greenpixie

she bakes, she bakes

2012-01-29T16:02:00.002-05:00

More baking adventures. It appears that I have... well, not perfected, and not even mastered, but accomplished the art of a reasonable flatbread. First there was pizza dough, which I have made using Alton Brown's recipe (you may detect a theme here) and that has generally turned out. We've eaten a lot of pizza; each time I make the dough it gets better. So practice is clearly a component. Next up with pizza adventures: I'm going to try Alton's grilled flatbread pizza recipe. You know, because winter's such a great time for grilling.

I have also accomplished a reasonable facimile of a sort of mana'eesh, a Middle Eastern flatbread that is essentially a pizza with za'atar on it instead of tomato sauce and pepperoni. I'll make this one again, I think, and up the oven temperature from the 400 F the recipe called for; my mana'eesh didn't really brown, though they were quite tasty all the same. And very, very easy, except for the part where my pizza stone can only support two at a time.

also, za'atar is extremely delicious

Finally, today I accomplished homemade bagels. They're not beautiful, but wow are they tasty. I did them the traditional way, poaching them in boiling water with baking soda and malt syrup before baking. They weren't blatantly flavourful the way, say, a store-bought bagel is; they were better. The texture was flat-out awesome. They had a subtle flavour; something not quite sweet, not quite savoury. They were a fair bit of work; a pre-ferment, then mixing and kneading the dough, then another rise, then shaping them and leaving them in the fridge overnight, then poaching (which I could only do two at a time) and then baking (which I could only do four at a time.) And things are a little time-sensitive when it comes to the poaching-draining-baking thing, so I'm not sure I'll be doing much of them when I'm home alone with smallfry. But as a weekend baking activity I'll definitely pull this recipe out again. I may have been ruined by these bagels; I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to go back to store-bought.

Incidentally, for those looking for a good mana'eesh or bagel recipe, I got both from Daniel Leader's Simply Great Breads book. My current copy is the library's but I'm pretty sure I'll be buying one. The failed bialys were from this book too, so my record with it is not perfect, but there are at least two recipes there that worked out well, and several more that I'd like to try (cider doughnuts being first on the list.)

I just ate another half-bagel, just to confirm that they really are that tasty. So. Good.

turkey tracks

2012-01-21T20:28:00.002-05:00

Or I think they are.

Got out for a true winter walk today near my parents' house. They live across the road from a regional forest, and while it's perhaps not the most beautiful place in the world, it's familiar and a good snowfall, like the one we had last night, makes the whole place that much more lovely.

I quite enjoy poking around looking at tracks in the snow; aside from the usual people and dogs, today we had:

voles
deer mice
grey squirrels
red squirrels
red fox
turkeys I think

The turkey tracks are new for me. We haven't always had turkey in those woods, though they definitely are there now, and I was staring at the tracks wondering what bird could possibly be pottering around the wintery woods and leaving tracks like that. They were far too big to be grouse -- but once I had hit on grouse, the thought that they must be turkey hit not far behind. I wondered about a pheasant for a while, as those have been known to be there too, but... I am not sure. I am really leaning towards turkey. The toes seem a bit more splayed than pheasant toes apparently are.

The photos are taken with my dad's Blackberry, which I must say rather impressed me. We had it in case of smallfry meltdown; she has started making strange, so we left the house only when she was asleep and planned to return at speed if she woke up before we got back. She didn't.

We heard chickadees and a red-breasted nuthatch. Well, I am extrapolating a little here, as I'm good but I'm not good enough to tell red-breasted from white-breasted nuthatch songs in absense of both -- but white-breasted nuthatches are an exception there, where red-breasted are common as nails. Also had a pretty excellent look at a pair of golden-crowned kinglets.

All in all, a very pleasant saunter. If anyone thinks I've misidentified these tracks, drop me a comment. Otherwise I'll spend the rest of my life thinking they're turkey tracks.

teach a girl to bake

2012-01-14T10:21:00.000-05:00

I have a problem.

I am a compulsive follower of recipes. I cannot not follow a recipe. And I'm not very good at cooking if I don't have a recipe to follow. This makes me a rather poor cook, but a pretty decent baker. I like baking and baking is a precise art. It's not so precise that a little slip-up here or there can't be recovered from, but it's precise enough that one should have a recipe and one should follow it. Usually a followed recipe when baking means a reasonably delicious outcome.

Unless, I am learning, the baked good is yeast breads. There is magic to yeast breads, and I haven't quite mastered it yet. My suspicion is that the problem has to do with my blind recipe-following and the fact that I'm not entirely sure of the reasons behind the recipe.

Take, for example, these attempted bialys.

we both think they look like onion-topped nipples; the resemblance is disturbing

I followed the recipe exactly, including the careful pricking of the centres so that they wouldn't do exactly what they did. They taste fine, but the experience of eating them is somewhat less than satisfying.

The thing I am realizing is that I need a little more understanding of the science behind baking. Chemistry was not my favourite subject in university, to say the least, but this is chemistry I can eat. And when it's taught to me by people like Alton Brown on Good Eats, well, I can get in to chemistry. Once I learn a bit more about why yeast breads do the magical things they do, I think I can follow -- or adapt, or embellish -- recipes with more confidence.

Project FeederWatch and Battle of the Squirrels

2012-01-06T11:10:00.000-05:00

Bookwyrme (who has a fun spidery blog, btw) asks an excellent question: What is Project FeederWatch?

PFW is a citizen science program run jointly by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (when I was a kid, my dream workplace, until I realized I wasn't really cut out for either academia or emigrating) and Bird Studies Canada. For a small fee (which goes towards program upkeep) anyone with bird feeders can pick two days/week to identify and count the bird species and individuals that show up to eat, then report their findings. It runs from November - April every year. I've been wanting to participate since I was a kid. Now that I'm off for the winter and spend a lot of time nursing a baby, I figured I could do most of my nursing in front of the window and thus count birds while I do it.

So far it's been a lot of fun. I like counting things. I especially like reporting things I've counted and watching the statistics pile up. I have always kept half-assed track of the birds I see in the backyard, but it's interesting to keep a detailed record and see what's really going on.

Thus far this year I've seen ten species at the feeder during count days. I've actually seen thirteen, but none of the the white-throated sparrow, field sparrow, or my favourite red-breasted nuthatches have shown up on a count day so I can't report them (actually, all three disappeared right around the time the program started, perversely). Weekly we average about eight species and roughly twenty-three individuals. Juncos used to be the most numerous species, but they've really dropped over the past few weeks (this week I only saw three at one time) and goldfinches have picked up the slack, with a record nine individuals at one time yesterday. I have some regulars -- a trio of chickadees, a pair of cardinals, a downey woodpecker -- and some birds who I know are there but don't always show up on count days, like the white-breasted nuthatches and the blue jays.

The worst trouble I have is an escalating battle with the squirrels. On a bad day, the squirrels go through most of my seed and keep the birds away, and on a really bad day they can break feeders. The feeder in the foreground of the photo has been the most resilient -- the only feeder I've owned for more than three years that hasn't been busted by squirrels in one way or another. Last year's new, expensive feeder was broken and useless in a week. That was purchased after my "squirrel proof" feeder (which actually really was squirrel proof for most of the time it was up) finally bit it when they broke the roof to get in to the seed.

I don't dislike squirrels, exactly, destructive little bastards though they are. They're cute and fascinating to watch, and watching them trying to figure out the latest baffle system is really interesting. But I don't like that they fatten up on our seed while the birds, whom we buy the seed for, go hungry waiting for the squirrels to finish stuffing themselves.

Thus the escalation in tactics -- the suet feeder is benefitting from the latest baffle design, with a long chain covered by a PVC pipe on top of a Swiss Chalet take-out lid. The PVC is to prevent the squirrels from hanging on their hind feet on the chain, pulling the baffle up and snorfing down the suet by hunks. The feeder in the foreground will shortly benefit from the same treatment, though that won't stop the squirrels from leaping from the trellis onto the feeder from the side (this is truly amazing to watch). It's not about making the feeders completely squirrel proof, because I honestly don't believe there's such a thing. What we are trying to do is make the cost of getting the seed directly from the feeder higher than the cost of sitting under the feeders eating what falls when the birds eat. I'll let you know how that goes.

my annual blog entry

2012-01-03T15:01:00.004-05:00

Okay, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the fact that I have not done anything with this blog for over a year. Let's talk about the fact that apparently there is still a third entry about Panama coming (look, I promise nothing. It might show up, it might not. I've forgotten stuff, although lots of it is still pretty clear.)

The thing is, a lot has changed. I got comfortable in my new position at work. I had a baby (that was kind of a big thing.) I worked hard on the garden, which didn't make too much of a difference; fishy's done a bunch of renovations around the house, which has made a lot of difference, and lots of books got read and lots of birds got seen and a little bit of writing got done.

It's funny, because it doesn't feel like I've neglected this blog so totally. I still feel quite attached to it. So I think I will keep trying to update it, perhaps a bit more now that I'm home for a while. I'll keep using it for home and garden stuff; I'm doing Project FeederWatch this year, so we may hear some about that. I've got big plans for the garden (when do I not?) and I'm trying to be more faithful about uploading photos from my camera.

What this blog is not going to be is a "mommy blog." Nothing against them, and I'm sure things related to smallfry will show up every once in a while -- our first birding adventure, our first gardening adventure, that sort of thing -- but I don't feel the need to discuss everything, or really anything, about my daughter online. Suffice to say that being a mother is a hell of a lot of work, but it's also exceedingly fascinating and fun and getting more so; so I'll write about it sometimes but the focus is still going to be on my nature, gardening, cooking, and various attempts at crafting interests.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I hear the siren song of the naptime. Hopefully I'll be back here sometime before next January...

Panama Trip 2: The Canal

2010-12-15T08:25:00.000-05:00

Better late than never, right? At this rate, I'll get the third and final part of this recap up by September of next year.

Aaaanyway. After our four nights at Coral Lodge, it was time to head back to the city. For the first time since the night we arrived, it rained. The trip back took us along the coast by boat for 50 minutes or so to the Portobelo area, and then we hopped in a minibus and took the long trip along the canal back to Panama City and La Estancia, the bed and breakfast that was to be our base of operations for the rest of the trip.

Panoramic Panama is a tour agency that runs out of La Estancia, owned by the same people. So when we booked our room, we also booked two tours: a canal half-transit, and a birdwatching tour. In fact, when figuring out lodgings and so on, we arranged our trip around the canal transit, since they only happen on Saturdays, and it seemed somewhat ludicrous to go to Panama and not spend time on the Canal. Unfortunately, they only do full transits once a month, and the week we were there was not the full transit one. But that turns out to have been all right; the half-day trip was fascinating, and it left us time to visit Casco Viejo (old Panama City) in the evening and have our nicest dining experience of the trip.

But the Canal. Doing a half-transit allowed us to see some of the most interesting parts, go through a couple locks, and learn a rather insane number of statistics.

The day was somewhat rainy. The driver from La Estancia dropped us off at Isla Flamenco, one of the three islands connected by the Amador Causeway. From there, a bus took us to Gamboa, on the south shore of Lake Gatun, where we met our tour boat, the Pacific Queen. The tour guide spoke both English and Spanish, and kept up a running commentary throughout the trip.

Each ship that passes through the canal, be it our tiny tour boat Pacific Queen, a Panamax freighter, or a luxury yacht like the one above, has to pay a toll. The toll is determined by several factors, including what the cargo is; the largest toll ever paid was paid by a cruise ship, at over $417 000 for the full transit, as humans are considered the "most precious cargo." Most ships going through the canal, the big Panamax freighters, only pay around $100 000 per trip. This toll doesn't include incidental costs, such as the mandatory nanny tug or the mandatory canal pilot, who captains the ship for the duration of its trip through the canal. Even our little tour boat had a canal pilot.

We saw a couple of these creatures on the canal; I believe there are four in operation at all times. This barge drills holes in the bottom of the canal, which is hard-packed silt and rock. Once the holes are drilled, they're packed with explosives. The explosives are detonated and another giant machine comes in to dredge the canal bottom, to keep it deep enough for Panamax ships, and one assumes, eventually post-Panamax ships. The ship below is one of the dredgers, a little further down the canal:

So, all of this constructiony activity explains the muddy condition of the water, as does the fact that it's all freshwater constantly being stirred by enormous amounts of shipping traffic. It also explains why the corporation that owns the Canal charges so much for a transit; maintenance costs must be insane. Consider the amount of money just one of those drills or dredgers must cost, when something like the little locomotives that guide large ships through the locks cost over $2 million apiece.

Our little tour boat didn't need these locomotives, which are attached to ships by linesmen whose sole job it is to attach lines from big ships to the locomotives so that the ships don't bash the walls of the locks to pieces when entering, exiting, or sitting in the lock -- the tension has to be just right on each of the lines. I believe it also helps prevent the ships from running into the lock doors, though the doors we saw had dents in them. That was only the inner set, though, as all the locks have two sets. We didn't stand much of a chance of bashing the walls or the doors too badly, so the locomotives and the linesmen didn't bother with us.

The Panama Canal locks, when they were built in the early 1900s, were the first major structure to make use of the new building material concrete. Nothing on the scale of the Canal had ever been done, and engineers weren't sure how much concrete would be needed -- there's a lot of pressure on the middle wall when the lock on one side of the wall is full, and the other is empty. So they decided to play it safe, and the concrete wall separating the locks from each other is 50 feet thick. Which is massive.

Now, having spent some time in Thorold, living close enough to the Welland Canal to be able to see the lakers from the top of the hill on our street, the experience of going down the locks wasn't terribly novel for me. But the scale of these structures is something, and the amount of fresh water used every time the lock steps up or down a level is staggering. I was there, and I still couldn't really grasp the real, tangible amount. Luckily, Panama gets enough rainfall that they need to actually let it drain elsewhere, rather than jealously guard it to make sure that the Canal can keep running -- but they track their water usage very carefully, and we were lucky to not have to wait for a bunch of other smaller ships to join us in the locks.

The little boat behind us was the Isla Morada, the oldest continuously-running ship on the Canal. Apparently possibly owned by Al Capone at one point, currently used for ferrying tourists like us up and down the Panama Canal. It was a rather pretty little wooden boat. Behind the Isla Morada you can just see the bridge of a Panamax ship going the other direction, up a level as we were going down.

The shipyard in Panama City at the mouth of the Canal is huge. One thing I thought was pretty cool was that when the Canal was built, each lock could hold six of the largest ocean-faring ships at a time. Currently, about 20% of the world's shipping fleet is too large to fit in these locks. They're building a whole new set parallel to the current system.

Shipping companies can get around the Canal by offloading the cargo that needs to go through the Canal at either mouth, transferring it to the Panama Canal Company's dedicated railway, and picking it up with another ship at the other end. The equipment at this transfer point is pretty impressive and astonishing in its scale, too. There is so. much. stuff. in those containers. From all over the world.

Upon ending our transit, our canal pilot left via launch pulling itself alongside our tour boat (the leap from one to the other was a crowd-pleaser; everyone applauded), and we made our way back to harbour, then back to La Estancia.

From there we took a cab to the old city, of which we unfortunately have no photos; we didn't feel like taking the camera and being singled out as tourists, though I'm sure my perpetual trying-to-understand-Spanish-without-its-"s"s squint was a bit of a giveaway. We ended up at a lovely little restaurant called Ego on one of the squares, where we ate waaaay too much food and drank at least a little too much sangria, and felt very provincial and sophisticated sitting outside in the warm Panama evening. It was lovely, and I wish I'd gotten up the energy and courage to do it again, though we only had one more night left.

If you're curious about the canal, the Canal Authority's website is pretty good, and there are even real-time webcams trained on the locks. We waved at them when we were going through the Miraflores locks.

