Musings

The other day I read that narwhals are excellent at finding cracks in the sea ice (breathing holes) and mapping their environment using echolocation. The part that stuck with me is that they use “phonic lips” to make the clicks and buzzes. Not sure if that’s a typo…phonic lips to make phonic blips?

I also read today that in Medieval Europe they seeded fields with both rye and wheat, and both the mixture and the flour/bread made from it were called maslin. Turns out the word is etymologically related to miscellany, and can also be used for a metal blend mimicking brass, so that there could be a maslin kettle. Chaucer spelled it maselyn. Note that I checked, and King Arthur doesn’t sell a maslin flour. You could make your own….

This program accepts phonic lips but wants maslin to be marlin. Not.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Do I read too much?

WF@WF. Yes, whole fishies at WhoolFoods (in the newly revealed remodeled WF in ATL Midtown…). Something like that.

That, and after eight out of the last nine days have had record-breaking highs. Sigh. Let’s move on. (I could have cranked the contrast, etc., but this is more similar to my eyes’ take on this ray of sunshine….)

Posted at 10:13 PM | Comments Off on Eyeballing…

I found these layers of shelf fungus on several sides of this stump. The breakdown organisms are busy turning the wood into soil.

For our special Friday-night dinner, we discovered wild-caught Georgia shrimp on sale. Did a simple sauté—yum. Did not include the shelf fungus in the dish….

Posted at 9:56 PM | Comments Off on Gathering…

Meet autumnal oregano.

And the white (not edible) ginger is in bloom.

And Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman)…superb B&W art chosen by The New Yorker for its cover.

Posted at 9:20 PM | Comments Off on Edible vs inedible

Our evening meal was centered around our imported food souvenir—a real Upper Peninsula pasty!

Posted at 7:16 PM | Comments Off on With salad

Tonight we dined on fresh applesauce, delivered still warm by chef Cousin M.

While she was here, we chatted for a bit on the front porch, nicely sun-warmed to the low 70s after a low this morning in the upper 30s (brr). I thought at first there had been no frost, but I did spot some on the roofs—but the field seemed untouched.

Posted at 7:11 PM | 1 Comment »

Early morning sun…has crested trees and is backlighting droplets on squirrel-cage hardware cloth, making them spherical diamonds. Photo doesn’t capture magic.

Late evening sun…shining upstream along the Manistique. Bubbles are natural foam from upstream cedar swamps (chemistry) plus rapids (to stir it up).

Between the two all kinds of things happened (as in rrrrrt (imagine turning wheel of vehicle), change of plans), including my Wally Dinner. I might have called it walleye. Definitely yummy.

Posted at 7:37 PM | 1 Comment »

I know these as non-spiny veggies (perhaps botanically fruits), but these spiny chayote emote “don’t touch me.” I sure wouldn’t. Internet recipes suggest boiling the whole spiny plant-porcupine, then peeling after the flesh becomes soft. I dunno.

With the non-spiny versions, funny thing, when you peel them, or just cube them, the flesh very slightly oozes a slightly slimy slippery substance. You really notice it if you don’t have a sink to wash up in.

Posted at 10:17 PM | 2 Comments »

Dreaming about chocolate…

…what I had to eat instead was (Napa*) cabbage.

Savoy photo for illustrative purposes only.

Posted at 9:16 PM | 4 Comments »

Since the quake in Italy, I’ve been thinking about the namesake dish of Amatrice, a pasta dish much discussed and without a specific recipe. From what I’ve read, the old country version had meat and cheese added, and that’s it. Sometime later tomatoes became part of the dish, for some people. There’s discussion of onion, garlic, and other flavor bits.

The meat, apparently, was an aged, flavored, pork cheek, called guanciale. I could find no guanciale, and had bacon already in the fridge…so, bacon. Some say substitute pancetta…. I still liked my bacon….

As you can see, my recipe does not match either the ancient or the later versions. I also added onion (yellow not red), a bit of garlic (a la Batali).

So—tasty, and not traditional….

Posted at 8:32 PM | Comments Off on VERY tasty