Signs and wonders

Invasive, delicious, and it perseveres, nay, thrives!...in winter. Field garlic. Allium vineale. Right now relishing the snow.

Tonight it will add welcome green pungency to a chicken pot pie.

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 Book a Winter Walk and Picnic

Durian Ice Cream: First, Catch Your Hedgehog

I found my hedgehog frozen, shivering in the vast produce section of Fei Long Market, on 8th Avenue in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. Tiny crystals of frost nestled between the prickles. It joined my bag of bitter melons and mustard hearts and stem lettuce. 

At home, I banished the durian to the cold terrace overnight, in case its infamous smell evicted us in the wee hours. And the next day I let it thaw at room temperature. 

By this time I could smell it. To me, it's not offensive at all. It's more scent than smell - strong, but in a tropically assertive and suggestively layered way. Like truffles. But not. The Frenchman disagrees completely: It smells like trash, he offered, when I held it under his long French nose. Well, I said, I'm about about to make some trash ice cream. 

He backed away.

In Manhattan's Chinatown I've bought durian by the wedge from a sidewalk fruit vendor, who also provided a spoon to attack its custardy innards. The whole, heavy fruit, sealed in serious prickles, looks intimidating. But as mine thawed it split helpfully at the tip. Steadying the durian with an oven-mitt-clad left hand I wiggled a sharp paring knife into that crack and followed it, slicing towards the stem. The leathery skin gave way surprisingly easily. 

The knife repeated that pattern, tip to stem, until the durian fell into five parts, each with double rows of segmented, custard-soft pulp, each segment hiding an enormous seed. 

I ate a couple of segments, the flavor very strong and very rich. Also very more-ish. But my mission was ice cream, to see if I could recreate the best ice cream I can remember eating, from the tiniest Thai restaurant, now very much a memory, on 4th Street (or was it 8th...) in the East Village. That place taught me a lot about food.

The seeds are very easy to remove - each is about two inches long. Once pulped, I puréed this natural custard in the food processor. At the last minute, tasting it - so rich - I decided to add some slices of yuzu from my huge jar of yuzu syrup. This super-aromatic citrus's uplifting and uncomplicated high notes were exactly what the heavier, sexier durian needed. 

Instant pudding, prior to freezing: durian and yuzu.

I had frozen the bowl of the ice cream maker overnight. Instead of cream, I added half-and-half, one cupful to the two cups of pulp. No sugar. In 20 minutes, it was close to frozen. 

And there you have it. Durian ice cream (with yuzu zest atop). It was very, very good. 

A pint went to Burmese and Hungarian friends in Prospect Heights, on the other side of the park. A pint went into me. The Frenchman wanted nothing to do with it.

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True North

(Photo note: I shot these through double-glazed windows and a bugscreen. The flicker would like you to know that he's sharper than he appears.)

We have had several noteworthy bird visitors on the terrace. A red-tailed hawk that eviscerated its pigeon prey in a window box (while Nkwe Pirelli, our cat, stood on his long hind legs and beat his white-tipped feet against the glass door). A kestrel, shopping for sparrows. A Cooper's hawk, more interested in doves. During migration there are occasional, tiny songbirds. Our regular winter guests include red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, juncos, white-throated sparrows. The doves. 

And now, a northern flicker. I think he's David Lynch.

I mean, not really. But maybe. He flies in from the north, too. True north, not the off-set north of the city's grid.

I love these birds. They are usually so very shy. And I have never seen one in winter. They congregate in autumn and we see flocks of them peering at us from behind the headstones at nearby Historic Green-Wood Cemetery. You just glance at them and they're off, their white rumps bee-lining for the trees.

So watching this northern flicker return every morning for the last week is a kind of feathered gift. He decimates the suet, pieces flying. Later, the small birds come and clean it up.

They're funny birds. Curious, careful. And in real life, when not hanging from suet feeders, they feed not in the trees, but on the ground, hunting ants and other insects. 

Bird flu: So far, the wild birds it affects seem to be water birds and raptors. Songbirds seem less prone to the illness, but data might also be lacking. When the suet block is eaten I take down the feeder, scrub it and give it a 5-minute Chlorox bath, rinse well, and out it back up. I also disinfect the birdbath weekly. It's not perfect, but better than nothing.

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 ACLU

Then, and now

Seeing red. Well, deep orange? Amber? A rufous hue? This is the perfect stage, not in a renewed presidency, not in the world, but in the short, truncated life of a tulip. Full blown. 

Supper began with snacks of olives that I salt-cured, given to me by the friend who came over last night to eat them. She grew them, just a few blocks west of us. Then, a couple of salads, drenched in a bright dressing of Thai lime juice (from the happier of our two trees) with fish sauce and some sugar: crisp endive, thin rounds of watermelon radish, a shaved heart of mustard, and tiny, vinegar-soused cucumbers. And another of peeled and naked pomelo sections, topped with fried shallots. After that, the duck legs, simmered forever in shoyu with many bay leaves (our tree, yay), on a starchy foundation of lacy lotus roots. With a side plate of chilled spinach stems, with shoyu and ginger and crisp sesame seeds. Followed by durian ice cream, just-churned, and cherimoya granita. 

