Museum challenge - art recreation

Peaches Covered by a Handkerchief, by Raphaelle Peale

Peaches Covered by a Beaded Net, by me

Game organized by the Princeton University Art Museum. The deadline for art recreation submissions is Sunday, 30 August, 11.59pm EST. You may choose any painting, anywhere, as long as it is in a museum's collection. Categories include: Best from the Princeton University Art Museum’s Collection, Best Use of Food, Best Portrait, Best Landscape, Best Still Life, Best Abstract Composition, Best Use of a Pet (I assume dead rabbits in Dutch still lives are a bad idea - be nice to the pets!), Best Use of Household Item, Best Group Composition.

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 Forage, Harvest, Feast - A Wild-Inspired Cuisine

Antidotes

January knocked it out of the park, in terms of extremes. Bobbing in the calmer but untrustworthy waters of February I am not sure how to proceed, but am massively grateful for Friends and Frenchman - my chosen family.

There are sparks of brightness. Maybe Amazon's take over of Whole Foods was good in this dose: Irish daffodils at just $2 a bunch. brightening an evolving weekend ritual -  bites of celebratory seafood in smoked or pickled form. Today's at-home brunch featured pickled herring (Blue Hill Bay, from Brooklyn's Acme Smoked Fish) on dense brown bread, with fresh dill and lashings of cucumber (sprinkle the slices with salt and sugar 5 minutes before you want them) and radish, and modest dollops of wild salmon and whitefish caviar - yup, essentially smørrebrød. Complete with a tiny shot of vodka, each. Bring on the Vikings.

Then came a five-mile run for the Frenchman, and five-mile walk for me (a humblingly painful back injury of almost four weeks ago has healed to the point of walking easily, but there is still a way to go; X-rays show promise, MRI still to come).

More brightness was a sneak peak at the layout of my new book, in the form of a sample chapter sent to me by my publisher (Chelsea Green) yesterday. I liked it very much, an intense moment of relief. The manuscript is still being copy edited, then comes back to me for checking; goes back for layout, comes back; goes back out for proof reading and indexing, then...print, print, print. So much work, by many humans. It will be ready for readers in early autumn.

And spring is just six weeks away.

Goodbye, hello

. 

New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is another day. All the rest is pressure. 

For us, this evening? Some ritual crab cakes, with a citrus and spicebush sauce. Preceded by baby baked potatoes with sour cream, salmon roe, and South African bottarga. Not for us? The ritual (see the December chapter of my book) walk to the Brooklyn Promenade. It is bloody freezing: 12'F/-12'C.

Cold, by our standards. We're staying put.

Now I go back to editing. The dishwasher is running, the house is warm, the Frenchman is reading his blog, and tomorrow there will be fresh brewed coffee, and work to be done.

The future? Do the small things well. Be kind. Pull your own weight. Hang out with people who know more than you do.

Carry on.

Thank you, 2016

Looking back, through the lens of a small handful of pictures, this selective record of 2016 helps to put a year in perspective. Some of the best things are reflected here: lessons learned, drinks drunk, crops cultivated, walks taken, forages found, gardens grown.

This curated version of a life: Is it dishonest? Would it be more relevant to capture the bad things, like my father's vascular dementia, my mother's worry, my husband's 10 to 12 hour work days, the unpredictable and stressful noise from neighbors, our families who are, to say the least, complicated?

My answer is that the rosy perspective of my edited digital record keeps me sane, and reflects moments of real happiness within the context of the messy life that is probably typical of the lives that most humans lead.

Through it all my steadiest and best companion has been the Frenchman, who remains the light of my life, quietly in the background, moving heaven and earth on a daily basis.

For the new year, I would wish Frenchmen upon everyone. But since there may be a shortage, my wish instead would be to develop or nurture a sense of curiosity. With it you will never be alone, never bored, often surprised, and frequently delighted.

Onward. And strength in the struggle. Whatever it may be.

What month is it?

The perils of not posting in a timely manner: I took this photograph one week ago, Friday. March 4th. A dusting of snow that melted by the next morning. Now no one will believe me.

Because we sat at that table outside for supper last night. 25'C/74'F. I had ordered 12lbs of boerwors as birthday present for the Frenchman and we ate it (no, not all of it!) under the stars and the incongruous buzz of our neighbors' air conditioner. Beeskwee (Biscuit), our other neighours' dog, kept us company, leaning against her fence at the back (top of picture), and sniffing our sausage smoke appreciatively.