Next: La Estancia, birdwatching, and a final walk. Coming sometime in the new year, I swear.

this is what became of the single, tiny pumpkin i grew this year

2010-11-01T09:19:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone had a happy Hallowe'en!

Panama Trip 1: Coral Lodge

2010-10-11T09:01:00.017-04:00

We started talking about this trip six months ago. The idea was to try to combine our love of complete relaxation and lying on the beach with a book, and our love of birdwatching. At this time of year, birdwatching is fine in Canada, but the beach-reading, not so much, so we figured we'd have to go elsewhere.

I was inspired to investigate Panama as an option by Birdchick, who spent time at the absolutely incredible Canopy Tower, the premiere birding ecolodge in Panama. Her photographs, plus her enthusiastic commentary on how awesome her trip was, convinced me I had to check it out. Unfortunately, there was a stumbling block: being an old US Army radar tower mostly made out of metal, Canopy Tower isn't so much on the relaxing privacy. It's more on the "you will need earplugs to sleep at night and the howler monkeys start at 5am" side of the spectrum. Someday we may still go, but it wasn't quite what we needed right now. So, we started widening the field.

Our first four nights of the week were spent at Coral Lodge, a very remote little ecolodge at the north end of Panama, along the Caribbean. Remote means a 2.5 hour drive and 45 minute boat ride to and from the place. It's right on the very edge, on the Panama side, of Comarca Kuna Yala, which is essentially a separate nation run by the indigenous Kuna people. There's not a lot around, and the lodge itself is pretty tiny. Because of its remoteness and tininess, the new owners are having to do a fair bit of work to make it economically sustainable, including adding more rooms. Right now there are only six.

But they are awesome.

And as advertised, the coral is also awesome. We did a lot of swimming and snorkling. There were sea turtles, stingrays, puffer fish, young barraccuda, lionfish (a long way away -- they're gorgeous, and exceedingly poisonous) and many, many, many gorgeous reef fish of all sizes and colours, right off our own little deck. The water was generally quite clear, though less so when things were windy. But I expect the diving here is spectacular, though I am too claustrophobic to try.

We went for a rainforest walk that ended with fresh coconut right off the tree. AND we saw monkeys! My first time ever seeing them in the wild. They're pretty darn charming, howler monkeys, even at 5:30am when they're booming away. The ones we saw were pretty high, so there was no way to get a good photo. So instead, me on the beach with my coconut, gazing out at a trio of whimbrels.

The food was very good, and service very attentive. The weather was absolutely stunning, with most of the time as you see above; it was raining just a little bit as we left. Not bad for the rainy season. As one of only two couples there, we did feel a little exposed at times. And there were fewer birds than we might have expected, although we picked up about 40 species between the airport, lodge, and our return to Panama City. Overall, it was a really lovely start to our trip.

summer, anyone?

2010-04-04T15:35:00.002-04:00

If you're anywhere in the northeastern States or Southern Ontario, you're almost certainly experiencing one heck of a nice holiday weekend. I cannot believe the weather we're having. It feels slightly wrong, even -- temperatures in the high twenties, gorgeous sun, and it's not even close to May yet. I recall snowstorms on the Victoria Day weekend in May, and I'm not old enough to be saying that sort of thing yet. Cold, wet, unpredictable springs are more the norm here than gorgeous, sunny, dry ones.

But I've been taking advantage. The raised bed is ready for its plants, and I intend to put the first round of beets and lettuce in tomorrow. I've planted the peas. I have no idea what is going to happen with the peas, because everything I've seen about planting peas suggests different things. Soak them, don't soak them. Plant them in dry soil. Plant them in moist soil. Plant them early. Plant them just before the last frost date. The only thing people seem to agree on is that peas are cool-weather crops -- but just what that means, they can't agree on.

Whatever. I had no luck with peas last year, period. I have planted 10 pea seeds, and I'm hoping for at least three plants. They're all sugar snaps and I'm really looking forward to snacking on them. We've been trying to cultivate a habit of eating veggies for snacks.

We're attempting a new method of mulching this year, involving newspaper covered in natural cedar mulch around the flower beds. The weather's caused the weeds to go nuts already, although there is this year a corresponding amount of nuttiness from the rest of the plants. When it cools off later this week (frost, even!) there's going to be some frantic running around covering things, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the sunroom there are little basil plants and little tomato plants making themselves happy. The tomatoes are even growing their first set of true leaves. It looks, however, like I'm going to have to purchase pepper plants this year -- the peppers I started over a month ago have yet to germinate.

But, having seen a phoebe in the backyard this afternoon, I will not complain about recalcitrant peppers; I am very, very glad it is spring.

Trail, Gayla. You grow girl. Simon & Schuster: 2005.

2010-03-07T11:04:00.002-05:00

This gorgeous weather we've been having is going to spawn a spate of reviews of gardening and/or garden-related books. Just a forewarning. The first of the onslaught is Gayla Trail's You Grow Girl, which is named after her blog. Good stuff on that blog, if you're interested in all things gardening, including her personal journey to/through gardening.

feeling passionate about pruning

2010-03-05T12:17:00.002-05:00

I've caught garden fever good. It is March 5th. There is still significant snow on all the garden beds (and good -- I don't want anyone getting themselves frozen). And I am sitting here fantasizing about pruning. I don't even like pruning.

This year I really should prune the clematis at the side of the house. It's getting a little wild and a lot too big. Now, I could probably just add to the trellis -- the little white clematis, whatever the heck it is, would like that because it's heading its way up there anyways. The big pink one would probably appreciate having a little more space down lower to do its thing. The clematis out there was one of the success stories of my garden last year, one of the few. It just bloomed and bloomed and looked lovely, even when it was flopping over to take over the driveway.

I'm scared to prune it because I don't want to hurt it. But I think it's got to be done. There's dead wood in there, and if it was starting to get unruly last year it's definitely going to be unmanageable this year.

And then there's the forsythia. It's a monster in the back yard, this forsythia. I have slowly come to the conclusion that no matter what we do it will grow back. So all the old stems are going this year. We'll leave last year's new stems, and maybe a few from the year before. But everything else is getting pulled. The old 1/3 rule, but even more ruthless than I've ever been with a shrub. Then perhaps I will be able to see the campanula and the ferns and the phlox without having my eye poked out.

The dogwood, planted two springs ago, which came down from Ottawa with me when I returned home, needs tidying. It did super-well last year, so I'm going to hack it back into a nicer shape. I'll be much more gentle with it than I will be with the forsythia; it's not overgrowing its welcome. But the younger shoots are the reddest shoots, and so a little gentle pruning right about now should be good.

The rose in the front is getting transplanted this year. I've been saying that for years, but this time I really mean it. But first it will have to be chopped back to something I can actually move. And I need to clear a place for it. (Getting rid of some daylilies, they're overgrowing their welcome, too, along with the forsythia.) I will try to move the rose as soon as the ground is unfrozen. I have tried to kill this rose for three years now, and it's not dying, so I suspect it will handle my abusive transplantation.

There's a pair of wigelia, one of which seems to ignore everything and just does its thing, and another which seems to ignore everything and looks pathetic all the time. Sadly, the one I like is the pathetic one. I need to do a good trimming of it this year, just after it blooms. The other one could probably use a bit of a whack-back, too.

Oh, and the raspberries. I need to get armed with heavy leather gloves (and probably a jacket and a neck-protector, frankly) and some hefty shears and go after those as soon as they start to leaf out. They are out of control. And vicious.

And then there's the spirea in the front which I hate but haven't gotten rid of yet, and it's not just out of control, it's so ugly it makes me cross-eyed each time I look at it. Except when it blooms. And its little leaves are rather attractive. I might be convinced to keep it, but I can't let it go another year without hacking it all the way back, digging out its vicious little suckers, and probably digging out at least half of it. Which I'm sure the periwinkle will thank me for, grr.

Oh, and while we're speaking of the front, I think I've maybe let the sandcherry go on too long without pruning. That I'll do after it flowers.

Um. I think I've maybe got my hands full. This weekend I'm taking some flagging tape out there to decorate the branches that will have to go. The upside of my pruning enthusiasm? I now actually want to take the compost out so that I can go and inspect the shrubs without their leaves.

not dead yet!

2010-02-24T15:34:00.003-05:00

*pokes a little at the blog*

Oooh, it is still alive!

Okay, so yes. If you follow this blog and not my other, you can be forgiven for thinking I might be dead. The truth is, I have been hibernating a bit this winter as far as birdwatching and gardening sorts of things go. I have been cooking a little bit, but there hasn't been anything newsworthy (other than my decision, based on one mostly successful experiment, that the slow cooker is probably the way to go ALWAYS). I haven't even really been reading much that would be relevant here, although I should report that I am in love with Lucy Waverman's new cookbook, A Year in Lucy's Kitchen. I have not yet tried a recipe by her that hasn't turned out, even the ones that are a little tricky.

But we are closing in on the end of February, and my little calendar is telling me that this weekend is the time to plant my hot peppers. We had a day last week that even smelled a little bit like spring. Then we had a snowstorm, but I am watching the buckets of snow melting in a steady drip out the window right now. In a couple of weeks no doubt the Dutch iris will be peeking up, and the snowdrops. I will be able to find out if my new redbud and the two-year-old Kentucky coffee tree made it through the winter. Two and a half weeks from now I'll be looking at planting tomatoes and basil. We have a new wheelbarrow, lots of mulch waiting, and I have plans starting to take shape in my head. Bring it on, March!

condiment experiment: Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2009-09-10T09:09:00.005-04:00

Last night I attempted a couple of recipes in my new, beautiful cookbook (it's more of a coffee table book, really, so pretty and unweildy) Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I made three condiment sauces to go along with fishy's [superdelicious] chicken curry. There were two hits and one miss. The hits were lovely. The miss was... spectacular.

I did the Hot Sweet Date-Onion Chutney and the Fresh Coriander-Peanut Chutney, both from page 28, and then the Mint Sambol from page 32.

The chutneys were lovely, and I can see the date chutney becoming a favourite. It is indeed sweet, and it has a lovely hot kick that's not painful; very pleasant. The cooked onions give the whole thing a very roasty, tasty flavour, cooked as they were in sesame oil. I was a bit concerned that the sesame oil might be too strongly flavoured, but I think it was perfect. Given the few ingredients and the simplicity of it, I'm really impressed with the complexity of the flavours. Makes a nice dip, and I think would also be really good with samosas or veggie pakora.

The cilantro chutney was really nice paired with the curry because it has a very fresh, tangy zip that cuts through the richness and spice of a curry. We couldn't find cayennes or serranos, so we made it with jalapenos. It worked out fine, but I'd definitely be interested in testing out other types of peppers in that recipe.

And then there was the mint sambol. I did this is with the mortar and pestle, which in itself is a fair bit of work. Which would have been fine if it had turned out.

I don't know what I did. I thought I'd followed the recipe (except for the hot pepper types, again) but the resulting dish was so unbelievably salty it was inedible. I don't know if I didn't have enough mint, or enough lime juice, or if the difference in the pepper types would have solved the problem, but fishy and I each tasted it (him despite my dire warnings that his arteries would immediately solidify into solid columns of salt) and then we threw out the rest. I really liked the idea of the mint sambol, so it was definitely disappointing. And unpleasant.

However, I'm certainly going to keep trying recipes from this book. There's another sambol mentioned, spicy and sweet, that I might attempt next, keeping a close eye on the amount of salt I use, of course.

Hot Sweet Date-Onion Chutney
pg. 28 of Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

3 dried red chiles, stemmed
2 tablespoons raw sesame oil, or vegetable oil, or ghee
1 large white onion (about 1/2 pound), coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 cup chopped pitted dates

"Put the chiles in a small bowl, add 1 cup hot water, and set aside to soak for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wok or karhai (see Glossary) or a wide heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and salt and cook until the onion is well touched with brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

"Drain the chiles, place them in a food processor, add the chopped dates, and process for 30 seconds to finely chop. Add the onion mixture and process for about 15 seconds to chop and blend the ingredients. Alternatively, place the drained chiles on a flaat stone mortar and grind to a paste with the pestle, add the dates and grind, and finally, add the cooked onion mixture and coarsely grind, leaving some small chunks.

"Taste the chutney for salt, and adjust if necessary. Serve in a condiment dish. (Store leftovers in a well-sealed glass jar in the refridgerator for up to several weeks). Makes 1 cup; serves 6."

For more recipes and commentary on the above recipe (or to see the Glossary) please check out the cookbook! Especially recommended for food culture junkies and food p**n addicts like me.

my favourite scavengers: blogging for vultures

2009-09-05T07:38:00.006-04:00

I had no idea that today was International Vulture Awareness Day until yesterday, when posts and tweets started cropping up. To be honest, I had no idea it existed at all. But I thought, why not? These poor maligned creatures need some love, and I'm happy to join in the chorus of people who want to raise the profile of this unique group of birds, which contains several species around the world. I've always been rather fond of them, and I'm glad to note that there's an entire community of people out there who are just as if not more fond of them than I.

Vultures are possibly so maligned because they eat carrion, and are therefore reviled with the same strength that other carrion eaters (ie. crows) tend to be. But that's ridiculous. If we didn't have vultures we'd be up to our necks in rotting roadkill, and I, for one, am grateful that someone will eat that stuff. They're an integral part of the world's ecosystems and they are often completely overlooked if not outright discriminated against. The major issue that is being raised by IVAD today is the plight of vultures in Asia, which are being poisoned by the vetrinary drug Diclofenac, which is used to treat cattle -- if the cattle die in the fields, the vultures eat them (as they are wont to do) but the drug builds up in the vulture's system and eventually causes death.

Here in Canada we have one regularly occurring species, the turkey vulture. We also occasionally get black vultures popping up as far north as Point Pelee, or Toronto -- but that's a rarity and excuse for celebration and frantic scrabbling among Ontarian twitchers. We're lucky (and the vultures are lucky) because turkey vultures are doing quite well here, even expanding their range further into Canada.

Turkey vultures were one of the very first birds that I was able to reliably recognize, and so even if I didn't think they were cool, I would love them just for that. I also find them to be one of the easier birds to help kids identify. Turkey vultures make a "v" with their wings when they're soaring: "v" for vulture. Big and black, hardly ever flapping, with silvery primaries and a bald red head. A lot of people think they're ugly, but I think they have a wonderful if unique beauty about them. Their little nekkid heads with their big eyes are quite compelling.

I'm told, by people who will know, that turkey vultures are one of the brighter species of large birds and we can tell this because they are social creatures. They like to hang out with other vultures. One of the coolest things I've ever seen was a group of turkey vultures hiding from a rainstorm underneath the awning of a little hydro building out in the middle of a field. They were all hunched over, and clearly vying for the best and driest spots. I'm also told that turkey vultures are exceedingly tidy birds, very vain, constantly preening. Which is counterintuitive for a lot of people, given the vulture's diet.

Other cool turkey vulture facts:

they are one of the very few birds with a sense of smell, and it's quite acute in the area of rotting meat
their head is "bald" (actually, turkey vultures have a very fine downy layer over their heads, nearly impossible to see unless very close to them) because vultures like to get their heads right into their meals, and feathers would a) get in the way and b) get stinky and likely full of germs and parasites
they are related to herons
they migrate, but are one of the first birds back here in Ontario in the spring, and one of the later ones to leave

I'd love to meet a turkey vulture some day. We've attempted to see them closer once, by throwing a raw hamburger on the lawn at the cottage just to see if the vultures circling over would come down to investigate. I think the hamburger was too fresh, though, although it had gone off by our standards. Or perhaps there wasn't enough hamburger. Vultures are big birds. Um. So, yes. There's your weird fact about me for the day: I tried unsuccessfully to set up a vulture feeder.

