The Harbingers of Protospring
When I first started learning to keep bees, my mentor, the inestimable Kirkobeeo, mentioned that he kept track of the seasons by looking at a certain peach tree in one of the gardens where he kept bees. As soon as that peach tree blossomed, he knew spring had arrived, and he would begin his spring beekeeping activities. Even if he saw peach blossoms on other trees, it didn’t matter. He used that one specific tree as his measure.
He did this because spring arrives at different times in different places. With all the different microclimates that can occur in any given area, if you have any activities that are weather-dependent, it’s important to note what happens in your specific area.
And while spring hasn’t quite arrived here in Seattle, protospring definitely has. The marker to begin prepping my pots and seeds has arrived – in the form of nettles. As one of the first new greens to shoot up after the winter thaw, they tell me that soon, I’ll be able to go out without my heavy down jacket, that the days will get longer and warmer, that the long winter of eating mainly root vegetables will soon be over.
And the best part of using nettles as my marker? They’re absolutely delicious, so not only am I looking forward to spring, I can enjoy this moment of protospring, by celebrating with some nettle pesto pasta!
Of course, just because nettles have arrived in my part of Seattle doesn’t mean they’ve arrived in your part of the world, even if you also live in Seattle! Part of the beauty of microclimates is that I’ll probably be able to pick nettles that are still young and tender for at least another month, just by visiting other areas of the city. In fact, I can probably pick them well into May, if I venture just a bit further out of the city and up into the mountains!
I hope you like jammin’ too!
One of the things I miss most about my home town, is all the fruit that is freely available on all the streets. With such mild climate, fruit trees thrive, and provide pickings for all. So much so, that an art collective got their start making fruit tree maps of various Los Angeles neighborhoods. Of course, if it’s in someone’s yard, I always knock on the door and ask if it’s okay – and so far, I still haven’t been turned away. Instead, I’ve had people who didn’t even know they had a fruit tree in their yard, people who offer plastic bags to hold the fruit, and people who point out other fruit tree bounty that I can gather. It really is paradise.
It’s not that we don’t have fruit trees here, either, but with the difference in climate, there’s also a difference in variety. Pears and apples, aplenty, I’ve seen loquats and cherry trees. But never a citrus or avocado, nor a guava.
So whenever I return from LA, Kozy laughs at the pounds of lemons that come tumbling from my bags. But how can I bear to pay $1.50 per lemon, when I come from a place where they are free?
This time, I came home laden with the gifts of my father’s guava tree. To be honest, I’m not really sure why he planted it in the first place, since I don’t think I’ve seen him eat more than one guava off that tree. Probably for good reason, considering the seeds are scattered throughout the flesh, making it incredibly difficult to enjoy even a single bite without having to avoid a tooth-breaking seed. But I certainly had plans for my bounty.
What better way to get rid of the seeds, and preserve the fruit, than to make a jam, to enjoy that heavenly scent for months to come?
1. Dice the fruit into small pieces, for faster cooking.
2. Boil the fruit until it softens, enough to mash through a strainer or, if you have one, a food mill
3. Mash out the seeds
4. Boil the resulting puree with a little more water and added sugar to taste. Just remember, the sugar is the preservative, so don’t go too light. After at least 30-45 minutes, add a little lemon juice to help preserve.
5. Can it.
It might not be the sunny warm LA winter outside, but at least with my guava jam, it will be sunny in my apartment.
Under sodium lights
Somehow I got this idea in my head. Mostly, there was a meetup group meeting, that I really wanted to attend, and couldn’t. But I ended up getting a little obsessed with it. So, without knowing really anything about the subject other than what research the internet could yield, I went and bought myself the necessary equipment, and headed out last Wednesday morning to stand around, and do something akin to… well, nothing. Other than maybe freeze.
But of course that wasn’t the reason we dragged ourselves out of bed into the winter twilight, an hour before even the sun had bothered – and maybe even all others of our ilk, since we saw very few people out and about, and no one at all on the docks we chose, lined with lights, and bright enough for those above water, and hopefully, also for those below.
