Fish and Flowers

Lots of flowers this week:

These sent to me on Thursday:


And these too:


These from my garden:

A volunteer:


Iris in the pond:




And along the edge of the pond:


Click to enlarge and see the ant!




More ants & dewdrops:


And a reflective look at the pond. I love how these show both above & below the water.
With fishes:


With water lilies:

Rhubarb! Rhubarb! (with pictures)

I haven't "officially" joined ExLibris' Soup's On! Challenge but after reading Emily's recent post on her experiments with Indian cooking -- and a trip to the Farmers' Market this morning -- I thought I'd play along in spirit with this post.

Farmers' Markets recently have become a big thing in my town. There are now two markets on Saturday either close to my home, or on my usual Saturday errand route. This morning, when I went for an early morning walk with friends, we walked to one of these markets. Today's market was crowded at the opening bell with joggers, bikers, dog walkers (and their dogs), young and old alike strolling past the 20 or so stalls selling a variety of local, fresh goods. At this time of the year, there are plenty of herbs, flowers, and garden plants for sale, but there isn't a lot of fresh produce at the markets. Asparagus is in season and it looked yummy. In addition to my usual purchase of shitake mushrooms, I bought some lettuce and a bottle of deliciously creamy yogurt from a local dairy whose products are organic & their cows are grass-feed. And, in an impulsive move, I bought some rhubarb.

I don't buy rhubarb often. I think I heard the Prairie Home Companion folks singing Rhubarb. Rhubarb. Rhubarb pie! I wasn't even sure how to prepare it, so I went to my cookbook bookshelf and pulled out a favorite book, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food.


I didn't realize that rhubarb is one of Nigella's favorites. Had I been so inclined, I could have made a rhubarb fool, rhubarb custard, rhubarb ice-cream, a jellied dish, a trifle, a tart, or an almost irresistible steamed pudding called, memorably, Pig's Bum. Instead, I decided to make a Rhubarb Crumble.

About 10 years ago, I started buying cookbooks whenever I traveled. This version of How to Eat, which is also available in an Americanized version, is one I picked up on a trip to London a few years ago. The challenge for me with this book: because it is British, the measurements are in metric. Being the ignorant American that I am, I can't easily translate the measurements. Since most European cooking measures dry ingredients by weight instead of volume -- which really is the logical way to do it -- this book presents another challenge. Try converting 120g to cups. There isn't a formula for that. But, I have a new kitchen scale so I didn't even bother. All metric for me on this one, baby. Well almost!

So, here's the recipe:
Cut up the rhubarb and the strawberries. The recipe called for 1 kg of rhubarb and I had only bought about 1 pound. I obviously didn't proceed far before altering the recipe, but rhubarb & strawberries go together for more reasons than color palette, so the berries made up the other pound or so. Add a couple of tablespoons each of caster sugar and light muscovado sugar. Oops -- second stumble: What is caster? What is muscovado? And to think that I used to wonder why anyone would want a computer in their kitchen. How insinuated Google and Wikipedia have become in our lives!


Caster is a fine white baking sugar and muscovado is an unrefined brown sugar with a strong taste of molasses. No Muscovado to be found at the supermarket, so relied on turbinated sugar instead (aka Sugar in the Raw) and the plain white processed all-purpose sugar in the cabinet would have to do in place of the caster sugar.

Add the sugar, orange zest and some orange juice (a "spritz", Nigella advised). Since I was going to use them in my dinner recipe, I used blood oranges, another Nigella favorite. Since I already had a reddish theme with the rhubarb and the strawberries, I thought the red juice of the oranges fit right in. The recipe calls for oranges, not blood oranges, but the strawberries were very sweet and I thought the tarter taste of the juice would work better. If you aren't familiar with blood or Seville oranges, Nigella writes that they can be substituted whenever you'd use lemon but want some more color. The color of them fascinates me. I find them a little sweeter than lemons, but they are definitely much more sour than your typical California navel or Florida orange.