Spread the vulture love, everyone, and happy International Vulture Awareness Day!

Other people I follow who love vultures around the world:
Steve Creek
bogbumper
Bird Canada
Behind the Bins
Birdorable

Curried Potatoes

2009-08-18T12:06:00.006-04:00

This recipe is particularly delicious at this time of year through early fall, when there are fresh potatoes and fresh hot peppers to be found, but it's good at any time. I can't remember what book I got the inspiration from, but I've been making this dish since before I moved out of my parents' house. It was a standard at university, and it continues to be my favourite way to eat potatoes. I'm including some standard measurements, but I'm pretty lackadaisical when it comes to adding ingredients. It changes every time. I've been very specific about the slicing of the jalapenos because this way they add the best texture, but the jalapenos are optional if you're not a fan, as is the coriander. The lemon juice, by the way, makes the whole dish. It really brings out all the other flavours. So while many of the other ingredients are fungible, the lemon juice really isn't.

I cook this dish in our wok, which is big enough for vigorous stirring and transfers heat very nicely, but a good big frying pan does the trick too.

Curried Potatoes

4-6 potatoes (I prefer russets, but any boiling potato will do)
1/3 cup oil
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
a few curry leaves (or 1/4 tsp. curry powder and pinch turmeric for Very Yellow Colour)
1-2 jalapeno peppers, sliced lengthwise in eighths and then sliced crossways in 3mm chunks
1 tbsp. ketchup
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. chile powder
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
lemon juice
chopped fresh coriander

Cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes, leaving the skins on (they're delicious in this dish), boil until tender, and drain well.

While potatoes are draining, heat the oil over medium heat. Add mustard seed, curry, jalapenos, ketchup, salt, chile powder, and cumin. Sautee for 1 minute or until spices are fragrant. Be careful not to overcook/burn the spices. 1 minute is really all it takes.

Add the potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add lemon juice to taste (I wouldn't go higher than 1 tbsp. to start), stir until well combined. Add coriander to taste, stir and serve.

Makes 3-6 servings, depending on how hungry people are, and stores well in the fridge for next-day reheated leftovers. Some people might suggest this is only a side (ie., we had this with hamburgers last night) but they would be wrong. This was my full lunch today and it was perfection.

progress update: bad news, good news

2009-07-25T08:02:00.002-04:00

All right. The morning rounds in the garden provided me some good news, and some bad news. Let's get to the bad news first.

SOMEBODY HAS EATEN MY 'PATIO PICKLE' CUCUMBER PLANTS.

I don't know who you are, but they were just finally blooming and maybe going to give me some pickling cukes. Oh, the blossoms are still left. BUT NO LEAVES. There were leaves yesterday. There were lots of leaves yesterday. There are NONE this morning. Mystery animal that eats cucumber plant leaves, you are on notice. If I find you, you will be sorry. I have the feeling you are not sorry now.

Also, my tomatoes seem to be taking this cold, wet weather particularly hard, and don't even get me started on the single pepper plant that has managed to make it out of seedlinghood. It seems to have stalled just past that stage.

Good news, though!

I am going to have more tomatillos than I know what to do with. And the beans are growing! I may even have a few to take with me for lunch today. And the pumpkins! I'm going to have pumpkins, even with this bizarre weather. The pumpkin plants are going nuts, and there are two healthy looking pumpkins so far, and tonnes of blossoms. The buttercup squash seems less enthusiastic, but it's still trucking along. I noticed two honeybees doing their thing in the flowers this morning, and it was fun to watch.

squash blossom

2009-07-09T08:31:00.005-04:00

I was doing the morning rounds in the garden -- I tend to do this while my tea is steeping, before I come up here to the computer to check email -- and discovered that the squash has started to bloom. It's a perfect blossom, bright yellow, and unexpected. I thought I might expect blossoms this weekend, not as early as today.

If I had to pick a favourite plant for the vegetable garden, it might be squash. I love tomatoes, and always feel good about my herbs and the garlic. But it's squash that has a special place in my heart. It's the treasure hunt. I love the great, curly, crazy vines, and the hidden little squash plants at the base of the flowers; I love watching them grow over the course of the summer from flower to itty bitty squash to full-blown-keep-me-in-the-cold-cellar-for-the-winter big squashes. This is the first time since I was a kid that I've grown squash in my own garden, and I am absolutely thrilled with it.

mulchy dilemma

2009-07-01T13:40:00.003-04:00

In preparation for a wedding shower to be hosted here this Saturday, we've been working on the garden. It has just occurred to me that I should have taken before-and-after shots; maybe I'll do that for the front yard, despite the embarrassment of the before shots. Guys, our garden is big. It's really big. And when you get lackadaisical about mulching, like we have been for the past two years, the weeding is... challenging. Daunting, even.

We've done the first pass on everything in the back yard, and a couple of the beds (the one around the oak tree, the middle bed, the small bed at the entrance to the yard) are shower-ready. The rest needs another go-over. This is most of it, by the way. Luckily, I have cousins coming to help tomorrow morning, for which they will be both paid in cash and paid in strawberry shortcake. Because it will be a huge help.

My problem with mulching is that I have to get the mulch. I have to either purchase it, which can get very expensive for the number of beds we have, or I have to get it from the landfill, which gives mulch away for free, but you have to shovel it. Also, there's not much left at this time of year. And I would need containers for it -- and two years ago we had containers. I had five large Rubbermaid containers full, and that still wasn't enough to cover the gardens, and that is two trips in the car to the landfill, besides. Thus you can also see the problem with producing enough compost ourselves to mulch, although fishy's gone a long way to helping that with the creation of a 4'x4'x4' yardwaste cage in the back yard, which is currently full to the top of weeds (and likely weed seed, sigh.)

And I know that mulching is better for the garden. I know the plants could use the nutrients provided by a good compost mulch. We did purchase mushroom compost for the garlic bed, which I'll be putting out tomorrow with the small helpers. But what's a girl to do? Every garden magazine and book talks about the benefits of mulch to the plants, for weed suppression, for wildlife; but I just can't get enough. I guess we'll either have to suck it up and purchase, or make several trips to the landfill, or be more serious about composting, or something. Or maybe just fill in parts of the beds with big stones, which is a hell of a mulch. Or someone could tell me how to make proper leaf mold, which I haven't yet been able to do.

Lovejoy, Sharon. A blessing of toads. Hearst: 2007.

2009-06-28T15:17:00.004-04:00

Over on the book blog, I review garden columnist and lecturer Sharon Lovejoy's book A Blessing of Toads. This book's a great one to read when I need to be reminded to relax in the garden, and take time to watch. She makes a great argument for it. As well, she provides numerous fascinating tips on attracting wildlife to the garden, with practical, easy-to-follow advice. She gardens in both California and Maine, so some of her California stuff is less applicable to us northern gardeners, but anything from Maine is very applicable here. Recommended!

summer birds in the backyard

2009-06-24T18:43:00.003-04:00

I stepped out to read in the backyard -- I've been trying to do this more, because what's the point of having an amazing garden if I can't enjoy it? -- and immediately stopped to watch one of our young robins going to town in the bird bath. I have never seen a robin clean himself (herself?) more thoroughly than this one. Then he stopped to preen, and I swear he was at it for three minutes while I stood perfectly still so as not to disturb him. There's something wonderful about that kind of spontaneity in a wild animal -- that bird was definitely enjoying himself.

Then I sat down on the steps, and less than ten minutes later an unfamiliar commotion caused me to look up again (I think I've figured out why my reading pace has slowed significantly in the past couple weeks). This time it was the downy woodpecker, landing on our oak tree. I was pleased -- haven't seen them since early spring -- and then a second swooped in after her. They were clearly gleaning something off the oak; I hope they keep coming back, too, for whatever they were eating.

Even better, though, every once in a while, the female would make a peculiar noise, and the other would come in from whatever branch he (she?) was working on, and open his mouth to be fed. The young wasn't begging for food -- the mother was calling him over to feed him. Or at least, that's how I interpreted that particular interaction. After feeding, the young one would fly back to where he had left off and keep working away at whatever he was trying to eat.

Other birds in the back yard this week have included:

a nighthawk soaring over (hooray! first one of the season for me, I've been waiting),
the ubiquitous chimney swifts,
a very, very territorial cardinal (he never stops singing),
young crows begging their parents for food,
chickadees for the first time in weeks,
goldfinches,
house finches,
grackles,
starlings and English sparrows,
and a long-winded red-eyed vireo.

If we widen our net to the entire neighbourhood, my neighbour and I saw a great-blue heron land on the roof of the church at the end of the street when we were coming home from a walk the other day; on that walk were also pewees and indigo buntings, over in the local park.

Especially now that things are starting to cool down a bit, it's getting noisy out there again. It was so hot today, the middle of the day was pretty devoid of birdsong. I'm going to go out and fill up the bird bath again in a few minutes, because I'm pretty sure that robin used up more than his fair share.

progress update: a little bit of everything

2009-06-19T09:53:00.009-04:00

Hello, green blog. It appears I have been neglecting you something awful lately. It's not because nothing is happening in the garden -- it's because there's too much and when it's a choice between weeding or writing, I'll be weeding every time.

Today I'm trying to figure out how best to deal with the basket-of-gold (Alyssum saxatile) in the front garden. It's nearly done blooming and I know from experience that it looks like hell if I don't clean it up, but I don't want to damage the plant because it really does wonderfully. I don't know that I have any pictures of it blooming -- I'll have to get some next year -- but it's been absolutely spectacular every year, no matter the weather. Everything I've seen suggests pruning back hard after flowering -- cutting back 3 inches of growth -- so I think I'll try that this year and see how it goes. I do worry that though they seem to like the neglect, they might get sick of it after three years and up and die on me at any time now.

My other major garden task for today is compost maintenance. I tried to do it last week and it poured all day Thursday, so today looks good. The vermicomposter is going to be emptied entirely, and about 2/3 of the worms placed in new homes in the various compost piles. The rest will get new bedding in the vermicomposter, and "fresh" food from the veggie crisper in the fridge (yum!) and then hopefully they'll be good for another year. The castings I'm going to use in some of the house plants, but most of it will go into the composter to enrich the compost there. Castings dry out into extremely hard pellets, so they don't make great mulch. I don't think.

The other composters need to be turned, and I'm hoping that some of the leaf mulch from the new yard waste bin is going to be ready for mulching the garlic bed, which will be another plan for today if it is ready. Um, and re-potting tomatoes into their big containers. If I can find the soil. And transplanting the asters. And the pepper.

And since I've been saying I'll post photos of the square foot bed (which is really working very well so far):

drowning in the purple sea

2009-05-30T20:17:00.007-04:00

Hooray for rain! It has done wonders for the garden. And the weeds, but nevermind. I had a bean plant sprout and grow two inches in less than two days! And the beets are all up. The squash and pumpkins, cucumbers... everything except the fennel and the brussels sprouts are up and happy. I am assuming neither the fennel nor the brussels sprouts are unhappy, just not up yet.

fishy and I spent part of this afternoon drifting around one of our local nurseries, picking up plants for the garden. We decided on a plan for the front boxes, and picked up two more (different) hostas, some 'May Night' salvia, an interesting little perennial ornamental grass, a few more herbs, marigolds for around the square foot bed, creeping thyme for around the front flagstones, a lovely yellow potentilla shrub, and four foxglove plants. I managed to plant the grass and the foxgloves before the thunderstorm hit, so they're in and well watered now. Everything else will be fine for a day or three as we get organized.

(also: unuseable as cut flowers because they smell just awful)

We're hosting a shower here in about five weeks, is the thing. And I am feeling a little nervous about that. I don't mind people we know well coming in and seeing that the garden is pretty okay, but that some of the beds desperately need weeding and renovation. I do mind a whole enormous group of people I don't know coming in and having a garden party in the garden, in the state it is now. The major problem, I think, aside from the weeds (yes yes) are the giant alliums, which are growing dangerously close to the "weed" category in my books. They are bloody everywhere, including many places they shouldn't be. They are taking over. I am on the warpath. I pulled up a bunch today and I'll do more tomorrow, too. I'm not sure where they should be, or how to use them effectively. Right now I'd be happy to never see another one, I'm that sick of them, although they are really quite striking and take no care whatsoever. They thrive on neglect... which should be just my kind of plant.

a perfect garden morning

2009-05-20T11:32:00.005-04:00

It has been a morning of puttering in the garden and I could not be happier. The morning started with me tearing inside so I could grab my binoculars... a new species for the backyard was in range! And he's stayed around all morning, too: a beautiful black-throated blue warbler. In addition, I've heard a redstart singing, a wood thrush, a red-eyed vireo, and chimney swifts, a house finch using the bird bath, as well as the regular cardinal and robin.

And the robin! This year we have a nest tucked on the eavestrough of the garage. And this morning, for the first time, I saw someone other than mom moving in the nest. I am desperately hoping that she can fledge a few, despite the coons and the squirrels and the crow who caused a hella commotion this morning. I wandered over there to make him think twice about nest robbing, but the neighbourhood birds were doing a pretty good job of it without me.

I've planted strawberries, beans, dill and cucumbers this morning, and replanted some beets and chervil that got dug up by squirrels. Yesterday afternoon I planted the squash and the pumpkins. The strawberries, cucumbers, squash and pumpkins are all a bit of a gamble, since they're hot-weather plants, but the next week is supposed to be really warm and then we're getting into acceptable planting time anyways. If we have a cold snap and I don't cover things in time, I'll just plant them again. I have lots of seeds. Well, except for the strawberries.

The tomatoes are just about ready to be transplanted to their big home containers, and the tomatillos are soon ready to go into the square-foot bed. The ground cherries got repotted this morning, as did the artichoke. The basil and peppers are being really slow again, but with the hot weather coming (it's supposed to be up to 27 C today, and 29 C tomorrow) I think they'll take off.

I can't think of a better way to spend a beautiful sunny morning. I'm inside now to avoid the heat of the day, but I know I won't be able to stay inside for long on a day like this. I might even just sit in a lawnchair and do all my necessary computing outside on the laptop in the shade...

Point Pelee and Rondeau 2009

2009-05-10T17:41:00.004-04:00

I twittered the experience, which was an interesting exercise. I'm likely to do the same this coming weekend, when the Family Birding Extravaganza comes around again. But we are now back from our annual trip to Point Pelee and Rondeau, and I have lots to report.

First of all, the lifer: I can now confidently add Cerulean Warbler (Dendroica cerulea) to my life list, as I saw a male not once but twice, in two different parks, on this trip. In fact, we saw the most warblers we have ever seen, including a Blue-Winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus) and a couple of wonderful looks at a Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea), always lovely. The warblers were everywhere. So, despite my initial concern at their seeming absence, were the thrushes -- Wood, Hermit and Swainson's, not to mention Veerys and ubiquitous American Robins. The Solitary (or Blue-Headed, depending on who you talk to) Vireos were always somewhere to be seen, and they're one of my favourites. There were Northern Orioles and Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks every time we turned around. There were swallows (every conceivable species except Cliff) and grackles. There were all sorts of woodpeckers, although the most glaring hole on our list was the missing Hairy Woodpecker -- there was not one to be seen.

There were a couple awesome looks at Wild Turkeys, including a big, beautiful (or so ugly, yet regal, that he was beautiful) male walking leisurely by the road at Point Pelee. We also had a chance sighting of a flock of Sandhill Cranes coming in to land while we were at the point. I'm sure it was my imagination, but they looked tired to me. That's a lot of gangly leg and neck to hold aloft across a Great Lake.

We had a really, really lovely trip. I'm very tired now, with a serious case of warbler neck from staring up into the canopy and snapping my head around everytime something flicked in the corner of my eye. My problem here is going to be that this year's trip is going to be hard to top, with our highest-ever total of 114 species for the four days. Luckily we didn't see the Yellow-Breasted Chat reported to be in a couple of the areas we were hiking in, which means he can be my target species for next year...