We were hunting squid.
Squid are attracted to smaller fish and shrimp, which in turn are attracted by light. The most avid squidders will bring their own halogen lamps to the pier at night, shining them down into the water, and sending their jigs into the watery beams. But, not being avid squidders with strong lamps, we settled for a well lit pier, and hoped for the best.
Time after time, we dropped our jig, and made it dance, trying to jerk it around in a motion similar to the way a shrimp might swim. It would take a pretty blind squid to mistake the plastic glow of our jig for a shrimp, but maybe just about anything swimming around in the right manner is good enough.
Tiny clams are not squid.
We certainly “swam” well enough to get the attention of… well, the rocky sea bottom, having snagged it more than a couple times. We were almost certain we’d lose the line and lure, but with enough tugging back and forth, we freed it each time.
And then there was the seaweed which couldn’t resist our lure, either.
But I guess our little shrimp jigs never swam well enough for the squid. And eventually, dawn began to lighten the sky, signalling the end of the best time to squid. Though there are those that say the capricious nature of squid allows for squidding during full daylight too, standing around for over an hour in the coldest part of the day had our teeth chattering and our frozen toes ready for some warmth. Besides, high tide had come and gone as well, and with it, supposedly also the best time to catch the elusive calamari.
Perhaps next time, squid.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach
The night lay ahead of us: the full-moon beach at low tide, the air crisp and salty – and yet still not too cold, as one might imagine a Pacific Northwest night in the dead of winter.
A month ago, Kozy and I had heard about Taylor Shellfish’s Oyster Picnic, promising “all the oysters you can eat, award-winning wines, low tide conviviality, shucking lessons, and Xinh’s oyster stew.” How could anyone refuse an offer like that?!
The day for our dig finally came, and despite being the middle of winter, we were greeted with beautifully clear skies. Kokozy and I headed to Elliot’s Oyster House, our meeting point to catch the bus, where we were greeted with glasses of wine, a host of appetizers, including Elliot’s creamy, delicious clam chowder, as well as… a giant oyster.
Soon enough, though, we were on our way to Totten Inlet, down the I-5, through Olympia, off the highway, (after a few turnarounds from missing the correct turn), and down a short dirt path, where we were let off the bus, greeted with wineglasses by the manager of the Seattle storefront for Taylor Shellfish, and then directed towards the beach, covered with as many oysters as you can manage to eat, with still more, scattered around, oysters everywhere, every step on an oyster or three, but still every oyster you pick up a fresh discovery accompanied by a squeal of joy, “wow, that’s a BIG one!” – not too big to eat raw, but just right, especially when quickly followed with a bright splash of sauv blanc. Even some too big, but perfect for fire roasting, stewing in it’s own liquor, until the bubbles seeping out of the shell tell you it’s just on the right side of done.
On top of this delicious extravaganza, I also learned how to shuck an oyster with much more confidence. I always used to be afraid I’d mess them up, or I’d poke my hand full of holes – and holey hands full of briny sea creatures are a recipe for a terrible infection! Well, with no dearth of oysters to experiment on, and a thick rag to protect my hand, as well as master shuckers on hand to give tips, I mastered it! I didn’t even once slip to poke my rag-covered hand! I won’t win any shucking contests soon, I’m sure, but I’m content enough just to be able to dig out my own sweet savor of the salty sea: slow, but (mostly) sure.
Just as we were starting to feel the cold through our thick jackets, and the soreness in our legs from bending, standing, walking, squatting, we were ushered towards the tents, and towards the heavenly scent of stewing oysters, mingling with spices and cream. The time had come for Xinh’s oyster stew, silken smooth, and redolent with the flavor of the sea. Most oyster stews pack plenty of potatoes in thin gruel, only slightly aided by a dash of cream and of hopes you don’t notice there are only a few paltry chunks of oysters; Xinh’s stew was the exact opposite: every bite bursting with oysters, the creamy broth flavorful with oyster liquor without being too heavy, the welcome warmth sliding down our throats, feeding our souls.
