Plant mystery, no. 6781
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
All I can figure is that we’ve had enough rain that the tomatoes are blooming again. They quit for something like three weeks. My neighbors’ said their plants did the same thing.
Mystery.
Musings
Detail of a leaf
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Back before digital cameras I didn’t really know much about backlighting. The Guru has taught me to look for it….
…and four wine-ladies
Monday, 9 August 2010
Yesterday I gave you three tartlets; today, let me present four Ladies Libertés!
I love that the gown drapes outside of the label’s frame….
Once upon there was a trio of tartlets
Sunday, 8 August 2010
We enjoyed a celebratory dinner with family this evening. It was specially marked with these lovely tarts—strawberry/blueberry, fresh fig (yummmm!), and blueberry crumble.
I took “my” potato salad….
When the photo and my mind’s eye differ
Saturday, 7 August 2010
The Guru got me to switch from cropping and “improving” my photos in Photoshop to doing the few operations I use right in iPhoto—since, after all, that’s where the photos (mostly) are sitting to begin with. I find there are pros and cons to each program for the three or four variables I like to tweak (other than cropping—which is mediocre in this specimen).
Anyway, this is a slightly enhanced landscape from our tour down Skyline Drive last month. I try to avoid making photos too sharp and “over-correcting” flaws; I’m afraid, however, that my eye is changing in response to all the over-tweaked photos I see near-daily, and it’s a bit too-too. A bit. Well, I’m not going to redo it today!
Memory land
Friday, 6 August 2010
Eight years ago this day I was swanning around the Seney Refuge in my beloved Upper Peninsula. Today: plebian chores. But the fridge is full!
And the modified fried rice I concocted with all the veggies was outstanding!
Bits representing more than the surface info
Thursday, 5 August 2010
From the last twenty-four hours….
Forty US billionaires pledge half their fortunes to charity. (ME: Or they could lower prices. Better: AND….)
Meanwhile Chinese and Shanghi dollar millionaires seek to emigrate. (Often not to the USofA.)
Michelle Obama takes daughter Sasha to Spain, while the President is doing business in the Midwest. And Michelle will make an official visit to the King of Spain, too.
Kagan is confirmed. Yea!
Wyclef Jean announces plans to run for President of Haiti. He sees it as a calling. (Maybe not the best angle….)
That run-amok well is plugged. Ahem, static killed…jammed with mud. Now they’re squeezing it. That’s the terminology.
Russia’s crippling drought has brought about forest fires, now smoking Moscow. (Where the air was not-so-good before the fires.)
ME: The last two have crapped on our global carbon balance. The plugging and jamming take it in the right direction.
A Federal judge strikes down California ban on gay marriage; the ruling is officially being appealed (both in less than 24 hours).
So all that and more (no mention of Whoopi kerfuffle or Naomi testimony, you notice) is going on; me, I’m reading about Sicily and organized crime and the Mafia in the US, including Detroit. Then, to cap it off, I notice there’s a new movie “The Sicilian Girl” I should perhaps check out….
From Vermont, 1941
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
What’s with the pelican?
Obviously, there’s lots to look at in this September 1941 photograph from the Library of Congress collection taken by Jack Delano in Rutland, Vermont, but my eye returns to the pelican over and over.
Yeah, I get it; s/he traveled with the show, but still I find it confusing to see a pelican in inland New England….
What to eat?
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
I don’t know what to eat anymore.
We went to a new seafood restaurant around the corner that makes noises about how they’re doing the right thing with the ingredients they buy/serve.
Then I looked at this review, of a new book called Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food (Paul Greenberg, 2010, Penguin), which discusses current issues regarding bluefin tuna, cod, sea bass, and salmon (that is, overfishing and depopulation). (I’m on the hold list for a library copy.) I didn’t see cod or salmon on the restaurant’s chalkboard of specials. They served yellowfin, lobster, Apalachicola oysters, and, get this, the waiter went on about this Mediterranean fish they had had the previous week that was really good, and I swear what he called it was branzino, a term I’d never heard before. From the review, I learn that branzino is the northern Italian term for sea bass. Hrrumph. (Or maybe I misunderstood.)
Even sticking to beans and rice isn’t good. You don’t want to know about rice farming. Even if you buy organic, that doesn’t avoid the habitat destruction involved in field construction, etc.
Still, I very much enjoyed my meal. The gustatory part.
And, from our windowseat, we had wonderful bonus entertainment: watching the evening’s pop-up shower become a downpour. Twice.
Note: I LOVE scallops. I know how destructive it is to harvest them. I only indulge rarely. If I buy them for my kitchen, yes, I play the premium and get the more environmentally friendly diver scallops. I only buy them from restaurants that I expect are also using diver scallops. Like this one. (I hope.)
Get your seafood dos and don’ts here, including an iPhone app version.
Say isss-key-ah
Monday, 2 August 2010
Over on the west coast of Italy, closing in the northern arm of the Bay of Naples, are two islands. The one farther from the coast, but still not far out, is Ischia.
Off the northeast coast of Ischia is a remarkable island, now connected to Ischia by a causeway. The island’s about 200 m across, and quite tall. It’s topped by a castle, no surprise there (what a lovely and strategic place for a fortification!). Of course, the castle complex, in this Catholic land, includes several chapels. The island hosts thirteen churches.
I was quite tickled to see the shadow this little island casts on Google Maps’ satellite photo.
WikiPee says some scenes in the disturbing movie The Talented Mr. Ripley were shot here….