Life in the big, evil city, where dozens of cultures collide daily and (mostly) get along.

Cherimoyas (custard apples) are in season for another couple of months, in California. I highly recommend treating yourself to a box, if you live within shipping reach of Rincon Tropics (a small business with a real, live human owner) whose fruit is wonderful and whose shredded paper packaging makes unpacking it a treasure hunt.

My granita recipe is at Gardenista.

That's all I've got. But we're all going to have to do better than gape, as each new violence unfolds. It is beyond anyone's experience, but catch up we must. If you don't already belong to the American Civil Liberties Union, there has never been a more insistent need to join. 

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ACLU

Guavas

Buy some little guavas (from Mexico. Before those tariffs change their price). 

It's OK if they are still rather green and hard. Release them into a bowl and leave them on a counter. In a few days, as they turn pale yellow, you will come home from the grey outdoors and you will be greeted by that very specific, very not-winter guava aroma. Like a Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand (or South Africa's Overberg), or very fruity and somehow appealing cat pee. But it's actually just guava, and wonderful. (Our cat is smell-free, he begs me to explain. I would explain right back at him that it is because we scoop his litter immediately, like the cat-servants we are...)

How you eat them is up to you. But I do have some ideas...

Here in Brooklyn these small guavas can be found at most corner grocers, fruit stands, and supermarkets. Right now they are clam-shelling at about $3.99 to $4.99 for around eight fruit per clamshell. Yes, I would like the plastic to be converted, toot sweet, into biodegradable packaging. It is possible.

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Citrus Candy, But Real

A sweet flood of tiny-tiny Kishu mandarins arrived at our door some weeks ago, a gift from a citrus grower. I had been making all things citrus - candied pomelo peel, fermented yuzu syrup - but this windfall led to an interesting discovery: they can be dried, whole! I made a first, tentative batch, and then, when I had eaten that entire dried batch in one sitting, I made some more, taking notes.

After peeling, I placed them in the lowest of ovens, on a parchment covered baking sheet. I wasn't sure at what point they would seem "done," but learned that there is a cusp of perfection, achieved just before their sugars begin to darken and turn them a little bitter.

It is not easy to convey their flavor: Mandarin, yes, but deeply intensified. Later, I played with other seedless, easy-peel citrus fruit, and now find it hard to choose which I like better. the whole fruit, or the segments, which become chip-like and crisp.

You decide. My method is now up on Gardenista: Dried, Naked Citrus. I believe it will make you very happy.

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Mockingbird terrace

The mockingbirds that visit the terrace for a dish of blueberries are growing tamer. We are not sure what happened to our previous pair. One was easily identifiable, with a foot that had been hurt, and that had healed into a closed claw. We called him/her Jeffie, short for Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson kept pet mockingbirds). But it's very hard to tell them apart, so...are both of these birds new, and possibly the offspring that the previous couple used to bring to the terrace? 

We are curious to see whether they will become as bold, and eat their blueberries when we sit outside again, when evenings are brighter, and it's at lest a few degrees above zero.

In frigid temperatures, they flooff up their feathers to cover their feet. The last ten has been very cold (just like winter used to be!), and I wonder what that means for some of the overwintering plants. 

We shall see.

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My Gardenista Column

 

The view from here

My digital image folder for our terrace is arranged by year and by month, with various category-folders for each month like Citrus, Sunny Pots, Shade Pots, Ramps, Birds, and Table. There is also a small folder for each month called, View. This is the view.

It's not much probably. But it's also a lot. It's not the ocean, or mountains, or Central Park. But when I saw this apartment for the first time, I knew enough about views in New York City to know that this was A Good View. Why? Because, instead of house-windows staring right back at us at the end of the lots below, or a massive building blocking the sky, there was a long northern view across a lowslung rooftop, relieved by old, industrial  skylights. And beyond that, mature trees in the gardens one block over. They were in leaf, that August. Very green. On either side of the skylit roof, were - are - more expanses of empty, low rooftop, all sheltering a laundry empire whose parking lot beside us houses fastidiously parked white trucks that are washed squeaky-clean every Sunday (I didn't know that, then).

These low, wraparound rooves (roofs, for Americans) gave us two things, no, three precious things, in terms of hyper-urban life: light, sky, and privacy. You jump on that when you recognize it, and I jumped. While we lost a marvellous in-ground garden, we also lost the ever-present sense of living in a fishbowl (as well as a bonkers upstairs neighbor). 

It is inevitable, in a city where there is a dramatic shortage of housing, and where fortunes are made in real estate, that this view could not last. But it's something I have made (some) peace with. At some point a very large building will rise all around us. Before it rises, the existing structures will be demolished. And then impressive holes will be dug. New and massive foundations will be laid. Ours, 100 years old, will shudder. 