A perfect end, to a perfect night.
No doubt, it is too late to sign up for any of their remaining picnics for this year, but there’s always next year. And maybe I’ll see you there, because I’ll certainly be back for more!
It’s a beautiful day for a flight
Last week, I flew down the coast to visit some family. I always pick the window seat, since I like looking out. Some times, there’s cloud cover, all the way through.
But sometimes, the entire flight is clear.
Mount Rainier.
This was such a clear day, that I actually kept my eyes – and my camera – pretty much glued to the window, so I thought I’d share. I’m sure the people around me must have thought I’ve never flown before, even though I’ve been flying consistently since I’ve been in the womb!
Of course, there’s a lot of atmosphere that my unpolarized lens had to shoot through.
Stone’s Landing and Eagle Lake.
But I think it just adds to the dramatic nature of the scenes.
Lake Tahoe.
It almost looks post apocalyptic, hm?
Union Valley Reservoir. Funny, cute little thing, isn’t it?
Zoomed in. I think this is a US Airways flight, judging by the tail tags. Click on the photo for a larger version
Wheeler’s Ridge. Oddly, I can’t see the I-5, but I can make out the California Aqueduct!
Santa Clarita. Home of Magic Mountain!
We finally reached civilization. Santa Clarita is the first city out the east plane windows since Seattle! (Portland was on the west.)
And as great as the scenery can be between destinations, I think the best part is arriving in a familiar city.
That familiar curving bay. Tells me I’m home.
Being able to pick apart each of the neighborhoods, and recognize landmarks.
I love this city.
Like in the one above, the tall buildings are clustering around Wilshire Blvd. between Western to Alvarado, ending at MacArthur Park, and Silverlake is off to the north east, just right of center. Glendale is just between the mountains on the left, Eagle Rock is to the right, and I think you can even see a bit of Mount Wilson behind that.
And I couldn’t have an aerial tour of Los Angeles without downtown.
Maybe I should have been a cartographer, or aerial photographer…
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tour from Seattle to Los Angeles!
And if you still haven’t gotten enough, there are a few more over here
Of necks and things
The first time I bought a whole goose, it came with gizzard, heart, liver, and neck. While I had plans for the goose, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all those extra parts I wasn’t expecting.
Cue, internet. I ended up confiting the insides, poaching them in that warm golden glow of duck fat. But I had something else planned for the neck. At some point in the search, I found a suggestion for duck neck skins, the most appetizing of which was for sausage – but sans recipe. Still, what better way to use the skin, than as a large pocket for the neck meat I was able to pull off, with that deliciously crispy skin as the casing?
So I sat there with my goose neck for around 30 minutes, trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble peeling off what was described as easily removed skin, and wondering why it actually resembled regular meat a lot more than skin… I was so laughably new to goose parts, that I tried to peel the neck meat off because it didn’t occur to me that it would have already been deskinned! So much for that idea.
Later on, though, I found a duck purveyor, who did provide the neck skin with the duck, which I froze, waiting for a time when I could properly handle the project.
Seriously though, this isn’t really the sort of project you start when you are even sort of hungry, because after 45 min to 1 hour of picking off forcemeat, along with all the other steps, by the time you’re grilling, you’ll probably be at least a little impatient, which doesn’t help matters, considering the grilling takes a while too.
But I finally figured I’d have enough time to see this through. I was breaking down another duck, and decided to peel off as much forcemeat from the carcass as possible, and finally make the duck neck sausage. After far too long a time, for far too little meat, I had what I thought would be enough for a small sausage.
I’m no sausage maker though, and I just kind of had to wing it.
I started by sewing one end of the sausage.