Strange times at Chez Mosquito.

________________________________________

Book a Spring Forage Walk

A truffle, to tide us over

The only time I have really eaten fresh truffles was at A Voce, a restaurant near Madison Park, where we celebrated a birthday of mine one October. Me, the Frenchman and my mom. We ordered pasta  - I think it was tagliatelle, and slices of white truffle were shaved over the bowls as we watched, after the whole truffle had been presented to each one of us, first, for a good sniff.

It was wonderful.

I didn't ever think we'd have our own truffle, all to ourselves, but then came Instagram and forager-farmers I follow (@primordiafarm), and a picture of a handful of black truffles, and a casual question, from me. Fast forward. Today the four-ounce truffle above was delivered to Brooklyn, packed in an insulated bag, with dry ice (also some extra nubbins, which I grated into some butter and stirred into silky mashed potatoes for dinner).

The truffle is an anniversary gift for the Frenchman, and it turns out he really is the one appreciating it this snowy weekend, as I have such a horrible cold that I. Can. Smell. Nothing. Cruel timing. But while I was making the compound butter below he said the whole house smelled of truffles.

I am hoping for a miracle before Sunday and before we run out of truffle. Their aroma does not last long at all, and they must be used quickly. Also, no heat, please. Grate, microplane, or add at the last minute to hot or warm dishes. This coaxes out the aroma, and that is what truffles are...

Oh, the eggs. I've always read that the eggs will absorb truffle-perfume if kept with it in a sealed jar (which I used, post picture) - though I think that the heat in cooking the omelette or souffle or scrambled eggs will probably do the truffle-smell in,

We shall see.

The snow has started to fall, and tomorrow the world will look and sound and seem very different.

The 5 Stages of Moving

We are not quite circling the drain but at times it feels like it. Our move has coincided with the hottest and muggiest week of the weather year, with just one rainstorm for relief. Working in the weed-besieged garden - inbetween unpacking boxes and trying to create order - amidst  a swarm of daytime striped-leg mosquitoes, holds little appeal.

I know from experience that this is the stage of Resentment (it followed Disbelief, and Relief). It will give way, over time, to Inspiration. But for now we're treading water while we wait for Acceptance to rescue us.

In the meantime, we eat outside, rub ourselves down with our Thai-made mosquito wipes, meet new neighbors through fences, and spend a lot of time looking up at our wider sky.

___________________

                           Book an Autumn Walk

Hell hath no fury...

I like the squirrel. Goodlooking fur, fluffy tail and the stricken little clasped paw. And the squirrel annoys me, of course. Hogs the birdseed and digs in the planters.

"The" squirrel - I don't actually know how many there are. A few weeks ago one squirrel - which was certifiable, it must be admitted, it showed no fear at all - was either 1. Drowned in the East River or 2. Released in a Bronx Park, depending on which version of the story you believe.

Our landlord trapped him, after s/he (the squirrel) apparently: 1. Chewed a hole in the roof  2. Chewed a hole through a metal plate inserted to deter it from chewing holes in the roof 3. Was ousted from the ceiling where it had taken up residence by an exterminator who sprayed something "non toxic" into the hole 3. Was thumped on the head late at night after it descended to street level by a passing drunk guy, in front of a small audience  4. Escaped again to the roof, despite what must have been a significant concussion.

Where s/he was caught the next day in a humane trap.

Maybe s/he fired the shot that reverberated on the street at 1.20am last night.  I mean s/he was angry enough, surely? Payback.

It was a robbery, close to home. No one was hurt, and the police arrived very, very fast and stayed till 4am.

So if you see a squirrel in a grey hoodie, s/he could be the one. S/he remains at large. Free. Drowned and risen.

Bent on revenge.

                                                        _______________________________

                         Book a Wild Foods Walk

                      (no squirrels will be harmed)

A resolution

In 2015 I promise to spend more quality time with my sourdough boules.

The fleet

What, me? Eccentric?

You do what you have to do to get through the day. If Garbo could have little troll dolls under her sofa, I can have a fleet of yellow cabs on my kitchen island.

They were bought as gifts, but now I want to keep them.

We can have races. We already have cliff-jumping dares.

