Award-winning author and city girl Cynthia D. Bertelsen grew up in eastern Washington state, in Palouse wheat-farming country. Her father, a plant pathologist, researched diseases of wheat and cacao at a local university. And every spring he planted a big vegetable garden and tended the many fruit trees in the backyard of their old farmhouse, built in 1888. For heat, the house boasted a dilapidated oil burner in the middle of the living room. So,...