Musings

Name game

How many marketing whizzes does it take to come up with a silly name for a fruit with a blotchy rind?

Kinda sorta

Strawberries verge on the sacred around here. This is the sixth one I ate from today’s supermarket specimens. The interesting thing is the first five had little strawberry flavor (as is typical), but this one had enough that I could almost imagine it approached being sun-ripened.

Stylin’

Detroit style is what? Extra oily? Dunno. Is there Grand Rapids style, too?

Pre-mobilizing mobilizing

Tada. It’s May. That means we’ve begun the countdown to leaving to head north. Wooopeee.

And that means I’ve begun to amass necessities and other miscellaney that we take with us rather than buying up there. Specialty items, you might call them—flavors that aren’t for sale in Newberry or Manistique or even at Meijer further away.

BTW, that BBQ sauce is too sweet for me, but mixed about 50-50 with a sauce we can get up there, which is too vinegar-sharp: near perfection. Further BTW, I also make a fine BBQ sauce from scratch….

Eco-cycling

So, I made veggie Thai curry tonight, and trimmed it with basil…of course, from the plant that needed (shall we say) shaping. It’s the first garden output of 2026!

Unnatural baking

Think about the meaning of that line between Raspb… and Mous… Cak…. What other flavorings are there for this except raspberry? Not a selling point for me! Also, the first ingredient is “cake mix.” [Did not touch container; definitely did not purchase.]

Showy thistle

I do like the jagged edges and the silver tint of cardoon vegetation. Cardoons are Cynara cardunculus. Although today planted in this area as ornamentals, in colonial days they were planted for food…stems mostly I think, but perhaps also the buds.

Refresh(ing)

Proof I can get mandarins in focus. Yup, we got another bag today.

Tangy sweet

We’ve been mandarin-ing here. Mighty tasty!

Early spring diets

We went out to do an errand and discovered that a squirrel had been feeding on the camellia bud hearts above the car. Is that the floral equivalent of maple sap-syrup?