The crumble crust was simple to make: 120g of self-raising floor, a pinch of salt, 90g of butter, cold and cubed into small pieces about 1 cm, 3 tablespoons of muscovado sugar and 3 tablespoons of sugar or vanilla sugar. I didn't have any vanilla sugar made either although I did have the beans. Note to self: make some for next time I need it. To spice the crumble crust, I added orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. Cardamom is my absolute favorite spice.

120g of flour was a little less than 2 cups, 90g of butter was one stick with a smallish slice removed. One standard US stick of butter is 113g. To mix the crust, add flour and salt and butter and mix with your hands. In Nigella's words: using the tips of your fingers -- index and middle flutteringly stroking the fleshy pads of your thumbs -- rub it into the flour. Stop when you have a mixture that resembles porridge oats. I don't know how flutteringly I mixed it, but I did stop when it looked like oatmeal.



Keep in the fridge until ready to bake or in the freezer for 10 minutes. Because the fridge was full, it went into the freezer while I made dinner.

This cooking post is suffering from a bit of ADHD. Back to the rhubarb in a minute. Here is dinner:

Yummy fresh salmon


placed in foil packs, with 1/8 c lemon juice, 1/8 c sweet Marsala wine, sliced blood oranges or lemons, & capers. Spray the foil with spray oil.


Each fillet goes in its own foil pack. Fold up the foil packs tightly. Place on baking sheet. Cook at 425 for 20-25 minutes.



Prep asparagus. Of course, readers who are asparagus lovers know to break off the stalks near the end, where they naturally break. Spray the tray. Drizzle with good olive oil. Salt. Pepper. And -- the secret ingredient I tried today on advice from my friend S (the best non-professional cook I know) -- sprinkle with nutmeg. This adds a woodsy but sweet taste to the vegetable. Put in same oven for last 8 minutes the salmon is cooking. During those 8 minutes, drink a glass of wine (see first photo) and try to figure out what the hell Gas Point 5 is on your oven.


Back to the rhubarb-strawberry crumble: Gas point 5 is 190 - 200C. It took two math whizzes and me debating for a few minutes on how to convert to determine the setting. We finally settled on 375 - after the crumble had been in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 (my original calculation). But said oven had been at 425, so I figured it would all even out.


Which it sort of did. I baked for 30 minutes instead of the recommended 20-25. It probably could have cooked for yet another 5, as the rhubarb was crunchier than I liked. The crumble ended up being juicier than I liked. I think coating the fruit with a dusting of flour or cornstarch would have been better. I liked the crust a lot. Overall it wasn't bad. I'd give this recipe a grade of B- because of the liquidity. I'll try this again sometime with berries or apples or maybe peaches. Doesn't peaches with cardamom-spiced crumble crust sound heavenly?

Although this recipe didn't turn out picture perfect, I still like this cookbook and would recommend it to cookbook readers and cooks alike. Although the British terms can be new for the American cook, this book, and Lawson's overall approach to cooking -- simple, not much fuss, delicious and pleasurable food -- is so accessible. I think that the American version of this book, in addition to the measures, has been edited to include more familiar terms. The recipes are written in a narrative style, rather than an instructional, step-by-step style. While this isn't the easiest to follow during preparation, each recipe is interspersed with comments by Lawson on the taste, texture or appearance of the work in progress, or maybe with just an aside regarding something about the food. As I was looking for a rhubarb recipe today, I was sidetracked into reading her thoughts on food in season and which food she likes to buy fresh during certain months. Lawson is always entertaining, and frequently tosses in a comment that is sure to make you laugh. Like today, reading her admonition not to mold a rhubarb gelatin in a certain style of mold because, due to its dusty pink color, might come out looking "a bit gynecological". Ahem! This is not your typical everyday run-of-the-mill cookbook, but it is a cookbook you could use any day.

