She who feeds the pigeons

Spring is arriving, and here I am, clearing my camera's memory stick and filing photos that began in February. 

As I walked out of Prospect Park one dark afternoon, I noticed, in the failing winter light, a flurry of pigeon activity at Grand Army Plaza. They flocked around a woman in blue, who was feeding them. She looked down tenderly at the birds when they perched on her coated arm.

Her electric Citibike rental was provisioned with various containers of seeds, and when one was was empty she'd return to her bag in its basket for more supplies. Soon, all the seed was eaten up.

I don't like to skulk around, stealing pictures of people, so before I left I walked up gently and said, They love you! She smiled shyly, hopped back on the bike, and sped away, zipping south on Prospect Park West.

Sniff this

 The acquisition of windowsill happiness. 

Daffodils were being sold in bucketsful on 7th Avenue at Carroll Street, a 30-minute neighborhood walk north from where we live. So I bought a fat sheaf, all in tight bud, as Sunday's arriving blizzard picked up strength. They were really meant for a friends birthday, but we we couldn't get there. Non-emergency traffic was banned, and the subway was scrambled. 

So they have been opening, slowly, and are now in peak yellowness. They smell like childhood. 

Winter beach

On a winter whim we drove out to Breezy Point. A summer evening haunt. Quiet water, lots of shorebirds, a wide sky. Stars, as we walk back in the dark. Manhattan to the north, rising above the blocky mass of Sheepshead Bay.

The tide was coming in.

The sun sets much south of west, at this time of year. 

We wore down coats and I packed a hot toddy.

There were big-nosed surf scoters on the calm water. And my favorite loons, hunting in a pack of four.  A pair of nervous grebes. And many, many dead birds at the high water mark. We have never seen this. Probably avian flu. I could only identify a Canada goose and a brant, and a diving duck, maybe a scaup.

Snow on the dunes, where we sat and sipped and watched the watery world go by.

Stuff, not much, but enough

Stuff, on a bitterly cold day. It's around minus 10 Celsius. That's the high. The central heating puffs on every hour or so, keeping up. 

Table and chairs: Sold to me as Heywood Wakefield by a couple in Alexandria, Virginia. The table turned out to be a good replica, and the chairs are real. 

Vase on table. Been with me since then, too. Junk shop in Adams Morgan, D.C. 

Jug in window: Wedgwood, a sidewalk find in Windsor Terrace, last year.

Pillows. They come and go. More keep coming.  Skinny la Minx covers. The Turkish embroidered ones are gifts from Bevan and Mustafa in Istanbul. I often pack them in layers beneath me when I work on the daybed. They squoosh down and re-fluff beautifully.

Throws and cover on daybed, both by Mungo in South Africa. Cotton, solid, and indestructible.

Schoolchair beside door, acquired in Harlem. Basket on it from a gift shop on 5th Avenue in Park Slope.

Spring flowers from corner stores nearby.

The fridge

This month, on Thursdays, I have been making and delivering a batch of chile (chilli, chili) to a community fridge a mile-and-a-half north of us. A digital friend of many years is doing the same in Baltimore, and her exceptionally organized efforts inspired me.

I make enough for 10 meals. Usually, it's a beef chile, with two different beans and lots of vegetables and aromatics, but yesterday's version was chicken with white beans. The beans start soaking on Wednesday, and I build the stew the next day in the morning.

It wasn't beautiful but it was really delicious (I set aside a small bowl for myself, for lunch - the Frenchman can't do beans, sadly, so it's a treat for me).

Cooking for invisible people is not easy. What can't they eat, what do they need? Where are they from, what speaks to home? Chile - this version is a very mildly spicy bean and meat stew - seemed to cover a lot of bases, in terms of calorie content, nutritional value and possible comfort appeal. Adding the animal protein obviously excludes anyone who doesn't eat meat.

It also has to be something easy to heat, eat and serve. But it still assumes a microwave or hot plate or pot. There are none of those on the street, where people have been freezing to death. I have been pondering sandwiches.

At the fridge yesterday, half the containers left my hands straight into other hands. I was there an hour earlier than usual, and the fridge was empty, aside from a large container of cooked rice. Three containers I actually placed inside, and when I came back after going around the corner to buy some fruit and small yogurts to add, they were gone. 