Friday Photo, and 100 posts!

2009-05-01T19:33:00.005-04:00

Just sayin'. The fact that I've managed to keep this blog going impresses even me. Actually, I'm pretty easily impressed, but still. I am really pleased with the fact that I've really started keeping up the entries again. We'll see how it gets once I'm into the busy summer season again, but I'm feeling pretty good.

For today's photo, a pretty little moss having a party on the back lawn:

I am not one of those people who thinks a lawn should be perfectly even grass. The back of the lawn is more of a meadow, really. This moss is entirely welcome to stay.

first warbler of 2009!

2009-04-30T10:51:00.003-04:00

First backyard (well, front yard) warbler this morning! And it was my favourite, the black-throated green. I didn't see him, but I heard him singing. His zee zee zee zoo zee! was the very first warbler song I recognized, one of the first birdsongs I recognized, in fact, and is my favourite birdsong despite the fact that it's not particularly melodic. It's just so emphatic and happy. I almost couldn't believe my ears... but there he was, and there was no mistaking him. Hooray!

I still don't understand squirrels

2009-04-29T12:20:00.003-04:00

The lettuce is up in the enclosed bed. Or at least, the green lettuce is. I haven't seen sign of the red lettuce. Nor the peas, which is very disappointing. I wanted peas! But I'm not ruling them out yet. The shallots seem to be coming up, surprising me. And there are lettuce, spinach and radishes showing themselves outside the safe zone, so we'll see how long those last with the bunny around.

Something I've noticed this year: the squirrels are leaving my tulips alone.

What is with that? I saw one tulip with its top trimmed. Just one. Last year the squirrels did a number on at least half of the tulips. I am not complaining about this, I'm just surprised. And curious. Is it that they got fat on my birdseed? Is it that there are less squirrels? (Not that I've noticed). Is it that there's a big tomcat prowling around, presumably making life a little more exciting for the squirrels? I have noticed that the squirrels are doing a number on the protected bed, because they get in there and dig. It doesn't seem to be malicious, just bored. As soon as I've planted a few more things in there I'm going to have to cover the top with chicken wire, too, so that the squirrels don't destroy everything. But they're ignoring my tulips.

Save the Frogs Day

2009-04-26T10:16:00.003-04:00

Guys! Save the frogs! Frogs are disappearing. Often considered the "canaries in the coal mine" of the wet places of our planet, frog species everywhere are in serious trouble. Tuesday is the first annual Save the Frogs Day. Check out the website for lots of cool contests (frog art! frog poetry! frog songs!) and interesting frog facts.

Friday Photo

2009-04-24T16:50:00.001-04:00

The forsythia is in bloom, and the sky is ominous. It must be spring!

Happy Friday, everyone!

smitten kitchen's smashed chickpea salad = win

2009-04-23T20:03:00.002-04:00

I was in the mood for something a little different as far as dinner tonight, so I wandered through all my Google Reader stars and found the smitten kitchen recipe for smashed chickpea salad. I wasn't really in the mood for meat, although it occurs to me now that I have managed to eat chickpeas two meals in a row -- chenna masala for lunch and this excellent chickpea salad on toast for dinner.

It's a breeze to make, and I don't think one would have to change a thing. However, if I was doing it again, here are a few things I would do differently: better bread (than freezer-to-toaster Dempsters), slightly more roasted red pepper (done on BBQ, these added much to the sandwich) and finally, significantly less lemon juice in the tahini dressing. The tahini dressing was nice, but I kind of feel like I've been kicked in the face by a lemon and that's not quite what I was going for. fishy suggested adding... something... to the chickpeas; maybe more salt? Maybe garlic? I might try arugula on the sandwich next time, or cress -- I can see the peppery greens being a lovely addition.

I've got enough that I can do lunch tomorrow, too. It would be really lovely on pita with sprouts, I bet, but since I have neither I'll probably go with the freezer Dempsters and mesclun mix instead.

Friday Photo

2009-04-17T18:28:00.004-04:00

Here's what's happening out in the garden this week:

I love the early irises. Many of the later irises I could do without, but this little patch requires nothing of me and offers these beautiful, early season (we don't even have daffodils yet) blooms. I love how they bring colour to the otherwise brown and grey landscape of the back gardens.

Webb, Margaret. Apples to oysters. Penguin: 2008.

2009-04-13T21:09:00.002-04:00

Any Canadian who eats should read this book. You likely aren't going to like all of it (I certainly didn't) but it's mostly very well-researched, engaging, and illuminating. I had issues with some parts, which I discuss in the review; but I'm really glad I read it, and even when I was annoyed at the author I kept on reading. If you need a push in the right direction, how about this: who knew that oysters were such sexy animals?

it's productive city over here

2009-04-12T14:29:00.002-04:00

This morning I finished off the square-foot garden by adding a bit of peat moss, sectioned it, and surrounded it with chicken wire in the hopes of keeping marauding bunnies out. Then I planted snap peas and shallots. Then, because I was feeling like it, I planted spinach, Boston lettuce, and radishes in the bed that will eventually go over to squash and pumpkins. It was a pretty half-assed planting, but we'll see. None of those seeds were purchased this year, so I'm not even sure what their viability is.

Inside I planted my ground cherries (weeks late, but better than never) and artichokes. The tomatoes are starting to get their first true leaves, as are the asters. The tomatillos are just sort of puttering along, but they look healthy, as do the rudbeckias. Grandma gave me a pineapple sage plant again and this time I'm going to keep it alive. The one she gave me looks pretty good -- I'm going to have to re-pot it eventually because it's going to outgrow the pot before the summer is over.

Next, I have to decide whether to sharpen my secateurs before I do a bunch of the spring cleanup, or after. I will definitely have to sharpen them before I do any spring pruning, but for cutting away dead perennial stalks they should be fine. I also want to get those hostas moved. I've identified a good spot for one section of them, but I'm not sure where to put the rest. And we've got Easter dinner coming up, so I'm not sure what else I'm going to get done this afternoon, if anything. I feel good about what I've accomplished today, though.

Friday Photo

2009-04-10T08:40:00.002-04:00

I think I maybe don't post enough of photos of my garden on here. So today, I thought I'd show off my little rhubarb:

Cute, huh?

April snow is on the way

2009-04-05T21:49:00.003-04:00

Mother Nature has just kicked me in the solar plexus, with the news that our area is expecting 15 cm of snow tomorrow. I didn't plant any seeds today because I knew it was supposed to get unseasonably cold. But damn. Blizzard. In April. Not impressed.

I have, once again, moved all the baby plants out of the sunroom and downstairs, where they'll at least get some bright indirect light, if there's any light to be had. They will at least stay warm. I wasn't going to move the mint or the rosemary, figuring they could tough it out, but now I don't know. The mint can handle it but I might shift the rosemary. The thing is, it's not really supposed to be that cold, and the sunroom shouldn't freeze. But still. Psychologically I will probably fret a lot less if the rosemary is in out of the cold.

The weather is supposed to clear up by Thursday and warm up and be sunny again. It makes me want a grow light, but I'm not even sure where I would set that up right now.

Thurston, Harry. A place between the tides. Greystone: 2004.

2009-04-05T10:46:00.002-04:00

I love my backyard, but there's no getting around the fact that it's not a salt marsh. However, I think Harry Thurston's fascinating and well-thought-out memoir and observational journal on the salt marsh in his backyard is a relatively reasonable substitute. Recommended, despite the very occasional ambush with depressing environmental fact.

reaching for the sun

2009-04-03T17:02:00.004-04:00

It has been raining all day today, and too cold to put the plants in the sunroom. At this time of year, if the sun isn't shining, the temperature in the sunroom is only a degree or two above the outside temperature. So in the interests of giving my plants some light but not freezing them, I took them downstairs this afternoon out of the dark hall.

It's maybe been an hour and a half, two hours since I did that, and all of the seedlings are bent at nearly 90 degree angles trying to climb out the windows. Even without the sun actually shining. It's quite impressive. I'll leave them down there until next week, because unfortunately it looks to be both cloudy and cold for the foreseeable meteorological future.

square foot gardening: oh, my back

2009-03-27T17:13:00.003-04:00

Someday I will have a wheelbarrow. Until then, I must be satisfied with getting lots of exercise for a relatively small payoff. But the good news is, the little square foot garden (it really is little) is nearly ready to rock.

A couple of weeks ago, fishy and I got lumber and worked together to build a little 4x4 raised bed. It's not exactly 4x4 inside; it's a little smaller, which means that I'm going to have to limit one side of my growing space to half a foot. So I'll have 12 square foot plots, and 4... less than square foot plots. This is okay. For things like basil or lettuce I don't need a full complement of plants.

Today I mostly filled it. I mulched the base with leftover Lee Valley packing paper. I used a bag of mushroom compost, the pile of soil leftover from when I dug the other veggie beds, some leaf litter, and four or five shovelfuls of our own awesome compost. It still needs a little more, so when I'm at the nursery on Sunday I'm going to pick up a bag of peat, a bag of vermiculite, and another bag or two of compost. When that's all mixed in with the organic-rich, sandy loam, I should have a soil that defies any vegetable not to grow well.

What was even more fun was that while I was shoveling, a robin stopped by to see what I was doing. It followed me around, waiting for poor worms and other critters that got exposed by my digging and plucking them up. It didn't seem to wary of me, which pleased me to no end, even when it was chewing its way through my helpful invertebrates. Too bad there are no earwigs for it to enjoy yet -- it can have as many of those as it wants.

first flowers, and some seedlings planted

2009-03-26T14:15:00.004-04:00

Hello spring. I think we've met before. You with your fickle sunshine and changeable temperatures, me with my seeds, gloves, and muddy boots, waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment...

I am pleased to report the crocuses are blooming, and have been at it for almost a week now. The tulips right next to the house are up actually quite well along, although no buds yet. The white daffodils I planted last fall are consistently showing their little green heads now, and I'm curious to see what they have in store for me. They were mixed bulbs; my hope is that none of the close, very visible ones are astonishingly garish.

My Dutch iris, unfortunately, have come under severe attack by squirrels. I was hoping the squirrels would be too full of my birdseed to eat my bulbs this spring, but fat chance. They've eaten some of the bulbs in their entirety. The rest they're waiting for the iris to poke their poor little heads up, and then they're chewing them back to the ground. I am most displeased. Squirrels may be cute, but I could really do with less of them. I have fed them all winter, not necessarily by choice, but I would have thought they would have better manners. Little bastards.

I've started a number of seedlings now -- the peppers, the tomatoes, the tomatillos, and the Rudbeckia hirta 'Chim Chiminee' are all in little flats. The shallots still haven't come up and they're well past their 21 day germination period, so I'm losing hope. Dunno what I did wrong there. I need more seedling mix now, as I'm pretty much out and still have lots to start.

I also need to get my veggie bed finished. The frame is built, but I need to dig it in and then fill it with soil and compost. Lots of work and not terribly appealing given the rain, cold, and cloud. (The weather forecast says it's sunny right now -- someone failed to look out the window, I think.)

Kennedy, Des. An ecology of enchantment. Douglas & McIntyre: 2008.

2009-03-22T08:52:00.004-04:00

This week has been a write-off as far as gardening is concerned. Not because of the weather -- no, that was beautiful -- but because it is hard to get up the energy to do any work in the garden when one is so tired one falls asleep before 10pm every night. Good old March Break.

But I have plans for today! Even though it's one of the colder, greyer days we've had this spring yet. *grumble grumble*

Meanwhile, another review, this time of Des Kennedy's absolutely wonderful book An Ecology of Enchantment. Highly recommended!

snouty surprise!

2009-03-14T14:56:00.004-04:00

I was out doing a little bit of cleanup (a very little bit, it's tremendously soggy out there still) and made an interesting discovery.

We have moles.

Part of me thinks, "Hey, wow! Cool! More backyard wildlife! Excellent!"

Part of me thinks, "Oh crap. That's not good for the garden."

The "cool wildlife" part of me is kind of winning out at this point, because I haven't noticed them doing any major damage. Because nothing is growing yet. They've got quite a little nest of holes underneath the big miscanthus grass in the back (which provided them with a tremendous amount of cover, but kept the snow out of the entrances -- it was while chopping the dead grass back that I noticed the holes, and I hadn't seen them before). I hope they haven't damaged the miscanthus roots -- it's one of the plants we have that makes me look good.

There are only two types of mole this could be: a hairy-tailed mole, or a star-nosed mole. And chances are, given the characteristics of the soil we have, they're the former. Either one is pretty darn cute (in a "what the heck is that, good lord, it's so ugly" kind of way) and I'm not about to [attempt to] evict them unless they start causing serious problems. I'm not all that attached to my lawn.

I am more attached to my earthworms, but moles have a habit of eating them. They also eat grubs, snails, centipedes, and slugs. So... I think the benefit of moles may outweigh the disadvantages, as long as I don't step in any holes and break myself.

Thursday bird report

2009-03-12T08:18:00.002-04:00

So, I've been seeing - or hearing - a number of exciting things lately. Monday, on my way home from work, I caught a glimpse of a bald eagle eating something beside the river. I was driving so I didn't have a chance to see what it was eating, but I saw enough to know that the eagle was a full adult. I'm always astonished by how large they really are.

Saw both a possum (not a bird, I know, but still cool) and a peregrine falcon yesterday. The peregrine was in a place I normally see a red tailed hawk, but there was no doubt about what it was when it was flying, and I was sitting at a stoplight so I was able to get a good look. There really isn't any other bird the size and shape of a peregrine around here.

This morning, to add to the chorus of cardinals, chickadees, and mourning doves in the backyard, I heard a robin whinnying away. That's my first robin of the year! I know other people have seen them earlier, but I hadn't so they don't count.

It snowed yesterday. Just to show me, I'm assuming. But the next couple of days are supposed to be very nice, particularly the weekend. Perfect maple syrup weather, actually -- bright sunny days and freezing nights. When it warms up a little more, the mourning cloak butterflies will be coming out. Looking forward to that, too!

dividing hostas: wtf, internet?!

2009-03-06T10:04:00.002-05:00

Okay. So I have been working under the presumption for several years now that hostas are best divided in the early spring, before they start to grow their leaves. I have seen this advice in books and all over the internet, from people who know plants and from people who know hostas specifically.

Now to be fair, I have never divided or transplanted a hosta myself, so the truth of the matter is that I have only book knowledge about this. But it's almost early spring, and damned if I'm going to let the hostas in the front bed go another year looking awesome in the spring and getting the awesomeness sun-blasted out of them by late June. It's not good for the hostas and it's not good for my gardening ego, either.

So I'm thinking, probably need to be doing something about this in the next couple of weeks. I can't remember when the hostas started to get their leaves last year, but I'm thinking transplanting time will be late March, early April for those babies. But then I think, let's double-check that. Let's make sure that I know when the best time to transplant hostas is. Let's make sure I know how to do it.

Previously, any info I have seen says "early spring! early spring! best for plant!" So why, internet, is all the information I see from you this morning saying "late summer! late summer! best for plant!"

Late summer is over, internet. I cannot possibly let those hostas go by another summer. They will gall me every time I see them and they are right by my front door, so I will see them a lot. Why didn't you tell me this last spring, when I was thinking about transplanting the hostas and ultimately not doing it at all because I thought I'd missed my chance?

It's too late, internet. I don't care what you say now. I'm transplanting those hostas this spring. As I am doing it, I am going to think to myself, "These are plants. Plants want to grow. I could probably divide them in July and they would still grow. They might hate me, and look awful for the rest of the summer, but they would still grow."

Primeau, Liz. My natural history. Greystone: 2008.