Fridge-abilia

I try to keep stuff off the fridge. I do. But one becomes attached. These are the final hold outs. The cocktail menu from my Brooklyn book launch. A birthday card from me to the Frenchman, bought in Cape Town. A kitty cookie cutter, give to me in Koringberg by  a Voer blogger who lives in Toronto, fra from home; a photo of Storbie, taken by Wolfgang, upstairs and left for us at our door; and an Airstream post card, included as a small bonus with a purchase I made on Etsy.

Oh... I would love an Airstream. But how the hell does one do that? Six months to a year on the road, across the US of A, eating and cooking and feeding people along the way. Learning the country. Gathering it in groups of four and six and ten or two or just one, around a fold out table covered with a red and white checked cloth. Listening to it talk at night, with moths flapping against the glass chimneys of the oil lamps. The fire still warm. Local produce eaten. Local labourers or farmers or gardeners fed. The cat staring at us through the small window, opening his mouth in a silent Eep, the Frenchman yawning and impatient to get to the previous days' photos of countryside on his computer. The stars wide at night.

...

What's on your fridge?

God bless the grass

Goodbye, Pete Seeger.

God bless the grass that grows through the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows through,
God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
The roots they are deep and the will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing round the poor man's door,
God bless the grass.

Malvinia Reynolds, 1964 - written in reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy

as sung by Pete Seeger

Taking the temperature - trivia

Don't underestimate the little things. They'll get you in the end.

I need to sort out the lighting in our not-so-new-anymore apartment. Above The Lovely Island, at which we eat many of our meals, is a row of track lights - LED's - which give off a cool daylight temperature. On either side of those, in the high long room, are regular lightbulbs behind their regular shades (with fans, which are currently on low to circulate the expensive warm air that lurks near the ceiling). Those give off warm light. And under the countertop in the kitchen, cold LED lights again, that we installed.

But I wasn't thinking of colour temperatures in photos when I did that.

Oops.

The two temperatures, warm and cool, play havoc with photographs. Everything looks so...cold. Blue. And everything in the background looks so...pink.  Terrible. Who woulda thunk that the el cheapo light in the stove's vent in the old apartment could actually provide more atmospheric lighting!?

Once longer days roll round I can shoot more actual daylight food stuff, but till then this is a dark place, and I need artificial lights. And I have to take decent food pictures. I don't want to fake daylight because I like the domestic glow of warmer light. I have to re-think the LED's. And we have a stunning light fixture- huge, spherical, fluffy -  from Ikea that I'd love to install over same Island, but it would involve removing the overhead track lights.

There. Lighting. Just needed to get that out. It's been depressing me. It was a rough weekend. All the demons climbed out and sat on top of me, and I nearly went under. On Monday, miraculously, they were gone.

Supper last night was not depressing. Bagna cauda (see September's menu in The Book). I chopped up two whole heads of garlic, threw in an entire jar of anchovies, mixed with good extra virgin olive oil (no, not our neighbour's - I'm eking his out), cooked it all till the salted fishes had melted, and dipped into it vegetables, including the fat bamboo shoot acquired in Chinatown.

It was delicious. The shoot, I mean With an elusive taste from long ago that I can't pin down. The texture was like just-cooked artichoke hearts. I learned that they do have to be cooked, or they can be toxic. I blanched them in two changes of water and we are fine.

I want to get some more.

With the bagna cauda were bread rolls fresh from the oven and the leftovers of the previous night's prosecco, when we had our upstairs neighbour over to dinner, to help us eat polar vortex-beating borscht.

In other domestic news: a double sided draft stopper (who knew?) arrived via Amazon last night and is installed in the vestibule to dull the Arctic blast outside our front door. Woolly slippers are on their way (and thank you very much for everyone's suggestions!). I am sure no one will approve of my slippers, but at least I won't have to wear these anymore...

Yes, those are my feet. I bought these slippers as a joke for the Frenchman years ago, and he has carried them around loyally ever since. I have been living in them for week. Unironicallly.

I told you the cold was serious.

Wagtail

On the patio at the Knysna Belle, where we stayed on Leisure Island, were this little wagtail and her nest. Extraordinarily messy on the outside, the interior of the nest was a smooth cup. It was nestled in the slender branches of a potted hibiscus shrub, at eye height for me. About 5'9"...