Then prepped the meat by grinding it in a mini processor, along with some mushrooms, garlic, and spices
proceeded with stuffing the duck skin,
before sewing it up. But since the skin has a widening circumference, and the sewing job flattens the ends, it kinda looks like a foot, doesn’t it?
I started on low heat, to make sure all the innards were cooked, then turned it up, in order to crisp up the skin.
Two hours of constant supervision later, and the sausage was finally ready.
Looks pretty, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, for all that trouble, I think the results were pretty mediocre. The skin wasn’t quite as crispy as I’d hoped, most likely soaked from the water left in the mushrooms, and the texture of the sausage was still quite a bit too chunky, and fell apart too easily.
I think next time, I’ll mince the meat much better, as well as try cooking the insides first, and then draining them, to make sure all the water and grease won’t soak into the skin.
Also, even though I wanted to make sure it was a duck sausage this time, I might just go with a different preground meat. The forcemeat-picking was simply too painful!
In the Hood
With the 4 day weekend looming, Kozy and I packed our bags, readying for our trip to the Olympic Peninsula. We were heading back to the Hood… Hood Canal that is. The beauty and bounty of the region, especially in the fall, and sometimes into early winter, is hard to beat.
Because we need so much stuff for only 3 days
We started out winding our way south, and through the Tacoma Narrows, before heading north again, and west, towards Mason County. As it had the past two times, clouds loomed high on the horizon, with just a smattering of sun coloring them pink, and, as we forged further afield, gentle rain bathed our car right before we hit the county line.
This time, we decided to base ourselves on the south side of the canal, at Anna’s Bay. We were lucky enough to find a cabin right on the estuary, with a beautiful picture window facing the bay. As expected, it was teeming with life, both of feather and of fin.
And we didn’t even need to go out to the deck and get wet. Picture windows sure are nice!
Unfortunately, it was quite late in the season for chanterelles, and most of the ones we found were the large, floppy, waterlogged variety, but we grabbed a few of the slightly firmer specimens anyway, and dry sautéed them for a wild mushroom risotto dinner. Of course, it didn’t top the Thanksgiving dinner the night before, with duck confit with a red wine demi-glace, roasted sweet potatoes, and bacon sautéed brussel sprouts. Yeh, we eat well, even when we travel.
One of the evenings, we almost even had fresh fish for a late evening snack! The cabin owner was kind enough to leave us with a fishing pole, strung up with a lure, and at evening low tide, we went out and gave it a shot. Kozy had been fishing before, but had never caught anything, while I had never actually gone out with a real fishing rod before – so needless to say, we were both quite the amateurs.
Now, when we first arrived at the cabin, the water was lapping at the edges of the beams that held up our deck. As we put to use our newfound knowledge of the avian species, we identified waterfowl, such as scaups, buffleheads, and grebes, as well as herons, comorants, and even some bald eagles, we barely noticed the time pass. That is, until we noticed the small island some yards away disappeared, only marked by reeds and other salt tolerant grasses poking above the swirling muddied-salt surface. Only a couple hours had passed. We had never seen the marking of the tides quite so obviously, before. Even armed with this obvious fact, when we went out to fish, imagine our surprise, when the tideline was nearly 10 yards from our deck!
Multiple, unattached lenses amuse me. And let me get a better shot since my camera has basically no zoom at all.
With waterproof boots, we wandered the waterlogged waterfront, discovering a few oysters, but mostly just slick gravel, before heading to the water’s edge to cast our line. From time to time, we even heard fish jumping out of the water, landing again with a great splash.
After a few casts, Kozy handed the rod to me, and I tried my hand at making the lure look as much like a little swimming fish as possible, and… I got a bite! Too bad I don’t know what to do once I get a bite. In my haste, I pulled up, perhaps too hard, and perhaps too soon, as the line violently swung behind me, luckily just missing Kozy’s eye. The small fish-like lure now looked only like a small, sad bit of ragged pink plastic.