All three customers were in their sixties or seventies, and the last was with two little children who looked no different from all the other little kids out of school in a high-rent neighborhood. "I am feeding seven," she said, and told me where she was from in Europe.

A few months ago I might have described the customers in more detail but we don't live in a time or place where that bodes well for anyone.

Once, the fridge was packed to the rafters, including the freezer section, with meals in covered plastic bowls, all labeled, still warm. A mother and small child were looking at them and she asked him if he preferred chicken or pork. Pork, he said.

Last week, 30 individually wrapped cookies I placed in the pantry section vanished in seven minutes flat (again, I had gone around the corner to get fruit - I don't bring it with me because it's heavy and the chile is also heavy). I have many questions, most are unanswered.

But I can't forget the two men yesterday, who said quietly when I arrived, It is empty. After my first deliveries this month I was worried that the chile would not be eaten and I went back the next day to move the containers it into the freezer for food safety. I needn't have worried. The worry, of course, is far bigger.

The citrus flock

On these coldest days - the coldest I can remember in my life in New York, and it's been more than half my life - I sometimes stay in the bedroom to work. It's where the sun and the citrus trees are. The Meyer lemon is in bloom.  

A new shoot. The word. Shoot. New growth and life, take a picture, and the intent to kill with a thing that is made only for killing.

Shoot. Like, darn, bother, dammit. Oh, shoot. 

In my eternal endeavour not to overwater my citrus trees I managed to underwater the Meyer lemon. I only discovered how badly it had been stressed when I pulled the rootball from its pot (in the bedroom, on the floor) about three weeks ago to try and figure out what was wrong. A mass of dead, dry roots about one third of the way down, but the rest healthy. It's a tricky balancing act. I removed the dead roots, added fresh soil mix (a blend of cactus soil and bark chips) and gave it a very good drink, sucking the excess out of the saucer with the usual turkey baster so that there wasn't a flood.

Its leaves have recovered, and are a good, rich green. There's that new shoot and there are hundreds of blossoms. So the bedroom smells wonderful.

The little bergamot tree has been flowering continuously for about six weeks. It won't won't stop. It has big blossoms. 

The tree is too small to support all the fruit as it has set, so if they don't abort naturally (which they often do, dropping while green), I'll have to grit my teeth and cut some off. When ripe the skin of the bergamots smell like Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet, a cologne. My father wore it. It's very disconcerting.

I've left many of the calamondin fruit on the tree, because they are pretty, and these are the fattest. But I should collect them soon and make something. Perhaps just salt them again, because I've used up last year's crop.

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Corner store tulips

Why are they on corners, so often? The all-day, sometimes all-night corner stores. The nearest one, Mr. Kiwi, is open 24/7. Need compostable-bin-bags-organic-milk-or-a-bunch-of-scallions at 1am? How about a fresh cocao fruit (why is the powder cocoa and the fruit cacao)? Or tulips.

Mostly, I buy winter tulips several blocks away. About a half-mile walk. At another corner store, called Food Train. Their tulips usually arrive on Wednesdays or Thursdays and I like them in tight bud, so that they last as long as possible Their latest deal is three bunches for $30, which is more than I want to spend. It's too much. But it's still $10 a bunch if you buy three, which is low. For here. Last year it was two bunches for $20. Now, if you buy just one bunch it's $14.99. Around the corner, it's just $12.99 a bunch but no deal on multiples. Way down 7th Avenue it's also $12.99 and very fresh tulips but cash only. 

The minutiae. 

My mother used to find it amusing that I knew what everything cost. She didn't know what anything cost. 

She would have liked the tulips.

Bergamot blossom

The small bergamot tree (Citrus bergamia) is blossoming, and has been for a few weeks. Just one flower pumps out enough perfume to fill the room. It's not overwhelming, just there. (In the background are some ripe calamansi fruit.)

You can see the leaves are dusty. Time for a wipe-down. 

This tree barely grew last summer on the terrace: user-error, I think. A bit too much water. I have been exceptionally careful with it in the last six months and it seems to be recovering. Blossoms in themselves are not a sign of robust health; even sick trees can bloom. An evolutionary response? "She's killing us, make seed!"

There are already several tiny green fruit set among the drying petals of the older flowers. I will make the tricky decision whether to remove some (so that the tree's energy goes into foliage production). 