Twice, walking past at night from my mom's room to ours, which was on the other side of the house, I looked in to see the small bird fast asleep, head under wing, chest moving up and down as she breathed. The sweetest thing imaginable.

At breakfast she would march up to the French doors, past the tables and people drinking their coffee and demanding cooked eggs,  and right into the house to the kitchen door to be fed.

The original smart car

I have spent the day with small cars. This one, around the corner, in Cobble Hill, was very sweet.

Then I was chauffered - yes - to Central Park in one of the fleet of Mini Coopers that belongs to the Peninsula Hotel. That Mini has wifi, should you want it. I was accompanying a reporter on the wild edibles walk that the Peninsula offers its guests, and I left him tucking into a little picnic set up just for him. Other pic
nickers were dotted about on the grass of the wide lawn, and few yards away a homeless person slumbered.

Now, back to changing our utility bills and services to our new address, packing a few more boxes, processing some photos, writing some gardening tips for Botanical Interests' seed catalog, and...at some point, thinking about supper.

Three days to go.

The Others

Also seen on my walk the other day. 

Don't ask. I don't know.

There may have been a film crew, nearby.

Seahorses and security guards

Iceberg - LICH in the background

On separate and personal trajectories yesterday evening, Vincent and I learned two interesting things about this town we live in.

He, embarking on a cruise around New York Harbor, read a sign beside the Hudson that said that lined seahorses (that's their name: lined seahorses) frequent the wooden piles in the water, and like that habitat.

Seahorses.

In the Hudson River.

...

Speechless, really.

I will be looking into this. And Vince feels about sea horses what he feels about chameleons. He may just have found a reason to like this city.

That's the big news, despite its brevity.

I discovered, after days of wondering about their presence, that there are now 70 private security guards deployed around the edges of  LICH (rhymes with hitch) - the beleaguered and sprawling Long Island College Hospital, two doors up from us. It has - had - a busy emergency room, my primary care physician was there, and that's where I was (not) treated for the raccoon disease Frank was convinced I might have two years ago (instead, they gave me a course of Hepatitis B shots in the light of the Litter Mobbing activities I was engaged in at the time). LICH is owned by SUNY (rhymes with looney) - State University of New York, who says it is haemorrhaging $15 million a month and must close.

And, get this: the staff has been told not to come into work. But remains on full pay. Patients are turned away.

SUNY wants to sell the property to developers who will knock it down and turn it into some very expensive real estate. Ask Mr Elgart, our landlord. Market forces, says his daughter, in response to my question about why they raised the rent $600 on us. But our neighbour's market forces only raised his rent $200. Whatever.

Things have become ugly, there have been arrests, including that of my councilman, Brad Lander.

In the last week or so we have noticed a sudden bloom (like the algae that preceeds a dead zone in the ocean - a consequence of phosphate runoff) of security guards around the place. And fewer sirens. There is apparently a handful of patients left in the building.

So I talked to one of the security guards today. It was that guard who told me there are 70 guards, from 12 different security companies on the premises.

But all of them have very basic uniforms that say "Summit". They have nothing like genuine ID's - no photo ID at all - just names embroidered on baseball caps and a laminated badge that says "Security". Then there are the guys in dark blazers, whom news reports have describe as armed.

It is creepy. And smells of dead rats.

Who are you guarding? I asked.

They don't tell us everything, the guard said, half apologetically.

Do they tell you to look out for any particular sort of person?*

No, not really. It all seems peaceful to me.

Then the guard said, They tell us not to use our radios! He was incredulous.

They sound paranoid, I said. Like someone's listening to you.

Uh huh, the guard concurred. They are.

The guard had Googled the hospital at home and said, It's real old, dating back to the 19th century...

Uh huh, I said, that's the part next door to us.

I hope it stays open, said the guard.  But if they want to pay a lot of money for us to work every day, I'm glad.

Oddly, it sounded like good money.

More expired rats. Most security guards don't make good money.

It is creepy.

..

I like the seahorse story, better.

Update, 6.49pm - just spoke to another guard taking his "fifteen" as he put it, on our stoop's front steps. He says they are guarding the hospital against angry workers whose pay will cease the minute the hospital is officially closed. "No severance, nothin'." Nurses, doctors, technicians, cleaners, caterers..."We are the hospital's bullet proof vest, " he said, spreading his hands over his chest to illustrate. "They are calling us scabs. But I understand. They got mortgages to pay, kids to send to school. I just hope nobody goes postal."