We sent a few more half hearted casts, knowing the little lure most likely didn’t look anything like dinner to any of the fish, and we soon called it a night, though the excitement of the bite was still running in our veins. No fish this time, but maybe next time!
All in all, we had a lovely and relaxing long weekend, bird watching, exploring new mushroom haunts, and driving around through the beauty of Hood Canal.
I hope your Thanksgiving was as beautiful as ours!
Frosty Morning birding
As a perpetual late waker, it takes planning and strategy for me to wake before 10, especially on a weekend. More than that, it takes a really good reason. A reason like… birding with an expert? Yeh, that’s a pretty good reason.
Despite the frosty winter air, Kokozy and I dragged ourselves from our toasty warm bed, and headed out to the far reaches of Greenlake. I must say, the view alone, in the quiet moments before the rest of the group gathered was just about worth it.
Soon, a small group gathered around Martin Muller, who took us around the lake, pointing out, not only the types of birds we were seeing, but also the various behaviors they might exhibit. With a seeming sixth sense, he noted that the flock of grebes we had just spotted were about to take off, and, within the space of a couple wings’ beat, they were gone! Magic, or perhaps a superhero power? Nope! Martin explained that the position of their bodies, and the way they turned their heads was a classic sign that they were getting ready to leave the area. He further went on to explain that once you started to recognize these behaviors, you could figure out better positions to watch them – and take photographs of them.
At one point, someone stopped our group, and asked Martin if he could identify a bird he had seen in his yard. Without blinking, and without waiting for the description, Martin blithely answered, “northern flicker.”
“Haha, no, it’s black and brown, with a bit of red on it’s neck…” and continued to describe the bird, which, astonishingly, actually was a northern flicker!
With their colorful plumage, as well as being quite common in the area, there’s a pretty good chance any non-birder would notice and ask about it.
And then, what is a bird walk in the PNW, without seeing some bald eagles?
As beautiful as the bird may have been, he and his mate ended up scaring off the raft of loons we had been watching. But again, Martin could pinpoint the exact timing of their takeoff, with their various behaviors.
After the eagles had cleared the lake of many of the waterfowl, we headed inland a bit, and were soon greeted with chickadees, madly storing seeds and small nuts for the winter, and even encountered a rufous hummingbird!
At one point, we stopped as a member of our group called to a red-breasted sapsucker she had been feeding for the past few months. As she whistled, and brought out a small handful of feed, the sapsucker poked his head out and approached. I suppose he must have been shy, because he kept landing for only brief moments before flying away again. Eventually Martin directed our attention elsewhere, and sure enough, the sapsucker landed on her head for a few minutes, while she chatted with a neighbor.
It was definitely a lively walk, and chock full of information – that I’ll likely forget within a few weeks. But you know what? That bird you’re wondering about that’s sitting outside your window? It’s a northern flicker.
Saving the World!
As anyone who gets into nature and ethnobotany, I’ve got a few shelves full of practical identification books, as well as some light reading narrative books. Once I started mushrooming, I added a few essential mushroom guides, too. If you want to ID mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest, you turn to David Arora. His book Mushrooms Demystified is the ultimate guide to keying out the features of your new fungal friend, and his pocket guide All That the Rain Promises and More is handy to have when you’re out in the woods looking for edibles.
But what if you really want to know about mushrooms; not just what they are and if they’re edible, but how they grow, and what other uses they have?
What if you want to know how they can save the world?!
Well, of course you turn to Paul Stamets! Early in my mushroom love, I picked up his book Mycelium Running; How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, which, like it’s subtitle says, talks about exactly that… and I’ve been a fan of his ever since. So, imagine my excitement when I got to see him speak last weekend!
