02/24/05 Co-op growth; Legacy of Nelson

A meeting in Moses Lake Washington this afternoon could be one of the final keys in the formation of a national fresh potato growers cooperative. A steering committee made up of growers from Washington State will discuss if and how to form a state wide marketing cooperative similar to the model created by the United Fresh Potato Growers of Idaho last year. Similar co-ops have formed or are under consideration in areas such as the Klamath Basin of Oregon, and parts of Colorado, Wisconsin, and Maine. He was an Idaho legend who worked tirelessly to preserve the habitat of birds of prey. Bill Scott has more on the death this week of Morley Nelson. He was a champion for birds of prey. Morley Nelson was a master falconer who worked with Walt Disney on several nature films. He was an inventor of a life saving device for eagles, which is used on power poles around the world. The 88-year-old Nelson was also a decorated veteran of World War Two. STEUBNER: The Birds of Prey helped him kind of recover from all of the trauma that he must have endured from all that combat action, losing some really good friends in the war. Author Steve Steubner wrote Nelson's biography, 'Cool North Wind.' Nelson's legacy is in the birds themselves but also in the creation of the 600 thousand-acre Snake River Birds of Prey national conservation area. His work was instrumental in the Peregrine Fund relocating to Idaho 20 years ago and the creation of the World Center for Birds of Prey. Now with today's "Food Forethought", here's Susan Allen. ALLEN: As a grade schooler, many moons ago, I remember dreading the spoonful of peas plopped on my cafeteria platter, mushy and yellow they didn't look anything like the peas my mom served. School lunches have changed dramatically since those days and thankfully so have frozen peas. While you can still occasionally find bricks of frozen produce in the supermarket, for the most part vegetables are now frozen individually using new technology. Thanks to I. Q. F. Individual Quick Freeze, what used to be mushy is in many cases, simply marvelous. So marvelous that the Dining Out section of the New York Times recently did a front page feature on the new frozen vegetable. Frozen peppers rated top reviews along with beans, peas and corn. Quick freezing techniques, where produce goes immediately from field to frozen, means in many cases vegetables will actually taste fresher than those that have been in the produce isle for who knows how many days. At the price of fresh peppers, give the frozen a try, I'm hooked!!