More LICH Links:

Nurses Roam the Empty Halls - New York Times
650 LICH Employees Told Not to Come Back to Work - Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Waits in the Wings - World Socialist Website
Brooklyn Officials Storm LICH - Brooklyn Daily Eagle
LICH Under Lockdown - - Red Hook Star Revue

Desire

Breakfast. This espresso maker. The creaminess of the coffee it produces.

Addiction interests me. I spent years working for and physically beside an addict (opioid painkillers) who was perpetually running after the wagon from which he had dropped. That was a crash course in what drug dependence can do, and what it looks like. I have had other brushes with the affliction, in close relationships and friendships, and know that is has far less to do with willpower than it does DNA and environment. I keep a sharp eye out for it in myself, but am relatively free of the most damaging of urges. But this coffee. That's a weak spot. I feel quite miserable if I can't have a good cup of coffee in the morning. I loathe drip coffee, no matter how good the beans (or how good Coop made it look and sound in Twin Peaks - there's another addiction). And it makes me jittery, where espresso does not. When we go camping, a stovetop espresso maker goes camping, too.

Because one needs to be a happy camper.

Sorry.

What? You don't play with toys when you have breakfast?

That bunny needs a cab!

So...what are your guilty little secrets? Big or small. Wack me upside the head.

Seasoning

If it had to be only one, it would be salt. That's in the top jar. Underestimated and abused equally in our (that's the universal we) eating and cooking lives. Enough salt can make a dish sing. It is a secret weapon. It is a lethal weapon.

If I could choose just two seasonings?  Salt and sugar. Sugar is in the jar below the salt. I know, it's hard. But I'd have to go for sugar over pepper, as much as I like spice. We are talking extremes, of course, because I'd hate a life without the zing of black or red hotness. Sugar and salt together are potent. Quick pickles. Balance in stews. Harmony in salads. Perfect bread.

Three? - let's say that's the black pepper, then

What would be your fourth spice, or single item for flavour?

(The tulips, you ask? Another kind of necessity. They fight off the wolves that snuffle at the thin space between the door and its frame. Wolves hate tulips.)

Observation

The chard seems to have grown inches in a few days. The question is, will I be able to leave it alone to make those long, gorgeous stalks, or will I nibble away at the edges like a rabbit, or a roof rat.

I don't think we have roof rats. Le chat noir is on guard. Roof rats he would slay, chop-chop. But he will have nothing to do with squirrels. He thinks they are bad juju. Must be something in his past.

I am training myself to be a better eye witness. I scrutinize the plants with an intense scrute and then the next day I scrutinize them again to see if anything has changed. A missing leaf? A cut stalk? The squirrel changes things. Dig, dig, digdigdigdig.

I am a terrible eye witness. I know. I've had two policeman, armed to the teeth, padded in bullet proof vests, sitting on my parents' solid couch in my father's study looking at me with undisguised contempt as I tried to answer their questions about two burglary suspects. It was very embarrassing, and very sobering. I was the one who had a feeling that something odd was happening next door - and it was - but could I tell the cops what the two young people were wearing? No. I had not the first idea. I just knew they were going to do something.

And so I train myself. On the roof, looking at the Swiss chard. It helps that it stays in one place. I practise on the street,  noting baseball caps and colours of dresses, and what jackets could be dropped in a hurry, and what is underneath. Like the man stealing plants at Kirstenbosch; when he noticed me noticing him, he took off the jacket and left smartly. It's not the clothes I see. It's the way someone walks, the way their head moves, or the look in their shoulders. Those things are interesting.

It's like tasting wine. I have the wrong language for it. Vince and I crack each other up with our wine tasting notes. He's pretty good. But all I can do is describe wine in terms of music. I taste notes. I don't taste or smell cherries and black pepper. I taste high and low, and lyrical and brassy and it's a string section with a little trombone action thrown in. Major key.

Well, it is Friday.

I never promised all sense, all the time.

I deliver my book's manuscript on Monday. My kind editor has given me a few day's breathing room beyond that for pictures, which is wonderful. The last six months have charged past.

I can tell you how they felt, but don't ask me what they were wearing.