2009-03-04T10:50:00.003-05:00

I've reviewed Liz Primeau's memoir My Natural History over on the book blog. I also picked up Front Yard Gardens by her at the library yesterday. Actually, I was quite impressed. I put it on hold yesterday morning and it was waiting for me when I got into work yesterday afternoon. My library rocks.

Lima, Patrick. The Organic Home Garden. Key Porter: 2003.

2009-03-03T11:00:00.003-05:00

Since I've started up the book blog, I've decided to post all my reviews there, instead of posting any reviews of gardening books and cookbooks here. I've got one posted now, of Patrick Lima's superlative guide to organic vegetable gardening The Organic Home Garden, and I'll have one for Liz Primeau's gardening memoir My Natural History coming up. I need to read gardening books right about now because it is sunny out there, but the ground is still frozen and I am starting to get antsy enough to try digging in the frozen ground anyways.

Yes, I know it's not good for the soil. I'm not actually going to do it. But I really really want to. So gardening books are protecting me and my garden from myself.

year's first redpoll

2009-02-28T15:49:00.003-05:00

Also, exciting bird report! As I was sitting here composing that last entry, a redpoll flew in and hung out on my feeder for a while. I've not had redpolls around at all this year, so that's a bonus. The nuthatches, both species, were going nuts on the suet, and there are juncos and chickadees all over the place.

As my mother says, things are just going to get more exciting from now on. And I remembered that as I drove by the river yesterday, the open patches were suddenly sprouting waterfowl. Do you know what this means? This means spring.

square foot gardening: in the planning stages

2009-02-28T15:11:00.002-05:00

Garden season, as declared before, is open! And I am taking that to heart. This means that today, my efforts at avoiding work and cleaning have included figuring out the materials for my new square-foot vegetable bed, and realizing that I should probably start working on that soon-ish so that it's ready to plant in April with the early-season crops.

My dilemma right now is that if I want to go the whole way, I should probably follow Mr. Bartholomew's recipe for his soil mix ("Mel's Mix"), which is three parts peat, three parts vermiculite, and three parts compost.

To fill a space that is going to be roughly 1812 L, that is not going to be cheap. I mean, I have some compost here. And I can get it free from the landfill (although not until after April, either, which throws a wrench in my early-planting plans). But I don't have peat or vermiculite, and that stuff gets expensive when you start looking at buying roughly 12-14 30L bags of the stuff. I do have some soil that is composted sod, from when I started digging the veggie beds. What I am thinking is that I will use that first, then make the rest of the bed peat and vermiculite and our compost, as much as possible. It won't be Mr. Bartholomew's perfect mix, but it will be pretty darn nice soil.

In other news, I did plant shallots today. 24 of them. For transplant into that new bed, once the soil "can be worked in the spring."

skunk dreams

2009-02-26T09:00:00.003-05:00

The past couple of weeks I have noticed skunk signs. It's late February, so they should definitely be poking around more, and given the thaw we had two weeks ago I'm not surprised that they're out. I saw tracks last week, and sadly, I saw a roadkilled skunk two days ago.

And this morning, I heard a dog barking sometime between 6:30 and 7am. I thought, "that sounds close" and then I drifted back to sleep.

To have skunk dreams. They were so powerful I could smell the skunk. I could even smell the skunk when I woke back up. It took me entirely too long to figure out that the skunk smell had actually predated the skunk dreams, and that what I was smelling was likely that dog getting himself into trouble.

I can still smell it quite powerfully two hours later, although I've either gotten used to it or it's dissipating. My secret confession: I kind of like a hint of skunk now and then. It makes me think happy thoughts about the animals themselves. It also makes me happy to realize that my backyard skunk from last summer is still around and apparently quite powerful.

introducing Spike

2009-02-20T09:28:00.000-05:00

I made the mistake of going to the nursery today. Well, it was planned. And I had a list. I was really good with the list, too. I only bought two small things outside of the list (and I do mean small).

The main reason for the trip was this lovely creature:

This is an attempt at keeping a bougainvillea alive. I'm not very good at house plants, as I believe has been discussed. But I was so taken with them in Cuba, and I really wanted to have a little piece of Cuba in my house. This creature, whom I haven't named yet, is going to be my attempt to bring some of my vacation home. She'll be able to live outside during the summer, and she'll come in and live in the sunroom and then the main part of the house in the winter.

I am hoping that she will end up reminding me vaguely of this:

I think I might call her Spike. Bougainvillea have very pointy thorns. They're sharp. I didn't know this until I picked her up. Plus, that's a tough-sounding name, right? So she'll be a tough plant. She'll have to be.

on my mark, get set...

2009-02-16T14:49:00.003-05:00

75 posts! Soon I will be at 100. Certainly this summer, given the amount of posting I'm likely to do in the spring.

We managed to get the grapes trimmed today. It's quite lovely outside, and we're home to do so. I don't think we were too late (thus avoiding causing damage) so it should work out. It will be more controlled growth this year, and faster shade cover than the first year we were here, when we didn't really have shade over the back porch until late June or early July. And now, as noted, I declare garden season open!

The grapes are only going to provide the cover from above. So this year, I am going to try (one more time) to plant morning glories. I don't know why I can't get those stupid things to grow, but they just won't. I am considering, however, going with something more like a scarlet runner bean -- aside from the fact that the beans themselves are edible and extremely easy to grow, apparently the red flowers do attract hummingbirds. I've also been looking at cardinal vines, a morning glory relative (in the Ipomea genus) that reportedly is also very attractive to hummers. My one concern is going to be that in warmer climates it's an invasive... I figure if I grow it in a couple of containers, I should be okay. And possibly keep on top of seeds. But everything I've read suggests I'll be lucky if it actually flowers, let alone sets seed.

The other option, which is one I have considered before, is moonflower. It would be scented at night, and we do use that back porch a fair bit at night. So that might be a good idea, too. Although I really love night flowering tobacco for scent, too.

Decisions, decisions! I love it. This is possibly the best time of the year in the garden, when I don't have to actually weed anything -- things just grow in my imagination.

hooray for birds!

2009-02-03T09:39:00.003-05:00

When I woke up this morning, I heard a sound that I haven't heard in ages. And when one hasn't heard it in ages, one notices when it comes back.

Birdsong!

The chickadees were singing. Just a little bit, and not their usual "chickadee-dee-dee" but the sweet sounds of their mating call...

We all know what this means, of course. Spring is on the way. YES!! Despite what the groundhogs saw (Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, thus six more weeks of winter), spring is on the way. I believe it. Even if there are six more weeks of winter, one of those I will be spending in the sunshine. Take that, snow!

I do love the winter, don't get me wrong. But I'm like those birds. I'm starting to get a little itch in my gardening fingers that signifies the days are getting longer. Sunday was, in fact, wonderfully mild. My gardening fingers are planning on ordering some seeds in the next couple weeks. I bought a new set of gardening gloves (I can't find the other ones, although I'm sure I will as soon as I start getting the tools out).

This week sometime fishy and I will get out to trim the grapes. That will be my first official gardening act of the year. And then I will declare garden season open.

fresh shiitake mushrooms = happy me

2009-01-23T09:14:00.002-05:00

Another attempt, last night, at Thai food. I'm still quite convinced I have no idea what I'm doing, and that I'm not very good at it. I used an online recipe this time, for Sweet and Sour Chicken. It was good, but there was too much soy sauce involved. Tamari might have been better, since the flavour is not so heavy. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't quite what I'd hoped. It did look gorgeous in the wok -- bright colours and lots of variety. I think it was likely very healthy, too. And there are leftovers, which are likely to be better the next day.

What did work out well were the shiitake mushrooms. fishy was able to find them fresh at the local grocery, which is awesome. They have a very subtle scent when raw, but the minute they are cooked, their flavour skyrockets. They taste amazing and rich, and were a perfect compliment to the sweet and sour sauce. Their texture was also a nice compliment to the crunchy peppers and bok choi, and the soft chicken. They're kind of halfway in-between a veggie and a meat, texture-wise. A little squishy. Each bite is a little squirt of flavour. I know not everyone finds that awesome, but I do.

snowy owl on a snowy drive

2009-01-13T22:01:00.003-05:00

Twice in a row I have been fortunate enough to see a snowy owl on the way to or from work. I can't see snowy owls without thinking of Minerva, Kay McKeever's iconic mama snowy. There's a book, full of photographs, that made a huge impression on me.

Anyway. He's living in a specific field on a specific road that I drive to get to and from work. I'd only half-hoped to see him again today, but sure enough, he was flying over his field, and landed as I watched (very carefully, trying not to drive off the road.) I think it's a he -- a young male. He's too light to be female and too dark to be a full-grown male. I hope he's getting enough to eat in that field of his. It's close to a barn -- there must be small rodents about.

Also saw snow buntings. It was a very Arctic day out there, and the temperature appears to be dropping. Lots of blowing snow over desolate fields.

Chiang Mai curry noodles

2009-01-08T12:55:00.005-05:00

I embarked on the first of a number of experiments with Asian cooking last night. Here is the main thing I learned: 3 cups of coconut milk is a hell of a lot of coconut milk for one dish. Also, I need to plan better for vegetables. Since the garlic and coconut milk were the only things that even resembled vegetables in the whole meal. Oops.

Otherwise, it was delicious, and I was quite pleased with how easy it was to make, and how reasonable the ingredient list was. I could find everything at the regular grocery store -- not that I object to frequenting Asian grocers, it's just that this was much more convenient for my hella busy day yesterday. This is a very rich, sweet curry; I used a mild curry paste, and it wasn't really spicy at all.

I made the Chiang Mai Curry Noodles from Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia, which I received for Christmas. It's a beautiful cookbook/travel book, and I expect I'll try to get around to reviewing it over at the other blog eventually. Do any librarians in the audience know if I'm horribly infringing copyright by posting an entire recipe, even if I attribute it? I suspect I should know more about copyright law than I do, given what I want to do for a living. At any rate, I'm not going to give you the commentary from the recipe, so if you want to read that you should borrow the book from your local library. Or buy it, I guess.

A couple notes: I used 4 cloves of garlic, because by and large I am immune to it and find that cookbook authors tend to be very conservative with their garlic estimates. The teaspoon of turmeric seems to be a bit much. However, I was using extremely fresh ground turmeric; it was quite powerful. The beef was a bit chewy. Alford and Duguid suggest that chicken can be used instead, and next time I think I will try that. I used chow mein noodles, because they are a kind of Chinese egg noodle... and they worked really well.

There were other options for condiments, like fried noodles and Thai pickled cabbage -- I had neither of these to hand, and deep frying just doesn't go well in this house. I definitely recommend at least the scallions, and both the shallots and scallions if possible. They make the dish -- cut right through the richness of the broth.

Chiang Mai Curry Noodles (aka. khao soi)
pg. 134 of Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2 to 3 cloves garlic, peeled
1-inch piece fresh turmeric, minced, or 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch
1 tablespoon Red Curry Paste (there is a recipe for this in the book, but I used store-bought)
1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil
3 cups canned or fresh coconut milk, with 1/2 cup of the thickest milk set aside
1/2 pound boneless flavourful beef (sirloin tip or trimmed stewing beef), cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup water
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 pound Chinese egg noodles

Toppings and condiments:

1/2 cup coarsely chopped shallots
1/2 cup minced scallions
1 lime, cut into wedges

"Place the garlic in a mortar with the turmeric and the pinch of salt and pound to a paste. Alternatively, finely mince the garlic and whole turmeric, if using, and place the garlic and turmeric in a small bowl with the pinch of salt. Stir in the red curry paste and set aside.

"Place a large heavy pot or wok over high heat. Add the 1 tablespoon oil and, when it is hot, toss in the curry paste mixture. Stir-fry for 30 seconds, then add the reserved 1/2 cup thick coconut milk and lower the heat to medium-high. Add the meat and sugar and cook, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, until the meat has changed colour all over. Add the remaining 2 1/2 cups coconut milk, the water, fish sauce, and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and cook at a strong simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lime juice." (Alford and Duguid, p. 135)

The above soup can be made an hour in advance and reheated before serving, if you want. Then cook your noodles as the package instructs, until they are tender but not mushy, drain them, and serve the soup over the noodles. Each person can add scallions and shallots as desired.

Serves 4.

goodbye 2008, hello 2009!

2009-01-01T11:09:00.004-05:00

Happy new year! 2008 had its share of challenges. I'm really looking forward to 2009, because it's going to be better. I've got a good feeling about this one.

For one thing, I'm done school. And that, my friends, feels really good. It means that I'm actually going to have the time to do some of the things I really want to do around this house, and in the gardens. I have a new job, and that means that I might even be able to afford some of it. The job is going really well and I love it. It's everything I imagined working in a library would be, and better.

I have plans to better organize my time and my life, but no real resolutions. I am wondering if I should set some written goals (Dad will be proud) but so far I am taking it easy. It's the first day of the year, after all.

The first bird of the year was a junco. The first pot of tea is orange pekoe. The first drink was a glass of Veuve Cliquot, which I think is a good sign.

sorry for disappearing

2008-12-28T20:03:00.004-05:00

Whew, the Christmas season, she did me in... I am completely exhausted. But we're done our holiday visiting, and I am done my masters. I've started a new job and the two of us are trying to get our house back on track. Things around here have been pretty non-stop, and I figure we have a week or so more of that, and then there will be a routine that we can start to settle into and I can start thinking about things like cleaning, and gardening, and cooking again.

Got four cookbooks this Christmas, plus some pretty stellar ingredients, and a beautiful salad bowl, and lovely placemats. The cookbooks and I are going to have a sit-down in a bit and we're going to find some delicious dishes to make. And then I will report back. Also, I've got some garden plant ordering to do in the next month or so... which I am already getting excited about, even though there will be no planting until the end of February. It's not as far away as it seems.

Happy new year, everyone! When things are settled, I'll come out of my shell.

variation on a famous theme

2008-12-07T11:13:00.005-05:00

This is one of the projects I'm working on that I've been meaning to blog about. I'm a terrible knitter. I try, I really do, but I can't keep my tension consistent, and I think the worse problem is that I get bored with projects really easily and drop them before they're even close to finished. I have an afghan I started just before I got my wisdom teeth out. In case anyone's counting, that's nine years ago. Then there's the scarf I was making for me that I started when I was working at the Royal Botanical Gardens -- that's... six years ago now, I think.

I am attempting to change that this time. Mostly because this is fishy's main birthday present, and I want to have it done for his birthday. The chances of that happening are relatively slim, since the scarf is incredibly long, but I'm actually moving along at a relatively good pace. For me.

I knit in the American style, and I taught myself from the Internets, so I think I'm relatively inefficient with my knitting. My mother knits Continental and she can whip up a pair of mittens in a day. I haven't even really gotten increasing and decreasing down yet, hence: scarf.

The great thing about this particular scarf is the colour changes. A friend who knits looked at the pattern and was like, "wow, that's -- a lot of colour changes" as though it were a bad thing. But the thing is, it keeps me interested. Because I can look forward to the next colour.

I'm not doing the exact Tom Baker season 12, although that was the original intention. My needles are large and the colours are different, and so this particular version is going to be wider and possibly not quite as long, depending on how much yarn I end up with. I may end up changing the pattern a bit to accommodate my lack of yarn. But that said, I'm very pleased.

Will keep you posted.

Vesey's Seeds arrived!

2008-12-06T13:45:00.003-05:00

I think Vesey's is trying to ruin me. How? Well, let me count the ways:

I love winter. Now I want it to be over.
Financially. Currently I want everything in the catalogue.
My relationship may not survive the number of plants I want to add to the garden this year.

I also have to remember to buy my seeds from the local providers, if I can; I should really be saving Vesey's for the rare, hard-to-get stuff.

