LIVING FEATURE  Ninety-eight-year-old Elizabeth Welty isn’t your typical small-space gardener. For starters, she has the distinction of having been alive to see 17 of America’s 44 presidents. She also has a tenacity that would put many of her much younger fellow hobbyists to shame.

At Washington State University, Kenny Hummel was only a freshman. But Hummel was found in a WSU dorm room last fall, passed out, with his blood-alcohol content at 0.40, five times what is considered legally intoxicated. He died of acute alcohol poisoning. 

At the University of Idaho, Joseph Wiederrick was also only a freshman. But he was found under a small bridge several miles from campus this winter, dead of hypothermia. He’d left a fraternity party at midnight, wandered aimlessly through Moscow for hours, knocking on a few doors, before slipping on a creek bed and soaking his clothes. Toxicology reports indicated alcohol and marijuana in his bloodstream. Read More>>

COOKING  If a roasted heirloom carrot salad dressed in grapefruit-lime vinaigrette doesn’t sound like your typical pub grub, it’s because Manito Tap House isn’t your typical pub. Credit atypical owner Patrick McPherson and his mercurial, mustachioed executive chef, Branden Moreau. 

“I love upscale pub food,” says McPherson, who collaborated with Moreau on the roasted carrot salad for the spring menu. “To me what makes pub food ‘upscale’ is using fresh ingredients in a creative way… not just using a bunch of frozen and fried foods.” Read More>>

December 7, 2007 is forever etched into Spokane resident April Bell’s memory. Following months of vague gastrointestinal complaints, that was the day Bell’s doctor finally diagnosed her with cancer. It was also exactly seven months after another important date for the then-30-year-old — her wedding.

Like most young brides, Bell did not foresee testing the ‘in sickness and in health’ vow so early in her marriage. But soon after being diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a particularly aggressive form of cancer typically found in patients many decades older — Bell was faced with crippling medical treatments, financial burden and uncertain fertility.  Read More>>

FROM THE EDITOR  The last few months have brought a slew of reports on a lot of things that are apparently bad for us. I got a newsletter from a nutrition organization telling me to eat rice no more than twice a week — the arsenic in there is bad news. And stay away from canned foods — BPA in the lining may disrupt our hormones. Sugar is demonized — “It’s toxic,” declared the New York Times’ Mark Bittman. Salt consumption? It’s now linked to autoimmune disorders.  Read More>>

55 PLUS  Curt Helsper traces his finger along a jagged line charting a patient’s breathing throughout a recent overnight sleep study. Moving along the line, he points out dozens of flat breaks in the line, counting several breaks each minute.

“That’s where the patient isn’t breathing,” he says, checking the length of one break. “This one’s just under 23 seconds long.” Read More>>

COOKING   Check out this fresh salad recipe. Read More>>

LIVING FEATURE  Are you infamous for turning healthy houseplants into withered stalks? Do you have a knack for over-watering and under-fertilizing? As with any hobby, gardening requires some know-how, and it takes time to accumulate it. But don’t let fear of the unknown or past misfortunes deter you. The great thing about small-space gardening is its minimal up-front investment. That allows more freedom to experiment.

LIVING FEATURE  When developers want to maximize land use without increasing their physical footprint, they start building upward. The same goes for gardeners.