What I am reading

In the middle of warm, flower-filled June I am writing about November. Looking at old posts on this blog about previous Novembers helps plunge me into the chill, and is making me surprisingly nostalgic for the food and smells and sights of early winter.

Potatoes and cauliflower 
Snow and picnics on the Adirondack
Fried chicken
Cold weather food and where to find it
George W. Bush Tried for Treason (!)

I am reading real books, too: Sam Thayer's The Forager's Harvest (he also thinks boiling milkweed so many times is silly - yay), and Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing for the...fourth time? Maybe third. Not sure. Very sad parts last night - spoiler alert...he shot his wolf. Perhaps not good bedtime reading.

Back to November...

Enter the lily...

Silk Road opened yesterday.

And so I popped a bottle of prosecco - our first in...oh, at least a month. In went a splash of St Germaine (perfect time of year to drink elderflowers) as well as two cubes of ice with hyssop flowers frozen into them. Hey, it was a private lily party. I sipped, inbetween feeding and weeding the roof farm.

I wonder what the neighbors think.

[Eeeeek! Look how I spelled neighbors, without even thinking! I have stuck so far on this blog to my schooling, spelling a la colonial England. And there it went, out slipped neighbors, and not neighbours... next will be favorite. It's the book - I write proper American in the book, of course (of corse?), otherwise I'd have to go back through (throgh?) the whole thing and fix it. A line has been crossed. How do I carry on?]

My lettuces turned red

Above. Here are my trout lettuce plants, sown in April (still small because I keep picking the leaves, and they were very slow to start). They have all turned red. They grow in a trough about 10" deep, filled with organic potting soil. When the sun is overhead the shadow of the bigger pots behind the trough creates some shade. I say this because the reddening could be a reaction - protection against - too much sun.

Here is one of those same red lettuces one week after it was transplanted to a larger pot, filled with different potting soil. It turned green. It gets a little shade, especially in the morning, from an immature tomato plant.

I have transplanted four more red lettuces. The experiment continues.

Avocado and mango aspic (with shrimp)

Want to know what goes on inside my head? This weekend, it was this. We licked our plates.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your avocados.

QM2

...berthed in Red Hook yesterday, and stumbled upon, as we walked south.

No one was there. Most of the crew and all the passengers were aboard. A young brother and sister bidding each other farewell. He, fond (That's my sister! he said, as he asked us to take pictures of them), she, distracted and late and on her way to crew. He, excited (very) for her.

Lots of Queen Anne's Lace between the parking lot tarmac and the briny green water of New York Harbor.

We walked five minutes more to Valentino Pier, after learning that she would sail at 5pm. There we awaited for 40 minutes before giving up and heading south to Fairway, for some supper things. I left Vince at the park on the water while I shopped, in case she passed. When I returned with bags full of miso and tofu and lamb sausage and  Spanish cheese, there she was, big as city blocks, sailing past - late! - in the bright 6 o' clock sunlight. God Save the Queen reached us across the glittering water, soon followed by, Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today, I'm going to be a part of it: New York, New Yoooooooork...

Pollinator tour at Pier 1, June 18th

Sambucus canadensis (elderflower), at Pier 1, evening

Rachel Fletcher of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy ("Conservancy" means, of course,  that the city of New York does not fund this park, naturally - which is also why it is so well maintained. Yes, yes, my old gripe) wrote:

"Our horticulturist, Rebecca McMackin, is going to be leading a tour through Pier 1 and giving a talk called Planting Pollinators to discuss what one can do to foster the ecosystems that bees, birds, butterflies, bats*, and beetles thrive in. She will also cover the basics of plant morphology and pollinator ecology.

Brooklyn Bridge Park is an incredible place to view wildlife, as we manage the park with organic strategies and cultivate hundreds of native habitat plants for birds, butterflies, and bees. If it's a sunny day, we are sure to see a great array of pollinators in action!"

* This will be tomorrow evening, Monday 18th June. And yes Vince and I have actually seen bats flitting across that early-dark lawn...

Here's more.

The walk is free, but your response is required:

 rsvp@brooklynbridgepark.org

Sitting down to eat

"DINNER SERVICE Even if it’s just me for dinner, I set the table, place mat, flatware, linen napkin, the right choice of wine glass, and I do an actual service for myself. I never eat standing up, I never eat in front of the refrigerator. I treat myself very formally with meals. I don’t watch TV or read. It’s a little bit of a ritual, and it’s more enjoyable. And if there’s one other person, there’s more to talk about because it’s not just me talking to myself."

Mark Morris, Choreographer, to John Leland, for the New York Times' Sunday Routine

I like this guy.

You sit down for a meal, something happens. To you, to your body, to your relationship with food, with yourself and with the person/s who might be there, too.

And if you never do, something else happens. And that ain't good. Sure as eggs is eggs.

Now sit down and have some mulberry pie. Bring a fork.