Also I just remembered I haven't protected the currant. I bet that the rabbits have already eaten it. The dogwood was free, so I don't mind so much, but I'm going to be very disappointed if they kill my currant.

open letter to Stephen Harper

2008-12-04T12:21:00.003-05:00

Dear sir,

Please stop presuming to tell me, as a Canadian, what I want or think. No, I do not think you have a stronger mandate this time around. No, I do not want you for my Prime Minister. I wanted Stephan Dion, who appears to be the last politician left with a sense of respect and any class at all. I have been listening to your sly verbal mooning of the opposition now that you have your way and have seven more weeks to continue to break apart the country along geographical lines. You appear to confuse "classy" with "slimy" and listening to your speech made me want to take a shower.

I do not want our children criminalized and I do support the arts, galas and all. I do not think that the Bloc is "the devil" and I frankly give the separatists my blessing. I would also like to separate and am thinking of cleaning up my French so that Quebec'll let me in. I am embarrassed to be Canadian right now. How can we tell the rest of the world that we support democracy? We're a bunch of hypocrites, with you at the helm.

Let me tell you, instead of having you tell me, what I think: I think you are a smug bully. I think you are a liar. I think you are authoritarian, if not downright dictatorial. I think you will stop at nothing to stay in power, including being viciously divisive in the name of "loving our country." Mr. Harper, the country you love is Alberta, and you seem to have forgotten about the rest of us. Even those Albertans who don't agree with you.

Democratic leaders don't desperately avoid votes that might actually be in the interests of the majority. As many have mentioned, your math is a little off: the majority of Canadians did not vote for you. The majority voted for anyone but you -- 63% of us voted for the opposition, Mr. Harper, so a coalition government that uses the tools given to them by the democratic process to take power, is actually a more democratic government than the government we have now.

If I had the confidence in you and the rest of your cabal to actually listen to the 63% of us who don't want you there, I would hope that the opposition would give you guys a chance because the country is completely dysfunctional at this point. However, I don't trust you. You have repeatedly proven that you do not have the desire to share power with anyone, and your policies are designed to keep you in power, sir, not for the good of the country. I've been trying to reconcile this avoidance of the vote with the good of the country, and I just can't. And perhaps that is what will eventually make Canadians wake up to the fact that our democracy, under your watch, is falling apart. The problem with being an autocrat is that it is very, very clear who is primarily to blame when things go horribly wrong.

Enjoy your holidays, Mr. Harper.

brownie attempt

2008-12-01T11:27:00.004-05:00

As part of a group presentation I'm involved in today, I have baked (or am in the process of baking, to be entirely accurate) a pan of brownies. I have not baked brownies in a very, very long time, and I'm trying to remember if they look the way they should look. I think so. My mother used to make these brownies for every occasion where sweets might be required and they are rich and delicious like no other brownie I have ever eaten.

From Edna Staebler's Food That Really Schmecks:

Brownies

Mix ingredients in the order given.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup flour
pinch salt

Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes in a greased cake pan.

Simple, right? It occurs to me that I forgot the salt, as I'm writing that down. Well. I guess they'll be that pinch more heart healthy. Heh.

shredded brussels sprouts and apples

2008-11-23T14:57:00.004-05:00

First of all, I think it actually turned out okay. I am always apprehensive when trying out a new recipe, especially when it says things like "serve immediately" because the taste apparently goes off if left sitting for even ten minutes. No pressure. But it was colourful, and looked fresh, and was a really great combination of fall flavours.

The full recipe is from 101 cookbooks, btw.

Let's see, then. Recipe debrief, as it were.

The recipe calls for juice of one lemon, and I always forget that this particular author likes to do everything from scratch. The lemon juice is basically to keep the apples from going brown before you cook them, so juice of one fresh lemon, with the attendant squeezing, reaming and stinging fingers, is probably not 100% necessary. Two or three tablespoons of lemon juice out of a bottle would have sufficed. I figured this out after I'd reamed the thing, though. Brilliant.

I did do the tofu, as I had a slab of it in the freezer. Only used a third. It cooked up very nicely from frozen, and with the frying, garlic and maple syrup, had a wonderful, delicate flavour. I would definitely do that again. I might make the cubes a little tinier. They were also a little bit chewy, which means I slightly overcooked them.

The pan was too hot when I added the maple syrup, but I managed to pull things off the heat quickly enough that the syrup and garlic didn't burn. Mixed that all up, added the apples (which only cook enough to be hot through, not mushy) and then pulled all that and cooked up the sprouts.

Remembered at that point that I'd forgotten to toast pine nuts. That went really quickly though, so that was good...

And voila! It was pretty tasty. I don't see myself doing it regularly, but I would definitely make it again for lunch. I don't think it would work for a large group for dinner, for example, because of the fast turnaround time for serving. But for lunch again, I would definitely try it, even with the sprouts. fishy also suggested a variation with walnuts and cinnamon, which I imagine would be quite tasty.

adventures in the kitchen

2008-11-23T12:17:00.003-05:00

I have two posts I really want to do. Both of them require photos of current projects. Not difficult to do... just haven't gotten around to that. So instead I will point you in this direction, to a recipe that I am going to attempt to make for lunch.

I am waffling on the tofu, but seriously... fried in garlic and oil and maple syrup? Even tofu should be delicious after that.

What I am trying to do here is introduce myself to brussels sprouts in a way that I will enjoy. Fried in oil seems like the way to go.

I've also put on a slow-cooker tortilla soup for supper. I am a little concerned that it is nearly an hour later and the soup is still cool. It is supposed to cook on low for eight hours. I got a little
anxious and turned it up. Likely I will overcook it now...

feed the birds

2008-11-07T11:56:00.002-05:00

I have birds. Lots of birds.

The list for today:

House sparrows
Starlings
Goldfinches
White-throated sparrows
House finches
Chickadees
Blue jays
Cardinals
White-breasted nuthatches
Downey woodpecker
Mourning dove
Juncos

The joint is jumping. Which makes me quite happy, of course. It's fun to watch the finches try to figure out the finch feeder, too -- they have to hang upside-down to get the seed, which goldfinches (and I believe house finches) can do. The goldfinches have got it for sure. Haven't seen anyone else attempt it yet. It's niger seed, so not too many birds are all that keen on it, other than the finches.

I put up the suet when I saw the nuthatches. So far the house sparrows are hogging it, but I did see the downey woodpecker working on it earlier.

Christmas Bird Count season is coming up, too, and barring a nasty virus like Eric and I had last year, we're going to be heading out to our usual area in St. Catharines and having a blast. It's the weekend after I am done school for good, so that's awesome.

and when I wake up in the morning, will things still be the same?

2008-11-05T00:29:00.004-05:00

What a night. I am... really? I think I might actually be hopeful.

I wonder if this will translate into true change. I can listen to Obama and believe it and be hopeful. We will have to see what tomorrow brings.

geek pumpkins

2008-11-01T12:44:00.006-04:00

For the librarians out there:

Spooky!

And tasty. I made two sets of toasted pumpkin seeds with the innards of these pumpkins, following recipes from 101 Cookbooks. The curried pumpkin seeds are extremely tasty, but the sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds were undercooked. I expect I could re-toast them, but I haven't yet. The curried pumpkin seeds were in the oven for 15 minutes or more, being checked every minute after 13 minutes.

rejuvination

2008-10-28T18:04:00.005-04:00

Among other things I finally got around to today was doing a little renovation of my worms' house. They currently reside in the basement, which is a fine place for them, in a green box with air vents and a snap top.

I am amazed they are still alive.

I have really neglected them since... well, a long time ago. fishy has done a little bit of work with them -- mostly draining the wormwater, which is what I call the anaerobic compost leachate that reeks like silage. But we haven't actually taken any of the castings out since last April (by which I mean, like, April 2007, actually) and not only is it full, it desperately needed a good draining.

I have gotten over a litre of leachate out of the composter so far today. I think there is plenty more to be had. There are red mites crawling all over, which is usually a sign of things being too wet. I have to suck the leachate out with a turkey baster, since there is no drain out the bottom. It is an experience. A stanky experience.

I have gotten a bunch of the castings out to in my house plant pots, to fertilize them, which they need. I took off an inch from the top and I need to do more. Much more.

And the worms. There are worms everywhere. There are big fat worms. There are little, tiny, threadlike baby worms. There are egg sacs. There is everything in between. They are loving the neglect, apparently. I am impressed with their resilience. They are apparently the perfect pet for me.

feeder's up

2008-10-27T09:27:00.006-04:00

Because I am supposed to be writing a paper, and am giving myself about 20 minutes until the panic starts, I have been procrastinating like mad with the Internet.

I read all sorts of interesting things. The best thing this morning, though, was this post from Garden Rant about bats. I wish that bats hung around here (pun intended) more than they do -- stupid winter.

We have birds to make up for it, though. The juncos are back, and there was a very fat song sparrow hopping on the back porch this morning. fishy and I got seed and I hung the feeder on Saturday, and already we're starting to see the cardinals and chickadees, too.

I just always figure that once the juncos are back, it's feeding time. I can't have my juncos getting skinny.

I voted...

2008-10-14T20:22:00.002-04:00

Did you? You currently have just over an hour left to do so.

I'm not fool enough to think that this election will determine the course of the world's environmental future. Given another minority government, Conservative or Liberal, there will be no movement on the environment to speak of. Everyone is too damn scared.

I want someone to catch on, though, that the environment does matter. It's likely already too late, I guess. But I want someone to try.

nocturnal visitor

2008-10-12T21:26:00.003-04:00

I had another post. Well, I still have it. And I'll maybe post it tomorrow or in the next couple of days. But I am too excited to hold off. We had a skunk in the back yard!

fishy and I got in from a turkey dinner with his family and we were getting some bricks to hold down the tarp that is keeping our roof safe (this is another story -- I will bring it to you with pictures later, if I get around to it) and in the faint glow at the very back of the yard, right in front of the jungle that is the part of the yard we let grow into a meadow, I saw a white stripe making a beeline for the hole in the fence.

Now I don't want to close the hole in the fence. I was going to, to try to foil the rabbits. But that's how the skunk travels, and I love skunks. Any number of rabbits are worth the occasional skunk.

Instead I will raise the veggie beds. And if that fails, I will fence them. And if that fails, I will just grow things that rabbits don't like.

fiery chilled soup

2008-10-05T10:38:00.004-04:00

Was thinking about recipes this morning, when I got a recipe exchange email in my inbox. I love recipe exchanges. I love recipes in general. Because I love food. I like eating food, but I also like thinking about food to eat.

The one I sent on the exchange was this one, from Linda Matthie-Jacobs' superlative cookbook Light the Fire. I should review that one some time, I suppose. Anyway. The following recipe is hers and I made no changes to it. I consider this an advertisement for her cookbooks.

It's a chilled soup, and I decided to try it even though I'm not a big fan of cantaloupe myself. It does indeed make enough for 6 (even when recipes say that, they never seem to mean it) and it's a lovely summer appetizer or even lunch. It does not keep very well, I wouldn't say even more than a day in the fridge. So if you have to, halve the recipe and use the other half of the cantaloupe for something else.

Fiery Chilled Soup

1 large ripe cantaloupe, peeled and cubed
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and cubed
1/4 cup liquid honey
grated rind of 1 fresh lime
juice of 1 fresh lime (about 1-2 tbsp.)
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
2 cups plain fat-free yoghurt

Blend cantaloupe and cucumber in blender until smooth. Pour half of mixture into bowl. To remainder in blender, add honey, lime rind, lime juice, jalapeño, cumin and yoghurt. Blend until smooth. Add to mixture in bowl and mix well.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serves 6.

progress update: weeds and seeds

2008-09-23T05:58:00.002-04:00

Okay. Just a quick update. It's fall, things happen around here in the fall. Some good things, some not so awesome.

The garden is wildly overgrown. I did some mildly drunken weeding a couple of nights ago while fishy and I and some friends hung out on the porch. Despite the rum and coke, the weeding actually made a positive difference. Or perhaps because of it...

The carrots, which seemed like they were going to disappoint at the beginning of the summer, have turned out fantastic. I am probably going to plant another two rows next year. I don't even really like carrots, but aside from the butterfly factor there's also the fact that I really do like growing things that make me feel like I know what I'm doing. Hence, garlic and carrots and herbs.

We pulled off the cilantro seeds, or a large portion of them, so now we have our own home-grown coriander seeds. I am quite pleased. I was a little concerned that there didn't seem to be a lot, but then I realized how often we used coriander seeds -- which is not often at all. So for our needs, there is really quite enough.

I'm going to try to save some of the beefsteak tomato seeds, since they're a heritage plant. The way they grew in the garden this year suggests to me that they'll be an ideal container tomato, which is really all I need. I'm the only one in the house who eats tomatoes, and while sauce remains an option, I suspect that one container of tomatoes will likely be just enough.

sauce: the conclusion

2008-09-12T16:24:00.002-04:00

I survived the tomato canning. Other than the frustration of being up until after midnight to put tomato sauce in jars, the other frustration?

3kg of tomatoes = 1 L of sauce

ONE LITRE.

That is two 500 mL jars, if anyone is counting. 'Cause I am.

We go through tomato sauces at a rate of at least two jars every couple of weeks to a month. So, this tomato sauce isn't going to last long.

The good news? It tasted pretty good, and it smelled delicious, and it sealed just perfectly. So, that is good. But I'm thinking, maybe it is too much work to grow all those tomatoes for TWO JARS of sauce.

As fishy said, it's a good thing we are not pioneers. We'd definitely starve.

progress update: thicken, damn you tomatoes!

2008-09-10T22:44:00.003-04:00

So, update on the canning. Because I know everyone is waiting with baited breath.

Let's see, it's 10:45pm and... the freaking tomato mix isn't ready to go in the jars yet. And there is a 35 minute processing period after the tomato mix is in the jars. And the mix has to be strained prior to going into the jars.

The recipe said 1.25 hours for the tomato mixture to come to the proper thickness, and we're going on 2.25 and we're still not there yet. I guess it makes sense that my tomatoes are really watery given all the rain this summer, but it's hell on the thickening.

The good news is that I did, in fact, have enough tomatoes right out of the garden for the complete and full recipe, so I am very pleased with that. There are even enough left over to make bbq sauce! And probably something else, too. Also, the sauce smells really good. It's a very basic tomato sauce, with oregano, bay leaf, garlic, onion and a whack of roma tomatoes. It's going to be made with my very own tomatoes and my very own garlic, so that makes me happy.

However, I must say, we will not be making the bbq sauce tonight. That will be an effort for tomorrow. Or possibly Friday. Or Saturday. Sometime before Monday, anyway. Really.

fall planning and canning

2008-09-10T08:29:00.002-04:00

So, nothing big for 50, I decided. Too much pressure.

Speaking of pressure, tonight fishy and I are going to try some canning. We have made jellies successfully, both sweet and hot, and now we're going to attempt a tomato sauce, with any of the good roma tomatoes that are left in the garden. According to the recipe I have I need 6kg of romas. I am thinking I might halve everything. I know you're not supposed to fiddle with the ingredients of preserved foods, but the ratios will all stay the same...

That is our task for tonight. This coming weekend is going to be a major garden cleaning blitz. I am going to order some garlic from Veseys again, because I was thrilled with the way the garlic grew this summer and I'd love to have more next summer -- I ordered 1lb of bulbs last year and I think I'm going to go for 3lbs this year. Yes, that will be a lot of garlic. But the amount we have in storage now is not going to last us the winter, and if I can avoid buying garlic from China I will. Nothing against China, but it seriously chafes me to buy a little bulb of garlic flown all the freaking way from the opposite side of the world (you can't get much further away) when it is something that grows in Canada perfectly well.

