molly, 13, and Daniel, 12. Reininger continued to make cookies - for her family and friends, for church, school and her Girl Scout troop, and "just because."

"I could eat them all, but for health reasons and weight reasons, I don't," she said.
Friends urged her to turn her passion into a business. She and Len, a banker, massaged the numbers. Finally, she took the plunge, buying the Internet domain name mykidscookies.com to sell online, and tirelessly making calls to local coffee shops and others to see if they'd like to sell her cookies. Some said yes; Reininger will supply her assortment of cookies with milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate and white chocolate, with pecans, walnuts or just plain at Olympic Performance Group's upcoming "Nutcracker" in Poulsbo and on Bainbridge.
Starting a business from scratch has been a learning experience for green entrepreneur Reininger.


"It is simple (to say) 'Yes, that's what you want to do,' but there's a lot more to it," she said.

There's giving up a steady paycheck, for one.

"You can't build a business without devoting full time," she said.


Licensing and packaging were just a couple of components to her business's extensive infrastructure she's put together.


Then there's getting her business' name out in front of the public.
"I think you have to have a lot of self-confidence and a thick skin," she said.


Reininger's always had a tough time getting to sleep. She still does. But at least the time she spends tossing and turning is productive as she plots out all the details of the next day of baking and selling.


Reininger had this advice for others with the dream of starting a business: "If you can try it financially, and you have the belief in your own dream, go for it."