I am not sure where we will be, when it happens, but not here. 

In the meantime, I will add more View folders to my monthly collections as the year unfolds, and we will watch the light on the skylights and rooftops,  the hawks and the woodpeckers in the old catalpa, the trees beginning to leaf out, and the occasional raccoons rambling on their twilit errands. 

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My Gardenista Column

Yuzu syrup, sort of

Every winter I make yuzu syrup. The question is, Every winter since...when? I'm struggling to identify a year. Our yuzu tree arrived in 2020. But had I only made yuzu kosho before that - the intense condiment made from unripe yuzu and green chiles? Did I make yuzu syrup from the ripe fruit later that year? I need to dive into the archives.

The fruit in the photo above came from Flavors by Bhumi, a grower in New Jersey that also sources fruit from California. The trees, Citrus junos, are relatively cold hardy but still require some protection here, in USDA growing zone 7b (-ish). Container-grown trees should still come indoors for winter.

And these are not yuzu, but bergamot. Yes, the same bergamot that is in Earl Grey tea. The same bergamot that inflects many perfumes, including the cologne my father wore, Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet. I have a tiny bottle of it, that I took from his bathroom cabinet after he died, in 2018 (the same year my second book was published, which was in the same month we lost our previous lease, and the same year my one brother, Francois, accused me of stealing a fortune's worth - apparently - of Kruger Rands from my father, who had dementia and lost track of things, and who was convinced that he had lost them. The same year my other brother, Anton, stormed into my mom's room hours after my father had died, and pulled me out physically, demanding to know the whereabouts of said Kruger Rands. Threats.

After my mom's death last year, Anton realized, at last, that I had not, in fact, taken them. That was a surprise. But Francois had slipped up. He doesn't often, and when he does it's helpful. Anton got in touch with me the day my mom died. It was the first time we'd spoken since my father died. He hadn't got in touch with me weeks or days before to tell me my mother was gravely ill (a carer called me on a Thursday to tell me my mother was "unwell." I landed in Cape Town on Monday evening, and she died in my arms just after 4am on Tuesday. I did not get there in time for her to know I was there. Not something I will ever forget.)

The day she died, I got that brotherly call, not to commiserate but to demand the whereabouts of the missing gold. I hadn't slept in three days. But it brought to light the slip-up: Some years ago Francois messaged me and sent me a picture: a pile of shiny Kruger Rands, apparently missing quite a few. He had arranged them on the cover my first book, which I thought was an interesting choice. Look what I found! he said. I asked where, and when he said, In the safe (that multiple people had searched, many times), I knew. Huh. The surprise was that he had never told Anton. His buddy. He had counted on the two of us never speaking again, and fanned the flames of animosity as required. And now, fast forward to 2024, they were apparently gone, again! But at least the blame had shifted from me. And if I am looking over my shoulder, it was only out of fear of one brother now, not both. 

I learned, that early morning after my mother died, that Francois and his wife had arranged about a week earlier for an undertaker to be ready to fetch her body when the time came. Then they went on vacation, leaving her. She never regained consciousness. Three days after her funeral Francois arranged a meeting to dissolve a family trust. I was on a plane to Brooklyn.

There's a tiny amount of liquid left in the Penhaligon's spray bottle. A quick spritz into the air and it summons, immediately, my father, as though exiting our Brooklyn bathroom (where he never set foo), close-shaved, sillage in the hallway, a crisp collared shirt, cufflinks, suit, shining, leather-soled shoes. Tie pin.

You can make this fermented syrup with any citrus. The sugar and fruit sit together in a jar, the granular sugar dissolving rather quickly into a translucent, aromatic syrup. Left longer, the sweetness evolves and becomes more complex. The fruit slices become gradually crystalline and soft, and very edible. 

The recipe for yuzu syrup (or any-other-citrus-syrup) is up on Gardenista.

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Winter Walks and Picnics

The Cold Edges

In January the white throated sparrows do not sing. Their song is high and sweet, and pierces the heart, somehow. When they do sing, you know that winter is leaving. I saw this one perched among bittersweet berries on the frozen edges of Jamaica Bay.

I was hoping to see snow geese, and testing an injured foot (how funny that you don't think of your feet until you realize that without them, you are lost).  There were no snow geese, but the usual mockingbirds were in residence, swallowing juniper berries and hunting for the last rosehips. Rosa multiflora is as rampant as it is on the East Coast because birds find the hips delicious. 

Canadian geese and seagulls perched on the ice, with downtown Manhattan rearing beyond them.

At home, on the dormant terrace, we see the same birds. Mockingbirds come to eat the blueberries I put out for them, and the sparrows, shelled sunflower seeds. Little juncos share the seed, and woodpeckers visit the suet feeder. Sometimes a raptor strikes, and feathers fly. The geese and seagulls are above, crossing the wide sky. 

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Gardenista: Pistachio-Fir Cookies