So, I will grow my own. And lots of it. The other thing is, the garlic made me feel good about my gardening skills. Such as they are...

"wild" grape jelly

2008-08-22T18:59:00.005-04:00

This is my 49th post. Should I do something special for the 50th, or is that right reserved for the 100th?

Anyway. The grapes that shadow our back porch bloomed and then produced like crazy this year. Turns out we have green seedless grapes, not at all table grapes but deliciously flavourful and very productive.

I thought I'd toss out some photos of the grapes and the jelly that fishy and I (though mostly fishy) made. We used a recipe from the Internets: Wild Grape Jelly. fishy did some modifications for the second batch, with more juice and less sugar, and it turned out better. We have no idea how many pounds of grapes we used. More than three for sure. We made two batches of jelly and still had juice left over. It was quite simple, but very time consuming, for the de-stemming of the grapes, the washing, and the crushing. Which we did with our bare hands. After the crushing, we got something that looked like this:

It was delicious, but a little painfully sour. We strained (not overnight) and ended up with this crazy, cloudy, grey-green juice. Something like I imagine the Limpopo River looking like. It tasted fine though. We added food colouring (doing it again, I don't think I would -- I'd like to see if the jelly clarifies a little and looks a little more appealing) and pectin, and away we went. Well, fishy. I was making cornbread and marinating tofu. So, fishy did all the actual canning bits. This is what we ended up with:

It's lovely. The first batch is a little sweet, but the second is just about perfect. Looking forward to testing it with cheese. The first batch will have to be for toast and dessert, I think.

postmodern Belfry

2008-08-05T21:08:00.008-04:00

In the "cool creatures in my life" vein, I have another story.

I had an exam today. Thus last night, I was all about the getting to bed early and sleeping well. We did pretty okay. I was starting to drift off by about 11:30 when fishy says "Did you hear that?"

Yes, I'd heard it. But I wasn't about to get out of bed to investigate. I'm lazy that way. fishy, on the other hand, is not so lazy, and is quite proactive about investigating strange noises in the house. He got up and headed into the hallway... and he was gone for quite a long time. By this time I was wide awake and thought I'd maybe better get out of bed. Especially since there was definitely something in the hall.

It was out of the hall, closed in the sunroom with fishy, by the time I was out of the bedroom. And when fishy poked his head out to warn me to stay low, I could see it.

It looked something like this. Only much faster. And bigger. They look a lot bigger when they're flying in your house.

I've seen lots of little brown bats before, and this one was clearly larger, even when one controls for apparent bat-in-house size. When it landed on the windowsill, I'd say the body was the length of my palm, which is pretty big for a bat. Big brown bat it was.

fishy wanted a hat, and though I would normally scoff at such a request (what the hell does a bat want with your hair?) it was pretty clear that our guest was dive-bombing. Out of respect for the fact that I was pretty sure both he and the bat would have simultaneous heart attacks if it did manage to hit the head, I got him a hat. Then fishy managed to keep the sunroom door closed, light off, and open all the windows and remove the screens. The door to the rest of the house was closed, and we left our guest alone.

We decided to name the bat Belfry, since we don't have a belfry for the bat to be in. However, now the bat is the belfry and thus we have both. Problem solved.

Also, the bat is no longer in the house. At some time in the night he found the open windows, and when we checked this morning he was gone.

backyard bugs

2008-08-03T16:09:00.004-04:00

Today it is quite warm out there. I am technically working on an essay today, but I did manage to get out and weed one of the veggie beds... while out there, witnessed a black swallowtail laying her eggs on my carrots. Super exciting! I am torn between leaving the single egg I could find out there to fend for itself naturally, or bringing it inside to be coddled into adulthood by me. I think I might leave it out there, since that's really the way things should be. But the caterpillar is welcome to my carrots. It can have my share. That was my secret second reason for planting carrots: butterflies.

Also saw an adult cicada resting on the (remaining) garlic, and a white-faced meadowhawk on the spiderwort by the birdbath. There are cabbage white butterflies everywhere. fishy and I found a cardinal's nest in the white lilac not all that long ago, too, which is pretty neat. There are nuthatches and chickadees around, and goldfinches constantly singing.

As for the rest of the garden, well... it's still there. Which is a good thing. Must get the rest of the garlic out and put the brussels sprouts seedlings in.

magazine dreams

2008-07-26T10:10:00.005-04:00

I received my Canadian Gardening this week. I have always kind of wanted to be subscribed to a magazine, and I've never done it, just for myself. I think I was subscribed to Chickadee when I was a kid, but does that really count? I always buy CG in the grocery store, and this is technically cheaper.

The result has been that I had wonderfully vivid, realistic gardening dreams last night. There was one garden and patio that I am still trying to figure out -- is it a place I have been before, or did I really just dream it? That only happens very rarely in my dreams (because usually there would be some sort of clue -- like the fact that I was flying over the garden, or perhaps there was a stationary tornado in the background) but I think this was maybe just a very realistic dream.

The other nice thing it has done is convince me that we are not alone in being incredibly frustrated by our garden at this time of year. With us it's been a combination of not having enough time, or enough will is probably more like it, to do the weeding and deadheading that is required of a garden the size of ours. And July is always a terrible time for gardens. So I am pleased to see that it affects other gardeners, too. Reading the suggestions from experts at on the last page of this issue, some of them are practical, but some of them are completely "Don't worry about it, this happens -- throw some colourful annuals in there and see what happens..."

I don't know if I'm going to go with the annuals, but I am going feel secure in the knowledge that gardeners everywhere have problems with July.

i found them!

2008-07-14T21:54:00.002-04:00

Quick update for tonight...

There will be carrots. Unless the rabbits get them between now and the time they're ripe, now that the carrots can be found, out from underneath the crab grass as they are now. There are going to be maybe a dozen carrots. Out of three rows. But that is some! Better than none.

Next year will be better, I'm sure. I will either fence or ... stand guard over the new young shoots of various plants with a water gun ...

The tomatoes are looking great, too. The peppers look like they might give life a shot if the warm, sunny weather continues. I am proud of them.

feeling better

2008-07-14T11:58:00.002-04:00

Somehow my garden journal has vanished. I have no idea where it has gone. So, in lieu of that, I'll let you know what I've been up to this morning here.

I pulled up about a third of the garlic bulbs this morning, and decided that though they're fine, they do seem to have a little more growing to do. So I left the rest in and cut off the flower stalks. It turns out the flower stalks do make a difference, at least with this species ('Music'). So I might be a bit late to really make a difference to the bulbs, but we'll see. I'm going to leave them for another week, I think.

The ones that came out are flat on the [clothes] drying rack in the shade. I'll bring them in tonight, and then hopefully by Wednesday they will be cured enough for me to braid them. They're hardneck garlic, which apparently doesn't braid particularly well.

I replanted the area that I had pulled the garlic out of with 'Royal Burgundy' beans, and we'll see if anything happens there. Or if the rabbit destroys them. Maybe I will spread bone meal over the area again and see if that actually does anything. If not, I am totally building a fence next spring.

The compost pile actually seems to be doing something, so I am hopeful that I will have compost to mulch with. I might attempt that this afternoon. It's such a nice day out, and I'm trying to salvage what's left of the vegetable garden. I might plant some more beans in the spots that could use a little something. I might even re-try beets. I am feeling optimistic today.

the mid-July rant

2008-07-11T09:20:00.003-04:00

Somehow I hoped this year would be different -- that I would be able to get the weeds under control, deadhead the flowers, and generally keep things blooming in a relatively tidy fashion.

I know, I know. What was I thinking?

The weeds are even bigger this year. I think they're going to eat me. Even my poor little vegetable garden is a weed factory. The only thing I'm going to get out of it is garlic, cilantro and tomatoes. Maybe peppers, but they've hated this summer weather. If I am lucky I will be able to plant the brussels sprouts out and they'll just grow like mad. I'm hoping. At the rate they're going right now they will not even make it to a foot high, because the rabbits will eat them and they'll freeze before the first sprout even appears.

The front yard is a sloppy mess and I am feeling particularly discouraged by it, I have to say. Now, the past couple of weeks I haven't been around and when I've been around I've been preparing for this week, which was a really, really heavy week at school. It's not a surprise that the garden is out of control. And then it rained last night (which was really good) very hard (which was not) and everything, even the things that were looking great, has flopped over and given up. The lamb's ears in particular are forming a soggy mat over the rest of the garden.

I have totally had it with those lamb's ears. I am so giving them away when it comes time to dig and divide in the fall. And I'm going to put in some less maintenance-heavy plants. I am discouraged enough that I just want to re-do the entire front but somehow, I don't think that is going to be the right solution to my problem.

Sorry, just had to vent. Now I will concentrate on the good about the garden. Later.

July Long Weekend 2008

2008-07-02T22:20:00.010-04:00

In my mind, I have two prototypes for perfect gardens. The first is a lush, green, mossy secret garden, with fairytale flowers, ponds, and hidden, dewy, whimsical spots. Slightly overgrown but never too much, with vines and little benches.

The other looks something exactly like this:

The Bruce Peninsula has yet to find an equal in my heart, despite travels over much of Canada, through France, and portions of Central America. There is no place on earth quite like it. The closest I have come has been the Atlantic Coast: Grand Manan or perhaps Cape Breton, or other parts of Nova Scotia. But even then. The only thing Georgian Bay lacks is whales and jellyfish. But the ocean can't compare to Georgian Bay blue.

fishy and I are back from a lovely mini-vacation. The weather was fantastic, and the scenery, as always, sublime.

The wildlife was good, with invertebrates, as always, making up the majority of sightings. Like a dope, I forgot my net this time around, leaving the dragon and damselflies quite safe. The above monarch was extremely obliging for fishy.

The flowers at this time of year are sort of between. The strawberries are starting to fruit, most of the columbine are done (not all, though), as are most of the blue flags and potentilla shrubs, and the gentians haven't started flowering yet.

The bluebells are flowering, though, and the (above) Indian paintbrush (Castilleja sp.) and a number of lovely, delicate little white flowers are poking out of the rocks pretty much everywhere you look. The yellow lady's slippers are just finishing, although to my dismay we saw them blooming one day and the next it looked like some rabbit had chewed off just the flower. It was bizarre. The plants we have on the property are nowhere near the road, so they aren't really in danger of being stolen or picked by jerky humans. A hungry rabbit is all I can think of. Of course they have to go for the rare orchids and not any of the other plants...

Ah well. It was a lovely trip, and I'm glad we did it. It is back to school for me next week, with the Week from Hell starting things off. Hooray!

(photos by fishy)

i can't see you, but i can hear you

2008-06-27T22:54:00.004-04:00

It has been a long, hot day, during which I had planned to do several things in the garden and accomplished none of them. In fact, I think I accomplished less than none; I forgot to water one of the front window boxes, and they really need to be watered every other day at the least. Oops.

But I have been listening to a Pewee singing his heart out all day, and a Red-Eyed Vireo off in the distance. The vireos are one of my favourite singers, and one of the first bird songs I ever learned to identify on my own. Partially because they are so easy: "Here I am. ... Where are you? ... Here I am. ... Where are you?" and so on. And on. And on.

Tonight was another treat. I thought I heard them last night, too, but tonight I am definitely sure: the nighthawks are back. I love this bird with a passion. I have no idea why, exactly. But they are very special, and they are amazing fliers. I've seen them at dusk before around here, a couple of times last summer. Infrequently, but they're around. And they make a very distinctive buzz as they fly over after dark, and I heard it tonight. It feels, for some reason, like a gift.

roofer madness

2008-06-23T11:12:00.007-04:00

Since we purchased the house, there has been a leak in the roof over the bedroom. More specifically, there has been a leak where the chimney and the roof meet. Any time it rained with any gusto at all, the wall right beside the bed would drip. The floor is hardwood, the baseboards are hardwood... and fishy and I are both allergic to mold. So as you can see, this isn't an ideal situation.

Last weekend... was it only last weekend? Yes. Well, we decided to take the chimney down. It's not used anyways, and capping it would be costly, and capping wouldn't fix the problem. Saturday was a lovely sunny day... and so we began.

By the end of the day Saturday we had pulled all the soggy drywall off the wall, taken the chimney down, and managed to start the patching. By the end of the day Sunday fishy had put a first layer of protection down. So from inside it looked like so:

And from outside, like so:

Would you believe that it rained ALL NIGHT on Sunday?

However, I am pleased to report that it actually leaked less, despite the fact that the roof was only partially finished, than it has since we moved in.

One week later, the patching is done. Doesn't it look awesome?

I wish I could take credit but I cannot. I know nothing about roofing. fishy, on the other hand, is now something of an expert, and he did a fantastic job. This section of the roof will never, ever leak. You can picture me touching wood just in case I jinxed us.

Now, you may have noticed that there was no insulation in the wall in the bedroom. Those of you who have houses will be nodding knowingly now, because it appears that one project seems to lead to another... and rather than moving back into the bedroom now that the roof is finished, we'll be insulating it first. And then I have some decorating plans to be carried out. And we're going to have to sand and polish the hardwood before we get everything back in there. So... well, we'll get it done by the end of the summer. Right?

the dames on show

2008-06-20T11:56:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to avoid an essay that is already a day late. Let's have a look at what's blooming in the garden!

This is a very tall salvia in the backyard middle bed. Last year it blew over in a storm, but this year it's sturdy enough that I think it would take a heck of a wind to knock it down. I love this plant. I honestly could have just salvia in my garden and I would probably be happy.

The rose I tried to kill last summer has returned the favour by being covered with blooms this summer. It's a climber, and it is still suffering from aphid problems, but I decided that since it didn't die it gets to stay, and I even applied a nice coating of soapy water to kill off a bunch of the aphids last week. The colour of the flowers doesn't really go with anything else in the garden, of course, and it's one of those roses that has been patented: Paprika (Pat. 9537). Seriously. I wanted to kill it partially because of that. There's something a little too corporate about a rose that has to have the patent number appearing after its variety name.

But I can't blame the plant. It's not the plant's fault.

This peony is going to outgrow its alloted spot in the garden next year. I think I'll have to divide it next fall. It has a lovely fragrance, and it blooms like crazy. It requires no love. I love it anyways.

an ode to the easy girls of the garden

2008-06-15T16:55:00.005-04:00

I have always kind of had a thing against peonies and petunias. Not because they both start with "p" although that might have some subconscious thing to it. I have nothing against the letter "p"... I don't think.

No, it's because I've always thought them a little, well, whorish. You know, with the constant, profuse blooms in bright, showy colours. Flowers flaunting themselves in the garden. No subtlety! No secrets! Easy to care for, don't require much other than the occasional deadheading, and yet still showing themselves off to everyone who passes.

... ... Riiiiight.

So those things that always made me just the slightest bit disdainful of both peonies and petunias when I had no garden of my own?

I loves them. I loves them very much. I even planted petunias this year, and I really have a thing against them. But the little ones in my front window boxes are ... just, well, cute. And delightfully pretty. And exuberant, and joyful, and easy to care for. Such colourful payoff for so little work.

And the peonies. Oh my word, the peonies. They are flaunting like crazy. They have enormous, profuse, fragrant Flowers-with-a-capital-F. They are flopping all over the place. They are stunning. And the foliage! I never really appreciated the loveliness of the peony foliage before. It's dark green and rich and really interesting. It looks good! And it takes me nothing! And I have cut flowers in the house, and cut flowers to give away, and there are still more blooms coming.

Woe is me for ever disdaining the carefree peony and petunia. I humble myself before thee, cheerful dames of the flower garden.

progress update: garlic gone wild

2008-06-13T11:31:00.003-04:00

News, news! We finally planted the front window boxes. And I was surprised one day to walk out onto the front porch and find myself endowed with surprise geraniums. I think Grandma and Grandpa were by and didn't realize I was home.