Hands in the dirt and a trip to Chicago

Today was gardening day. While I only have one flat of flowers planted so far, my guys and I did a lot of shoveling of dirt today. There is something invigorating about the smell of dirt and worms on a cool, sunny Spring day.

Here are some pictures from the garden:

It's going to take more than one flat to cover this hill side, newly without ground cover because the landscapers cleared the wrong area. That's okay, though, it allows for adding some color on the wooded slope. Complements the sign too!

I found this delicate little wildflower in the woods as I was planting the begonias.

Right now, standing on my porch or walking down the driveway, is a sensory delight, with the honeysuckle in bloom. Some call this a weed. While it is invasive -- it's even banned in Illinois -- I like it a lot. Lonicera maackii:


Speaking of gardening and gardens, I was in Chicago last week and had the opportunity to walk through Millennium Park. Lurie Gardens is beautiful.


I was with a Dutch friend who especially liked the tulips:


As we approached Jaume Plensa's Crowne Fountain, I thought maybe they had changed it. I liked the changing mural of flowers on the glass wall, but was a little disappointed that it wasn't what I expected.


Then, the picture changed:


How can you not smile at this? Even though it was cold, there were children splashing in the water. How can one resist laughing?


From Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago:

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

Since I was with friends on their first trip to the US, we did the tourist-y thing and went to the top of the John Hancock building. I haven't done that since sometime in the 1970's. We also walked on the beach for awhile. Although they live on the Indian Ocean, my friends were amazed by Lake Michigan.

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

One last view of the City of Broad Shoulders.

live blogging Obama

Obama isn't on stage yet. Thousands of people standing in Indianapolis in American Legion Mall -- IN THE RAIN. And Stevie Wonder is singing !!!!!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Updated: I can't say I saw Senator Obama, but I could hear him! Local news stations are estimated that there were 21,000 people in the Mall, a park in downtown Indianapolis about 2 blocks long (1/4 mile long) & 1 block wide.



I think this little guy had one of the best seats in the house.



Well worth standing for 2 hours & walking 1.35 miles in queue to get into the park area about 500 feet from our car! Everybody in Indiana & North Carolina: GO VOTE TOMORROW.

Quote from Lewis Thomas:

Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dead as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. If you had been looking a very long, geologic time, you would have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held aloft by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.

-- Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. 1974.

I first read Thomas in the late 70s and have read all of his books, but it has been 20 years since I last read him. If you are not familiar with Thomas, and you are interested in science writing, especially reading an excellently written literary discussion of scientific ideas, or if you are interested in observations about nature, our planet and ecology, I would recommend The Lives of a Cell. Since I no longer own this book, I think I need to put it on my wishlist so I can re-read this.

I came across this quotation in Earth Community, Earth Ethics, by Larry L. Rasmussen (1997). In a discussion with Emily earlier this week, she mentioned Rasmussen and his theological perspectives on nature and the environment and our part in it (not just an agent acting on behalf for or against nature). I immediately went to the web to find book titles by him. I'll be posting on this book here and at the Eco Justice Challenge blog in the coming weeks. You can read Emily's explanation of why it's eco-justice and not environmentalism here.

Lost poem of silver and pink

I wander out the window
bored by the conversation on the phone;
Tethered in my cell by debits and credits
that I don't give a damn about.
The sky is lowering,
a silver-gray shadowing
the purples of the wild plums
at the scanty woods' edge.
A hawk flies overhead,
circling a center point
hid in the forest of glass,
the lake a dammed branch of the river
stopped in its tracks.
I do the warrior pose,
a sun salute to the threatening skies,
forgetting to breathe from my soul.
I craft the perfect lyric in my head;
meter and rhyme and imagery to capture
the trees and the skies and the bird.
Then, jolted back to the call,
All is gone in an instant.
I have only the memory
of the beauty of the feeling
I thought I held in my eye.

Later, at home, I look at
the erosion by the mailbox,
the steep drop by the side of the road,
water from the rain dripping slowly
into a deep hole, pooling gently,
flower petals flowing past
to the sewer drain.