There are signs of green life, though - four new, tender shoots growing from the trunk. Two were below the graft line (and would reflect whatever the root stock is), though, so I snapped them off, with gritted teeth. The graft line, or union, is where the rootstock and the scion re grafted together, and apparently root stuck suckers can be very vigorous.

Outdoors, everything is frozen. So the greenhouse in the bedroom is very welcome.

Going out

This New Year's Eve we treated ourselves to Champagne and a supper of smoked salmon on toast, with asparagus and a fennel slaw, followed by squashed, roasted potatoes topped with crème frâiche and salmon roe. The little jars of roe were $13. The next roe up, American sturgeon, was $80. After that Osetra sparkled at $180.

Salmon it was. And very delicious.

First, you boil little potatoes until cooked through. Then you squash each onto a lined baking sheet using something round and heavy. A wine bottle with a flat bottom is excellent. Roast them for about 45 minutes at 350°F. They don't require salmon roe, but it's very good.
 

Dessert was a beautiful galette des rois from a local bakery (Brooklyn French). My slice had the hidden "bean" but the bean was a tiny croissant, so I got to wear the provided crown. For a bit. I let the Frenchman wear it because he looked a little crestfallen. Childhood memories.

And now, in light snow, and sub-freezing temperatures, we walk to see the fireworks at Grand Army Plaza. Squirrels, raccoons, possums, birds, cats, and dogs, cover your ears. Poor things. When will we ever learn?

See you on the other side.

Snowfall

We've been lucky. Two snows in two weeks, with temperatures low enough for them to stick.

The lake in Prospect Park has been semi-frozen, and we wonder when we will see raccoons walking on the ice again (the last time was in February this year, a roaming pack of 12, possibly a once-in-ten-year raccoon reunion?). 

When the sun shines, it glitters.

Hawthorns hanging low. 

It's interesting that birds don't eat the fruit now. Given a choice, they mob the remaining crabapples, instead.

Unrelated, but not really: If you like almanacs, I contributed a monthly foraging column to The Other Almanac 2026. And there is a lot more in it, too. 

Find it in the usual places and from the publisher.

Stollen

I baked a couple of Stollen. One for our Christmas breakfast. One to freeze for dark days. The dried fruit is a mixture of hoshigaki (the air dried persimmons I make every year), black currants (dried after I made a fermented syrup in summer), and raisins. Soaked in some bourbon.

It is spiced with ground cardamom seeds and nutmeg.

That loaf has disappeared. Several slices were eaten while we drank coffee and unwrapped gifts. And the rest was devoured by some giant French mouse in the night. I need a bigger trap.

The recipe is from the King Arthur website, with minor changes( my own fruit mix, an extra quarter cup of water, and two loaves rather than three). But it's a good recipe. Try it.

Solstice Owl

On my afternoon walk recently I hunted for possible sign of owls. Signs of owl?  Sign of owls? Hmmm. Anyway: I was looking for owl pellets, under likely trees - often evergreens, that provide cover. Pellets are the wadded leftovers of owl dinner: fur, bones, bits that used to be animated and cute and hat now look like parts of an archaeological dig. And there they were, under a tree where they definitely weren't a few weeks ago. I looked up. 

Hello!

I took a phone picture that day. Not good in the darkening afternoon, but proof of life.

Today, the Frenchman and I went back, and there was the owl.

A wind-tossed great horned owl. Bubo virginiana. Why horned? Why not great eared owl? 

But magnificent. 

If you want to find owls, look down. Then look up.

It is the longest night. Be thankful that you are not a rat.

 

A Wreathy Business: Take 20 Mugwort Sticks...

There is snow on the ground in Brooklyn and it is wreath season.

For the last couple of years I have made our own wreath, attaching the pretty bits to a circlet of bent mugwort stems. Here is the most recent version.

 More about how to make this wreath in my story for Gardenista.

Snow Day

Snow began falling in the small, dark hours of the morning, and then it stuck. To branches and stems and leaves and blades of grass. To the ice on the lake in the park.

We went walking to see it, despite work to do and deadlines to meet. Wind was coming and would shake it off the trees.

The humans we saw were happy. 

Under our feet the snow squeaked and crunched as it compressed.

Every small hill was commandeered by sledders. Once, Washington commanded troops here. Fewer died on this snow day. One boy was rescued from the ice.

We received about four-and-a-half inches.

Not too much. 

Not too little.

Just right.