The tomatoes and peppers are loving all this hot weather, but I need to get the radishes out shortly before they kill the carrots. The cilantro seems to be hanging in there. The shallots are resentful, and disappearing quietly. I'd blame the rabbits but I think, for once, they're innocent.

The garlic has thrown up its flower heads; I have been advised that they don't necessarily have to come off, and if I do want to take them off, the stalks can be peeled and sliced and used as a mild garlic clove substitute in salads. I think I'll try that tonight, with romaine and radishes.

I will try to get some photos, but the camera is doing something strange where the light meter doesn't seem to be working. I think more correctly it's that I don't know how to work the light meter, so perhaps it's time for me to learn.

feelin' hot hot hot

2008-06-08T15:22:00.002-04:00

30 Celsius three days in a row! It's too much.

And I am beginning to realize that I am starting to use this blog as a forum for small talk... all about the weather, all the time. So I'll cut that out.

Good news! fishy and I picked up some plants to put into the front baskets, so I am going to plant those this evening. And I need to water the butterfly flowers, I just remembered that. Put Mr. Droopy back out into the yard to see the sun, which I think he will enjoy, and all the tomatoes and peppers are now planted.

So I think that means everything to be planted this year is in the ground, except for the basil and the brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts I'll put in pots today, and the basil might just go straight out into the garden. It's hot enough for it, and it's an herb; I don't think anything will eat it.

Speaking of getting eaten, the lettuce I planted for a second time is looking awesome, so shortly I will have to take it down to one plant per pot, and then plant them in planters. I have lots of planters, so there's lots of place for lettuce. And basil, frankly. The place where I was going to put the basil may be used instead for beans. Or something. Who knows. I'm still fooling around with this stuff. It's all about the learning.

sorry rain, I didn't mean it... please come back!

2008-06-01T17:28:00.002-04:00

The lack of rain is starting to get to me. Did I think I was going to be saying this? No. However, I have had to water my poor shallot seedlings several times now to avoid them dying on me, and I was a little late for some of them.

I did plant the Roma tomatoes out into the garden today, and surrounded them with tomato cages, to keep them from going wild all over the place. They grow incredibly fast. I'll plant out the heirloom beefsteaks tomorrow, I think, and maybe even get some basil into the ground. That said, it shows no sign of warming up enough for basil any time soon, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

I'm also stuck on what to put in the front boxes. I need some very drought-tolerant annual, because I'm not going to water them every day in August (the lobelia was a bad choice last year) and I almost bought a fuchia, but I don't think they're very drought tolerant either. Maybe gazania or something. Or some sort of mixture. I just don't know. There are not a lot of annuals that I actually really like.

One thing I did pick up today that makes me happy is two big bags of mushroom compost. One for the veggie beds and one for the front yard. Well, a piece of the front yard, anyway. Since one bag will probably cover such a small part it won't make much difference.

warblers as I wander

2008-05-29T16:05:00.003-04:00

One bright spot during this year's rather dismal birding season has been a trail I love down by the river at school. There are short sections I occasionally wander and I have yet to come away without seeing or hearing something cool. This is mostly because it's along a major river, I think; but also because the trees are mature and the vegetation is wonderfully lush. This morning I was running late, but as I was rushing I still managed to hear two different kinds of vireos, a catbird, and yellow warblers. This afternoon, wandering and weeding garlic mustard as I went, I heard:

a chestnut-sided warbler
yellow warblers
a rose-breasted grosbeak
catbirds
goldfinches
house wrens
red-eyed vireos
mallards
Canada geese
robins
a downy woodpecker
cardinals

Not bad for a ten minute stroll.

progress update: goodbye lettuce, hello tomatoes

2008-05-26T08:45:00.004-04:00

I have replaced the lettuce. In my imagination, it is growing strong and beautiful and big. In my garden, it is non-existent. If I am not careful I'm going to lose the carrots and the beets, too. Although the carrots are currently being protected by the interplanted radishes, which are far too bitter for bunnies, I think.

So, instead, I am going to use the space from the lettuce rows to grow two more tomatoes; the beefsteaks that I got from Grandma. I still have not started the basil, but hopefully this week, and the beans can go in this week too.

Everything else seems to be growing according to plan. fishy and I did some heavy-duty cleanup in the front garden yesterday. There are a couple of clear dead spaces now, but that means more plants, right? Next weekend I intend to find some of that salvia I love so much ('May Night') at a nursery around here, although I am concerned I won't have much luck. I tried to order it from Veseys last year and got daylilies instead. I should probably have complained, but I didn't.

I will be planting the butterfly flowers I have, the little seedlings are just about ready to go out. That will be either today or Wednesday. I am a little worried that they're going to get stomped on before they get big, but I'm still going to try. The one front corner of the garden looks like absolute hell.

May Long Weekend 2008

2008-05-21T13:05:00.007-04:00

Every year on the May long weekend we go birding with my mother's family. We have done this since I was eight. It started just being my mother, my grandparents, my great-aunt and great-uncle, and my uncle and I. It has expanded in recent years to include as many of my mother's siblings and their spouses and children as can arrange to come along, as well as the occasional poor soul who is a friend of a sibling or a child. These poor, unsuspecting folk never seem quite prepared for the intensity with which we attack this weekend birding sojourn. We are out to see birds. Rain (or sleet, or hail, or snow, as has been the case sometimes) is no barrier. Freezing cold winds? No problem. Hunger? There are muffins in the car. And bathroom breaks are for the weak and whiny.

You are, however, welcome to look at/for other wildlife, and maybe even plants. So this trip, despite the annual grousing about the weather (which was awful, except for the two hours during which fishy took these photos) we had a great number of sightings. Not just birds, but enormous rainbow trout, a muskrat, a garter snake, dragonflies, turtles, leopard frogs, green frogs and a bullfrog, schools of dace, and a fox. One of my favourite flowers, the marsh marigold was blooming:

There are always at least a few good birds to see too, and this year was no exception. We had fantastic luck at a couple of flooded field patches; at one we saw a stilt sandpiper, which I believe is a first for me, and at the other we saw black terns, which I have never seen outside of Point Pelee and which we failed to see there this year. They're one of my favourites, so I was really pleased that we had the chance to see them after all.

It's one of my favourite spring rituals. I had to miss it a couple of years ago, and I cried. I always wish the weather was better and that we'd seen more (four warblers! that is not enough!) but that, I think, is part of the fun.

(photos by fishy)

rain, rain, go away...

2008-05-21T08:09:00.004-04:00

There are veggies up in the garden. And since I didn't really plant anything last year that animals would be interested in, I wasn't prepared for the combination of irritation and sadness that set in this morning when I discovered my lettuce had been "thinned" without my supervision... It's cayenne and blood meal to the rescue! After the rain today.

There has been so much rain, and it has been so cold. Now, the rain is good, and I think a lot of things went a little nuts yesterday because it was sunny and almost warm, and there is lots of water to be had. But today it is grey and cold again, and it looks like it's planning to stay that way. Everything seems to have stalled. I just did the first deadheading of the tulips in the backyard this morning -- way behind.

Grandma provided me with two plants of heirloom beefsteak tomatoes this past weekend (from which I will have pics, by the way) but I'm not exactly sure where to put them. I already need all the space I have for the Roma tomatoes and the cayenne peppers. I might attempt to stick one of them in a large container I haven't dragged out of the garage yet.

I also need to rescue the worms in my vermicomposter from themselves. They are going nuts. I love the castings they produce, and I want to use it to fertilize the houseplants, but what I really need is a nice warm day above 15 Celsius when I can take them outside for the separation work. When it gets warm, too, I'll take a bunch of the worms out and stick them in the composter where they can get to work on that. They won't survive the winter, unfortunately, but when it comes down to it, they won't survive their overcrowded vermicomposter either.

More on the weekend birding trip later today...

Pelee trip 2008

2008-05-14T11:04:00.001-04:00

(Bennett Rd. in Rondeau PP, by fishy)

The birding weekend was cold, cold and rainy, except for Saturday. Saturday we got sunburns. No going halfway, apparently.

Due to the weather and our own chickening out (which I prefer to think of as our pneumonia prevention program), we didn't quite hit 100 species, which for a Point Pelee Mother's Day weekend is not awesome. But, we did see some awesome birds. We got a lifer, the Mourning Warbler (Oporornis philadelphia). I know they're supposed to be "common within their range" but they are very secretive, and have always been one of the warblers I wish I could see. I identified it myself, too! That was at Rondeau Provincial Park. The next one to tick off the list would be the Cerulean Warbler (Dendroica cerulea) but I am afraid that will have to wait until next year, unless something very spectacular and unusual happens at MacGregor Point Provincial Park this weekend.

April showers brought May flowers

2008-05-07T18:39:00.004-04:00

Today has been a super-productive day. I can see one advantage to the literary appreciation course I'm taking: I can read an entire novel in a day and call that homework. Hooray! And yes, I did like Pride and Prejudice after all. I have ordered the next book to read from the library, and I am wondering if it is cheating to get it as an audio book to listen to during my commute?

Aside from that, it has been raining all afternoon, so I didn't get much done in the way of gardening. This is all right, I think I burned out on that on Monday and Tuesday. The seeds needed the water, and I needed the break. Friday I will finally take the pruners out of their hiding spot and apply them to the raspberries. After this rain, there will be no shortage of weeding to do, either.

I did pop trimmings of my sole geranium in water to try to root them. Grandma gave that geranium to me and I'll be upset if it goes south. On the other hand, I suppose she could always give me another cutting... I'm just really lazy with geraniums. This is the only one I like. If it ever flowers I'll take a photo; the colour is quite stunning.

Speaking of photos, I'll post two. The first is of some of the bulbs in the garden. The second is of the garlic doing it's thing.

the vegetable garden is in

2008-05-06T12:26:00.002-04:00

Whew. My back, it is sore. Yesterday I did more digging than I should have, after going months with no digging at all. The plan changed from digging an entirely new third vegetable bed to just expanding one of the beds that's already there. Frankly, it is a better plan. Less digging.

But the good news is that things are planted! I got the lettuce and the beets in last night, and then the carrots, shallots and cilantro in this morning. I need desperately to pot up the tomatoes, which probably can't go in for another week but are far outgrowing their little peat pots. There are five peppers up now, of which I am only going to need two. The African daisies are starting to pop up, although once they're out they're growing quite slowly despite the sun they're getting. And the asclepias are not quite ready to plant out. I figure another week or so for them. Have to remember, too, that the last frost date in this area isn't until May 9, which is the end of this week.

I have no place to put the beans I bought, or the basil, or the brussels sprouts. I think the brussels sprouts are going to go in where the lettuce and beets are planted once those have sort of done their thing. The brussels sprouts apparently do better if planted a fair bit later, so that they get a bit of frost once ripe. I might actually get a crop of basil in there before the sprouts go in... have the lettuce and beets out around the end of June, basil in until the end of July, and then the sprouts after that?

I'm just thinking out loud here.

Will have pictures of the newly planted currant and dogwood, as well as of the amazing garlic. It occurs to me that something else is going to need to go where that garlic is, actually... hmm. Sprouts there, perhaps? Or beans...

home at last

2008-05-03T08:36:00.004-04:00

I am home! I am home and I am so glad to be here. I have missed my husband and I have missed my house. And my garden is growing on without me!

That's okay, though. The front bed is gorgeous. The bulbs are all out and blooming in force, and because it's been so cool the past couple of days they are lasting quite well. Only the very early species tulips, Dutch iris and the croci seem to be past their best. The fritillary is absolutely amazing in the back yard, one of the cornflowers is already blooming. And so is the little prairie smoke I planted in the front yard:That isn't the best picture, but it's not bad. The other photos I took of the front bed are all washed out. Today is very grey. It is too wet to do much other than weeding today, but that's okay because there's weeding to be done. "One year seeding makes for seven years weeding"? Yeah, I get it.

Oliver, Jamie. Jamie at home: cook your way to the good life. Hyperion: 2007.

2008-04-29T12:34:00.001-04:00

Not much one for celebrity chefs until we started watching cooking shows, I have turned out to be a food voyeur. I love cooking shows. I am a fan of certain chefs. And yes, the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver himself, has a fan in me. Specifically the series Jamie at Home, which I am anxiously waiting for on DVD so I can watch it again and again and drool at his garden and his kitchen and his amazing outdoor oven.

While waiting, though, I will satisfy myself with the most excellent (and enormous) Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life. It's full of delicious-looking recipes, and notes about the produce and meat used in the recipes. A food voyeur like me doesn't really need it to be a functional cook book. Just pretty and tasty-looking. Which it is.

It is also functional. The kofta was the "Grilled lamb kofta kebabs with pistachios and spicy salad wrap" on pg. 44. It was just as easy as the recipe made it sound, not to mention straightforward and very tasty. I would reproduce the recipe here, but I'm not sure that I'm allowed. Copyright and all that.

A warning: if you find books that are written extremely informally, this may not be the book for you: "However, my favorite thing to do is boil them for 10 minutes, toss them with some good olive oil, salt, pepper, a little swig of red or white wine vinegar, woody herbs like thyme and rosemary and some smashed garlic, and roast the little monkeys at 350 F until they're lightly golden, with intense flavor. Come on Eileen, now we're talking!" The monkeys in question are carrots and beets. Mm. Monkeys.

kofta away!

2008-04-25T09:42:00.005-04:00

I cooked lamb kofta over the barbeque last night, and I happen to be proud enough that I have to brag about it. I meant to take a photo but completely forgot. Suffice to say it not only tasted delicious, but it looked really damn good too.

I don't often cook with lamb (actually, I think this was maybe the first time) and so I was a little nervous. I also had to deal with the fact that the only pistachios available were of the salted, in-shell variety; so I had to shell and rince them before adding them to the lamb mix. Aside from these very minor inconveniences, the recipe really was as fast and easy as it looked.

The idea for serving is to toast up a flatbread then pile salad greens plus lemony red onions on top, then add kofta and top with plain yoghurt. I decided to make a cucumber-yoghurt sauce instead, and this was really my crowning achievement. Because I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook. I need to have a recipe and I need to follow it exactly. I have been tentatively stepping out of this shell.

And boy, did it turn out well! I added fresh mint, finely chopped cucumber, cilantro and freshly squeezed lemon juice to the yoghurt, turning it a little more saucy. Then I added a touch of salt and also just a wee bit of sugar, because I found it a bit too bitter -- and it was just perfect to top everything off. If I was doing it again, I would add diced tomato and squeezed garlic. But that's a minor quibble.

The kofta itself were a little bit... bland, maybe. I would add a bit more salt and a bit more pepper next time, and definitely a couple cloves of garlic, I think. And I would grind up the pistachios first as opposed to just adding them whole to the mix. They were a little chunkier than they needed to be. I wouldn't want them creamed, of course, but maybe a little smaller in size. And I'd add a few more, too. If they happened to be hulled for me.

All in all -- kofta = success! Love bbq season.

duck watching and frog listening

2008-04-23T10:42:00.006-04:00

A spontaneous trip with my aunt to a flooded field near a creek led to some lovely birds last night:

two yellow-shafted flickers
mallards
ring-necked ducks
buffleheads
two green-winged teals
a black duck
a male pintail

The pintail was in his very best breeding plumage. Seeing them is normally a treat; this time was an experience. He was gorgeous. Previous to heading out for the ducks, we had a great look at a male turkey doing his best to impress the ladies. The ladies didn't look too impressed. Felt a little sorry for him. He sure impressed me, but I guess I'm not a turkey.

There were also several peepers doing their thing quite loudly, and later on in the evening the wood frogs got going. Now that I know what to listen for with the wood frogs, I realize just how many times I may have heard them without realizing. It's a very innocuous sound, too, next to the exuberant peepers.