After trekking out to Everett in the pouring rain, we settled in to the old Historical Theatre, and sat in rapt attention for the next few hours while Paul Stamets covered everything mushroom: from the history of mushrooms on the planet, which were the first life form to arrive, and paved the way for other life to form and thrive, to the structure of mycelium, and how it might, in fact, have the same structure as the universe; from the different species you can eat to help your body heal anything from breast cancer to the common cold, to the ways mycelium can be used in remedying a multitude of problems, whether it be ridding your house of termites and carpenter ants to the cleaning the pollution industry has caused, including the Deep Horizon BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
I can hear you thinking to yourself: A mushroom can do all that?! Absolutely, and Paul Stamets has been involved in proving most of it!
If you ever get a chance to see Paul, now you know why you should definitely do your darnedest to go. And while you’re reeling from the jealousy of my chance to see him, at least you can console yourself with his ted talk from 2008
What, Me, Bitter? Absolutely!
Apparently, bitters are all the rage these days. Within the past few weeks, every single one of the 5 restaurants I’ve walked into have featured some sort of bitters on their menu, whether it be a bitter and herbal vermouth or amaro, or a fancy cocktail featuring bitters, it seems like the bitter part of our palate is finally coming back to the fore.
After having a chance to taste a few varieties in the restaurants, I was pleased to find out about a presentation on bitters at Sugarpill this past Wednesday.
While I’ve tried my hand at making tinctures and liqueurs, I’ve never even thought of making bitters. All three follow much the same principle: take some ingredient, cover it in alcohol for a few weeks, and then drink the alcohol. In the form of tinctures, the main ingredient is an herb with some medicinal value, such Oregon Grape, which contains a powerful antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral compound called berberine. In the form of liqueur, some type of sweetener is usually also added, and the ingredients are often a tasty type of fruit or nut. This can also be used as a preservative method when you’ve somehow acquired much more fruit than you can manage to eat. In bitters, the main ingredient would, obviously, be bitter. A good way of creating a bitters recipe is to make separate tinctures of each ingredient to be included (whether bitter or not), and then mix them to taste when done. That way, you can get the taste you want, and if you don’t, you can adjust until you do. Or in the worst case scenario, you’re only throwing out a small portion, and you can start mixing again right away!
In the presentation, our kind host Karyn offered us samples of many different bitters recipes, from the overly sweet and not very bitter Fee Brothers, to the delicious and locally produced Scrappy’s, to the well-balanced Bitterman’s, as well as a few other brandless tinctures. The main ingredients varied from gentian, to dandelion root, to grapefruit! One bitters concoction we tried didn’t even have a naturally bitter ingredient, but when prepared a certain way turns bitter… Karyn wouldn’t reveal the secret, but it just goes to show that the possibilities are endless!
We also learned about the nature of bitter, and how it helps your liver and gallbladder process toxins. Back in the days before industrial ag, and huge grocery stores full of every imaginable produce, in season or not, people had to eat what was available in that season. And often, in the spring, the only edibles were quite bitter, such as dandelion and burdock roots. There’s reason to believe that many illnesses we have today are due to our eating foods out of the cycle that nature provides for us. Even minor things, like difficulty controlling anger and itchy skin could trace it’s way back to the liver not being able to properly function.
Now, if you’re not a fan of bitter, but have, on some occasion, been forced to ingest something bitter (say, a bitter herbal cold remedy tea, or, for the more adventurous out there, chinese medicine, perhaps), you’ll know that adding honey to cover the bitterness is often just a waste of good honey. Apparently, a squeeze of citrus will go much further in masking that bitter flavor! I’m definitely trying that the next time I’m trying to choke down something bitter!
Beyond that, it was really quite interesting to learn the way bitters alter flavor – and not always in a bitter way. At the end of the presentation, Karyn poured us each a bit of apple juice and had us taste it before and after adding bitters.
Fresh pressed apple juice is delicious, as anyone who has had it will attest to, but after adding the bitters, the slightly oversweet cloying sensation was completely gone, while the apple-y flavor was much stronger, without even a hint of bitterness!
Armed with all this new information, I think I just might set out on making myself some bitters!
breaking through the permafrost 